two lights snoov-snooving, nearer and nearer; and I heard distinctly the
sound of feet that werena men's--cloven feet, maybe--but nae wheels. Sae
nearer it cam and nearer, till the sweat began to pour owre my een as
cauld as ice; and, at lang and last, I fand my knees beginning to gi'e
way; and, after tot-tottering for half a minute, I fell down, my staff
playing bleach out before me. When I cam to mysell, and opened my een,
there were the twa lights before me, bleez-bleezing, as if they wad blast
my sight out. And what did they turn out to be, think ye? The de'il or
spunkie, whilk o' them?"
"I'm sure I canna tell," said I.
"Naithing mair then," answered Tammie, "but twa bowets; ane tied to ilka
knee of auld Doofie, the half-crazy horse-doctor, mounted on his
lang-tailed naig, and away through the dark by himsell, at the dead hour
o' night, to the relief of a man's mare seized with the batts, somewhere
down about Oxenford."
I was glad that Tammie's story had ended in this way, when out came
another tramping on its heels.
"Do you see the top of yon black trees to the eastward there, on the
braehead?"
"I think I do," was my reply. "But how far, think ye, are we from home
now?"
"About a mile and a half," said Tammie.--"Weel, as to the trees, I'll
tell ye something about them.
"There was an auld widow-leddy lived langsyne about the town-end of
Dalkeith. A sour, cankered, curious body--she's dead and rotten lang
ago. But what I was gaun to say, she had a bonny bit fair-haired,
blue-ee'd lassie of a servant-maid that lodged in the house wi' her, just
by all the world like a lamb wi' an wolf; a bonnier quean, I've heard
tell, never steppit in leather shoon; so all the young lads in the
gate-end were wooing at her, and fain to have her; but she wad only have
ae joe for a' that. He was a journeyman wright, a trades-lad, and they
had come, three or four year before, frae the same place thegither--maybe
having had a liking for ane anither since they were bairns; so they were
gaun to be married the week after Da'keith Fair, and a' was settled. But
what, think ye, happened? He got a drap drink, and a recruiting party
listed him in the king's name, wi' pitting a white shilling in his loof.
"When the poor lassie heard what had come to pass, and how her sweetheart
had ta'en the bounty, she was like to gang distrackit, and took to her
bed. The doctor never took up her trouble; and some said it was a fever.
At last she was roused out o't, but naebody ever saw her laugh after; and
frae ane that was as cantie as a lintie, she became as douce as a Quaker,
though she aye gaed cannily about her wark, as if amaist naething had
happened. If she was ony way light-headed before, to be sure she wasna
that noo; but just what a decent quean should be, sitting for hours by
the kitchen fire her lane, reading the Bible, and thinking, wha kens, of
what wad become o' the wicked after they died; and so ye see--"
"What light is yon?" said I, interrupting him, wishing him like to break
off.
"Ou, it's just the light on some of the coal-hills. The puir blackened
creatures will be gaun down to their wark. It's an unyearthly kind of
trade, turning night intil day, and working like moudiewarts in the dark,
when decent folks are in their beds sleeping.--And so, as I was saying,
ye see, it happened ae Sunday night that a chap cam to the back door; and
the mistress too heard it. She was sitting in the foreroom wi' her specs
on, reading some sermon book; but it was the maid that answered.
"In a while thereafter, she rang her bell, being a curious body, and aye
anxious to ken a' thing of her ain affairs, let alane her neighbours; so,
after waiting a wee, she rang again,--and better rang; then lifting up
her stick, for she was stiff with the rheumaticks and decay of nature,
she hirpled into the kitchen,--but feint a hait saw she there, save the
open Bible lying on the table, the cat streekit out before the fire, and
the candle burning--the candle--na, I daur say I am wrang there, I
believe it was a lamp, for she was a near ane. As for her maiden, there
was no trace of her."
"What do ye think came owre her then?" said I to him, liking to be at my
wits' end. "Naething uncanny, I daur say?"
"Ye'll hear in a moment," answered Tammie, "a' that I ken o' the matter.
Ye see--as I asked ye before--yon trees on the hill-head to the eastward;
just below yon black cloud yonder?"
"Preceesely," said I--"I see them well enough."
"Weel, after a' thochts of finding her were gi'en up, and it was fairly
concluded, that it was the auld gudeman that had come and chappit her
out, she was fund in a pond among yon trees, floating on her back, wi'
her Sunday's claes on!!"
"Drowned?" said I to him.
"Drowned--and as stiff as a deal board," answered Tammie. "But when she
was drowned--or how she came to be drowned--or who it was drowned
her--has never been found out to this blessed moment."
"Maybe," said I, lending in my word--"maybe she had grown demented, and
thrown herself in i' the dark."
"Or maybe," said Tammie, "the deil flew away wi' her in a flash o' fire;
and, soosing her down frae the lift, she landit in that hole, where she
was fund floating. But--wo!--wo!" cried he to his horse, coming across
its side with his whip--"We maun be canny; for this brig has a sharp turn
(it was the Cow Brig, ye know), and many a one, both horse and man, have
got their necks broken, by not being wary enough of that corner."
This made me a thought timorous, having the bit laddie Benjie fast asleep
in my arms; and as I saw that Tammie's horse was a wee fidgety, and glad,
I dare say, poor thing, to find itself so near home. We heard the water,
far down below, roaring and hushing over the rocks, and thro' among the
Duke's woods--big, thick, black trees, that threw their branches, like
giant's arms, half across the Esk, making all below as gloomy as
midnight; while over the tops of them, high, high aboon, the bonnie wee
starries were twink-twinkling far amid the blue. But there was no end to
Tammie's tongue.
"Weel," said he, "speaking o' the brig, I'll tell you a gude story about
that. Auld Jamie Bowie, the potato merchant, that lived at the Gate-end,
had a horse and cart that met wi' an accident just at the turn o' the
corner yonder; and up cam a chield sair forfaughten, and a' out of
breath, to Jamie's door, crying like the prophet Jeremiah to the auld
Jews, 'Rin, rin away doun to the Cow Brig; for your cart's dung to
shivers, and the driver's killed, as weel as the horse!'
"James ran in for his hat; but as he was coming out at the door, he met
another messenger, such as came running across the plain to David, to
acquaint him of the death of Absalom, crying, 'Rin away doun, Jamie, rin
away doun; your cart is standing yonder, without either horse or driver;
for they're baith killed!'
"Jamie thanked Heaven that the cart was to the fore; then, rinning back
for his stick, which he had forgotten, he stopped a moment to bid his
wife not greet so loud, and was then rushing out in full birr, when he
ran foul of a third chield, that mostly knocked doun the door in his
hurry. 'Awfu' news, man, awfu' news,' was the way o't, with this second
Eliphaz the Temanite. 'Your cart and horse ran away--and threw the
driver, puir fellow, clean owre the brig into the water. No a crunch o'
him is to be seen or heard tell of; for he was a' smashed to pieces!!
It's an awfu' business!'
"'But where's the horse? and where's the cart, then?' askit Jamie, a
thought brisker. 'Where's the horse and cart, then, my man? Can ye tell
me ought of that?'
"'Ou,' said he, 'they're baith doun at the Toll yonder, no a hair the
waur.'
"'That's the best news I've heard the nicht, my man.--Goodwife, I say,
Goodwife; are ye deaf or donnart? Give this lad a dram; and, as it
rather looks like a shower, I'll e'en no go out the night.--I'll easy
manage to find another driver, though half a hundred o' the blockheads
should get their brains knocked out.'
"Is not that a gude ane noo?" quo' Tammie, laughing. '"Od Jamie Bowie
was a real ane. He wadna let them light a candle by his bedside to let
him see to dee; he gied them a curse, and said that was needless
extravagance."
Dog on it, thought I to myself, the further in the deeper. This beats
the round-shouldered, horse-couper with the Japan hat, skinning his
reeking horse, all to sticks; and so I again fell into a gloomy sort of a
musing; when, just as we came opposite the Duke's gate, with the deers on
each side of it, two men rushed out upon us, and one of them seized
Tammie's horse by the bridle, as the other one held his horse-pistol to
my nose, and bade me stop in the King's name!
"Hold your hand, hold your hand, for the sake of mercy!" cried I. "Spare
the father of a small family that will starve on the street if ye take my
life!! Hae--hae--there's every coin and copper I have about me in the
world! Be merciful, be merciful; and do not shed blood, that will not,
cannot be rubbed out of your conscience. Take all that we have--horse
and cart and all if ye like; only spare our lives, and let us away home!"
"De'il's in the man," quo' Tammie, "horse and cart! that's a gude one!
Na, na, lads; fire away gin ye like; for as lang as I hae a drap o' bluid
in me, ye'll get neither. Better be killed than starve. Do your best,
ye thieves that ye are; and I'll hae baith of ye hanged neist week before
the Fifteen!"
Every moment I expected my head to be shot off, till I got my hand
clapped on Tammie's mouth, and could get cried to them--"Shoot him then,
lads; shoot him then, lads, if he wants it; but take my siller like
Christians, and let me away with my poor deeing bairn!"
The two men seemed a something dumfoundered with what they heard; and I
began to think them, if they were highway robbers, a wee slow at their
trade; when, what think ye did they turn out to be--only guess? Nothing
more nor less than two excise officers, that had got information of some
smuggled gin, coming up in a cart from Fisherrow Harbour, and were
lurking on the road-side, looking out for spuilzie!!
When they quitted us giggling, I could not keep from laughing too; though
the sights I had seen, and the fright I had got, made me nervish and
eerie; so blithe was I when the cart rattled on our own street, and I
began to waken Benjie, as we were not above a hundred yards from our own
door.
In this day's adventures, I saw the sin and folly of my conduct visibly,
as I jumped out of the cart at our close mouth. So I determined within
myself, with a strong determination, to behave more sensibly for the
future, and think no more about limekilns and coal-pits; but to trust,
for Benjie's recovery from the chincough, to a kind Providence, together
with Daffy's elixir, and warm blankets.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN--TAILOR MANSIE AND THE BLOODY CARTRIDGE
It was on a fine summer morning, somewhere about four o'clock, when I
wakened from my night's rest, and was about thinking to bestir myself,
that I heard the sound of voices in the kail-yard stretching south from
our back windows. I listened--and I listened--and I better listened--and
still the sound of the argle-bargling became more distinct, now in a
fleeching way, and now in harsh angry tones, as if some quarrelsome
disagreement had taken place. I had not the comfort of my wife's company
in this dilemmy; she being away, three days before, on the top of Tammie
Trundle the carrier's cart, to Lauder, on a visit to her folks there; her
mother (my gudemother like) having been for some time ill with an income
in her leg, which threatened to make a lameter of her in her old age, the
two doctors there--not speaking of the blacksmith, and sundry skeely old
women--being able to make nothing of the business; so nobody happened to
be with me in the room saving wee Benjie, who was lying asleep at the
back of the bed, with his little Kilmarnock on his head, as sound as a
top. Nevertheless, I looked for my clothes; and, opening one half of the
window shutter, I saw four young birkies, well dressed--indeed three of
them customers of my own--all belonging to the town; two of them young
doctors, one of them a writer's clerk, and the other a grocer. The whole
appeared very fierce and fearsome, like turkey-cocks; swaggering about
with warlike arms as if they had been the king's dragoons; and priming a
pair of pistols, which one of the surgeons, a spirity, outspoken lad,
Maister Blister, was holding in his grip.
I jealoused at once what they were after, being now a wee up to
fire-arms; so I saw that scaith was to come of it; and that I would be
wanting in my duty on four heads,--first, as a Christian; second, as a
man; third, as a subject; and fourth, as a father; if I withheld myself
from the scene; nor lifted up my voice, however fruitlessly, against such
crying iniquity as the wanton letting out of human blood; so forth I
hastened, half dressed, with my grey stockings rolled up my thighs over
my corduroys, and my old hat above my cowl, to the kail-yard of
contention.
I was just in the nick of time; and my presence checked the effusion of
blood for a little--but wait a wee. So high and furious were at least
three of the party, that I saw it was catching water in a sieve to waste
words on them, knowing as clearly as the sun serves the world, that
interceding would be of no avail. However, I made a feint, and
threatened to bowl away for a magistrate, if they would not desist from
their barbarous and bloody purpose; but, i'fegs, I had better kept my
counsel till it was asked for.
"Tailor Mansie," blustered out Maister Thomas Blister with a furious cock
of his eye--he was a queer Eirish birkie, come over for his
education--"since ye have ventured to thrust your nose, ma vourneen,"
said he, "where nobody invited ye, you must just stay," added he, "and
abide by the consequences. This is an affair of honour, you take, don't
ye? and if ye venture to stir one foot from the spot, och then, ma
bouchal," said he, "by the poker of St Patrick, but whisk through ye goes
one of these leaden playthings, as sure as ye ever spoiled a coat, or
cabbaged broadcloth! Ye have now come out, ye observe,--hark ye," said
he, "and are art and part in the business; and if one, or both, of the
principals be killed, poor devils," said he, "we are all alike liable to
take our trial before the Justiciary Court, hark ye; and by the powers,"
said he, "I doubt not but, on proper consideration, machree, that they
will allow us to get off mercifully, on this side of swinging, by a
verdict of manslaughter--and be hanged to them!"
'Od, I found myself immediately in a scrape; but how to get out of it
baffled my gumption. It set me all a shivering; yet I thought that, come
the worst when it should, they surely would not hang the father of a
helpless small family, that had nothing but his needle for their support,
if I made a proper affidavy, about having tried to make peace between the
youths. So, conscience being a brave supporter, I abode in silence,
though not without many queer and qualmish thoughts, and a pit-patting of
the heart, not unco pleasant in the tholing.
"Blood and wounds!" bawled Maister Thomas Blister, "it would be a
disgrace for ever on the honourable profession of physic," egging on poor
Maister Willy Magneezhy, whose face was as white as double-bleached
linen, "to make an apology for such an insult. Arrah, my honey! you not
fit to doctor a cat,--you not fit to bleed a calf,--you not fit to
poultice a pig,--after three years' apprenticeship," said he, "and a
winter with Doctor Monro? By the cupping-glasses of 'Pocrates," said he,
"and by the pistol of Gallon, but I would have caned him on the spot if
he had just let out half as much to me! Look ye, man," said he, "look
ye, man, he is all shaking" (this was a God's truth); "he'll turn tail.
At him like fire, Willie."
Magneezhy, though sadly frightened, looked a thought brighter; and made a
kind of half step forward. "Say that ye'll ask my pardon once more,--and
if not," whined the poor lad, with a voice broken and trembling, "then we
must just shoot one another."
"Devil a bit," answered Maister Bloatsheet, "devil a bit. No, sir; you
must down on your bare knees, and beg ten thousand pardons for calling me
out here, in a raw morning; or I'll have a shot at you, whether you will
or not."
"Will you stand that?" said Blister, with eyes like burning coals. "By
the living jingo, and the holy poker, Magneezhy, if you stand that,--if
you stand that, I say, I stand no longer your second, but leave you to
disgrace and a caning. If he likes to shoot you like a dog, and not as a
gentleman, then, cuishla machree,--let him do it, and be done!"
"No, sir," replied Magneezhy with a quivering voice, which he tried in
vain, poor fellow, to render warlike (he had never been in the volunteers
like me). "Hand us the pistols, then; and let us do or die!"
"Spoken like a hero, and brother of the lancet: as little afraid at the
sight of your own blood, as at that of your patients," said Blister.
"Hand over the pistols."
It was an awful business. Gude save us, such goings on in a Christian
land! While Mr Bloatsheet, the young writer, was in the act of cocking
the bloody weapon, I again, but to no purpose, endeavoured to slip in a
word edgeways. Magneezhy was in an awful case; if he had been already
shot, he could not have looked more clay and corpse-like; so I took up a
douce earnest confabulation, while the stramash was drawing to a bloody
conclusion, with Mr Harry Molasses, the fourth in the spree, who was
standing behind Bloatsheet with a large mahogany box under his arm,
something in shape like that of a licensed packman, ganging about from
house to house, through the country-side, selling toys and trinkets; or
niffering plaited ear-rings, and suchlike, with young lasses, for old
silver coins or cracked teaspoons.
"Oh!" answered he, very composedly, as if it had been a canister full of
black-rapee or black-guard, that he had just lifted down from his
top-shelf, "it's just Doctor Blister's saws, whittles, and big knives, in
case any of their legs or arms be blown away, that he may cut them off."
Little would have prevented me sinking down through the ground, had I not
remembered at the preceese moment, that I myself was a soldier, and
liable, when the hour of danger threatened, to be called out, in
marching-order, to the field of battle. But by this time the pistols
were in the hands of the two infatuated young men, Mr Bloatsheet, as
fierce as a hussar dragoon, and Magneezhy as supple in the knees as if he
was all on oiled hinges; so the next consideration was to get well out of
the way, the lookers-on running nearly as great a chance of being shot as
the principals, they not being accustomed, like me for instance, to the
use of arms; on which account, I scougged myself behind a big pear-tree;
both being to fire when Blister gave the word "Off!"
I had scarcely jouked into my hidy-hole, when "crack--crack" played the
pistols like lightning; and as soon as I got my cowl taken from my eyes,
and looked about, woes me! I saw Magneezhy clap his hand to his brow,
wheel round like a peerie, or a sheep seized with the sturdie, and then
play flap down on his broadside, breaking the necks of half-a-dozen
cabbage-stocks--three of which were afterwards clean lost, as we could
not put them all into the pot at one time. The whole of us ran forward,
but foremost was Bloatsheet, who seizing Magneezhy by the hand, cried,
with a mournful face, "I hope you forgive me? Only say this as long as
you have breath; for I am off to Leith harbour in half a minute."
The blood was running over poor Magneezhy's eyes, and drib-dribbling from
the neb of his nose, so he was truly in a pitiful state; but he said with
more strength than I thought he could have mustered,--"Yes, yes, fly for
your life. I am dying without much pain--fly for your life, for I am a
gone man!"
Bloatsheet bounced through the kail-yard like a maukin, clamb over the
bit wall, and off like mad; while Blister was feeling Magneezhy's pulse
with one hand, and looking at his doctor's watch, which he had in the
other. "Do ye think that the poor lad will live, doctor?" said I to him.
He gave his head a wise shake, and only observed, "I dare say, it will be
a hanging business among us. In what direction do you think, Mansie, we
should all take flight?"
But I answered bravely, "Flee them that will, I'se flee nane. If I am
taken prisoner, the town-officers maun haul me from my own house; but,
nevertheless, I trust the visibility of my innocence will be as plain as
a pikestaff to the eyes of the Fifteen!"
"What, then, Mansie, will we do with poor Magneezhy? Give us your advice
in need."
"Let us carry him down to my own bed," answered I; "I would not desert a
fellow-creature in his dying hour! Help me down with him, and then flee
the country as fast as you are able!"
We immediately proceeded, and lifted the poor lad, who had now dwalmed
away, upon our wife's hand-barrow--Blister taking the feet, and me the
oxters, whereby I got my waistcoat all japanned with blood; so, when we
got him laid right, we proceeded to carry him between us down the close,
just as if he had been a sticked sheep, and in at the back door, which
cost us some trouble, being narrow, and the barrow getting jammed in;
but, at long and last, we got him streeked out above the blankets, having
previously shooken Benjie, and wakened him out of his morning's nap.
All this being accomplished and got over, Blister decamped, leaving me my
leeful lane, excepting Benjie, who was next to nobody, in the house with
the dying man. What a frightful face he had, all smeared over with blood
and powder--and I really jealoused, that if he died in that room it would
be haunted for evermair, he being in a manner a murdered man; so that,
even should I be acquitted of art and part, his ghost might still come to
bother us, making our house a hell upon earth, and frighting us out of
our seven senses. But in the midst of my dreadful surmises, when all was
still, so that you might have heard a pin fall, a knock-knock-knock, came
to the door, on which, recovering my senses, I dreaded first that it was
the death-chap, and syne that the affair had got wind, and that it was
the beagles come in search of me; so I kissed little Benjie, who was
sitting on his creepie, blubbering and greeting for his parritch, while a
tear stood in my own eye as I went forward to lift the sneck to let the
officers, as I thought, harrie our house, by carrying off me, its master;
but it was, thank Heaven, only Tammie Bodkin, coming in whistling to his
work, with some measuring papers hanging round his neck.
"Ah, Tammie," said I to him, my heart warming at a kent face, and making
the laddie, although my bounden servant by a regular indenture of five
years, a friend in my need, "come in, my man. I fear ye'll hae to take
charge of the business for some time to come; mind what I tell'd ye about
the shaping and the cutting, and no making the goose ower warm; as I
doubt I am about to be harled away to the tolbooth."
Tammie's heart swelled to his mouth. "Ah, maister," he said, "ye're
joking. What should ye have done that ye should be ta'en to sic an ill
place?"
"Ay, Tammie, lad," answered I, "it is but ower true."
"Weel, weel," quo' Tammie--I really thought it a great deal of the
laddie--"weel, weel, they canna prevent me coming to sew beside ye; and
if I can take the measure of customers without, ye can cut the claith
within. But what is't for, maister?"
"Come in here," said I to him, "and believe your ain een, Tammie, my
man."
"Losh me!" cried the poor laddie, glowring at the bloody face of the man
in the bed, and starting back on his tip-toes. "Ay--ay--ay! maister;
save us, maister; ay--ay--ay--you have na cloured his harnpan with the
guse? Ay, maister, maister! whaten an unearthly sight!! I doubt they'll
hang us a'; you for doing't--and me on suspicion--and Benjie as art and
part, puir thing! But I'll rin for a doctor. Will I, maister?"
The thought had never struck me before, being in a sort of a manner dung
stupid; but catching up the word, I said with all my pith and birr, "Rin,
rin, Tammie, rin for life and death!"