STORIES OF THE BORDER MARCHES
[Illustration]
BY JOHN LANG
AND JEAN LANG
LONDON: T.C. & E.C. JACK LTD.
67 LONG ACRE, W.C., AND EDINBURGH
1916
PREFACE
The quotation that speaks of "Old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles
long ago," has grown now to be hackneyed. Yet, are not they those "old,
unhappy, far-off things" that lure us back from a very commonplace and
utilitarian present, and cause us to cling to the romance of stories
that are well-nigh forgotten?
In these days of rushing railway journeys, of motor cars, telegrams,
telephones, and aeroplanes, we are apt to lose sight of the tales of
more leisurely times, when lumbering stage-coaches and relays of willing
horses were our only means of transit from one kingdom to the other.
Because the "long ago" means to us so infinitely valuable a possession,
we have striven to preserve in print a few of the stories that still
remain--flotsam and jetsam saved from the cruel rush of an overwhelming
tide.
One or two of the tales in this volume are perhaps not quite so familiar
as is the average Border story, and some may contain less of violence
and of bloodshed than is common. Yet it must be owned that it is no easy
task to divorce the Border from its wedded mate, violence.
JOHN LANG.
JEAN LANG.
CONTENTS
THE WHITE LADY OF BLENKINSOPP 1
DICKY OF KINGSWOOD 17
STORM AND TEMPEST 28
GRISELL HOME, A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY HEROINE 45
KINMONT WILLIE 66
IN THE DAYS OF THE '15 82
SEWINGSHIELDS CASTLE, AND THE SUNKEN TREASURE OF
BROOMLEE LOUGH 108
THE KIDNAPPING OF LORD DURIE 115
THE WRAITH OF PATRICK KERR 132
THE LAIDLEY WORM OF SPINDLESTON-HEUGH 136
A BORDERER IN AMERICA 147
BORDER SNOWSTORMS 164
THE MURDER OF COLONEL STEWART OF HARTRIGGE 187
AULD RINGAN OLIVER 195
A LEGEND OF NORHAM 208
THE GHOST OF PERCIVAL REED 223
DANDY JIM THE PACKMAN 231
THE VAMPIRES OF BERWICK AND MELROSE 237
A BORDER MIDDY 244
SHEEP-STEALING IN TWEEDDALE 256
A PRIVATE OF THE KING'S OWN SCOTTISH BORDERERS 271
HIGHWAYMEN IN THE BORDER 282
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE 295
ILLICIT DISTILLING AND SMUGGLING 304
SALMON AND SALMON-POACHERS IN THE BORDER 322
THE GHOST THAT DANCED AT JETHART 342
A MAN HUNT IN 1813 346
LADY STAIR'S DAUGHTER 351
STORIES OF THE BORDER MARCHES
THE WHITE LADY OF BLENKINSOPP
Among the old castles and peel towers of the Border, there are few to
which some tale or other of the supernatural does not attach itself. It
may be a legend of buried treasure, watched over by a weeping figure,
that wrings its hands; folk may tell of the apparition of an ancient
dame, whose corpse-like features yet show traces of passions unspent; of
solemn, hooded monk, with face concealed by his cowl, who passes down
the castle's winding stair, telling his beads; they whisper, it may be,
of a lady in white raiment, whose silken gown rustles as she walks. Or
the tale, perhaps, is one of pitiful moans that on the still night air
echo through some old building; or of the clank of chains, that comes
ringing from the damp and noisome dungeons, causing the flesh of the
listener to creep.
They are all to be found, or at least they _used_ all to be found,
somewhere or other in the Border, by those who love such legends. And,
perhaps, nowhere are they more common than amongst the crumbling,
grass-grown ruins of Northumberland.
Away, far up the South Tyne, and up its tributary the Tipalt Burn, close
to the boundary of Cumberland, there stands all that is left of an
ancient castle, centuries ago the home of an old and once powerful
family. The building dates probably from early in the fourteenth
century. In the year 1339 "Thomas de Blencansopp" received licence to
fortify his house on the Scottish Border, and it is supposed that he
then built this castle.
Truly that was a part of England where a man had need be careful in his
building if he desired to sleep securely and with a whole skin, for on
all sides of him were wild and turbulent neighbours. From the strenuous
day of the old Romans, who built across those hills that long line of
wall, which stands yet in parts solid and strong, for centuries the
countryside was lawless and unruly, the inhabitants "ill to tame," and
every man a freebooter. The Thirlwalls, the Ridleys, the Howards of
Naworth, the wild men of Bewcastle; the Armstrongs, Elliots, Scotts, and
others across the Border, they were all of them--they and their
forebears to the earliest times--of the stuff that prefers action,
however stormy, to inglorious peace and quiet, and the man who "kept up
his end" in their neighbourhood could be no weakling.
Whether the Blenkinsopps were strong enough permanently to hold their
property intact among such neighbours one does not know, but at any
rate, in 1488 John de Blenkinsopp and his son Gerrard committed the
castle to the custody of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, Warden of
the East and Middle Marches. Percy's care of the building, however, does
not seem to have been particularly zealous, or else "the false Scottes"
had again, as was their wont, proved themselves to be unpleasant
neighbours, for in 1542 the place is described as "decayed in the Roof,
and not in good reparation."
Before this date, however, there had been at least one of the
Blenkinsopp family on whose reputation for daring and strength no man
might cast doubt. Far and wide, Bryan de Blenkinsopp was known for his
deeds in war; he was counted gallant and brave even amongst the bravest
and most gallant, and his place in battle was ever where blows fell
thickest. But it is said that he had one failing, which eventually
wrecked his life--he was grasping as any Shylock. Love of money was his
undoing.
In spite of many chances to do so, in spite of the admiration in which
he was universally held, Bryan de Blenkinsopp had never married. He was
greatly admired, and yet, for a certain roughness and brutality in him,
greatly feared, by many women, and he had been heard many a time
scoffingly to say that only would he bring home a wife when he had found
a woman possessed of gold sufficient to fill a chest so large that ten
of his men might not be able to carry it into his castle. Brides of this
calibre did not then grow in profusion on either side of the Border, and
had he continued to live uninterruptedly in his own country, no doubt
Bryan de Blenkinsopp might have remained to the end unmarried. But:
"When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till
I was married." In that, Bryan might have anticipated _Benedick_, as
well as in the resolution. "Rich she shall be, that's certain." He went
abroad to the wars. Perhaps he was with Henry V at Agincourt, and
thenceforward, till the king's death in 1422, saw more of France than of
England. In any case, to the unbounded wonder of the countryside, when
at length he did return, Bryan brought back with him a foreign bride to
Blenkinsopp. And what added to the wonder, the bride brought with her a
chest of treasure so heavy that twelve of Bryan's retainers could with
difficulty bear it into the castle.
Naturally, all this gave rise to endless talk; what prattling little
busybody but would relish so succulent a morsel! Ere long the local
gossip-mongers revelled in a perfect feast of petty scandal. Stories in
minute detail spread quickly from mouth to mouth. The eccentricities and
shortcomings of the foreign bride were a priceless boon to the scanty
population of the district; in castle and in peel tower little else for
a time was talked of. To begin with, the mere fact that she was a
foreigner, and that neither she nor any of her immediate followers could
speak English, told heavily against the lady in the estimation of the
countryside. Then, hardly anyone ever saw her (which in itself was an
offence, and the cause of still further tattle). She was very little,
folk said who professed to be well informed, and her face and hands
showed strangely brown against the white robes that she habitually wore;
her eyes were like stars; her temper quick to blaze up without due
cause. Backstairs gossip, no doubt; but there were even pious souls who,
in strictest confidence, went so far as to hazard the opinion that the
lady was not quite "canny"; she might, they thought, quite possibly turn
out to be an imp of the Evil One sent with her gold to wile Bryan's soul
to perdition. The belief was not more fantastic than many another that
prevailed at that day, and later; and the fact that she was never known
to go to mass, nor had been seen to cross the threshold of a sacred
building, lent some weight to it. This was the kind of "clash" that
floated about the countryside.
But assuredly there was this much foundation for talk: Bryan and his
foreign bride were far from happy together. As time went on, their
quarrels, indeed, became notorious. It was whispered that the fount from
which flowed all the trouble was nothing more nor less than that chest
of gold which the bride had brought for dowry. The lady, folk said,
would not surrender it to her husband; no matter how he stormed. _She_
was not of the kind that tamely submits, or cringes before a bully; on
the contrary, she ever gave back as good as she received. Finally,
things came at length to such a pitch, that the lady and her foreign
servants, it was said, at dead of night had secretly dug a great hole
somewhere in the huge vaulted dungeons of the castle, and had there
buried her gold and the rich jewels which now she hated as the cause of
her troubles.
Then, a little later, followed the climax--after violent scenes, Bryan
himself disappeared, as if to show that, the treasure being somewhere
beyond his ken, or out of his reach, he had no further use for the wife.
He might, no doubt, have resorted to poison, or to the knife, in order
to revenge himself; or he might have so made life a burden to her--as is
done sometimes, one is told, even by modern husbands--that she would
have been glad to lick his hand like a whipped spaniel, and to have
owned up, perhaps, to the place where she had hid the gold. But if he
killed her, her secret might die with her, or the servants who were in
her confidence might themselves secure the treasure. Again, she had
plenty of spirit, and, indeed, rather seemed to enjoy a fight, and it
was possible that bullying might not cause her to try to conciliate him
by revealing the whereabouts of the hidden treasure. So Bryan took the
course that he judged would make things the most unpleasant for his
wife, and which would at the same time rid him of her. He simply
disappeared.
And now the poor little lady, fierce enough in quarrel, and bitter
enough in tongue, was inconsolable. In spite of all--it is one of the
most inscrutable of the many inscrutable points in the nature of some
women--in spite of all, she had loved her great, strong, brutal,
bullying husband, and probably was only jealous of the gold because he
had showed too plainly that in his estimation it, and not she, came
first. Her days, unhappy enough before, were now spent in fruitless
misery, waiting for him who returned never again. A year and a day
passed, and still no tidings came to her of Bryan de Blenkinsopp. The
deserted wife could bear no longer her life in this alien country, and
she, too, with all her servants, went away. Folk, especially those who
had always in their hearts suspected her of being an imp of Satan, said
that no man saw them go. Probably she went in search of her husband; but
whether or not she ever found him, or whether she made her way back to
the land from which she had come, none can say, for from that day to
this all trace is lost of husband and of wife. Only the tale remained in
the country people's minds; and probably it lost nothing in the telling
as the years rolled on.
The story of the White Lady of Blenkinsopp became one to which the
dwellers by Tyneside loved to listen of a winter's evening round the
fire, and it even began to be whispered that she "walked." More than one
dweller in the castle claimed to have seen her white-robed figure
wandering forlorn through the rooms in which she had spent her short,
unhappy wedded life. Perhaps it may have been due to her influence that
by 1542 the roof and interior had been neglected and allowed to fall
into decay.
Yet though shorn of all its former grandeur, for some centuries the
castle continued to be partly occupied, and as late as the first quarter
of last century, in spite of the dread in which the White Lady had come
to be held, there were families occasionally living in the less ruined
parts of the building.
About the year 1820 two of the more habitable rooms were occupied by a
labouring man with his wife and their two children, the youngest a boy
of eight. They had gone there, the parents at least well knowing the
reputation of the place; but weeks had passed, their rest had never in
any way been disturbed, and they had ceased to think of what they now
considered to be merely a silly old story. All too soon, however, there
came a night when shriek upon shriek of ghastly terror rang in the ears
of the sleeping husband and wife, and brought them, with sick dread in
their hearts, hurrying to the room where their children lay.
"Mither! mither! oh mither! A lady! a lady!" gasped the sobbing
youngest boy, clinging convulsively to his mother.
"What is't, my bairn? There's never a lady here, my bonny boy. There's
nobody will harm ye."
But the terrified child would not be comforted. He had seen a lady, "a
braw lady, a' in white," who had come to his bedside and, sitting down,
had bent and kissed him; she "cried sore," the child said, and wrung her
hands, and told him that if he would but come with her she would make
him a rich man, she would show him where gold was buried in the castle;
and when the boy answered that he dare not go with her, she had stooped
to lift and carry him. Then he had cried out, and she had slipped from
the room just as his father and mother hurried in.
"Ye were dreamin', my bonny lamb," cried the mother; and the parents,
after a time, succeeded in calming the child and in getting him again to
fall asleep. Night after night, however, as long as the boy remained in
that room, this scene was re-enacted; the same terror-stricken screams,
the same hurried rush of the parents, the same frightened tale from the
quivering lips of the child. Dreams, no doubt, induced by some childish
malady; a common enough form of nightmare, suggested by previous
knowledge of a story likely to impress children. But to the day of his
death--and he died an old man, a successful colonist, prosperous and
respected, a man in no way prone to superstitious weakness--the dreamer
ever maintained that it was something more than a dream that had come to
him those nights in Blenkinsopp Castle. He could feel yet, he said, and
shuddered to feel, the clasp of her arms and the kiss on his cheek from
the cold lips of the White Lady; and the dream, if dream it were, was
not due to suggestion, for he was conscious of no previous knowledge of
the legend.
The White Lady of Blenkinsopp has fled now, scared from her haunt by the
black smoke of tall chimneys and the deep--throated blare of steam
hooters; coal dust might well lay a more formidable spectre than that of
a Lady in White. But no man has ever yet discovered the whereabouts of
her hidden treasure, though many have sought.
Seventy or eighty years ago, there came to the inn of a neighbouring
village a lady, who confided to the hostess of the inn that in a dream
she had seen herself find, under a certain stone, deep in the dungeon of
a ruined castle, a chest of gold; and Blenkinsopp, she said, answered in
every detail to the castle of her dream. Assuredly, she thought, to her
now was to be revealed the long-sought burial-place of the White Lady's
treasure. But patiently though the dreamer waited on and importuned the
castle's owner, permission to make a systematic search among the ruins
was too hard to obtain, and the disheartened seer of visions departed,
and returned no more. And so the hidden treasure to this day remains
hidden; no prospector has yet lit on that rich "claim," no "dowser" has
poised his magic hazel twig above its bed, nor has clairvoyant revealed
its whereabouts.
But rumour had it once that the long-sought hiding-place was found.
Orders had been given that the vaults of the castle should be cleared of
rubbish, and fitted up as winter quarters for cattle, and as the workmen
proceeded with their task they came on a low doorway, hitherto unknown,
on a level with the bottom of the keep. This doorway gave on a narrow
passage, leading no man knew whither. The report flew abroad that here
at last was the Lady's vault, and people flocked to see what might be
seen. None dared venture far along this passage, till one, bolder than
the rest, taking his courage in both hands, went gingerly down the way
so long untrod by human foot. The passage was narrow and low, too low
for a man to walk in erect; after a few yards it descended a short
flight of steps, and then again went straight forward to a door so
decayed that only a rusted bolt, and one rust-eaten hinge, held it in
place. Beyond this door, an abrupt turn in the passage, and then a
flight of steps so precipitous that the feeble beam of his lantern could
give the explorer no help in fathoming their depth; and when this
lantern was lowered as far as it was in his power to do so, the flame
burned blue and went out, killed by the noxious gases that stagnant
centuries had breathed. Dizzy and frightened, the explorer with
difficulty groped his way back to the fresher air of the vault, and no
persuasion could induce him, or any of his fellows, to venture again so
far as to that long flight of steps. The employer of those labourers was
a man entirely devoid of curiosity or of imagination, possessed of no
interest whatsoever in archaeology; so it fell out that the passage was
closed, without any further effort being made to discover to what
mysteries it might lead.
About the year 1845, one who then wrote about the castle visited the
place, and found that boys had broken a small hole in the wall where the
passage had been built up. Through this hole they were wont to amuse
themselves by chucking stones, listening, fascinated, to the strange
sounds that went echoing, echoing through the mysterious depths far
below. Here, say some, lies the buried treasure of the White Lady of
Blenkinsopp. But there are not wanting unsympathetic souls, who pride
themselves on being nothing if not practical, who pretend to think that
this hidden depth is nothing more mysterious than the old draw-well of
the castle.
This story of the White Lady is not the only legend of the supernatural
with which the old family of Blenkinsopp is connected.
Where Tipalt Burn falls into Tyne, stand on the opposite bank the ruins
of Bellister Castle. There, many hundred years ago, dwelt a branch of
the Blenkinsopps. To Bellister there came one night at the gloaming a
wandering harper, begging for shelter from the bitter northerly blast
that gripped his rheumatic old joints, and sported with his failing
strength. He was a man past middle age, with hair thin and grey, and a
face worn and lined; his tattered clothes gave scant protection from
inclement weather. As was the custom in those times, the minstrel's
welcome was hearty. Food and drink, and a seat near the fire, were his,
and soon his blood thawed, the bent form of the man seemed to
straighten, and his eye kindled as, later in the evening, "high placed
in hall, a welcome guest," he touched his harp and sang to the company.
You could scarcely now recognise the weary, bent, old scarecrow that but
two hours back had trailed, footsore and tired, across the castle
drawbridge. The change was astonishing, and many jested with the harper
on the subject.
But one there was who noticed, and who did not jest. They were
increasingly uneasy looks that the lord of the castle from time to time
threw towards the minstrel. What, he pondered unquietly, caused this
amazing change in the appearance of one who so lately had seemed to be
almost on the verge of the grave? Was he in truth the frail old man he
had pretended to be, or had he overacted his part, and was he no
minstrel, but an enemy in disguise? The lord's looks grew blacker and
more black, and ever more uneasy as the evening proceeded; and the more
he suspected, the more he drank to drown the disquiet of his mind. At
length his unease became so marked that unavoidably it communicated
itself to the rest of the company. Even the rough men-at-arms desisted
from their boisterous jests, and spoke beneath their breath. The harper
glancing around as the silence grew, and finding the lord's black looks
ever upon him, trailed off at last in his song and sat mute, with
uncertain fingers plucking at the strings of his instrument. The company
broke up, glad to escape from the gloom of their lord's glances, and
somebody showed the old man to a rude chamber, where a bundle of pease
straw was to serve him for bed.
But the lord of Bellister sat on, "glooming" morbidly to himself. Bitter
feud existed between him and a neighbouring baron. Had he not cause to
distrust that baron, and to believe that means neither fair nor
honourable might be employed by his enemy to wipe out the feud? What if
this self-styled harper should turn out to be no minstrel after all, but
a hired assassin, a follower of that base churl, his hated foe! To
suspect was to believe. In his excited, drink-clouded brain wrath sprang
up, fully armed. He would speedily put an end to that treacherous
scheme; his enemies should learn that if one can plot, another may have
cunning to bring to naught such treachery. And little mercy should be
shown to the base tool of a baser employer.
"Bring hither quickly to me that minstrel," he called. "And it will be
the better for some of you that there be no delay," he muttered beneath
his breath, with a threatening blow of his fist on the table.
Of old his servants and dependants had learned the lesson that it was
well not to linger over the carrying out of their passionate lord's
orders. But in this instance, speed was of no avail; they were obliged
to return, to report to a wrathful master that the bird had flown; the
place was empty, the old man gone. Threatening glances and black looks
had scared him; without waiting for rest, he had fled while yet there
was time, less afraid of exposure to a wild and stormy night than to
find himself in the clutches of a petty tyrant.
That the man had fled was to Blenkinsopp quite convincing proof that his
suspicions were justified. Immediate pursuit was ordered. "Lay the
sleuth hounds on his trail without an instant's delay. Let _them_ deal
with him!"
* * * * *
Less than a mile away, by some willows that once marked a ford in the
river, men hurrying after the baying hounds came up too late. Echoing
across the heath, an agonised shriek rang on their ears, drowned by the
snarling as of wild beasts. Lying on its back on the river bank, head
and shoulders in the shallow stream, the man-hunters found but a frail,
mutilated body that had once been the wandering old minstrel.
This was what gave rise to the legend of the Grey Man of Bellister. Ever
since that hideous night, at intervals the "Grey Man" has been wont to
appear to belated travellers along that road. Near the clump of willows
he might first be seen, hurrying, hurrying, his long grey cloak flying
in the wind. And woe to him on whom he chanced to turn and look; his
wild eye and torn face, his blood-clotted beard, would freeze with
horror those who gazed, and disaster or death followed hard on the track
of the vision.
It is a hundred years now, and more, since last the "Grey Man" was seen.
Perhaps his penance for sins committed on earth is ended; or perhaps it
is that against railways, and drainage, and modern scoffings, he and his
like cannot stand. He is gone; but even yet, about the scene where once
as a man the old minstrel fled for dear life, there hangs at the dead
time of night a sense of mystery and awe. As the chilly wind comes
wailing across the everlasting hills, blending its voice with the
melancholy dirge of the river, one may almost believe that through the
gloom there passes swiftly a bent, hurrying figure. Perhaps it is but
the swaying of a branch near by, that so startlingly suggests the waving
in the wind of a threadbare cloak.
DICKY OF KINGSWOOD
Your Border ruffian of the good old days was not often a humorist. Life
to him was a serious business. When he was not reiving other people's
kye, other people were probably reiving his; and as a general rule one
is driven to conclude that he was not unlike that famous Scotch terrier
whose master attributed the dog's persistently staid and even melancholy
disposition to the fact that he "jist couldna get enough o' fechting."
In olden times, "fechting" was the Border man's strong point; but in
later, and perhaps less robust, days there were to be found some who
took a degenerate pride in getting by craft what their fathers would
have taken by force. Of such, in the early days of the eighteenth
century, was Dicky of Kingswood. Had he lived a hundred or a hundred and
fifty years earlier, Dicky would no doubt have been a first-class
reiver, one of the "tail" of some noted Border chieftain, for he lacked
neither pluck nor strength. But in his own day he preferred the
_suaviter in modo_ to the _fortiter in re_; his cunning, indeed, was not
unworthy of the hero of that ancient Norse tale, "The Master Thief," and
in his misdeeds there was not seldom to be found a spice of humour so
disarming that at times his victims were compelled to laugh, and in
laughter to forget their just resentment; and with the perishing of
resentment, to forego their manifest duty and that satisfaction which
virtue should ever feel in the discomfiture of vice. Compounding a
felony, we should call it now. And no doubt it was. But in those days,
when the King's writ ran with but halting foot through the wild Border
hills, perhaps least said was soonest mended.
Kingswood lies just across the river from Staward Peel, but Dicky dwelt
generally at the latter place--in former days an almost unassailable
stronghold, standing on a bold eminence overlooking Allen Water, some
miles to the east of Haltwhistle. Here of old, when beacon-fires blazed
on the hill-tops, "each with warlike tidings fraught," flashing their
warning of coming trouble from "the false Scottes," the people of these
regions were wont to hurry for safety, breathlessly bearing with them
whatsoever valuables they prized and had time to save. Many a treasure
is said to lie here, buried, and never again dug up, because those who
alone knew where to look had perished in defence of the Peel. Truly, if
the troubled spirits of those slain ones yet wander, brooding over
hidden chattels and lost penates, they are not greatly to be pitied, for
a spot more beautiful, one less to be shunned if our spirits _must_
wander, it would be hard to find in all Northumberland or in all
England. Not distant would they be, too, from good company, for away to
the north across the Tyne, in a mighty cavern in the rock--below what
once was the castle of Sewing Shields--does not local tradition tell
that Arthur and his knights lie asleep, waiting the inevitable day when
England's dire need shall bring them again to life, to strike a blow for
the land they loved. And along that noble line of wall which spanned
England from sea to sea, might they not perchance foregather--some dark
and stormy night, when snow drives down before a north-east wind--with
the dim forms of armoured men, wraiths of the Roman legions, patrolling
once more the line that they died to defend?
Dicky of Kingswood was making for home one day in early spring. He was
outside the radius of his usual field of operations, far to the east of
Kingswood and Staward, plodding along with the westering sun in his
eyes, and thinking ruefully that he had come a long way for nothing.
Sometimes it is convenient for gentlemen of Dicky's habits to visit
foreign parts, or parts, at least, where their appearance may not
attract undue notice--for such as he are often of modest and retiring
disposition. On this occasion he had so far done no business of profit,
and Dicky was depressed. He would fain turn a more or less honest penny
ere he reached home, if it might but be done quietly.
Late in the day came his chance. Grazing in a neighbouring lush pasture
were two fine fat bullocks. Dicky paused to look, and the more he
looked, the more he admired; the more he admired, the more he coveted.
They were magnificent beasts, seldom had he seen finer; nothing could
better suit his purpose. Such beasts would fetch a high price
anywhere--they _must_ be his. So, with what patience he could command,
till darkness should come to his aid, Dicky discreetly retired to a
neighbouring copse, where, himself unseen, he might feast his eyes on
the fat cattle, and at the same time make sure that if they did happen
to be removed from that particular pasture, at least he would not be
ignorant of their whereabouts. But the bullocks fed on undisturbed. No
one came to remove them; only their owner stood regarding them for a
while. Darkness fell, and the call of an owl that hooted eerily, or the
distant wail of a curlew, alone broke the stillness. Then up came
Dicky's best friend, a moon but little past the full. Everything was in
his favour, not a hitch of any kind occurred; quietly and without any
fuss the great fat beasts began to make their slow way west across the
hills for Cumberland.
Morning came, bringing with it a great hue and cry on that farm bereft
of its fat cattle, and things might chance to have fared ill with Dicky
had he not adroitly contrived to lay a false trail, that headed the
furious owner in hasty pursuit north, towards Tweed and Scotland.
Meanwhile, in due time--not for worlds would Dicky have overdriven
them--the bullocks and their driver found themselves in Cumberland, near
by Lanercost. There, as they picked their leisurely way along, they
encountered an old farmer riding a bay mare, the like of which for
quality Dicky had never seen. His mouth watered.
"Where be'st gangin' wi' the nowt?" asked the farmer.
"Oh, to Carlisle," said Dicky.
"Wad ye sell?"
"Oh aye!" answered Dicky. "For a price. But the beasts are good."
"Yes, they were good," admitted the farmer. And Dicky must come in, and
have a drink, and they'd talk about the oxen. So in they went to the
farmer's house, and long they talked, and the more they talked the more
the farmer wanted those bullocks; but the more he wanted them the more
he tried to beat Dicky down. But Dicky was in no haste to sell; he could
do better at Carlisle, said he; and the upshot, of course, was that he
got the price he asked. And then said Dicky, when the money was paid,
and they had had another drink or two, and a mighty supper:
"That was a bonnie mare ye were riding."
"Aye," said the farmer. "An' she's as good as she's bonnie. There's no
her like in a' Cumberland."
"Wad ye sell?"
"Sell!" cried the farmer. "No for the value o' the hale countryside. Her
like canna be found. Sell! Never i' this world."
"Well, well," said Dicky, "I canna blame ye. She's a graund mare. But
they're kittle times, thir; I wad keep her close, or it micht happen
your stable micht be empty some morning."
"Stable!" roared the fanner boisterously. "Hey! man, ah pit her in no
stable. She sleeps wi' me, man, in my ain room. Ah'm a bachelor, ah am,
an' there's non' to interfere wi' me, and ivvery nicht she's tied to my
ain bed-post. Man, it's music to my ear to hear her champin' her corn a'
the nicht. Na, na! Ah trust her in no stable; an' ah'd like to see the
thief could steal her awa' oot o' my room withoot wakenin' me."
"Well, maybe ye're right," said Dicky. "But mind, there's some cunnin'
anes aboot. Ye'll hae a good lock on your door, nae doot?"
"Aye, I _have_ a good lock, as ye shall see," cried the farmer, caution
swamped in brandy and good fellowship. "What think ye o' that for a
lock?"
"Uhm--m!" murmured Dicky reflectively, carefully scrutinising lock and
key--and he was not unskilled in locks. "Aye, a good lock; a very good
lock. Yes, yes! Just what you want; the very thing. They'll no pick
that."
"No! They'll never pick _that_. Ho! Ho!" laughed the complacent farmer.
Then Dicky said he "maun be steppin'. It was gettin' late." And so,
after one more drink, and another "to the King, God bless him," and yet
one more to "themselves," and a fourth, just to see that the others went
the right way and behaved themselves, the two parted, the best and
dearest of friends.
It might have been the outcome of a good conscience, or perhaps it was
the soothing thought that he had made a good bargain, and had got those
bullocks at a figure lower than he had been prepared to pay; or,
possibly, it may only have been the outcome of that extra last glass or
two that he had had with Dicky. But whatever it was, the fact remained
that the farmer's slumbers that night were very profound, his snoring
heavier than common. Towards morning, but whilst yet the night was dark,
dreaming that he and the mare were swimming a deep and icy river, he
woke with a start. Everything was strangely still; even the mare made no
sound. And--surely it must be freezing! He was chilled to the bone. And
then, on a brain where yet sang the fumes of brandy, it dawned that he
had absolutely no covering on him. Sleepily he felt with his hands this
way and that, up and down. To no purpose. His blankets must certainly
have fallen on the floor, but try as he might, no hand could he lay on
them. Slipping out of bed to grope for flint and steel wherewith to
strike a light, with soul-rending shock he ran his forehead full butt
against the open door of his room.
"De'il tak' it! What's this?" he bellowed. It was inconceivable that he
had forgotten to close and lock that door before getting into bed,
however much brandy he might have drunk overnight. What was the meaning
of it? At last a light, got from the smouldering kitchen fire, revealed
the hideous truth--his room was empty, the cherished mare gone! The door
(as he had found to his cost) stood wide open; along the floor were
carefully spread his blankets, and over them no doubt the mare had been
led out without making noise sufficient to awaken even a light sleeper,
let alone one whose potations had been deep as the farmer's.
Lights now flashed and twinkled from room to room, from house to stable
and byre, and back again, as the frenzied, cursing farmer and his
servants tumbled over each other in their haste to find the lost animal.
It is even said that one servant lass, in her ardour of search, was
found looking under the bed in an upstairs room--scarcely a likely
grazing ground for any four-footed animal (unless perhaps it might be a
night-mare). But whether she expected to find there the lost quadruped,
or the man guilty of its abduction, tradition says not. At any rate, all
that any of the searchers found--and that not till broad daylight--was
the print of the good mare's hoofs in some soft ground over which she
had been ridden fast. And no one had heard even so much as the smallest
sound.
The day was yet young, and the breeze played gratefully cool on Dicky's
brow, as, fearless of pursuit, he rode contentedly along towards home a
few hours later. Skirting by Naworth, thence up by Tindale Tarn and down
the burn to South Tyne, he had now come to the Fells a little to the
south and east of Haltwhistle. To him came a man on foot; and, said he:
"Have ye seen onny stray cattle i' your travels? I've lost a yoke o' fat
bullocks."
"What micht they be like?" asked Dicky innocently; for he had no
difficulty in recognising the farmer from whom he had stolen the beasts,
though the latter, having never set eyes on Dicky, had no idea of whom
he was talking to.
"Oh," said the man, "they were fine, muckle, fat beasts, red, baith o'
them, ane wi' a bally face, an' the tither wi' its near horn sair turned
in." And some other notable peculiarities the farmer mentioned, such as
might strike a man skilled in cattle.
"We-el," answered Dicky thoughtfully, "now that ye mention it, I believe
I did see sic a pair, or twa very like them, no later agone than
yesterday afternoon. If I'm no mista'en, they're rinnin' on Maister
----'s farm, no far frae Lanercost."
"Man, ah'm that obleeged to ye. But ah'm that deid tired wi' walkin',
seekin' them, ah canna gang that far," said the farmer. "That's a gey
guid mare ye're ridin'. Ye wadna be for sellin' her, likely?"
"Oh aye, I'll sell. But she's a braw mare; there's no her like i' the
countryside, or in a' Northumberland. I'll be wantin' a braw price."
Dicky was always ready for a deal, and in this instance of course it
suited him very well to get rid of his steed.
So, after some chaffering, Dicky was promised his "braw price," and he
accompanied the farmer home to get the money. A long way it was. The
farmer perforce walked, but Dicky, with native caution, rode, for, said
he, in excuse to his companion:
"I'm loth to part wi' my good auld mare, for I've never owned her like.
Sae I'll jist tak' a last bit journey on her."
In due course Dicky got his money, and food and drink, as much as he
could swallow, into the bargain. Then the farmer rode away for
Lanercost; and Dicky, of course, remembered that he had business in a
different part of the country.
Sure enough, when the farmer reached Lanercost there were his bullocks
contentedly grazing in a field, while contemplatively gazing at them
stood an elderly man, with damaged face.
Up rode the farmer on the mare.
"Here!" shouted he angrily, "what the de'il are ye doin' wi' my
bullocks?"
"Wh-a-at?" bellowed the other with equal fury. "_Your_ bullocks! And be
d----d to ye! If it comes to that, what the de'il are _ye_ doin' ridin'
my mare? I'll hae the law o' ye for stealin' her, ye scoondrel! Come
_doon_ oot o' my saiddle afore ah pu' ye doon." And the two elderly men,
each red in the face as a "bubbly jock," both spluttering and almost
speechless with rage, glared at each other, murder in their eyes.
Then came question and answer, and mutual explanation, and gradually the
comic side of the affair struck them; each saw how the other had been
done, and they burst into roar after roar of such laughter as left them
weak and helpless. They had been properly fooled. But the fat bullocks
were recovered, and the well-loved mare, even if the money paid for each
was gone. And after all, he laughs best who laughs last. But they saw no
more of Dicky of Kingswood.
STORM AND TEMPEST
When we think of "the Border," the picture that rises to mind is usually
one of hill and dale, of peat-hag and heathery knoll, of brimming burns
that tumble headlong to meet the embrace of rivers hurrying to their
rest in the great ocean. One sees in imagination the solemn,
round-shouldered hills standing out grim in the thin spring sunshine,
their black sides slashed and lined with snow; later, one pictures these
hills decked with heartsease and blue-bells a-swing in the summer
breeze, or rich with the purple bloom of heather; and, again, one
imagines them clothed in November mists, or white and ghost-like,
shrouded in swirling clouds of snow.
But there is another part of the Border which the inland dweller is apt
to forget--that which, in sweep upon sweep of bay, or unbroken line of
cliff, extends up the coasts of Northumberland and Berwickshire. That is
a part of the Border which those who are not native to it know only in
the months of summer, when the sea is sapphire-blue, when surf creams
softly round the feet of limpet-covered rocks, and the little wavelets
laugh and sparkle as they slide over the shining sands. It is another
matter when Winter with his tempests comes roaring from the North. Where
are then the laughing waters and the smiling sunlit sands? Swallowed up
by wild seas with storm-tossed crests, that race madly landward to dash
themselves in blind fury on shoreless cliffs, or sweep resistless over a
shingly beach.
It is a cruel coast in the winter time, and its children had need be
strong men and fearless, for they who make their living on the face of
its waters surely inherit a share greater than is their due of toil and
danger; they, verily, more than others "see the works of the Lord, and
His wonders in the deep." From earliest times when men first sailed the
seas this coast has taken heavy toll of ships and of human lives, and in
the race that it has bred, necessarily there has been little room for
weaklings; their men are even to this day of the type of the old
Vikings--from whom perhaps they descend--fair-bearded and strong,
blue-eyed and open of countenance. And their women--well, there are many
who might worthily stand alongside their countrywoman, Grace Darling,
many who at a pinch would do what she did, and "blush to find it fame."
Yet one must admit that, as a whole, this community was not always keen
to save ship and crew from the breakers, nor prone to warn vessels off
from dangerous reef or sunken rock. In days long gone by, if all tales
are true, the people of these coasts had no good reputation among
sailors, and their habits and customs were wont to give rise to much
friction and ill-will betwixt England and Scotland. It is certain that
in 1472 they plundered the great foreign-going barge built by Bishop
Kennedy of St. Andrews--the greatest ship ever seen in those days--when
she drove ashore one stormy night off Bamborough. And of her passengers,
one, the Abbot of St. Colomb, was long held to ransom by James Carr, a
deed the consequences of which, in those days of an all-powerful Church,
might be dreadful to contemplate. Pitscottie says the "Bishop's Barge"
cost her owner something like £10,000 sterling. Perhaps the harvest
reaped by Bamborough when she came ashore may have encouraged
Northumbrians to adopt this line of business in earnest, for by 1559 we
read that "wreckers" were common down all that coast; and their prayer:
"Let us pray for a good harvest this winter," contained no allusion to
the fruits of the field.
In 1643 there was a Scottish priest, Gilbert Blakhal, confessor in Paris
to the Lady Isabelle Hay, Lord Errol's daughter, who in the course of a
journey to his native land visited Holy Island, and in the account of
his travels he makes mention of the ways of the island's inhabitants,
and of their prayer when a vessel was seen to be in danger. "They al sit
downe upon their knees and hold up their handes, and say very devotely,
'Lord, send her to us. God, send her to us.' You, seeing them upon
their knees, and their handes joyned, do think that they are praying for
your sauvetie; but their myndes are far from that. They pray, not God to
sauve you, or send you to the porte, but to send you to them by
ship-wrack, that they may gette the spoile of her. And to showe that
this is their meaning, if the ship come wel to the porte, or eschew
naufrage (shipwreck), they gette up in anger, crying: 'The Devil stick
her; she is away from us.'" Father Blakhal does not pretend that with
his own ears he heard the Holy Islanders so pray. It was told to him by
the Governor of the island. But, then, this Governor, Robin Rugg by
name, was "a notable good fellow, as his great read nose, full of
pimples, did give testimony." Perhaps he exaggerated, or it was but one
of his "merry discourses." Yet I think he told the truth in this
instance. To "wreck" was the habit of the day, and by all coastal
peoples the spoil of wrecks was regarded as not less their just due than
was the actual food obtained by them from the sea. On our own coasts and
in our islands until quite recent times such was undoubtedly the case,
just as in savage lands it continues to be the case to this day; and the
distinction is a fine-drawn one between doing nothing to prevent a
vessel from running into danger which would result in profit to the
spectators, and the doing of a something, greater or less--say the
showing of a light, or the burning of a beacon--which may make it
certain that the same vessel shall go where she may be of "the greatest
good to the greatest number"--the "greatest number" in such instances
being always, of course, the wreckers. A wrecked vessel was their
legitimate prey, and the inhabitants of many coastal parts are known to
have deeply resented the building of lighthouses where wrecks were
frequent. In his notes to _The Pirate_, Sir Walter Scott mentions that
the rent of several of the islands in Shetland had greatly fallen since
the Commissioners of Lighthouses ordered lights to be established on the
Isle of Sanda and the Pentland Skerries. And he tells of the reflection
cast upon Providence by a certain pious island farmer, the sails of
whose boat were frail from age and greatly patched: "Had it been _His_
will that a light hadna been placed yonder," said he, with pious
fervour, "I wad have had enough of new sails last winter."
Then as to the saving of life--in those days, and well on into the
eighteenth century, it was believed to be a most unlucky thing to save a
drowning person; he was sure eventually to do his rescuer some deadly
injury. A similar belief, as regards the ill luck, prevails in China to
this day; nothing will induce a Chinaman to help a drowning man from the
water. In our own case, probably this superstition as to ill luck
originated in the obvious fact that if there were no survivor from a
wreck, there could be no one to interfere with the claim made by the
finders to what they considered their lawful due. If a vessel drove
ashore on their coast, that surely was the act and the will of God, and
it was not for them to question His decrees or to thwart His intentions.
Many, since the days of the wreckers, have been the ships cast away
along that rugged coast-line which starts southward from the grim
promontory of St. Abb's Head, and runs, cruelly rock-girt or stretched
in open bay of yellow sand, away past Berwick and down by Holy Island.
Many have been the disasters, pitiful on occasion the loss of life. But
never, since history began, has disaster come upon the coast like to
that which befell the little town of Eyemouth in the early autumn of
1881, never has loss of life so heartrending overwhelmed a small
community. Once the headquarters of smuggling on our eastern coast, and
built--as it is well known was also built a certain street of small
houses in Spittal--with countless facilities for promoting the
operations of "Free Trade," and with "bolt-holes" innumerable for the
smugglers when close pressed by gangers, Eyemouth is still a quaint
little town, huddling its strangely squeezed-up houses in narrow lanes
and wynds betwixt river and bay. There, too, as at a northern town
better known to fame than Eyemouth,
"The grey North Ocean girds it round,
And o'er the rocks, and up the bay,
The long sea-rollers surge and sound,
And still the thin and biting spray
Drives down the melancholy street."
* * * * *
Truly, in Eyemouth it is not alone spray that drives. So close a
neighbour is the protecting sea-wall to some of the houses that turn
weather-beaten backs on the bay, that at high tide during a
north-easterly gale the giant seas, breaking against the wall, burst
also clear over the houses, hurling themselves in torrents of icy water
into the street beyond. And up the width of one little street that runs
to the bay, and past its barricaded doors, you may see sometimes billows
that have overleapt the wall come charging, to ebb with angry swish and
long-drawn clatter of shingle as the waves suck back. It is a strange
sight, and it causes one to wonder what manner of men they are who dwell
here, who draw their living from the bosom of a sea that thus harshly
treats its children. Yet it is a sea that can be kindly enough; and in
the long, golden summer evenings, when the brown-sailed fishing-boats in
endless procession draw out from the "haven under the hill," to vanish
seaward in the deepening twilight, you would scarce believe that a thing
so gentle could be guilty of treachery, or ever could arise in sudden
mad frenzy to slay those who had trusted it.
Yet that was what happened that terrible Friday, the 14th of October
1881. No summer's morning could have dawned more peaceful and fair. And
here we were but in mid-October, when the woods are in their glory and
Scotland looks still for the settled weather of her "Indian summer";
there should yet be ample measure of quiet days and nights ere winter
gales rumble in the chimneys and wail through the rigging of boats lying
weather-bound in harbour.