CHAPTER I.

Produced by David Clarke, David J. Cole and the Online

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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

LONDON:

WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE,

AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

1887.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE VACANT CHAIR (_John Mackay Wilson_) 1

THE FAA'S REVENGE (_John Mackay Wilson_) 18

KATE KENNEDY (_Alexander Leighton_) 50

RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON (_Hugh Miller_) 83

THE DISASTERS

OF JOHNNY ARMSTRONG (_Alexander Campbell_) 128

THE PROFESSOR'S TALES--(_Professor Thomas Gillespie_):--

THE MOUNTAIN STORM 160

THE FAIR MAID OF CELLARDYKES 172

PRESCRIPTION;

OR, THE 29TH OF SEPTEMBER (_Alex. Leighton_) 193

THE COUNTESS OF WISTONBURY (_Alexander Campbell_) 225

MIDSIDE MAGGIE; OR, THE BANNOCK O' TOLLISHILL--

(_John Mackay Wilson_) 257

PREFACE.

This series of Tales, now so well known in this country and also in

America, was begun by JOHN MACKAY WILSON, originally a printer, and who

subsequently betook himself to literature. In the beginning of the

undertaking he was inspired by a success probably greater than he had

ever anticipated, and a sudden and wide-spread reputation induced him to

overtask his energies, in a manner inconsistent with the care due to a

delicate constitution. After having carried on the work, almost

single-handed, for a period of more than a year--furnishing a tale every

week--he took ill, and died. Subsequently, the charge of conducting the

work devolved upon the present Editor, who was fortunate enough to

secure the assistance of certain writers well qualified to sustain the

reputation which the first part of the series had acquired. Among these

were the late Hugh Miller, the late Professor Thomas Gillespie of St.

Andrew's, Alexander Campbell, Alexander and John Bethune, and John

Howell, all of whom possessed those natural gifts, enabling them to

succeed in a species of literature which, while in one sense it may be

called the most easy, is, in another, perhaps among the most difficult

of any.

The only condition by which the natural promptings of their genius might

have been restrained was, that the contributions should be genuine

stories, not the ordinary mixture of narrative, didactic essay, and

fanciful prolusion, but tales in the proper every-day sense, with such

an objectiveness as would portray, graphically and naturally, the men

and women of the times, acting on the stage where they were destined to

perform their strange parts, and would exclude all false colourings of a

sentimental fiction, belonging to mere subjective moods of the writer's

fancy or feeling. The greatest care was also taken with the moral aspect

of the Tales, with the view that parents and guardians might feel a

confidence that, in committing them into the hands of their children and

wards, they would be imparting the means of instruction, and at the same

time securing a guarantee for the growth of moral convictions. By such

means, the Tales were kept true to history, legend, morality, and man's

nature, and, at the same time, made acceptable to the great class of

readers who had declared their predilection in favour of the manner of

the early examples.

The Tales in this series have been carefully selected and revised; and

the reader will be pleased to be informed that, in the course of the

publication, there will, for the purpose of imparting to it a fresh

interest, be inserted New Tales, written by authors deemed capable of

attaining the mark of the Original Series.

YORK LODGE, TRINITY,

_March_, 1857.

WILSON'S

TALES OF THE BORDERS,

AND OF SCOTLAND.

THE VACANT CHAIR.[1]

[1] Our commencement with "The Vacant Chair"--the first written of the

Tales of the Borders--is not inconsistent with our principle of

selection in this edition, which is to distribute the contributions of

the authors, so as to secure variety without any view to an early

exhaustion of the best of the Tales.--_Ed._

You have all heard of the Cheviot mountains. They are a rough, rugged,

majestic chain of hills, which a poet might term the Roman wall of

nature; crowned with snow, belted with storms, surrounded by pastures

and fruitful fields, and still dividing the northern portion of Great

Britain from the southern. With their proud summits piercing the clouds,

and their dark rocky declivities frowning upon the glens below, they

appear symbolical of the wild and untamable spirits of the Borderers who

once inhabited their sides. We say, you have all heard of the Cheviots,

and know them to be very high hills, like a huge clasp riveting England

and Scotland together; but we are not aware that you may have heard of

Marchlaw, an old, gray-looking farm-house, substantial as a modern

fortress, recently, and, for aught we know to the contrary, still

inhabited by Peter Elliot, the proprietor of some five hundred

surrounding acres. The boundaries of Peter's farm, indeed, were defined

neither by fields, hedges, nor stone walls. A wooden stake here, and a

stone there, at considerable distances from each other, were the general

landmarks; but neither Peter nor his neighbours considered a few acres

worth quarrelling about; and their sheep frequently visited each other's

pastures in a friendly way, harmoniously sharing a family dinner, in the

same spirit as their masters made themselves free at each other's

tables.

Peter was placed in very unpleasant circumstances, owing to the

situation of Marchlaw House, which, unfortunately, was built immediately

across the "ideal line," dividing the two kingdoms; and his misfortune

was, that, being born within it, he knew not whether he was an

Englishman or a Scotchman. He could trace his ancestral line no farther

back than his great-grandfather, who, it appeared from the family Bible,

had, together with his grandfather and father, claimed Marchlaw as their

birth-place. They, however, were not involved in the same perplexities

as their descendant. The parlour was distinctly acknowledged to be in

Scotland, and two-thirds of the kitchen were as certainly allowed to be

in England: his three ancestors were born in the room over the parlour,

and, therefore, were Scotchmen beyond question; but Peter, unluckily,

being brought into the world before the death of his grandfather, his

parents occupied a room immediately over the debatable boundary line

which crossed the kitchen. The room, though scarcely eight feet square,

was evidently situated between the two countries; but, no one being able

to ascertain what portion belonged to each, Peter, after many arguments

and altercations upon the subject, was driven to the disagreeable

alternative of confessing he knew not what countryman he was. What

rendered the confession the more painful was, that it was Peter's

highest ambition to be thought a Scotchman. All his arable land lay on

the Scotch side; his mother was collaterally related to the Stuarts; and

few families were more ancient or respectable than the Elliots. Peter's

speech, indeed, betrayed him to be a walking partition between the two

kingdoms, a living representation of the Union; for in one word he

pronounced the letter _r_ with the broad, masculine sound of the North

Briton, and in the next with the liquid _burr_ of the Northumbrians.

Peter, or, if you prefer it, Peter Elliot, Esquire of Marchlaw, in the

counties of Northumberland and Roxburgh, was, for many years, the best

runner, leaper, and wrestler between Wooler and Jedburgh. Whirled from

his hand, the ponderous bullet whizzed through the air like a pigeon on

the wing; and the best putter on the Borders quailed from competition.

As a feather in his grasp, he seized the unwieldy hammer, swept it round

and round his head, accompanying with agile limb its evolutions, swiftly

as swallows play around a circle, and hurled it from his hands like a

shot from a rifle, till antagonists shrunk back, and the spectators

burst into a shout. "Well done, Squire! the Squire for ever!" once

exclaimed a servile observer of titles. "Squire! wha are ye squiring

at?" returned Peter. "Confound ye! where was ye when I was christened

Squire? My name's Peter Elliot--your man, or onybody's man, at whatever

they like!"

Peter's soul was free, bounding, and buoyant, as the wind that carolled

in a zephyr, or shouted in a hurricane, upon his native hills; and his

body was thirteen stone of healthy substantial flesh, steeped in the

spirits of life. He had been long married, but marriage had wrought no

change upon him. They who suppose that wedlock transforms the lark into

an owl, offer an insult to the lovely beings who, brightening our

darkest hours with the smiles of affection, teach us that that only is

unbecoming in the husband which is disgraceful in the man. Nearly twenty

years had passed over them; but Janet was still as kind, and, in his

eyes, as beautiful as when, bestowing on him her hand, she blushed her

vows at the altar; and he was still as happy, as generous, and as free.

Nine fair children sat around their domestic hearth, and one, the

youngling of the flock, smiled upon its mother's knee. Peter had never

known sorrow; he was blest in his wife, in his children, in his flocks.

He had become richer than his fathers. He was beloved by his neighbours,

the tillers of his ground, and his herdsmen; yea, no man envied his

prosperity. But a blight passed over the harvest of his joys, and gall

was rained into the cup of his felicity.

It was Christmas-day, and a more melancholy-looking sun never rose on

the 25th of December. One vast, sable cloud, like a universal pall,

overspread the heavens. For weeks, the ground had been covered with

clear, dazzling snow; and as, throughout the day, the rain continued its

unwearied and monotonous drizzle, the earth assumed a character and

appearance melancholy and troubled as the heavens. Like a mastiff that

has lost its owner, the wind howled dolefully down the glens, and was

re-echoed from the caves of the mountains, as the lamentations of a

legion of invisible spirits. The frowning, snow-clad precipices were

instinct with motion, as avalanche upon avalanche, the larger burying

the less, crowded downward in their tremendous journey to the plain. The

simple mountain rills had assumed the majesty of rivers; the broader

streams were swollen into the wild torrent, and, gushing forth as

cataracts, in fury and in foam, enveloped the valleys in an angry flood.

But, at Marchlaw, the fire blazed blithely; the kitchen groaned beneath

the load of preparations for a joyful feast; and glad faces glided from

room to room.

Peter Elliot kept Christmas, not so much because it was Christmas, as in

honour of its being the birthday of Thomas, his first-born, who, that

day, entered his nineteenth year. With a father's love, his heart

yearned for all his children; but Thomas was the pride of his eyes.

Cards of apology had not then found their way among our Border hills;

and as all knew that, although Peter admitted no spirits within his

threshold, nor a drunkard at his table, he was, nevertheless, no

niggard in his hospitality, his invitations were accepted without

ceremony. The guests were assembled; and the kitchen being the only

apartment in the building large enough to contain them, the cloth was

spread upon a long, clear, oaken table, stretching from England into

Scotland. On the English end of the board were placed a ponderous

plum-pudding, studded with temptation, and a smoking sirloin; on

Scotland, a savoury and well-seasoned haggis, with a sheep's-head and

trotters; while the intermediate space was filled with the good things

of this life, common to both kingdoms and to the season.

The guests from the north and from the south were arranged

promiscuously. Every seat was filled--save one. The chair by Peter's

right hand remained unoccupied. He had raised his hands before his eyes,

and besought a blessing on what was placed before them, and was

preparing to carve for his visitors, when his eyes fell upon the vacant

chair. The knife dropped upon the table. Anxiety flashed across his

countenance, like an arrow from an unseen hand.

"Janet, where is Thomas?" he inquired; "hae nane o' ye seen him?" and,

without waiting an answer, he continued--"How is it possible he can be

absent at a time like this? And on such a day, too? Excuse me a minute,

friends, till I just step out and see if I can find him. Since ever I

kept this day, as mony o' ye ken, he has always been at my right hand,

in that very chair; and I canna think o' beginning our dinner while I

see it empty."

"If the filling of the chair be all," said a pert young sheep-farmer,

named Johnson, "I will step into it till Master Thomas arrive."

"Ye're not a faither, young man," said Peter, and walked out of the

room.

Minute succeeded minute, but Peter returned not. The guests became

hungry, peevish, and gloomy, while an excellent dinner continued

spoiling before them. Mrs. Elliot, whose good-nature was the most

prominent feature in her character, strove, by every possible effort, to

beguile the unpleasant impressions she perceived gathering upon their

countenances.

"Peter is just as bad as him," she remarked, "to hae gane to seek him

when he kenned the dinner wouldna keep. And I'm sure Thomas kenned it

would be ready at one o'clock to a minute. It's sae unthinking and

unfriendly like to keep folk waiting." And, endeavouring to smile upon a

beautiful black-haired girl of seventeen, who sat by her elbow, she

continued in an anxious whisper--"Did ye see naething o' him, Elizabeth,

hinny?"

The maiden blushed deeply; the question evidently gave freedom to a

tear, which had, for some time, been an unwilling prisoner in the

brightest eyes in the room; and the monosyllable, "No," that trembled

from her lips, was audible only to the ear of the inquirer. In vain Mrs.

Elliot despatched one of her children after another, in quest of their

father and brother; they came and went, but brought no tidings more

cheering than the moaning of the hollow wind. Minutes rolled into hours,

yet neither came. She perceived the prouder of her guests preparing to

withdraw, and, observing that "Thomas's absence was so singular and

unaccountable, and so unlike either him or his father, she didna ken

what apology to make to her friends for such treatment; but it was

needless waiting, and begged they would use no ceremony, but just

begin."

No second invitation was necessary. Good humour appeared to be restored,

and sirloins, pies, pasties, and moor-fowl began to disappear like the

lost son. For a moment, Mrs. Elliot apparently partook in the

restoration of cheerfulness; but a low sigh at her elbow again drove the

colour from her rosy cheeks. Her eye wandered to the farther end of the

table, and rested on the unoccupied seat of her husband, and the vacant

chair of her first-born. Her heart fell heavily within her; all the

mother gushed into her bosom; and, rising from the table, "What in the

world can be the meaning o' this?" said she, as she hurried, with a

troubled countenance, towards the door. Her husband met her on the

threshold.

"Where hae ye been, Peter?" said she, eagerly; "hae ye seen naething o'

him?"

"Naething! naething!" replied he; "is he no cast up yet?" And, with a

melancholy glance, his eyes sought an answer in the deserted chair. His

lips quivered, his tongue faltered.

"Gude forgie me!" said he; "and such a day for even an enemy to be out

in! I've been up and doun every way that I can think on, but not a

living creature has seen or heard tell o' him. Ye'll excuse me,

neebors," he added, leaving the house; "I must awa again, for I canna

rest."

"I ken by mysel', friends," said Adam Bell, a decent-looking

Northumbrian, "that a faither's heart is as sensitive as the apple o'

his e'e; and I think we would show a want o' natural sympathy and

respect for our worthy neighbour, if we didna every one get his foot

into the stirrup without loss o' time, and assist him in his search.

For, in my rough, country way o' thinking, it must be something

particularly out o' the common that would tempt Thomas to be amissing.

Indeed, I needna say _tempt_, for there could be no inclination in the

way. And our hills," he concluded, in a lower tone, "are not ower chancy

in other respects, besides the breaking up o' the storm."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Elliot, wringing her hands, "I have had the coming o'

this about me for days and days. My head was growing dizzy with

happiness, but thoughts came stealing upon me like ghosts, and I felt a

lonely soughing about my heart, without being able to tell the cause;

but the cause is come at last! And my dear Thomas--the very pride and

staff o' my life--is lost!--lost to me for ever!"

"I ken, Mrs. Elliot," replied the Northumbrian, "it is an easy matter to

say compose yourself, for them that dinna ken what it is to feel. But,

at the same time, in our plain, country way o' thinking, we are always

ready to believe the worst. I've often heard my father say, and I've as

often remarked it myself, that, before anything happens to a body, there

is _a something_ comes ower them, like a cloud before the face o' the

sun; a sort o' dumb whispering about the breast from the other world.

And though I trust there is naething o' the kind in your case, yet, as

you observe, when I find myself growing dizzy, as it were, with

happiness, it makes good a saying o' my mother's, poor body! 'Bairns,

bairns,' she used to say, 'there is ower muckle singing in your heads

to-night; we will have a shower before bedtime.' And I never, in my born

days, saw it fail."

At any other period, Mr. Bell's dissertation on presentiments would have

been found a fitting text on which to hang all the dreams, wraiths,

warnings, and marvellous circumstances, that had been handed down to the

company from the days of their grandfathers; but, in the present

instance, they were too much occupied in consultation regarding the

different routes to be taken in their search.

Twelve horsemen, and some half-dozen pedestrians, were seen hurrying in

divers directions from Marchlaw, as the last faint lights of a

melancholy day were yielding to the heavy darkness which appeared

pressing in solid masses down the sides of the mountains. The wives and

daughters of the party were alone left with the disconsolate mother, who

alternately pressed her weeping children to her heart, and told them to

weep not, for their brother would soon return; while the tears stole

down her own cheeks, and the infant in her arms wept because its mother

wept. Her friends strove with each other to inspire hope, and poured

upon her ear their mingled and loquacious consolation. But one remained

silent. The daughter of Adam Bell, who sat by Mrs. Elliot's elbow at

table, had shrunk into an obscure corner of the room. Before her face

she held a handkerchief wet with tears. Her bosom throbbed convulsively;

and, as occasionally her broken sighs burst from their prison-house, a

significant whisper passed among the younger part of the company.

Mrs. Elliot approached her, and taking her hand tenderly within both of

hers--"O hinny! hinny!" said she, "yer sighs gae through my heart like a

knife! An' what can I do to comfort ye? Come, Elizabeth, my bonny love,

let us hope for the best. Ye see before ye a sorrowin' mother!--a mother

that fondly hoped to see you an'--I canna say it!--an' am ill qualified

to gie comfort, when my own heart is like a furnace! But, oh! let us try

and remember the blessed portion, 'Whom the LORD loveth HE chasteneth,'

an' inwardly pray for strength to say, 'His will be done!'"

Time stole on towards midnight, and one by one the unsuccessful party

returned. As foot after foot approached, every breath was held to

listen. "No, no, no!" cried the mother again and again, with increasing

anguish, "it's no the foot o' my ain bairn;" while her keen gaze still

remained riveted upon the door, and was not withdrawn, nor the hope of

despair relinquished, till the individual entered, and, with a silent

and ominous shake of his head, betokened his fruitless efforts. The

clock had struck twelve; all were returned save the father. The wind

howled more wildly; the rain poured upon the windows in ceaseless

torrents; and the roaring of the mountain rivers gave a character of

deeper ghostliness to their sepulchral silence; for they sat, each wrapt

in forebodings, listening to the storm; and no sounds were heard, save

the groans of the mother, the weeping of her children, and the bitter

and broken sobs of the bereaved maiden, who leaned her head upon her

father's bosom, refusing to be comforted.

At length the barking of the farm-dog announced footsteps at a distance.

Every ear was raised to listen, every eye turned to the door; but,

before the tread was yet audible to the listeners--"Oh! it is only

Peter's foot!" said the miserable mother, and, weeping, rose to meet

him.

"Janet, Janet!" he exclaimed, as he entered, and threw his arms around

her neck, "what's this come upon us at last?"

He cast an inquisitive glance around his dwelling, and a convulsive

shiver passed over his manly frame, as his eye again fell on the vacant

chair, which no one had ventured to occupy. Hour succeeded hour, but the

company separated not; and low, sorrowful whispers mingled with the

lamentations of the parents.

"Neighbours," said Adam Bell, "the morn is a new day, and we will wait

to see what it may bring forth; but, in the meantime, let us read a

portion o' the Divine word, an' kneel together in prayer, that, whether

or not the day-dawn cause light to shine upon this singular bereavement,

the Sun o' Righteousness may arise wi' healing on his wings, upon the

hearts o' this afflicted family, an' upon the hearts o' all present."

"Amen!" responded Peter, wringing his hands; and his friend, taking down

the Ha' Bible, read the chapter wherein it is written--"It is better to

be in the house of mourning than in the house of feasting;" and again

the portion which sayeth--"It is well for me that I have been afflicted,

for before I was afflicted I went astray."

The morning came, but brought no tidings of the lost son. After a solemn

farewell, all the visitants, save Adam Bell and his daughter, returned

every one to their own house; and the disconsolate father, with his

servants, again renewed their search among the hills and surrounding

villages.

Days, weeks, months, and years rolled on. Time had subdued the anguish

of the parents into a holy calm; but their lost first-born was not

forgotten, although no trace of his fate had been discovered. The

general belief was, that he had perished on the breaking up of the snow;

and the few in whose remembrance he still lived, merely spoke of his

death as a "very extraordinary circumstance," remarking that "he was a

wild, venturesome sort o' lad."

Christmas had succeeded Christmas, and Peter Elliot still kept it in

commemoration of the birthday of him who was not. For the first few

years after the loss of their son, sadness and silence characterized the

party who sat down to dinner at Marchlaw, and still at Peter's right

hand was placed the vacant chair. But, as the younger branches of the

family advanced in years, the remembrance of their brother became less

poignant. Christmas was, with all around them, a day of rejoicing, and

they began to make merry with their friends; while their parents partook

in their enjoyment, with a smile, half of approval and half of sorrow.

Twelve years had passed away; Christmas had again come. It was the

counterpart of its fatal predecessor. The hills had not yet cast off

their summer verdure; the sun, although shorn of its heat, had lost none

of its brightness or glory, and looked down upon the earth as though

participating in its gladness; and the clear blue sky was tranquil as

the sea sleeping beneath the moon. Many visitors had again assembled at

Marchlaw. The sons of Mr. Elliot, and the young men of the party, were

assembled upon a level green near the house, amusing themselves with

throwing the hammer, and other Border games, while himself and the elder

guests stood by as spectators, recounting the deeds of their youth.

Johnson, the sheep-farmer, whom we have already mentioned, now a brawny

and gigantic fellow of two-and-thirty, bore away in every game the palm

from all competitors. More than once, as Peter beheld his sons defeated,

he felt the spirit of youth glowing in his veins, and, "Oh!" muttered

he, in bitterness, "had my Thomas been spared to me, he would hae thrown

his heart's bluid after the hammer, before he would hae been beat by

e'er a Johnson in the country!"

While he thus soliloquized, and with difficulty restrained an impulse to

compete with the victor himself, a dark, foreign-looking, strong-built

seaman, unceremoniously approached, and, with his arms folded, cast a

look of contempt upon the boasting conqueror. Every eye was turned with

a scrutinizing glance upon the stranger. In height he could not exceed

five feet nine, but his whole frame was the model of muscular strength;

his features open and manly, but deeply sunburnt and weather-beaten; his

long, glossy, black hair, curled into ringlets by the breeze and the

billow, fell thickly over his temples and forehead; and whiskers of a

similar hue, more conspicuous for size than elegance, gave a character

of fierceness to a countenance otherwise possessing a striking impress

of manly beauty. Without asking permission, he stepped forward, lifted

the hammer, and, swinging it around his head, hurled it upwards of five

yards beyond Johnson's most successful throw. "Well done!" shouted the

astonished spectators. The heart of Peter Elliot warmed within him, and

he was hurrying forward to grasp the stranger by the hand, when the

words groaned in his throat, "It was just such a throw as my Thomas

would have made!--my own lost Thomas!" The tears burst into his eyes,

and, without speaking, he turned back, and hurried towards the house to

conceal his emotion.

Successively, at every game, the stranger had defeated all who ventured

to oppose him, when a messenger announced that dinner waited their

arrival. Some of the guests were already seated, others entering; and,

as heretofore, placed beside Mrs. Elliot was Elizabeth Bell, still in

the noontide of her beauty; but sorrow had passed over her features,

like a veil before the countenance of an angel. Johnson, crest-fallen

and out of humour at his defeat, seated himself by her side. In early

life he had regarded Thomas Elliot as a rival for her affections; and,

stimulated by the knowledge that Adam Bell would be able to bestow

several thousands upon his daughter for a dowry, he yet prosecuted his

attentions with unabated assiduity, in despite of the daughter's

aversion and the coldness of her father. Peter had taken his place at

the table; and still by his side, unoccupied and sacred, appeared the

vacant chair, the chair of his first-born, whereon none had sat since

his mysterious death or disappearance.

"Bairns," said he, "did nane o' ye ask the sailor to come up and tak a

bit o' dinner wi' us?"

"We were afraid it might lead to a quarrel with Mr. Johnson," whispered

one of the sons.

"He is come without asking," replied the stranger, entering; "and the

wind shall blow from a new point if I destroy the mirth or happiness of

the company."

"Ye're a stranger, young man," said Peter, "or ye would ken this is no a

meeting o' mirth-makers. But, I assure ye, ye are welcome, heartily

welcome. Haste ye, lasses," he added to the servants; "some o' ye get a

chair for the gentleman."

"Gentleman, indeed!" muttered Johnson between his teeth.

"Never mind about a chair, my hearties," said the seaman; "this will

do!" And, before Peter could speak to withhold him, he had thrown

himself carelessly into the hallowed, the venerated, the

twelve-years-unoccupied chair! The spirit of sacrilege uttering

blasphemies from a pulpit could not have smitten a congregation of pious

worshippers with deeper horror and consternation, than did this filling

of the vacant chair the inhabitants of Marchlaw.

"Excuse me, sir! excuse me, sir!" said Peter, the words trembling upon

his tongue; "but ye cannot--ye cannot sit there!"

"O man! man!" cried Mrs. Elliot, "get out o' that! get out o'

that!--take my chair!--take ony chair i' the house!--but dinna, dinna

sit there! It has never been sat in by mortal being since the death o'

my dear bairn!--and to see it filled by another is a thing I canna

endure!"

"Sir! sir!" continued the father, "ye have done it through ignorance,

and we excuse ye. But that was my Thomas's seat! Twelve years this very

day--his birthday--he perished, Heaven kens how! He went out from our

sight, like the cloud that passes over the hills--never--never to

return. And, O sir, spare a father's feelings! for to see it filled

wrings the blood from my heart!"

"Give me your hand, my worthy soul!" exclaimed the seaman; "I

revere--nay, hang it! I would die for your feelings! But Tom Elliot was

my friend, and I cast anchor in this chair by special commission. I know

that a sudden broadside of joy is a bad thing; but, as I don't know how

to preach a sermon before telling you, all I have to say is--that Tom

an't dead."

"Not dead!" said Peter, grasping the hand of the stranger, and speaking

with an eagerness that almost choked his utterance: "O sir! sir! tell me

how!--how!--Did ye say, living?--Is my ain Thomas living?"

"Not dead, do ye say?" cried Mrs. Elliot, hurrying towards him and

grasping his other hand--"not dead! And shall I see my bairn again? Oh!

may the blessing o' Heaven, and the blessing o' a broken-hearted mother

be upon the bearer o' the gracious tidings! But tell me--tell me, how is

it possible! As ye would expect happiness here or hereafter, dinna,

dinna deceive me!"

"Deceive you!" returned the stranger, grasping, with impassioned

earnestness, their hands in his--"Never!--never! and all I can say

is--Tom Elliot is alive and hearty."

"No, no!" said Elizabeth, rising from her seat, "he does not deceive us;

there is that in his countenance which bespeaks a falsehood impossible."

And she also endeavoured to move towards him, when Johnson threw his arm

around her to withhold her.

"Hands off, you land-lubber!" exclaimed the seaman, springing towards

them, "or, shiver me! I'll show daylight through your timbers in the

turning of a hand-spike!" And, clasping the lovely girl in his arms,

"Betty! Betty, my love!" he cried, "don't you know your own Tom? Father,

mother, don't you know me? Have you really forgot your own son? If

twelve years have made some change on his face, his heart is sound as

ever."

His father, his mother, and his brothers, clung around him, weeping,

smiling, and mingling a hundred questions together. He threw his arms

around the neck of each, and in answer to their inquiries,

replied--"Well! well! there is time enough to answer questions, but not

to-day--not to-day!"

"No, my bairn," said his mother, "we'll ask you no questions--nobody

shall ask you any! But how--how were ye torn away from us, my love? And,

O hinny! where--where hae you been?"

"It's a long story, mother," said he, "and would take a week to tell it.

But, howsoever, to make a long story short, you remember when the

smugglers were pursued, and wished to conceal their brandy in our house,

my father prevented them; they left muttering revenge--and they have

been revenged. This day twelve years, I went out with the intention of

meeting Elizabeth and her father, when I came upon a party of the gang

concealed in Hell's Hole. In a moment half a dozen pistols were held to

my breast, and, tying my hands to my sides, they dragged me into the

cavern. Here I had not been long their prisoner, when the snow, rolling

down the mountains, almost totally blocked up its mouth. On the second

night they cut through the snow, and, hurrying me along with them, I was

bound to a horse between two, and, before daylight, found myself stowed,

like a piece of old junk, in the hold of a smuggling lugger. Within a

week I was shipped on board a Dutch man-of-war, and for six years was

kept dodging about on different stations, till our old yawning hulk

received orders to join the fleet, which was to fight against the

gallant Duncan at Camperdown. To think of fighting against my own

countrymen, my own flesh and blood, was worse than to be cut to pieces

by a cat-o'-nine tails; and, under cover of the smoke of the first

broadside, I sprang upon the gunwale, plunged into the sea, and swam for

the English fleet. Never, never shall I forget the moment that my feet

first trode upon the deck of a British frigate! My nerves felt as firm

as her oak, and my heart, free as the pennant that waved defiance from

her masthead! I was as active as any one during the battle; and when it

was over, and I found myself again among my own countrymen, and all

speaking my own language, I fancied--nay, hang it! I almost believed--I

should meet my father, my mother, or my dear Bess, on board of the

British frigate. I expected to see you all again in a few weeks at

farthest; but, instead of returning to Old England, before I was aware,

I found it was helm about with us. As to writing, I never had an

opportunity but once. We were anchored before a French fort; a packet

was lying alongside ready to sail; I had half a side written, and was

scratching my head to think how I should come over writing about you,

Bess, my love, when, as bad luck would have it, our lieutenant comes to

me, and says he, 'Elliot,' says he,' I know you like a little smart

service; come, my lad, take the head oar, while we board some of those

French bumb-boats under the batteries!' I couldn't say no. We pulled

ashore, made a bonfire of one of their craft, and were setting fire to a

second, when a deadly shower of small shot from the garrison scuttled

our boat, killed our commanding officer with half of the crew, and the

few who were left of us were made prisoners. It is of no use bothering

you by telling how we escaped from French prison. We did escape; and Tom

will once more fill his vacant chair."

Should any of our readers wish farther acquaintance with our friends,

all we can say is, the new year was still young when Adam Bell bestowed

his daughter's hand upon the heir of Marchlaw, and Peter beheld the once

vacant chair again occupied, and a namesake of the third generation

prattling on his knee!

THE FAA'S REVENGE.

A TALE OF THE BORDER GIPSIES.

Brown October was drawing to a close--the breeze had acquired a degree

of sharpness too strong to be merely termed bracing--and the fire, as

the saying is, was becoming the best flower in the garden--for the

hardiest and the latest plants had either shed their leaves, or their

flowers had shrivelled at the breath of approaching winter--when a

stranger drew his seat towards the parlour fire of the Three-Half-Moons

inn, in Rothbury. He had sat for the space of half an hour when a party

entered, who, like himself (as appeared from their conversation), were

strangers, or rather visitors of the scenery, curiosities, and

antiquities in the vicinity. One of them having ordered the waiter to

bring each of them a glass of brandy and warm water, without appearing

to notice the presence of the first mentioned stranger, after a few

remarks on the objects of interest in the neighbourhood, the following

conversation took place amongst them:--

"Why," said one, "but even Rothbury here, secluded as it is from the

world, and shut out from the daily intercourse of men, is a noted place.

It was here that the ancient and famous northern bard and unrivalled

ballad writer, Bernard Rumney, was born, bred, and died. Here, too, was

born Dr. Brown, who, like Young and Home, united the characters of

divine and dramatist, and was the author of '_Barbarossa_,' '_The Cure

of Saul_,' and other works, of which posterity and his country are

proud. The immediate neighbourhood, also, was the birth-place of the

inspired boy, the heaven-taught mathematician, George Coughran, who

knew no rival, and who bade fair to eclipse the glory of Newton, but

whom death struck down ere he had reached the years of manhood."

"Why, I can't tell," said another; "I don't know much about what you've

been talking of; but I know, for one thing, that Rothbury was a famous

place for every sort of games; and, at Fastren's E'en times, the rule

was, every male inhabitant above eight years of age to pay a shilling,

or out to the foot-ball. It was noted for its game-cocks, too--they were

the best breed on the Borders."

"May be so," said the first speaker; "but though I should be loath to

see the foot-ball, or any other innocent game which keeps up a manly

spirit, put down, yet I do trust that the brutal practice of

cock-fighting will be abolished, not only on the Borders, but throughout

every country which professes the name of Christian; and I rejoice that

the practice is falling into disrepute. But, although my hairs are not

yet honoured with the silver tints of age, I am old enough to remember,

that, when a boy at school on the Scottish side of the Border, at every

Fastren's E'en which you have spoken of, every schoolboy was expected to

provide a cock for the battle, or main, and the teacher or his deputy

presided as umpire. The same practice prevailed on the southern Border.

It is a very old, savage amusement, even in this country; and perhaps

the preceptors of youth, in former days, considered it _classical_, and

that it would instil into their pupils sentiments of emulation; inasmuch

as the practice is said to have taken rise from Themistocles perceiving

two cocks tearing at and fighting with each other, while marching his

army against the Persians, when he called upon his soldiers to observe

them, and remarked that they neither fought for territory, defence of

country, nor for glory, but they fought because the one would not yield

to, or be defeated by the other; and he desired his soldiers to take a

_moral_ lesson from the barn-door fowls. Cock-fighting thus became among

the heathen Greeks a political precept and a religious observance--and

the _Christian_ inhabitants of Britain, disregarding the _religious and

political moral_, kept up the practice, adding to it more disgusting

barbarity, for _their amusement_."

"Coom," said a third, who, from his tongue, appeared to be a thorough

Northumbrian, "we wur talking about Rothbury, but you are goin' to give

us a regular sarmin on cock-fighting. Let's hae none o' that. You was

saying what clever chaps had been born here--but none o' ye mentioned

Jamie Allan, the gipsy and Northumberland piper, who was born here as

weel as the best o' them. But I hae heard that Rothbury, as weel as

Yetholm and Tweedmouth Moor, was a great resort for the Faa or gipsy

gangs in former times. Now, I understand that thae folk were a sort o'

bastard Egyptians; and though I am nae scholar, it strikes me forcibly

that the meaning o' the word _gipsies_, is just _Egypts_, or

_Gypties_--a contraction and corruption o' _Gyptian_!"

"Gipsies," said he who spoke of Rumney and Brown, and abused the

practice of cock-fighting, "still do in some degree, and formerly did in

great numbers, infest this county; and I will tell you a story

concerning them."

"Do so," said the thorough Northumbrian; "I like a story when it's weel

put thegither. The gipsies were queer folk. I've heard my faither tell

many a funny thing about them, when he used to whistle 'Felton Loanin,'

which was made by awd piper Allan--Jamie's faither." And here the

speaker struck up a lively air, which, to the stranger by the fire,

seemed a sort of parody on the well-known tune of "Johnny Cope."

The other then proceeded with his tale, thus:--

You have all heard of the celebrated Johnny Faa, the Lord and Earl of

Little Egypt, who penetrated into Scotland in the reign of James IV.,

and with whom that gallant monarch was glad to conclude a treaty. Johnny

was not only the king, but the first of the Faa gang of whom we have

mention. I am not aware that gipsies get the name of Faas anywhere but

upon the Borders; and though it is difficult to account for the name

satisfactorily, it is said to have had its origin from a family of the

name of _Fall_ or _Fa'_, who resided here (in Rothbury), and that their

superiority in their cunning and desperate profession, gave the same

cognomen to all and sundry who followed the same mode of life upon the

Borders. One thing is certain, that the name _Faa_ not only was given to

individuals whose surname might be _Fall_, but to the _Winters_ and

_Clarkes_--_id genus omne_--gipsy families well known on the Borders.

Since waste lands, which were their hiding-places and resorts, began to

be cultivated, and especially since the sun of knowledge snuffed out the

taper of superstition and credulity, most of them are beginning to form

a part of society, to learn trades of industry, and live with men. Those

who still prefer their fathers' vagabond mode of life--finding that, in

the northern counties, their old trade of fortune-telling is at a

discount, and that thieving has thinned their tribe and is

dangerous--now follow the more useful and respectable callings of

muggers, besom-makers, and tinkers. I do not know whether, in etiquette,

I ought to give precedence to the besom-maker or tinker; though, as

compared with them, I should certainly suppose that the "muggers" of the

present day belong to the Faa aristocracy; if it be not that they, like

others, derive their nobility from descent of blood rather than weight

of pocket--and that, after all, the mugger with his encampment, his

caravans, horses, crystal, and crockery, is but a mere wealthy plebeian

or _bourgeois_ in the vagrant community.--But to my tale.

On a dark and tempestuous night in the December of 1628, a Faa gang

requested shelter in the out-houses of the laird of Clennel. The laird

himself had retired to rest; and his domestics being fewer in number

than the Faas, feared to refuse them their request.

"Ye shall have up-putting for the night, good neighbours," said Andrew

Smith, who was a sort of major-domo in the laird's household, and he

spoke in a tone of mingled authority and terror. "But, sir," added he,

addressing the chief of the tribe--"I will trust to your honour that ye

will allow none o' your folk to be making free with the kye, or the

sheep, or the poultry--that is, that ye will not allow them to mistake

ony o' them for your own, lest it bring me into trouble. For the laird

has been in a fearful rage at some o' your people lately; and if

onything were to be amissing in the morning, or he kenned that ye had

been here, it might be as meikle as my life is worth."

"Tush, man!" said Willie Faa, the king of the tribe, "ye dree the death

ye'll never die. Willie Faa and his folk maun live as weel as the laird

o' Clennel. But, there's my thumb, not a four-footed thing, nor the

feather o' a bird, shall be touched by me or mine. But I see the light

is out in the laird's chamber window--he is asleep and high up amang the

turrets--and wherefore should ye set human bodies in byres and stables

in a night like this, when your Ha' fire is bleezing bonnily, and there

is room eneugh around it for us a'? Gie us a seat by the cheek o' your

hearth, and ye shall be nae loser; and I promise ye that we shall be

off, bag and baggage, before the skreigh o' day, or the laird kens where

his head lies."

Andrew would fain have refused this request, but he knew that it

amounted to a command; and, moreover, while he had been speaking with

the chief of the tribe, the maid-servants of the household, who had

followed him and the other men-servants to the door, had divers of them

been solicited by the females of the gang to have futurity revealed to

them. And whether it indeed be that curiosity is more powerful in woman

than in man (as it is generally said to be), I do not profess to

determine; but certain it is, that the laird of Clennel's maid-servants,

immediately on the hint being given by the gipsies, felt a very ardent

desire to have a page or two from the sybilline leaves read to them--at

least that part of them which related to their future husbands, and the

time when they should obtain them. Therefore, they backed the petition

or command of King Willie, and said to Andrew--

"Really, Mr. Smith, it would be very unchristian-like to put poor

wandering folk into cauld out-houses on a night like this; and, as

Willie says, there is room enough in the Ha'."

"That may be a' very true, lasses," returned Andrew, "but only ye think

what a dirdum there would be if the laird were to waken or get wit o't!"

"Fearna the laird," said Elspeth, the wife of King Willie--"I will lay a

spell on him that he canna be roused frae sleep, till I, at sunrise,

wash my hands in Darden Lough."

The sybil then raised her arms and waved them fantastically in the air,

uttering, as she waved them, the following uncouth rhymes by way of

incantation--

"Bonny Queen Mab, bonny Queen Mab,

Wave ye your wee bits o' poppy wings

Ower Clennel's laird, that he may sleep

Till I hae washed where Darden springs."

Thus assured, Andrew yielded to his fears and the wishes of his

fellow-servants, and ushered the Faas into his master's hall for the

night. But scarce had they taken their seats upon the oaken forms around

the fire, when--

"Come," said the Faa king, "the night is cold, pinching cold, Mr. Smith:

and, while the fire warms without, is there naething in the cellar that

will warm within? See to it, Andrew, man--thou art no churl, or they

face is fause."

"Really, sir," replied Andrew--and, in spite of all his efforts to

appear at ease, his tongue faultered as he spoke--"I'm not altogether

certain what to say upon that subject; for ye observe that our laird is

really a very singular man; ye might as weel put your head in the fire

there as displease him in the smallest; and though Heaven kens that I

would gie to you just as freely as I would tak to mysel, yet ye'll

observe that the liquor in the cellars is not mine, but his--and they

are never sae weel plenished but I believe he would miss a thimblefu'.

But there is some excellent cold beef in the pantry, if ye could put up

wi' the like o' it, and the home-brewed which we servants use."

"Andrew," returned the Faa king, proudly--"castle have I none, flocks

and herds have I none, neither have I haughs where the wheat, and the

oats, and the barley grow--but, like Ishmael, my great forefather, every

man's hand is against me, and mine against them--yet, when I am hungry,

I never lack the flesh-pots o' my native land, where the moorfowl and

the venison make brown broo together. Cauld meat agrees nae wi' my

stomach, and servants' drink was never brewed for the lord o' Little

Egypt. Ye comprehend me, Andrew?"

"Oh, I daresay I do, sir," said the chief domestic of the house of

Clennel; "but only, as I have said, ye will recollect that the drink is

not mine to give; and if I venture upon a jug, I hope ye winna think o'

asking for another."

"We shall try it," said the royal vagrant.

Andrew, with trembling and reluctance, proceeded to the cellar, and

returned with a large earthen vessel filled with the choicest

home-brewed, which he placed upon a table in the midst of them.

"Then each took a smack

Of the old black jack,

While the fire burned in the hall."

The Faa king pronounced the liquor to be palatable, and drank to his

better acquaintance with the cellars of the laird of Clennel; and his

gang followed his example.

Now, I should remark that Willie Faa, the chief of his tribe, was a man

of gigantic stature; the colour of his skin was the dingy brown peculiar

to his race; his arms were of remarkable length, and his limbs a union

of strength and lightness; his raven hair was mingled with grey; while,

in his dark eyes, the impetuosity of youth and the cunning of age seemed

blended together. It is in vain to speak of his dress, for it was

changed daily as his circumstances or avocations directed. He was ever

ready to assume all characters, from the courtier down to the mendicant.

Like his wife, he was skilled in the reading of no book but the book of

fate. Now, Elspeth was a less agreeable personage to look upon than even

her husband. The hue of her skin was as dark as his. She was also of his

age--a woman of full fifty. She was the tallest female in her tribe; but

her stoutness took away from her stature. Her eyes were small and

piercing, her nose aquiline, and her upper lip was "bearded like the

pard."

While her husband sat at his carousals, and handing the beverage to his

followers and the domestics of the house, Elspeth sat examining the

lines upon the palms of the hands of the maid-servants--pursuing her

calling as a spaewife. And ever as she traced the lines of matrimony,

the sybil would pause and exclaim--

"Ha!--money!--money!--cross my loof again, hinny. There is fortune

before ye! Let me see! A spur!--a sword!--a shield!--a gowden purse!

Heaven bless ye! They are there!--there, as plain as a pikestaff; they

are a' in your path. But cross my loof again, hinny, for until siller

again cross it, I canna see whether they are to be yours or no."

Thus did Elspeth go on until her "loof had been crossed" by the last

coin amongst the domestics of the house of Clennel; and when these were

exhausted, their trinkets were demanded and given to assist the spell of

the prophetess. Good fortune was prognosticated to the most of them, and

especially to those who crossed the loof of the reader of futurity most

freely; but to others, perils, and sudden deaths, and disappointments in

love, and grief in wedlock, were hinted, though to all and each of these

forebodings, a something like hope--an undefined way of escape--was

pended.

Now, as the voice of Elspeth rose in solemn tones, and as the mystery of

her manner increased, not only were the maid-servants stricken with awe

and reverence for the wondrous woman, but the men-servants also began to

inquire into their fate. And as they extended their hands, and Elspeth

traced the lines of the past upon them, ever and anon she spoke strange

words, which intimated secret facts; and she spoke also of love-makings

and likings; and ever, as she spoke, she would raise her head and grin a

ghastly smile, now at the individual whose hand she was examining, and

again at a maid-servant whose fortune she had read; while the former

would smile and the latter blush, and their fellow domestics exclaim--

"That's wonderfu'!--that dings a'!--ye are queer folk! hoo in the world

do ye ken?"

Even the curiosity of Mr. Andrew Smith was raised, and his wonder

excited; and, after he had quaffed his third cup with the gipsy king,

he, too, reverentially approached the bearded princess, extending his

hand, and begging to know what futurity had in store for him.

She raised it before her eyes, she rubbed hers over it.

"It is a dark and a difficult hand," muttered she: "here are ships and

the sea, and crossing the sea, and great danger, and a way to avoid

it--but the gowd!--the gowd that's there! And yet ye may lose it a'!

Cross my loof, sir--yours is an ill hand to spae--for it's set wi'

fortune, and danger and adventure."

Andrew gave her all the money in his possession. Now it was understood

that she was to return the money and the trinkets with which her loof

had been crossed; and Andrew's curiosity overcoming his fears, he

ventured to intrust his property in her keeping; for, as he thought, it

was not every day that people could have everything that was to happen

unto them revealed. But when she had again looked upon his hand--

"It winna do," said she--"I canna see ower the danger ye hae to

encounter, the seas ye hae to cross, and the mountains o' gowd that lie

before ye yet--ye maun cross my loof again." And when, with a woful

countenance, he stated that he had crossed it with his last coin--

"Ye hae a chronometer, man," said she--"it tells you the minutes now, it

may enable me to show ye those that are to come!"

Andrew hesitated, and, with doubt and unwillingness, placed the

chronometer in her hand.

Elspeth wore a short cloak of faded crimson; and in a sort of pouch in

it, every coin, trinket, and other article of value which was put into

her hands were deposited, in order, as she stated, to forward her mystic

operations. Now, the chronometer had just disappeared in the general

receptacle of offerings to the oracle, when heavy footsteps were heard

descending the staircase leading to the hall. Poor Andrew, the ruler of

the household, gasped--the blood forsook his cheeks, his knees

involuntarily knocked one against another, and he stammered out--

"For Heaven's sake, gie me my chronometer!--Oh, gie me it!--we are a'

ruined!"

"It canna be returned till the spell's completed," rejoined Elspeth, in

a solemn and determined tone--and her countenance betrayed nothing of

her dupe's uneasiness; while her husband deliberately placed his right

hand upon a sort of dagger which he wore beneath a large coarse jacket

that was loosely flung over his shoulders. The males in his retinue,

who were eight in number, followed his example.

In another moment, the laird, with wrath upon his countenance, burst

into the hall.

"Andrew Smith," cried he, sternly, and stamping his foot fiercely on the

floor, "what scene is this I see? Answer me, ye robber, answer me;--ye

shall hang for it!"

"O sir! sir!" groaned Andrew, "mercy!--mercy!--O sir!" and he wrung his

hands together and shook exceedingly.

"Ye fause knave!" continued the laird, grasping him by the neck--and

dashing him from him, Andrew fell flat upon the floor, and his terror

had almost shook him from his feet before--"Speak, ye fause knave!"

resumed the laird; "what means your carousin' wi' sic a gang? Ye robber,

speak!" And he kicked him with his foot as he lay upon the ground.

"O sir!--mercy, sir!" vociferated Andrew, in the stupor and wildness of

terror; "I canna speak!--ye hae killed me outright! I am dead--stone

dead! But it wasna my blame--they'll a' say that, if they speak the

truth."

"Out! out, ye thieves!--ye gang o' plunderers, born to the gallows!--out

o' my house!" added the laird, addressing Willie Faa and his followers.

"Thieves! ye acred loon!" exclaimed the Faa king, starting to his feet,

and drawing himself up to his full height--"wha does the worm that

burrows in the lands o' Clennel ca' thieves? Thieves, say ye!--speak

such words to your equals, but no to me. Your forebears came ower wi'

the Norman, invaded the nation, and seized upon land--mine invaded it

also, and only laid a tax upon the flocks, the cattle, and the

poultry--and wha ca' ye thieves?--or wi' what grace do ye speak the

word?"

"Away, ye audacious vagrant!" continued the laird; "ken ye not that the

king's authority is in my hands?--and for your former plunderings, if I

again find you setting foot upon ground o' mine, on the nearest tree ye

shall find a gibbet."

"Boast awa--boast awa, man," said Willie; "ye are safe here, for me and

mine winna harm ye; and it is a fougie cock indeed that darena craw in

its ain barn-yard. But wait until the day when we may meet upon the wide

moor, wi' only twa bits o' steel between us, and see wha shall brag

then."

"Away!--instantly away!" exclaimed Clennel, drawing his sword, and

waving it threateningly over the head of the gipsy.

"Proud, cauld-hearted, and unfeeling mortal," said Elspeth, "will ye

turn fellow-beings from beneath your roof in a night like this, when the

fox darena creep frae its hole, and the raven trembles on the tree?"

"Out! out! ye witch!" rejoined the laird.

"Farewell, Clennel," said the Faa king; "we will leave your roof, and

seek the shelter o' the hill-side. But ye shall rue! As I speak, man, ye

shall rue it!"

"Rue it!" screamed Elspeth, rising--and her small dark eyes flashed with

indignation--"he shall rue it--the bairn unborn shall rue it--and the

bann o' Elspeth Faa shall be on Clennel and his kin, until his hearth be

desolate and his spirit howl within him like the tempest which this

night rages in the heavens!"

The servants shrank together into a corner of the hall, to avoid the

rage of their master; and they shook the more at the threatening words

of the weird woman, lest she should involve them in his doom; but he

laughed with scorn at her words.

"Proud, pitiless fool," resumed Elspeth, more bitterly than before,

"repress your scorn. Whom, think ye, ye treat wi' contempt? Ken ye not

that the humble adder which ye tread upon can destroy ye--that the very

wasp can sting ye, and there is poison in its sting? Ye laugh, but for

your want of humanity this night, sorrow shall turn your head grey, lang

before age sit down upon your brow."

"Off! off! ye wretches!" added the laird; "vent your threats on the

wind, if it will hear ye, for I regard them as little as it will. But

keep out o' my way for the future, as ye would escape the honours o' a

hempen cravat, and the hereditary exaltation o' your race."

Willie Faa made a sign to his followers, and without speaking they

instantly rose and departed; but, as he himself reached the door, he

turned round, and significantly striking the hilt of his dagger,

exclaimed--

"Clennel! ye shall rue it!"

And the hoarse voice of Elspeth without, as the sound was borne away on

the storm, was heard crying--"He shall rue it!" and repeating her

imprecations.

Until now, poor Andrew Smith had lain groaning upon the floor more dead

than alive, though not exactly "stone dead" as he expressed it; and

ever, as he heard his master's angry voice, he groaned the more, until

in his agony he doubted his existence. When, therefore, on the departure

of the Faas, the laird dragged him to his feet, and feeling some pity

for his terror, spoke to him more mildly, Andrew gazed vacantly around

him, his teeth chattering together, and he first placed his hands upon

his sides, to feel whether he was still indeed the identical flesh,

blood, and bones of Andrew Smith, or his disembodied spirit; and being

assured that he was still a man, he put down his hand to feel for his

chronometer, and again he groaned bitterly--and although he now knew he

was not dead, he almost wished he were so. The other servants thought

also of their money and their trinkets, which, as well as poor Andrew's

chronometer, Elspeth, in the hurry in which she was rudely driven from

the house, had, by a slip of memory, neglected to return to their lawful

owners.

It is unnecessary to dwell upon the laird's anger at his domestics, or

farther to describe Andrew's agitation; but I may say that the laird was

not wroth against the Faa gang without reason. They had committed

ravages on his flocks--they had carried off the choicest of his

oxen--they destroyed his deer--they plundered him of his poultry--and

they even made free with the grain that he reared, and which he could

spare least of all. But Willie Faa considered every landed proprietor as

his enemy, and thought it his duty to quarter on them. Moreover, it was

his boisterous laugh, as he pushed round the tankard, which aroused the

laird from his slumbers, and broke Elspeth's spell. And the destruction

of the charm, by the appearance of their master, before she had washed

her hands in Darden Lough, caused those who had parted with their money

and trinkets to grieve for them the more, and to doubt the promises of

the prophetess, or to

"Take all for gospel that the spaefolk say."

Many weeks, however, had not passed until the laird of Clennel found

that Elspeth the gipsy's threat, that he should "_rue it_," meant more

than idle words. His cattle sickened and died in their stalls, or the

choicest of them disappeared; his favourite horses were found maimed in

the mornings, wounded and bleeding in the fields; and, notwithstanding

the vigilance of his shepherds, the depredations on his flocks augmented

tenfold. He doubted not but that Willie Faa and his tribe were the

authors of all the evils which were besetting him: but he knew also

their power and their matchless craft, which rendered it almost

impossible either to detect or punish them. He had a favourite steed,

which had borne him in boyhood, and in battle when he served in foreign

wars, and one morning when he went into his park, he found it lying

bleeding upon the ground. Grief and indignation strove together in

arousing revenge within his bosom. He ordered his sluthhound to be

brought, and his dependants to be summoned together, and to bring arms

with them. He had previously observed foot-prints on the ground, and he

exclaimed--

"Now the fiend take the Faas, they shall find whose turn it is to rue

before the sun gae down."

The gong was pealed on the turrets of Clennel Hall, and the kempers with

their poles bounded in every direction, with the fleetness of mountain

stags, to summon all capable of bearing arms to the presence of the

laird. The mandate was readily obeyed; and within two hours thirty armed

men appeared in the park. The sluthhound was led to the footprint; and

after following it for many a weary mile over moss, moor, and mountain,

it stood and howled, and lashed its lips with its tongue, and again ran

as though its prey were at hand, as it approached what might be called a

gap in the wilderness between Keyheugh and Clovencrag.

Now, in the space between these desolate crags stood some score of

peels, or rather half hovels, half encampments--and this primitive city

in the wilderness was the capital of the Faa king's people.

"Now for vengeance!" exclaimed Clennel; and his desire of revenge was

excited the more from perceiving several of the choicest of his cattle,

which had disappeared, grazing before the doors or holes of the gipsy

village.

"Bring whins and heather," he continued--"pile them around it, and burn

the den of thieves to the ground."

His order was speedily obeyed, and when he commanded the trumpet to be

sounded, that the inmates might defend themselves if they dared, only

two or three men and women of extreme age, and some half-dozen children,

crawled upon their hands and knees from the huts--for it was impossible

to stand upright in them.

The aged men and women howled when they beheld the work of destruction

that was in preparation, and the children screamed when they heard them

howl. But the laird of Clennel had been injured, and he turned a deaf

ear to their misery. A light was struck, and a dozen torches applied at

once. The whins crackled, the heather blazed, and the flames overtopped

the hovels which they surrounded, and which within an hour became a heap

of smouldering ashes.

Clennel and his dependants returned home, driving the cattle which had

been stolen from him before them, and rejoicing in what they had done.

On the following day, Willie Faa and a part of his tribe returned to the

place of rendezvous--their city and home in the mountains--and they

found it a heap of smoking ruins, and the old men and the old women of

the tribe--their fathers and their mothers--sitting wailing upon the

ruins, and warming over them their shivering limbs, while the children

wept around them for food.

"Whose work is this?" inquired Willie, while anxiety and anger flashed

in his eyes.

"The Laird o' Clennel!--the Laird o' Clennel!" answered every voice at

the same instant.

"By this I swear!" exclaimed the king of the Faas, drawing his dagger

from beneath his coat, "from this night henceforth he is laird nor man

nae langer." And he turned hastily from the ruins, as if to put his

threat in execution.

"Stay, ye madcap!" cried Elspeth, following him, "would ye fling away

revenge for half a minute's satisfaction?"

"No, wife," cried he, "nae mair than I would sacrifice living a free and

a fu' life for half an hour's hangin'."

"Stop, then," returned she, "and let our vengeance fa' upon him, so that

it may wring his life away, drap by drap, until his heart be dry; and

grief, shame, and sorrow burn him up, as he has here burned house and

home o' Elspeth Faa and her kindred."

"What mean ye, woman?" said Willie, hastily; "if I thought ye would come

between me and my revenge, I would drive this bit steel through you wi'

as goodwill as I shall drive it through him."

"And ye shall be welcome," said Elspeth. She drew him aside, and

whispered a few minutes in his ear. He listened attentively. At times he

seemed to start, and at length, sheathing his dagger and grasping her

hand, he exclaimed--"Excellent, Elspeth!--ye have it!--ye have it!"

At this period, the laird of Clennel was about thirty years of age, and

two years before he had been married to Eleanor de Vere, a lady alike

distinguished for her beauty and accomplishments. They had an infant

son, who was the delight of his mother, and his father's pride. Now, for

two years after the conflagration of their little town, Clennel heard

nothing of his old enemies the Faas, neither did they molest him, nor

had they been seen in the neighbourhood, and he rejoiced in having

cleared his estate of such dangerous visitors. But the Faa king,

listening to the advice of his wife, only "nursed his wrath to keep it

warm," and retired from the neighbourhood, that he might accomplish, in

its proper season, his design of vengeance more effectually, and with

greater cruelty.

The infant heir of the house of Clennel had been named Henry, and he was

about completing his third year--an age at which children are, perhaps,

most interesting, and when their fondling and their prattling sink

deepest into a parent's heart--for all is then beheld on childhood's

sunny side, and all is innocence and love. Now, it was in a lovely day

in April, when every bird had begun its annual song, and flowers were

bursting into beauty, buds into leaves, and the earth resuming its green

mantle, when Lady Clennel and her infant son, who then, as I have said,

was about three years of age, went forth to enjoy the loveliness and the

luxuries of nature, in the woods which surrounded their mansion, and

Andrew Smith accompanied them as their guide and protector. They had

proceeded somewhat more than a mile from the house, and the child, at

intervals breaking away from them, sometimes ran before his mother, and

at others sauntered behind her, pulling the wild flowers that strewed

their path, when a man, springing from a dark thicket, seized the child

in his arms, and again darted into the wood. Lady Clennel screamed

aloud, and rushed after him. Andrew, who was coming dreaming behind, got

but a glance of the ruffian stranger--but that glance was enough to

reveal to him the tall, terrible figure of Willie Faa, the Gipsy king.

There are moments when, and circumstances under which even cowards

become courageous, and this was one of those moments and circumstances

which suddenly inspired Andrew (who was naturally no hero) with courage.

He, indeed, loved the child as though he had been his own; and following

the example of Lady Clennel, he drew his sword and rushed into the wood.

He possessed considerable speed of foot, and he soon passed the wretched

mother, and came in sight of the pursued. The unhappy lady, who ran

panting and screaming as she rushed along, unable to keep pace with

them, lost all trace of where the robber of her child had fled, and her

cries of agony and bereavement rang through the woods.

Andrew, however, though he did not gain ground upon the gipsy, still

kept within sight of him, and shouted to him as he ran, saying that all

the dependants of Clennel would soon be on horseback at his heels, and

trusting that every moment he would drop the child upon the ground.

Still Faa flew forward, bearing the boy in his arm, and disregarding the

cries and threats of his pursuer. He knew that Andrew's was not what

could be called a heart of steel, but he was aware that he had a

powerful arm, and could use a sword as well as a better man; and he knew

also that cowards will fight as desperately, when their life is at

stake, as the brave.

The desperate chase continued for four hours, and till after the sun had

set, and the gloaming was falling thick on the hills. Andrew, being

younger and unencumbered, had at length gained ground upon the gipsy,

and was within ten yards of him when he reached the Coquet side, about a

mile below this town, at the hideous Thrumb, where the deep river, for

many yards, rushes through a mere chasm in the rock. The Faa, with the

child beneath his arm, leaped across the fearful gulf, and the dark

flood gushed between him and his pursuer. He turned round, and, with a

horrid laugh, looked towards Andrew and unsheathed his dagger. But even

at this moment the unwonted courage of the chief servant of Clennel did

not fail him, and as he rushed up and down upon one side of the gulf,

that he might spring across and avoid the dagger of the gipsy, the other

ran in like manner on the other side; and when Andrew stood as if ready

to leap, the Faa king, pointing with his dagger to the dark flood that

rolled between them, cried--

"See, fool! eternity divides us!"

"And for that bairn's sake, ye wretch, I'll brave it!" exclaimed Andrew,

while his teeth gnashed together; and he stepped back, in order that he

might spring across with the greater force and safety.

"Hold man!" cried the Faa; "attempt to cross to me, and I will plunge

this bonny heir o' Clennel into the flood below."

"Oh, gracious! gracious!" cried Andrew, and his resolution and courage

forsook him; "ye monster!--ye barbarian!--oh, what shall I do now!"

"Go back whence you came," said the gipsy, "or follow me another step

and the child dies."

"Oh, ye butcher!--ye murderer!" continued the other--and he tore his

hair in agony--"hae ye nae mercy?"

"Sic mercy as your maister had," returned the Faa, "when he burned our

dwellings about the ears o' the aged and infirm, and o' my helpless

bairns! Ye shall find in me the mercy o' the fasting wolf, o' the tiger

when it laps blood!"

Andrew perceived that to rescue the child was now impossible, and with a

heavy heart he returned to his master's house, in which there was no

sound save that of lamentation.

For many weeks, yea months, the laird of Clennel, his friends and his

servants, sought anxiously throughout every part of the country to

obtain tidings of his child, but their search was vain. It was long ere

his lady was expected to recover the shock, and the affliction sat heavy

on his soul, while in his misery he vowed revenge upon all of the gipsy

race. But neither Willie Faa nor any of his tribe were again seen upon

his estates, or heard of in their neighbourhood.

Four years were passed from the time that their son was stolen from

them, and an infant daughter smiled upon the knee of Lady Clennel; and

oft as it smiled in her face, and stretched its little hands towards

her, she would burst into tears, as the smile and the infantine fondness

of her little daughter reminded her of her lost Henry. They had had

other children, but they had died while but a few weeks old.

For two years there had been a maiden in the household named Susan, and

to her care, when the child was not in her own arms, Lady Clennel

intrusted her infant daughter; for every one loved Susan, because of her

affectionate nature and docile manners--she was, moreover, an orphan,

and they pitied while they loved her. But one evening, when Lady Clennel

desired that her daughter might be brought her in order that she might

present her to a company who had come to visit them (an excusable,

though not always a pleasant vanity in mothers), neither Susan nor the

child were to be found. Wild fears seized the bosom of the already

bereaved mother, and her husband felt his heart throb within him. They

sought the woods, the hills, the cottages around; they wandered by the

sides of the rivers and the mountain burns, but no one had seen, no

trace could be discovered of either the girl or the child.

I will not, because I cannot, describe the overwhelming misery of the

afflicted parents. Lady Clennel spent her days in tears and her nights

in dreams of her children, and her husband sank into a settled

melancholy, while his hatred of the Faa race became more implacable, and

he burst into frequent exclamations of vengeance against them.

More than fifteen years had passed, and though the poignancy of their

grief had abated, yet their sadness was not removed, for they had been

able to hear nothing that could throw light upon the fate of their

children. About this period, sheep were again missed from the flocks,

and, in one night, the hen-roosts were emptied. There needed no other

proof that a Faa gang was again in the neighbourhood. Now,

Northumberland at that period was still thickly covered with wood, and

abounded with places where thieves might conceal themselves in security.

Partly from a desire of vengeance, and partly from the hope of being

able to extort from some of the tribe information respecting his

children, Clennel armed his servants, and taking his hounds with him,

set out in quest of the plunderers.

For two days their search was unsuccessful, but on the third the dogs

raised their savage cry, and rushed into a thicket in a deep glen

amongst the mountains. Clennel and his followers hurried forward, and in

a few minutes perceived the fires of the Faa encampment. The hounds had

already alarmed the vagrant colony, they had sprung upon many of them

and torn their flesh with their tusks; but the Faas defended themselves

against them with their poniards, and, before Clennel's approach, more

than half his hounds lay dead upon the ground, and his enemies fled.

Yet there was one poor girl amongst them, who had been attacked by a

fierce hound, and whom no one attempted to rescue, as she strove to

defend herself against it with her bare hands. Her screams for

assistance rose louder and more loud; and as Clennel and his followers

drew near, and her companions fled, they turned round, and, with a

fiendish laugh, cried--

"Rue it now!"

Maddened more keenly by the words, he was following on in pursuit,

without rescuing the screaming girl from the teeth of the hound, or

seeming to perceive her, when a woman, suddenly turning round from

amongst the flying gypsies, exclaimed--

"For your sake!--for Heaven's sake! Laird Clennel! save my bairn!"

He turned hastily aside, and, seizing the hound by the throat, tore it

from the lacerated girl, who sank, bleeding, terrified, and exhausted,

upon the ground. Her features were beautiful, and her yellow hair

contrasted ill with the tawny hue of her countenance and the snowy

whiteness of her bosom, which in the struggle had been revealed. The

elder gipsy woman approached. She knelt by the side of the wounded girl.

"O my bairn!" she exclaimed, "what has this day brought upon me!--they

have murdered you! This is rueing, indeed; and I rue too!"

"Susan!" exclaimed Clennel, as he listened to her words, and his eyes

had been for several seconds fixed upon her countenance.

"Yes!--Susan!--guilty Susan!" cried the gipsy.

"Wretch!" he exclaimed, "my child!--where is my child?--is

_this_"----and he gazed on the poor girl, his voice failed him, and he

burst into tears.

"Yes!--yes!" replied she bitterly, "it is her--there lies your

daughter--look upon her face."

He needed, indeed, but to look upon her countenance--disfigured as it

was, and dyed with weeds to give it a sallow hue--to behold in it every

lineament of her mother's, lovely as when they first met his eye and

entered his heart. He flung himself on the ground by her side, he raised

her head, he kissed her cheek, he exclaimed, "My child!--my child!--my

lost one! I have destroyed thee!"

He bound up her lacerated arms, and applied a flask of wine, which he

carried with him, to her lips, and he supported her on his knee, and

again kissing her cheek, sobbed, "My child!--my own!"

Andrew Smith also bent over her and said, "Oh, it is her! there isna the

smallest doubt o' that. I could swear to her among a thousand. She's her

mother's very picture." And, turning to Susan, he added, "O Susan,

woman, but ye hae been a terrible hypocrite!"

Clennel having placed his daughter on horseback before him, supporting

her with his arm, Susan was set between two of his followers, and

conducted to the Hall.

Before the tidings were made known to Lady Clennel, the wounds of her

daughter were carefully dressed, the dye that changed the colour of her

countenance was removed, and her gipsy garb was exchanged for more

seemly apparel.

Clennel anxiously entered the apartment of his lady, to reveal to her

the tale of joy; but when he entered, he wist not how to introduce it.

He knew that excess of sudden joy was not less dangerous than excess of

grief, and his countenance was troubled, though its expression was less

sad than it had been for many years.

"Eleanor," he at length began, "cheer up."

"Why, I am not sadder than usual, dear," replied she, in her wonted

gentle manner; "and to be more cheerful would ill become one who has

endured my sorrows."

"True, true," said he, "but our affliction may not be so severe as we

have thought--there may be hope--there may be joy for us yet."

"What mean ye, husband?" inquired she, eagerly; "have ye heard

aught--aught of my children?--you have!--you have!--your countenance

speaks it."

"Yes, dear Eleanor," returned he, "I have heard of our daughter."

"And she lives?--she lives?--tell me that she lives!"

"Yes, she lives."

"And I shall see her--I shall embrace my child again?"

"Yes, love, yes," replied he, and burst into tears.

"When--oh, when?" she exclaimed, "can you take me to her now?"

"Be calm, my sweet one. You shall see our child--our long-lost child.

You shall see her now--she is here."

"Here!--my child!" she exclaimed, and sank back upon her seat.

Words would fail to paint the tender interview--the mother's joy--the

daughter's wonder--the long, the passionate embrace--the tears of

all--the looks--the words--the moments of unutterable feeling.

I shall next notice the confession of Susan. Clennel promised her

forgiveness if she would confess the whole truth; and he doubted not,

that from her he would also obtain tidings of his son, and learn where

he might find him, if he yet lived. I shall give her story in her own

words.

"When I came amongst you," she began, "I said that I was an orphan, and

I told ye truly, so far as I knew myself. I have been reared amongst the

people ye call gipsies from infancy. They fed me before I could provide

for myself. I have wandered with them through many lands. They taught me

many things; and, while young, sent me as a servant into families, that

I might gather information to assist them in upholding their mysteries

of fortune-telling, I dared not to disobey them--they kept me as their

slave--and I knew that they would destroy my life for an act of

disobedience. I was in London when ye cruelly burned down the bit town

between the Keyheugh and Clovencrag. That night would have been your

last, but Elspeth Faa vowed more cruel vengeance than death on you and

yours. After our king had carried away your son, I was ordered from

London to assist in the plot o' revenge. I at length succeeded in

getting into your family, and the rest ye know. When ye were a' busy wi'

your company, I slipped into the woods wi' the bairn in my arms, where

others were ready to meet us; and long before ye missed us, we were

miles across the hills, and frae that day to this your daughter has

passed as mine."

"But tell me all, woman," cried Clennel, "as you hope for either pardon

or protection--where is my son, my little Harry? Does he live?--where

shall I find him?"

"As I live," replied Susan, "I cannot tell. There are but two know

concerning him--and that is the king and his wife Elspeth; and there is

but one way of discovering anything respecting him, which is by crossing

Elspeth's loof, that she may betray her husband: and she would do it for

revenge's sake, for an ill husband has he been to her, and in her old

days he has discarded her for another."

"And where may she be found?" inquired Clennel, earnestly.

"That," added Susan, "is a question I cannot answer. She was with the

people in the glen to-day, and was first to raise the laugh when your

dog fastened its teeth in the flesh of your ain bairn. But she may be

far to seek and ill to find now--for she is wi' those that travel fast

and far, and that will not see her hindmost."

Deep was the disappointment of the laird when he found he could obtain

no tidings of his son. But, at the intercession of his daughter (whose

untutored mind her fond mother had begun to instruct), Susan was freely

pardoned, promised protection from her tribe, and again admitted as one

of the household.

I might describe the anxious care of the fond mother, as, day by day,

she sat by her new-found and lovely daughter's side, teaching her, and

telling her of a hundred things of which she had never heard before,

while her father sat gazing and listening near them, rejoicing over

both.

But the ray of sunshine which had penetrated the house of Clennel was

not destined to be of long duration. At that period a fearful cloud

overhung the whole land, and the fury of civil war seemed about to burst

forth.

The threatening storm did explode; a bigoted king overstepped his

prerogative, set at nought the rights and the liberties of the subject,

and an indignant people stained their hands with blood. A political

convulsion shook the empire to its centre. Families and individuals

became involved in the general catastrophe; and the house of Clennel did

not escape. In common with the majority of the English gentry of that

period, Clennel was a stanch loyalist, and if not exactly a lover of the

king, or an ardent admirer of his acts, yet one who would fight for the

crown though it should (as it was expressed about the time) "hang by a

bush." When, therefore, the parliament declared war against the king,

and the name of Cromwell spread awe throughout the country, and when

some said that a prophet and deliverer had risen amongst them, and

others an ambitious hypocrite and a tyrant, Clennel armed a body of his

dependants, and hastened to the assistance of his sovereign, leaving his

wife and his newly-found daughter with the promise of a speedy return.

It is unnecessary to describe all that he did or encountered during the

civil wars. He had been a zealous partizan of the first Charles, and he

fought for the fortunes of his son to the last. He was present at the

battle of Worcester, which Cromwell calls his "crowning mercy," in the

September of 1651, where the already dispirited royalists were finally

routed; and he fought by the side of the king until the streets were

heaped with dead; and when Charles fled, he, with others, accompanied

him to the borders of Staffordshire.

Having bid the young prince an affectionate farewell, Clennel turned

back, with the intention of proceeding on his journey, on the following

day, to Northumberland, though he was aware, that, from the part which

he had taken in the royal cause, even his person was in danger. Yet the

desire again to behold his wife and daughter overcame his fears, and the

thought of meeting them in some degree consoled him for the fate of his

prince, and the result of the struggle in which he had been engaged.

But he had not proceeded far when he was met by two men dressed as

soldiers of the Parliamentary army--the one a veteran with grey hairs,

and the other a youth. The shades of night had set in; but the latter he

instantly recognized as a young soldier whom he had that day wounded in

the streets of Worcester.

"Stand!" said the old man, as they met him; and the younger drew his

sword.

"If I stand!" exclaimed Clennel, "it shall not be when an old man and a

boy command me." And, following their example, he unsheathed his sword.

"Boy!" exclaimed the youth; "whom call ye boy?--think ye, because ye

wounded me this morn, that fortune shall aye sit on your arm?--yield or

try."

They made several thrusts at each other, and the old man, as an

indifferent spectator, stood looking on. But the youth, by a dexterous

blow, shivered the sword in Clennel's hand, and left him at his mercy.

"Now yield ye," he exclaimed; "the chance is mine now--in the morning it

was thine."

"Ye seem a fair foe," replied Clennel, "and loath am I to yield, but

that I am weaponless."

"Despatch him at once!" growled the old man. "If he spilled your blood

in the morning, there can be no harm in spilling his the night--and

especially after giein' him a fair chance."

"Father," returned the youth, "would ye have me to kill a man in cold

blood?"

"Let him submit to be bound then, hands and eyes, or I will," cried the

senior.

The younger obeyed, and Clennel, finding himself disarmed, submitted to

his fate; and his hands were bound, and his eyes tied up, so that he

knew not where they led him.

After wandering many miles, and having lain upon what appeared the cold

earth for a lodging, he was aroused from a comfortless and troubled

sleep, by a person tearing the bandage from his eyes, and ordering him

to prepare for his trial. He started to his feet. He looked around, and

beheld that he stood in the midst of a gipsy encampment. He was not a

man given to fear, but a sickness came over his heart when he thought of

his wife and daughter, and that, knowing the character of the people in

whose power he was, he should never behold them again.

The males of the Faa tribe began to assemble in a sort of half circle in

the area of the encampment, and in the midst of them, towering over the

heads of all, he immediately distinguished the tall figure of Willie

Faa, in whom he also discovered the grey-haired Parliamentary soldier of

the previous night. But the youth with whom he had twice contended and

once wounded, and by whom he had been made prisoner, he was unable to

single out amongst them.

He was rudely dragged before them, and Willie Faa cried--"Ken ye the

culprit?"

"Clennel o' Northumberland!--our enemy!" exclaimed twenty voices.

"Yes," continued Willie, "Clennel our enemy--the burner o' our humble

habitations--that left the auld, the sick, the infirm, and the helpless,

and the infants o' our kindred, to perish in the flaming ruins. Had we

burned his house, the punishment would have been death; and shall we do

less to him than he would do to us?"

"No! no!" they exclaimed with one voice.

"But," added Willie, "though he would have disgraced us wi' a gallows,

as he has been a soldier, I propose that he hae the honour o' a

soldier's death, and that Harry Faa be appointed to shoot him."

"All! all! all!" was the cry.

"He shall die with the setting sun," said Willie, and again they cried,

"Agreed!"

Such was the form of trial which Clennel underwent, when he was again

rudely dragged away, and placed in a tent round which four strong Faas

kept guard. He had not been alone an hour, when his judge, the Faa king,

entered, and addressed him--

"Now, Laird Clennel, say ye that I haena lived to see day about wi' ye?

When ye turned me frae beneath your roof, when the drift was fierce and

the wind howled in the moors, was it not tauld to ye that _ye would rue

it_!--but ye mocked the admonition and the threat, and, after that,

cruelly burned us out o' house and ha'. When I came hame, I saw my auld

mother, that was within three years o' a hunder, couring ower the

reeking ruins, without a wa' to shelter her, and crooning curses on the

doer o' the black deed. There were my youngest bairns, too, crouching by

their granny's side, starving wi' hunger as weel as wi' cauld, for ye

had burned a', and haudin' their bits o' hands before the burnin' ruins

o' the house that they were born in, to warm them! That night I vowed

vengeance on you; and even on that night I would have executed it, but I

was prevented; and glad am I now that I was prevented, for my vengeance

has been complete--or a' but complete. Wi' my ain hand I snatched your

son and heir from his mother's side, and a terrible chase I had for it;

but revenge lent me baith strength and speed. And when ye had anither

bairn that was like to live, I forced a lassie, that some o' our folk

had stolen when an infant, to bring it to us. Ye have got your daughter

back again, but no before she has cost ye mony a sad heart and mony a

saut tear; and that was some revenge. But the substance o' my

satisfaction and revenge lies in what I hae to tell ye. Ye die this

night as the sun gaes down; and, hearken to me now--the young soldier

whom ye wounded on the streets o' Worcester, and who last night made you

prisoner, was your son--your heir--your lost son! Ha! ha!--Clennel, am I

revenged?"

"My son!" screamed the prisoner--"monster, what is it that ye say?

Strike me dead, now I am in your power--but torment me not!"

"Ha! ha! ha!" again laughed the grey-haired savage--"man, ye are about

to die, and ye know not ye are born. Ye have not heard half I have to

tell. I heard that ye had joined the standard o' King Charles. I, a king

in my ain right, care for neither your king nor parliament; but I

resolved to wear, for a time, the cloth o' old Noll, and to make your

son do the same, that I might hae an opportunity o' meeting you as an

enemy, and seeing _him_ strike you to the heart. That satisfaction I had

not; but I had its equivalent. Yesterday, I saw you shed his blood on

the streets o' Worcester, and in the evening he gave you a prisoner into

my hands that desired you."

"Grey-haired monster!" exclaimed Clennel. "Have ye no feeling--no heart?

Speak ye to torment me, or tell me truly, have I seen my son?"

"Patience, man!" said the Faa, with a smile of sardonic triumph--"my

story is but half finished. It was the blood o' your son ye shed

yesterday at Worcester--it was your son who disarmed ye, and gave ye

into my power; and, best o' a'!--now, hear me! hear me! lose not a

word!--it is the hand o' your son that this night, at sunset, shall send

you to eternity! Now, tell me, Clennel, am I no revenged? Do ye no rue

it?"

"Wretch! wretch!" cried the miserable parent, "in mercy strike me dead.

If I have raised my sword against my son, let that suffice ye!--but

spare, oh, spare my child from being an involuntary parricide!"

"Hush, fool!" said the Faa; "I have waited for this consummation o' my

revenge for twenty years, and think ye that I will be deprived o' it now

by a few whining words? Remember, sunset!" he added, and left the tent.

Evening came, and the disk of the sun began to disappear behind the

western hills. Men and women, the old and the young, amongst the Faas,

came out from their encampment to behold the death of their enemy.

Clennel was brought forth between two, his hands fastened to his sides,

and a bandage round his mouth, to prevent him making himself known to

his executioner. A rope was also brought round his body, and he was tied

to the trunk of an old ash tree. The women of the tribe began a sort of

yell or coronach; and their king, stepping forward, and smiling savagely

in the face of his victim, cried aloud--

"Harry Faa! stand forth and perform the duty your tribe have imposed on

you."

A young man, reluctantly, and with a slow and trembling step, issued

from one of the tents. He carried a musket in his hand, and placed

himself in front of the prisoner, at about twenty yards from him.

"Make ready!" cried Willie Faa, in a voice like thunder. And the youth,

though his hands shook, levelled the musket at his victim.

But, at that moment, one who, to appearance, seemed a maniac, sprang

from a clump of whins behind the ash tree where the prisoner was bound,

and, throwing herself before him, she cried--"Hold!--would you murder

your own father? Harry Clennel!--would you murder your father? Mind ye

not when ye was stolen frae your mother's side, as ye gathered wild

flowers in the wood?"

It was Elspeth Faa.

The musket dropped from the hands of the intended executioner--a

thousand recollections, that he had often fancied dreams, rushed across

his memory. He again seized the musket, he rushed forward to his father,

but, ere he reached, Elspeth had cut the cords that bound the laird, and

placed a dagger in his hand for his defence, and, with extended arms, he

flew to meet the youth, crying--"My son!--my son!"

The old Faa king shook with rage and disappointment, and his first

impulse was to poniard his wife--but he feared to do so; for although he

had injured her, and had not seen her for years, her influence was

greater with the tribe than his.

"Now, Willie," cried she, addressing him, "wha rues it now? Fareweel for

ance and a'--and the bairn I brought up will find a shelter for my auld

head."

It were vain to tell how Clennel and his son wept on each other's neck,

and how they exchanged forgiveness. But such was the influence of

Elspeth, that they departed from the midst of the Faas unmolested, and

she accompanied them.

Imagination must picture the scene when the long-lost son flung himself

upon the bosom of his mother, and pressed his sister's hand in his.

Clennel Hall rang with the sounds of joy for many days; and, ere they

were ended, Andrew Smith placed a ring upon the finger of Susan, and

they became one flesh--she a respectable woman. And old Elspeth lived to

the age of ninety and seven years beneath its roof.

KATE KENNEDY;

OR, THE MAID OF INNERKEPPLE.

Innerkepple was, some three hundred years ago, as complete a

fortification as could be seen along the Borders--presenting its

bastions, its turrets and donjon, and all the appurtenances of a

military strength, in the face of a Border riever, with that solemn air

of defiance that belongs to the style of the old castles. Many a blow of

a mangonel it had received; and Scotch and English engines of war had,

with equal force and address, poured into its old grey ribs their

destructive bolts; every wound was an acquisition of glory; and, unless

where a breach demanded a repair for the sake of security, the scars on

the old warrior were allowed to remain as a proof of his prowess.

Indeed, these very wounds appearing on the walls had their names--being

christened after the leaders of the sieges that had been in vain

directed against it; and, among the number, the kings of England might

have been seen indicated by the futile instruments of vengeance they had

flung into the rough ribs of old Innerkepple. But let us proceed. The

proprietor, good Walter Kennedy, better known by the appellative of

Innerkepple, was not unlike the old strength which he inhabited; being

an old, rough, burly baron, on whose face Time had succeeded in making

many impressions, notwithstanding of all the opposing energies of a soul

that gloried, in all manner of ways, of cheating the old greybeard of

his rights and clearing off _his scores_. As a good spirit is said to be

like good old wine, getting softer and more balmy as it increases in

age, old Innerkepple proved, by his good humour and jovial manners, the

sterling qualities of his heart, which seemed, as he progressed in

years, to swell in proportion as that organ in others shrivelled and

decreased. He saw nothing in age but the necessity it imposes of having

more frequent recourse to its great enemy, the grape; and that power he

delighted to bow to, as he bent his head to empty the flagon which his

forebear, Kenneth, got from the first King James, as a reward for his

services against the house of Albany. Yet the good humour of the old

baron was not that of the toper, which, produced by the bowl, would not

exist but for its inspiring draught; the feeling of happiness and

universal good-will lay at the bottom of the heart itself, and was only

swelled into a state of glorious ebullition by the charm of the magic of

the vine branch--the true Mercurial _caduceus_, the only true magic wand

upon earth.

Though the spirit of antiquarianism is seldom associated with the

swelling affections of the heart that is dedicated to Momus, old

Innerkepple had, notwithstanding, been able to combine the two qualities

or powers. Sitting in his old wainscotted hall, over a goblet of spiced

Tokay, there were three old subjects he loved to speculate upon; and

these were--his old castle, with its chronicled wounds, where the Genius

of War sat alongside of the "auld carle" Time, in grim companionship;

secondly, the family tree of the Innerkepples--with himself, a good old

branch, kept green by good humour and Tokay, at the further verge; and a

small green twig, as slender as a lily stalk, issuing from the old

branch--no other than the daughter of Innerkepple, the fair Kate

Kennedy, a buxom damsel, of goodly proportions, and as merry, with the

aid of health and young sparkling blood, as the old baron was with the

spiced wine of Tokay; and, in the third place, there was the true

legitimate study of the antiquary, the ancient wine itself, the mortal

years of which he counted with an eye as bright as Cocker's over a

triumphant solution. As this last subject grew upon him, he became

inspired, like the old poet of Teos, and the rafters of Innerkepple rang

to the sound of his voice, tuned to the air of "The Guidwife o'

Tullybody," and fraught with the deeds, active and passive, of the

barons of Innerkepple and their castle.

The fair Katherine Kennedy inherited her father's good humour, and,

maugre all the polishing and freezing influences of high birth, retained

her inborn freedom of thought and action, heedless whether the

contortion of the _buccæ_ in a broad laugh were consistent with the

placidity of beauty, or the scream of the heart-excited risibility were

in accordance with the formula of high breeding. Buxom in her person,

and gay in her manners, she formed the most enchanting baggage of all

the care-killing damsels of her day--the most exquisite ronion that ever

chased Melancholy from her yellow throne on the face of Hypochondria, or

threw the cracker of her persiflage into the midst of the crew of blue

devils that bind down care-worn mortals by the bonds of _ennui_. She was

no antiquary, even in the limited sense of her father's study of the

science of cobwebs; being rather given to _neoterics_, or the science

which teaches the qualities of things of to-day or yesterday. Age in all

things she hated with a very good feminine spirit of detestation; and,

following up her principles, she arrived at the conclusion that youth

and beauty were two of the very best qualities that could be possessed

by a lover. Her father's impassioned praises of the old branches of the

tree of the Innerkepples--comprehending the brave Ludovick, who fell at

Homildon, and the memorable Walter, who sold his life at the price of a

score of fat Englishmen at the red Flodden--produced only her best and

loudest laugh, as she figured to herself the folly of preferring the

rugged trunk to the green branches that suspend at their points the

red-cheeked apple full of sweetness and juice. Neither cared the

hilarious damsel much for the reverend turrets of Innerkepple. Her

father's description, full of good humour as it was, of the various

perils they had passed, and the service they had done their country,

seemed to her, as she stood on the old walls, listening to the

narrative, like the croak of the old corbies that sat on the pinnacles;

and her laugh came again full of glee through the loopholes, or echoed

from the battered curtain or recesses of the ballium.

That such a person as merry old Innerkepple should have a bitter and

relentless foe in the proprietor of the old strength called Otterstone,

in the neighbourhood, is one of the most instructive facts connected

with the system of war and pillage that prevailed on the Borders,

principally during the reign of Henry VIII. of England and James V. of

Scotland, when the spirit of religion furnished a cause of aggression

that could not have been afforded by the pugnacious temperaments of the

victims of attack. Magnus Fotheringham of Otterstone had had a deadly

feud with Kenneth Kennedy, the father of the good old Innerkepple, and

ever since had nourished against his neighbour a deadly spite, which he

had taken many means of gratifying. His opponent had acted merely on the

defensive; but his plea had been so well vindicated by his retainers,

who loved him with the affection of children, that the splenetic

aggressor had been twice repulsed with great slaughter. Most readily

would the jovial baron, who had never given any cause of offence, have

seized upon the demon of Enmity, and, _obtorto collo_, forced the fiend

into the smoking flagon of spiced wine, while he held out the hand of

friendship to his hereditary foe; but such was Otterstone's inveteracy,

that he would not meet him but with arms in his hands, so that all the

endeavours of the warm-hearted and jolly Innerkepple to overcome the

hostility of his neighbour, were looked upon as secret modes of wishing

to entrap him, and take vengeance on him for his repeated attacks upon

the old castle.

Some short time previous to the period about which we shall become more

interested, Innerkepple, with twenty rangers, was riding the marches of

his property, when he was set upon by his enemy, who had nearly twice

that number of retainers. Taking up with great spirit the plea of their

lord, the men who were attacked rallied round the old chief, and fought

for him like lions, drowning (perhaps purposely) in the noise of the

battle the cries of Innerkepple, who roared, at the top of his voice--

"Otterstone, man--hear me!--A pint o' my auld Canary will do baith you

and me mair guid than a' that bluid o' your men and mine. Stop the

fecht, man. I hae nae feud against you, an' I'm no answerable for the

wrangs o' thy father Kenneth."

These peaceful words were lost amidst the sounds of the battle, and

Otterstone construed the contortions of the peacemaker into indications

of revenge, and his bawling was set down as his mode of inspiriting his

followers. The fight accordingly progressed, old Innerkepple at

intervals holding up a white handkerchief as a sign of peace; but which,

having been used by him in stopping the wounds of one of his men, was

received with its blood-marks as a signal of revenge, both by his men

and those of the aggressor. The strife accordingly increased, and all

was soon mixed up in the confusion of the melée.

"Has feud ran awa wi' yer senses, Otterstone?" again roared the good old

baron. "I'll gie yer son, wha's at St. Omers, the hand o' my dochter

Kate. Do you hear me, man? If you will mix the bluids o' oor twa houses,

let it be dune by Haly Kirk."

His words never reached Otterstone; but his own men who adored and

idolized their beautiful young mistress, whose unvaried cheerfulness and

kindness had won their hearts, heard the proposition of their master

with astonishment and dissatisfaction. They were still sorely pressed by

their enemy, who, seeing the stained handkerchief in the hands of

Innerkepple, were roused to stronger efforts. At this moment an

extraordinary vision met their eyes. A detachment of retainers from the

castle came forward in the most regular warlike array, having at their

head their young mistress, armed with a helmet and a light jerkin, and

bearing in her hand a sword of suitable proportions. A loud shout from

the worsted combatants expressed their satisfaction and surprise, and in

a moment the assistant corps joined their friends, and commenced to

fight. The unusual vision relaxed for a moment the energies of

Otterstone's men; but a cry from their chief, that they would that day

be ten times vanquished if they were defeated by a female leader, again

inspired them, and instigated them to the fight.

"Press forward, brave vassals of Innerkepple!" cried Katherine. "Your

foes have no fair damsel to inspire them; and who shall resist those

whose arms are nerved in defence of an old chief and a young mistress?

He who kills the greatest number of Otterstone's men shall have the

privilege of demanding a woman's guerdon from Katherine Kennedy. If this

be not enough to make ye fight like lions, ye deserve to be hung in

chains on the towers of Otterstone."

Smiling as she uttered her strange speech, she hurried to her father,

who was still making all the efforts in his power to bring about a

parley. He had got within a few yards of Otterstone, and it required all

the energies of Katherine to keep him back and defend him from insidious

blows--an office she executed with great agility, by keeping her light

sword whirling round her head, and inflicting wounds--not perhaps of

great depth--on those who were ungallant and temerarious enough to

approach her parent.

"See, Otterstone, man," cried the laird, still intent on peace, and

sorry for the deadly work that was going on around him. "Is she no fit

to mak heirs to Otterstone? Up wi' yer helm, Kate, and show him yer fair

face. Ha! man, stop this bluidy work, and let us mend a' by a carousal.

Deil's in the heart and stamack o' the man that prefers warring to

wassailing!"

"He does not hear you, father," cried Kate. "We must defend ourselves.

On, brave followers! Ye know your guerdon. Gallant knights have kneeled

for it and been refused it. You are to fight for it, and to receive it.

Hurrah for Innerkepple!" And she swung her light falchion round her

head, while the war-cry of the family, "_Festina lente!_" arose in

answer to her inspiriting appeal, and the men rushed forward with new

ardour on their foes.

"You are as bluid-thirsty as he is, Kate," cried the baron. "What mean

ye, woman? Haste ye up to Otterstone, and fling yer arms round his neck,

and greet a guid greet, according to the fashion o' womankind. Awa!

haste ye, and say, mairower, that ye'll be the wife o' his son, and join

the twa baronies that are gaping for ane anither. Quick, woman; tears

are mere water--thin aneuch, Gude kens!--but thae men's bluid is thicker

than my vintage o' the year '90."

"Katherine Kennedy never yet wept either to friend or foe, unless in the

wild glee of her frolics," replied the maiden. "By the bones of Camilla!

I thought I was only fit for sewing battle scenes on satin, and laughing

as I killed a knight with my needle; but I find I have the Innerkepple

blood in my veins, and my cheek is glowing like a blood-red rose. Take

care of yourself, good father, and leave the affair to me. A single

glance of my eye has more power in it than the command of the proudest

baron of the Borders. On, good hearts!" And she again rode among the

men, and inspired them with her voice and looks.

The effect of the silvery tones of the voice of Katherine on the hearts

of her father's retainers was electric; they fought like lions, and it

soon became apparent to Otterstone that a woman is a more dangerous

enemy than a man. The cry, "For the fair maid of Innerkepple!" resounded

among the combatants, and soon exhibited greater virtue than the war-cry

of the house. Against men actuated by the chivalrous feelings that

naturally arose out of the defence of a beautiful woman, all resistance

was vain; the ranks of Otterstone's men were broken, and this advantage

having been seized by their opponents, whose energies were rising every

moment, as the sound of Katherine's voice saluted their ears, a route

ensued, and the usual consequences of that last resource of the

vanquished--flight--were soon apparent in the wounded victims, who fell

ingloriously with wounds on their backs. The pursuers were inclined to

continue the pursuit even to the walls of Otterstone, but Katherine

called them back.

"To slay the flying," said she, with a laugh, as the usual hilarity of

her spirits returned upon her, "is what I call effeminate warfare. When

men flee, women pursue; and what get they for their pains more than the

wench got from Theseus, whom she hunted for his heart, and got, as our

hunters do, the kick of his heel? Away, and carry in our disabled, that

I may, with woman's art, cure the wounds that have been received in

defence of a woman."

The men obeyed with alacrity, and Innerkepple himself stared in

amazement at his daughter, who had always before appeared to him as a

wild romp, fit only for killing men with her beauty, or tormenting them

with the elfin tricks or bewitching waggeries of her restless salient

spirit.

"I'll hae ye in the wainscotted ha', Kate," said the father, as he

entered his private chamber, leaning on the arm of his daughter,

"painted wi' helm, habergeon, and halberd, and placed alongside o' Lewie

o' Homildon and Watt o' Flodden."

"I care not, father," replied Katherine, "if you give the painter

instructions to paint me laughing at those famous progenitors of our

house, who were foolish enough to give their lives for that glory I can

purchase for nothing, and get the lives of my enemies to boot; but I

must go and minister to the gallant men who have been wounded."

"Minister first to your father, Kate," replied Innerkepple, with a

knowing look.

"And to your father's daughter, you would add," replied she, with a

smile. "A bridal and a battle lack wine." And, hastening to a cupboard,

she took out and placed on the table a flagon and two cups, the latter

of which she filled.

"Rest to the souls of the men I have slain!" said she, laughing, as she

lifted the wine cup to her head, while her father was performing the

same act.

"What! did ye kill ony o' Otterstone's men?" said Innerkepple.

"Every time I lifted up my visor," replied she, "I scattered death

around me. Ha! ha! what fools men are! Their bodies are tenantless; we

women are the souls that live outside of them, and take up our residence

within their clayey precincts only when we have an object to serve. The

tourney has taught me the power of our sex; and there I have thrown my

spirit into the man I hated, to gratify my humour by seeing him, poor

caitiff! as he caught my hazel eye, writhe and wring, and contort

himself into all the attitudes of Proteus."

"Wicked imp!" said Innerkepple, laughing.

"And when he had sufficiently twisted himself," continued she, "I have,

with a grave face given the same hazel eye to his opponent, and set his

body in motion in the same way. The serpent-charmer is nothing to a

woman. By this art, I to-day gained the victory; and I'll stake my

auburn toupée against thy grey wig, that I beat, in the same way, the

boldest baron of the Borders."

"By the faith o' Innerkepple, ye're no blate, Kate!" said the old baron,

still laughing; "but come, let us see our wounded men"--taking his

daughter's arm.

"Leave their wounds to me, father," said she. "The sting of the

tarantula is cured by an old song. We women are the true leeches;

doctors are quacks and medicasters to us. We kill and cure like the

Delphic sword, which makes wounds and heals them by alternate strokes."

"Ever at your quips, roisterer," said Innerkepple, as they arrived at

the court.

The wounded men had been brought in, and were consigned to the care of

one of the retainers, skilled in medicine, Katherine's medicaments--her

looks and tones--being reserved for a balsamic application, after the

wounds were cicatrized. The other retainers were, meanwhile, busy in

consultation, as might have been seen by their congregating into

parties, talking low, and throwing looks at Innerkepple and his fair

daughter, as they stood on the steps of the inner door of the castle.

"The guerdon! the guerdon!" at last said one of the vassals, advancing

and throwing himself at the feet of Kate.

"Ha! ha! I forgot," replied she laughing; "but turn up thy face--art

thou the man?"

"So say my companions, fair leddy," replied he. "I brocht doon wi' this

arm five o' Otterstone's men."

"With that arm!" replied she, "and what spirit nerved the dead lumber,

thinkest thou?"

"Dootless yours, fair leddy," answered he, smiling knowingly; "but,

though the spirit was borrowed, I'm no the less entitled to my reward."

"A good stickler for the rights of your sex," answered she, keeping up

the humour; "but what guerdon demandest thou?"

"That whilk knights hae sued in vain for at your fair feet," answered

the man, smiling, as he uttered nearly the words she had used at the

battle.

"Caught in my own snare," replied she, laughing loudly.

"Ah, Kate, Kate!" said the baron, joining in the humour, "hoo mony

gallant barons, and knights, and gentlemen hae ye tormented by thae fair

lips o' yours, which carry in their cunnin' words a defence o' themsels

sae weel contrived that nane daur approach them! Ye're caught at last.

Stand to yer richts, man. A kiss was promised ye, and by the honour o'

Innerkepple, a kiss ye'll hae, if I should haud her head by a grip o'

her bonny auburn locks."

"Hold! hold!" cried Katherine; "this matter dependeth on the answer to a

question. Art thou married, sirrah?"

The man hesitated, fearful of being caught by his clever adversary.

"Have a care o' yoursel, Gregory," said Innerkepple, "ye're on dangerous

ground."

"What if I am or am not?" said the man, cautiously, turning up his eye

into the face of the wicked querist.

"If thou art not," said she, "then would a kiss of so fair a damsel be

to thee beyond the value of a croft of the best land o' the barony o'

Innerkepple; but if thou art, then would the guerdon be as nothing to

the kiss of thy wife, and as the weight of a feather in the scale

against an oxengate of good land."

"I'm no married," replied the man; "but, an't please yer leddyship, I'll

take the oxengate."

"Audacious varlet!" cried Kate, rejoicing in the adroitness she

exhibited; "wouldst thou prefer a piece of earth to a kiss of Kate

Kennedy--a boon which the gayest knights of the Borders have sued for in

vain! But 'tis well--thou hast refused the guerdon. Ha! ha! Men of

Innerkepple, ye are witnesses to the fact. This man hath spurned my

guerdon, and sought dull earth for my rosy lips."

"We are witnesses," cried the retainers; and the court-yard rang with the

laugh which the cleverness of their fair mistress had elicited from

those who envied Gregory of his privilege.

"Kate, Kate!" said the old baron, joining in the laugh, "will ever

mortal be able to seize what are sae weel guarded? I believe ye will be

able to argue yer husband oot o' his richts o' proving whether thae

little traitors be made of mortal flesh or ripe cherries. But wine is

better than women's lips; and since Kate has sae cleverly got quit o'

her obligation, I'll mak amends by gieing ye a _surrogatum_."

Several measures of good old wine were served out to the men by the

hands of Katherine, who rejoiced in the contradiction of refusing one

thing to give a better. Her health, and that of Innerkepple, were drunk

with loud shouts of approbation; and the wassail was kept up till a late

hour of the night.

Meanwhile, Otterstone was struggling with his disappointment, and

nourishing a deep spirit of revenge. The shame of his defeat,

accomplished by a girl, was insufferable; and the gnawing pain of the

loss of honour and men, in a cause where he had calculated securely on

crushing his supposed enemy, affected him so severely, that he sent, it

was reported, for his son, who had lived from his infancy at St. Omers,

to come over to administer to him consolation. When Innerkepple heard of

these things, he marvelled greatly at the stubbornness of his neighbour,

whom he wished, above all things, to drag, _nolente volente_, into a

deep wassail in the old wainscotted hall of his castle, whereby he

might drown, with reason itself, all their hereditary grudges, and

transform a foe into a friend. These feelings were also participated in

by the warlike Kate, who acknowledged that she did not, on that

memorable day, fight for anything on earth that she knew of, but the

safety of her father, and the sheer glory of victory. She entertained

the best possible feelings towards Otterstone, though she admitted, with

a laugh, that if his men had not that day run for their lives, she would

have fought till they and their lord lay all dead upon the field, and

the glory of Otterstone was extinguished for ever.

A considerable period that passed in quietness, seemed to indicate that

the anger of the vanquished baron had escaped by the valves appointed by

nature for freeing the liver of its redundant bile. Meanwhile,

Innerkepple's universal love of mankind increased, as his friendship for

the juice of the grape grew stronger and stronger, and his potations

waxed deeper and deeper; so that he was represented, all over the

Borders, as being the most jovial baron of his time. The fame of Kate

also went abroad like fire-flaughts; but no one knew what to make of

her--whether to set her down as a beautiful virago, or as a merry imp of

sportive devilry, who fought her father's enemy with the same good-will

she felt towards the lovers whom she delighted with her beauty and

gaiety, and tormented by her cruel waggeries and wiles.

This apparent quietness, and the consequent freedom from all danger,

induced the old baron to comply with a request made to him by King

James, to lend him forty of his followers, to aid in suppressing some

disturbances caused by a number of outlawed reivers at that time

ravaging the Borders. Katherine gave her consent to the measure; but she

wisely exacted the condition that the men should not be removed to a

greater distance from the castle than ten miles. When James' emissary

asked her why she adjected this condition to her father's agreement, she

answered, with that waggish mystery in which she often loved to indulge,

that she had such a universal love for his--the emissary's--sex, that

she could not suffer the idea of her gallant men being further removed

from her than the distance on which she had condescended. A question for

explanation only produced another wicked _quodlibet_; so that the royal

messenger was obliged to be contented with a reason that sounded in his

ears very like a contempt of royal authority--a circumstance for which

she cared no more than she did for the mute expression of admiration of

her beauty, that her quick eye detected on the face of the deputy.

The men having been detached from the castle for the service of the

king, there remained only a small number, not more than sufficient for

occupying the more important stations on the walls of the strength.

There was, however, no cause for alarm; and old Innerkepple continued to

speculate over his spiced Tokay, on his three grand subjects of

antiquarian research; while Katherine followed her various occupations

of listening to and laughing at his reveries, sewing battle scenes on

satin, and killing her knights with her needle, in as many grotesque

ways as her inventive fancy could devise. One day the sound of a horn

cut right through the middle a long pull of Canary in the act of being

perfected by the old baron's powers of swallow; and, in a short time,

the warder came in and said that a wine merchant, with sumpter mules and

panniers, was at the end of the drawbridge, and had expressed a strong

desire to submit his commodity to the test of such a famous judge of the

spirit of the grape as the baron of Innerkepple, whose name had gone

forth as transcending that of all modern wine-drinkers.

"A wine merchant!" ejaculated Innerkepple, smacking his lips after his

interrupted draught of vintage '90. "What species o' sma' potation does

he deal in? Ha! ha! It suits my humour to see the quack's een reel, as

he finds his tongue and palate glued thegither wi' what I ca' wine, and

gets them loosed again by his ain coloured water. Show him in, George."

"Whar is my leddy, yer Honour?" said the seneschal, looking bluntly.

"Will she consent to the drawbridge bein' raised at a time when the

castle's nearly empty?"

"She has just gane into the green parlour in the west tower," said the

baron. "But I'll tak Kate in my ain hands. She likes fun as weel as her

auld father, and will laugh to see this quack beaten wi' his ain bowls."

The seneschal withdrew, though reluctantly, and casting his eyes about

for the indispensable Katherine; but she was not within his reach, and

he felt himself compelled, by the impatience of the old baron, to admit

the merchant. The creaking hinges of the bridge resounded through the

castle and the merchant and his mules were seen by Katherine, looking

through a loophole, slowly making their way into the castle. It was too

late for her now to consider of the propriety of the permission to

enter; so she leant her chin on her hand, and quietly scanned the

stranger, as he crossed the bridge, driving his mules before him with a

large stick, which he brought down with a loud thwack on their

backs--accompanying his act with a loud "Whoop, ho!" and occasionally

throwing his eyes over the walls as he proceeded.

"Whom have we here?" said she, as she communed with herself, and nodded

her head, still apparent through the loophole. "By'r Lady! neither

Gascon nor Fleming, or my eyes are no better than my father's, when he

looks at _antiques_ through the red medium of his vintage of '90.

Perchance, a lover come to run away with Kate Kennedy. Hey! the thought

tickles my wild wits, and sends me on the wings of fancy into the

regions of romance. Yet I have not read that the catching and carrying

off of _Tartars_ hath anything to do with the themes of romantic

love-errantry. I'm witty at the expense of this poor packman; but,

seriously, Katherine Kennedy must carry off her lover. True to the

difference that opposes me to the rest of my sex, I could not love a man

whom I did not vanquish and abduct, as a riever does the chattels of the

farmer."

Continuing her gaze, as she laughed at her own strange thoughts, she saw

the merchant bind his mules to a ring fixed in the inside of the wall,

and take out of his panniers a vessel, with which he proceeded in the

direction of the door that led to the hall. When the merchant had

disappeared, she saw one of the retainers of the castle examining

intently the mules and their panniers. He looked up and caught her eye;

and placing his finger on his forehead, made a sign for her to come

down. She obeyed with her usual alacrity, and in a moment was at the

side of the retainer, who, slipping gently under the shade of the

castle, so as to be out of the view of those within the hall,

communicated to the ear of Katherine some intelligence of an important

nature. The man looked grave; Kate snapped her fingers; the fire of her

eyes glanced from the balls like the sparks of struck flint, and the

expression of her countenance indicated that she had formed a purpose

which she gloried in executing.

"Hark ye, Gregory," said she; "I am still your debtor, but I require

again your services." And, looking carefully around her, she whispered

some words into the ear of the man; and, upon receiving his nod of

intelligence and assent, sprung up the steps that led to the hall.

The wine merchant was, as she entered, sitting at the oaken table,

opposite to the old baron, who was holding up in his hand a species of

glass jug, and looking through it with that peculiar expression which is

only to be found in the face of a luxurious wine-toper in the act of

passing sentence.

"Wha, in God's name, are ye, man?" cried the baron, under the cover of

whose speech Kate slipped cleverly up to the window, and sat down, with

her cheek resting on her hand, in apparent listlessness, but eyeing

intently the stranger. "I could have wad the picture o' my ancestor,

Watt o' Flodden, or King Henry's turret, in the east wing o'

Innerkepple, wi' its twenty wounds, mair precious than goold, that there

wasna a cup o' vintage '90 in Scotland except what I had mysel. Whar got

ye't, man? Are ye the Devil? Hae ye brocht it frae my ain cellars?

Speak, Satan!"

"Vy, _mon cher_ Innerkepple," replied the merchant, "did I not know that

you were one grand biberon--I mean drinker of vin? It is known all over

the marches--I mean the Bordures. Aha! no one Frenchman could cheat the

famous Innerkepple; so I brought the best that was in all my celliers.

Is it not grand and magnifique?"

"Grand an' magnifique, man!" replied Innerkepple, as he sipped the wine

with the gravity of a judge. "It's mair than a' that, man, if my tongue

could coin a word to express its ain sense o' what it is at this moment

enjoying. But the organ's stupified wi' sheer delight, and forgets its

very mither's tongue; an' nae wonder, for my very een, that didna taste

it, reel and get drunk wi' the sight." And the delighted baron took

another pull of the goblet.

"Aha! Innerkepple, you are von of the grandest biberons I have ever seen

in all this contrée," said the merchant. "It is one great pleasir to

trafique vit von so learned in the science of _bon gout_. That grand

smack of your lips would tempt me to ruin myself, and drink mine own

commodity."

"Hae ye a stock o' the treasure?" said the baron; "I canna suppose it."

"Just five barrils in my celliers at Berwick," answered the merchant,

"containing quatre hundred pints de Paris in each one of them."

"I could walk on my bare feet to Berwick to see it and taste it," said

the baron; "but what clatter o' a horse's feet is that in the court,

Kate?"

"Ha! sure it is my mules," said the Frenchman, starting to his feet in

alarm.

"Oh! keep your seat, Monsieur Merchant," cried Kate, laughing and

looking out of the window. "Can a lady not despatch her servitor to

Selkirk for a pair of sandals, that should this day have been on my feet

in place of in Gilbert Skinner's hands, without raising folks from their

wine?"

The Frenchman was satisfied, and retook his seat; but the baron looked

at Kate, as if at a loss to know what freak had now come into her

inventive head. The letting down of the drawbridge, and the sound of the

horse's feet passing along the sounding wood, verified her statement,

but carried no conviction to the mind of Innerkepple. He had long

ceased, however, the vain effort to understand the workings of his

daughter's mind, and on the present occasion he was occupied about too

important a subject to be interested in the vagaries of a madcap wench.

"By the Virgin!" she said again, "my jennet will lose her own sandals in

going for mine, if Gregory thus strikes the rowels into her sides."

Covering, by these words, the rapid departure of the messenger, she

turned her eyes to continue the study of the merchant, whom she watched

with feline assiduity. The conversation was again resumed.

"Five barrels, said ye, Monsieur?" resumed Innerkepple. "Let me

see--that, wi' what I hae mysel, may see me out; but it will be a guid

heir-loom to Kate's husband. What is the price?"

"One merk the gallon of four pints de Paris," answered the merchant.

("Yet I see no marks of Otterstone about him," muttered Kate to herself.

"How beautiful he is, maugre his disguise! Had he come on a message of

love, in place of war, I would have taken him prisoner, and bound him

with the rays of light that come from my languishing eyes.")

"That's dear, man," said Innerkepple. "But ye're a cunning rogue; if I

keep drinking at this rate, the price will sink as the flavour rises,

and ye'll catch me, as men do gudgeons, by the tongue."

"Aha! _mon cher_ Innerkepple," said the merchant, "you have von

excellent humour of fun about ye. If I vere not _un pauvre merchand_, I

would have one grand plaisir in getting _mouillé_--I mean drunk--vit

you."

("Ha! my treacherous Adonis, art on that tack, with a foul wind in thy

fair face?" was Kate's mental ejaculation. "If thou nearest thy haven, I

am a worse pilot than Palinurus.")

"Wi' wine like that before ane," responded the baron, "the topers

alongside o' ye may be Frenchmen or Dutchmen, warriors or warlocks,

wraiths or wassailers, merchants or mahouns--a's alike. It will put a

soul into a ghaist, a yearning heart into a gowl, and a spirit o'

nobility in the breast o' ane wha never quartered arms but wi' the fair

anes o' flesh an' bluid that belang to his wife. I'll be oblivious o' a'

warldly things before Kate's sandals come frae Selkirk; but yer price,

man, I fear, will stick to me to the end."

"I cannot make one deduction," said the merchant, "but I vill give to

the men in the base-court one jolly debauch of very good vin, vich is in

my hampers."

("The kaim of chanticleer is in the wind's eye," muttered Katherine.

"Thou pointest nobly for the direction of treachery; but my sandals

will be back from Selkirk long before I am obliged to march with thee to

the prison of Otterstone.")

"Weel, mak it a merk," said Innerkepple, "for five pints, an' a bouse to

my retainers, wha are as muckle beloved by me as if they were my bairns;

an' I will close wi' ye."

"Vell, that is one covenant _inter nous_," said the merchant; "but I

cannot return to Berwick until _demain_--I mean the morrow; and we vill

have the long night for one jolly carousal. I vill go _sans delai_, and

give the poor fellows, in the meantime, one leetle tasting of the grand

cheer."

("Then I am too long here," muttered Kate. "Alexander told his men that

the Persian stream was poisonous, to prevent them from stopping to

drink, whereby they would have fallen into the hands of the enemy. One

not less than he--ha! ha!--will save her men, by telling them there is

treachery in the cup.")

She descended instantly to the base-court, and, passing from one guard

to another, she whispered in their ears certain instructions, which, by

the nodding of their heads, they seemed to understand, while those she

had not time to visit received from their neighbours the communication

at second-hand, and thus, in a short space of time, she prepared the

whole retainers for the part they were destined to play. She had

scarcely finished this part of her operations, and got out of the court,

when the wine merchant made his appearance on the steps leading to the

hall. He nodded pleasantly to the men, and, proceeding to his mules,

took out of one of the panniers a large vessel filled with wine. This he

laid on the flagstones of the base-court, and alongside of it he placed

a large cup. He then called out to the retainers to approach, and seemed

pleased with the readiness with which they complied with his request.

"Mine very good fellows," said he, "I have sold your master,

Innerkepple, one grand quantity of vine; and he says I am under one

obligation to treat you vit a hamper, for the sake of the grand

affection he bears to you. You may drink as much as ever you vill

please; and ven this is brought to one termination, I will supply you

vit more."

"We're a' under a suitable obligation to ye, sir," replied the oldest of

the retainers, a sly, pawky Scotchman--"and winna fail to do credit to

the present ye've sae nobly presented to us; but do ye no hear

Innerkepple callin' for ye frae the ha'? Awa, sir, to the guid baron,

and leave us to our carouse."

"Ay," said another; "we'll inform ye when this is finished."

"Finished!" said a third; "we'll be a' on oor backs before we see the

end o't."

"Aha! excellent jolly troup!" cried the merchant, delighted with this

company.

The voice of Katherine, who appeared on the steps leading to the hall,

now arrested their attention.

"My father is impatient for thee, good merchant," said she.

"_Ma chere_ leddy," replied he, "I will be there _a present_." And,

looking up to see that she had again disappeared--"Drink, my jolly

mates," he continued. "It is the grand matiere, the _bon_ stuff, the

excellent good liqueur. Aha! you will be so merry, and you know you have

the consent of Innerkepple."

"We'll be a' as drunk as bats," said he who spoke first, with a sly

leer.

"The Deil tak him wha has the beddin' o' us!" said another.

"So say I," added half-a-dozen of voices.

"Then I am the Deil's property," said the warder, "unless I am saved by

the power o' the wine; and, by my faith, I'll no spare't."

"Aha! very good! excellent joke!" cried the delighted merchant. "Drink,

and shame the Diable, as we say in France. Wine comes from the gods, and

is the grand poison of Beelzebub."

And, after enjoying deep potations, the merchant returned to the hall,

amidst the laughter and pretended applause of the men. The moment he had

disappeared, Katherine got carried to the spot a measure filled with

wine and water; and, having emptied in another vessel the contents of

the merchant's hamper, the thin and innocuous potation was poured in to

supply its place. The men assisted in the operation; and, all being

finished, they began to carouse with great glee and jollity.

"I said, my leddy, to the merchant, that we would be a' as drunk as

bats," said one of the humorists; "and sure this is a fair beginning;

for wha could stand drink o' this fearfu' strength?"

"The Deil tak him wha has the beddin' o' us!" said the other, laughing,

as he drank off a glass of the thin mixture.

"Then I am the Deil's property," said the warder, "unless I am saved by

the power o' this strong drink."

And thus the men, encouraged by the smiles of Kate, who was, with great

activity, conducting the ceremonies, seemed to be getting boisterous on

the strength of the merchant's wine. Their jokes raised real laughter;

and the noise of their mirth went up and entered into the hall, falling

like incense on the heart of the merchant. Katherine, meanwhile, again

betook herself to her station at the hall window, using assiduously both

her eyes and ears; the former being directed to a dark fir plantation

that stood to the left of the castle, and the latter occupied by the

conversations of her father and the merchant.

"My men," said Innerkepple, "seem to be following the example o' their

master. They are gettin' noisy. I hope, Monsieur, ye were moderate in

yer present. A castle-fu' o' drunk men is as bad as a headfu' o'

intoxicated notions."

("Hurrah for the French merchant! Long life to him! May he continue as

strong as his liquor!")

"Aha! the jolly good fellows are feeling the sting of the spirit," said

the merchant, with sparkling eyes.

"Ungratefu' dogs!" rejoined Innerkepple; "I treat them as if they were

my sons, and hear hoo they praise a stranger for a bellyfu' o' wine! My

beer never produced sae muckle froth o' flattery. But this wine o'

yours, Monsieur, drowns a' my indignation."

("Long life to Innerkepple and the fair Katherine!")

"Now you are getting the grand adulation," said the Frenchman. "Ha! they

are a jovial troup of good chaps, and deserve one grand potation; but I

gave them only one leetle hamper, for fear they should get _mouillé_."

"Very considerate, Monsieur, very prudent and kind," said the baron;

"for twa-thirds o' my men are fechtin fer Jamie, and we hae a kittle

neebor in Otterstone, whase son I hear has come hame frae St. Omers.

By-the-by, saw ye the callant in France? They say he's sair ashamed o'

the defeat o' his father by the generalship o' my dochter Kate."

"Ha! did _ma chere_ leddy combattre Otterstone?" ejaculated the

Frenchman, laughing. "Very good! ha! ha! ha! I did not know that, ven I

sold him one quantity of vin yesterday; but I assure you, _mon cher_

Innerkepple, he is not at all your enemy, and his son did praise _ma

chere_ leddy as the most magnificent vench in all the contrée."

("Excellently sustained," muttered Katherine to herself. "How I do love

the roll of that dark eye, and the curl of that lip covered with the

black moustache! Can so much beauty conceal a deadly purpose? But the

'magnificent vench' shall earn yet a better title to the soubriquet out

of thy discomfiture, fair, deceitful, sweet devil.")

"I only wish I had Otterstone whar you are, man," said Innerkepple, "wi'

the liquor as sweet an' my bile nae bitterer. I would conquer him in

better style than did my dochter, though, I confess, she man[oe]uvred

him beautifully."

("Perdition to the faes o' Innerkepple! and, chief o' them, the fause

Otterstone, the leddy-licked loon!")

"Helas! The master and the men have the very different creeds," said the

Frenchman, shrugging his shoulders; "but my vin is making the _bon_

companions choleric. Ha! ha!"

("It is--it is!" muttered Katherine, as she strained her eyes to catch

the signal of a white handkerchief, that floated on the top of one of

the trees in the fir-wood.)

She now abruptly left the hall, and proceeded to the place in the court

occupied by those who were wassailing on the coloured water she had

brewed for them with her fair hands. They were busily occupied by the

manifestations of their mirth, which was not altogether simulated. A

cessation of the noise evinced the effect of her presence among those

who deified her.

"Up with the merry strain, my jolly revellers!" said she, smiling, and

immediately "Bertram the Archer," in loud notes, rung in the ballium:--

"And Bertram held aloft the horn,

Filled wi' the bluid-red wyne,

And three times has he loudly sworn

His luve he winna tyne.

"My Anne sits on yon eastern tower,

An' greets baith day and night,

An' sorrows for her luver lost,

An' right turned into might.

"'Then hie ye all, my merry men,

To yonder lordly ha'!

An if they winna ope the gate,

We'll scale the burly wa'.

"'Hurra!' then shouted Bertram's men,

And loudly they hae sworn,

That they will right their gallant knigh

Before the opening morn."[2]

[2] Pinkerton gives only one verse of "Bertram the Archer," but

Innerkepple's men did not require to be antiquaries.

Under the cover of the noise of the song, which was sung with

bacchanalian glee, Katherine communicated her farther instructions to

the man who had assumed the principal direction; and, retreating

quickly, lest the wine merchant should come out and surprise her, she

left the revellers to continue their work. She was soon again at her

post at the window. The boon companions within the hall were still busy

with their conversation and their wine; and by this time the shades of

evening had begun to darken the view from the castle, and envelop the

towers in gloom; the rooks had retired to rest, the owls had taken up

the screech note which pains the sensitive ear of night, and the bats

were beginning to flap their leathern wings on the rough sides of the

old walls.

The sounds of the revellers in the court-yard began gradually to die

away, and the strains of "Bertram the Archer" were limited to a weak

repetition of the last lines, somewhat curtailed of their legitimate

syllables:--

"And we will right our gallant knight

Before the opening morn."

These indications of the effect of the wine increased, till, by-and-by,

all seemed to be muffled up in silence. The circumstance seemed to be

noticed at once by the wine merchant; but he took no notice of it to

Innerkepple whom he still continued to ply with the rich vintage. Kate's

senses were all on the alert, and she watched every scene of the acting

drama, set agoing by her own master mind. A noise was now heard at the

door of the hall, as if some one wished to get in, but could not effect

an opening.

"Who's there?" cried Kate, as she proceeded to open the door.

"It's me, your Leddyship's Honour," answered George, the seneschal, as

he staggered, apparently in the last stage of drunkenness, into the

hall.

"What means this?" cried Innerkepple, rising up, and not very well able

to stand himself. "The warder o' my castle in that condition, an' a' our

lives dependin' on his prudence!"

"Your Honour's maist forgiving pardon," said the warder. "I am come

here, maist lordly Innerkepple"--hiccup--"to inform your Highness that

a' the men o' the castle are lying in the base-court like swine. I am

the only sober man in the hale menyie"--hic--hic. "But whar's the ferly?

The strength o' the Frenchman's wine would have floored the strongest

hensure o' the Borders"--hiccup--"an' I would hae been like the rest, if

I hadna been the keeper o' the keys o' Innerkepple."

("As well as Roscius, George," muttered Kate, as she, with a smile,

contemplated the actor.)

"George, George, man," said the baron, "ye're just as bad as the rest.

You've been ower guid to them, Monsieur; but this _mooliness_, as ye ca'

it, has a' its dangers in thae times, when castles are surprised an'

taen like sleepin' mawkins in bushes o' broom. Awa to yer bed ahint the

gratin', man, an' sleep aff the wine, as fast as it is possible for a

drunk man to do."

George bowed, and staggered out of the hall, to betake himself to his

couch.

"Aha! this is one sad misadventure," said the merchant. "I did not know

there vas half so much strength in this vin. Let us see the jolly

topers, mon noble Innerkepple. It is one grand vision to a vendeur of

good vin to see the biberons lying on the ground, all _mouillé_. Helas!

I was very wrong; but mon noble baron will forgive the grand fault of

liberality."

The merchant rose, and, giving his arm to Innerkepple, who had some

difficulty in steadying himself, proceeded towards the court, where they

saw verified the report of the warder. The men were lying about the

yard, apparently in a state of perfect insensibility. The wine measure

was empty and overturned; several drinking horns lay scattered around;

and everything betokened a deep debauch.

"This maun hae been potent liquor," said the baron, taking up one of the

cups, in which a few drops remained, and drinking it. "Ha! man, puir

gear after a'. A man micht drink three gallons o't, and dance to the

tune o' Gilquhisker after he has finished. What's the meaning o' this?"

"Aha! your tongue is _mouillé_, mon noble Innerkepple," said the

merchant.

"It may be sae," replied the baron; "but it wasna made mooly, as ye

denominate it, by drink like that. I canna understand it, Monsieur."

As he stood musing on the strange circumstance, he caught, by the light

of a torch, the eye of Kate at the window, and felt his bewilderment

increased by a leer in that dark bewitching orb, whose language appeared

to him often--and never more so than at present--like Greek. His

attention was next claimed by the merchant, who proposed that the men

should be allowed to sleep out their inebriety where they lay. This

proposition was reasonable; and it would, besides, operate as a proper

punishment for their exceeding the limits of that prudence which their

duty to their master required them to observe. The baron agreed to it,

and, seeking again the support of the Frenchman's arm, he returned to

the hall.

The night was now fast closing in. An old female domestic had placed

lamps in the hall, and some supper was served up to the baron and the

merchant. Kate retired, as she said, to her couch; but it may be

surmised that an antechamber received her fair person, where she had

something else to do than to sleep. The loud snoring of the men in the

court-yard was heard distinctly, mixing with the screams of the owls

that perched on the turrets. The two biberons sat down to partake of the

supper, and prepare their stomachs, as Innerkepple said, for another

bouse of the grand liquor. The conduct of the two carousers now assumed

aspects very different from each other. The baron was gradually getting

more easy and comfortable, while the merchant displayed an extreme

restlessness and anxiety. The praises of his wine fell dead upon his

ear, and the jokes of the good Innerkepple seemed to have become vapid

and tiresome to him.

"That's a grand chorus in the court-yard, Monsieur," said the baron.

"Singing, snoring, groaning, are the three successive acts o' the

wassailers. They would have been better engaged eating their supper.

Yah! I'm gettin' sleepy, Monsieur."

"Helas! helas!" ejaculated the merchant. "You prick my memory, mon noble

Innerkepple. My poor mules! They have got no souper. Ah! cruel master

that I am to forget the _pauvre_ animals that have got no language to

tell their wants."

("So, so--the time approaches," ejaculated Kate, mentally, as she

watched behind the door.)

"Pardon me, _mon cher_ baron," he continued, "I vill go and give them

one leetle feed, and return to you _a present_. I have got beans in my

hampers."

"Humanity needs nae pardon, man," replied the baron, nodding with sleep.

"Awa and feed the puir creatures; but tak care an' no tramp on an' kill

ony o' my brave men in yer effort to save the lives o' yer mules."

"Never fear," said the other, taking from his pocket a small lantern,

which he lighted. "Travellers stand in grand need of this machine," he

continued. "I will return on the instant."

He now left the baron to his sleep, and crept stealthily along the

passage to the door leading to the court. He was followed, unseen, by

Katherine, who watched every motion. He felt some difficulty in avoiding

the men, who still lay on the ground; but with careful steps he reached

the wall, and suddenly sprung on the parapet.

"Prepare!" whispered Katherine into the ears of the prostrate retainers;

"the time approaches."

While thus engaged, she kept her eye upon the dark shadow of the

merchant, and saw with surprise a blue light flash up from the top of

the wall, and throw its ominous glare on the surrounding objects. A

scream of the birds on the castle walls announced their wonder at the

strange vision, and Katherine concluded that the merchant had thus

produced his signal from some phosphorescent mixture, which he had

ignited by the aid of the lantern. The light was followed instantly by a

shrill blast of a horn. With a bound he reached the floor of the court,

and, hastening to the warder's post, threw off the guard of the wheel,

and, with all the art and rapidity of a seneschal, prepared for letting

down the bridge. All was still as death; there seemed to be no

interruption to his proceedings; but he started as he saw the rays of a

lamp thrown from a loophole over his head, upon that part of the moat

which the bridge covered. He had gone too far to recede, the creaking of

the hinges grated, and down came the bridge with a hollow sound. A rush

was now heard as of a body of men pressing forward to take possession

of the passage; and tramp, tramp came the sounds of the marching

invaders over the hollow-sounding wood. All was still silent within the

castle, and the sound of the procession continued. In an instant, a

dense, dark body issued from the fir-wood, and rushed with heavy

impetuous force on the rear of the corps that were passing into the

castle; and, simultaneously with that movement, the whole body of the

men within the castle pressed forward to the end of the bridge, and met

the front of the intruders, who were thus hedged in by two forces that

had taken them by surprise, in both front and rear.

"Caught in our own snare!" cried the voice of old Otterstone.

"Disarm them," sounded shrilly from the lips of Katherine Kennedy.

And a scuffle of wrestling men sent its fearful, deathlike sound through

the dark ballium. The strife was short and comparatively silent. The men

who had rushed from the wood, and who were no other than the absent

retainers of Innerkepple, coming from behind, and those within the

strength meeting them in front, produced such an alarm in the enclosed

troops, that the arms were taken from their hands as if they had been

struck with palsy. Every two men seized their prisoner, while some

holding burning torches came running forward, to show the revengeful

baron the full extent of his shame. Ranged along the court, the

spectacle presented by the prisoners was striking and grotesque. Their

eyes sought in surprise the form of a female, who, with a sword in one

hand and a torch in the other, stood in front of them, as the genius of

their misfortune.

The hall door was now opened, where the old baron still sat sound asleep

in his chair, unconscious of all these proceedings. The prisoners were

led into the spacious apartment, and ranged along the sides in long

ranks. Innerkepple rubbed his eyes, stared, rubbed them again, and

seemed lost in perfect bewilderment. All was conducted in dumb show. The

proud and revengeful Otterstone was placed alongside of the good baron,

his enemy; and Kate smiled as she contemplated the strange looks which

the two rivals threw upon each other.

"Right happy am I," said Katherine, coming forward in the midst of the

assembly, "to meet my good friends, the noble Otterstone and his men, in

my father's hall, under the auspices of a healing friendship. Father, I

offer thee the hand of Otterstone. Otterstone, I offer thee the hand of

Innerkepple. Ye have long been separated by strife and war, though, on

the one side, there was always a good feeling of generous kindliness,

opposed to a bitterness that had no cause, and a revenge that knew no

excuse. Born nobles and neighbours, educated civilized men, and baptized

Christians, why should ye be foes? but, above all, why should the one

strike with the sword of war the hand that has held out to him the

wine-cup? My father has ever been thy friend, noble Otterstone, and thou

hast ever been his foe. How is this? Ah! I know it. Thou wert ignorant,

noble guest, of my good father's generous and friendly feelings, and I

have taken this opportunity of introducing you to each other, that ye

may mutually come to the knowledge of each other's better qualities and

intentions."

"What, in the name o' heaven, means a' this, Kate?" ejaculated

Innerkepple, in still unsubdued amazement. "Am I dreamin', or am I

betrayed? Whar is the wine merchant? Hoo cam ye here, Otterstone? Am I a

prisoner in my ain castle, and my ain men and dochter laughing at my

misfortune? But ye spoke o' friendship, Kate. Is it possible,

Otterstone, ye hae repented o' yer ill will, and come to mak amends for

past grievances?"

"Thou hast heard him, Otterstone," said Kate. "Wilt thou still refuse

the hand?"

The chief hesitated; but the good-humoured looks of Innerkepple melted

him, and he held out the right hand of good-fellowship to the old baron,

who seized it cordially, and shook it heartily.

"Now," said Kate, "we must seal this friendship with a cup of wine.

Bring in the wine merchant."

The Frenchman was produced by the warder, along with the remaining

hampers of the wine that had been left in the court-yard. As may have

been already surmised, he was no other than the son of old Otterstone.

Surprised and confounded by all these proceedings, he stood in the midst

of the company, looking first at his father, and then at Innerkepple,

without forgetting Kate, who stood like a majestic queen, enjoying the

triumph of her spirit and ingenuity. Above all things, he wondered at

the smile of good humour in the face of his father; and his surprise

knew no bounds when he saw every one around as well pleased as if they

had been convened for the ends of friendship.

"Hector," said old Otterstone, looking at his son, "the game is up. This

maiden has outwitted us, and we are caught in our own snare. Off with

thy disguise, and show this noble damsel that thou art worthy of her

best smiles."

Hector obeyed, and took off his wig, and the clumsy habiliments that

covered his armour, and stood in the midst of the assembly, a young man

of exquisite beauty.

"The wine merchant, Hector Fotheringham!" cried Innerkepple. "Ah, Kate,

Kate! is this the way ye bring yer lovers to Innerkepple ha'?--in the

shape o' a wine merchant--the only form o' the Deevil I wad like to see

on this earth? Ha! ye baggage, weel do ye ken hoo to get at the heart o'

your faither. But whar was the use o' secresy, woman? And you, Hector,

man, I needed nae bribe o' Tokay to be friendly to the lover o' my

dochter. A fine youth--a fine youth. Surely, surely, this man was made

for my dochter Kate."

"And thy daughter Kate was made for him," cried Otterstone.

The retainers of both houses shouted applause, and the hall rang with

the noise. The wine, which was intended for deception and treachery, was

circulated freely, and opened the hearts of the company. Innerkepple was

ready again for his Tokay, and, lifting a large goblet to his head--

"To the union o' the twa hooses!" cried he. "And I wish I had twenty

dochters, and Otterstone as mony sons, that they micht a' be married

thegither; but, on this condition, that the bridegrooms should a' come

in the shape o' wine merchants."

"Hurra, hurra!" shouted the retainers. The night was spent in good

humour and revelry. All was restored; and, in a short time, the two

houses were united by the marriage of Hector Fotheringham and Katherine

Kennedy.

RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON.[3]

CHAPTER I.

"Of Ferguson, the bauld and slee."--BURNS.

[3] The perusal of this paper, written at an early period by the

lamented Hugh Miller, cannot fail to suggest some reflections on the

fate of the author himself and that of the poet he describes. It would

be simply fanciful to draw from his choice of subject, and the sympathy

he manifests for the victim of insanity, any conclusion of a felt

affinity of mental type on his part. We would presently get into the

obscure subject of presentiments. It is true that Hugh Miller wrote

poetry, and was thus subject to the Nemesis; but we insist for no more

than a case of coincidence, leaving to psychologists to settle the

question of the alleged connection between certain poetical types of

mind and eventual madness--cases of which are so plentifully recorded in

Germany.--_Ed._

I have, I believe, as little of the egotist in my composition as most

men; nor would I deem the story of my life, though by no means unvaried

by incident, of interest enough to repay the trouble of either writing

or perusing it, were it the story of my own life only; but, though an

obscure man myself, I have been singularly fortunate in my friends. The

party-coloured tissue of my recollections is strangely interwoven, if I

may so speak, with pieces of the domestic history of men whose names

have become as familiar to our ears as that of our country itself; and I

have been induced to struggle with the delicacy which renders one

unwilling to speak much of one's self, and to overcome the dread of

exertion natural to a period of life greatly advanced, through a desire

of preserving to my countrymen a few notices, which would otherwise be

lost to them, of two of their greatest favourites. I could once reckon

among my dearest and most familiar friends, Robert Burns and Robert

Ferguson.

It is now rather more than sixty years since I studied for a few weeks

at the University of St. Andrew's. I was the son of very poor parents,

who resided in a seaport town on the western coast of Scotland. My

father was a house-carpenter, a quiet, serious man, of industrious

habits and great simplicity of character, but miserably depressed in his

circumstances, through a sickly habit of body: my mother was a

warm-hearted, excellent woman, endowed with no ordinary share of shrewd

good sense and sound feeling, and indefatigable in her exertions for my

father and the family. I was taught to read at a very early age, by an

old woman in the neighbourhood--such a person as Shenstone describes in

his "Schoolmistress;" and, being naturally of a reflective turn, I had

begun, long ere I had attained my tenth year, to derive almost my sole

amusement from books. I read incessantly; and after exhausting the

shelves of all the neighbours, and reading every variety of work that

fell in my way--from "The Pilgrim's Progress" of Bunyan, and the Gospel

Sonnets of Erskine, to a treatise on fortification by Vauban, and the

"History of the Heavens" by the Abbé Pluche--I would have pined away for

lack of my accustomed exercise, had not a benevolent baronet in the

neighbourhood, for whom my father occasionally wrought, taken a fancy to

me, and thrown open to my perusal a large and well-selected library. Nor

did his kindness terminate until, after having secured to me all of

learning that the parish school afforded, he had settled me, now in my

seventeenth year, at the University.

Youth is the season of warm friendships and romantic wishes and hopes.

We say of the child, in its first attempts to totter along the wall, or

when it has first learned to rise beside its mother's knee, that it is

yet too weak to stand alone; and we may employ the same language in

describing a young and ardent mind. It is, like the child, too weak to

stand alone, and anxiously seeks out some kindred mind on which to lean.

I had had my intimates at school, who, though of no very superior cast,

had served me, if I may so speak, as resting-places, when wearied with

my studies, or when I had exhausted my lighter reading; and now, at St.

Andrew's, where I knew no one, I began to experience the unhappiness of

an unsatisfied sociality. My schoolfellows were mostly stiff, illiterate

lads, who, with a little bad Latin and worse Greek, plumed themselves

mightily on their scholarship; and I had little inducement to form any

intimacies among them; for, of all men, the ignorant scholar is the

least amusing. Among the students of the upper classes, however, there

was at least one individual with whom I longed to be acquainted. He was

apparently much about my own age, rather below than above the middle

size, and rather delicately than robustly formed; but I have rarely seen

a more elegant figure or more interesting face. His features were small,

and there was what might perhaps be deemed a too feminine delicacy in

the whole contour; but there was a broad and very high expansion of

forehead, which, even in those days, when we were acquainted with only

the phrenology taught by Plato, might be regarded as the index of a

capacious and powerful mind; and the brilliant light of his large black

eyes, seemed to give earnest of its activity.

"Who, in the name of wonder, is that?" I inquired of a class-fellow, as

this interesting-looking young man passed me for the first time.

"A clever, but very unsettled fellow from Edinburgh," replied the lad;

"a capital linguist, for he gained our first bursary three years ago;

but our Professor says he is certain he will never do any good. He cares

nothing for the company of scholars like himself; and employs

himself--though he excels, I believe, in English composition--in writing

vulgar Scotch rhymes, like Allan Ramsay. His name is Robert Ferguson."

I felt, from this moment, a strong desire to rank among the friends of

one who cared nothing for the company of such men as my class-fellow,

and who, though acquainted with the literature of England and Rome,

could dwell with interest on the simple poetry of his native country.

There is no place in the neighbourhood of St. Andrew's where a leisure

hour may be spent more agreeably than among the ruins of the Cathedral.

I was not slow in discovering the eligibilities of the spot; and it soon

became one of my favourite haunts. One evening, a few weeks after I had

entered on my course at college, I had seated myself among the ruins in

a little ivied nook fronting the setting sun, and was deeply engaged

with the melancholy Jaques in the forest of Ardennes, when, on hearing a

light footstep, I looked up, and saw the Edinburgh student whose

appearance had so interested me, not four yards away. He was busied with

his pencil and his tablets, and muttering, as he went, in a half audible

voice, what, from the inflection of the tones, seemed to be verse. On

seeing me, he started, and apologizing, in a few hurried but courteous

words, for what he termed the involuntary intrusion, would have passed;

but, on my rising and stepping up to him, he stood.

"I am afraid, Mr. Ferguson," I said, "'tis I who owe _you_ an apology;

the ruins have long been yours, and I am but an intruder. But you must

pardon me; I have often heard of them in the west, where they are

hallowed, even more than they are here, from their connection with the

history of some of our noblest Reformers; and, besides, I see no place

in the neighbourhood where Shakspeare can be read to more advantage."

"Ah," said he, taking the volume out of my hand, "a reader of Shakspeare

and an admirer of Knox. I question whether the heresiarch and the poet

had much in common."

"Nay, now, Mr. Ferguson," I replied, "you are too true a Scot to

question that. They had much, very much in common. Knox was no rude

Jack Cade, but a great and powerful-minded man; decidedly as much so as

any of the nobler conceptions of the dramatist--his Cæsars, Brutuses, or

Othellos. Buchanan could have told you that he had even much of the

spirit of the poet in him, and wanted only the art; and just remember

how Milton speaks of him in his "Areopagitica." Had the poet of

"Paradise Lost" thought regarding him as it has become fashionable to

think and speak now, he would hardly have apostrophized him as--_Knox,

the reformer of a nation--a great man animated by the spirit of God_."

"Pardon me," said the young man, "I am little acquainted with the prose

writings of Milton; and have, indeed, picked up most of my opinions of

Knox at second-hand. But I have read his _merry_ account of the murder

of Beaton, and found nothing to alter my preconceived notions of him,

from either the matter or manner of the narrative. Now that I think of

it, however, my opinion of Bacon would be no very adequate one, were it

formed solely from the extract of his history of Henry VII., given by

Kaimes in his late publication.--Will you not extend your walk?"

We quitted the ruins together, and went sauntering along the shore.

There was a rich sunset glow on the water, and the hills that rise on

the opposite side of the Frith stretched their undulating line of azure

under a gorgeous canopy of crimson and gold. My companion pointed to the

scene:--"These glorious clouds," he said, "are but wreaths of vapour;

and these lovely hills, accumulations of earth and stone. And it is thus

with all the past--with the past of our own little histories, that

borrows so much of its golden beauty from the medium through which we

survey it--with the past, too, of all history. There is poetry in the

remote--the bleak hill seems a darker firmament, and the chill wreath of

vapour a river of fire. And you, sir, seem to have contemplated the

history of our stern Reformers through this poetical medium, till you

forget that the poetry was not in them, but in that through which you

surveyed them."

"Ah, Mr. Ferguson," I replied, "you must permit me to make a

distinction. I acquiesce fully in the justice of your remark; the

analogy, too, is nice and striking, but I would fain carry it a little

further. Every eye can see the beauty of the remote; but there is a

beauty in the near--an interest, at least--which every eye cannot see.

Each of the thousand little plants that spring up at our feet, has an

interest and beauty to the botanist; the mineralogist would find

something to engage him in every little stone. And it is thus with the

poetry of life--all have a sense of it in the remote and the distant;

but it is only the men who stand high in the art--its men of profound

science--that can discover it in the near. The _mediocre_ poet shares

but the commoner gift, and so he seeks his themes in ages or countries

far removed from his own; while the man of nobler powers, knowing that

all nature is instinct with poetry, seeks and finds it in the men and

scenes in his immediate neighbourhood. As to our Reformers"----

"Pardon me," said the young poet; "the remark strikes me, and, ere we

lose it in something else, I must furnish you with an illustration.

There is an acquaintance of mine, a lad much about my own age, greatly

addicted to the study of poetry. He has been making verses all his

life-long; he began ere he had learned to write them even; and his

judgment has been gradually overgrowing his earlier compositions, as you

see the advancing tide rising on the beach and obliterating the prints

on the sand. Now, I have observed, that, in all his earlier

compositions, he went far from home; he could not attempt a pastoral

without first transporting himself to the vales of Arcady; or an ode to

Pity or Hope, without losing the warm living sentiment in the dead,

cold, personifications of the Greek. The Hope and Pity he addressed

were, not the undying attendants of human nature, but the shadowy

spectres of a remote age. Now, however, I feel that a change has come

over me. I seek for poetry among the fields and cottages of my own land.

I--a--a--the friend of whom I speak----But I interrupted your remark on

the Reformers."

"Nay," I replied, "if you go on so, I would much rather listen than

speak. I only meant to say that the Knoxes and Melvilles of our country

have been robbed of the admiration and sympathy of many a kindred

spirit, by the strangely erroneous notions that have been abroad

regarding them for at least the last two ages. Knox, I am convinced,

would have been as great as Jeremy Taylor, had he not been greater."

We sauntered along the shore till the evening had darkened into night,

lost in an agreeable interchange of thought, "Ah!" at length exclaimed

my companion, "I had almost forgotten my engagement, Mr. Lindsay; but it

must not part us. You are a stranger here, and I must introduce you to

some of my acquaintance. There are a few of us--choice spirits, of

course--who meet every Saturday evening at John Hogg's; and I must just

bring you to see them. There may be much less wit than mirth among us;

but you will find us all sober when at the gayest; and old John will be

quite a study for you."