him--nor again enter our presence until ye again bring him bound before
us at Holyrood."
They therefore again proceeded in quest of the unfortunate fugitive; and
the monarch having conducted his royal bride to the pavilion, cast off
his jacket of black velvet, and arrayed himself in one of cloth of gold,
with edgings of purple and of sable fur. His favourite steed,
caparisoned to carry two, and with its panoply embroidered with jewels,
was brought before his pavilion. The monarch approached the door,
leading his queen in his hand. He lightly vaulted into the saddle--he
again took the hand of his bride, and placed her behind him; and in this
manner, a hundred peers and nobles following in his train, the King of
Scotland conducted his young queen through the land, and to the palace
of his fathers. The people shouted as the royal cavalcade departed, and
Scotch and English voices joined in the cry of--"Long live Scotland's
king and queen." Yet there were some who were silent, and who thought
that poor Andrew the fisherman, the champion of the day, had been
cruelly treated, though they knew not his offence. Those who knew him,
said--
"It bangs a'! we're sure Andrew never saw the king in his life before.
He never was ten miles out o' Eyemouth in his days. We ha'e kenned him
since a callant, and never heard a word laid against his character. The
king must hae taken him for somebody else--and he was foolish to run for
it."
But, while the multitude shouted, and joined in the festivities of the
day, there was one that hurried through the midst of them, wringing her
hands, and weeping as she went--even poor Janet. At the moment when she
was roused from the stupefaction of feeling produced by the horrors of
the conflict, and when her arms were outstretched to welcome her hero,
as he was flying to them in triumph, she had seen him led before his
prince, to receive his praise and his royal gifts; but, instead of
these, she heard him denounced as a _traitor_, as the king's words were
echoed round. She beheld him fly for safety, and armed men pursuing him.
She was bewildered--wildly bewildered. But every motion gave place to
anguish; and she returned to her mother's house alone, and sank upon her
bed, and wept.
She could scarce relate to her parent the cause of her grief; but
others, who had been witnesses of the regal festival, called at Widow
Hewitt's for refreshment, as they returned home, and from them she
gathered that her intended son-in-law had been the champion of the day;
but that, when he had been led forward to receive the purse from the
hands of the king, the monarch, instead of bestowing it, denounced him
as a traitor; "and when he fled," added they, "his majesty ordered him
to be brought to him dead or alive!"--for, in the days of our fathers,
men used the _license_ that is exemplified in the fable of the Black
Crows, quite as much as it is used now. The king certainly had commanded
that Andrew should be brought to him; but he had said nothing of his
being brought _dead_.
Nancy lifted her hands in astonishment as high as her ceiling (and it
was not a high one, and was formed of rushes)--"Preserve us, sirs!" said
she, "ye perfectly astonish me athegither! Poor chield! I'm sure Andrew
wadna harm a dog! A _traitor!_ say ye, the king ca'ed him? That's
something very bad, isn't it? An' surely--na, na, Andrew couldna be
guilty o't--the king maun be a strange sort o' man."
But, about midnight, a gentle knocking was heard at the window, and a
well-known voice said, in an undertone--
"Janet! Janet! it is me!"
"It is _him_ mother! it is Andrew! they haena gotten him yet!" And she
ran to the door and admitted him; and, when he had entered, she
continued, "O Andrew! what, in the name o' wonder, is the meaning o' the
king's being in a passion at ye? What did ye say or do to him?--or what
can be the meaning o't?"
"It is really very singular, Andrew," interrupted the old woman; "what
_hae_ ye done?--what _is really the meaning o't_?"
"Meaning!" said Andrew, "ye may weel ask that! I maun get awa' into
England this very night, or my life's no worth a straw; and it's ten
chances to ane that it may be safe there. Wha is the king, think
ye?--now, just think wha?"
"Wha _is_ the king!" said Nancy, with a look, and in a tone of
astonishment--"I dinna comprehend ye, Andrew--what do ye mean? Wha can
the king be, but just the king."
"Oh!" said Andrew, "ye mind the chield that cam here wi' me the other
night, that left the gowd noble for the three haddies that him and I had
atween us, and that I gied a clout in the haffets to, and brought the
blood ower his lips, for his behaviour to Jenny!--_yon was the king!_"
"Yon the king!" cried Janet.
"Yon the king?" exclaimed her mother; "and hae I really had the king o'
Scotland in my house, sitting at my fireside, and cooked a supper for
him! Weel, I think, yon the king! Aha! he's a bonny man!"
"O mother!" exclaimed Janet; "bonny here, bonny there, dinna talk
sae--he is threatening the life o' poor Andrew, who has got into trouble
and sorrow on my account. Oh, dear me! what shall I do,
Andrew!--Andrew!" she continued, and wrung her hands.
"There's just ae thing, hinny," said he; "I must endeavour to get to the
other side o' the Tweed, before folk are astir in the morning; so I maun
leave ye directly, but I just ventured to come and bid ye fareweel. And
there's just ae thing that I hae to say and to request, and that is,
that, if I darena come back to Scotland to marry ye, that ye will come
owre to England to me, as soon as I can get into some way o' providing
for ye. Will ye promise, Jenny?"
"Oh yes! yes, Andrew!" she cried, "I'll come to ye--for it is entirely
on my account that ye've to flee. But I'll do mair than that; for this
very week I will go to Edinburgh, and I will watch in the way o' the
king and the queen, and on my knees I'll implore him to pardon ye; and
if he refuses, I ken what I ken."
"Na, na, Jenny dear," said he, "dinna think o' that--I wad rather suffer
banishment, and live in jeopardy for ever, than that ye should place
yoursel in his power or in his presence. But what do ye ken, dear?"
"Ken!" replied she; "if he refuses to pardon ye, I'll threaten to tell
the queen what he said to me, and what offers he made to me when ye was
running out after the powny."
Andrew was about to answer her, when he started at a heavy sound of
footsteps approaching the cottage.
"They are in search o' me!" he exclaimed.
Instantly a dozen of armed men entered the cottage.
"We have found him," cried they to their companions without; "the
traitor is here."
Andrew, finding that resistance would be hopeless, gave up the sword
which he still carried, and suffered them to bind his arms. Jenny clung
round his neck and wept. Her mother sat speechless with terror.
"Fareweel, Jenny, dear!" said Andrew--"fareweel!--Dinna distress yoursel
sae--things mayna turn out sae ill as we apprehend. I can hardly think
that the king will be sae cruel and sae unjust as to tak my life. Is
that no your opinion, sirs?" added he, addressing the armed men.
"We are not to be your judges," said he who appeared to be their leader;
"ye are our prisoner, by his Majesty's command, and that is a' we ken
about the matter. But ye are denounced as a traitor, and the king spares
nane such."
Poor Janet shrieked as she heard the hopeless and cruel words, and again
cried--
"But the queen shall ken a'!"
Jenny's arms were rudely torn from around his neck, and he was dragged
from the house; and his arms, as I have stated, being bound, he was
placed behind a horseman, and his body was fastened to that of the
trooper. In this manner he was conducted to Edinburgh, where he was cast
into prison to await his doom.
Within two days, Janet and her mother were seized also, at the very
moment when the former was preparing to set out to implore his
pardon--and accused of harbouring and concealing in their house one whom
the king had denounced as guilty of treason.
Janet submitted to her fate without a murmur, and only said--"Weel, if
Andrew be to suffer upon my account, I am willing to do the same for
his. But surely neither you nor the king can be sae cruel as to harm my
poor auld mother!"
"Oh, dear! dear!" cried the old woman to those who came to apprehend
her--"Was there ever the like o' this seen or heard tell o'! Before I
kenned wha the king was, I took him to be a kind lad and a canny lad,
and he canna say but I showed him every attention, and even prevented
Andrew from striking him again; and what gratification can it be to him
to tak awa the life o' a lone widow, and a bit helpless lassie?"
But, notwithstanding her remonstrances, Nancy Hewitt and her beautiful
daughter were conducted as prisoners to the metropolis.
On the fourth day of his confinement, Andrew was summoned before King
James and his nobles, to receive his sentence and undergo its
punishment. The monarch, in the midst of his lords, sat in a large
apartment in the castle; armed men, with naked swords in their hands,
stood around, and the frown gathered on his face as the prisoner was led
into his presence.
Andrew bowed before the monarch, then raised his head and looked around,
with an expression on his countenance which showed that, although he
expected death, he feared it not.
"How now, ye traitor knave!" said the king, sternly; "do ye deny that ye
raised your hand against our royal person?"
"No!" was the brief and bold reply of the dauntless fisherman.
"Ye have heard, kinsmen," continued the monarch, "his confession of his
guiltiness from his own lips--what punishment do ye award him?"
"Death! the traitor's doom!" replied the nobles.
"Nay, troth," said James, "we shall be less just than merciful; and
because of his brave bearing at Lamberton, his life shall be
spared--but, certes, the hand that was raised against our person shall
be struck off.--Prepare the block!"
Now, the block was brought into the midst of the floor, and Andrew was
made to kneel, and his arm was bared and placed upon it--and the
executioner stood by with his drawn sword, waiting the signal from the
king to strike off the hand, when the fair young queen, with her
attendants, entered the apartment. The king rose to meet her, saying--
"What would my fair queen?"
"A boon! a boon! my liege," playfully replied the blooming princess;
"that ye strike not off the hand of this audacious man, but that ye
chain it for his life."
"Be it so, my fair one," said the king; and, taking the sword of the
executioner in his hand, he touched the kneeling culprit on the shoulder
with it, saying--"Rise up SIR ANDREW GUT-THRIE, and thus do we chain
your offending hand!"--the young queen at the same moment raised a veil
with which she had concealed the features of bonny Janet, and the king
taking her hand, placed it in Andrew's.
"My conscience!" exclaimed Andrew, "am I in existence!--do I dream, or
what?--O Jenny, woman!--O your Majesty!--what shall I say?"
"Nothing," replied the monarch, "but the king cam' in the cadger's
way--and Sir Andrew Gut-thrie and his bonny bride shall be provided
for."
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Bamborough.
THE ROYAL RAID.
Among the promoters of the wars and disturbances which so long
ravaged the Border counties, authors have been anxious to class
prominently the tender sex; not, however, in the way in which it was
imputed to these fair assuagers of man's misfortunes, that they shed the
blood of knights, in the times of Froissart. A whole book has been
penned--and another might follow it--on the wars and dissensions
produced by beautiful women; and, without mounting upwards to Eve, it
has been thought very well to begin with the maiden of Troy, who
produced the most spirited piece of knight-errantry that ever was acted
on the stage of the world. But, in almost every case on record, it was
the beauty of the fair disturbers, that, inflaming the spirit of
rivalship, set men a-fighting with so much zeal; and true it seems to
be, that, when beauty went into disrepute, and gunpowder came into
fashion--both much about the same time--we have never had what may be
called a _bona fide_ heroic battle. But the part which the Border fair
ones had in the bloody scenes of that distracted section of the country,
is represented to have been very different. The housewife, in those
times, served up to her hungry lord, under an imposing dish, a pair of
spurs; and this is represented as having been the gentle mode by which
the dame intimated that it was necessary for her lord to supply the
larder. The Flower of Yarrow herself did not disdain to stimulate, in
this way, the foraying spirit of old Harden. But we have good authority
that there were beautiful exceptions from this barbarous practice; and,
among these, we may safely place the unfortunate lady of Cockburn of
Henderland, the fair subject of the pathetic ballad of "The Border
Widow"--a strain which, so long as poetry shall hold any influence over
the heart of man, will continue to draw "soft pity's tear." If every
Border chieftain's wife had been like this lady, we would have heard and
read less of raids and robberies: the dish of spurs, that sent their
lords to the foray, would have been exchanged for the soft embracing
arms of affection, applied to keep them at home; and the blessings of
domestic peace would have harmonized with and softened the spirits which
a love of riot and rapine inflamed into excesses so often ending in
death. We have wept over her grave; and who that has seen the old stone
in Henderland churchyard--now broken in three pieces, but bearing still
that epitaph which Longinus would have pronounced sublime, "Here lies
Parys of Cockburn, and his wife Marjory"--and looked on the old ruins of
their castle, now scarcely sufficient for a resting place for the grey
owl--could resist the rising emotion, or quell the heaving breast of
pity? There lie Parys of Cockburn, and his wife Marjory! How little does
that simple chronicle tell! and yet how much. The eloquence of that
pregnant negative of ultra-simplicity, is felt by those who know their
fate; but how many have trod on the three parts of the broken tombstone,
deciphered the divided syllables, and walked on, and never inquired who
was Parys of Cockburn, or Marjory his wife! Their bones have long
mouldered into the dust that now feeds a few wild alpine plants; their
tombstone is a broken ruin, and will soon pass away; their castle, at a
few paces' distance, is also a ruin of a few black weathered stones; and
the land they were proud to call their own, dignifies another name. The
sculptor has failed, but the poet has succeeded; and time may flap his
dark pinion in vain over the deserted churchyard of Henderland.
The Cockburns of Henderland were an old family of Selkirkshire. Long before
the estate passed into the hands of strangers, we find the name and
title holding a respectable place among the lists of chieftains that
held a divided rule on the Borders. Those who have gratified themselves,
as we have done, by a view of St. Mary's Loch, and the classic streams
of the Ettrick and Yarrow, cannot fail to have seen the old property of
Henderland, situated on the Megget, a small stream that runs into the
loch. That was once the seat of the Cockburns; but there is a sad change
there now. In the time of Lesly the historian, the whole of the country
round Henderland, and the property itself, were covered with wood, that
afforded shelter to the largest stags in Scotland; and now, there is
scarcely a single tree that rears its head for miles around. Not distant
from the mansion-house of the present proprietor, the ruins of the old
castellated residence of the Cockburns may be seen; and, in the deserted
burying-ground that surrounded the chapel, there is the broken
tombstone, recording the deaths of the last members of the family, in
the simple terms we have already mentioned. These are the appearances
presented now; but, in the beginning of the sixteenth century,
Henderland was a close retreat, surrounded by wood and water. The family
castle stood in the midst of a dense wood of firs, mixed, in those parts
where the soil supported the king of the forest, with large oaks. The
Megget, rolling along its brattling stream, to St. Mary's, was, when in
its calm moods, made available for the ends of picturesque beauty; and,
when swollen by the mountain rills, served as a defence to the grounds
and residence. In building their strengths, all the Border chiefs had
particular reference to the natural advantages of the situation: the
middle of a morass, the edge of a precipice rising from a mountain
torrent, or a small island in the midst of a lake or river, were held to
be favoured localities; and Selkirkshire, in curious accordance with the
habits of the people, had and has no want of these natural strongholds.
Henderland had, perhaps, less to boast of, in point of natural strength,
than Tushielaw, Mangerton, and some other of the Border residences; but,
in the beauty of its wooded scenery, and the picturesque effect of
sleeping lochs and roaring torrents, it might not be excelled in all the
Borders.
In the minority of James V., Henderland Tower was occupied by Parys
(supposed to be a corrupted orthography of Paris) Cockburn. He was then
comparatively a young man, and inherited, with the property of a Border
chief, all the usual characteristics of that class of lairds--a natural,
inborn valour being looked upon as the principal of all the qualities of
the heart; and yet, unfortunately, applied, by a habit that had assumed
the strength of an instinct, to the strife of contending families, the
enterprises of pillage, and the contentions of a circumscribed ambition.
There was no peculiarity of the Borderers more remarkable than the union
of a high valour that would have immortalized many a knight within the
palisades, and the habit of overturning the rights of property--descending
even to the grade of petty larceny. Now-a-days, theft and cowardice are
generally supposed to be nearly allied; but, in those days, the chief of
a large clan, inhabiting a stately castle, and famous for a noble
courage throughout the land, could pause, in the progress homewards,
with half-a-dozen of his neighbour's kine; look, with a furacious eye,
on a bundle of hay, and regret, in his heart, that it had not four legs
like a cow, by which he could make it steal itself home to his
semi-baronial residence.[3] These apparently inconsistent and opposite
qualities were possessed by the laird of Henderland. There was not in
all Liddesdale a nobler champion of the rights of war; and few there
were that entered more keenly into the spirit of enterprise, to take
from his neighbour a fat steer, and then fight, as nobly as ever did
King Robert for a lost kingdom, in defence of his horned prey. The
riever in Cockburn was, however, a character of mere habit; for he
possessed qualities of heart and mind which raised him far above the
Border chiefs with whom he was usually ranked. He could fight to the
effusion of blood that came from within an inch of the coronary veins of
his heart, for the property of a cow, that, next day, he would divide
among the poor; and he was often heard to say, that, if Henderland had
been among "the Lowdens," he would have been a gay courtier, a supporter
of the throne, and a friend of the poor, if not the king's almoner
himself. In addition to these qualities, he carried a noble figure, and
an open, intelligent countenance, that expressed the feelings of a heart
as susceptible of the social affections as it was of the emotions that
produced his lawless enterprises.
The interior of Henderland Castle, at this time, was graced by the
presence of one of the fairest of women, and the most dutiful and
affectionate of wives. The lot of Marjory Scott, the wife of Cockburn,
was, indeed, in all respects, save in the possession of a husband she
loved devotedly, unfortunately cast; because, in person, mind, and
heart, she was formed for gracing the polished drawing-room of refined
and civilized life, and imparting to the nursery the charm of a soft,
kind, and doting mother, whose love of strict moral discipline was only
one phase of her maternal affection. Become the wife of a Border chief
from the force of an irresistible early passion, she was as much the
domesticated lover of in-door enjoyments, the cultivator of the social
affections, and the admirer of love and tranquillity, as if she had
occupied a retreat in Arcadia. She had brought her husband three
children, all as fair as herself, one girl and two boys, whom she, in
playful kindness, declared she would rear in the fear of God, the love
of man, and the hearty hatred of Border rieving in all its gradations,
from the laird's enforcing of blackmail, to the prowess of the laird's
Jock, whose depredations extended to the minutiae of Laverna's
sacrifices:--
"Baith hen and cock,
And reel and rock,
The laird's Jock
All with him takes."
She had early entertained the expectation that she would cure her
husband of his Border practices; and, though she had not as yet
succeeded in that hope, she had placed before him such a picture of
domestic bliss, in the working influences of all the finer and higher
sentiments, seen and heard in the acts and speech of every member of his
little family, that he became daily more reconciled to her views of the
happiness of life, at the same time that he could not resist the
heart-stirring stimulus of a raid, to give him, as he said with a smile,
a higher relish for his domestic enjoyments.
A fine family picture, preserved as a legend of the house of Henderland,
represents Cockburn and Marjory sitting beneath an immense elm, the only
tree of that kind near the castle, and rendered curious on another
account, with their three children beside them, engaged in swinging from
its branches, and other gambols of innocent childhood. The anxious wife
had, for a time, succeeded in her endeavours to keep her husband at
home; but, latterly, some indications, on the part of the chief's
retainers, having been caught by her vigilant eye, she dreaded another
outbreak of that daring spirit which she had not yet been able
effectually to quell.
"It will not conceal, Parys," said she, "that there are yet in this
bosom, where your Marjory's head has sought the refuge of love,
frightened by war, some embers of your old spirit ready to flame again.
Is it not so? Love hath sharp eyes. It is not for stag hunting that your
followers are stringing their bows. The love of your old pastime, like
that of an old concealed passion, will act in such a manner as defieth
all the art of concealment. I noticed, last night, as you spoke to
Scott's John, who was booming his bow to show the power of the cord,
that the sound went to your heart. Tushielaw oweth you a debt of
vengeance. Is it not so? Come, now, confess that it is not for nothing
that the old sword points have been risped on the sharping-stone on the
ballium?"
"Tush, Marjory!" replied Cockburn, "you alarm the ear of the watchful
Helen, who suspendeth her play to listen to her mother's fears. Such is
thy training, that our young Hector will lose Henderland before the sods
have grown together over his father's grave, in that small burying
ground around our chapel. And you have unmanned me too, Maudge. You have
much to answer for to the manes of the old Cockburns, who lie sleeping
in their quiet beds there, after a jolly life of sturdy stouthrieving
from Yarrow to the Esk. What would the laird of Gilnockie say if he
heard that Cockburn's bairns were taught to read--ay, and to play on
harpsichords, and teylins, and dulcimers. By my faith, Maudge, but he
would laugh a good laugh."
"And yet," answered she, "I have seen the clear drop shining in her
father's eye as Helen touched the strings to the soft melodies of Auld
Scotland. Come, now, Parys, was not that sweet dream dearer to ye than
the fever of the strife of Border foray?"