friends in Leith, on account of your absence, be not concerned about
that, good father; I have provided for it. I have sent notice to the
preceptory of your misfortune, relating all that has happened, and
giving intimation that you are in my house, and in safety; so have no
doubt that some of the brethren will be here in the course of the
evening."
Here was a pretty piece of information for the already but too much
perplexed martyr to the old faith. Intimation had been sent to the
preceptory, and half-a-dozen of the brethren would be in upon him
immediately, and a dreadful expose would, of course, follow. It was a
most trying crisis, and David but too sensibly felt it to be so. He felt
as if he could have wished the house to fall upon him, and bury him in
its ruins.
Appalled and horrified, however, as he was at this impending
catastrophe, he said nothing, but, anxious to be left alone, in order to
have an opportunity of thinking over his position, and of taking into
consideration what had best be done, he began to affect drowsiness; when
his noble hostess, taking the hint, quietly left the apartment.
Hearing the door close, David first opened one eye cautiously, and then
the other; then turning gently round, peered over the edge of the bed to
see if the coast was clear. Discovering that it was, he threw himself
again on his back, and, fixing his eyes on the roof, began thinking as
hard as he could how he was to get out of his present dilemma. The
sequel will tell the result of his deliberations.
On that same night, about twelve of the clock, David Wemyss' worthy
spouse--who had been in great distress at his sudden disappearance, and
who was fully impressed with the belief that he had fallen over the quay
and had been drowned--was startled by a low tap-tapping at the back door
of "The Ship." Thinking it might be some one with tidings of her lost
husband, she instantly got up, lighted a candle, and, although under no
little apprehension and alarm, opened the door, when, lo! who should
enter but her beloved David himself. She instantly set up a scream of
delight.
"Whisht, whisht, woman," said David, stealing into a back apartment as
fast as he could. "This is no a business to blaw about. The calmer sough
we keep the better."
"But, gude sake, David," said his wife, on rejoining him, after having
secured the door, "whar hae ye been a' this time, and whar hae ye gotten
that awfu-like face?"
"I hae gotten a hantle mair than that, guidwife, although ye dinna
see't," replied David. "I dinna believe there's a hale bane in my entire
buik. I hae had a bonny time since I left ye; aneuch to serve a man his
hale life time; and yet it was a' crammed into ae four-and-twenty hours.
But gie me a mouthfu o' brandy, guidwife, and I'll tell ye a' about it."
David now proceeded with his narration, giving his wife a detailed
account of the series of adventures related in the foregoing pages. To
these we have now to add only a reference to one or two points, which
will be considered, probably, as requiring some explanation.
First, as to how our brother of St. Anthony escaped from Lady
Wisherton's. This he effected by the simple process of stealing out of
the house after dark. There was no other way for it, and he was
fortunate enough to succeed in the somewhat hazardous attempt, by
dropping himself from a window of a story in height, at the back part of
the house.
Who the person was who first laid hands on mine host of "The Ship," on
his first appearance in his new character, or by whom he was employed,
he never certainly knew, but suspected afterwards that he was a retainer
of Lord Borthwick's, who was then in Leith with the Queen Regent.
Whither, however, he meant to have taken him, or who the sufferer was
for whom the last duties of religion were wanted, he never learnt; nor,
indeed, for obvious reasons, did he ever inquire. The whole, in short,
was a subject on which David Wemyss always thought the less that was
said the better; and, acting on this opinion, it was one which he
carefully abstained from making matter of conversation.
All his caution, however, could not prevent some hints of his adventure
from getting abroad. These hints some of the little ragged scapegraces
of the Coal Hill wrought into the following rhymes, which, in dark
nights, they were in the habit of shouting in at the door of "The Ship,"
to the great annoyance of its landlord, who might frequently be seen
rushing out, stick in hand, to inflict summary punishment on the
offenders:--
"Davie Wemyss gaed oot a priest,
By filthy lucre temptit;
Davie Wemyss cam hame again.
And thocht naebody kent it."
THE STORY OF CLARA DOUGLAS.
"The maid that loves,
Goes out to sea upon a shattered plank,
And puts her trust in miracles for safety."--_Old Play._
I am a peripatetic genius--a wanderer by profession--a sort of Salathiel
Secundus, "doomed for a term," like the ghost of Hamlet's papa, "to walk
the earth," whether I will or not. Here, however, the simile stops; for
his aforesaid ghostship could traverse, if he chose, amid climes far
away, while the circuit of my peregrinations is, has for sometime
been, and must, for some short time more, necessarily be, confined
to the northern extremity of "our tight little island"--_vulgo
vocato_--Scotland. In my day I have seen many strange sights, and met
with many strange faces--made several hairbreadth 'scapes, and undergone
innumerable perils by flood and field. On the wings of the wind--that
is, on the top of a stage-coach--I have passed through many known and
unknown towns and villages; have visited, on foot and on horseback, for
my own special edification and amusement, various ancient ruins, foaming
cataracts, interesting rocks, and dismal-looking caves, celebrated in
Scottish story. But better far than that, and dearer to my soul, my foot
has trod the floors of, I may say, all the haberdashers shops north of
the Tweed: in short, most patient reader, I am a travelling bagman.
In this capacity I have, for years, perambulated among the chief towns
of Scotland, taking orders from those who were inclined to give them to
me, and giving orders to those who were not inclined to take them from
me, unless with a _douceur_ in perspective--viz., coachmen, waiters,
bar-maids, _et hoc genus omne_. From those of the third class, many are
the witching smiles lighting up pretty faces--many the indignant glances
shot from deep love-darting eyes, when their under neighbours, the lips,
were invaded without consent of parties--which have saluted me
everywhere; for the same varied feelings, the same sudden and
unaccountable likings and dislikings, have place in the breasts of
bar-maids as in those of other women. As is the case too with the rest
of their sex, there are among them the clumsy and the handsome, the
plain and the pretty, the scraggy and the plump, the old and the young;
but of all the bar-maids I ever met with, none charmed me more than did
Mary of the Black Swan, at Altonby. In my eyes she inherited all the
good qualities I have here enumerated--that is to say, she was handsome,
pretty, plump, and young, with a form neither too tall nor too short;
but just the indescribable happy size between, set off by a manner
peculiarly graceful.
It was on a delightful evening in the early spring, that I found myself
seated, for the first time, in a comfortable little parlour pertaining
to the Black Swan, and Mary attending on me--she being the chief, nay,
almost the only person in the establishment who could serve a table. I
was struck with her loveliness, as well as captivated with her engaging
manner, and though I had for thirty years defied the artifices of blind
Cupid, I now felt myself all at once over head and ears in love with
this village beauty. Although placed in so low a sphere as that in which
I then beheld her, there was a something about her that proclaimed her
to be of gentle birth. Whoever looked upon her countenance, felt
conscious that there was a respect due to her which it is far from
customary to extend to girls in waiting at an inn. Hers were
"Eyes so pure, that from their ray
Dark vice would turn abashed away."
Her feet were small and fairy-like, from which, if her voice, redolent
of musical softness--that thing so desirable in woman--had not already
informed me, I should have set her down as being of English extraction.
Several months elapsed ere it was again in my power to visit Altonby.
During all that time, my vagrant thoughts had been of Mary--sleeping or
waking, her form was ever present to my fancy. On entering the Black
Swan, it was Mary who bounded forward to welcome me with a delighted
smile. She seemed gratified at my return; and I was no less so at the
cordiality of my reception. The month was July, and the evening
particularly fine; so, not having business of much consequence to
transact in the place, and Mary having to attend to the comforts of
others, beside myself, then sojourning at the Black Swan, I sallied
forth alone--
"To take my evening's walk of meditation."
When one happens to be left _per se_ in a provincial town, where he is
alike unknowing and unknown--where there is no theatre or other place of
amusement in which to spend the evening--it almost invariably happens
that he pays a visit to the churchyard, and delights himself, for an
hour or so, with deciphering the tombstones--a recreation extremely
healthful to the body, and soothing to the mind. It was to the
churchyard on that evening I bent my steps, thinking, as I went along,
seriously of Mary.
"What is she to me?" I involuntarily exclaimed; "I have no time to waste
upon women: I am a wanderer, with no great portion of worldly gear. In
my present circumstances it is impossible I can marry her; and to think
of her in any other light were villanous. No, no! I will no longer
cherish a dream which can never be realized."
And I determined that, on the morrow, I should fly the fatal spot for
ever. Who or what Mary's relations had been, she seemed to feel great
reluctance in disclosing to me. All I could glean from her was, that she
was an orphan--that she had had a sister who had formed an unfortunate
attachment, and broken their mother's heart--that all of her kindred
that now remained was a brother, and he was in a foreign land.
The sun was resting above the summits of the far-off mountains, and the
yew trees were flinging their dusky shadows over the graves, as I
entered the burial-place of Altonby. The old church was roofless and in
ruins; and within its walls were many tombstones over the ashes of
those who, having left more than the wherewithal to bury them, had been
laid there by their heirs, as if in token of respect. In a distant
corner, I observed one little mound over which no stone had been placed
to indicate who lay beneath: it was evidently the grave of a stranger,
and seemed to have been placed in that spot more for the purpose of
being out of the way than for any other. At a short distance from it was
another mound, overtopped with grass of a fresher kind. As I stood
leaning over a marble tombstone, gazing around me, a figure slowly
entered at the farther end of the aisle, and, with folded arms and
downcast eyes, passed on to those two graves. It was that of a young man
of perhaps five-and-twenty, though a settled melancholy, which
overspread his countenance, made him look five years older. I crouched
behind the stone on which I had been leaning, fearful of disturbing him
with my presence, or rousing his attention by my attempting to leave the
place.
After gazing with a vacant eye for a few moments upon the graves, he
knelt down between them. His lips began to move, but I heard not what he
said. I thought he was praying for the souls of the departed; and I was
confirmed in this by hearing him at last say, with an audible voice:--
"May all good angels guard thee, Clara Douglas, and thou, my mother!"
As he uttered these last words, he turned his eyes to the newer grave. I
thought he was about to continue his prayer; but, as if the sight of the
grave had awakened other feelings, he suddenly started up, and, raising
his hands to heaven, invoked curses on the head of one whom he termed
their "murderer!" That done, he rushed madly from the church. All this
was very strange to me; and I determined, if possible, to ascertain
whose remains those graves entombed.
On leaving the churchyard, I was fortunate enough to orgather with an
old man, from whom I learned the melancholy story of her who occupied
the older-looking grave. She was young and beautiful. Accident had
deprived her father of that wealth which a long life of untiring
industry had enabled him to lay past for his children; and he did not
long survive its loss. Fearful of being a burden to her mother, who had
a son and another daughter besides herself to provide for out of the
slender pittance which remained to her on her husband's death, Clara
Douglas accepted a situation as a governess, and sought to earn an
honourable independence by those talents and accomplishments which had
once been cultivated for mere amusement. The brother of Clara, shortly
afterwards, obtained an appointment in the island of Madeira.
Unfortunately for Clara, a young officer, a relative of the family in
which she resided, saw her, and was smitten with her charms. He loved
and was beloved again. The footing of intimacy on which he was in the
house, procured him many interviews with Clara. Suddenly his regiment
was ordered to the Continent; and when the young ensign told the
sorrowful tidings to Clara, he elicited from her a confession of her
love.
Months passed away--Waterloo was fought and won--and Ensign Malcolm was
among those who fell.
When the death-list reached Scotland, many were the hearts it
overpowered with grief; but Clara Douglas had more than one grief to
mourn: sorrow and shame were too much to bear together, and she fled
from the house where she had first met _him_ who was the cause of all.
None could tell whither she had gone. Her mother and sister were
agonized, when the news of her disappearance reached them. Every search
was made, but without effect. A year all but two weeks passed away, and
still no tidings of her, till that very day, two boys seeking for
pheasant's nests upon the top of a hillock overgrown with furze--which
the old man pointed out to me at a short distance from the place where
we stood--accidently stumbled upon an object beneath a fir-tree. It was
the remains of a female in a kneeling posture. Beneath her garments, by
which she was recognised as Clara Douglas, not a vestige of flesh
remained. There was still some upon her hands, which had been tightly
clasped together; and upon her face, which leant upon them. Seemingly
she had died in great agony. It was supposed by some that she had taken
poison.
"If your time will permit," added the old man, as he wiped away a tear,
"I will willingly show you the place where her remains were found. It is
but a short distance. Come."
I followed the old man in silence. He led the way into a field. We
climbed over some loose stones thrown together, to serve as a wall of
division at the farther extremity of it, and slowly began to ascend the
grassy acclivity, which was on both sides bordered by a thick hedge,
placed apart, at the distance of about thirty feet. When half way up, I
could not resist the inclination I felt to turn and look upon the scene.
It was an evening as fair as I had ever gazed on. The wheat was
springing in the field through which we had just passed, covering it, as
it were, with a rich green carpet. Trees and hills bounded the view,
behind which the sun was on the point of sinking, and the red streaks
upon the western sky "gave promise of a goodly day tomorrow.
If, thought I, the hour on which Clara Douglas ascended this hill was
as lovely as this evening, she must indeed have been deeply bent upon
her own destruction, to look upon the world so beautifully fair, and
not wish to return to it again. We continued our ascent, passing among
thick tangled underwood, in whose kindly grasp the light flowing
garments of Clara Douglas must have been ever and anon caught as she
wended on her way. Yet had she disregarded the friendly interposition.
Along the margin of an old stone quarry we now proceeded, where the
pathway was so narrow that we were occasionally compelled to catch at
the furze bushes which edged it, to prevent ourselves from falling over
into the gulf beneath. And Clara Douglas, thought I, must have passed
along here, and must have been exposed to the same danger of toppling
headlong over the cliff, yet she had exerted herself to pass the fatal
spot unharmed, to save a life which she knew would almost the instant
afterwards be taken by her own hand. Such is the inconsistency of human
nature. Our course lay once more through the midst of underwood, so
thickly grown that one would have supposed no female foot would dare
to enter it.
"Here," cried the old man, stopping beside a dwarfish fir tree, "here is
the spot where we found the mortal remains of Clara Douglas."
I pressed forward, and, to my surprise, beheld one other being than my
old guide looking on the place. It was the same I had noticed at the
grave of Clara Douglas, within the walls of the ruined church of
Altonby. I thought it a strange coincidence.
Summer passed away, winter and spring succeeded, and summer came again,
and with it came the wish to see Mary once more. However much I had
before doubted the truth of the axiom, that "absence makes the heart
grow fonder," I now felt the full force of its truth. My affection for
Mary was, day after day, becoming stronger; and, in spite of the
dictates of prudence, my determination never to see her again began to
falter; and one evening I unconsciously found myself in the yard of the
Black Swan. Well, since I had come there at any rate, it would be
exceedingly foolish to go away again without speaking to Mary; so I
called to the stable boy to put up my horse. The boy knew me, for I had
once given him a sixpence for running a message, and he came briskly
forward at my first call, no doubt with some indistinct idea of
receiving another sixpence at some no very distant date.
"Eh! Mr. Moir," said the boy, while I was dismounting, in answer to my
question, "What news in the village?"
"Ye'll no guess what's gaun to happen? Our Mary, the folk say, is gaun
to be married!"
Our Mary! thought I, can _our_ Mary be _my_ Mary? and, to ascertain
whether they were one and the same personage, I inquired of the boy who
our Mary was.
"Ou!" replied he, "she's just bar-maid at the inn here."
I started, now that this disclosure had unhinged my doubts; and
subduing, as well as I was able, my rising emotion, I boldly asked who
was "the happy man."
"They ca' him a captain!" said the boy, innocently; "but whether he's a
sea captain, an offisher in the army, or a captain o' police, I'm no
that sure. At ony rate, he aye gangs aboot in plain claes. He's been
staying for a month here, an' he gangs oot but seldom, an' that only in
the gloamin."
After thanking the boy, and placing the expected silver coin in his
hand, I turned the corner of the house in my way towards the entrance,
determined, with my own eyes and ears, to ascertain the truth of the
boy's statement. The pace at which I was proceeding was so rapid, that,
ere I was aware of the vicinity of any one, I came bump against the
person of a gentleman, whom, to my surprise, I instantly recognised as
the mysterious visitant to the grave of Clara Douglas, and to the spot
where her relics were found. He seemed to regard me with a suspicious
eye; for he shuffled past without uttering a word. His air was
disordered, his step irregular, and his whole appearance was that of a
man with whom care, and pain, and sorrow had long been familiar.
Can this be the captain? was the thought which first suggested itself to
me. It was a question I could not answer; yet I entered the Black Swan,
half persuaded that it was.
"Ah! Mr. Moir," cried Mary, coming forward to welcome me in her usual
way, the moment she heard my voice, "you have been long a stranger. I
fancied that, somehow or other, I was the cause of it, for you went away
last time without bidding me good-by." I held her hand in mine, I saw
her eyes sparkle, and the blush diffuse her cheek, and I muttered a
confused apology. "Well! I am so glad to see you," she continued. "It
was but yesterday I spoke of you to the captain."
"The captain," I repeated, while the pangs of jealousy, which had,
during the last five minutes, been gradually lulled over to sleep,
suddenly roused themselves. "Who is the captain, Mary?"
"Oh! I'm sure you will like him when you become acquainted with him,"
said she, blushing. "There is something so prepossessing about him, that
really I defy any one not to like him." The animation with which she
gave utterance to these words made me miserable, and I cursed the
captain in my heart.
The next day passed over without my being able to obtain a sight of my
rival; and, when I walked out in the afternoon, he had not yet risen.
Mary's assigned reason for this was, that he was an invalid; but his was
more the disease of the mind than of the body. In his memory there was
implanted a deep sorrow, which time could never root out. In my walk,
the churchyard and the venerable ruins of the church were visited--I
stood again beside the grave of the hapless Clara Douglas, and her
melancholy story afforded me a theme for sad reflection, which for a
while banished Mary and all jealous fears from my mind.
It was evening when I reached "mine inn." On passing the parlour window,
a sight met my eye which brought the colour to my cheeks. A tall,
noble-looking man lay extended upon the sofa, while Mary leant over him
in kindly solicitude, and, with marked assiduity, placed cushions for
his head, and arranged his military cloak. This, then, must be the
captain, and he and my mysterious friend were not the same. That was
some consolation, however.
Thus as he lay, he held Mary's hand in his. My breast was racked with
agony intense; for
"Oh! what a host of killing doubts and fears,
Of melancholy musings, deep perplexities,
Must the fond heart that yields itself to love,
Struggle with and endure."
Once I determined on flying from the scene, and leaving my rival in
undisputed possession of the village beauty; but, having been resolved
that no woman should ever have it in her power to say she made me
wretched, I screwed my courage to the sticking place, and, on seeing
Mary leave the parlour, I shortly afterwards entered it.
The stranger scarcely noticed my entrance, so intently was his attention
fixed upon the perusal of a newspaper which he held in his hand. I sat
down at the window, and, for want of something better to do, gazed with
a scrutinizing eye upon the gambols of the ducks and geese outside.
After some time Mary came in to ask the captain what he would have for
supper.
"This is the gentleman I spoke of," she said, directing her expressive
glance towards me.
"Mr. Moir must pardon my inattention!" said the stranger, laying down
the paper; "I was not aware that my pretty Mary's friend was in the
room."
His urbane manner, his soft winning voice, made me feel an irresistible
impulse to meet his advances. He proposed that we should sup together,
and I sat down at the table with very different feelings from those
which had been mine on entering the parlour that evening. I felt
inclined to encourage an intimacy with the man whom, but a short while
before, I had looked upon with aversion.
As the night wore on, I became more and more captivated with the
stranger. His conversation was brilliant and intellectual; and, when we
parted for the night, I began to find fault with myself for having for a
moment harboured dislike towards so perfect a gentleman. I resolved to
stay a few days longer at Altonby, for the purpose of improving our
acquaintance. The stranger--or, as he was called at the inn, "the
captain"--expressed delight when he was informed of my resolution; and,
although he seldom rose before the afternoon, we spent many pleasant
hours together.