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Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 08

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Title: Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 08

Compiler: John Mackay Wilson

Editor: Alexander Leighton


        
Release date: October 27, 2010 [eBook #34147]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS AND OF SCOTLAND, VOLUME 08 ***




Produced by David Clarke, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net









                     WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS

                            AND OF SCOTLAND.

                HISTORICAL, TRADITIONARY, & IMAGINATIVE.

                            WITH A GLOSSARY.

                               REVISED BY

                           ALEXANDER LEIGHTON

              ONE OF THE ORIGINAL EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS.


VOL. VIII.

LONDON:

WALTER SCOTT, 14 PATERNOSTER SQUARE

AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

1885.




CONTENTS.

THE DOOM OF SOULIS, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_

HARDEN'S REVENGE, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_

THE PHYSIOGNOMIST'S TALE, _(OLIVER RICHARDSON)_

THE GOOD MAN OF DRYFIELD, _(ALEXANDER CAMPBELL)_

THE SURGEON'S TALES, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_

    THE CHERRY-STONE
    THE HENWIFE
    THE ARTIST

THE BRIDE, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_

THE HENPECKED MAN, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_

MORTLAKE.--A LEGEND OF MERTON, _(JAMES MAIDMENT)_

THE SERJEANT'S TALES, _(JOHN HOWELL)_

    THE BEGGAR'S CAMP

LEEIN JAMIE MURDIESTON, _(ALEXANDER CAMPBELL)_

DUNCAN M'ARTHUR, _(ALEXANDER CAMPBELL)_




WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS, AND OF SCOTLAND.




THE DOOM OF SOULIS.

    "They roll'd him up in a sheet of lead--
      A sheet of lead for a funeral pall;
    They plunged him in the caldron red,
      And melted him--lead, and bones, and all."--LEYDEN.


A Gazetteer would inform you that Denholm is a village beautifully
situated near the banks of the Teviot, about midway between Jedburgh and
Hawick, and in the Parish of Cavers; and perhaps, if of modern date, it
would add, it has the honour of being the birth-place of Dr. Leyden.
However, it was somewhat early on a summer morning, a few years ago,
that a young man, a stranger, with a fishing-rod in his hand, and a
creel fastened to his shoulders, entered the village. He stood in the
midst of it, and, turning round--"This, then," said he, "is the
birth-place of Leyden--the son of genius--the martyr of study--the
friend of Scott!"

Few of the villagers were astir; and at the first he met--who carried a
spade over his shoulder, and appeared to be a ditcher--he inquired if he
could show him the house in which the bard and scholar was born.

"Ou, ay, sir," said the man, "I wat I can; I'll show ye that instantly,
and proud to show you it, too."

"That is good," thought the stranger; "the prophet is dead, but he yet
speaketh--he hath honour in his own country."

The ditcher conducted him across the green, and past the end of a house,
which was described as being the school-house, and was newly built, and
led him towards a humble building, the height of which was but a single
storey, and which was found occupied by a millwright as a workshop. Yet,
again, the stranger rejoiced to find that the occupier venerated his
premises for the poet's sake, and that he honoured the genius of him who
was born in their precincts.

"Dash it!"[1] said the stranger, quoting the habitual phrase of poor
Leyden, "I shall fish none to-day."

[Footnote 1: This was a common expression of Leyden's, and, perhaps, was
in some degree expressive of his headlong and determined character.]

And I wonder not at his having so said; for it is not every day that we
stand beneath the thatch-clad roof--or any other roof--where was born
one whose name time will bear written in undying characters on its
wings, until those wings droop in the darkness of eternity.

The stranger proceeded up the Teviot, oftentimes thinking of Leyden, of
all that he had written, and occasionally repeating passages aloud. He
almost forgot that he had a rod in his hand--his eyes did anything but
follow the fly, and, I need hardly say, his success was not great.

About mid-day, he sat down on the green bank in solitariness, to enjoy a
sandwich, and he also placed by his side a small flask, containing
spirits, which almost every angler, who can afford it, carries with him.
But he had not sat long, when a venerable-looking old man saluted him
with--

"Here's a bonny day, sir."

The old man stood as he spoke. There was something prepossessing in his
appearance he had a weatherbeaten face, with thin white hair, blue eyes,
that had lost somewhat of their former lustre, his shoulders were rather
bent; and he seemed a man who was certainly neither rich nor affluent,
but who was at ease with the world, and the world was at ease with him.

They entered into conversation, and they sat down together. The old man
appeared exactly one of those characters whom you will occasionally find
fraught with the traditions of the Borders, and still tainted with, and
half believing in, their ancient superstitions. I wish not to infer that
superstition was carried to a greater height of absurdity on the Borders
than in other parts of England and Scotland, nor even that the
inhabitants of the North were as remarkable in early days for their
superstitions, as they now are for their intelligence; for every nation
had its superstitions, and I am persuaded that most of them might be
traced to a common origin. Yet, though the same in origin, they change
their likeness with the character of a nation or district. People
unconsciously made their superstitions to suit themselves, though their
imaginary effects still terrified them. There was, therefore, a
something characteristic in the fables of our forefathers, which fables
they believed as facts. The cunning deceived the ignorant--the ignorant
were willing to deceive themselves; and what we now laugh at as the
clever trick of a _hocus-pocus_ man, was, scarce more than a century
ago, received as a miracle--as a thing performed by the hand of the
"prince of the powers of the air." Religion without knowledge, and still
swaddled in darkness, fostered their idle fear; yea, there are few
superstitions, though prostituted by wickedness, that did not owe their
existence to some glimmering idea of religion. They had not seen the
lamp which lightens the soul, and leadeth it to knowledge; but having
perceived its far-off reflection, plunged into the quagmire of
error--and hence proceeded superstition.

But I digress into a descant on the superstitions of our fathers, nor
should I have done so, but that it is impossible to write a Border tale
of the olden time without bringing them forward, and, when I do so, it
is not with the intention of instilling into the minds of my readers the
old idea of sorcery, witchcraft, and visible spirits, but of showing
what was the belief and conduct of our forefathers. Therefore, without
further comment, I shall cut short these remarks, and simply observe,
that the thoughts of the young stranger still running upon Leyden, he
turned to the elder, after they had sat together for some time, and
said--

"Did you know Dr. Leyden, sir?"

"Ken him!" said the old man; "fifty year ago, I've wrought day's wark
beside his father for months together."

They continued their conversation for some time, and the younger
inquired of the elder if he were acquainted with Leyden's ballad of
"Lord Soulis."

"Why, I hae heard a verse or twa o' the ballad, sir," said the old man;
"but I'm sure everybody kens the story. However, if ye're no perfectly
acquaint wi' it, I'm sure I'm willing to let ye hear it wi' great
pleasure; and a remarkable story it is--and just as true, sir, ye may
tak my word on't, as that I'm raising this bottle to my lips."

So saying, the old man raised the flask to his mouth, and, after a
regular fisher's draught, added--

"Weel, sir, I'll let ye hear the story about Lord Soulis:--You have no
doubt heard of Hermitage Castle, which stands upon the river of that
name, at no great distance from Hawick. In the days of the great and
good King Robert the Bruce, that castle was inhabited by Lord Soulis.[2]
He was a man whose very name spread terror far and wide; for he was a
tyrant and a sorcerer. He had a giant's strength, an evil eye,[3] and a
demon's heart, and he kept his _familiar_[4] locked in a chest. Peer and
peasant became pale at the name of Lord Soulis. His hand smote down the
strong, his eye blasted the healthy; he oppressed the poor, and he
robbed the rich. He ruled over his vassals with a rod of iron. From the
banks of the Tweed, the Teviot, and the Jed, with their tributaries, to
beyond the Lothians, an incessant cry was raised against him to heaven
and to the king. But his life was protected by a charm, and mortal
weapons could not prevail against him."

[Footnote 2: He was also proprietor of Eccles, in Berwickshire, and,
according to history, was seized in the town of Berwick; but tradition
saith otherwise.]

[Footnote 3: There is, perhaps, no superstition more widely diffused
than the belief in the fascination of an evil eye, or a malignant
glance; and, I am sorry to say, the absurdity has still its believers.]

[Footnote 4: Each sorcerer was supposed to have his familiar spirit,
that accompanied him; but Soulis was said to keep his locked in a
chest.]

The seriousness with which the narrator said this, showed that he gave
full credit to the tradition, and believed in Lord Soulis as a sorcerer.

"He was a man of great stature, and his person was exceeding powerful.
He had also royal blood in his veins, and laid claim to the crown of
Scotland, in opposition to the Bruce. But two things troubled him: and
the one was, to place the crown of Scotland on his head; the other, to
possess the hand of a fair and rich, maiden, named Marion, who was about
to wed with Walter, the young heir of Branxholm, the stoutest and the
boldest youth on all the wide Borders. Soulis was a man who was not only
of a cruel heart, but it was filled with forbidden thoughts; and, to
accomplish his purpose, he went down into the dungeon of his castle, in
the dead of night, that no man might see him perform the 'deed without a
name.' He carried a small lamp in his hand, which threw around a lurid
light, like a glow-worm in a sepulchre; and as he went, he locked the
doors behind him. He carried a cat in his arms; behind him a dog
followed timidly, and before him, into the dungeon, he drove a young
bull, that had 'never nipped the grass.' He entered the deep and the
gloomy vault, and, with a loud voice, he exclaimed--

"'Spirit of darkness! I come!

"He placed the feeble lamp upon the ground, in the middle of the vault;
and with a pick-axe, which he had previously prepared, he dug a pit, and
buried the cat alive; and as the poor suffocating creature mewed, he
exclaimed the louder--

"'Spirit of darkness! come!'

"He then leaped upon the grave of the living animal, and, seizing the
dog by the neck, he dashed it violently against the wall, towards the
left corner where he stood, and, unable to rise, it lay howling long and
piteously on the floor. Then did he plunge his knife into the throat of
the young bull, and, while its bleatings mingled with the howling of the
dying dog, amidst what might be called the blue darkness of the vault,
he received the blood in the palms of his hands, and he stalked around
the dungeon, sprinkling it in circle, and crying with a loud voice--

"'Spirit of darkness! hear me!'

"Again he digged a pit, and, seizing the dying animal, he hurled it into
the grave, feet upwards;[5] and again he groaned, while the sweat stood
on his brow, 'Come, spirit! come!'

[Footnote 5: These are the recorded practices which sorcerers resorted
to, when they wished to have a _glimpse_ of _invisible_ spirits.]

"He took a horse-shoe, which had lain in the vault for years, and which
was called, in the family, the _spirit's shoe_, and he nailed it against
the door, so that it hung obliquely;[6] and, as he gave the last blow to
the nail, again he cried--'Spirit, I obey thee! come!'

[Footnote 6: In the account of the trial of Elizabeth Bathgate, wife of
Alexander Pae, maltman in Eyemouth, one of the accusations in the
indictment against her was, that she had "ane horse-schoe in ane darnet
and secriet pairt of your dur, keepit by you thairopoun, as ane devilish
meanis and instructions from the devill." But the superstitions of the
Borders, which it is necessary to illustrate in these Tales, as
exemplifying the character of our forefathers, are more particularly
dwelt upon, and their absurdity unmasked, in the Tales entitled, "Betty
Bathgate, the Witch of Eyemouth;" "Peggy Stoddart, the Witch of
Edlingham;" and "The Laidley Worm of Spindlestone Heugh."]

"Afterwards, he took his place in the middle of the floor, and nine
times he scattered around him a handful of salt, at each time
exclaiming--

"'Spirit! arise!'

"Then did he strike thrice nine times with his hand upon a chest which
stood in the middle of the floor, and by its foot was the pale lamp, and
at each blow he cried--

"'Arise, spirit! arise!'

"Therefore, when he had done these things, and cried twenty-and-seven
times, the lid of the chest began to move, and a fearful figure, with a
red cap[7] upon its head, and which resembled nothing in heaven above,
or on earth below, rose, and, with a hollow voice,[8] inquired--

[Footnote 7: Red-cap is a name given to spirits supposed to haunt
castles.]

[Footnote 8: In the proceedings regarding Sir George Maxwell, it is
gravely set forth, that the voice of evil spirits is "rough and
goustie;" and, to crown all, Lilly, in his "Life and Times," informs us,
that they speak Erse; and, adds he, "when they do so, it's like
Irishmen, much in the throat!"]

"'What want ye, Soulis?'

"'Power, spirit! power!' he cried, 'that mine eyes may have their
desire, and that every weapon formed by man may fall scatheless on my
body, as the spent light of a waning moon!'

"'Thy wish is granted, mortal!' groaned the fiend; 'to-morrow eve, young
Branxholm's bride shall sit within thy bower, and his sword return bent
from thy bosom, as though he had dashed it against a rock. Farewell!
invoke me not again for seven years, nor open the door of the vault, but
then knock thrice upon the chest, and I will answer thee. Away! follow
thy course of sin, and prosper; _but beware of a coming wood_!'

"With a loud and sudden noise, the lid of the massy chest fell, and the
spirit disappeared, and from the floor of the vault issued a deep
sound, like the reverbing of thunder. Soulis took up the flickering
lamp, and, leaving the dying dog still howling in the corner, whence he
had driven it, he locked the iron door, and placed the huge key in his
bosom.

"In the morning, his vassals came to him, and they preyed him on their
bended knees that he would lessen the weight of their hard bondage; but
he laughed at their prayers, and answered them with stripes. He
oppressed the widow, and persecuted the fatherless; he defied the
powerful, and trampled on the weak. His name spread terror wheresoever
it was breathed, and there was not in all Scotland a man more feared
than the Wizard Soulis, the Lord of Hermitage.

"He rode forth in the morning, with twenty of his chosen men behind him;
and wheresoever they passed the castle or the cottage, where the
occupier was the enemy of Soulis, or denied his right to the crown,[9]
they fired the latter, destroyed the cattle around the former, or he
sprinkled upon them the dust of a dead man's hand, that a murrain might
come amongst them.

[Footnote 9: If legitimacy could have been proved on the part of the
grandmother of Lord Soulis, he certainly was a nearer heir to the crown
than either Bruce or Baliol.]

"But, as they rode by the side of the Teviot, he beheld fair Marion, the
betrothed bride of young Walter, the heir of Branxholm, riding forth
with her maidens, and pursuing the red-deer.

"'By this token, spirit!' muttered Soulis, joyously, 'thou hast not
lied--to-night young Branxholm's bride shall sit within my bower!'

"He dashed the spur into the side of his fleet steed, and, although
Marion and her attendants forsook the chase, and fled, as they perceived
him, yet, as though his _familiar_ gave speed to his horse's feet, in a
few seconds he rode by the side of Marion, and, throwing out his arm, he
lifted her from the saddle, while her horse yet flew at its fastest
speed, and continued its course without its fair rider. She screamed
aloud, she struggled wildly, but her attendants had fled afar off, and
her strength was feeble as an insect's web in his terrible embrace. He
held her upon the saddle before him--

"'Marion!--fair Marion!' said the wizard and ruffian lover, 'scream
not--struggle not--be calm, and hear me. I love thee, pretty one!--I
love thee!' and he rudely raised her lips to his. 'Fate hath decreed
thou shalt be mine, Marion, and no human power shall take thee from me.
Weep not--strive not. Hear ye not, I love thee--love thee fiercely,
madly, maiden, as a she-wolf doth its cubs. As a river seeketh the sea,
so have I sought thee, Marion, and now, thou art mine--fate hath given
thee unto me, and thy fair cheek shall rest upon a manlier bosom than
that of Branxholm's beardless heir.' Thus saying, and still grasping her
before him, he again plunged his spurs into his horse's sides, and he
and his followers rode furiously towards Hermitage Castle.

"He locked the gentle Marion within a strong chamber, he

    'Woo'd her as the lion woos his bride.'

And now she wept, she wrung her hands, she tore her raven hair before
him, and it hung dishevelled over her face and upon her shoulders. She
implored him to save her, to restore her to liberty; and again finding
her tears wasted and her prayers in vain, she defied him, she invoked
the vengeance of Heaven upon his head; and, at such moments, the tyrant
and the reputed sorcerer stood awed and stricken in her presence. For
there is something in the majesty of virtue, and the holiness of
innocence, as they flash from the eyes of an injured woman, which
deprives guilt of its strength, and defeats its purpose, as though
Heaven lent its electricity to defend the weak.

"But, wearied with importunity, and finding his threats of no effect, on
the third night that she had been within his castle, he clutched her in
his arms, and, while his vassals slept, he bore her to the haunted
dungeon, that the spirit might throw its spell over her, and compel her
to love him. He unlocked the massy door. The faint howls of the dog were
still heard from the corner of the vault. He placed the lamp upon the
ground. He still held the gentle Marion to his side, and her terror had
almost mastered her struggles. He struck his clenched hand upon the huge
chest--he cried aloud, 'Spirit! come forth!'

"Thrice he repeated the blow--thrice he uttered aloud his invocation.
But the spirit arose not at his summons. Marion knew the tale of his
sorcery--she knew and believed it--and terror deprived her of
consciousness. On recovering, she found herself again in the strong
chamber where she had been confined, but Soulis was not with her. She
strove to calm her fears, she knelt down and told her beads, and she
begged that her Walter might be sent to her deliverance.

"It was scarce daybreak when the young heir of Branxholm, whose bow no
man could bend, and whose sword was terrible in battle, with twice ten
armed men, arrived before Hermitage Castle, and demanded to speak with
Lord Soulis. The warder blew his horn, and Soulis and his attendants
came forth and looked over the battlement.

"'What want ye, boy,' inquired the wizard chief, 'that, ere the sun be
risen, ye come to seek the lion in his den?'

"'I come,' replied young Walter, boldly, 'in the name of our good king,
and by his authority, to demand that ye give into my hands, safe and
sound, my betrothed bride, lest vengeance come upon thee.'

"'Vengeance, beardling!' rejoined the sorcerer; 'who dare speak of
vengeance on the house of Soulis?--or whom call ye king? The crown is
mine--thy bride is mine, and thou also shalt be mine; and a dog's death
shalt thou die for thy morning's boasting.'

"'To arms!' he exclaimed, as he disappeared from the battlement, and
within a few minutes a hundred men rushed from the gate.

"Sir Walter's little band quailed as they beheld the superior force of
their enemies, and they were in dread also of the sorcery of Soulis. But
hope revived within them when they beheld the look of confidence on the
countenance of their young leader, and thought of the strength of his
arm, and the terror which his sword spread.

"As hungry tigers spring upon their prey, so rushed Soulis and his
vassals upon Sir Walter and his followers. No man could stand before the
sword of the sorcerer. Antagonists fell as impotent things before his
giant strength. Even Walter marvelled at the havoc he made, and he
pressed forward to measure swords with him. But, ere he could reach him,
his few followers who had escaped the hand of Soulis and his host fled,
and left him to maintain the battle single-handed. Every vassal of the
sorcerer, save three, pursued them; and against these three, and their
charmed lord, young Walter was left to maintain the unequal strife. But,
as they pressed around him, 'Back!' cried Soulis, trusting to his
strength and to his charm; 'from my hand alone must Branxholm's young
boaster meet his doom. It is meet that I should give his head as a toy
to my bride, fair Marion.'

"'Thy bride, fiend!' exclaimed Sir Walter; 'thine!--now perish!' and he
attacked him furiously.

"'Ha! ha!' cried Soulis, and laughed at the impetuosity of his
antagonist, while he parried his thrusts; 'take rushes for thy weapon,
boy; steel falls feckless upon me.'

"'Vile sorcerer!' continued Walter, pressing upon him more fiercely,
'this sword shall sever thy enchantment.'

"Again Soulis laughed; but he found that his contempt availed him not,
for the strength of his enemy was equal to his own, and, in repelling
his fierce assaults, he almost forgot the charm which rendered his body
invulnerable. They fought long and desperately, when one of the
followers of Soulis, suddenly and unobserved, thrusting his spear into
the side of Sir Walter's horse, it reared, stumbled, and fell, and
brought him to the ground.

"'An arrow-schot!'[10] exclaimed Soulis. 'Wherefore, boy, didst thou
presume to contend with me?' And suddenly springing from his horse, he
pressed his iron heel upon the breast of his foe, and turning also the
point of his sword towards his throat, 'Thou shalt not die yet,' said
he; and turning to the three attendants who had not followed in the
pursuit, he added, 'Hither--bind him fast and sure.' Then did the three
hold him on the ground, and bind his hands and his feet, while Soulis
held his naked sword over him.

[Footnote 10: When cattle died suddenly, it was believed to be by an
arrow-shot--that is, shot or struck down by the invisible dart of a
sorcerer.]

"'Coward and wizard!' exclaimed Walter, as they dragged him within the
gate, 'ye shall rue this foul treachery.'

"'Ha! ha! vain boasting boy!' returned Soulis, 'thou indeed shalt rue
thy recklessness.'

"He caused his vassals to bear Walter into the strong chamber where fair
Marion was confined, and, grasping him by the neck, while he held his
sword to his breast, he dragged him towards her, and said, sternly,
'Consent thee now, maiden, to be mine, and this boy shall live; refuse,
and his head shall roll before thee on the floor as a plaything.'

"'Monster!' she exclaimed, and screamed aloud, 'would ye harm my
Walter?'

"'Ha! my Marion!--Marion!' cried Walter, struggling to be free. And,
turning his eyes fiercely upon Soulis--'Destroy me fiend,' he added,
'but harm not her.'

"'Think on it, maiden,' cried the sorcerer, raising his sword; 'the life
of thy bonny bridegroom hangs upon thy word. But ye shall have until
midnight to reflect on it. Be mine, then, and harm shall not come upon
him or thee; but a man shall be thy husband, and not the boy whom he
hath brought to thee in bonds.'

"'Beshrew thee, vile sorcerer!' rejoined Walter. 'Were my hands unbound,
and unarmed as I am, I would force my way from thy prison, in spite of
thee and thine!'

"Soulis laughed scornfully, and again added, 'Think on it, fair Marion.'

"Then did he drag her betrothed bridegroom to a corner of the chamber,
and ordering a strong chain to be brought, he fettered him against the
wall; in the same manner, he fastened her to the opposite side of the
apartment--but the chains with which he bound her were made of silver.

"When they were left alone, 'Mourn not, sweet Marion,' said Walter, 'and
think not of saving me--before to-morrow our friends will be here to thy
rescue; and, though I fall a victim to the vengeance of the sorcerer,
still let me be the bridegroom of thy memory.'

"Marion wept bitterly, and said that she would die with him.

"Throughout the day, the spirit of Lord Soulis was troubled, and the
fear of coming evil sat heavy on his heart. He wandered to and fro on
the battlements of his castle, anxiously looking for the approach of his
retainers, who had followed in pursuit of the followers of Branxholm's
heir. But the sun set, and the twilight drew on, and still they came
not; and it was drawing towards midnight when a solitary horseman
spurred his jaded steed towards the castle gate. Soulis admitted him
with his own hand into the courtyard; and, ere the rider had dismounted,
he inquired of him hastily, and in a tone of apprehension--

"'Where be thy fellows, knave? and why come alone?'

"'Pardon me, my lord,' said the horseman, falteringly, as he dismounted;
'thy faithful bondsman is the bearer of evil tidings.'

"'Evil, slave!' exclaimed Soulis, striking him as he spoke; 'speak ye of
evil to me! What of it?--where are thy fellows?'

"The man trembled and added--'In pursuing the followers of Branxholm,
they sought refuge in the wilds of Tarras, and being ignorant of the
winding paths through its bottomless morass, horses and men have been
buried in it--they who sank not fell beneath the swords of those they
had pursued, and I only have escaped.'

"'And wherefore did ye escape, knave?' cried the fierce sorcerer; 'why
did ye live to remind me of the shame of the house of Soulis?' And, as
he spoke, he struck the trembling man again.

"He hurried to the haunted dungeon, and again performed his
incantations, with impatience in his manner and fury in his looks.
Thrice he violently struck the chest, and thrice he exclaimed,
impetuously--

"'Spirit! come forth!--arise and speak with me!'

"The lid was lifted up, and a deep and angry voice said, 'Mortal!
wherefore hast thou summoned me before the time I commanded thee? Was
not thy wish granted? Steel shall not wound thee--cords bind thee--hemp
hang thee--nor water drown thee. Away!'

"'Stay!' exclaimed Soulis--'add, nor fire consume me!'

"'Ha! ha!' cried the spirit, in a fit of horrid laughter, that made even
the sorcerer tremble. '_Beware of a coming wood!_' And, with a loud
clang, the lid of the chest fell, and the noise as of thunder beneath
his feet was repeated.

"'Beware of a coming wood!' muttered Soulis to himself; 'what means the
fiend?'

"He hastened from the dungeon without locking the door behind him, and
as he hurried from it, he drew the key from his bosom, and flung it over
his left shoulder, crying 'Keep it, spirit!'

"He shut himself up in his chamber to ponder on the words of his
familiar, and on the extirpation of his followers; and he thought not of
Marion and her bridegroom until daybreak, when, with a troubled and a
wrathful countenance, he entered the apartment where they were fettered.

"'How now, fair maiden,' he began; 'hast thou considered well my
words?--wilt thou be my willing bride, and let young Branxholm live? or
refuse, and look thy fill on his smooth face as his head adorns the
point of my good spear?'

"'Rather than see her thine,' exclaimed Walter, 'I would thou shouldst
hew me in pieces, and fling my mangled body to your hounds.'

"'Troth! and 'tis no bad thought,' said the sorcerer; 'thou mayest have
thy wish. Yet, boy, ye think that I have no mercy: I will teach thee
that I have, and refined mercy too. Now, tell me truly, were I in thy
power as thou art in mine, what fate would ye award to Soulis?'

"'Then truly,' replied Walter, 'I would hang thee on the highest tree in
Branxholm Woods.'

"'Well spoken, young Strong-bow,' returned Soulis; 'and I will show thee,
though ye think I have no mercy, that I am more merciful than thou.' Ye
would choose for me the highest tree, but I shall _give thee the choice
of the tree from which you may prefer your body to hang_, and from whose
top the owl may sing its midnight song, and to which the ravens shall
gather for a feast. And thou, pretty face,' added he, turning to Marion,
'sith you will not, even to save him, give me thine hand, i'faith, if I
may not be thy husband, I will be thy priest, and celebrate your
marriage, for I will bind your hands together, and ye shall hang on the
next branch to him.'

"'For that I thank thee,' said the undaunted maiden.

"He then called together his four remaining armed men, and placing
halters round the necks of his intended victims, they were dragged forth
to the woods around the Hermitage, where Walter was to choose the fatal
tree.

"Now a deep mist covered the face of the earth, and they could perceive
no object at the distance of half a bow-shot before them; and ere he had
approached the wood where he was to carry his merciless project into
execution--

"'The wood comes towards us!' exclaimed one of his followers.

"'What!--_the wood comes!_' cried Soulis, and his cheek became pale, and
he thought on the words of the demon--'_Beware of a coming wood!_'--and,
for a time, their remembrance, and the forest that seemed to advance
before him, deprived his arm of strength, and his mind of resolution,
and before his heart recovered, the followers of the house of Branxholm,
to the number of fourscore, each bearing a tall branch of a rowan-tree
in their hands,[11] as a charm against his sorcery, perceived, and
raising a loud shout, surrounded him.

[Footnote 11: It is probable that the legend of the "_coming wood_,"
referred to in the traditions respecting Lord Soulis, is the same as that
from which Shakspere takes Macbeth's charm--

    "Till Birnam Wood shall come to Dunsinane."

The circumstances are similar.]

"The cords with which the arms of Marion and Walter were bound were
instantly cut asunder. But, although the odds against him were as twenty
to one, the daring Soulis defied them all. Yea, when his followers were
overpowered, his single arm dealt death around.

"Now, there was not a day passed that complaints were not brought to
King Robert, from those residing on the Borders, against Lord Soulis,
for his lawless oppression, his cruelty, and his wizard-craft. And, one
day, there came before the monarch, one after another, some complaining
that he had brought diseases on their cattle, or destroyed their houses
by fire, and a third, that he had stolen away the fair bride of
Branxholm's heir, and they stood before the king, and begged to know
what should be done with him. Now, the king was wearied with their
importunities and complaints, and he exclaimed, peevishly and
unthinkingly, '_boil him, if you please, but let me hear no more about
him_.' But,

      "'It is the curse of kings to be attended
    By slaves that take their humour for a warrant;'

and, when the enemies of Soulis heard these words from the lips of the
king, they hastened away to put them in execution; and with them they
took a wise man, one who was learned in breaking the spells of
sorcery,[12] and with him he carried a scroll, on which was written the
secret wisdom of Michael the Wizard; and they arrived before Hermitage
Castle, while its lord was contending single-handed against the
retainers of Branxholm, and their swords were blunted on his buckler,
and his body received no wounds. They struck him to the ground with
their lances; and they endeavoured to bind his hands and his feat with
cords, but his spells snapped them asunder as threads.

[Footnote 12: Dr. Leyden represents this personage as being "True
Thomas, Lord of Ersylton;" but the Rhymer was dead before the time fixed
by tradition of the death of Lord Soulis, which took place in the time
of Robert the Bruce, who came to the crown in 1308, and the Rhymer was
dead before 1299, for in that year his son and heir granted a charter to
the convent of Soltra, and in it he describes himself _Filius et haeves
Thomae Rymour de Erceldon_.]

"'Wrap him in lead,' cried the wise man, 'and boil him therewith,
according to the command of the king, for water and hempen cords have no
power over his sorcery.'

"Many ran towards the castle, and they tore the lead from the turrets,
and they held down the sorcerer, and rolled the sheets around him in
many folds, till he was powerless as a child, and the foam fell from his
lips in the impotency of his rage. Others procured a caldron, in which
it was said many of his incantations were performed, and the cry was
raised--

"'Boil him on the Nine-stane rig!'

"And they bore him to where the stones of the Druids are to be seen till
this day, and the two stones are yet pointed out from which the caldron
was suspended. They kindled piles of faggots beneath it, and they bent
the living body of Soulis within the lead; and thrust it into the
caldron, and, as the flames arose, the flesh and the bones of the wizard
were consumed in the boiling lead. Such was the doom of Soulis.

"The king sent messengers to prevent his hasty words being carried into
execution, but they arrived too late.

"In a few weeks there was mirth, and music, and a marriage feast in the
bowers of Branxholm, and fair Marion was the bride."




HARDEN'S REVENGE.


From a state of high civilisation, it is curious to look back upon the
manners and modes of life of our ancestors of barbarous times; and the
contrast never can be presented in stronger hues than in the picture of
the lives of the old Borderers, who so completely realised Hobbes'
theory of the beginning of society (fighting and stealing for their
daily bread), and that of the quiet, sedate men of industry and peace of
these days, whose blood never rises beyond the degree of the heat of a
money-making ambition. A shiver comes over us, when we read of the son
killed in a feud, carried in to his mother a corpse; of the father of a
family, and the laird of many broad acres, laid before his weeping wife
and children, the dead victim of a strife with his next neighbour; of
families rendered houseless and homeless, often by a marauding kinsman;
of the never-ceasing turmoil, strife, cruelty, and revenge, of the whole
inhabitants of that distracted part of our country. We read, pause,
tremble, and hug ourselves in the happy thought that we have been born
in more auspicious times, when the sword is turned into the ploughshare,
the castle into the granary, and the fire of enmity softened and changed
into the fervour of love and friendship. Yet, alas! if we carry our
thoughts farther, how little may we have to felicitate ourselves on in
the pictured contrast? Rudeness has its evils; but is civilisation
without them? If the household of the Border chief was begirt with
dangers of rieving and spoliation, the domestic _lares_ kept it free
from the inebriated and demoralised son, whom the genius of civilisation
sends from the city haunts of pollution, to lift his hand against his
parent. If the _ingenium perfervidum_, of a roving life carried the
husband from the arms of the wife, perhaps to be brought home a corpse,
she seldom witnessed in him the victim of any of the thousand civilised
crimes which render the common thief, the fraudulent bankrupt, the
swindler, the gambler, the disloyal-spouse, the drunkard, worse than
dead to her. If a well-directed revenge might deprive the inmates of the
turret of a rude home, the strength was, at least, free from the inroads
of the messenger or poinder, whose warrant has a crueller edge than the
falchion of an enemy. We advocate not the cause of robbery, though
dignified by the name of war or revenge, or coloured by the hues of a
chivalric spirit of daring; but, when we look around us, and see how
much civilisation has accomplished for our bodies and our intellects,
and how little for our hearts or our morals, we hesitate to condemn our
ancestors for crimes which they were taught to believe as virtues, to
attribute to them an unhappiness which they viewed as the mere chance of
war, and to laud the civilised doings of our own times, when the
criminal has not the excuse of a want of proper education to palliate
his offences against the laws of his country. We are led into these
remarks by some rising reminiscences of the doings of old Wat Scott of
Harden, the most gnarled, most crooked, and sturdiest stem of the tree
of that old family. He lived in the fifteenth century, the hottest
period of Border warfare, and occupied the old seat of the family,
Harden Castle--a place of considerable strength, situated on the
beetling brink of a dark and precipitous dell, not far from the river
Borthwick, and facing a small rivulet which brawled past to meet the
larger stream. The place was suitable to the castle and its possessor;
for the stronghold contained in security the sturdy riever, and the glen
was a species of _massy more_ for the cattle which he _made_ his own
upon the good old legitimate principle of _might_, so much despised in
these days of statutory legislation, when the acts of Parliament extend
to twenty times the size of the Bible.

Many anecdotes and stories have been recorded of Walter Scott of Harden;
and we ourselves, we believe, have, in prior parts of our work, noticed
him favourably. There can be little doubt, indeed, that he was a perfect
man--that is, according to the estimate of qualities in the times in
which he lived, as gallant in love as he was bold in war; and surely,
letting the latter rest on his undisputed fame, the former could not be
better proved than by his having, when still a fine bold riever, wooed
and won the "Flower of Yarrow," Mary Scott, the daughter of Philip Scott
of Dryhope--a young maiden, whose poetical appellation, expressive as it
is, would go small way in carrying to the minds of those curious in
beauties the perfections she enjoyed from nature. Of the manner in which
Harden conducted his operations on the heart of this famous beauty, it
may be difficult now to speak with that certainty which is applicable to
his seizure and appropriations of his neighbours' live stock generally;
but, judging from the analogy of the boldness of his other exploits, and
from the circumstance that his father-in-law stipulated in the
marriage-contract that he was "to find Harden in horse meat and man's
meat, at his tower of Dryhope, for a year and a day, but that (as five
barons pledge), at the expiry of that period, his son-in-law should
remove _without attempting to continue in possession by force_,"[13] it
may be presumed that the riever was not, in this instance, lost or
forgotten in the lover. Old Dryhope _knew_ him from the early fame he
had acquired; and, while he had no objection to give him the Flower of
Yarrow for his wife, he saw the necessity of providing against the
occurrence which would, in all likelihood, have taken place, of Walter
taking up his residence at Dryhope Tower, and becoming laird, at the
same time that he kept a firm hold of Harden and his other lands. The
spirit of _appropriation_, in short, was so strong and overpowering in
the heart of the bold chief, that, as was frequently alleged of him, it
was dangerous to let him sit down on a creepy stool belonging, to a
_bona fide_ proprietor; for three minutes' occupancy seemed to produce
in him all the effects of the long positive prescription; and he never
looked at an article of man's making, or nature's production, without
considering whether it were a moveable or a fixture.

[Footnote 13: The contract is extant in the charter-chest of the present
representative. Neither Harden nor the Flower of Yarrow could write
their names.--ED.]

The only period of Harden's life in which his peculiar notions of _meum_
and _tuum_ were lost sight of, was during the sweet moon of his marriage
with Mary Scott. For one lunation, the poor Border proprietors were
safe; and, if the Harden motto, _Cornua reparabit Phoebe_, had any
meaning in it, it was the only moon of his life that did not light him
forth to commit some depredation. His marriage, with the slight
exception already stated, had no such effect in modifying his
appropriating spirit, as marriages now-a-days produce on reclaimed
rogues or roues, for Mary Scott although the fairest of all the fair
women of her time, had the same relish for cooking other people's kye,
that her husband Walter felt in bringing them home. There was not a wife
in all the Borders that served up "the feast of spurs" to her lord with
greater regularity, and more attention to the rules of proper hussyskep,
than the Flower of Yarrow. If Walter came in crying for supper--

    "Haste ye, my dame--what cheer the night?
      I look to see your table dight;
    For I hae been up since peep o' light,
      Driving the dun deer merrilie"--

Her reply was just as spirited and ready;--

    "Are ye sae keen set, Wat? 'Tis weel--
      I'faith, ye'll find a dainty meal;
    For it's a' o' the guid Rippon steel,
      And ye maun digest it manfullie."

The spirit of the riever, inborn, and strengthened by education and
example, became, in the case of Harden, as it did in that of many a one
else of the Border lairds, a regular household duty; and perhaps a more
peaceable husband than he might have felt a difficulty in resisting the
authority of so fair a governess as Mary Scott.

In the course of a long period, occupied by Harden in his daily duty and
pastime of overturning the rights of moveable property--and sure he must
have been a happy man whose hobby was his duty--his helpmate bore him no
fewer than six sons, who inherited the spirit of their father, and the
beauty of their mother. They came all to man's estate, and there was not
one of them who disgraced the principles of education which their father
took so much care to instil into them, as well by precept as by the
example daily laid before them, of levying black mail, and keeping the
dark glen well filled with the cattle of their neighbours. It was the
ambition of Harden that each of his sons should be an independent
proprietor, who might rieve, in after times, on his own account; and, at
the time when our story properly begins, he could count four fine
properties which he intended for the inheritance of four of the six
youths. Two remained to be provided for, and a point soon came to be
mooted at the fireside of Harden Castle--how two fitting lairdships
might be acquired for them, so that it might never come to be said, by
posterity, that Wat of Harden was unable to steal, or win by power or
purchase, a good domain for every one of the sons of the Flower of
Yarrow. The great difficulty, of course, lay in the nature of the thing
to be acquired, because, unhappily, an estate could not be carried away;
and there had already begun to be introduced a practice on the Borders
of regulating the rights of land by pieces of parchment skins, whereby
the outside of a sheep--a creature itself easily conveyable--was made to
vest a right in the land on which it grazed. No doubt, the charter
chest might be carried away, and Walter had courage enough to enable him
to accomplish that object; but still there remained many difficulties in
the way; doubles of the charters were apt to make their appearance at a
future day, and the best fire that could be produced at Harden Castle
was not sufficient to burn out the vestiges of proprietorship which the
sword of its master could so easily overturn.

As his years increased, the anxiety of the old laird waxed stronger and
stronger on the subject which lay nearest to his heart. He had often
cast his eye on the property of Gilmanscleugh, not far distant; and he
had even counted the broad acres, to ascertain if they would make a
suitable inheritance for one of his sons. It belonged, also, to a family
of Scotts--a circumstance that increased its peculiar fitness for the
purpose he had so long cherished, as his son would still be a Scott of
Gilmanscleugh, and the injustice of the appropriation would be
diminished, by his being chief of the clan, and having a species of
superiority over its proprietor. By an unfortunate agreement of tempers,
the two families had long remained on a sort of friendly footing; and
Harden had never been able to bring about such a feud as might give him
a pretext for denouncing Gilmanscleugh at head-quarters, when he might
have got the envied property forfeited, and a grant of it to himself. No
doubt, he had often taken from Gilmanscleugh his kye, but what neighbour
had been fortunate enough to escape, and what victim of his cupidity
dared to resent an injury where resentment would have brought upon his
head an evil a thousand times greater than that attempted to be avenged?
It was even a species of favour conferred on a small proprietor to have
a theft committed upon him by old Harden, because he was generally sure
to be protected against more unscrupulous aggressors by the old lion,
who liked to preserve what he himself might come to require; and so
Gilmanscleugh, like many others, had suffered meekly the contributions
laid upon him--for the double object of retaining his old chief's
friendship, and preserving the rest of his stock from the hands of the
other marauders, who were continually roaming about to take whatever
they could violently lay hands upon. The situation of Harden was,
therefore, that of the wolf in the fable; but he had never yet been able
to come to the resolution of asserting that the lamb had rendered the
descending water muddy to him who drank further up the stream. On this
important subject he did not disdain to take the advice of Mary, who
could see no reason, any more than Walter himself, why the chief of the
Scotts should not be able to provide a landed portion for two of his
sons, when the whole of Liddesdale and the Debateable Land contained so
much good ground lying ready for the taking. She, moreover, was also
partial to Gilmanscleugh, and only lamented that it was not large enough
to form two good properties; though that, of course, was no reason why
it should not be taken, _quantum et quale_, for one of her sons, leaving
the other to be provided for by some other estate out of the many that
lay around them.

"By my faith, Mary," said Walter, "if Gilmanscleugh had four legs to it,
it should not be long the property of its present master."

"And if my Walter had the arms he used to have," replied she, "it should
not be long ere it was Harden's. My power hath faded. Formerly, if the
Flower of Yarrow had asked Harden to give her Gilmanscleugh for a
jointure, it would have been hers ere next morn heard the cock crow in
Harden glen, but years bring fears."

"Not to Harden, Mary, love. He knoweth not the meaning of the vile word.
Your dished spurs make me as sharp-set now, as they did when the cook
was the fairest maid in Yarrow.[14] It is these sheep-skin rights, lass,
that prevent me from bestowing Gilmanscleugh on one of our sons."

[Footnote 14: Mary Scott is well known to have been as famous for the
cooking of spurs as for her beauty.]

"She who cooks Rippon steel, Wat, needeth a fire," replied she.
"Charters will burn. I'll give ye the spurs, if ye'll give me the
parchment. It will roast one of Gilmanscleugh's kye."

"But I have no cause of quarrel, Mary," said Harden.

"If I were to swear on the altar at Melrose," replied she, laughing,
"that Harden, wishing cows, asked for a cause, there wouldn't a
simpleton on the Borders believe my oath. Where be thy wits, Wat? What
better cause of quarrel need ye now than you ever did--a good hanger?"

"You would not have me kill my kinsman, Mary, to get his lands for our
son? By the moon of our armorials, I've slain enough. Nothing now will
make me take a man's life but anger, unless he be an Englishman, and
then I'll do it for love."

"There is no use for killing," rejoined she, "I'll give ye the steel
feast in the morning, and set ye forth for Gilmanscleugh kine. Take them
all, with the pet lamb that frisks before the door, on the green lea,
and if this do not make Scott complain, I had no title to be called the
Flower of Yarrow. If he complain, ye want no more. Ranshakle the house,
bring me the parchment rights, and I'll have a fire 'bleezing bonnilie.'
One who hath cooked spurs may cook parchment."

"But there may be copies, Mary--doubles o' the rights," said Wat.

"Aweel, my fire's big enough," answered she. "I've seen ye take
fivescore o' sheep in one night, and the deil's in't if ye cannot take
two skins."

"Good faith, but thou'rt the Flower o' the Yarrow rievers, Mary! Now,
tell me where I shall get a property for our remaining son?"

"Gilmanscleugh may serve them both," replied she.

These last words were spoken by Mary as she went out of the room; and
Walter, having no opportunity of asking what she meant (though, indeed,
she meant nothing more than that the property might be large enough to
serve both), continued to mutter the words for a time, with a view to
ask her for an explanation.

"Gilmanscleugh may serve them both," he repeated. "The woman hath gone
mad. It is not enough for one of them. Has she lost the spirit of our
house, and brought down her ambition to a mailing? By my faith, Dryhope
itself will make up the deficiency; and, if nothing else can be got,
Dryhope shall be taken for my youngest."

After this manner old Walter ruminated on the unexplained statement of
his wife; and, by repeating it again and again, roused the pride that
lay at the bottom of his heart, and made him wax even angry with the
wife of his bosom, and she the Flower of Yarrow, and the mother of his
six sons. But, angry as he was, he was also weary, having been hunting
in the forest during the day; and he went to sleep, muttering, as he
struggled ineffectually with the drowsy god, some oaths peculiar to
himself, and to the effect that, take Gilmanscleugh when he chose, it
should not suffice for the portion of two sons.

In the morning he awoke, but did not forget the statement of Mary, that
had given a momentary impulse to his bile, and, repairing to the
breakfast-room, he found there his six sons and his wife, who, from some
fugitive indications of face and manner, appeared to be engaged in some
by-plot, in which she was the exclusive actor. Her original beauty,
which acquired for her the poetical soubriquet by which she was so well
known, still vindicated a place among the ravages of advanced ago, and
her spirit, in place of falling with her bodily strength, had increased,
and was continually breaking forth in expressions of vivacity and
humour, which sustained the heart of the old chief, and made her the sun
of the domestic circle which she had so long graced with her beauty. She
was now in the very height of her most delightful occupation--serving up
with her own hands the morning meal of her brave Wat and her six gallant
sons, the parallel of whom, for make and manhood, might not again be
found in broad Scotland. So happy was she, and so full of the joyous and
soul-cheering fire of a woman's humour, that the six youths sat and
looked at her with mute expressions of sons whose filial eyes saw, in
the Flower of Yarrow, more beauties of mind and person than even
exuberant nature had bestowed; and old Wat himself smiled as he gazed
upon her, and finally relinquished his _malice prepense_, which had been
urging him forward to ask her for an explanation of what she had said on
the previous evening--that Gilmanscleugh would suffice for a portion to
the two sons of proud Harden. The parties sat down to the morning meal;
and as the old chief took off the cover of the first dish, a loud laugh,
in which he heartily joined, announced the fulfilment of the spirited
dame's promise of the previous evening, for there was nothing beneath it
but a pair of spurs, made of shining Rippon steel, and presenting, in
their sharp rowels, little power of assuaging the hunger of the youths,
who had been hunting in the neighbouring dells, and could have eat, as
the saying goes, the horse behind the saddle. Harden knew the meaning of
the manoeuvre; for he recollected the statement of the dame, that she
would present to him the feast of spurs, to send him to Gilmanscleugh
for a portion to her sons, and, nothing loth to receive the sharp hint,
he exhibited, through his rough growling laugh, the fire and keenness of
his rieving spirit, which was now to be gratified by the luxury of an
adventure.

"What game shall these Rippon rowels prick us to, Mary?" cried the
chief, still laughing.

"A good portion for our youngest," replied she; "the broad acres of
Gilmanscleugh, and all the kye thereon, and eke the kist that holds the
parchment; which last is to be placed in my safe keeping."

"And why not for our _two_ youngest?" rejoined Harden, recollecting with
a slight bitterness mixed with his good humour, her former statement.
"May not Gilmanscleugh serve both of our unprovided sons? What right
have the sons of the Flower of Yarrow to more than the half of what hath
served one Scott of Gilmanscleugh? By my faith, Mary! if I had not so
good a breakfast before me, I would quarrel with my Flower for her
depreciation of the honour of Harden, and were it not for that contract
thy father wheedled out of me, I'd seize Dryhope in revenge."

"And forfeit the five pledges," replied she, laughing. "But, Wat, had we
not better measure Gilmanscleugh first, before we quarrel about its
proportions."

"I have driven too many of his cattle over it to Harden Glen, not to
know the breadth of it," said he, keeping up the humour. "But come, my
boys, we shall take a better gauge of its dimensions to-day. Harden
never rieves by day; but the light of the sun tells us best what the
moon may light us to."

And having breakfasted on something more substantial than the dish of
spurs, the old laird, and his sons were prepared to sally forth to take
a survey of Gilmanscleugh's flock, with a view to those ulterior
operations which might have the effect of precipitating its unlucky
proprietor into such a quarrel with his sturdy superior as might afford
the latter a pretext for carrying his object of ambition into effect. To
cover their proceedings, they took with them their hunting-graith,
without forgetting the stirrup-cup, or rather without being allowed, by
the provident solicitude of the spirited dame, to forget that essential
preparative to a Borderer's forth-going, whether he was bent on
hunting, rieving, or wooing. Mounted on their strong shaggy garrons,
with bows slung over their shoulders, swords by their sides, and the
accompaniment of two wolf-dogs of great size and strength, and a number
of stag-hounds, all yelling around, till their voices awakened the
sleeping echoes of the glen, and formed a rugged harmony with the long
shrill winding of the hunter-horns, they presented in the features of
the group, that mixture of the war and the chase, sport and spoliation,
which marked all the roving parties of that extraordinary period and
still more extraordinary place. The mother of six such sons had
presented to her a fair subject of exultation in the party that stood
before her; and her eye, which still retained the blue light of that of
the Flower of Yarrow, spoke the pride which swelled her bosom, as it
passed, in laughing intelligence, from one fair face and manly person to
another.

"It was as a hunter I first saw you, Walter, from Dryhope Tower," said
she; "and he who hunted for a wife, may well hunt for a portion to her
children."

"If I bring down Gilmanscleugh," replied Wat, laughing, "it will be a
higher quarry than the Flower of Yarrow."

"You thought not so then, Wat," rejoined she, in the same spirit; "but
love giveth way to ambition. That day thou callest Gilmanscleugh thine
own, I will busk me again, as I once busked thy bonny bride, and put thy
once-cherished Flower of Yarrow in fair competition with the broad acres
of Gilmanscleugh. By my troth, thou wouldst be a bold man to prefer the
new love to the old."

"I would not give thee, woman," rejoined he, "for all Branxholm's wide
domains, with the whole of Ettrick Forest to boot; so hold thy peace,
and apply thee to thy hussyskep; for, by my sword, we will come home
hungry men."

And old Wat's horn sounded again among the hills. The signal for
starting was well known, and away they dashed down the steep, with that
speed which the Borderers always exhibited--a consequence, perhaps, of
the habit of getting off with their booty in the fear of a rescue. They
were soon out of the sight of the fond dame, who long afterwards sat at
the small window on the east side of the tower, listening to the notes
of the horn, as they reverberated among the heights, and died away like
the parting notes of mountain spirits that seek their dark recesses in
the opening morn. A true Borderer's wife, she never feared for the
result of an expedition of either hunting or harrying; and, as yet, a
prosperous fate, by saving her husband and her six sons from the dangers
to which their mode of life exposed them, had visited her with no cause
of a wife's sorrow or a mother's affliction. But such was her heroic
spirit, that, much as she loved these objects of her affection, she
could have acted the Spartan dame over the dead body of the dearest
among them, and quelled the bursting heart with the thought that he had
died nobly in the vocation to which his fate had called him. It was not
that habit had worn out the ordinary solicitude of the female heart;
for, if custom had recognised the actions of a rieving female in the
affair of moveable property as well as of moveable hearts, we dare to be
bold enough to say that Mary Scott would have been as famous as an
amazon scaumer, as she was as the Flower of Yarrow. Many an expedition
she had planned; and it was often more easy for Harden to satisfy
himself as to the number of good cattle he might lodge in the glen, than
it was to come up to the expectations of his better half, who, as the
ballad says, if he had brought her less than ten, would not have "roosed
his braverie." Nor was Harden's wife singular in the possession of these
unfeminine feelings of Border heroism; for, as women are generally seen
to take on the hues and complexions of the minds of their lords, the
Border dames were generally remarkable for the spirit with which they
applauded the deeds of their husbands, and the fortitude with which they
bore the consequences, often lamentably tragic, which resulted from the
wild life they were habituated to lead. In her present situation, Mary
Scott thought only of the fair property of Gilmanscleugh, which she
conceived so well suited for the heirloom of her two sons that still
wanted provisions; and she had already in her mind's eye the bickering
flame that was to consume the parchment rights, and roast the oxen that
would serve for the celebration of the new acquisition to the wealth and
property of Harden.

Meanwhile the hunting troop spread through the surrounding woods,
sounding their horns, but caring less for the dun deer of the Scotch
hills than for the black cattle of Gilmanscleugh. They had not proceeded
far, being still within the limits of Harden's lands, when they heard
the hunting-horn of some party in the distance; and the old chief
immediately despatched one of his sons--whom he styled the Forester,
from his love of the sports of woodcraft--to prick his garron forward,
and ascertain who it was that had the hardihood to drive the dun deer so
near to Harden's glen. The young man obeyed, and as he proceeded, he
found that the huntsman, whoever he was, had, probably from hearing the
sounds of the approaching chief, retired to the westward, with a view to
avoid the coming party. This construction on his conduct was the first
thought that arose on the mind of young Harden, and it came with the
suspicion that the sound of the stranger's horn indicated no other a
visitor to the Harden woods than that very Gilmanscleugh against whom
his father and mother had been nourishing the schemes which might
contribute to the gratification of their ambition. With these thoughts
came another--viz., that he, the young Harden, who was one of the
unprovided sons for whom Gilmanscleugh was intended, would contribute
to the satisfaction of both his father and mother, if he made short work
of the projected scheme, and, by urging the proprietor of the envied
property to a quarrel and battle, got quit of him by a bilbo thrust, and
thus settle in an instant an affair which apparently occupied a great
deal more thought than it was entitled to. The idea brought a whole
train of the most delightful cogitations that had ever yet fired his
young fancy. He would anticipate the views of his father; set off by
contrast the simplicity of his own act--a simple extension of the
sword-arm--with the intricate machinery of his parents' scheme of
ambition; enjoy the surprise of his father and the wonder of his mother
when he told them that he had, by an unlucky quarrel, killed
Gilmanscleugh, and asked, with affected simplicity, what would become of
the property? show himself the best of the six sons of Harden, and
worthy of the best smile of the Flower of Yarrow. The accumulation of
rising thoughts and stirring feelings inflamed his mind; and, striking
deep the rowels into his garron's side, he pricked forward at the rate
of a quick gallop, with the wolf-dog Grim bounding before him, baying
forth a deep yell, and his tongue hanging half-a-foot over his
bloodthirsty jaws. He kept his pace for a considerable time, and was
already far from his father's party, when he saw Gilmanscleugh's dog,
also a wolf-hound, and known to him by the peculiarity of his colour,
being almost white, bounding away to the left--in the track, doubtless,
of his master. The moment the dogs perceived each other in the
breathless, foaming condition into which their race had inflamed them,
they closed in a fell struggle, and made the wood ring with the sounds
of their wrath. Gilmanscleugh heard the affray, and returned to save his
favourite hound from the jaws of Harden's, which was so famous
throughout the forest, that no animal of its species, or indeed of any
other in the wood, could stand before it. Coming up, he struck the
fierce animal of his chief; and young Harden, coming from behind,
upbraided him for assaulting his dog, in such terms of galling abuse
that the insulted man turned and laid his hand on his sword. The act was
followed by a similar movement on the part of the Forester--in another
moment they were engaged in fight, and the period of a minute did not
pass away before the young and beautiful son of Harden lay upon the
ground, a bleeding corpse!

"Ho, for Gilmanscleugh!" cried the victor, as he sheathed his bloody
sword, and saw all the danger of his situation. "Ho, for Gilmanscleugh!
and that without blast o' horn; for every tree o' Harden woods will rise
up to avenge the death o' the Flower o' Yarrow's favourite son!"

And he struck his horse's sides, and urged him forward, calling out for
his dog Wolf, who was as anxious to get out of the clutches of Grim, as
his master was to get out of the reach of Harden.

"Wolf! Wolf!" he cried, as he turned round. "For
Gilmanscleugh--hame--hame--ho! I have killed a dun deer to-day, whose
umbles will tell the seer a sad tale o' our house, and whose corbin bane
will bring mony a Harden corbie to Gilmanscleugh."

But Wolf was too firmly in the fangs of Grim; and now Harden's horn was
sounding in shrill tones in the hollows, announcing to the unfortunate
victor the near approach of the fierce chief, but no longer awaking the
ear of the victim, who lay already stiff among the green leaves of the
forest. The dogs were still fast, and he must spend as much time in
disengaging them as would bring the father of the slain youth to the
scene of his sorrow and revenge, or he must braid on with the top-speed
of his favourite Sorrel, and leave his dog an evidence of the deed,
that, if traced to him, would bring ruin on his home, his wife, and his
children, and all the retainers of Gilmanscleugh. Springing off, and
nerved with the force of despair, he flung himself on the wrestling
dogs, and laying hold of the throat of Harden's, he clutched it with
such strength that the animal opened his jaws, gasping for breath, and
turning up his eyeballs beneath the lids, fell on his side; but his
revengeful opponent, no sooner free from the gripe which had bound him,
seized Grim in his turn; and Gilmanscleugh saw before him an alternation
of a process of choking that would consume more than his hurrying
moments. There was not an instant for deliberation: seizing his sword,
he stuck it into the heart of the dog, and, detaching Wolf, sprung to
his saddle, and flew through the forest with the speed of light; while
his faithful animal, seeing no longer life in his enemy, forsook his
prey and his revenge, and bounded away after his flying master. But too
much time had, unfortunately for Gilmanscleugh, been already lost in
disengaging the dogs; for the twang of a bow announced to him, as he
hurried on, that a messenger more fleet than Sorrel was after him, and,
looking round, he saw his faithful attendant fall to the ground, with a
long shaft quivering in his smoking side.

"There is my king's evidence left behind me," muttered he, as he stuck
the rowels deeper in the sides of his horse. "Wae to Gilmanscleugh when
Harden has to avenge the death o' a son slain by his arm! Braid on, good
Sorrel, to a flaming stable, and carry your master to what may be sune a
lordless ha'!"

The speed of his horse soon took him out of the reach of Harden and his
sons--but not before they had seen him in the act of flight, and brought
down his dog by an arrow sent from the unerring hand of the old chief's
namesake. On coming up to the place where his favourite lay extended
dead on the ground, with his face upturned to heaven, and, though partly
covered by his bonnet's plume that had fallen down in the flight,
displaying too evidently the rigid muscles of death, his father and his
brothers uttered a loud cry of astonishment and grief, and ran to
satisfy themselves of the terrible truth, that the beautiful youth was
indeed dead. The satisfaction was easy and ready: enough of blood lay in
a pool by his side to have carried in its stream two young lives; and a
single glance at his pale face struck the mind with the palsy which
death in the human countenance so strangely produces. His sword, firmly
grasped in his hand, told also a part of the story, which was eked out
by the body of the dead Grim and that of his lifeless antagonist, which
one of the sons had brought to the place where the group stood, and
looked at each other in mute grief. But that was only for a moment. The
heavy, tear-filled eye of sorrow of the father changed in an instant,
and flashed forth the fire of revenge, and, as every one of his five
sons clutched their swords, loud cries rent the air--"Ho! for
Gilmanscleugh with the sword and the fire-faggot!" So entirely were the
fiery youths led away by the impulse of the new feeling, that they had
all remounted their garrons, clanging their drawn swords, and uttering
their deep-mouthed cries, without reflecting for a moment that the body
of the dead youth had to be disposed of, and that all their party was
not able to take Gilmanscleugh Tower, and put its inmates to the sword.

"Hold! ho! my brave sons!" cried the father, as the fire of his revenge
beamed through his tears. "Why this hurry? A hundred years would not
cool our fire, and a sudden revenge lacketh the fulness of satisfaction.
We must take home the body of my dead son to his mother. It will be her
duty to swathe it and to lay it out. It is the first time she hath had
this work to do; and, as she does it, she will recollect her words of
yestreen when she said that Gilmanscleugh would serve for both of my
sons. Too true, alas! Gilmanscleugh hath satisfied one; Gilmanscleugh
shall satisfy the other."

The youths, burning as they were for satisfaction, saw the necessity of
agreeing to the recommendation of their father; and, dismounting again,
they lifted the stiff body from among the clotted grass, and, wrapping
it in a mantle, laid it over the backs of two of their horses, and
proceeded in mournful procession towards home, where Mary Scott as yet
sat at the castle window indulging in the meditation to which the
expedition of her husband and her sons had given rise. The sounds of the
horn that had struck her ear had long ceased, and she pictured to
herself the bold party scouring over Gilmanscleugh, the intended
inheritance of her son, the Forester, the best beloved of her, as he was
of his father, for boldness, filial affection, and beauty. She did not
expect them till the evening was far gone, and then it would be her duty
and greatest delight to prepare for them the cheerful bickering fire,
and the warm refreshing meal, and welcome them to their home and their
pleasures with her accustomed looks of satisfaction, her well-chosen
words of good-humour, and her questions of success, put in such form as
might afford the opportunity of recounting their deeds of arms or
woodcraft. Many a time had she enjoyed these highest pleasures of the
dutiful wife, affectionate mother, and spirited companion; and there was
yet time and opportunity in store for her to enjoy them again with
undiminished relish. Casting her eyes over the side of the glen, she saw
the procession of her husband and five sons, with the dead body of the
sixth, coming slowly along the middle of the dell. This was not the way
in which old Wat of Harden usually returned to his castle; there were no
cattle driven before him, no winding of his horn among the hills, no
whoop of triumph from his rough throat. The slow tread of the horses'
feet, as they paced the sod, came upon her ear with a dead, hollow
sound; and her heart became busy with its mystic divinations, before her
eye could trace all the details of the unusual scene. But feature by
feature of this first representation of a mother's bereavement opened
gradually on her view; she ran over the faces of her sons and that of
her husband, and soon distinguished the beloved victim; the expressions
of the countenances of the bearers told her the extent of the calamity,
if the form of the extended body, where Death sat triumphant, and gave
forth those indications of his presence which cannot be misunderstood,
had left any doubt on her mind that her fair Forester was no more. But
her griefs knew no feminine paroxysms, the strength of her nerves
enabled her to contemplate even the scene of a dead son with that
strange calmness which the strongest feeling can draw from the depths of
the mental constitution, as its cover and panoply in the hour of
nature's greatest need. As the procession approached, she saw Harden
draw his hand over his eyes, and the sobs of the youths fell on her ear.
Yet she descended with firmness to meet a sight which, contemplated by a
mother, is perhaps the most harrowing that can be exhibited to mortal
eye--a dead son, and that son her hope and pride. At the entrance she
met her husband, who took her hand, and, as he held it, waved to the
conductors to pause in their progress.

"Let them come in, Wat," said she. "I know all--my Forester is dead.
Come forward, my sons, and let me see him who was once my pride, and
tell me what cruel cause hath reft me of my boy."

The sons came forward, and, taking the body by the head and feet,
carried it into the tower, where, having placed it, they stood around,
silently looking on what was, an hour before, their beloved brother, in
the heyday of youth and beauty.

"Who hath done this deed?" inquired the mother, as she looked on the
pale face of her son, with feelings too deep for tears.

"Gilmanscleugh," answered Walter.

The word operated like electricity on the minds of the sons, as they
stood silently looking at the corpse. Revenge had for a moment been
clouded by grief, and the talismanic influence of the name of the
destroyer drew aside the vapours, and exposed again the fiery sun of
their resentment. A simultaneous movement carried their hands to their
swords, and every face was turned to the door; but the eye of old
Walter, looking askance through a bush of shaggy grey brows, watched
keenly every motion; and, as they rushed out to raise the cry of
destruction to Gilmanscleugh and its master, he called them back, and
hurried them into a side-room with grated windows and a strong door,
where were contained, as in a stronghold, the title-deeds of Harden, and
other valuable things which required security. "Let us consult, my bold
youths, let us consult," he said, as he pushed the last one in; and the
moment they were all fairly enclosed, he turned the key in the lock, and
put it into his pocket.

"Give me the Forester's bloody doublet," he cried to his wife, "with the
hole made by Gilmanscleugh's sword in the right breast."

"What mean ye, Wat?" answered Mary, as, lifting her eyes from the face
of the corpse, she noticed these extraordinary proceedings on the part
of her husband. "Why do you lock up our five sons, when vengeance calls
them to Gilmanscleugh? and why ask ye for the bloody vest, which should
be the pennon to fly over the smoking ruins of the destroyer's tower? If
you are to stop revenge, lock up the mother with her sons; for my heart
beats with the pulsations of man's courage, and I will cease to feel as
a woman till this blood be avenged. If thou wilt not lead on our sons to
Gilmanscleugh, let me undertake the task; and mark well the issue of a
woman's foray, when a son's bloody doublet hangs on the point of the
spear."

"Recollect ye not your words, Mary?" answered Wat, hurriedly. "Said ye
not that Gilmanscleugh would serve for both our sons? That one lying
there is satisfied; by the powers of revenge, the other shall not be
disappointed. The doublet! come, wife, the doublet!--and see that you
give our sons meat enough, through the west hole of the strong-room, to
keep their blood warm and their hearts glowing for three days. Let our
dead Forester lie there for that time; but turn his head to
Gilmanscleugh. The doublet! come, quick!"

Mary could not understand the meaning of these words; but she well knew
that the resolutions of her husband, when determined, were founded on
prudence and principle, and beyond the affecting capabilities of mortal
man; so she proceeded to take from the body of her son the doublet,
which was stained with blood, and perforated in the right breast by the
sword which had deprived him of life. Having removed it, she handed it
to Walter, who, holding it up to the light, looked through the hole,
and, with that strange mixture of a peculiar humour with the deepest
seriousness of human nature for which he was remarkable, declared, with
a grim smile, that he saw through it the lands of Gilmanscleugh, and the
Harden arms over the door of the old tower; then, wrapping up the
vestment, he hurried to the outer court, and, binding it to the front of
his saddle, mounted, and clapping spurs to his horse, was, in a few
moments, away at a hard gallop over the hills.

Confused by these abrupt and incomprehensible proceedings, Mary had not
been able to make the necessary effort to get an explanation, though it
is doubtful if all her entreaties would have been successful in wringing
from the determined and cunning old chief what were his intentions.
Returning to the apartment where the dead body lay, she found there a
duty which would occupy the time till her husband returned--in watching
the corpse of her beloved Forester, and tracing in his rigid, pallid
features the traces of those expressions of his beautiful face which
used to extend so much influence over the hearts of his father and
mother, and bring love to him from all sides on the rapid wings of
sympathetic attraction. On one side lay the corpse she had to watch; at
the other were her five remaining sons, enclosed as prisoners, and
prevented from executing the revenge with which she burned, or extending
to her the comforting and assuasive assistance of their presence and
conversation. As she looked on the face of the corpse, she heard the
impatient murmurings of her sons, who, burning to get forth to satisfy
the yearnings of their hearts, demanded of her, through a small opening
in the door, what was the intention of their father in thus keeping them
from so just and necessary an object as the vindication of the honour of
Harden, and the taking of blood for blood.

"We shall not be balked of our revenge, mother," cried the youngest.
"The Forester's blood cries more loudly than the voice of our father.
Call the retainers, and break open the door, that we may get free.
Haste, good mother!"

"Haste! haste!" added other voices.

"I cannot disobey Harden's commands," replied she, "though the face of
this fair corpse seems to beckon me to the satisfaction of a mother's
heart, at the price of a wife's rebellion. My Forester's glazed eyes are
fixed on me, and say, 'Open, and let my brothers free, that my blood may
be avenged.' I cannot obey. Three days you must remain there--three days
must the Forester lie in his shroud--then will Harden be back, and he
will bring with him the bloody doublet to hang on the point of your
spears."

"Whither is our father gone?" rejoined the impatient youths.

"I know not, but these were his words," replied she. "I am to watch my
Forester's body, and feed you through the west bole, for three days."

"We cannot survive three days unrevenged, mother," said another. "We
will take on ourselves the responsibility of release. Send us Wat's
John, and he will break down this door. Bethink ye, good mother, that
Gilmanscleugh may fly, and the Forester's ghost may wander for twenty
moons in Harden's Glen, upbraiding his five brothers for not avenging
his death."

"I cannot disobey your father," again said she.

"Then we will force our freedom, mother," cried the third son.

"Disobedient boy, say not the word," answered she. "Wait the three days,
and, if you will, nurse during that time your fire; for, if I am not
deceived, your father will require of you as much avenging wrath as you
have to bestow, when his horn sounds again his return to Harden."

With difficulty did Mary prevail on the impetuous youths to refrain from
an effort to effect their freedom. For the three appointed days, she sat
in the room by the side of her dead son; and at every meal-hour she
handed in the food necessary for the sustenance of her prisoners. Nor
did she conceive that she had any title to rest from her watchful
labour, or to cease her care of the dead body, even during the hours of
night, till she saw his death avenged. The midnight lamp was regularly
trimmed, and hung upon the wall, that its glimmering flame might fall
upon the pale face of the youth, as he lay rolled up in the shroud which
his mother had prepared for him, while sitting by the bier. At the
solemn hour of midnight, she sat silent and sad, looked now in the face
of the dead, listened to hear if any sound of a horn without announced
the approach of her husband, or of a messenger from him, and then
inclined her ear, to catch the broken words of revenge muttered by her
sons in their sleep, or the strains of mournful lamentations for the
death of their brother, which the energy of their grief forced from them
at those intervals when their revenge was overcome by the more intense
feeling. Groans and sighs, muttered oaths, sobs, and expressions of
impatience, mixed or separate, told continually the workings of their
minds. The speech of the dreamer was often mixed with the conversation
of those awake; but so well acquainted was the mother with the sounds of
their voices, that she could distinguish the one from the other. The
question was often put by one who slept--"Are the three days past yet?"
and those awake gave him the answer he could not hear. Then some of them
seemed to clutch his neighbour in his dreams, and call out, that he had
now caught him, and would avenge on him the death of the Forester,
accompanying his speech with a struggle, as if he were in the act of
stabbing Gilmanscleugh. Another would call to the mother, to know the
hour; and, when she told him that it was midnight, or an hour past
midnight, he would sigh deeply, as if he felt the hours of the three
days winged with lead. Then again, a victim of nightmare groaned with
fear, at the vision of the Forester's ghost, and cried, that it would
not have long to walk the glen, for that the three days were fast on the
wing. The shrill scream of a passing eagle or solitary owl, wakening
those who slumbered in a half sleep, was mistaken for their father's
horn, and an appeal to the mother was required to rectify the mistake.
All these things passed in her hearing, and threw a gloom over her mind,
which was not relieved by the look which she every moment stole at the
dead face, as it shone white as the shroud in the light of the lamp: but
she stood the trial, and continued her watch. The beam of a deadly
revenge indicated the steadfastness with which she adhered to her
resolution never to rest till she knew that Gilmanscleugh had expiated
by his life the murder of her son.

Since the departure of Harden, no intelligence had come from him; and so
strange had been his conduct when he went away, that his wife had often
to combat the rising thought, that the fate of his favourite son had
unsettled his intellects, and driven him away from the scene of his
loss, in some wild dream of superstitious retribution. The locking up
of his sons was the very reverse of the conduct which his revengeful
nature might have dictated; and the taking with him the bloody doublet,
through the sword-hole in which he declared he saw the lands of
Gilmanscleugh his own, was far more like the act of a madman, than that
of one who had duties to perform to himself, to his wife and children,
on that sorrowful occasion, more serious and difficult than he had ever
yet been called upon to fulfil. These thoughts rising throughout the
dark night, when her ears were pained by the strange noises proceeding
from the excitement of her sons, and her eye had nothing to rest on but
the dead body of him who lay stretched by her side, stung her with
anguish, and filled her heart with boding anticipations of terror. The
third night was on the wing; and, though twelve o'clock had passed,
there was no appearance of her husband. Her sons had become more than
ordinarily restless, and said that, if their father did not make his
appearance in the morning, they would disregard all authority, and call
to the retainers to break down the door with battle-axes, and set them
at liberty. She heard them in silence, and trembled to communicate to
them the thoughts that had been passing through her mind as to the
sanity and safety of their father. In a little, the restless prisoners
began to fall over into their troubled sleep, and the moon, newly risen,
sent in through the small windows a bright beam, that lay on the face of
the corpse. She had wrought up her mind almost to a conviction that her
husband had, in a fit of madness, thrown himself into the Borthwick, or
otherwise committed suicide, and figured to her diseased fancy his body
placed alongside of her son's, and with that same pale beam resting on
it, and exhibiting to her the features which she had so long looked on
with delight, made rigid by the grasp of death. Every sound was now
hushed, with the exception of the occasional broken mutterings of her
sons, and the notes of the winged inhabitants of the upper parts of the
tower, who cawed their hoarse omens to the midnight wanderer in the
forest. Every thought that rose in her mind was charged with a double
portion of awe; and cold shivers, in opposition to her efforts to be
firm, ran over her from head to heel, and precipitated her farther and
farther into the depths of her fancied evils. Superstition might have
borrowed a thousand aids from the circumstances in which she was placed;
but, though she was beyond the influence of the direct operation of that
power, the thoughts of evil which she had some reason for indulging,
borrowed a part of their dark hue from the clouds in which the mystic
goddess is generally enshrined: the individual would indeed have been
more than woman who could have sat in the situation in which she was
placed, and measured her evils with the gauge of calm reason.

While sunk in these gloomy reflections, a shrill blast of a horn
reverberated among the hills. "That is our father's horn!" cried the
sons, who awoke with the sound; and Mary herself knew the signal of the
approach of her husband. She rose from the side of the corpse, and,
looking forth from the window, saw, by the moon's light, Harden himself
hastening towards the tower. In a moment he bounded from his horse, and
in another he appeared before his wife.

"To horse! to horse! my sons!" he shouted, as he came forward. "Now for
Gilmanscleugh, with the fire and the sword of Harden's revenge!"

A loud shout from the chamber where the sons lay announced the relief
which this statement brought to their frenzied minds. The door was
opened, and the prisoners were set at liberty. Without waiting for
refreshment, the old chief, having cast a look on the dead body, hurried
with his liberated sons to the court, where every retainer was summoned
to attend his master. A large party was assembled in a very short time,
and, with the moon as their guide, the cavalcade, making the castle ring
with Harden's war-cry, issued with rapid steps out of the ballium, and
took the road to Gilmanscleugh. They arrived at the place of their
destination while the moon shone still clear in the heavens; and
Harden's sons observed that their father now took no precautions, as was
usual in his night attacks, to prevent the assailed party from knowing
his approach. He marched them silently, deliberately, and boldly up in
front of the tower of Gilmanscleugh, where Scott, who had fondly
imagined that his act had not been traced to him, was residing in a
security that had been daily increasing, but was now so soon to be
ended. The whole party were ranged in front of the devoted tower, and
Harden's horn was sounded for entrance. Scott appeared at the window,
and asked the pleasure of Harden, and the purpose of his call at that
unusual hour, though he well knew to what he owed the fearful visit.

"I have a paper, under the king's hand, to read to thee, Gilmanscleugh,"
replied Harden.

"We had better read it in the mornin," replied Scott. "Our lights are
out in the tower. I will wait ye at yer ain time; but let it be in the
licht o' day."

"The moon is Harden's time," rejoined the chief. "If thou wilt not let
us in to read it, here, in the light of this torch, brought for the
occasion, thou shalt hear the words of majesty. I am only the royal
commissioner, and must do my duty."

The torch was held up, and Harden calling forth one of his retainers,
who had been a clerk in a convent, ordered him to read a royal charter
which he put into his hands. The man obeyed, and read the document which
purported, in the few words of these old land rights, that the king, for
the love and favour he bore to Walter Scott of Harden, had conveyed and
settled upon him and his heirs the lands, tower, and appurtenances of
Gilmanscleugh, which formerly belonged to William Scott, but had fallen
to the crown by escheat, in consequence of the constructive rebellion of
the said William Scott, in killing the son of Harden, known by the name
of the Forester, when engaged in hunting on his father's lands. The
charter gave, in addition, full power to the said Walter Scott to take
immediate possession of the property, and to adopt all necessary steps
for ejecting the former proprietor and his family from the same.

"Thou hast heard read the king's writ," cried the chief. "What sayest
thou to the royal authority? I come here peaceably to demand the
possession of Gilmanscleugh. If you will consent to depart, and give me
up the key of the tower, I will pass my honour for the safety of thee
and thine. If not, I will enforce the king's authority. Take a
quarter-of-an-hour to decide. I will wait the decision."

This announcement produced surprise on all hands, as well to the unhappy
proprietor, who was to be deprived of his lands that had come to him
from his ancestors, as to the sons of Harden, who were to be deprived of
that species of revenge they had burned for, and considered to be the
only one suited to the occasion which called for it--the life of the
slayer. While Gilmanscleugh retired to consider of the proposal, the
sons of Harden crowded round him, and implored him to retract his
condition of extending safety to the person of the murderer of their
brother. The old chief--who had already counted all the advantages and
disadvantages of the bargain, and saw how much better were the broad
acres of Gilmanscleugh, which the king had given him for the loss of his
son, than the life of its master, which, although he took, he could make
nothing of, seeing that it would vanish in the act of capture--replied
calmly, to their warm entreaties, that the lands were his revenge, and a
very good revenge, too; but he promised them that, if Scott did not
immediately comply with his request, they would have their pleasure of
him and his whole household, to kill, or wound, or burn, or hang, as
they chose. This addition roused the spirits and restored the hopes of
the sons, who could not suppose that a man would give up his property in
the easy manner anticipated by their father. Yet so it turned out; for
in a short time Scott appeared again, and stated that, upon condition of
him and his household being permitted to go forth safe and free, he
would instantly deliver to him the key of the tower. The bargain was
struck; and in a short time the extraordinary scene was witnessed of a
whole family leaving the home of their fathers on a quarter-of-an-hour's
notice, and wandering away to beg a habitation and a meal from those who
were their dependants. Scott's wife had in her arms a sucking child, and
three other children held by her garments, and cried bitterly as they
passed on through the fierce troop, who looked the daggers of a
disappointed revenge. A sister of his wife's tended a sickly son of
Scott's, who was borne forth on a board carried by two of his retainers;
and there was seen, hobbling along, with a long piked staff in her hand,
the laird's mother, who had gone to Gilmanscleugh sixty years before,
and born in it seven sons and three daughters. Then came Scott himself,
with the keys in his hand, at the sight of whom Harden's sons moved
involuntarily forward, as the instinctive desire of revenge for a moment
overcame the command of their father. The keys were handed forth in dead
silence; and the servants of the ejected laird wiped their eyes as they
beheld the melancholy scene. They wandered slowly and reluctantly away.
Harden looked back as the last of them were disappearing in the wood.
"Revenge enough," he muttered--"revenge enough, and to spare." He then
entered and took possession of the tower, in which he left as many of
his men as were sufficient to guard it. He then returned with his sons
and a part of his troop to Harden, where he found Mary Scott still
sitting by the side of her dead son, in conformity with a custom among
the Borderers, derived from the land of Odin, that the corpse of a
murdered relative should not be committed to the earth till his death
was avenged. She looked up in the face of Harden as he entered, and the
blue eye of the Flower of Yarrow searched wistfully for tokens of a deed
of stern retribution. Such is the power of custom and education, that
one of the fairest of women, who, if she had lived in the nineteenth
century, might have been a Lady Fanny, and shrunk, according to fashion,
from the sight of a murdered worm, deemed it necessary, from duty, and
felt it as consonant to the feelings of her sex, to look her
disappointment at not observing, on the clothes or arms of her husband
and sons, the signs of a wrong righted by blood.

"Is it thus that Harden comes, with bright steel and unsullied clothes,
from the house of the murderer of his fairest son?" cried she. "Look at
that corpse, and blush deep as the crimson that dyes the lily-lire of
our boy. Is there no vengeance, Walter? Is there no satisfaction, my
sons?"

"Whether, Mary," replied Harden, "would you accept a charter to the
lands of Gilmanscleugh to Harden and his heirs for ever, or the life's
blood of its master, as a satisfaction for the death of our boy who lies
there, killed by his hand?"

"I would rather enjoy the lands," replied she, "and let the murderer
enjoy, if he can, the life that is spared to him. Our revenge is double;
for, while life may be painful to him, the lands will yield us pleasure
in after years."

"Here, then," said he, "is a charter to the lands of
Gilmanscleugh"--holding out the parchment. "I got it from the king as my
satisfaction; and now we may indeed say, as you strangely predicted,
that Gilmanscleugh hath served both of our sons."

On the following day, the unfortunate son of Harden was buried; and,
long afterwards, the lands of Gilmanscleugh remained in the family under
the name of Harden's Revenge.




THE PHYSIOGNOMIST'S TALE.


Hill and valley were clad in the cold and glistening mantle of winter,
and the snow floated softly, though chillingly, against the cheek of a
young and apparently weary traveller, who was plodding his way along the
high road towards Annan. He was a youth of about nineteen, tall and
good-looking, apparently of the labouring class, and carried a small
bundle on a stick over his shoulder. I happened to be walking homewards
in the same direction, and had been for some time watching him with
great interest--my attention having been excited by his handsome and
intelligent countenance, and by the expression of deep and settled
sorrow which clouded it. Absorbed in the gloom of his own thoughts, he
seemed not to heed the cold, and bleak, and desolate scene around him;
or perhaps it might be more congenial to his feelings than the brightest
landscape of summer; for who has not felt, in the first hours of grief
and deprivation, a morbid seeking after, and clinging to, objects which
serve to cherish and keep alive our feelings of gloom and depression? He
started, as if awakened from a dream, when I addressed him with some
trifling remark upon the weather; but there was something in the tone of
his voice, when he answered me, which increased my prepossession in his
favour. After some trifling conversation, I took an opportunity to
remark, and to express my sympathy for, his evident dejection, at the
same time hinting my wish to know the cause of it, and, if possible, to
remove it. Many of my readers will no doubt think this sudden and
uncalled-for interest in a perfect stranger romantic and injudicious;
but I have rather Quixotic opinions on many subjects, and, among others,
is a love of judging of character by countenance; and if I choose to
run the risk of "paying for my whistle," I do but follow in the
footsteps of wiser and better men. Events proved, as the reader will
learn in the course of this story, that in this instance, at least, my
judgment had not deceived me. The young man was evidently affected by
the interest which I seemed to feel in him; and, after some little
hesitation, said, with a strong Roxburghshire accent, "I feel grateful
for your kindness, sir; yours is the first friendly voice I have heard
since I left home, and the accents of sympathy fall as soft upon the
wounded spirit as the snow-flakes on the warm ground, melting as they
fall."

We were now close to my gate, and I invited the lad to enter and refresh
himself. This offer he accepted with the warmest thanks; and when seated
by the comfortable fire in the kitchen, from which I dismissed for a
short time my only servant, he told me the simple tale of his sorrows. I
am not enough of a Scotchman to attempt to do justice to his national
dialect; so much the better, perhaps, for my English readers; but I fear
that what I gain in fluency I shall lose in expression. His name, he
said, was Dalzell; he was the son of a respectable and thriving merchant
in Kelso, who had given him, in his early years, the best education the
place afforded, with the view of preparing him, at a future day, for the
ministry; but before he was fifteen years old, his father, who was
commonly reputed wealthy, died insolvent, and his mother and he were
left in a state of utter destitution. Grief for the loss of her husband,
combined with anxiety of mind, occasioned by the unexpected change in
her circumstances, shortened the days of his beloved mother, and he was
left in the world alone. A neighbouring farmer, pitying his distress,
took him into his service, and treated him with the greatest kindness
and consideration. In this place he had remained nearly four years, and
had every reason to think that his master looked upon him more in the
light of a friend than a servant. He had done his duty faithfully and
conscientiously, because it _was_ his duty; but he was not happy; his
thoughts were constantly reverting to former days, and to his blighted
prospects, and he began to feel thoroughly discontented and disgusted
with his menial situation, when, all at once, a powerful and absorbing
feeling, like Aaron's serpent, swallowed all the rest. He loved! In the
moments when his impatient spirit most winced beneath the yoke of
servitude, light as it was, one glance at the bright blue eye and
winning smile of Grace Douglas was sufficient to chase the cloud from
his brow, and to cheer his heart with the thought that he had still
something worth living for. She was his master's only daughter, just
seventeen, and as bright and beautiful a creature as ever the eye of a
lover rested upon. Even her beauty, however, would have failed in making
any impression on the senses of the gloomy and discontented youth, had
not the better feelings of his heart been excited by her tender
sympathy. She knew his story; and, by her silent and unobtrusive
attentions, showed her pity for his misfortunes. Her tones of kindness
invested her, in his opinion, with a charm beyond mere beauty; his proud
heart was melted, and his long-pent-up affections were lavished upon
this new object with a violence that alarmed himself. It was not long
before he was awakened to the consciousness that his love was returned;
but that consciousness, blissful as it seemed at first, only gave
additional bitterness to his reflections, when he thought of the
difference in their respective situations. Poor, friendless, and
dependent, a labourer working for his daily bread, how could he hope to
gain the wealthy farmer's consent to a union with his daughter? and
without _that_ consent, she had said that, much as she loved him, she
never would be his. Prompt and impetuous, his resolution was soon
adopted; he could not bear suspense, and was determined to put an end
to it at once. He told his master all; told him that he could not bear
to deceive him; that he loved his daughter, but that he was well aware
it would be madness and presumption in him, situated as he was at
present, to hope for his approval of his passion; that he could not live
in the presence of the object of his hopeless affection; but that he
meant to depart, and to endeavour, by his own exertions in some other
sphere of life, to remove what he hoped was the only bar to his
wishes--his poverty; his birth and education, he said, were equal to her
own, and he trusted that his master had never had occasion to think
otherwise than well of his private character. The good farmer was much
surprised and affected by this disclosure, and, in reply, spoke in the
warmest terms of commendation of his young friend; but said that, as a
prudent father, he could not think of giving his consent to a union
which the want of means might render an unhappy one to both parties; and
that, much as he esteemed him, and grieved as he would be to part with
him, he perfectly agreed as to the propriety and necessity of his
departure. Next day, followed by the tears and good wishes of all the
inmates of the farm, he left the house, a sorrowful but a sanguine
wanderer. He had met his mistress before his departure; their parting
was sad and tender. He vowed unwavering constancy and attachment, but
would not accept an offered pledge of the same kind from her, leaving
her free, he said, to think of or forget him. He told her he felt he was
meant for better things; that brighter days would come; and that then he
would return to prove that he was worthy of her. His intention, he said,
was to go to sea; he had always a secret liking for it; and in the war
which was now raging, he had no doubt that opportunities of
distinguishing himself would present themselves. He was determined to do
his duty steadily and perseveringly; her image would be ever present
with him, to cheer him in the hour of danger, and to nerve him to
exertion. With such a prize in view, he said, he felt confident in his
own resolution, and was sanguine in his hope that fortune would
eventually smile upon him.

Such was the simple and affecting tale of the wayfarer. I was as much
pleased with the modest, yet firm and determined manner in which he
expressed himself, as with the narrative itself. I did not attempt to
dissuade him from his purpose, but, on the contrary, urged him to
persevere. I told him of the many gallant commanders who had
distinguished themselves in the naval annals of their country, and who
had risen to rank and fame from as humble a condition as his own. It was
with the greatest difficulty I persuaded him to accept of pecuniary
assistance to help him on his journey, and then only on the score of its
being a loan, which, if he lived, he could at some future time repay.

"I shall never forget your kindness to a friendless stranger, sir," said
he, as he grasped my hand at parting. "To have met with such an
unexpected friendship at my first outset, I may well consider a
favourable omen; and I trust that the recollection of it will act as an
additional incentive to prove myself worthy of it."

Years passed on, and I heard nothing further of my interesting
acquaintance. In the meantime, I had become a husband and father; and my
wife, to whom I had related the story of the young adventurer, felt
equally interested with myself in his welfare, and we used often to
speculate as to his probable fate. Ten years after the rencounter with
which my story commences, I was sitting reading to my wife in the
drawing-room, after breakfast, when we were startled by a knock at the
front-door, followed by the servant's announcement that a gentleman
wished to speak to me. I desired that he might be shown up-stairs, and
hastened to meet him, thinking it was one of my neighbours, from whom I
expected a visit. But what was my surprise when a tall, handsome man,
with dark, sunburnt features, and whose person was quite strange to me,
grasped my hand, and shook it most cordially, at the same time smiling
as he watched the doubting scrutiny of my gaze, as a faint recollection
of his features crossed my mind.

"I see you are puzzled, my dear sir," said he; "you do not remember me."

"I have a confused idea of having seen features like yours before," said
I; "but where or when I cannot at this moment recall to my
recollection."

"I do not wonder at your not remembering _me_," replied he, "but your
disinterested kindness made an impression on a grateful heart, which
neither time nor change have weakened. I am, or rather was, the boy
Dalzell--the poor, friendless, desolate wanderer, whom you cheered with
your benevolence, and animated by your advice. Do you remember me now?"

"I do--I do," said I, returning his warm grasp; "and most happy am I to
see you again, and to see you thus; for I perceive that your sanguine
hopes have not been disappointed, and that you have risen from your
humble station to one more worthy of you."

"Fortune has indeed favoured me beyond my deserts," answered he. "I told
you that my having met so kind a friend at my outset was a fortunate
omen; it proved so. I entered the service as a boy before the mast; I am
now a lieutenant in His Majesty's navy."

"I congratulate you with all my heart; but your modesty must not
attribute your success to good fortune alone, there must have been merit
likewise to deserve it. But I forget; I have a new acquaintance to
introduce to you--my wife; a new acquaintance, but an old friend, I can
assure you; for she has long been acquainted with, and felt interested
in, your story."

My wife cordially welcomed him, and expressed her gratification at his
return home in health and happiness.

"Alas, madam!" said he, "happiness, I fear, is as far from me as ever. I
told my kind friend there, that I felt confident fortune would smile
upon me: I was then a sanguine boy. Fortune _has_ smiled upon me; I have
risen from the humble station in which I commenced my career; I have
gained for myself rank and competency; and I am now a disappointed
man--the hope that cheered me on in my career is blighted. I returned to
the home in which I had left all that was most dear to me in life: I
found it deserted; my old master was dead--died in poverty; and
Grace--my Grace, was gone, no one knew whither."

We were both too much shocked at first by this announcement to be able
to express our sympathy; but, on reflection, I expressed my conviction
that there was no cause for serious alarm; that, while there was life,
there was hope; and that no doubt he would, ere long, succeed in gaining
some intelligence which would lead to the discovery of the orphan's
retreat. I told him I would write to some friends in the neighbourhood
of Kelso, who would, I was sure, be happy to exert themselves in making
the necessary inquiries; and that I was able and willing to accompany
him as soon as he thought proper, to assist him in his search. He was
much gratified by the offer of my services, which he seemed inclined to
avail himself of immediately.

"No, no, my friend," said I; "we have too lately found you, to part with
you so easily. You must stay with us a few days at least, until I
receive answers from Kelso, and afterwards, when we have succeeded in
the object of our search, make this house your home till you have one of
your own."

At first he seemed rather impatient at the delay; but gradually became
more tranquillised and cheerful. He gratefully accepted my offer of
extended hospitality, and pleased us by the frankness with which he
seemed immediately to take us at our word, and to feel himself at home.
We were both delighted with him; his manners were as pleasing as his
conversation was entertaining. On my requesting him to favour us with an
account of his adventures since we parted, he replied, "No one has a
better claim than yourself, my dear sir, to be informed of the progress
of an adventure of which you witnessed and cheered the commencement; but
I feel an unwillingness to commence a story, the hero of which is the
narrator, who, to do justice to it, must speak more of himself than is
either seemly or agreeable."

"Oh," said I, "do not allow your modesty to stand in the way of our
enjoyment. Speak fully and freely, in the consciousness that you are
talking to friends, who will be pleased with the narration of the most
trifling incidents connected with one in whose fate they have always
felt the warmest interest."

He bowed, and without further preface commenced as follows:--"After I
left you, I made the best of my way to London, and from thence to
Portsmouth, where I volunteered on board the Dareall frigate, fitting
out for the Cape station. I was asked if I wanted to ship as an able or
ordinary seaman, and replied that I had never been at sea, but that I
was active and willing. The lieutenant seemed pleased with my appearance
and with my answer. 'You're just the lad for us, then,' said he; 'if
you're active and willing, we'll soon make you _able_. I like the cut of
your jib, my lad; and, if you perform as well as you promise, I've no
doubt you'll make a smart fellow yet. Here, Telford,' said he to a
boatswain's mate standing near, 'I give this youngster into your charge;
make a man of him.'

"'Ay, ay, sir. Come along, young blowhard,' said he, 'as the first
leaftennan has trusted your edicashun to me, we must saw wood at once,
and see what we can make of that block of yourn. Can you handle a
marlinspike?'

"'No.'

"'Can you reef or steer, or heave the lead?'

"'No.'

"'Then what the devil _can_ you do?'

"'I can read and write, and keep accounts.'

"'Oh, ho!--a reg'lar long-shore gemman!--the makings of a sea-lawyer!
And so you can't do nothin' but read and write?'

"'Yes, there's one thing I can do, and am determined to do--to learn
everything you will take the trouble to teach me. _You_ knew nothing
before you were taught--how can you expect _me_ to do so?'

"'Well, there's reason in that, anyhow,' said he; 'and if so be you pays
attention, why, there's no saying but we may see _you_ a bosun's mate
some o' these days. But I say, young un, make your number. The poor
gulpin doesn't understand me'--(this was said half aside). 'What's your
name?'

"'Dalzell.'

"'Dalzell! Dalzell!' said he; 'blow'd if that isn't a Kelso name! Where
d'ye hail from, eh?--where d'ye come from?'

"'Scotland.'

"'Ay, that's as plain as the nose on your face, whenever you open your
mouth. Now, nobody would never go for to doubt me to be an Englishman by
my lingo. But I'll tell you a bit of a secret--I'm a Scotchman born and
bred.'

"'Well, I can tell you a secret too, if you'll promise not to tell it.'

"'Speak on, youngster. I'll never blab till you give me leave. I'm as
silent as the ship's bell, as never speaks till it's tolled.'

"'Well, then, _Telford's_ a Kelso name, as well as Dalzell. Many a
penny-bap have I bought, when I was at school, at old Jamie Telford's;
and, if I'm not mistaken, I'm speaking to his son.'

"'Did you know the old boy? Bless his old heart! Well, you're right for
once in your life, my boy; but how the devil did you find me out?'

"'I've often heard the old man talk of his son Tom, the boatswain's
mate; and your name and your talking of Kelso together made me fancy you
must be the man.'

"'Well, that beats cock-fighting! Give us your hand, my hearty! I'll
stick to you through thick and thin, for the sake of the old town and
them as lives in it, and if I don't, call me a liar, that's all, and see
what I'll give you. But who are _your_ people? I suppose that's part o'
the secret you were going to tell me?'

"'It was; and you will keep it?'

"'In coorse; didn't I tell you so afore?'

"I then told him my story, which he heard with great attention, and
which evidently increased his respect for me. 'I have often heard tell
of your father,' said he, 'and for his sake I'll do all I can for his
son. I liked the looks of you before--I like you ten times better now;
it shan't be my fault if you don't larn your duty. I'll live to see you
an _admiral_ yet--who knows? You're right, however, to keep your story
secret, for some o' these devil's limbs would be jeering about your
being a gemman in a cog, as they calls it, come to sea to wear out his
old toggery.'

"The good-hearted fellow kept his promise. Never had scholar a more
zealous and indefatigable teacher, and never had teacher a pupil more
anxious to avail himself of his advantages. We were detained for nearly
three weeks, and I made the most of my opportunities. During the day, my
friend Telford employed all his leisure time in initiating me into the
mysteries of knotting and splicing, and in teaching me the names and
uses of the various ropes; and at night, when there were none to laugh
at my awkward exhibitions, he encouraged me to go aloft, and to learn
to make active use of my hands and feet. When we went on shore on
liberty, he used to hire a boat, and teach me how to handle the oar: in
fact, my kind instructor neglected no means of teaching me how to make
myself useful. My whole heart and soul were in the matter, and my
progress was proportionably rapid; and I was cheered on to redoubled
exertion by the kind encouragement of the first lieutenant, who
complimented Telford highly on his success. Before the ship sailed, I
was on a par, as to qualifications, with many who, without a similar
stimulus to exertion, had been some time at sea. I could hand, reef,
and--no, I couldn't steer--but I knew all the marks on the lead-line,
and had often taken a sly cast. I was constantly on the watch for
instruction, always on the alert to start forward when any particular
duty was required, and, by evincing a habitual desire to do my duty
actively and well, I soon gained ground in the opinion of my superiors.
The caterer of the midshipman's mess had been disappointed in his
servant, and wished to promote me to that _high_ honour. I thanked him
heartily for his kind intentions, but declined his offer; as I wished, I
said, to learn my duty as _seaman_. This coming to the ears of the first
lieutenant, increased his good-will towards me. 'We shall make something
of that young man yet,' said he. A circumstance occurred a few days
before we sailed, fortunate in its results as far as concerned me, but
which might have terminated fatally. The captain's son, one of our
midshipmen, a fine boy of thirteen, had been forward on the forecastle
with some orders, and, in returning aft again, stopped to look over the
gangway. How the accident happened I know not, but he lost his balance,
and toppled over into the water. The men were below at supper at the
time, but I happened to have just come on deck, and had passed him to go
forward, when I heard the plunge, and, turning round, missed him from
the deck. I instantly surmised what had happened, and, raising the cry
of 'A man overboard!' I dashed over after him. There was a strong tide
running, and objects were indistinct in the dusk of the evening, but I
fortunately caught sight of him, and reached him just in time, for he
was sinking. By dint of great exertion, I contrived to support him while
I edged down to a buoy, some distance astern, to which we clung till
taken off by a boat from the frigate. The captain, who was on board at
the time, thanked and praised me before the whole ship's company for my
gallantry, as he was pleased to call it, in saving the life of his son;
and the boy, after whispering to his father, came up to me, and
presenting me with his watch, begged that I would accept it as a mark of
his gratitude. I have it still. From that day, both father and son
behaved with the most marked kindness to me, and took every opportunity
of showing their good-will. For some weeks after we sailed for the Cape:
nothing particular occurred beyond the regular routine of duty; but, at
the end of that time, the captain wanted some one to assist his
secretary, and the word was passed round the decks by the
master-at-arms, for those who were good writers among the crew, to send
in specimens of their penmanship. I was one of the candidates. Our
specimens were sent to the captain, and all the writers were ordered
aft.

"'Who is the writer of this specimen?' said the captain, pointing to
mine.

"'I am, sir.'

"'And is the motto your own?' (It was, 'When a man's foot is on the first
step of the ladder, he should never rest till he reach the top.')

"'Yes, sir.'

"'Indeed!--you seem to try to act on that principle. Go on as well as you
have begun, and there is no telling where you may stop. In the meantime,
you may act as assistant to my secretary.' He then called the first
lieutenant, Mr Barlow, and walked up and down the deck with him some
time; after which Mr Barlow beckoned to me to come to him:--'Dalzell,'
said he, 'Captain Edwards and myself have both had reason to be
satisfied with you since you joined the ship, and, as you have proved
yourself to be qualified to assist his clerk, we wish to keep you
separate from the ship's company, and to allow you to mess with the
midshipmen, if they have no objection.'

"I felt a flushing of the cheek and a fluttering of the heart. I felt
that _the first step of the ladder_ was under my foot.

"'I hope they can make no objection to me on account of character, sir;
and my birth and education place me nearly on an equality with them.'

"'Ah! how came you to be here then? You took to bad courses, I suppose,
and so your friends sent you to sea, to reclaim you: was that it?'

"'No, sir. Misfortune and necessity brought me here, united with the
love of the profession of a sailor. It is a duty, however, which I owe
to you as well as myself, on the present occasion, to appear in my true
colours; and to tell you a tale which I would otherwise have kept
secret, and which is only known to myself and my kind friend and
townsman, Telford, the boatswain's mate.' I then proceeded to relate to
him what I have already told you. Both the captain and Mr Barlow
appeared to be much interested in my narrative, and were pleased to
compliment me upon my independence of spirit, and the clear and distinct
manner in which I expressed myself. 'After this,' said Captain Edwards,
'there can be no bar to your messing with the young gentlemen, as I
suppose you have no objection to their hearing your story?'

"'None whatever, sir.'

"'Begging your pardon, Captain Frederick,' said Mr Barlow; 'I know a
midshipman's berth too well, and he may tell of his birth and his
misfortunes; but let him know the love, sir, and you'll never hear the
end of it.'

"'I daresay you're quite right, Mr Barlow. Dalzell, I have no doubt you
will be discreet in your communications, for your own sake.'

"That same day I was admitted into the midshipmen's mess, and was
treated by them with the greatest kindness and consideration. My life
was now a comparatively easy one, as I had hardly any duty to perform,
except that of writing; but I determined in my own mind, if possible, to
prove myself as quick as a clerk as I had endeavoured to do as a sailor.
I was fortunate enough, in my new capacity, not only to please my
immediate superior, but to add to the captain's good opinion of me. One
stormy night, as we were nearing the Cape, I was letting go some rope on
the poop, the hands having been called out to reef topsails, when
something fell heavily upon the deck almost close to my feet. The night
was so dark that I could not distinguish what it was; but I thought that
a coil of rope, or something of that kind, had been thrown out of the
top by the motion of the ship, and I began to feel about, to discover
what it might be. My hand touched something soft and warm, and at the
same time I heard a faint groan. I immediately gave the alarm, and a
quartermaster brought up a lantern, by the light of which we discovered
the lifeless body of young Hawkins, one of our midshipmen. He had been
up furling the mizzen-royal, had lost his footing, and been precipitated
to the deck. Poor fellow! he never spoke again--that groan had been his
last. A few days after his death, the captain called the hands out, and
told me, before them all, that he had entered me on the ship's books as
midshipman, as a reward for my good behaviour; and he had no doubt that
the same high sense of duty which had been the means of raising me to
the quarterdeck would incite me to do credit to the appointment. He
then told the ship's company to obey my orders for the future as their
officer, and then dismissed them. I was immediately surrounded by the
midshipmen, all of whom cordially congratulated me upon my appointment,
and resolved to have a jollification on the occasion. I was much amused
with my old friend Telford, who took the earliest opportunity of
touching his hat to me, and calling me Mr Dalzell.

"'Why, Telford, what makes you so distant?' said I, offering my hand at
the same time.

"'No, sir, thank ye,' said he; 'I knows my place better nor that. If so
be you likes to give us your flipper down in your cabin, well and good;
but not here, sir--not afore the people--'twould look too free-and-easy
like. I'm plain Tom Telford still; but you've got a handle to your name
now, Mr Dalzell.'

"My messmates laughed heartily, and Tom was desired to come down to the
berth, where he shook me heartily by the hand, and wished me all manner
of success, and then tossed off a tumbler of strong grog in the most
approved fashion: nose invisible--eyes raised heavenward--out-stretched
little finger--gurgling noise in the throat, ending with a suffocating
gasp of enjoyment, and a sweeping over his mouth with the cuff of his
jacket.

"I pass over a number of trifling incidents in my naval career, and
shall proceed at once to the sad catastrophe by which I was deprived of
my kind friend and benefactor, the captain, and of most of those with
whom I had passed so many happy days. We were lying at anchor in Table
Bay, one fine afternoon in November, the 4th of the month. The weather
was perfectly calm, but there was a heavy swell, and clouds had been for
some time gathering to the northward, and many of our weather-Solomons
predicted a storm. In the midshipmen's berth, however, there were no
croakers. It was the eve of the 'Gunpowder Plot,' and many a tale was
told of boyish pranks, and of the bonfires and fireworks of schoolboy
days. There was no care for the future, no anticipation of evil; all was
life, and thoughtlessness, and mirth. Alas! alas! how little did we
think what one day might bring forth! At daylight of the 5th, it was
blowing a heavy gale from the northward, a quarter from which there is
no shelter in Table Bay. The sea came tumbling in in long and heavy
surges, and the ship plunged deeply and violently. The hands were called
out at ten o'clock--'Down yards and masts!' The fore and main yards were
lowered, and the topmasts were struck, and the ship, relieved by the
removal of so much top weight, rode more easily. At noon, so little
apprehension was felt for the effects of the storm, that a salute was
fired in commemoration of the day. The gale gradually increased in
violence; and at half-past twelve, after a heavy pitch, the cry was
heard, 'The small bower has parted!'--'Let go the sheet!' was the order
in reply, followed by the heavy plunge of the anchor. Such a mountainous
sea was running at this time, that every soul on board seemed to
anticipate the fatal result that followed. The ship was pitching bows
under, shipping green seas over all--the sky was murky black--vivid
flashes of lightning burst from it almost incessantly--and the loud
rattling of the thunder, every now and then, was heard far above the
howling of the gale and the roaring of the sea. Every eye was fixed in
eager anxiety on the cables, which every now and then were buried in the
sea, and then, as the ship rose to the swell, were seen far ahead of
her, high above the surface of the water, stiff and rigid as bars of
iron.

"I know not how it happened, but, amid all the uproar around me,
surrounded by faces which spoke but too plainly fears for the result,
and conscious that our danger was imminent, I felt a kind of unnatural
buoyancy of spirits, a secret conviction that, whatever might happen, I
should escape unhurt. Telford stared at me, and muttered, 'The lad's
fey, as they used to say in the North.' At two o'clock, the best bower
cable parted, and the spare anchor was let go, but the cable went almost
immediately. Our danger was now most imminent; our sole dependence was
on our sheet cable; and it was evident to all on board that _that_ could
not long resist the heavy strain. Our ensign was now hoisted, union
downward, that well-known signal of extreme distress; and the mournful
booming of our guns seemed to our excited imaginations to be the knell
of our passing minutes. At seven o'clock, a cry was heard, which, like
an electric shock, was passed from one end of the ship to the other in a
moment, stunning the most daring spirits with its dreaded import. The
sheet cable had parted, and the ship was at the mercy of the wind and
sea. An order was now given for every man to provide for his own safety,
and a scene of the greatest confusion ensued. For about ten minutes, the
ship continued to drive before the wind, and then struck, with a
dreadful crash, upon a reef of rocks, broadside to the shore. The main
and mizzen masts were immediately cut away, and the foremast soon after
went by the board. To add to our horrors, the gun-room was discovered to
be on fire, and in a short time the smoke came eddying up from the
different hatchways in such volumes as to prevent any communication with
the lower deck. Feeble would have been the efforts of man in opposing
the devouring flame; but here, element was fighting against element, and
the sea claimed the mastery; the vast bodies of water which were
constantly dashing over the ship effected, in about ten minutes, what no
human exertion could have performed, and we were saved from a fiery, to
anticipate a watery death. The scene on board the wreck was now awful in
the extreme; every sea that broke over her swept away new victims; and
those who were left clinging to life with the energy of despair,
shuddered, as they missed their companions, in the anticipation of
their own approaching doom. Several of the crew, maddened by the horror
of a slow and lingering death, plunged desperately into the jaws of
their watery tomb, to put an end at once to their suspense; and others,
in a vain attempt to reach the shore, were carried out to sea by the
eddy, and perished miserably, crying in vain for help from their
helpless shipmates. About half-past nine, the poop was washed away, and
forming a large raft, afforded a flattering prospect of deliverance.
Seventy or eighty of the crew jumped overboard, and, by great exertion,
contrived to reach it. We who remained on board watched their motions
with intense anxiety, and, for the moment, forgot our own danger in the
contemplation of theirs. An involuntary shout burst from us, when we saw
them reaching the raft in safety, and borne onwards towards the shore;
but, alas! a heavy sea struck the floating wreck when only a short
distance from the beach, and, turning it over and over, engulfed all its
wretched occupants.

"'Poor fellows!' said Telford, who was clinging to the ring-bolts by my
side, 'their cruise is up! They've reached their anchorage, and we may
get our ground-tackle ready as soon as we like!'

"'Oh no!' replied I; 'while there's life there's hope, Telford. Keep up
your heart, man--we shall weather this bout yet.'

"'Heaven in its mercy grant that _you_ may, Mr Dalzell! but there is a
weight on _my_ heart, a dark feeling that my hour has come. I shall
never see the bonny banks of Tweed again--never, never! If you should
live, sir, to get back to Kelso, tell my good old father----'

"'Hold on for your life!' shouted I, as a giant sea came rushing and
roaring towards the wreck.

"It burst over us; and when, gasping and half-suffocated, I was able to
open my eyes, I looked round--my poor companion was gone. A dark body
was visible, for a moment, on the surface of the sea, some forty yards
distant, and that was the last I saw of my kind friend Telford. Soon
after this, the wreck gave a heavy lurch towards the shore, and then, as
the sea receded, rolled back again, and separated into three parts. I
caught hold of some part of the floating wreck, and, after being
repeatedly washed off, and recovering my station, I contrived to lash
myself securely to it, and then exhausted nature found relief in
insensibility. When I recovered, I found myself lying on the beach,
surrounded by the bodies of my unfortunate shipmates, and, raising
myself on my knees, I breathed a silent thanksgiving to Heaven for my
almost miraculous escape. Hearing a faint groan near me, I groped my way
towards the spot whence the sound proceeded--the night was very dark,
but a flash of lightning revealed to me the object of my search. It was
the body of a seaman stretched upon his back--the right arm extended on
the sand, and the left covering the face. At first I thought it was a
corpse that lay before me, so stiff, so cold, so motionless did it seem
to be; but, on putting my hand on the breast, I felt the pulsation of
the heart, and in a few moments low stifled moanings were heard, like
those of a person labouring under the influence of nightmare. I spoke to
the sleeper, but without receiving any answer; but, the muttering still
continuing, I shook him gently.

"'Holloa!' shouted he, as he started to his feet.

"What was my surprise and delight, when I recognised the voice of
Telford, whom I thought I had seen swallowed up by the waves.

"'Telford!' said I, 'is that you?'

"'Why, who else should it be?' replied he; 'eh, old boy, who else should
it be?'

"To my great surprise, I now perceived that my poor shipmate was
half-seas-over, as we call it.

"'Telford.' said I, 'do you not know me?'

"'Oh, Mr Dalzell! I ax your pardon; I didn't know it was you, seeing
that all cats are grey alike in the dark. I've had a reglar snooze; but
I hope I may never snooze again, if I'm to have such another dream.'

"'What have you been dreaming about?'

"'Why, sir, I dreamed I was a-drowning, and that I was going down, down,
down, when I heard your voice calling out, 'Come, Telford, I'm not an
admiral yet;' and with that you took me by the cuff of the neck, and
then I opened my eyes, and you had a hold o' me, sure enough. But
d--n--ax your pardon, sir,' said he, fumbling about; 'but it's enough to
make a parson swear.'

"'Why, what's the matter?'

"'Why, sir, I've lost my call;[15] no wonder my pipe's put out.'

[Footnote 15: Silver whistle, used by the boatswain and his mates.]

"'Is that all? You may thank Heaven you did not lose your life. You had
little hope of saving it when we last parted.'

"'Indeed! why, then, it can't have been a dream, after all. Blowed if I
don't think I'm a little crazy in my upper works; my head is all in a
whirl, and there's fifty thousand sparks dancing before my eyes. I say,
Mr Dalzell, what was that you said about losing life, and all that
gammon? Ax your pardon, sir--hopes no offence,' continued he, laying his
hand with drunken familiarity upon my shoulder. 'Holloa! why, you're as
wet as a half-wrung swab, and I'm not much better myself! What's the
meaning of that?'

"'Why, the meaning of it is, that we have both had a most providential
escape from drowning. You must be crazy, indeed, if you have already
forgot the sad events of the last few hours. When you were swept off the
wreck of the poor old Dareall, I little expected to see you again. I
could almost have sworn that I saw you go down.'

"'The wreck!--ay, I remember it all now! Providential escape, _indeed_.
Only think of a man, as my old father used to say, putting an enemy
into his mouth to steal away his brains! I had clean forgotten all about
it. Howsoever, I'll take my 'davy I was so full of water, that, afore I
knowed what I was about, I took rum enough in to make me a
_tumbler_--ha, ha!'

"'You seem to treat the matter very lightly, Telford; I see nothing
laughable in it.'

"'Why, Lord love your honour, when the grog's in, the wit's out, you
know, as the old song says.'

"'But where did you get the grog? You were sober enough, and sad enough,
goodness knows, when we parted; and how did you escape?'

"'Why, your honour, I rode ashore on the back of a breaker,[16] and, as
soon as I landed, I knocked my horse on the head, and found a drop of
capital rum inside, and, as I was devilish cold and wet, I made a little
too free with it mayhap.'

[Footnote 16: Breaker--a small cask.]

"'Well, well, it's fortunate it's no worse. Can you walk, do you think?
We had better make the best of our way to the town.'

"'Walk!--to be sure I can, your honour, though perhaps I may steer a
little wild or so; but, if you'll heave ahead, I'll follow in your wake,
and then you won't be so apt to notice me if I give a yaw now and then.'

"We soon fell in with a party of light dragoons, by whom we were most
kindly welcomed, and who assisted us in making our way to Cape Town. We
afterwards heard that these gallant fellows had greatly distinguished
themselves during that awful night by their humane daring; forcing their
horses into the surf, to rescue the struggling survivors of the crew,
many of whom would have perished but for their timely aid. In the town,
we met with several of our unfortunate shipmates, to whom and to
ourselves the inhabitants behaved with the greatest kindness and
attention. At daylight next morning, a mournful sight presented itself;
and we then ascertained the full extent of our sad loss. The whole line
of beach was thickly strewed with dead bodies, and fragments of the
wreck. There were only four officers and about fifty men saved--three of
the lieutenants, the purser, surgeon, and two midshipmen, were
fortunately on shore at the time of the accident; all the rest of the
officers, and about three hundred and fifty seamen, perished. Three
waggon-loads of corpses were taken to a place near the hospital, and
interred; and about one hundred bodies, dreadfully mangled, were buried
in one large pit on the beach, near where they were found. The body of
my kind friend, the captain, was never recovered, but those of the other
officers were interred, the Sunday following, with military honours. So
ended my unfortunate outset in the Dareall. The survivors of her crew
were drafted into other ships, and the officers were sent home by the
first opportunity. I afterwards joined the Sunbeam frigate, and in due
course of time got my promotion in her. As soon as she was paid off, I
hastened to Kelso, fondly hoping there to find the prize, the hopes of
obtaining which had for years cheered me onwards. You know how I have
been disappointed. And now, my kind friends, the story of my adventures
is ended."

"Oh," said I, "you have told us the _story_, but not the _whole_ story;
you have still an account to give of your cruise in the Sunbeam; do not
flatter yourself you are going to escape so easily."

"You must excuse me, my dear sir; I am not accustomed to act as my own
trumpeter; when Telford comes, he may take the office upon himself."

"What became of that poor fellow? He must be a rough diamond."

"Rough enough; but as good-hearted a fellow, and as fine a specimen of
his class, as ever lived. I wonder he has not been here before this
time, for I told him I meant to come here; and he said he would give you
'a hail' as he went past, to let you know I was coming. I suppose he has
'hove to,' as he would call it, by the way."

"But how does he know the place?"

"Oh, he knew the neighbourhood from my description of it immediately;
and, said he, 'if I make his number when I get there, some one will tell
me where he hangs out.'"

"Well, I shall be glad to see him whenever he comes. Anna, my love,"
said I to my wife, "Mr Dalzell will be ready, I daresay, to do justice
to your luncheon whenever it makes its appearance."

We were comfortably seated at the table, discussing our strawberries and
cream, when the sound of a loud shrill whistle thrilled through our
ears, followed by a rough hoarse voice, bellowing words which my wife
and I could not understand. We both started from our seats, and ran to
the window, which was open to admit the cool air, though the blind was
down to exclude the sun. Dalzell sat still, and burst out laughing. On
drawing up the blind, we saw a stout, dark-looking man, with an open and
cheerful countenance, dressed like a sailor. His little shining
tarpaulin hat was _flapped_ down upon the back of his head, and his long
black hair hung in curls about his forehead and ears. His left arm was
"absent without leave" from his empty sleeve, and in his right hand he
held the little silver pipe which had caused all the commotion.

"Ax your pardon, sir," said he, touching his hat, when he saw me; "I
made bold to call the hands out to muster, to see if one Leaftennan
Dalzell would answer to his name. Hopes no offence, sir."

"Ah, Telford, my fine fellow, how are you?" said Dalzell, peeping over
our shoulders.

"God bless your honour!" said he, respectfully raising his hat; "I'm as
pleased to hear the sound of your voice as if it were the pipe to grog."


"That's saying a great deal, Tom. Why, you sway about _now_ as if you
were a little top-heavy."

"Oh no, your honour; I've only been freshening the nip[17] once or
twice, and my bread-basket's a little empty."

[Footnote 17: Sailor's term for taking a dram.]

"Well, come in, Tom," said I, "and we'll try to fill it for you."

Tom was soon established in a comfortable berth in the kitchen, and did
ample justice to the good cheer which was placed in abundance before
him. As soon as he had good time to shake his cargo into its place, he
was summoned into the parlour. At first he demurred a little to change
his quarters, saying that he was more in his own place in the galley[18]
than in the cabin; but his reluctance was overcome when he saw spirits
and water precede him. When he came in, he stood in the doorway, making
sundry bobbing attempts at a bow, twirling his hat round and round, and
looking as bashful as a young maiden.

[Footnote 18: Kitchen.]

"Come in, Tom," said I. "Sit down, and tell us all your adventures."

Tom, however, was too polite a man, in his own way, to sit down in the
presence of his officer, till the lieutenant said--

"Come, come, Tom, bring yourself to an anchor at once."

Thus authorised, he plumped into a chair, and, putting his hat under it,
carefully deposited there a large quid of tobacco, which he dislodged
from its snug quarters in his left cheek.

"Now, Tom, carry on," said Mr Dalzell.

"Why, your honour," said Tom, slyly glancing at the table, "I'm in no
spirits for spinning a yarn just now."

I laughed, and filled a tumbler with whisky and water, to which Tom paid
his respects with evident satisfaction.

"Mr Dalzell has told us," said I, "of your escape from the wreck of the
Dareall--and a wonderful one it was."

"You _may_ say that," replied he; "I never had such a narrow squeak in
my life."

"But tell us something about yourself, and Mr Dalzell. I suppose you
have been in action together?"

"Action!--Lord love ye, sir, we were hardly ever out of it! If I were to
tell you all, I'd have nothing else to do for the next week. I always
said I'd live to see him an admiral, and I say so still; and if ever man
deserved a flag, there sits the man, for a braver officer and a better
seaman never trod a plank, though I says it as shouldn't say it, seeing
as how I first taught him to reef and steer."

"Come, come, Tom," interrupted Dalzell, "if you are going to spin such a
yarn as that, the sooner you cut it the better."

"Ax your honour's pardon, but I must speak. Didn't you save my life in
that 'ere action with the Flower-de-louce? Haven't you been the best
friend to me I ever had? Haven't you often saved me from the gangway
when I've dipped my whiskers too deep into the grog-kid? And can I sit
quiet with such a glass as this before me?" emptying the tumbler as he
spoke.

"Well, that's enough, Tom. If you're so fond of your grog, you had
better get on with your story as fast as you can, for not a drop more
shall you taste till you have finished."

"But, bless your heart, sir, how am I to begin? I'm like a marine adrift
on a grating, or an ass in a hay-field. I've got lots o' yarns to tell,
but I don't know which way to turn myself among them."

"Well," said Dalzell, "I'll go and take a walk, and leave you to your
own devices;" and he left the room.

"Now, your honour," said Tom, addressing me, "I'll tell you a famous
trick our captain sarved the Johnny Croppoes.[19] He was a dashing fellow
that, and never stuck at nuffen: a reglar fire-eater--'ud face the devil
himself. We was a-cruising off the coast of France, when the look-out
hails the deck--'A strange sail ahead!' Well, there was crack on
everything, below and aloft--clear ship for action--beat to quarters,
and all that; and we were soon near enough to see a snug,
business-looking craft, brig-rigged, standing to the westward under easy
sail. So we fired a gun to leeward, and hoisted English colours, and she
did the same, and hauled her wind to join us. When she came within hail,
we found she was an English privateer, and the captain of her said he
had something of consequence to tell our commander, and he was ordered
to come on board. Well, the news soon spread over the ship, that the
privateer had seen two French merchantmen at anchor under the guns of a
small battery; that he was not strong enough to cut them out himself,
and that he had hailed a king's ship the day before to tell her so, but
he was not believed.

[Footnote 19: Nautical for "Crapaud"--nickname for the French.]

"'Well,' says our captain, says he, 'I'll have a slap at them at all
events.'

"'I'll lead the way, sir, if you'll allow me.'

"'But'--and here they went into the cabin with the first luff; and,
after staying there for some time, out they comes, and the captain of
the privateer jumps into his boat, and shoves off.

"'You understand?' shouted the skipper to him.

"'Perfectly, sir.'

"Our captain looked as pleased as Punch, and we all saw there was
something in the wind. The privateer stood to the French coast under
easy sail, and we followed in her wake. Word was passed for volunteers
for a cutting-out job, and there wasn't a man o' the ship's company as
didn't come forward; but they couldn't all go--that was sartain; and
there was many a long face amongst those that were not chosen; but the
others, you'd a-thought they were going to a _hop_ at the point, they
were so pleased at the thoughts o' the fun. Well, when we'd got well in
sight o' the land, the privateer made all sail, and shaped a course
along the coast, and we cracked on in chase; but then we put a drag over
the bows to keep us astarn, and though we made a great show, we didn't
gain upon her. We all wondered at this strange move, but we wondered
still more when we saw French colours flying from our peak, and heard
the orders given to fire the bow-chasers, but to aim wide o' the mark.
We saw the shot drop into the water, first on the one quarter, then on
the other, of the privateer; but devil a one struck her; and she, with
her English colours flying, kept peppering away at us with her
starn-chasers; but her shot, like ours, all fell wide of the mark. By
this time we were well in with the shore, and could see two fine large
merchant ships lying at anchor close under the guns of a small battery
near the town, which lined the beach of a snug bay. The privateer
immediately hauled her wind off the coast, as if afeared o' the guns o'
the battery, and we did the same. We could see the beach crowded with
people hurrying to look at the running fight between the French frigate,
as they thought (she had been one once), and the English privateer.
Well, this game lasted for some time; lots o' smoke and noise, for we
yawed two or three times to give her a broadside, and to let her get
away from us, till at last we gave it up for a bad job, and bore up
under easy sail for the bay we had before seen. We stood in, clued all
up, and came to an anchor with a very short scope of cable, and brought
to, all ready for weighing again. The boats were lowered and manned, and
a few jollies[20] were stowed away in the starn-sheets out o' sight. The
beach was crowded with people anxious to hear the news; even the
swaddies,[21] except two or three sentries, deserted the battery, now
that all danger was past, as they thought. Well, the gig pulled towards
the shore, just to amuse the Frenchmen, while another boat pulled
directly to the battery, and, in quarter less no time, the sentries were
knocked down, and the guns were tumbled off their carriages--there were
lots o' crowbars and handspikes in the boat. Meantime, two other boats
boarded the merchantmen, and afore you could say Jack Robinson, their
crews, never dreaming of the English, were secured, their cables cut,
and the boats towing them out, without a single shot being fired, or a
man hurt. By this time the topsails were at the masthead aboard the
frigate, and the anchor weighed, and she stood quietly out of the bay,
and hove to. The French ensign was then hauled down, and with three
roaring cheers from our ship's company, the red flag of Old England was
run up in its stead. In a short time crews were put on board the prizes,
the boats were hoisted in, and we shaped our course for the Channel.
What do you think o' that now, sir, for a clever move?"

[Footnote 20: Marines.]

[Footnote 21: Soldiers.]

"Capital, capital! I never heard a better. But what part of the play did
Mr Dalzell and you act?"

"Oh, I says nuthen. I knows who was the first officer to mount the
battery, and who was the man as trod upon his heels; but that is neither
here nor there. Kelso for ever! says I. I says nuthen."

I could not help laughing at Tom's expressive "nuthens."

"Kelso for ever, indeed!" said I. "Then the two Kelso men were foremost,
eh?"

"It's of no use denying it, sir, or making a secret of what's no secret
at all. I believe that job was the 'casion of Mr Dalzell's having a swab
tacked to his shoulder."

"A swab!--what's a swab?"

"It's what you long-shore gemmen calls an appleeat,[22] I believe, sir;
a bunch o' gold yarns a leaftennan wears on his shoulder."

[Footnote 22: Epaulette.]

"Oh, ay! I understand."

"Oh, how pleased he was when he got his commission some time after; and
pleased was I to see his happy face, for I knowed he was a-thinking of
the bonny lass he left behind him at Kelso. I hope he'll soon take her
in tow now for life."

Great was the sorrow the good-hearted fellow expressed, when I told him
of Dalzell's disappointment. He swore he would find Grace Douglas, if
she were above ground; and that he would leave no means untried, as long
as he had health and strength to persevere.

"Well, but how did you lose your arm, Tom?"

"Oh, your honour, it was in that 'ere action with the Flower-de-louce.
We were blazing away at each other as hard as we could lather, and I had
jumped into the main-chains to do something I was ordered, when, crack!
a musket-ball strikes me on the arm, and I fell overboard as helpless as
a sucking-pig; and I'd have gone down like a pig of lead, if Leaftennan
Dalzell hadn't banged overboard after me, and supported me to the rudder
chains, where we hung till they gave us a rope. Long life to him! says
I--I lost my arm, but I got a pension, and we both on us got lots o'
prize money."

At this point of Tom's yarn, Mr Dalzell called to me through the
window--

"Here are some young visiters coming, Mr Thomson."

I looked out, and replied--

"Oh, they are my two boys. I forgot to tell you that I am a father as
well as a husband. The little fellows have been with their nurse,
spending the forenoon at my sister's--the house you see there, through
the trees. Let us go and meet them."

And out we all sallied, Tom bringing up the rear. As we approached
them, the nurse, who was talking and playing with the children, looked
up, and, seeing Dalzell, uttered a faint scream, and turned deadly pale.

"Holloa!" said I, hurrying towards her; "what is the matter with the
girl?"

My companion, however, was beforehand with me. He rushed past me, caught
her in his arms, and, calling her his "dear, dear Grace," kissed her
pale cheek till the blood mantled rosy red upon it again; while she
murmured, "Dear Edward, then you have not forgot your Grace?"

It was quite a romantic scene altogether, with a slight touch of the
ludicrous. There was the girl hanging on Dalzell's arm, half-fainting,
her head hanging back, her bonnet off, and her long, fair hair floating
in the breeze; while hysterical sobs of joy burst from her every now and
then; my little George roaring might and main, and sobbing out, "Naughty
man! bite Nelly;" Dalzell, pale and agitated, alternately kissing her
cheek and hugging her to his bosom; my wife crying; Tom Telford whirling
round and round, waving his hat over his head, and flourishing his empty
sleeve in the air; and I, the most sensible person in the group,
standing staring in delighted astonishment at this pleasing and
unexpected denouement. After the first excitement occasioned by this
unlooked-for meeting was over, we all returned to the house, eager to
hear Grace Douglas's account of her adventures.

Before she begins, however, I must beg the reader's patience till I
relate how she happened to be in my service. About a twelvemonth before,
my wife was obliged to part with her nurserymaid, in consequence of her
repeated acts of misconduct; and, not being able to replace her in the
neighbourhood, she begged me to advertise for one in the public prints.
In answer to this advertisement, a young and very lovely woman presented
herself, whose appearance immediately prepossessed us in her favour. Her
manners were mild and gentle, and such as were little to be expected in
one in her rank of life. When asked for a character, she replied that
she had never been in service; that she was an orphan, and had none to
recommend her; that, if we liked to try her, she hoped and trusted she
would give us satisfaction--at least no endeavour should be wanting on
her part. She declined giving any account of her family, merely saying
that adverse circumstances had obliged her to resort to this means of
seeking a subsistence. _She_ did not care about wages; all that she
wished for was protection and a comfortable home. My wife, much as she
was pleased with her appearance and manner, was unwilling to make what
she considered the dangerous experiment of engaging an unknown
character; but I overruled her objections, in which I was materially
assisted by mamma's darling, little George, who, attracted by the mild
countenance and sweet voice of the stranger, clung to her side, and
cried for her to remain. My wife could not resist the appeal; and Ellen
Stewart, as she wished to be called, became one of our family, and soon
proved herself worthy of our confidence. The substance of her previous
history, as she related it to Dalzell, was as follows:--

A succession of bad crops, and of unfortunate farming speculations, had
obliged her father to give up the farm in which they had so long lived
happily together. His health had been long declining; and, when he died,
she was left almost destitute. She had a maternal aunt, who was willing
and anxious to share with her her trifling pittance; but she was
determined not to be a burden on one who was hardly able to support
herself. At this time our advertisement met her eye, and she immediately
hastened to answer it--resolved, under an assumed name, to submit to the
duties of a menial station, which she was sure, if her poor but proud
aunt were let into the secret, she would indignantly oppose. She had
written to her aunt, to assure her of her welfare, but without
disclosing the name of her place of abode. She had had, before her
father died, two very eligible offers of marriage, which she rejected;
for she felt sure, she said, that her own Edward would return. Three
weeks afterwards, the long-tried constancy of the lovers was
rewarded--mutually rewarded; for they were worthy of each other. I had
the pleasure of giving away the bride; and honest Tom enjoyed an extra
glass of his favourite grog on the occasion, by way of "wetting his
commission," as he called it--Dalzell having installed him as a kind of
Jack-of-all-trades in his new establishment. The only drawback to his
perfect happiness was, that he never lived to see his master an admiral.




THE GOOD MAN OF DRYFIELD.


"To Let, the Mansion-house of Dryfield. This is a small, genteel,
self-contained house, beautifully situated on the banks of the Clyde,
with large garden and seven acres of fine arable land attached. Rent
moderate. Premises will be shown, and other particulars given, by Mr
Pentland, farmer, Minnigrain, near Dryfield, who is also empowered to
transact all matters relative to the letting of the house and grounds."

Such, good reader, was an advertisement that appeared in the "Caledonian
Mercury" some six-and-twenty years ago. Well, but what on earth has an
advertisement of this sort to do with the Border Tales? Patience, kind
friend--patience; and, as a certain humorous song--whose title we have
forgotten--says, "you shall hear." This advertisement, commonplace as it
may seem, possessed some interest for me at the time it appeared; for at
that very moment I was commissioned, by a friend then resident in
Jamaica, but who was contemplating an immediate return to his native
country, to look out for exactly such a place as that described in the
announcement above quoted.

Having some recollection of the place myself, which I had casually seen
several years before, as I passed on the top of the mail, I felt
convinced that it was precisely such a residence as my friend desired.
Under this impression, I determined on paying Dryfield a visit, and
making a personal survey of the premises. Conform thereto, the following
morning found me on the top of the mail. In six hours afterwards, I was
at Minnigrain, and in the presence of its worthy occupant, Mr Pentland.
He was a decent, substantial-looking farmer--plain and unsophisticated
in his manners, intelligent, and shrewd, with a spice of humour about
him which he seemed to have some difficulty in controlling.

Having mentioned to Mr Pentland the purpose of my visit, and my wish to
take a look of Dryfield and its premises, he instantly accompanied me
thither--having previously provided himself with a couple of keys: one
to procure us access to the garden, through which it was necessary to
pass to reach the house; the other to admit us to the house itself.

Our way lay through a romantic wood, that grew on a steep bank
overhanging the Clyde, and which was traversed by various winding paths.
Having taken one of these, we soon threaded the little forest, and,
emerging at its western side, found ourselves on a green lawn, at the
further end of which stood the mansion-house of Driffel, as it was more
shortly pronounced by the natives. It was a compact and
comfortable-looking house, but had evidently been long untenanted.
Everything around it was running to waste. The honeysuckle, with which
its walls had been clothed, had fallen from its fastenings, and was idly
sweeping the footpath below; the flower-plats in front were over-run
with weeds; the garden was uncropped; and shrubs, bushes, and trees were
revelling in an unprofitable luxuriance. Everything, in short, bespoke
neglect, and the absence of a presiding care and taste.

"The house does not seem to have been tenanted for a long time, Mr
Pentland?" said I, as we walked towards the house.

"'Deed, it's a gey while since there was what ye may ca' a reglar tenant
in't," replied my companion. "We hae had families, from time to time,
for a month or twa in the summer season, but nae reglar tenant since Mr
Darsy himsel left, and that's gaun noo in ten years since."

"Is Mr Darsy dead?"

"Ou no! He gaed abroad for the benefit o' his health--him and his man
Ramsay. He was to hae been back in six months, but he has never returned
yet. But I'm sure the blessin o' the poor and the needcessitous'll
follow the worthy man wherever he goes."

"He was a benevolent man, was he?"

"That he was, sir. Just ane o' the best men breathin. Some folk thocht
him a wee whimsical now and then; but his heart was in the richt place.
He had just five hunner a-year; and I'm sure he gied awa three o't in
charity, if he gied a saxpence."

"Any family?"

"No; he never was married. It's said that he was ance crossed in love in
his younger days; but whether this be sae or no, I dinna ken. There was
naebody lived here wi' him but an auld maiden sister, his man Ramsay,
and twa servant lasses. His sister's dead; and it's thocht it was partly
her death that sent him awa frae Dryfield; for they war just
extraordinar attached to ane anither. Just to show you, sir, how worthy
a man he is," continued Mr Pentland, "the rent o' this property is, by
his orders, to be handed owre to the minister, for the use o' the poor
o' the parish."

Just as the conversation had reached this point, we reached the door of
the house. Mr Pentland inserted the key, but found some difficulty in
turning the lock, from its having become stiff and rusted through
disuse. While he was engaged in alternately coaxing and forcing the
obstinate bolt, my attention was attracted by an inscription on the
stone over the doorway. This inscription was in part concealed by some
straggling branches of honeysuckle which had broken loose from their
fastenings, and were hanging over it. These I removed with the end of my
stick, and having done so, read--

    "To balance fortune by a just expense,
    Join with economy magnificence."

The quotation I remembered was from Pope, and thought it rather a
peculiar sort of taste that had placed it where I now saw it.

By this time, Mr Pentland had succeeded in opening the door; and we
entered. I found the house to be an excellent one--well finished,
commodious, and judiciously arranged.

Having gone through all the rooms, we finished our survey by a visit to
the kitchen. On entering this apartment, the first thing that caught my
eye was a small board over the fireplace, on which, in gilt letters on a
black ground, were the following lines:--

    "To worth or want, well-weigh'd, be bounty given
    And ease, or emulate the care of Heaven;
    Whose measure full o'erflows on human race,
    Mend Fortune's fault, and justify her grace."

"What!" said I, "Pope again?"

Mr Pentland smiled. "Ou ay, sir," he at length said, "Mr Darsy had an
awfu wark wi' Pope; and so had his man Ramsay. It was that brocht them
first thegither, and it's maistly that has keepit them thegither ever
since, nearly thirty year. Mr Darsy was aye gi'ein us screeds o' Pope;
and onybody that could quote Pope to him was sure to win his favour, and
to get a' the assistance he could gie them in whatever way they micht
want it. It was a queer conceit o' his; and mony a time the worthy man
was imposed on, by designin folk, through the medium o' this fancy. When
ony o' that kind wanted his assistance, they had naething ado but get
twa or three lines o' Pope by heart, come to him wi' a lang face, and
tak an opportunity o' slippin out the lines, and their business was
done. I've seen him actually shed tears when he was quotin his favourite
author. He was just clean crazed about him. He made me a present o' the
'Essay on Man,' and gied me nae rest, nicht or day, till I got every
line o't by heart."

"But he did you a good service in that, my friend," said I: "it is a
noble poem--full of fine thoughts, beautifully expressed."

"Nae doot o't," replied Mr Pentland: "I like the poem weel, and think as
much o' Pope as ony man. He is a great philosopher, as well as a great
poet; but my excellent friend, Mr Darsy, just carried the thing a wee
owre far. His admiration o' him, or rather his constant and open
expression of that admiration, bordered on the ridiculous: it amounted
to a weakness--although, in other respects, Mr Darsy was a man of great
good sense. I've heard him and his man Ramsay--for he's just as great an
admirer o' Pope as his master--firin quotations at ane anither for an
hour thegither. Indeed they never spoke for five minutes without
exchangin a couplet or twa, and seldom conversed on onything else but
the merits o' Pope."

In this sketch of the worthy proprietor of Dryfield, I thought I
recognised--what I always took much delight in contemplating--an
original character; and this was one of the best sort--a compound of
oddity and benevolence. What had just been told me of him was enough to
excite my curiosity, but far from being enough to gratify it. This,
however, I hoped circumstances would yet effect for me; for, feeling
amused by Mr Darsy's peculiarities, and interested by his worth, I
determined on learning all about him that I could; and ample opportunity
for doing so was subsequently afforded me.

Having expressed to Mr Pentland my satisfaction with the house, and my
wish to take it, he proposed that we should adjourn to his residence,
and there settle the transaction by missive. We did so; and when the
business was concluded, Mr Pentland kindly suggested that, as the day
was now far advanced, I had better remain with him all night, and return
home the following morning with the first coach. To this proposal,
seeing that it would afford me an opportunity of learning something more
of Mr Darsy, I at once agreed, and was soon after put in possession, by
my good host, Mr Pentland, of some particulars regarding that
gentleman, which I have thought might not be found unamusing.

"Of Mr Darsy's early history," said Mr Pentland, who, at my request,
began an account of his late worthy neighbour immediately after the
dinner-cloth had been drawn, "I do not know much. He was bred,
originally, I believe, for the church, but never took orders; for what
reason I am ignorant; but have heard it alleged, that it was owing to an
extreme diffidence of nature, which shrank at the idea of speaking in
public.

"Fortunately, his circumstances, although far from being affluent, were
such as to enable him to yield to this timidity; and I am not sure that
he ever adopted any regular profession in lieu of the one he abandoned.
He bought Dryfield about twenty years since, when he also came to reside
there; and it was then my acquaintance with him began. From that period
till his departure for France, we lived in the closest intimacy and
friendship; and during all that period I never heard or saw anything of
him but what redounded to his honour. To quote his own favourite
author--for he set us a' a-quoting Pope--

    'Him portion'd maids, apprenticed orphans, bless'd--
    The young who labour, and the old who rest.'

He was truly the Man of Ross in all that is kind and benevolent."

"Oh, say," said I, smiling--

    'Oh, say, what sums that generous hand supply--
    What mines to swell that boundless charity?'"

My kind host laughed heartily, and readily replied--

    "'Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear,
    This man possess'd five hundred pounds a-year.

"Such a sum, or one thereabouts, was, in truth, all his dependance; yet
the good he did with it was amazing.

"When Mr Darsy came first to our neighbourhood, his family consisted of
his sister only, and one servant-maid; and it is probable it would never
have received any addition, but for the circumstance which added Sandy
Ramsay to the establishment--as original a character as his master.
Sandy was a sort of general jobber of country work--a good hand at
cutting drains, clipping hedges, and felling and thinning timber, making
and erecting wooden railings, &c. &c.

"But, besides, and better than all this, Sandy was a learned man. He
read a great deal, and was not a little vain of his acquisitions in this
way. He was, however, a lively, good-natured little fellow, and very
generally liked, notwithstanding that he gave himself out for a
philosopher, and looked very grave and wise when he was asserting his
pretensions to that character, or when he thought those pretensions were
either overlooked or denied.

"Such was Sandy Ramsay, and such was the person whom Mr Darsy found one
morning, shortly after his arrival at Dryfield, working at a wooden
railing at a little distance from the house.

"'Good morning, honest man,' said Mr Darsy, approaching him with that
kindly familiarity of manner which distinguished all his intercourse
with his inferiors.

"'Guid mornin, sir,' replied Sandy, resting on the wooden mallet with
which he was driving the rails. 'Grand wather for the country, sir.'

"'Excellent,' rejoined Mr Darsy. 'The crops in this neighbourhood look
uncommonly well, and I think we shall have both an early and a plentiful
harvest. Thanks be to God!'

"'Yes, sir, as ye say, thank God for't,' replied Sandy. 'There's a
reasonable prospect o' baith peace and plenty in the country; and, as
Pope says,

    'This day be bread and peace my lot;
      All else beneath the sun,
    Thou knowest if best bestow'd or not;
      And let thy will be done!'

"'Ah, Pope, my friend!' said Mr Darsy, his eye sparkling with delight.
'So you are conversant with Pope, are you?'

"'A wee bit, sir; his works form the staple o' my readin. I admire baith
his poetry and his philosophy.'

"'Ah, indeed! Well, do you know, I like that,' replied Mr Darsy. 'I'm
one of Pope's worshippers, too; he is my guide, philosopher, and
friend--

    'Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease,
    Intent to reason, or polite to please.'

"'Yes, sir; and, better still,' replied Sandy, 'he

                        'Turn'd the tuneful art
    From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart.'

"'And,' shouted Mr Darsy, in ecstasy--

    'For Wit's false mirror held up Nature's light--
    Show'd erring Pride _whatever is, is right_.'

"'And,' exclaimed Sandy, energetically, and waving his hand aloft, in
the excitation of his feelings, as he spoke--

    'That reason, passion, answer one great aim;
    That true self-love and social are the same.'

"Mr Darsy, striking his stick emphatically on the ground--

    'That virtue only makes our bliss below,
    And all our knowledge is ourselves to know.'

"Having thus finished the concluding part of the 'Essay on Man' between
them, Mr Darsy, with a gracious and benevolent smile, held out his hand
to Sandy, seized that of the latter, and shook it with cordial warmth.
From that moment, notwithstanding the disparity of their social
position, they were sworn friends.

"In a short time after this, Mr Darsy proposed to Sandy to enter his
service, at a fixed rate of wages, to look after his garden, and be
otherwise generally useful. To this proposal the latter readily
assented; and they have been together ever since, quoting Pope to one
another daily, and daily descanting on the merits of their favourite
author.

"Having now got an able and active assistant in Sandy Ramsay, and one
who had a very competent knowledge of agricultural affairs, Mr Darsy
determined on cultivating the few acres of ground which he had bought
along with the house of Dryfield. His resolution before had been to let
them; but he now bethought him of keeping them in his own hands. These
lands had been allowed to run to waste by the former proprietor, who was
a great speculator in everything, and in every way, where there was no
chance of remuneration. One of these speculations was, to build, at
various intervals, over the grounds alluded to, a number of fantastic
tower-like structures, for a purpose which none could guess, and which
was wholly unknown to all but the contriver himself.

"Whatever the purpose was, however, for which these towers were erected,
they were never applied to it. Some other whim struck the noddle of the
speculator, and they were allowed (most of them only half-built) to fall
into ruins--an eyesore to look at, and an encumbrance to the ground.

"These stone-and-lime vagaries Mr Darsy now determined on removing, and
of applying the surrounding lands to their proper use. Full of this
design, which had suddenly struck him one day as he was out walking, he
hastened, on his return, to the garden where Ramsay was at work, and
told him of his intentions.

"'I shall have all these lands laid down in corn, Sandy,' said Mr
Darsy.

"'Richt, sir, richt,' replied the former, thrusting his spade into the
ground, and resting his elbow on the apex of the upright handle. 'Quite
richt, too.'

"'Another year,' said Mr Darsy--

    'Another _year_ shall see the golden ear
    Embrown the slope, and nod on the parterre;
    Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann'd,
    And laughing Ceres reassume the land.'

"'Yes, sir,' replied Sandy--

    ''Tis use alone that sanctifies expense,
    And splendour borrows all her rays from sense.'

"'No doubt of it, Sandy,' said Mr Darsy. 'Beautiful sentiment, and
admirably expressed.'

"The project of cultivating the land having been thus settled by the
assistance of Pope, Sandy was instructed to look out for the necessary
means, proper implements, and, first and most important of all, a pair
of good stout draught horses. This last want of Mr Darsy's was one that
soon became known throughout the country; and, as Mr Darsy was always
reckoned a liberal and punctual man to deal with, he had soon abundance
of offers; and they were not a whit the less numerous, perhaps, that he
was thought to be no great judge of the article he wanted.

"Amongst those whose ears Mr Darsy's want of a pair of horses reached,
was a certain dealer in horse-flesh, of the name of William Craig, as
great a rascal as Scotland perhaps ever had the honour of producing; but
he was withal a pleasant knave, and always cheated with the greatest
good-humour imaginable. The smile was never off his countenance,
excepting when he saw it for his interest to look grave, and then he
could put on a face of sympathy and sentiment that it would break your
heart to look at. He was, in short, a most plausible and most
accomplished scoundrel--clever, and well-informed.

"On hearing that Mr Darsy wanted a couple of horses, and that he had
already rejected several that had been offered him--

"'I'll try my hand on him,' said Willie; 'and if I dinna fix him, blame
me.'

"'Do you mean by gi'ein him a fair bargain, Willie?' inquired the friend
to whom he had made the boast above quoted.

"'Never did that in my life to onybody, and I'm no gaun to begin now,'
replied Willie.

"'Then, how do you propose to fix him, Willie, as ye ca't?'

"'Leave that to me,' said the honest horse-jockey. 'I'll do him owre as
clean's a leek. I'll _trot_ him out as cleverly as I ever did ony beast
wi' four legs. I hae the secret o' him.'

"'What do you ca' the secret o' him, Willie? What do you mean by that?'

"'Aha, lad! How's your mother?' replied Willie, laughing, and touching
the side of his nose emphatically with the point of his forefinger.
'I'll keep my thumb on that till I hae tried it.'

"On that very afternoon, Willie posted off to Dryfield with a couple of
horses on which he had practised every secret of his art to give them a
passable appearance. On one of the horses Willie himself was mounted;
the other he led by a halter; and, thus disposed, arrived at a swinging
trot at Mr Darsy's. That gentleman had seen his approach from a window,
and, guessing the purpose of his visit, was now at the door to receive
him.

"Willie touched his hat:--

"'Heard, sir, that ye war in want o' a pair o' guid workin beasts,' said
Willie, 'and hae broucht ye twa prime anes here to look at. No a bonnier
or better pair between this and Johnny Groat's, and just a real bargain
as to price.'

"'Why, my good fellow, I certainly do want a couple of good draught
horses,' replied Mr Darsy, eyeing Willie's bargain with a scrutinising
look; for he had already been so often the subject of attempted
imposition in the way of horse-dealing, that he could not help
entertaining suspicions of the intentions of every one who approached
him for such a purpose. 'I certainly do want a couple of good draught
horses,' he said; 'but really, being no great judge myself, and some
attempts having been made to take me in, I--I----'

"'Feth, I weel believe that, sir,' interposed Willie. 'It's just
incredible the villany that's practised in this trade o' ours.
Some men hae nae conscience, and wad sell their very souls for
gould--gould--gould--that curse o' the human race, that some think was

            'Sent to keep the fools in play,
    For some to heap and some to throw away.
    But _I_, who think more highly of our kind
    (And surely Heaven and _I_ are of a mind),
    Opine that Nature, as in duty bound,
    Deep hid the shining mischief under ground.'

That's my opinion, sir,' continued Willie; 'and I houp ye'll excuse the
liberty I hae taen o' gi'ein ye't in poetry, but Pope comes tricklin'
aff my tongue, whether I will or no, just like water aff a dyuck's
back.'

"'Excuse ye, my friend!' said the astonished and delighted Mr Darsy,
with a gracious smile. 'My dear sir, your quotation requires no apology.
It is appropriate, and to the purpose. A fine idea--tersely and pithily
expressed. The man, sir, who studies Pope as he ought to be studied, and
who acts on the principles he inculcates, will infallibly secure

    'What nothing earthly gives or can destroy--
    The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy.'

"'Yes, sir,' replied Willie:--

    'Say, in pursuit of profit and delight,
    Who risk the most--that take wrong means, or right,
    Of vice or virtue, whether blest or curst;
    Which meets contempt, or which compassion first;
    Count all the advantage prosperous vice attains--
    'Tis but what virtue flies from and disdains.'

"'It is, it is!' shouted Mr Darsy, in ecstasy. 'Enough, my dear sir,
enough,' he said, extending his hand to Willie, while a tear of emotion
glistened in his eye. 'Come into the house, and take a little
refreshment, and let us see if we cannot make a bargain about these
horses. They look very well, and, I daresay, will suit my purpose.'

"'Just the very thing, sir, ye may depend on't,' replied Willie, who had
now dismounted, and was holding both horses by the halters. 'There's
that black ane, I'm unco sweer to part wi't; but the want o' siller gars
a puir man mak mony a sacrifice baith to his interest and to his
feelins. O' that black horse, sir, I may safely say there's no his match
in the county; yet I daurna, nor wadna, ask his price for him, for it
wad be considered just an imposition.'

"'But, my good friend,' interposed Mr Darsy, 'I hope you do not think
that I would take advantage of you in any way--that I would avail myself
of the urgency of your necessities, to give you less than the just value
of your horse. God forbid! You shall have his price, be that what it
may.'

"'Oh, I'm no misdootin that, sir, no the least; but----'

"'I say, my friend, by the way' (here again interrupted Mr Darsy, as
they approached the house, being now within a few yards of the door),
'be so good as make no allusion to Pope in the presence of my sister,
whom you will likely see; for she, poor woman, has just as little
philosophy about her as the rest of her sex. "Woman and fool," you
know--

    'Woman and fool are both too hard to hit;
    For true no-meaning puzzles more than wit.'

"Willie smiled. 'No far wrang, sir, I daresay. It's, I doot, owre true.'

"'She's a good, kind-hearted creature,' resumed Mr Darsy; 'but if there
be any one thing on earth that she abhors above all other things, it is
Pope. She cannot endure his name, ever since she read his "Characters of
Women;" but you and I, my friend, know that there is more truth in that
essay than her sex would willingly allow.

    'In men we various ruling passions find;
    In women, two almost divide the kind.
    Those, only fix'd, they first and last obey--
    The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.'

"Having now reached the house, Mr Darsy desired Willie to remain a
minute in charge of the horses, until he went for his factotum, Sandy
Ramsay, whom he wished to see the animals, and whose judgment he meant
to consult, as to their purchase. Sandy he found, as usual, in the
garden.

"'Here is a decent, honest, well-informed, and intelligent man, Sandy,'
said Mr Darsy, 'with a pair of horses for sale, which I wish you to come
and look at.'

"'What ca' they him, sir?' inquired Sandy.

"'Why, I don't know; I didn't ask his name,' replied Mr Darsy.

"'I hope it's no Willie Craig,' said the former, drawing on his coat;
'for he's a slippery chiel, Willie; an' I wadna say that even my caution
wad be a match for his cunning.'

"'Whether his name be Craig or not, I do not know,' replied Mr Darsy;
'but this I do know, that he seems to be a very intelligent and
conscientious man. He is a great admirer of our favourite author, Sandy,
and quotes him with great propriety and facility; and of such a man I
would not willingly believe any ill.

"'He quotes Pope, sir, does he?' exclaimed Sandy. 'Then, sir, he's just
the man. That's Willie Craig, beyond a' manner o' doot; and the biggest
rogue this day in Scotland.'

"'Come, come, Sandy,' said Mr. Darsy, a little severely, shocked at the
idea of a rogue quoting Pope, and disbelieving the existence of such a
moral incongruity--'come, come, Sandy,' he said, 'you judge too harshly;
you speak unguardedly. The man is, I doubt not, a very honest man; and
"an honest man," you know, Sandy, "is the noblest work of God."'

"'I've seen that disputed, sir,' said Sandy; 'an' I think, after a' wi'
some success. A man of great parts an' genius is surely a nobler
creature than a'.'

"'I'm grieved, Sandy, to find your moral perceptions so weak,' here
interrupted Mr Darsy. 'Don't you see, or rather will you not see,
that----'

"'I really canna see, sir,' interrupted Sandy, in his turn 'that----'

"'Well, but let me explain myself,' again interrupted Mr Darsy; and,
having at length obtained this permission, he went on to expound the
disputed text, after his own views of its bearings.

"Sandy replied; Mr Darsy rejoined; and a hot dispute, of a good
half-hour's continuance, ensued between master and man, on the moral
points involved in the quotation; such disputes, by the way, being a
frequent occurrence between them; for, although they agreed most
cordially on the general merits of Pope, there were many minute
points--some as to the meaning of passages; others as to their
morality--on which they differed, as on the present occasion, and on
which they spoke for hours on end.

"To return to the instance just now under notice: they were thus
engaged--that is, settling the moral bearing of the quotation above
given--and so earnest in their employment, as to be totally oblivious
of everything else--and, amongst the rest, Willie Craig and his
horses--when Miss Darsy came running into the garden, just as her
brother had begun a new section of his defence of Pope, with--

"'Pope, sir--I say Pope distinctly means----'

"'Gracious heaven, Mr Darsy!' exclaimed Miss Sarah, 'are you at that
odious Pope again? Have you forgotten that there has been a man with two
horses waiting on you for this half-hour past? It is too bad--too bad,
Mr Darsy.'

"'I acknowledge it, my dear--I acknowledge it,' replied the benevolent
and good-natured Popite, smiling kindly on his sister; 'but I am sure
the honest man will forgive me when I tell him the cause.'

"'Will he?' said his sister. 'I should rather think he will consider it
an aggravation of the offence.'

"'There you are wrong, Sarah, my dear,' rejoined Mr Darsy; 'for the man
understands these things.'

"'What!' exclaimed his sister, in alarm; 'does _he_ quote Pope, too? Do
horse-jockeys quote Pope?'

"'And why not, my dear?' said Mr Darsy, gladly seizing on this general
query to avoid making any discoveries on the particular one. 'Why not,
my dear? Why may not a horse-jockey understand and appreciate Pope as
well as any other man? There is nothing to hinder him.'

"'Oh, certainly not,' replied Miss Darsy; 'but oh! if he was dosed with
Pope as I am--if he had Pope! Pope! ringing in his ears night and day,
in all situations and on all occasions, as I have--he would grow sick,
sick, at the very name.'

"'Ah, Sarah, Sarah!' replied her brother, smiling--

        'Believe me--good as well as ill--
    Woman's at best----

"'Pope again!' screamed Miss Darsy, putting her fingers in her ears, and
rushing distractedly away from her Pope-mad brother.

"The latter looked after her with a smile of pity, and perhaps a very
slight matter of contempt mingled with it, and began again, and finished
with additional emphasis, the quotation in which he had been
interrupted. Then, turning to Sandy--

"'Let us go and take a look at this honest man's horses, Sandy,' he
said. 'We have used him rather ill, after all; but I'll explain.'

"In the next minute the parties had met, and the first thing Mr Darsy
did was to explain to Willie, as he had proposed to do, the reason of
his absence.

"'A' richt, sir--a' richt,' replied Willie, graciously. 'There's far
frae bein ony harm dune; and, besides, your excuse is a guid ane,
although ye had been an hour langer.'

"Willie, at the special request of Sandy Ramsay, now proceeded to put
his horses through their paces; and, while the former was at a little
distance in the performance of this duty--'Is that the man you meant,
Sandy?' said Mr Darsy.

"'I dinna ken him by sight, sir--only by repute,' replied Sandy; 'but,
if he quotes Pope to you, he maun be the man, for he's a cunning
scoundrel, and doubtless kens you're fond o' the little crooked poet.'

"'Sandy, Sandy, you have a scurrilous tongue,' said Mr Darsy. 'You'll
find the man prove an honest one, I have no doubt, and will, I am sure,
feel then ashamed of what you are now saying to his prejudice.'

"'Maybe, sir; but I'll be surer o' my man after I hae heard a quotation
or twa, and still surer after ye hae bocht the horses; for if he doesna
_do_ ye, he's most assuredly no Willie Craig.'

"Here the conversation was interrupted by the return of the
horse-dealer, who approached them, leading one of his horses at a full
trot. Both animals having been subjected to this display--

"'Now, my good friend,' said Mr Darsy, 'what's your price?'

"'Why, then, juist to be at a word wi' ye, sir,' replied Willie, taking
off his hat with one hand, and scratching his head with the other, 'I'll
take thirty guineas for the black ane, and twenty for the brown; and I'm
sure that's a dead bargain--juist throwing the cattle awa. It's no a
month since I was offered forty guineas in my loof for that black beast,
but I wasna sae hard pressed for siller then as I'm noo, and I refused
it.'

"'Sandy,' said Mr Darsy, turning to the farmer, 'what do you say to
these prices? You have some knowledge of horses.'

"'I say, sir, that, as near as I can guess, they're juist aboot the
dooble o' what they ocht to be. That black horse, if I'm no mista'en, is
broken-winded, and 'll be dead lame in a week; and the brown ane's no a
grain better.'

"Willie looked at Mr Darsy with a smile of conscious integrity, and of
calm contempt at once of the slander and the judgment of the slanderer.
The unsuspecting Mr Darsy returned the look, attributing Sandy's
decision to prejudice.

"'Come now, Sandy,' said the farmer, 'forget that you have any interest
to serve in this matter, and deal fairly between man and man.'

"'But it's no between man and man, sir,' said Sandy; 'it's between man
and a horse-jockey; and it's weel kent that's no a fair match. It wad
tak the deil himsel to deal wi' a horse-couper.'

"Willie smiled again the smile of conscious innocence; and, turning to
Mr. Darsy, said--

"'I rather think ye will agree wi' me, sir, that

    'Honour and shame from no condition rise;
    Act well your part'--

and he looked expressively at Sandy--

    _there_ all the honour lies.'

"'Unquestionably,' replied Mr Darsy, 'it is

    'Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
    The rest is all but leather and prunello.'

"'Yes, sir,' said Willie--

    'For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight,
    His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.'

"'Certainly not--certainly not,' exclaimed Mr Darsy, in raptures.

    'One self-approving hour whole years outweighs
    Of stupid starers, and of loud hurrahs.'

"'Nae denyin't,' said Willie; 'and to a' wha doot it, I wad say--

    Know, then, this truth (enough for man to know),
    Virtue alone is happiness below.'

And, as he repeated the last line, he laid his hand with solemn emphasis
on his heart.

"This last quotation did Willie's business.

"'Come, come,' said Mr Darsy, shedding tears of delight, and taking
Willie by the arm to conduct him into the house, 'let us settle this
small matter at once, and off hand. Just say at once, my friend, the
lowest sum you really will take for these horses, and they are mine.
Sandy there is a well-meaning man, but he has his prejudices, as we all
have.'

"'Weel then, sir, juist to be at a word wi' ye,' replied Willie, 'I'll
tak nine-and-twenty guineas for the black horse, and nineteen for the
brown ane; and if that's no a bargain, I never gied or got ane in my
life.'

"'They're no worth the half o't, I manteen,' exclaimed Sandy,
energetically.

"'Hush, Sandy, hush, man,' said Mr Darsy. 'I'm sure the horses are a
fair bargain. This honest man would never ask more than they are worth.'

"'Wadna he, feth? said Sandy, with a satirical smile. 'Sir, I'm thinkin
ye'll fin out that before ye're a week aulder. Wait ye till the horses
hae been twa days in the plough, and ye'll see whether he has asked mair
than the worth o' them or no. I wadna trust him farrer than I could
throw a bull by the tail.'

"'Sandy, Sandy,' exclaimed Mr Darsy, in a deprecating tone, 'you have
really a scandalous tongue. Have you forgot that beautiful verse in the
universal prayer--

    'Teach me to feel another's wo;
    To hide the fault I see;
    That mercy I to others show,
    That mercy show to me.'

"'That's a' very weel, sir; but I canna agree to hide the _cheat_ I
see--that's a different sort o' thing a'thegither.'

"'Sandy,' said Mr Darsy, in a still more angry tone, 'I really will hear
no more of this.' And thus rebuked, Sandy said no more; he saw it would
be useless.

"Leaving the latter in charge of the horses, Mr Darsy and Willie now
went into the house; and there the latter received the price of his
cattle, together with a comfortable refection, during which he and his
host kept up a running fire of quotations from Pope.

"The former, as the reader will recollect, had cautioned the latter not
to make any allusion to the author just named in the hearing of his
sister; and this caution Willie observed. He took care to make no
quotations while she was present; but he had not been put on his guard
against her overhearing them, and the consequence was, that some of them
were made in a tone so emphatically loud, that she did overhear them,
even from the distance of an adjoining apartment. Perhaps few else than
Miss Sarah could have discerned what were the words so spoken; but _her_
ears were so sensitively alive to the language of the abhorred Pope,
that she at once recognised them; and on doing so, immediately sent for
her brother to come and speak with her, for she had known him to have
been repeatedly swindled by Pope-quoters before, some of whom had
committed a scrap or two to memory for the express purpose.

"'James,' said Miss Sarah, on his coming into the apartment where she
was,'I hear that man quoting Pope. Now, James, I beg you'll be on your
guard; for you may depend upon it he intends to cheat you. Recollect how
often you have been taken in by Pope-quoters. There was the man that
borrowed five pounds from you, on the strength of a quotation; there was
the man that got your name to a fifty-pound bill, of which you had
afterwards to pay every farthing, through precisely a similar claim on
your bounty--for he had no other; then there was the fellow whom you
recommended to the wood-merchants, and who forged a bill on his
employers; then there were the silver spoons that you bought from the
packman, and that turned out to be pewter and tin--all because they
quoted Pope; then there was----But it would take me a week to go over
half the impositions of which you have been the victim, through that
detested and detestable Pope.'

"To this tirade poor Mr Darsy listened with the utmost patience and
meekness, while a smile of good-nature, blended with an expression of
pity for his sister's blindness to the merits of the poet, played on his
intelligent and benevolent countenance.

"'Well, Sarah, my dear,' he said, when his sister had done speaking, 'if
I have been taken in by these people, as I am willing enough to allow I
have, whether does the shame and disgrace lie with them or me?'

"'I do not know, James, where the shame and disgrace lie,' said his
sister; 'but I have a pretty good guess, and so have you, where the loss
does. But all that I have to say, just now, James, is--be on your guard
in your dealings with this Pope-quoting horse-couper.'

"Mr Darsy was about to come out with a quotation in reply--he had a
very apt one at his finger ends--but, recollecting that this would only
further irritate his sister, he made a violent effort, and suppressed
it, and merely said, with his usual benevolent smile, 'I'll take care,
Sarah, my dear; I'll take care.' And, saying this, he left the
apartment, and, rejoined Willie Craig, who soon after took his leave,
with his money in his pocket, and a good dose of whisky punch under his
belt.

"On leaving the house, Willie came accidentally across Sandy Ramsay, who
was at the moment in the act of yoking the black horse to a cart.

"'Ye hae gotten a prime beast there, Sandy,' said Willie.

"'If we hae, I'm thinkin we hae paid as weel for him,' replied the
latter dryly. 'I'm dootin ye hae saft-saped the master to some purpose.
Ye hae come Pope owre him, as ither folks hae dune before ye.'

"Willie smiled significantly, clapped his finger to his nose, and walked
on without vouchsafing any other reply.

"'What horse is that, Sandy?' said Mr Darsy on the forenoon of the
second day after Willie Craig's visit, as the former approached the
house, leading an old grey, lame beast by the halter.

"'Do ye no ken him, sir?' replied Sandy, with an ominous smile.

"'No,' rejoined Mr Darsy, gravely.

"'Indeed, it's little wonder. This is Willie Craig's _black_ horse, but
your grey ane.'

"'What do you mean, Sandy?' said Mr Darsy, in a tone of alarm. 'You
don't mean to say that that's my horse, my black horse?'

"'It's a' that's for him, sir?' replied Sandy. 'A shower o' rain's made
a' the difference. It has washed him into what ye see him--made him as
grey as an auld rat. But his change o' colour's no the warst o't. See,
he hasna a leg to staun upon, and every teeth that was in his head's
faun oot. There they are, every ane.' And Sandy pulled a handful of
horse-teeth out of his pocket. 'I hurried him hame out o' the plough,'
continued Sandy, 'before he wad fa' in pieces a'thegither, as I expected
every moment he wad do.'

"Mr Darsy held up his hands in amazement at this most extraordinary
metamorphosis of his famous black charger, and muttered an ejaculation
of surprise at the very strange occurrence, but said nothing for a few
seconds. Although he said nothing, however, he felt a good deal; not for
the pecuniary loss it involved--for that he did not care--but for the
credit of the admirers of Pope. His sister, too--what would she say to
it? Here was another instance of imposition chargeable against his
adored author, to add to the long list of which she was already in
possession. It was an awkward affair. He would ten times rather that the
price of the horse had been thrown into the sea; and this he would
cheerfully have done, had the alternative been put in his power. But
there was no help for it.

"'Sandy,' said Mr Darsy, after musing for a moment on the astounding
deception which had just come to light, 'I'll tell you what it is,
regarding this very strange affair. I think it very possible--nay, very
likely--that the man Craig has been himself imposed upon with this
horse, and that he knew nothing of its defects; for I cannot believe
that so decent, intelligent, and well-informed a man as he is, could be
guilty of such villany as this. I cannot believe it. Now, then, Sandy,
I'll tell you what you'll do--you'll take the brown horse----'

"'Wi, your leave, sir, I'll no do that, for yon beast's no chancy to
come near, let alane to ride. He's the maist vicious brute I ever saw,
and 'll neither hap, stap, nor win. I dinna think ye'll ever get ony
guid o' him.'

"'God bless me!' exclaimed Mr Darsy, confounded at this additional
misfortune; 'he seemed quiet enough when brought here by Craig.'

"'Nae doot o't, he did,' replied Sandy; 'and heaven knows hoo the
scoundrel managed it! But he's a very different thing noo, I can tell
ye, sir.'

"'Dear me! that's really odd,' said Mr Darsy. 'Well, then, Sandy, I'll
tell you what you'll do: you'll go to our good neighbour Mr Pentland,
and get the loan of a pony from him, and ride over the length of
Craig's--he lives, you know, at Longlane; it's only about nine miles
distant--and tell him what has taken place; and I have no doubt he will
at once refund the money, or, at any rate, give us other horses instead
of those we have bought. He, indeed, said he would do the former, if we
found anything wrong with them within a month.'

"'Catch him there, sir, if ye can,' said Sandy. 'The deil a bodle o' the
price he'll ever gi'e back. He's no sae saft in the horn as that. He wad
promise ye, I ha'e nae doot--he promises the same thing to every ane he
sells a horse to; but whar's the man ever got a penny back frae Willy
Craig, for a' that? I would gie half-a-croon mysel to see him.'

"'Well, well, but do you just try him, Sandy,' said Mr Darsy; 'and I
have no doubt you will find all turn out right, notwithstanding of
appearances.'

"Thus summarily enjoined, Sandy obtained the loan of a pony, mounted,
and set off for Longlane, to have an interview with Willie Craig on the
subject of his master's purchase.

"Willie was standing at the door of his own house when Sandy approached;
and, knowing well what he came about, would have retreated; but it was
too late. He was seen; and, aware of this, he kept his ground manfully,
and resolved to face out fearlessly the coming storm, as he had done
many a one of a similar kind before. On Sandy's approach, Willie,
thrusting his hands into his breeches-pockets, and bursting into a loud
laugh, hailed his coming visiter with--

    'Come, then, my friend! my genius! come along!'

"'Ay, I'll come along,' replied Sandy, angrily; 'and maybe to your cost.

"'Awake, my St John!' shouted Willie--

    'Awake, my St John! leave all meaner things
    To low ambition, and the pride of kings;
    Let us (since life can little more supply),
    Than just to look about us, and to die----'

"'Come, come, Willie, nane o' yer blarney for me,' said Sandy, now
dismounting. 'Ye're no gaun to saft-sape me that way. What kind o'
horses were they ye selt us?

"'Just the very pick o' the country,' replied Willie, coolly.

"'Ay, if ye mean the warst,' said Sandy. 'But to come to the point at
ance--I'm sent here, Willie, by Mr Darsy--although I ken weel it's a
fruitless errand--to tell ye that yer horses hae turned oot to be no
worth their hides; that yer black ane has changed to a dirty grey wi' a
shower o' rain, and is dead lame; and that the brown ane'll neither work
in plough nor cart.'

"'Dear me, Sandy, ye surprise me!' replied Willie, with a look of
amazement as like the genuine as it was possible for any man to assume.

"'Maybe I do,' said Sandy; 'but I hardly believe it. However, this
being the case, my master has sent me to say that he expects you'll
refund him the siller, as ye promised, or find him ither twa horses
worth the amount, in their stead.'

"'Whee-ee-ee-ou!' whistled Willie. 'Is that the next o't? Weel, I didna
think your maister was sae unreasonable a man as that comes to, Sandy;
but there's a heap o' queer folk in this world.'

"'My feth! there's that,' said the latter; 'and some o' them no far
aff.'

"'As lang's _ye're_ sae near, ye may say that, Sandy,' replied Willie;
'but to gie ye an answer to Mr Darsy, tell him, wi' my compliments,
Sandy, that there's a truth among Pope's maxims that he doesna seem to
hae fan oot. Tell him, wi' my best respects, that, in

    'Spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
    One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.

Tell ye him _that_, Sandy, and I'm sure he'll be perfectly satisfied.'

"'Do ye no mean to refund the money, then?' inquired Sandy.

"'Deil a cowrie,' said Willie.

"'Nor to gie him ither horses in exchange?'

"'No a hoof.'

"'Weel, then, _ye_ are an infernal scoundrel--that's a' I hae to say,'
replied Sandy, remounting his pony, and starting off on his return home.

"On arriving at Dryfield, Sandy hastened to Mr Darsy's apartment, to
inform him of the result of his mission, but, on opening the door, drew
hastily back again, on finding a stranger in the room.

"'Come in--come in, Sandy,' said Mr Darsy, on observing the former
retreating. 'This gentleman will excuse your intrusion; for he is a

    'Friend to truth! of soul sincere,
    In action faithful, and in honour clear.'

"It might be so--of this we shall be better able to judge by and by; but
the reader will think with us, we have little doubt, that this was
saying rather too much of an acquaintance of half-an-hour; for no longer
had the stranger been known to him by whom he was thus so highly
complimented. Mr Darsy's visitor was, or at least represented himself to
be, an itinerant preacher, who, aware, as he said, of that gentleman's
benevolence and hospitality, had taken the liberty of calling on him as
he passed on his pious vocation. This account of himself and calling,
he wound up with a very apt quotation from Pope; and, we need hardly
add, that it was to this circumstance he was mainly indebted for the
rapid progress he had made in Mr Darsy's affections.

"To return to our story:--On Mr Darsy's repeating the couplet above
quoted, the stranger, who was a decent, quiet, elderly man, dressed in
somewhat rusty blacks, smiled at the compliment, and looked graciously
on Sandy, as if at once to assure him that he need be under no restraint
on his account, and that he was, in truth, the worthy person which Mr
Darsy had represented him to be. Thus encouraged, Sandy entered the
apartment; and, at Mr Darsy's request, told the result of his mission.
On hearing it, the worthy man merely shook his head, and said--

"'Well, well, Sandy, there's no help for it. We must just take better
care next time.'

"He then explained to the stranger gentleman the na

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