Gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway.
Winter's Tale
The hint of the hospitable farmer was not lost on Brown. But, while
he paid his reckoning, he could not avoid repeatedly fixing Iris
eyes on Meg Merrilies. She was, in all respects, the same
witch-like figure as when we first introduced her at Ellangowan
Place. Time had grizzled her raven locks, and added wrinkles to
her wild features, but her height remained erect, and her activity
was unimpaired. It was remarked of this woman, as of others of the
same description, that a life of action, though not of labour, gave
her the perfect command of her limbs and figure, so that the
attitudes into which she most naturally threw herself, were free,
unconstrained, and picturesque. At present, she stood by the
window of the cottage, her person drawn up so as to show to full
advantage her masculine stature, and her head somewhat thrown back,
that the large bonnet, with which her face was shrouded, might not
interrupt her steady gaze at Brown. At every gesture he made, and
every tone he uttered, she seemed to give an almost imperceptible
start. On his part, he was surprised to find that he could not
look upon this singular figure without some emotion. "Have I
dreamed of such a figure?" he said to himself, "or does this wild
and singular-looking woman recall to my recollection some of the
strange figures I have seen in our Indian pagodas?"
While he embarrassed himself with these discussions, and the
hostess was engaged in rummaging out silver in change of half a
guinea, the gipsy suddenly made two strides, and seized Brown's
hand. He expected, of course, a display of her skill in palmistry,
but she seemed agitated by other feelings.
"Tell me," she said, 'I tell me, in the name of God, young man,
what is your name, and whence you came?"
"My name is Brown, mother, and I come from the East Indies."
"From the East Indies!" dropping his hand with a sigh; "it cannot
be then--I am such an auld fool, that everything I look on seems
the thing I want maist to see. But the East Indies! that cannot
be--Weel, be what ye will, ye hae a face and a tongue that puts me
in mind of auld times. Good-day--make haste on your road, and if ye
see ony of our folk, meddle not and make not, and they'll do you
nae harm."
Brown, who had by this time received his change, put a shilling
into her hand, bade his hostess farewell, and, taking the route
which the farmer had gone before, walked briskly on, with the
advantage of being guided by the fresh hoof-prints of his horse.
Meg Merrilies looked after him for some time, and then muttered to
herself, "I maun see that lad again--and I maun gang back to
Ellangowan too.--The Laird's dead--aweel, death pays a'
scores--he was a kind man ance.--The Sheriffs flitted, and I can
keep canny in the bush--so there's no muckle hazard o' scouring the
cramp-ring. [*To scour the cramp-ring, is said metaphorically for
being thrown into fetters, or, generally, into prison.]--I would
like to see bonny Ellangowan again or I die."
Brown, meanwhile, proceeded northward at a round pace along the
moorish tract called the Waste of Cumberland. He passed a solitary
house, towards which the horseman who preceded him had apparently
turned up, for his horse's tread was. evident in that direction. A
little farther, he seemed to have returned again into the road. Mr.
Dinmont had probably made a visit there either of business or
pleasure--I wish, thought Brown, the good farmer had staid till I
came up; I should not have been sorry to ask him a few questions
about the road, which seems to grow wilder and wilder.
In truth, nature, as if she had designed this tract of country to
be the barrier between two hostile nations, has stamped upon it n
character of wildness and desolation. The hills are neither high
nor rocky, but the land is all heath and morass; the huts poor and
mean, and at a great distance front each o,. her. Immediately
around, them there is generally some little attempt at cultivation;
but a half-bred foal or two, straggling about with shackles on
their hind legs, to save the trouble of enclosures, intimate the
farmer's chief resource to be the breeding of horses. The people,
too, are of a ruder and more inhospitable class than are elsewhere
to be found in Cumberland arising partly from their own habits,
partly from their intermixture with vagrants and criminals, who
make this wild country a refuge from justice.
So much were the men of these districts in early times the objects
of suspicion and dislike to their more polished neighbours, that
there was, and perhaps still exists, a by-law of the corporation of
Newcastle, prohibiting any freeman of that city to take for
apprentice a native of certain of these dales. It is pithily said,
"Give a dog an ill name and hang him;" and it may be added, if you
give a man, or race of men, an ill name, they are. very likely to
do something that deserves hanging. Of this Brown had heard
something, and suspected more, from the discourse between the
landlady, Dinmont, and the gipsy; but he was naturally of a
fearless disposition, had nothing about him that could tempt the
spoiler, and trusted to get through the Waste with daylight. In
this, last particular, however, he was likely to be disappointed.
The way proved longer than he had anticipated, and the horizon
began to grow gloomy, just as he entered upon an extensive morass.
Choosing his steps with care and deliberation, the young officer
proceeded along a path that sometimes sunk between two broken black
banks of moss earth, sometimes crossed narrow but deep ravines
filled with a consistence between mud and water, and sometimes
along heaps of gravel and stones, which had been swept together
when some torrent or water-spout from the neighbouring hills
overflowed the marshy ground below. He began to ponder how a
horseman could make his way through such broken ground; the traces
of hoofs, however, were still visible; he even thought he heard
their sound at some distance, and, convinced that Mr. Dinmont's
progress through the morass must be still slower than his own, he
resolved to push on, in hopes to overtake him, and have the benefit
of his knowledge of the country. At this moment his little terrier
sprung forward, barking most furiously.
Brown quickened his pace, and, attaining the summit of a small
rising ground, saw the subject of the dog's alarm. In a hollow
about a gunshot below him, a man, whom he easily recognised to be
Dinmont, was engaged with two others in a desperate struggle. He
was dismounted, and defending himself as he best could with the
butt of his heavy whip. Our traveller hastened on to his
assistance; but, ere he could get up, a stroke had levelled the
farmer with the earth, and one of the robbers, improving his
victory, struck him some merciless blows on the head. The other
villain, hastening to meet Brown, called to his companion to come
along, "for that one's content," meaning, probably, past
resistance or complaint. One ruffian was armed with a cutlass, the
other with a bludgeon; but as the road was pretty narrow, "bar
firearms," thought Brown, "and I may manage them well enough." They
met accordingly, with the most murderous threats on the part of the
ruffians. They soon found, however, that their near opponent was
equally stout and resolute; and, after exchanging two or three
blows, one of them told him to "follow his nose over the heath, in
the devil's name, for they had nothing to say to him."
Brown rejected this composition, as leaving to their mercy the
unfortunate man whom they were about to pillage, if not to murder
outright; and the skirmish had just recommenced, when Dinmont
unexpectedly recovered his senses, his feet, and his weapon, and
hasted to the scene of action. As he had been no easy antagonist,
even when surprised and alone, the villains did not choose to wait
his joining forces with a man who had singly proved a match for
them both, but fled across the bog as fast as their feet could
earn, them, pursued by Wasp, who had acted gloriously during the
skirmish, annoying the heels of the enemy, and repeatedly effecting
a moment's diversion in his master's favour.
"Deil, but your dog's weel entered wi' the vermin now, sir!" were
the first words uttered by the jolly farmer, as he came up, his
head streaming with blood, and recognised his deliverer and his
little attendant.
"I hope, sir, you are not hurt dangerously?"
"Oh, deil a bit-my head can stand a gey clour--nae thanks to them,
though, and mony to you. But now, hinney, ye maun help me to catch
the beast, and ye maun get on behind me, for we maun off like
whittrets [*Weasels] before the whole clanjamfray [*Rabble] be
doun upon us-the rest o' them will be no far off." The galloway
was, by good fortune, easily caught, and Brown made some apology
for overloading the animal.
"' Deil a fear, man," answered the proprietor, "Dumple could carry
six folk if his back was lang eneugh--but God's sake, haste ye, get
on, for I see some folk coming through the slack yonder, that it
may be just as weel no to wait for."
Brown was of opinion that this apparition of five or six men, with
whom the other villains seemed to join company, coming across the
moss towards them, should abridge ceremony; he therefore mounted
Dumple en croupe, and the little spirited nag cantered away with
two men of great size and strength, as if they had been children of
six years old. The rider, to whom the paths of these wilds seemed
intimately known, pushed on at a rapid pace, managing, with much
dexterity, to choose the safest route, in which he was aided by the
sagacity of the galloway, who never failed to take the difficult
passes exactly at the particular spot, and in the special manner,
by which they could be most safely crossed. Yet, even with these
advantages, the road was so broken, and they were so often thrown
out of the direct course by various impediments, that they did not
gain much on their pursuers. "Nevermind," said the undaunted
Scotchman to his companion, "if we were ance by Withershin's Latch,
the road's no near sae saft, and we'll show them fair play for't."
They soon came to the place he named, a narrow channel, through
which soaked, rather than flowed, a small stagnant stream, mantled
over with bright green mosses. Dinmont directed his steed towards
a pass where the water appeared-to flow with more freedom over a
harder bottom; but Dumple backed from the proposed crossing-place,
put his head down as if to reconnoitre the swamp more nearly,
stretching forward his fore-feet, and stood as fast as if he had
been cut out of stone.
"Had we not better," said Brown, "dismount, and leave him to his
fate--or can you, not urge him through the swamp?"
"Na, na," said his pilot, "we maun cross Dumple at no rate--he
has mair sense than mony a Christian." So saying, he relaxed the
reins, and shook them loosely. "Come now, lad, take your ain way
o't--let's see where ye'll take us through."
Dumple, left to the freedom of his own will, trotted briskly to
another part of the latch, less promising, as Brown thought, in
appearance, but which the animal's sagacity or experience
recommended as the safer of the two, and where, plunging in, he
attained the other side with. little difficulty.
"I'm glad we're out o' that moss," said Dinmont, "where there's
mair stables for horses than change-houses for men--we have the
Maiden-way to help us now, at ony rate." Accordingly, they speedily
gained a sort of rugged causeway so called, being the remains of an
old Roman road which traverses these wild regions in a due
northerly direction. Here they got on at the rate o nine or ten
miles an hour, Dumple seeking no other respite than what arose from
changing his pace from canter to trot. "I could gar him show mair
action," said his master, "but we are twa lang-legged chields after
a' and it would be a pity to stress Dumple--there wasna the like o'
him at Staneshiebank fair the day."
Brown readily assented to the propriety of sparing the horse, and
added, that as they were now far out of the reach of the rogues he
thought Mr. Dinmont had better tie a handkerchief round his head,
for fear of the cold frosty air aggravating the wound.
"What would I do that for?" answered the hardy farmer; "the best
way's to let the blood barken [*Encrust] upon the cut--that
saves plasters, hinney."
Brown, who in his military profession had seen a great many hard
blows pass, could not help remarking, "he had never known such
severe strokes received with so much apparent indifference."
"Hout tout, man--I would never be making a humdudgeon [*Fuss] about
a scart on the pow-but we'll be in Scotland in five minutes now,
and ye maun gang up to Charlies-hope wi' me, that's a clear case."
Brown readily accepted the offered hospitality. Night was now
falling, when they came in sight of a pretty river winding its way
through a pastoral country. The hills were greener and more abrupt
than those which Brown had lately passed, sinking their grassy
sides, at once upon the river. They had no pretensions to
magnificence of height, or to romantic shapes, nor did their smooth
swelling slopes exhibit either rocks or woods. Yet the view was
wild, solitary, and pleasingly rural. No enclosures, no roads,
almost no tillage--it seemed a land which a patriarch would have
chosen to feed his flocks and herds. The remains of here and there
a dismantled and ruined tower, showed that it had once harboured
beings of a very different description from its present
inhabitants; those free-booters, namely, to whose exploits the wars
between England and Scotland bear witness. Descending by. a path
towards a well-known ford, Dumple crossed the small river, and then
quickening his pace, trotted about a mile briskly up its banks, and
approached two or three low thatched, houses, placed with their
angles to each other, with a great contempt of regularity. This
was the farm-steading of Charlies-hope, or, in the language of the
country, "the Town." A most furious barking was set up at their
approach, by the whole three generations of Mustard and Pepper, and
a number of allies, names unknown. The farmer made his well-known
voice lustily heard to restore order--the door opened, and a
half-dressed ewe-milker, who had done that good office, shut it in
their faces, in order that she might run ben the house, to cry,
"Mistress, mistress, it's the master, and another man wi' him."
Dumple, turned loose, walked to his own stable-door, and there
pawed and whinnied for admission, in strains which were answered by
his acquaintances from the interior. Amid this bustle, Brown was
fain to secure Wasp from the other dogs, who, with ardour
corresponding more to their own names than to the hospitable temper
of their owner, were much disposed to use the intruder roughly.
In about a minute a stout labourer was patting Dumple, and
introducing him into the stable, while Mrs. Dinmont, a
well-favoured buxom dame, welcomed her husband [*See Note II.
Dandie Dinmont] with unfeigned rapture. "Eh, sirs! gudeman, ye
hae been a weary while away!"