THE WARLOCK OF BALWEARIE.
"The morning e'e saw mirth and glee,
In the hoary feudal tower;
Of bauld Sir Alan Mortimer,
The Lord o' Aberdour.
But dool was there, and mickle care,
When the moon began to gleam,
For elve and fay held jubilee,
Beneath her siller beam."--VEDDER.
While these events wore occurring in bonnie Dundee, Sir Andrew Wood,
intent on avenging the fall of his friend, Sir Andrew Barton, but no
way dreaming that the fate of two affectionate hearts, perhaps the
fate of two rival kingdoms, depended on his severely overhauling the
ships of Edmund Howard, was cruising with his frigates on the German
Ocean.
The two ships, in pursuit of which we left the _Yellow Frigate_ and
her consort some pages back, proved to be only large three-masted
caravels, belonging to the Prior of Pittenweem, laden with wheat and
malt for Denmark; and when hailed through the trumpet, if they had
seen aught of three English ships, their skippers answered in the
negative. This discovery proved a source of great satisfaction to
Cuddy the coxswain, who had feared that his messmate Dalquhat was
about to gain the promised reward. He took his place again in the
main-cross-trees, and had not been there long before he reported
other two sails in sight on the starboard quarter.
Barton eagerly mounted into the mizen-top. The upper sails of the
distant vessels were then visible, even to his unassisted eye, for
they shone white as snow in the light of the morning sun, which rose
in unclouded brilliance from the eastern sea; and the shore of Fife,
with the bold bluff Isle of May, were dimly mellowed in the morning
haze.
"How do they steer, Cuddie?" asked Captain Burton.
"Dead for Dunbar Harbour."
"Have they any colours flying, do'st think?"
"Nane, sir."
"One is a large three-masted ship, with her mainmast fidded at the
topcastle," said Barton, as he reached the deck; "her fore and mizen
are in one spar each, but with every rag of canvas set aloft; the
other is hull down yet, but I take her to be a small merchantman."
"It matters not," replied the admiral; "'bout ship and overhaul them."
The frigate was put about, a manoeuvre immediately followed by the
_Queen Margaret_, and both steered for the Isle of May: by this time
the two strange sails were placed upon the lee-bow. The bustle
caused by this manoeuvre brought on deck Father Zuill, the ship's
chaplain, a grave but kind old man, whose brains were so much steeped
in abstruse study, lore, and scientific vagaries, as to be of little
use either to himself or others. To defend him from the cool, fresh
air of the morning sea, he was well muffled in a coarse blue
over-coat, shaped like a cassock, with wide sleeves, and a cowl which
fell behind; on his head was a coarse blue bonnet. A cord encircled
his waist, and thereat hung his cross and rosary, with a pocket-dial,
or perpetual almanack, of brass. In one hand he had a pen, in the
other a little volume, bound in vellum and clasped with gold; he had
been studying it overnight, till his eyes became red and inflamed,
and he had applied himself to it immediately again, after morning
prayers.
It was one of this good man's crotchets to imagine that, by
discovering the true burning-glasses of the ancients, he would
supersede the use of cannon and gunpowder, and this idea being ever
uppermost in his head, he saw everything through its medium.
"If these should be English ships," said he, "have you no scruple,
Sir Andrew anent fighting on Sunday?"
"Scruple! gadzooks, no--the devil a bit! There is no Sunday in
five-fathom water; and here, I believe, we have somewhere about
seventy by the line; besides, Father Zuill, bethink thee of the
saw--'the better day, the better deed.' Barton, run out that
spanker-boom, and sheet home the foretopsail; keep all hands or deck."
These orders were obeyed in the time I have taken to write them.
"Hast thou heard, father," resumed the admiral, "that Vasco de Gama,
a certain valiant mariner of Portugal, hath sailed from the Rock of
Lisbon to reach India by weathering the Cape of Storms?"
"Yes--but he will never do it," replied the friar, emphatically.
"I fear me so, for the good Bartholomew Diaz--he who gave me this
Moorish poniard--tried it with two fair barks of fifty tons each,
four years ago, and failed completely."
"'Tis because of an evil spirit who dwells on the top of the
Table-Mountain," said the chaplain; "a spirit whose angry breath can
whelm the largest caravel in the ocean."
"Yea, father, the Storm Fiend," replied the admiral; "old Diaz told
me that he saw his shadowy form in the clouds, over hanging his
mainmast head, for many days."
"But De Gama hath received from his king a consecrated banner, having
in its centre the white cross of the Military Order of Christ; and,
moreover, he hath a letter to Prester John, of the Indies."
"Would that I were with him!" said Sir Andrew.
"By my faith, laird of Largo, thou art safer within a league of the
auld Isle of May," replied the chaplain, who was somewhat piqued by
the admiral's general unbelief in burning-glasses; "for I verily
believe that none can inhabit the torrid clime beyond Cape Non, which
lies in twenty-nine degrees north latitude."
"That maintopsail shivers, Barton," said Sir Andrew, stamping his
foot, as he gazed alternately aloft and at the yet distant ships,
which they were approaching by crossing their south-east course;
"this devilish breeze is failing us already."
"Would that I could give you the winds in a bag," said the chaplain,
"like the heathen, of whom we may read in this little book."
The admiral, who had no great love for the chaplain's books, which he
thought savoured overmuch of sorcery, glanced suspiciously at the
little tome, which was no other than "_The Boke of Eneydos_, made in
Latin by that noble Poete and grete Clerke, Vyrgyle, and newly
translated from the Frenche into Englishe"--a gift from James III, to
the chaplain, who continued,--
"Ers long, Sir Andrew, I may serve you in other ways, and now I have
a notable opportunity for experimenting."
"What, with thy devilish glasses again!" exclaimed the admiral, as
the chaplain descended the ladder and entered the door of the poop
without replying.
Almost immediately afterwards he reappeared, bearing in his arms a
machine which very closely resembled something between those now used
by a photographer and the theodolite of an engineer, for it consisted
of a little oaken box, containing a long brass tube, with a multitude
of little mirrors, screws, and glasses, Concave and convex, the whole
being propped on three legs triangularly, and forming their apex.
For want of a better name, this mysterious apparatus was christened
by the unlettered crew, "Father Zuill's hurdy-gurdy," and it was a
source of secret ridicule with some and of curiosity with others; for
whenever he was seen to level his lenses at distant objects, there
was a confident expectation that they would go off with a report like
a brass cannon. The Romans used moveable types for stamping their
names upon cloth and vessels of clay; thus they were very near
discovering the whole art of printing. Father Zuill used lenses, and
was quite as near discovering the telescope, yet no such idea ever
occurred to him. Considering the whole affair as a mere whim-wham or
harmless foible, the admiral, Barton, Falconer, the boatswain, and
gunner, watched his operations, and made many a covert joke upon
them; but the crew, who had long since tired of experiments which
ended in nothing, were grouped forward watching the approaching
ships, or dozing away the hours on the sunny deck.
Father Zuill levelled his lenses and arranged his glasses in such a
way that the bright morning sun, then straight astern, shone lull
upon one end, while the other was pointed at the head-most ship,
which was now on the lee bow, and beating hard up against a head wind.
"Sir Alexander Mathieson will never sail ahead of us in a sunny day,
Father Zuill," said Falconer, laughing; "for he fears your operating
on his canvas, and burning holes in it;--what he calls your 'damnable
hurdy-gurdy.'"
"Now, Father Zuill, dost thou really believe in the power of these
bits of looking-glass?" asked the admiral; who, with an incredulous
smile on his honest face, and his hands thrust into the pockets of
his gaberdine, had been watching the futile attempts of the chaplain
to ignite the white canvas of the head-most ship.
"As truly as I believe that Archimedes burned the Roman fleet with
glasses at the siege of Syracuse!" retorted the chaplain. "He used
concave mirrors; and if I could only construct a parabolic speculum,
the focus of which would reach three bowshots off, and burn there,
does it not indubitably follow, that by increasing the scale, I might
construct another which would consume a city at three leagues, and
scorch to death all who were in it? Hear me, sirs. If _one_ mirror
will light a spot one-fourth of its size, at a certain distance,
assuredly we may presume that the reflected light of a _hundred_
mirrors, all bearing on the same spot, will render the heat
unbearable, and bring the light to that refulgent point at which it
engendereth fire. So sayeth Anthemius, who used hexagonal mirrors
surrounded by others; and so say Tzetzes, Zonaras, Lucian, and
others. We read in ancient history, that the ships of Marcellus were
consumed to ashes at the distance of a bowshot, when the sun's rays
were at noon. I have heard of as much being done by two concave
specula composed of polished brass. A little study, admiral, would
make plain to thee (who use the cross-staff for striking the
meridian), the geometrical mode of discovering the rectilineal
propagation of heat and light, as it was understood by Eustathius and
Ptolemy. Thou understandest me?"
"May I never more go to sea, if I do," replied the admiral,
scratching his beard in sore perplexity. "I think all this sounds as
like sorcery as one ropeyarn seems like another. No, no! the gunner
to his lintstock, the steersman to his helm, and the cook to the
foresheet. Thou to thy book lear, and I to my seamanship. By my
father's soul! I would put more reliance in a good cannon-royale
with a smooth bore, and a calm sea under the counter, than in all the
glass hurdy-gurdies that ever were seen!"
By this time the _Yellow Frigate_ had the wind upon her beam, and she
was close upon the two vessels, which proved to be merely
merchant-traders of Blackness, whose crews had seen nothing of the
English ships in question; and the admiral was beginning to fear that
Jamie Gair had been mistaken, or that he had been sent on some false
errand, for purposes unknown. His ships then stood close in shore,
and steered again for the Tay, under easy sail; and as they were near
the dangerous rock named the Carrwick, Master Wad, the gunner, took
the helm, and steered on the spire of the old Cistertian kirk at
Crail.
"I agree wi' the admiral, Sir David," said the boatswain to the
captain of the arquebussiers, as they leaned over the larboard
bulwark, gazing at the coast of Fife, which was then sparkling under
a brilliant noon-day sun; "and I believe there is mickie mair o'
sorcery than theology in Father Zuill's box o' glasses. I never kent
o' man, wife, or bairn that throve under the influence o' sic fause
contrivances."
"Yet it may not be magic," replied Falconer; "for the same thing was
thought of our mariner's compass when it was invented. For there are
many things in nature, Archy, which such simple fellows as thou and I
cannot comprehend."
"I ken this, Sir David," replied the boatswain, "that I never heard
o' a skipper buying a fair wind frae the witches o' Pittenweem or
Anster, but was laid bare on his beam-ends some day. I would rather
hear the close-reefed foresail blawn to ribbons, and feel the saut
spray hissing owre my head, than resort to siccan contrivances; and I
could spin ye a yarn that would let ye see, Sir David, how puir
mortal men should just content them wi' whatever God is pleased to
gie."
"Spin away, then, boatswain; out with it, off the reel, while the
line will run."
"It was told me by my father, puir auld bodie, who is now keeping his
deid reckoning in the kirkyard o' Anster Easter, where he has been
aground these thirty years and mair. Weel, sir, it was this:--
"In the days when the last King Alexander kept court at Scone, and
whiles in the auld Castell o' Crail, the ruins o' whilk ye may see
through the simmer mist on yonder hazy headland, auld Sir Michael
Scott, the warlock, byded at Balwearie, near the Linktoun o'
Kirkcaldy, where his great castle is yet to be seen; and where, on
the anniversary o' the night on whilk he was summoned awa frae earth,
as men say, the shadow o' a great hand, wi' a forefinger as lang as
the spritsail yard, appears on the wall; thrice in the moonshine it
beckons an unseen spirit awa; and when the bell at the Abbotsha'
tolls one, it vanishes. Being a Fife man mysel, though frae the East
Neuk, I ken the place as well as the trout-holes o' the Dreel Burn.
I have seen the gate where, when Sir Michael stamped his foot, the
deevil came up in the form of a black Barbary courser, with a silver
bridle and saddle o' crommosie, the same on whilk he was carried to
Paris in one night, and whilk, by every stamp of its foot, made every
bell dance in the kirk of Notre Dame. I ken the window, where, by a
wave o' his hand, Sir Michael raised the storm that rolled the German
Sea upon the Links o' Forgue in Aberdeenshire, and there they will
roll for ever; that tore the Lang Craig frae the Inch at Leith, and
swallowed up the boat wi' the dead body o' his mortal enemy, Sir Alan
Mortimer, when, at midnight, the monks, wi' tapers and torches
lighted, wi' censers smoking and choristers chaunting, were rowing
the funeral barge wi' muffled oars, frae the Castle o' Aberdour to
the Abbey of St. Colme; and there, where the yawning sea engulfed the
crusader's corpse, in its leaden coffin, cross-legged, with
sword-at-side and spur-on-heel, men to this day call the place the
_Mortimer's Deep_; and deep it is, I trow! for ye may pay out a
thousand fathoms of line, and never reach the bottom. On that
awesome night, the Donjon o' Aberdour was rent frae cope to
ground-stane, and Sir Patrick Spens,
"'The best sailor
That ever sailed the sea,'
was weel nigh wrecked at St. Margaret's Hope; for his topsails were
blawn clean out o' the boltropes; and the Laird o' Hartshaw, as he
walked on the deck, was brained by a flap o' his mainsail.
"In these days, there was an auld fisherman, called Logan o' the
Weem, who served King Alexander wi' fish, when he byded at the Castle
of Crail. Logan and his gudewife, Mysie, had ance seven sons, but
six o' them had perished off Elie, in that fearful storm after which
the herrings forsook the coast, and there wasna a fish to be had in
a' the fishing grounds between Kinghorn Craig and the Red Head o'
Angus. The time of Lent was at hand, and then King Alexander, wi' a
great train o' lords and knights, auld Bruce, the pawkie Lord o'
Annandale, the Earls o' Mar and Buchan, true Sir Thomas the Rhymer,
and mony mair, were to keep the festival at Crail; and a helmetfu' o'
bannet-pieces were offered for a creelfu' o' fish.
"On the first day o' Lent, Logan o' the Weem, a dour and determined
auld carle, presented himsel at the Castle o' Balwearie, and begged
permission to see Sir Michael Scott; and, without muckle ceremony,
but wi' a beating heart, he was ushered into a wee dark chalmer, like
a coal-sloop's cabin, where, chin-deep amang great books, wi' a globe
on ae side o' him, and a stuffed monster on the other, Sir Michael,
a' dressed in sable taffeta, sat reading by the light of a lamp,
which threw nae shadow behind him, for the warlock knicht had _nane_.
Aboon his head, a blue star burned on the tapestried wall, and Logan
could scarcely keep his een off it, for it glinted and shone, as it
grew sma' and broad, and flashed and shrunk, by turns.
"Auld Michael's hair was white as the thistle-down, his beard
descended to his girdle, on whilk was graven a row of shining
letters. His head was bald, but his eyen shone like two diamonds, or
like those o' the black cat and white owl that sat on the back o' his
chair, from whence the one spat and the other whistled like the de'il
in a gale o' wind, as Logan approached bauldly, but wi' his braid
bonnet in his hand.
"'Well, Carle Logan,' said the warlock, sternly, 'what seek ye here?'
"'Fish,' quo' Logan, trembling a wee.
"'Dog! dost thou take me for a fisher-loon?' asked the Knicht o'
Balwearie, wi' a terrible frown.
"'No,' said Logan, growing desperate; 'but I tak ye for a mischevious
auld warlock, that will ruin a' the fisher-touns o' Fife, by scaring
the herrings frae every firth and bay; and I've come to beg as a boon
that ye will tak the spell off the water, so that the herring draves
may again come back to Crail and St. Monan's.'
"'Sayst thou that I have layed a _spell_ upon the water?' Balwearie,
furiously.
"'I do--ever since the night when Mortimer's corpse was lost.'
"'Then I tell thee thou art a presumptuous liar, whom I shall yet see
hanging in hell by the tongue!' cried the warlock, rising, while the
cat flattened its ears, erected its back, and spat again; the owl
croaked, whistled, and ruffled its feathers, and the blue star on the
tapestry flashed wi' sparks o' fire; but Logan never flinched, for he
remembered that his gudewife, and the gudewives o' many, were
starving at hame.
"'Thou hast a son?' asked the warlock.
"'The last, Sir Michael, that you and the storm have left me--alake!
alake!'
"'Carle Logan, thou hast dared to do what never mortal man has done
before; thou hast bearded Michael Scott under his own roof-tree in
the Castle of Balwearie, and it is but fair that such insolent
courage should have its reward. To-morrow, at midnight, commences
the Feast of St. Adrian, the martyr of the May, launch then your boat
alone, and cast your line in Mortimer's Deep, and thou wilt see what
will happen then. Bid your son, at sunrise, drop his nets off the
Cave of St. Monan, and he will have in it such a strange haul as
never fisherman, since the days of the blessed St. Peter, brought out
of the great deep before!'
"On this the cat purred, the owl whistled, the star flashed fire, and
wi' a surly laugh the warlock received the thanks o' auld Logan, who
was right glad when he found himsel clear o' the great Castle o'
Balwearie, and hurrying alang the bright green links o' Kirkcaldy,
when the summer sun was setting behind the Lowmonds o' Fife.
"The morrow's midnight came; the Feast o' St. Adrian was held in a'
the fisher-touns o' Fife, and the priests o' Pittenweem were saying
solemn mass for the souls of him, of the Bishop Stalbrand, and of the
six thousand six hundred that perished wi' them when the heathen
Danes sacked all the Isle o' May and the towns o' the East Neuk.
Logan's gudewife, Mysie, as she lay alane in her warm box-bed at
Pittenweem, put up many a prayer to St. Adrian o' the May for her
puir auld fisherman, who had launched his boat alane, and sailed to
the Mortimer's Deep. The night was calm and clear; her son was away
to the fishing-ground off St. Monan's Cave, and there he was to drop
his nets, as the warlock had said, at the uprising o' the sun.
"It was about the middle watch o' the night when Mysie dreamed that
she saw her gudeman's boat wi' its lugsail floating on the dark
waters o' Mortimer's Deep. A bright moon shone on the Isle o' St.
Colme, and the abbey lights were glinting on the water; but the great
Castle of Aberdour, and its wooded beach, cast a gloomy shade on the
place where Logan's boat was drifting, and where the dead crusader
lay. She saw him drop his line, and stoop owre the gunnel; then she
saw him bringing it in hand-owre-hand--for all in a dream passes
quick; he had caught something! Was it a fine fish, for which the
chamberlain would gie a golden price at the Castell o' Crail? Up it
came, slowly and heavily, and lo! a mailed hand arose from the water,
it grasped her husband by the throat, and dragged him down--down
beneath the sea--and the empty boat drifted awa' in the munelight,
with its lug-sail flapping in the wind.
"Wi' a shriek--a wild despairing cry in her ears, the fisherman's
wife awoke, and before her on the wall there glinted a _blue star_;
afar off she heard the splash o' water, a hissing, gurgling sound,
and the voice of her gudeman moaning as he drowned, _thirty_ miles
awa'. The star faded, as the awesome sounds sank, and mirk darkness,
terror, dool, and silence fallowed! ....
"But I maun e'en be quick, or I'll hae to pipe the larboard watch
before my yarn's spun.
"The sun rose brightly frae the sea, and Mysie's son, when the first
blink o't glittered along the water, lowered his nets into the clear
green waves that danced off auld St. Monan's; the kirk windows, the
steep red-streets and rocky shore were a shining in the glowing
light. Young Logan let his boat drift by the net for a wee while; at
last the floats began to bob and sink! ha! there was something heavy
in the net at last, and he dragged it in, thinking this braw haul
would be brave news for the auld couple at hame. Hand-owre-hand he
brought the wet twine, floats, and bladder on board; and then he
could see something glittering in the net as slowly it rose to the
surface. Up, up it came at last, and lo! there was not even a
codling in the net--but there was the dead body o' his puir auld
white-headed father! And surely, never fisherman had such a haul
before. Now, Sir David, what think ye o' that yarn o' sorcery and
devilry?"
"That, if true, boatswain, it is more wonderful than the story of the
Imp that strangled Gibbie o' Crail, for stealing his top-light."
"True! by my faith, Sir David, it is as true as that mermaids sing
when the wind rises, and drag doon drooning men."
The frigates continued their course, and keeping outside the Inch
Cape Bock, passed the broad estuary of the Tay about sunset. Sir
Andrew then gave orders to keep them away "north and by east," and
still in search of the Englishmen, they stood along the coast as far
as the Red Head of Angus, favoured by the strong current, which there
runs alternately south-sou'-west and north-nor'-east. In his
impatience he carried all the sail he could crowd, till the masts
strained, and he ordered the watch to heave the log every quarter of
an hour, to ascertain the ship's speed.
At this very time, and favoured by the same wind, the three vessels
of Captain Edmund Howard were boldly, and under cover of the
descending night, bearing straight for the mouth of the Tay, with
topgallant-sails set, a fair breeze, and a smooth sea.