If thou hast any love of mercy in thee,
Turn me upon my face that I may die.
Joanna Baillie.
Our traveller hired a post-chaise at the place where he separated
from Dinmont, with the purpose of proceeding to Kippletringan,
there to inquire into the state of the family at Woodbourne, before
he should venture to make his presence in the country known to Miss
Mannering. The stage was a long one of eighteen or twenty miles,
and the road lay across the country. To add to the inconveniences
of the journey, the snow began to fall pretty quickly. The
postilion, however, proceeded on his journey for a good many miles,
without expressing doubt or hesitation. It was not until the night
was completely set in that he intimated his apprehensions whether
he was in the right road. The increasing snow rendered this
intimation rather alarming, for as it drove full in the lad's face,
and lay whitening all around him, it served in two different ways
to confuse his knowledge of the count and to diminish the chance
of his recovering the right track. Brown then himself got out and
looked round, not, it may be well imagined, from any better hope
than that of seeing some house at which he might make inquiry. But
none appeared--he could therefore only tell the lad to drive
steadily on. The road on which they were, ran through plantations
of considerable extent and depth, and the traveller therefore
conjectured that there must be a gentleman's house at no great
distance. At length, after struggling wearily on for about a mile,
the post-boy stopped, and protested his horses would not budge a
foot farther "but he saw," he said, "a light among the trees, which
must proceed from a house; the only way was to inquire the road
there." Accordingly, he dismounted, heavily encumbered with a long
greatcoat, and a pair of boots which might have rivalled in
thickness the sevenfold shield of Ajax. As in this guise he was
plodding forth upon his voyage of discovery, Brown's impatience
prevailed, and, jumping out of the carriage, he desired the lad to
stop where he was, by the horses, and he would himself go to the
house--a command which the driver most joyfully obeyed.
Our traveller groped along the side of the enclosure from which the
light glimmered, in order to find some mode of approaching in that
direction, and after proceeding for some space, at length found a
stile in the hedge, and a pathway leading into the plantation,
which in that place was of great extent. This promised to lead to
the light which was the object of his search, and accordingly Brown
proceeded in that direction, but soon totally lost sight, of it
among the trees. The path, which at first seemed broad and well
marked by the opening of the wood through which it winded, was now
less easily distinguishable, although the whiteness of the snow
afforded some reflected light to assist his search. Directing
himself as much as possible through the more open parts of the
wood, he proceeded almost a mile without either recovering a view
of the light, or seeing anything resembling a habitation. Still,
however, he thought it best to persevere in that direction. It
must surely have been a light in the hut of a forester, for it
shone too steadily to be the glimmer of an ignis fatuus. The ground
at length became broken, and declined rapidly, and although Brown
conceived he still moved along what had once at least been a
pathway, it was now very unequal, and the snow concealing those
breaches and inequalities, the traveller had one or two falls in
consequence. He began now to think of turning back, especially as
the falling snow, which his impatience had hitherto prevented his
attending to, was coming on thicker and faster.
Willing, however, to make, a last. effort, he still advanced a
little way, when, to his great delight, he beheld the light
opposite at no great distance, and apparently upon a level with
him. He quickly found that this last appearance was deception, for
the ground continued so rapidly to sink, as made it obvious there
was a deep dell or ravine of some kind, between him and the object
of his search. Taking every precaution to preserve his footing, he
continued to, descend, until he reached the bottom of a very steep
and narrow glen, through which winded a small rivulet, whose course
was then almost choked with snow. He now found himself embarrassed
among the ruins of cottages, whose black gables, rendered more
distinguishable by the contrast with the whitened surface from
which they rose, were still standing; the sidewalls had long since
given way to time, and, piled in shapeless heaps, and covered with
snow offered frequent and embarrassing obstacles to--our
traveller's progress. Still, however, he persevered, crossed the
rivulet, not without some trouble, and at length, by exertions
which became both painful and perilous, ascended its opposite and
very rugged bank, until he came on a level with the building from'
which the gleam proceeded.
It was difficult, especially by so imperfect a light, to discover
the nature of this edifice; but it seemed a square building of
small size, the upper part of which was totally ruinous. It had,
perhaps, been the abode, in former. times, of some lesser
proprietor, or a place of strength and concealment, in case of
need, for one of greater importance. But only the lower vault
remained, the arch of which formed the roof in the present state of
the building. Brown first approached the place from whence the
light proceeded, which was a long narrow slit or loophole, such as
usually are to be found in old castles. Impelled by curiosity to
reconnoitre the interior of this strange place before he entered,
Brown gazed in at this aperture. A scene of greater desolation
could not well be imagined. There was a fire upon the floor, the
smoke of which, after circling through the apartment, escaped by a
hole broken in the arch above. The walls, seen by this smoky
light, had the rude and waste appearance of a ruin of three
centuries old at least. A cask or two, with some broken boxes and
packages, lay about the place in confusion. But the inmates
chiefly occupied Brown's attention. Upon a lair composed of straw
with a blanket stretched over it, lay a figure, so stilly that,
except that it was not dressed in the ordinary habiliments of the
grave, Brown would have concluded it to be a corpse. On a steadier
view he perceived it was only on the point of becoming so, for he
heard one or two of these low, deep, and hard-drawn sighs, that
precede dissolution when the frame is tenacious of life. A female
figure, dressed in a long cloak, sat on a stone by this miserable
couch; her elbows rested upon her knees, and her face, averted from
the light of an iron lamp beside her, was bent upon that of the
dying person. She moistened his mouth from time to time with some
liquid, and between whiles sung, in a low monotonous cadence, one
of those prayers, or rather spells, which, in some parts of
Scotland and the north of England, are used by the vulgar and
ignorant to speed the passage of a parting spirit, like the
tolling, of the bell in catholic days. She accompanied this dismal
sound with a slow rocking motion of her body to and fro, as if to
keep time with her song. The words ran nearly thus--
Wasted, weary, wherefore stay,
Wrestling thus with earth and clay?
From the body pass away;--
Hark! the mass is singing,
From thee doff thy mortal weed,
Mary Mother be thy speed,
Saints to help thee at thy need;--
Hark! the knell is ringing.
Fear not snow-drift driving fast
Sleet, or hail, or levin blast;
Soon the shroud shall lap thee fast,
And the sleep be on thee cast
That shall ne'er know waking.
Haste thee, haste thee, to be gone,
Earth flits fast, and time draws on,--
Gasp thy gasp, and groan thy groan,
Day is near the breaking.
The songstress paused, and was answered by one or two deep and
hollow groans, that seemed to proceed from the very agony of the
mortal strife. "It will not be," she muttered to herself--"He
cannot pass away with that on his mind--it tethers him here--
"Heaven cannot abide it,
Earth refuses to hide it."
[*See Note V. Gipsy Superstitions.]
I must open the door;" and, rising, she faced towards the door of
the apartment, observing heedfully not to turn back her head, and,
withdrawing a bolt or two (for, notwithstanding the miserable
appearance of the place, the door was cautiously secured), she
lifted the latch, saying,
"Open lock end strife, Come death, and pass life." Brown, who had
by this time moved from his post, stood before her as she opened
the door. She stepped back a pace, and he entered, instantly
recognising, but with no comfortable sensation, the same gipsy
woman whom he had met in Bewcastle. She also knew him at once, and
her attitude, figure, and the anxiety of her countenance assumed
the appearance of the well-disposed ogress of a fairy tale, warning
a stranger not to enter the dangerous castle of her husband. The
first words she spoke (holding up her hands in a reproving manner)
were, "Said I not to ye, Make not, meddle not?--Beware of the
redding straik! [*The redding straik, namely, a blow received by a
peacemaker who interfere betwixt two combatants, to red or separate
them, is proverbially said to be the most dangerous blow a man can
receive.] you are come to no house o' fairstrae [*Natural]
death." So saying, she raised the lamp, and turned its light on the
dying man, whose rude and harsh features were now convulsed with
the last agony. A roll of linen about his head was stained with
blood, which had soaked also through the blankets and the straw. It
was, indeed, under no natural disease that the wretch was
suffering. Brown started back from this horrible object, and,
turning to the gipsy, exclaimed, "Wretched woman, who has done
this?"
"They that were permitted," answered Meg Merrilies, while she
scanned with a close and keen glance the features of the expiring
man.--"He has had a sair struggle--but it's passing--I kenn'd he
would pass when you came in.--That was the death-ruckle--he's
dead."
Sounds were now heard at a distance, as of voices. "They are
coming," said she to Brown; "you are a dead man if ye had as mony
lives as hairs." Brown eagerly looked round for some weapon of
defence. There was none near. He then rushed to the door, with
the intention of plunging among the trees, and making his escape by
flight, from what he now esteemed a den of murderers, but Merrilies
held him with a masculine grasp. "Here," she said, "here be still
and you are safe--stir not, whatever you see or hear, and nothing
shall befall you."
Brown, in these desperate circumstances, remembered this woman's
intimation formerly, and thought he had no chance of safety but in
obeying her. She caused him to couch down among a parcel of straw
on the opposite side of the apartment from the corpse, covered him
carefully, and flung over him two or three old sacks which lay
about the place. Anxious to observe what was to happen, Brown
arranged, as softly as he could, the means of peeping from under
the coverings by which he was hidden, and awaited with a throbbing
heart the issue of this strange and most unpleasant adventure. The
old gipsy, in the meantime, set about arranging the dead body,
composing its limbs, and straightening the arms by its side. "Best
to do this," she muttered, "ere he stiffen." She placed on the dead
man's breast a trencher, with salt sprinkled upon it, set one
candle at the head, and another at the feet of the body, and
lighted both. Then she resumed her song, and awaited the approach
of those whose voices had been heard without.
Brown was a soldier, and a brave one; but he was also a man, and at
this moment his fears mastered his courage so completely that the
cold drops burst out from every pore. The idea of being dragged out
of his miserable concealment by wretches, whose trade was that of
midnight murder, without weapons or the slightest means of defence,
except entreaties, which would be only their sport, and cries for
help, which could never reach other ear than their own--his
safety entrusted to the precarious compassion of a being associated
with these felons, and whose trade of rapine and imposture must
have hardened her against every human feeling--the bitterness of
his emotions almost choked him. He endeavoured to read in her
withered and dark countenance, as the lamp threw its light upon her
features, something that promised those feelings of compassion,
which, females, even in their most degraded state, can seldom
altogether smother. There was no such touch of humanity about this
woman. The interest, whatever it was, that determined her in his
favour, arose not from the impulse of compassion, but from some
internal, and probably capricious, association of feelings, to
which he had no clew. It rested, perhaps, on a fancied likeness,
such as Lady Macbeth found to her father in the sleeping monarch.
Such were the reflections that passed in rapid succession through
Brown's mind, as he gazed from his hiding-place upon this
extraordinary personage. Meantime the gang did not yet approach,
and he was almost prompted to resume his original intention of
attempting an escape from the hut, and cursed internally his own
irresolution, which had consented to his being cooped up where he
had neither room for resistance nor flight.
Meg Merrilies seemed equally on the watch. She bent her ear to
every sound that whistled round the old walls. Then she turned
again to the dead body, and found something new to arrange or alter
in its position. "He's a bonny corpse, she muttered to herself,
"and weel worth the streaking."--And in this dismal occupation she
appeared to feel a sort of professional pleasure, entering slowly
into all the minutiae, as if with the skill and feelings of a
connoisseur. A long dark-coloured sea-cloak,--Which she dragged
out of a corner, was disposed for a pall. The face she left bare,
after closing the mouth and eyes, and arranged the capes of the
cloak so as to hide the bloody bandages, and give the body, as she
muttered, a mair decent appearance."
At once three or four men, equally ruffians in appearance and dress
rushed into the hut. "Meg, ye limb of Satan, how dare you leave
the door open?" was the first salutation of the party.
"And wha ever heard of a door being barred when a man was in the
dead-thraw?--how d'ye think the spirit was to get awa through bolts
and bars like thae?
"Is he dead, then?" said one who went to the side of the couch to
look at the body.
"Ay, ay--dead enough," said another--"but here's what shall give
him a rousing lykewake." So saying, he fetched a keg of spirits
from a corner, while Meg hastened to display pipes and tobacco.
From the activity with which she undertook the task, Brown
conceived good hope of her fidelity towards her guest. It was
obvious that she wished to engage the ruffians in their debauch, to
prevent the discovery which might take place if, by accident, any
of their should approach too nearly the place of Brown's
concealment.