So the red Indian, by Ontario's side, Nursed hardy on the
brindled panther's hide, As fades his swarthy race, with
anguish sees The white man's cottage rise beneath the trees
He leaves the shelter of his native wood, He leaves the
murmur of Ohio's flood, And forward rushing in indignant
grief, Where never foot has trod the fallen leaf, He bends
his course where twilight reigns sublime, O'er forests
silent since the birth of
time,
Scenes of Infancy.
In tracing the rise and progress of the Scottish Maroon war, we
must not omit to mention that years had rolled on, and that little
Harry Bertram, one of the hardiest and most lively children that
ever made a sword and grenadier's cap of rushes, now approached his
fifth revolving birthday. A hardihood of disposition, which early
developed itself, made him already a little wanderer; he was well
acquainted with every patch of lea ground and dingle around
Ellangowan, and could tell in his broken language upon what baulks
[* Uncultivated places] grew the bonniest flowers, and what copse
had the ripest nuts. He repeatedly terrified his attendants by
clambering about the ruins of the old castle, and had more than
once made a stolen excursion as far as the gipsy hamlet.
On these occasions he was generally brought back by Meg Merrilies,
who, though she could not be prevailed upon to enter the Place of
Ellangowan after her nephew had been given up to the pressgang, did
not apparently extend her resentment to the child. On the
contrary, she often contrived to waylay him in his walks, sing him
a gipsy song, give him a ride upon her jackass, and thrust into his
pocket a piece of gingerbread or red-cheeked apple. This woman's
ancient attachment to the family, repelled and checked in every
other direction, seemed to rejoice in having some object on which
it could yet repose and expand itself. She prophesied a hundred
times, "that young Mr. Harry would be the pride o' the family, and
there hadna been sic a sprout frae the auld aik since the death of
Arthur Mac-Dingawaie, that was killed in the battle o' the Bloody
Bay; as for the present stick, it was good for naething but
firewood." On one occasion, when the child was ill, she lay all
night below the window, chanting a rhyme which she believed
sovereign as a febrifuge, and could neither be prevailed upon to
enter the house, nor to leave the station she had chosen, till she
was informed that the crisis was over.
The affection of this woman became matter of suspicion, not indeed
to the Laird, who was never hasty in suspecting evil, but to his
wife, who had indifferent health and poor spirits. She was now far
advanced in a second pregnancy, and, as she could not walk abroad
herself, and the woman who attended upon Harry was young and
thoughtless, she prayed Dominie Sampson to undertake the task of
watching the boy in his rambles, when he should not be otherwise
accompanied. The Dominie loved his young charge, and was enraptured
with his own success, in having already brought him so far in his
learning as to spell words of three syllables. The idea of this
early prodigy of erudition being carried off by the gipsies, like a
second Adam Smith, [* The father of Economical Philosophy was, when
a child, carried off by gipsies, and remained some hours in their
possession.] was not to be tolerated; and accordingly, though the
charge was contrary to all his habits of life, he readily undertook
it, and might be seen stalling about with a mathematical problem in
his head, and his eye upon a child of five years old, whose rambles
led him into a hundred awkward situations. Twice was the Dominie
chased by a cross-grained cow, once he fell into the brook crossing
at the stepping-stones, and another time was bogged up to the
middle in the slough of Lochend, in attempting to gather a
water-lily for the young Laird. It was the opinion of the village
matrons who relieved Sampson on the latter occasion, "that the
Laird might as weel trust the care o' his bairn to a potato bogle";
but the good Dominie bore all his disasters with gravity and
serenity equally imperturbable. "Pro-di-gi-ous!" was the only
ejaculation they ever extorted from the much-enduring man.
The Laird had, by this time, determined to make root-and-branch
work with the Maroons of Derncleugh. The old servants shook their
heads at his proposal, and even Dominie Sampson ventured upon an
indirect remonstrance. As, however, it was couched in the oracular
phrase, "Ne moveas Camerinam," neither the allusion, nor the
language in which it was expressed, were calculated for Mr.
Bertram's edification, and matters proceeded against the gipsies in
form of law. Every door in the hamlet was chalked by the
ground-officer, in token of a formal warning to remove at next
term. Still, however, they showed no symptoms either of submission
or of compliance. At length the term-day, the fatal Martinmas,
arrived, and violent measures of' ejection were resorted to. A
strong posse of peace-officers, sufficient to render all resistance
vain, charged the inhabitants to depart by noon; and, as they did
not obey, the officers, in terms of the warrant, proceeded to
unroof the cottages, and pull down the wretched doors and windows,
--a summary and effectual mode of ejection still practised in some
remote parts of Scotland, when a tenant proves refractory. The
gipsies, for a time, beheld the work of destruction in sullen
silence and inactivity; then set about saddling and loading their
asses, and making preparations for their departure. These were
soon accomplished, where all had the habits of wandering Tartars;
and they set forth on their journey to seek new settlements, where
their patrons should neither be of the quorum, nor custos
rotulorum.
Certain qualms of feeling had deterred Ellangowan from attending in
person to see his tenants expelled. He left the executive part of
the business to the officers of the law, under the immediate
direction of Frank Kennedy, a supervisor, or riding-officer,
belonging to the excise, who had of late become intimate at the
Place, and of whom we shall have more to say in the next chapter.
Mr. Bertram himself chose that day to make a visit to a friend at
some distance. But it so happened, notwithstanding his
precautions, that he could not avoid meeting his late tenants
during their retreat from his property.
It was in a hollow way, near the top of a steep ascent, upon the
verge of the Ellangowan estate, that Mr. Bertram met the gipsy
procession. Four or five men formed the advanced guard, wrapped in
long loose greatcoats that hid their tall slender figures, as the
large slouched hats, drawn over their brows, concealed their wild
features, dark eyes, and swarthy faces. Two of them carried long
fowling-pieces, one wore a broadsword without a sheath, and all had
the Highland dirk, though they did not wear that weapon openly or
ostentatiously. Behind them followed the train of laden asses, and
small carts or tumblers, as they were called in that country, on
which were laid the decrepit and the helpless, the aged and infant
part of the exiled community. The women in their red cloaks and
straw hats, the elder children with bare heads and bare feet, and
almost naked bodies, had the immediate care of the little caravan.
The road was narrow, running between two broken banks of sand, and
Mr. Bertram's servant rode forward, smacking his whip with an air
of authority, and motioning to the drivers to allow free passage to
their betters. His signal was unattended to. He then called to
the men who lounged idly on before, "Stand to your beasts' beads,
and make room for the Laird to pass."
"He shall have his share of the road," answered a male gipsy from
under his slouched and large-brimmed hat, and without raising his
face, "and he shall have nae mair; the highway is as free to our
cuddies as to his gelding."
The tone of the man being sulky, and even menacing, Mr. Bertram
thought it best to put his dignity in his pocket, and pass by the
procession quietly, on such space as they chose to leave for his
accommodation, which was narrow enough. To cover with an
appearance of indifference his feeling of the want of respect with
which he was treated, he addressed one of the men, as he passed him
without any show of greeting, salute, or recognition,--"Giles
Baillie," he said, "have you heard that your son Gabriel is well?"
(The question respected the young man who had been pressed.)
"If I had heard otherwise," said the old man, looking up with a
stern and menacing countenance, "you should have heard of it too."
And he plodded on his way, tarrying no further question. [*This
anecdote is a literal fact.] When the Laird had pressed on with
difficulty among a crowd of familiar faces, which had on all former
occasions marked his approach with the reverence due to that of a
superior being, but in which he now only read hatred and contempt,
and had got clear of the throng, he could not help turning his
horse, and looking back to mark the progress of their march. The
group would have been an excellent subject for the pencil of
Calotte. The van had already reached a small and stunted thicket,
which was at the bottom of the hill, and which gradually hid the
line of march until the last stragglers disappeared.
His sensations were bitter enough. The race, it is true, which he
had thus summarily dismissed from their ancient place of refuge,
was idle and vicious; but had he endeavoured to render them
otherwise? They were not more irregular characters now, than they
had been while they were admitted to consider themselves as a sort
of subordinate dependants of his family; and ought the mere
circumstance of his becoming a magistrate to have made at once such
a change in his conduct towards them? Some means of reformation
ought at least to have been tried, before sending seven families at
once upon the wide world, and depriving them of a degree of
countenance, which withheld them at least from atrocious guilt.
There was also a natural yearning of heart on parting with so many
known and familiar faces; and to this feeling Godfrey Bertram was
peculiarly accessible, from the limited qualities of his mind,
which sought its principal amusements among the petty objects
around him. As he was about to turn his horse's head to pursue his
journey, Meg Merrilies, who lagged behind the troop, unexpectedly
presented herself.
She was standing upon one of those high precipitous banks, which,
as we before noticed, overhung the road; so that she was placed
considerably higher than Ellangowan, even though he was on
horseback; and her tall figure, relieved against the clear blue
sky, seemed almost of supernatural stature. We have noticed, that
there was in her general attire, or rather in her mode of adjusting
it, somewhat of a foreign costume, artfully, adopted perhaps for
the purpose of adding to the effect of her spells and predictions,
or perhaps from some traditional notions respecting the dress of
her ancestors. On this occasion, she had a large piece of red
cotton cloth rolled about her head in the form of a turban, from
beneath which her dark eyes flashed with uncommon lustre. Her long
and tangled black hair fell in elf-locks from the folds of this
singular head-gear. Her attitude was that of a sibyl in frenzy,
and she stretched out, in her right hand, a sapling bough which
seemed just pulled.
"I'll be d-d," said the groom, "if she has not been cutting the
young ashes in the Dukit park!"--The Laird made no answer, but
continued to look at the figure which was thus perched above his
path.
"Ride your ways," said the gipsy, "ride your ways, Laird of
Ellangowan--ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram!--This day have ye
quenched seven smoking hearths--see if the fire in your ain parlour
burn the blyther for that. Ye have riven the back off seven cottar
houses--look if your ain roof-tree stand the faster. Ye may stable
your stirks in the shealings at Derncleugh--see that the hare does
not couch on the hearth-stone at Ellangowan.--Ride your ways,
Godfrey Bertram--what do ye glower after our folk for?--There's
thirty hearts there, that wad hae wanted bread ere ye had wanted
sunkets, [*Delicacies] and spent their lifeblood ere ye had
scratched your finger. Yes--there's thirty yonder, from the auld
wife of a hundred to the babe that was born last week, that ye have
turned out o' their bits o' bields, to sleep with the tod and the
black-cock in the muirs!--Ride your ways, Ellangowan.--Our bairns
are hinging at our weary backs--look that your braw cradle at hame
be the fairer spread up--not that I am wishing ill to little Harry,
or to the babe that's yet to be born--God forbid--and make them
kind to the poor, and better folk than their father! And now, ride
e'en your ways; for these are the last words ye'll ever hear Meg
Merrilies speak, and this is the last reise that I'll ever cut in
the bonnie woods of Ellangowan."
So saying, she broke the sapling she held in her hand, and flung it
into the road Margaret of Anjou, bestowing on her triumphant foes
her keen-edged malediction, could not have turned from them with a
gesture more proudly contemptuous. The Laird was clearing his voice
to speak, and thrusting his hand in his pocket to find a
half-crown; the gipsy waited neither for his reply nor his
donation, but strode down the hill to overtake the caravan.
Ellangowan rode pensively home; and it was remarkable that he did
not mention this interview to any of his family. The groom was not
so reserved. He told the story at great length to a full audience
in the kitchen, and concluded by swearing, that if ever the devil
spoke by the mouth of a woman, he had spoken by that of Meg
Merrilies that blessed day.