St. Alban's. But I will not go through the stages of my tedious journey;
it is sufficient to say, that I allowed myself but little time for sleep
or rest, and, on the eighth day after my leaving London, I found myself,
after an absence of eighteen years, again upon the grounds of my
ancestors. Foot-sore, fatigued, and broken down, my appearance bespoke
way-worn dejection. I rather halted than walked along, turning my face
aside from every passenger, and blushing at the thought of recognition.
It was mid-day when I reached an eminence, covered with elm trees, and
skirted by a hedge of hawthorn. It commanded a view of what was called
the Priory, the house in which I was born, and which was situated within
a mile from where I stood. The village church, surrounded by a clump of
dreary yews, lay immediately at the foot of the hill to my right, and
the road leading from thence to the Priory crossed before me. It was a
raw and dismal day; the birds sat shivering on the leafless branches,
and the cold, black clouds, seemed wedged together in a solid mass,
ready to fall upon the earth and crush it; and the wind moaned over the
bare fields. Yet, disconsolate as the scene appeared, it was the soil of
childhood on which I trod. The fields, the woods, the river, the
mountains, the home of infancy, were before me; and I felt their
remembered sunshine rekindling in my bosom the feelings that make a
patriot. A thousand recollections flashed before me. Already did fancy
hear the congratulations of my mother's voice, welcoming her
prodigal--feel the warm pressure of her hand, and her joyous tears
falling on my cheek. But again I hesitated, and feared that I might be
received as an outcast. The wind howled around me--I felt impatient and
benumbed--and, as I stood irresolute, with a moaning chime the church
bell knelled upon my ear. A trembling and foreboding fell upon my heart;
and, before the first echo of the dull sound died in the distance, a
muffled peal from the tower of the Priory answered back the invitation
of the house of death, announcing that the earth would receive its
sacrifice. A veil came over my eyes, the ground swam beneath my feet;
and again and again did the church bell issue forth its slow, funeral
tone, and again was it answered from the Priory.
Emerging from the thick elms that spread around the Priory and stretched
to the gate, appeared a long and melancholy cavalcade. My eyes became
dim with a presentiment of dread, and they were strained to torture.
Slowly and silently the sable retinue approached. The waving plumes of
the hearse became visible. Every joint in my body trembled with agony,
as though agony had become a thing of life. I turned aside to watch it
as it passed, and concealed myself behind the hedge. The measured and
grating sound of the carriages, the cautious trampling of the horses'
feet, and the solemn pace of the poorer followers, became more and more
audible on my ear. The air of heaven felt substantial in my throat, and
the breathing I endeavoured to suppress became audible, while the cold
sweat dropt as icicles from my brow. Sadly, with faces of grief, unlike
the expression of hired sorrow, passed the solitary mutes; and, in the
countenance of each, I recognised one of our tenantry. Onward moved the
hearse and its dismal pageantry. My heart fell, as with a blow, within
my bosom. For a moment I would have fancied it a dream; but the train of
carriages passed on, their grating roused me from my insensibility, and,
rushing from the hedge towards one who for forty years had been a
servant in our house--
'Robert!--Robert!' I exclaimed, 'whose funeral is this?'
'Alack! Master Edward!' he cried, 'is it you? It is the funeral of my
good lady--your mother!'
The earth swam round with me--the funeral procession, with a sailing
motion, seemed to circle me--and I fell with my face upon the ground.
Dejected, way-worn as I was, I accompanied the body of my mother to its
last resting-place. I wept over her grave, and returned with the chief
mourners to the house of my birth; and there I was all but denied
admission. I heard the will read, and in it my name was not once
mentioned. I rushed from the house--I knew not, and I cared not where I
ran--misery was before, behind, and around me. I thought of my Catherine
and my child, and groaned with the tortures of a lost spirit.
But, as I best could, I returned to London, to fling myself at the feet
of my wife, to confess my sins and my follies, to beg her forgiveness,
yea, to labour for her with my hands. I approached my own door as a
criminal. I shrank from the very gaze of the servant that ushered me in,
and I imagined that he looked on me with contempt. But now, Lewis, I
come to the last act of my drama, and my hand trembles that it cannot
write--my soul is convulsed within me. I thought my Catherine pure,
sinless as a spirit of heaven--you thought so--all who beheld her must
have thought as I did. But, oh! friend of my youth! mark what follows. I
reached her chamber. I entered it--silently I entered it, as one who has
guilt following his footsteps. And there, the first object that met my
sight--that blasted it--was the man I hated, my former rival, he who
held my fortunes in his hand--Sir Peter Blakely! My wife, my Catherine,
my spotless Catherine, held him by the arm. O heaven! I heard him
say--'_Dear Catherine!_' and she answered him, 'Stay!--stay, my best, my
only friend--do not leave me!'
Lewis! I could see, I could hear no more.
'Wretch!--villain!' I exclaimed. They started at my voice. My sword,
that had done service in other lands, I still carried with me.
'Draw! miscreant!' I cried, almost unconscious of what I said or what I
did. He spoke to me, but I heard him not. I sprang upon him, and plunged
my sword in his body. My wife rushed towards me. She screamed. I heard
the words--'Dear Edward!' but I dashed her from me as an unclean thing,
and fled from the house.
Every tie that had bound me to existence was severed asunder. Catherine
had snapped in twain the last cord that linked me with happiness. I
sought the solitude of the wilderness, and there shouted her name, and
now blessed her, and again----but I will go no farther. I long wandered
a fugitive throughout the land, and, at length perceiving an apartment
in a rock, the base of which Tweed washes with its waters, in it I
resolved to bury myself from the world. In it I still am, and mankind
fear me.
Here abruptly ended the manuscript of the Solitary.
A few years after the manuscript had been found, a party, consisting of
three gentlemen, a lady, and two children, came to visit the King's
Cove, and to them the individual who had found the papers related the
story of the hermit.
"But your manuscript is imperfect," said one of them, "and I shall
supply its deficiency. The Solitary mentions having found Sir Peter
Blakely in the presence of his wife, and he speaks of words that passed
between them. But you shall hear all:--"
The wife of Edward Fleming was sitting weeping for his absence, when Sir
Peter Blakely was announced. He shook as he entered. She started as she
beheld him. She bent her head to conceal her tears, and sorrowfully
extended her hand to welcome him.
'Catherine,' said he--and he paused, as though he would have called her
by the name of her husband--'I have come to speak with you respecting
your father's estate. I was brought up upon it; and there is not a tree,
a bush, or a brae within miles, but to me has a tale of happiness and
langsyne printed upon it, in the heart's own alphabet. But now the charm
that gave music to their whispers is changed. Forgive me, Catherine, but
it was you that, as the spirit of the scene, converted everything into a
paradise where ye trod, that made it dear to me. It was the hope, the
prayer, and the joy of many years, that I should call you mine--it was
this that made the breath of Heaven sweet, and caused sleep to fall upon
my eyelids as honey on the lips. But the thought has perished. I was
wrong to think that the primrose would flourish on the harvest-field.
But, Catherine, your father was my guardian--I was deeply in his debt,
for he was to me as a father, and for his sake, and your sake, I have
redeemed his property, and it shall be--it is yours.'
Lost in wonder, Catherine was for a few moments silent; but she at
length said--
'Generous man, it must not--it shall not be. Bury me not--crush me not
beneath a weight of generosity which from you I have been the last to
deserve. I could not love, but I have ever esteemed you. I still do. But
let not your feelings hurry you into an act of rashness. Time will heal,
if it do not efface the wounds which now bleed; and you may still find a
heart more worthy of your own, with whom to share the fortune of which
you would deprive yourself.'
'Never! never!' cried he; 'little do you understand me. Your image and
yours only was stamped where the pulse of life throbs in my heart. The
dream that I once cherished is dead now--my grey hairs have awoke me
from it. But I shall still be your friend--yea, I will be your husband's
friend; and, in memory of the past, your children shall be as my
children. Your husband's property is encumbered--throw these in the fire
and it is again his.' And, as he spoke, he placed the deeds of the
mortgage on a table before her.
'Hear me, noblest and best of friends!' cried Catherine--'hear me as in
the presence of our Great Judge. Think not that I feel the less grateful
for your generosity, that I solemnly refuse your offers, and adjure you
to mention them not in my presence. As the wife of Edward Fleming, I
will not accept what he would spurn. Rather would I toil with the sweat
of my brow for the bare crust that furnished us with a scanty meal; and
if I thought that, rather than share it with me, he would sigh after the
luxuries he has lost, I would say unto him--'Go, you are free!' and,
hiding myself from the world, weary Heaven with prayers for his
prosperity.'
'Ye talk in vain--as I have said, so it is and shall be,' added he. 'And
now, farewell, dear Catherine.'
'Stay! stay!--leave me not thus!' she exclaimed, and grasped his arm. At
that moment her husband returned and entered the room--and you know the
rest. But, Sir Peter Blakely was not mortally wounded, as the Solitary
believed. In a few months he recovered, and what he had promised to do
he accomplished.
"That is something new," said the fisherman who had found the
manuscript; "and who told ye, or how do ye know?--if it be a fair
question."
"I," replied he who had spoken, "am the Lewis to whom the paper was
addressed."
"You! you!" exclaimed the fisherman; "well, that beats a'--the like o'
that I never heard before."
"And I," said another, "am Sir Peter Blakely--the grey-haired
dreamer--who expected the April lily to bloom beneath an October sun."
And he put a crown into the hand of the fisherman.
"And I," added the third, "am the Solitary himself--this my Catherine,
and these my children. He whom I thought dead--dead by my own hand--the
man whom I had wronged--sought for me for years, and in this my
hermitage that was, he at length found me. It was the grey dawn when I
beheld him, and I thought that the ghost of the murdered stood before
me. But he spoke--he uttered words that entered my soul. I trembled in
his presence. The load of my guiltiness fell as a weight upon me. I was
unable to speak, almost to move. He took my hand and led me forth as a
child. In my confusion the papers which you found were left behind me.
And now, when happiness has shed its light around me, I have come with
my benefactor, my friend, my Catherine, and my children, to view the
cell of my penitence."
THE MAIDEN FEAST OF CAIRNKIBBIE.
He who has been present at a real Maiden, or Scotch feast of
harvest-home, if it should happen that he belongs to the caste that
makes the light fantastic toe the fulcrum of the elegant motions of the
quadrille, and Hogarth's line of beauty the test of the evolutions of
modern grace, might wish that the three sisters had long ago resigned
their patronage of the art of dancing, and left the limbs of man, and
their motions, to the sole power of the spirit of fun and good humour.
Centuries have passed away since first the Maiden called forth the
salient energies of the harvest-weary hinds and rosy-cheeked damsels of
Scotland. We have only now amongst us the ghost of the old
spirit-stirring genius of "the farmer's ha'." The modern vintage feast
is only a shadow of the old _Cerealia_--the festival of festivals, as it
has been called--at which the young and the old of ancient Greece and
Rome resigned themselves to the power of the rosy god, and the _nil
placet sine fructu_ was seen in every bright eye, heard in every glad
voice, and listened to in every tripping measure. The Scotch Maiden was
once what the vintage feasts of the Continent were, and still are. The
hinds and maids of one "town" were present at the harvest-home of
another; reciprocal visits kept up the spirit of the enjoyment; the
fields and farmers' ha's resounded with the merry pipe; the whirling
reel mixed up the dancers in its "uniform confusion," the flowing bicker
was "filled and kept fou;" kisses, "long and loud," vindicated a place
in the world of musical sound; and the Genius of Pleasure ran away with
heart and soul to her happy regions--declaring that, for one solitary
night in the year, the power of sorrow should have no authority over
mournful man. The Maiden of Cairnkibbie, a farm on the property of
Faulden--too long ago for the mention of a specific period, but while
Maidens (to descend to a pun) were still in the height of their beauty
and bloom--was one of the most joyous scenes that ever graced the green,
or made the rafters of the barn ring with "hey and how rohumbelow." The
farmer, William Hume--some far-off friend of the Paxton family--was
rich, as things went in those days; and a gaucy dame, and a fair
daughter, Lilly, blessed him with affection and duty. No lass ever
graced a Maiden like Lilly Hume; and no free farmer's wife ever extended
so hearty a patronage to the feast of fun as did the sleek and
comfortable guidwife of Cairnkibbie. The pretty "damysell" was as jimp
as "gillie"--
"As ony rose her rude was red,
Her lire was like the lillie."
and far and near she defied all manner of bold competition in those
charms that go to deck the blooming maids of Scotland. Natural affection
made her the pride of her parents; and a simplicity that did not seem to
have art enough to tell her of her own beauty, endeared her to those who
might have been expected to have been smitten with envy, or crossed with
a hopeless passion.
There was many a lass "as myld as meid" at the Maiden of Cairnkibbie,
and many a Jock, and Steenie, and Robyne, as braw as yellow locks
brushed bolt upright in the face of heaven could make any of God's
creatures. But many of the merry-makers did not trust to such ornaments
of nature: for Steenie Thornton, from the town of Kelton, the gay lover
of Jess Swan from the same town, had his locks tied behind with a yellow
ribbon got from her fair hand, and his "pumps" boasted the same
decoration; the sprightly Will Aitken, the best hand at a morris-dance
in all the Merse, had his jacket "browden" with "fowth o' roses" stuck
into the button-holes by Jean Gillies from Westertown; the fiercest
wrestler of the Borders, Jock Hedderick, who cherished Bess Gibson,
pushed forward his bold breast, to exhibit to the goggle eyes of
wondering admiration a vest sewed by her delicate fingers at intervals
stolen from cheese-making; and Pat Birrel, the noted scaumer, who was
accounted more than "twa hen clokkis" by Kirsty Glen the henwife's
daughter of Earlston, lifted his feet high in mid-air, to shew the
gushets in his hose wrought by her lily hands. Nor did the screechin
gilpies lack ornaments to set off their fair persons. Some had bright
yellow gloves of "raffal right;" and many, with kirtles of "Lincome
light, weel prest wi' mony plaits," pulled the trains in most menacing
bundles through the pocket-holes, to shew at once how bright were their
colours, and how many a "breid" was wasted in their amplitude. Many had
ornaments that tongue could not describe--because they were the first of
their kind, and required a new vocabulary to do justice to their
beauties. But, ornamented or plain, the revellers were all alike filled
with the spirit of the Maiden; and, if their "Tam Lutar," the piper, did
not skirl them up to the point of enjoyment to which they all struggled,
and danced, and drank, and screamed to get, sure it was that no fault
was attributable to the merry-makers themselves: nor was the guidman's
daughter, Lilly Hume, less joyous than the merriest. Although at her
father's harvest-feast she was accounted a lady, she was the humblest of
the "hail menyie;" and never refused to draw up through her pocket-holes
the ends of her falling yellow kirtle, as a preparation for another
reel, at the supplicatory bend or bow of the humblest hind, albeit he
was adorned with neither bright crimson nor ochre yellow.
The "Tam Lutar" of the feast--a blind piper, who began to play when he
first felt the incipient effects of the first bicker, blew stronger as
the fumes of the potations rose higher, declined as the liquid impulse
fell, and even stopped when the drink entirely sunk--was well supplied
with the "piper's coig," a girded vessel of jolly good ale, that lay
beside him, and was ever and anon filled, as the dancers felt the music
beginning to lag in spirit. Away they flew, to the airs of
"Gillquhisker," "Brum on tul," "Tortee Solee Lemendow," and other good
old tunes, now forgotten, though their names are mentioned by Sir James
Ingles; the resilent heels spurned the earth; the fore part of the foot,
where the spring lies, dealt out those tremendous thuds on the suffering
floor which heretofore were reckoned the true and legitimate soul of
dancing, and now, alas! displaced by the sickly _slip_ of the French
grace; the "dancing whoop" rung around, inspired every soul, and
lightened every heel; Jock Splaefut "bobbit up wi' bends;" and Jenny set
to him, and "beckit," and set again, and turned, and away glided through
the mazes of the reel--
"For reeling there micht nae wench rest;"
and came back, and set and "beckit" again; till, "forfochtin faynt" with
pure dancing toil, the reelers gave place to the country dancers, who
toiled and _swat_ in the same degree for the period of their sweet
labours. Then was the breathing time in the far corners appropriated to
the cooling tankard, the dew of which left on the panting lips ran a
considerable risk of being dried up by the heat of love, elicited from
the kiss that smacked of love and ale.
At a corner in the end of the room, a crowd had collected; and some high
words were passing between Will Aitken and Jock Hedderick, on a question
that seemed to interest the dancers. Those standing about were washing
down large mouthfuls of bannocks by draughts of strong beer, while they
wiped the sweat from their brows, and listened to the subject in
dispute. At intervals some one was heard at the door, playing and
singing.
"He played sae schill, an' sang sae sweet,"
that Lilly Hume felt interested in the musician. He was a beggar, who
boldly claimed admittance to the Maiden, by what he called the "auld
rights o' the gaberlunzies of Scotland," who were declared entitled to
enter into the feast of the harvest home, to dance thereat, and drink
thereat, and kiss the "damysells" thereat, with as much freedom as the
gayest guest. This demand was resisted by Jock Hedderick, who besides
disputed the authority of the ancient custom; which, on the other hand,
was upheld by Will Aitken, whose supple tongue was so powerful over his
opponents that
"He muddelt them down like ony mice;"
and, notwithstanding the terror of the scaumer's arm, prevailed upon the
guidman and the company to hold sacred the rights of hospitality of the
land, and admit the "pauky auld carle," with his pipes and his wallets.
As soon as the decision was given, Lilly ran to the door, and, taking
the gaberlunzie by the hand, brought him in. A loud laugh resounded
throughout the room, to the profit of the proud and merry dancers, and
at the expense of the jolly beggar, who, young and stalwart, and borne
down by sundry appendages, containing doubtless meal and bread, "cauk
and keil," "spindles and quhorles," and all the et-ceteras of the
wallet, stood before them, and raised in return such a ranting, roaring
laugh, as well apparently at himself as his company, that, by that one
effort of his lungs, he made more friends than many a laughter-loving
pot companion might make in a year. Then in an instant he struck this
merry-maker on the back, and slapped that on the shoulder, and kissed
the skirling kitties with such a jolly and hearty spirit of free
salutation, that he even added flame to the already burning passion of
frolic, and raised again the rafter-shaking laugh, till it drowned all
the energies of Lutar himself, albeit his coig had that instant been
filled.
But this was only vanity, while the stomach of the jolly gaberlunzie was
as yet empty. A large stoup was brought to him by Will Carr, a
good-looking young man of gentle demeanour, the only person who in that
pairing assembly seemed to want his "dow." A shade of melancholy was on
his cheek, and, as he offered the gaberlunzie the stoup, he cast an eye
on Lilly, the meaning of which seemed to be read in an instant by the
beggar.
"Ha! ha!" cried the latter; "ye are the true welcomer, my braw youth.
Thae wild chiels an' their glaiket hizzies wad fill the beggar wi' the
sound o' his ain laugh, as if he were a pair o' walking bagpipes. But,
ho, man, this is sour yill.
The bridegroom brought a pint of ale,
And bade the piper drink it.
'Drink it?' quoth he, 'and it so staile;
Ashrew me, if I think it!'
Ye've anither barrel in the corner yonder--awa!--the beggar maun hae the
best.
This Maiden nicht it is his right,
And, faith he winna blink it."
And so he cadgily ranted and sang, swearing that the best ale and the
prettiest lips in the whole house should that night be at his command.
While Will Carr brought him ale out of another cask, Lilly Hume took
away his wallets, and laid them in a window-sole at his back. Having
taken a waught of the ale so long that the bystanders looked on with
fear, lest he might never recover his breath again, he returned the
stoup empty to Will, telling him to fill it again, as he intended to
assist the legitimate Lutar in blowing up the spirits of the company--a
work which would require "fowth o' yill." Without farther preface, he
blew up his bags with a skirl that seemed to shake the house, and,
dashing fearlessly into the time, poured so much joyous sound into the
thick air of the heated apartment, that the weary-limbed dancers threw
off their languor, and fell to it again with a spirit that equalled
that of their first off-set. But his musical occupation did not prevent
his attention to the looks and actions of Lilly Hume and Will Carr.
"How dinna ye dance, hinny?" said he, in a low voice to Lilly. "How
dinna ye dance, man?" he repeated, as he turned his head to Will. "Think
ye yer sittin there's a compliment to me, wha am blawing awa my lungs
here, for the very purpose o' makin ye dance?"
The two young people looked at each other, and then at the guidman, who
sat at a little distance.
"Tell me the reason, my bonny hinny," he added; and, as he blew again,
leant his ear to hear the answer. "Eh! come now, my white lily," he
persisted. "I'm a safe carle, and can spae fortunes as well as blaw up
thae green bags wi' thriftless wind. I may tell ye o' a braw lot, if
ye'll only open yer lips and gie me some o' yer secrets."
"My faither winna let me dance wi' Will Carr," at last replied Lilly,
blushing from ear to ear.
"How! how!" answered the gaberlunzie, taking the pipes suddenly frae his
mouth--"no let ye dance wi' a decent callant, the bonniest hensure o'
the hail menyie! What crime has he committed, hinny? Eh?"
"He's puir," answered Lilly, innocently.
"Ha! a red crime that, Lilly," answered he; "if he had killed a score o'
God's creatures in a Border raid, he micht hae been forgi'en; but wha
forgies poverty? But do ye like Will Carr, hinny?"
"My faither and mither say sae," answered Lilly.
"Ay, ay,--I see whar the wind blaws," said the gaberlunzie. "But ye
_will_ dance wi' him. I, as a beggar, hae a richt to the fairest hand o'
the maiden--yer faither daurna refuse ye to me; an' let Will tak yon
quean wi' the yellow ribbons in her wimple, an' we'll a' mix in ae
reel. Will, man, awa an' ask yon bloomin hizzy wi' the rose rude to
dance wi' ye."
Will obeyed; and the beggar, having brought the tune to a termination,
stepped boldly up into the middle of the floor, holding by the hand the
fair Lilly Hume; while Will, with his blushing quean, Bess Gordon, took
their stations opposite.
"Up wi' the 'Hunts o' Cheviot,' Tam," cried the beggar; "an blaw as if
ye wad blaw yer last. Gie him yill there, an' I'll play for him a hail
hour, if he gars the roof-tree o' Cairnkibbie dirl to the gaberlunzie's
dance."