large company was assembled, for the purpose, as they thought, of
celebrating the reconciliation betwixt the two clans, and also the
marriage of the chief with Lady Margaret Hamilton, who had been
conducted thither by her brother. On Lord Maxwell's return, he sought a
private interview with the marquis--told him what he had done--asked him
to communicate the circumstances to the bride, and learn whether she
would be wedded to a man whose hand was newly stained with blood.
"But he has slain his enemy in honourable battle," said Lady Margaret;
"he has borne himself like a true knight; and, even though he may now
depart for a season, the king has pardoned more heinous offences."
When the reply was reported to the baron, he muttered, with that
sneering the which betrays the bitterness of the heart--"In honourable
fight!--most honourable! Would it had been so!--But I will not now
undeceive her."
The nuptials proceeded; the festivities were commenced, and continued to
a late hour. Early on the following morning, the baron left his weeping
bride, and, with his faithful retainer, Charlie o'Kirkhouse, hastened in
disguise from his own home and country.
Notwithstanding all the efforts of the Marquis of Hamilton and other
friends of the expatriated Baron of Nithsdale, no pardon could be
extorted from King James--whose virtue seems for once to have been proof
against all the temptations and threats which his most powerful Scottish
subjects could hold forth. Lord Maxwell's peace of mind was gone; for
all that was dear to him--his country and kindred--were at a distance;
the engrossing object of his thought for many years past had been
attained; and his memory would not allow him to forget that his revenge
had been accomplished by meanly assassinating his enemy. After he had
remained for about three or four years, wasting the prime of his days in
exile and in misery, he learned that Lady Margaret was in bad spirits;
then in bad health; then that her life was despaired of; and he
resolved, at all hazards, to revisit Scotland. But, before his voyage
was ended, Lady Margaret had breathed her last--heart-broken in the
midst of those enjoyments--wealth, power, and rank--which are fondly
supposed, by those who possess them not, and by not a few who do possess
them, to be the infallible means of securing human felicity. The only
object which made life worth retaining, in the estimation of Lord
Maxwell, was thus snatched from him; and he would have immediately
delivered himself up to justice, had it not been for the remonstrances
of his faithful attendant, Charlie o'Kirkhouse. The family of Sir James
Johnstone, as well as the constituted authorities, hunted the baron over
the whole country; until, after frequently enduring the extremity of
distress, he was seized in the wilds of Caithness, to which he had
ultimately been driven. The indefatigable industry of his hereditary
foes pursued him even to this distant retreat; and he was brought to
Edinburgh, where, once more, he returned to his old quarters in the
castle.
Among the friends who came to visit him, with the view of concerting
measures for his defence, was the Marquis of Hamilton.
"Do you know that they mean to rob Charles of his birthright?" said the
baron, on the entrance of his friend. "Oh, my good lord, such deeds
would never have been done, had some of your ancestors filled the seat
of the mean-spirited prince who rules this unhappy country."
"Hush, hush, my friend!" said the marquis; "speak nought like treason. I
know it all. My lord treasurer, or his deputy, cannot want the estates;
and you must therefore submit to a charge of fire-raising as well as of
murder."
"May my curse or my blessing--for I know not which is more likely to
bring the worse consequences--rest upon them all, if they take from my
race their own inheritance, because I, forsooth, have sent a hoary
villain a little before his time to his account!"
"Speak not so harshly, kinsman; your sense of your own sufferings makes
you unjust. Men say that these sufferings have been self-inflicted; but
I will not say so. I come to learn if in aught I can mitigate them."
"Mitigate them, did you say? I ask no mitigation; for my life is now a
burden. I ask no pity; I ask no sympathy I have but one possession which
I can still call my own; it is not inherited; I cannot transmit it; it
is my sole luxury, my sole treasure--and it is one which you will not
covet. I have nought but my own misery that I can call my
own--self-inflicted it may be; I dispute not about a word. But if it be
self-inflicted, so much the more is it my own property. Forgive me, my
lord, if I seem rude and hasty in temper; but I have scarce slept under
a roof since, after long absence, I last touched my native soil, until
last night, indeed, when I harboured here. I have been hunted by hounds
of human breed; I have skulked in mosses, forests, and caverns, as
familiarly as you have trodden the courts of palaces. Need you wonder I
am worn to what I am--a mere skeleton-a wretched, decrepid thing--more
like a being returned from the grave, than a living man?"
"It is but too true," said the marquis; "yet is there nought you would
wish me to do? No token of affection to send to your friends----"
"Nothing--nothing."
The time of trial at length arrived, and Lord Maxwell was indicted for
the crimes of murder and of fire-raising. The introduction of the latter
charge was the cause of bitter complaint on the part of the prisoner;
for he well knew that the object of the public authorities was to obtain
the forfeiture of his estates; and the treasurer-depute, Sir Gideon
Murray, was supposed to have instigated them to combine this minor
accusation with the other. The crime of fire-raising, according to the
ancient Scottish law, if perpetrated by a landed man, constituted a
species of treason, and inferred forfeiture. The purpose of public
justice, however, was, on this, as an other occasions in the same reign,
sullied by being united with that of enriching some needy favourite. No
difficulty was felt in proving either of the charges; the former,
indeed, was not denied; and the latter was established by the evidence
of some sufferers in the course of the first outrages committed after
the battle of Dryffe Sands. The baron was found guilty of both crimes,
and sentenced to be beheaded. Every effort was made to obtain pardon for
him; but the king and his counsellors were inexorable.
On the night before the execution, Sir Robert Maxwell of Orchardstone,
who was now very far advanced in years, visited his kinsman and chief,
under the guidance of the Marquis of Hamilton.
"And it has come to this at last!" exclaimed the old man. "Would to
heaven, my dear lord, you had listened to the prayer of your humble
clansman, eighteen years ago. Brief time is left to make your peace.
Some holy man may be able to soothe your mind, ruffled though it be."
"Mock me not, dear uncle," said the baron, in a tone of bitterness which
startled the old man with horror. "Torture me not with talk about peace
and holy men. They cannot give me peace--they cannot give me happiness
on earth or in heaven. I am content with the share I have enjoyed. One
gleam of sunshine has crossed my path--one fair flowret has blessed my
sight--one spring has gladdened the weary wilderness--one human heart
has been mine; and though it is mine no longer--though the flower has
been blighted, and the bright gleam of happiness, now departed, has only
made me more sensitive to the succeeding darkness, and the spring is
dried, and the human heart lies in the dust--I ask no more. My cup of
bliss is full--one drop has filled it. My heaven has been already
enjoyed--no dotard can bring me tidings of weal or wo; I cannot part
with it. Leave me, good uncle and good cousin. I would bless you, but my
blessing might prove a curse."
His sorrowing friends left him as he wished. He was beheaded on the
following morning.
His estates, which had been forfeited, were granted in part to the
treasurer-depute, a favourite of the king; but, after the lapse of a few
years, the attainder was reversed, and the honours and estates conferred
upon his brother.
THE CLERICAL MURDERER.
The story which has been told of John Smithson, the minister of Berwick,
who was, in the year 1672, executed for committing a crime which has
seldom stained the hands of the ministers of the religion of Christ, is
as true as it is extraordinary. There are connected with it some
circumstances which have communicated to it a character of even deeper
interest than what generally invests tales of blood. Sympathy for the
victim, disgust and hatred towards the perpetrator, and a general
feeling of horror at the contemplation of the crime, are the usual
emotions excited by the commission of an aggravated murder; but there
are sometimes afforded, by these melancholy exhibitions of the weakness
and sinfulness of our fallen nature, certain lights, "burning blue,"
which lay open, with their mysterious glare, recesses in the heart of
man which no philosophy has ever been able to reach and develop.
It was remarked that Smithson was one of the best of sons. His aged
mother was supported by him for a long period, and at a time when he
could very ill spare the means. Indeed, such was his filial affection,
that he once travelled fifty miles in one day, to get payment of a small
sum of money that had been due to his father; and to procure which for
his mother he required to beg his way to the residence of the creditor.
When he returned, he presented to her the whole sum; and when asked upon
what he had supported himself on the journey, he replied that the cause
in which he was engaged procured him the means of subsistence, for he
was not refused alms by a single individual whom he had solicited.
It was in consequence of his kindness to his father and mother that he
was assisted by a rich friend to acquire education fitted for his
becoming a clergyman. For this patron he ever afterwards felt the
strongest esteem; and his gratitude kept pace with his affection. He
attended his friend on his death-bed, and administered to him that
knowledge and consolation which the clerical education he had received
enabled him to bestow on his dying benefactor. Nor did he consider that
the gratuitous assistance which had thus been extended to him could be
repaid alone by affection towards the vicarious giver, but declared
that, as it came from Heaven, so ought the gratitude of his heart to be
directed to the origin of all gifts that are bestowed on the deserving.
Gratitude is not only its own reward, but the cause often of the means
of its own increase; for Smithson's benefactor was so pleased with his
attention to him when dying, that he left him a large legacy in his
will, which relieved him from that state of dependence which he found
had limited his means of doing good. He soon afterwards married a very
beautiful woman, and got himself placed in the church of Berwick.
His ministerial duties were performed with the greatest devotion and
zeal for the welfare of the people intrusted to his charge. His
attention to his parishioners was unremitting--his prayers for the dying
or the sorrow-smitten were fervent--and the poor and aged not only
tasted of the consolations afforded by his pious sympathy, but often had
their wants relieved by his charitable hand. No mortal eye could
discover in this any insincerity, far less any cloak put on to cover
evil already done, or any false assumption of a good and devout
character, to avert the eye of suspicion from deeds intended to be
perpetrated.
His character had indeed, in other respects, been tried, and found not
awanting. A relation of his had died, and left a large sum of money to
be divided among his nephews and nieces. The money was recovered by
Smithson, and upon the young heirs arriving at majority, was divided
among them with so much honesty, that they all combined in addressing to
him a letter, wherein they extolled his character for justice, honour,
and piety, and attributed to him all the qualities of a saint.
In addition to all this, his conjugal character was unspotted. His
attentions to his wife were what might have been expected from a good
husband and a minister of the gospel; the breath of scandal never dimmed
the purity of his fidelity; nor could the most querulous exacter of
conjugal obligations have found any fault with the manner in which he
fulfilled, not only the duties of a husband, but the more generous and
less easily counterfeited attentions of the lover. His wife seemed to be
grateful for his kindness, and respected his official character as much
as she loved those private virtues, from which she was much benefited.
On a Sunday previous to that on which the Sacrament was to be dispensed,
he preached in the church of Berwick. His text was the sixth
Commandment--"Thou shalt not kill." His sermons, always animated and
vigorous, and possessing even a tint of devout enthusiasm, were much
relished by his congregation; but on that day he outshone all his former
efforts of pulpit eloquence. He painted the character of the murderer
with colours drawn from the palette of inspired truth; the cruel,
remorseless, bloodthirsty heart of the son of Cain was laid open to the
eyes of his entranced audience; the feelings of the victim were
described with such power of sympathy, that the tears of the
congregation fell in ready and heartfelt tribute to the power of his
delineation; his own emotion, equalling that of his people, filled his
eyes with tears, and lent to his voice that peculiar thrilling sound
which calls forth, while it expresses, the strongest pity. The man of
God seemed inspired, and he communicated the inspiration to those who
heard him. His hand was observed to tremble; his eye was bloodshot; his
manner nervous, tremulous, excited, and enthusiastic; his voice "broken
with pity," and at times discordant with the overpowering excess of his
emotion. His whole soul seemed under the influence of divine power; and
his body, quailing under the energies of its nobler partner, shook like
a thing touched by the hand of the Almighty.
On that morning the preacher had murdered his wife. By the time the
congregation came out, the news had begun to spread. Nobody would credit
what they heard, while they exclaimed that his sermon was strange, and
his manner remarkable. A determination not to believe was mixed with
strange insinuations, and the town of Berwick was suspended between
extravagant incredulity and unaccountable suspicions. But the report was
true, and the fact remains as one of those occurrences in life which no
knowledge of the heart of man, though dignified with the proud name of
philosophy, has been, or perhaps ever will be, able to explain.
END OF VOL. XV.