no longer. It is now fit and necessary for me to go off and leave you."
Later in the day, news brought by the carrier confirmed him in his
resolution. Baillie of Jerviswoode had been hanged in Edinburgh on the
previous day, and his head now adorned a spike on the Nether Bow. The
death of his best friend was a great shock to Sir Patrick, perhaps an
even greater one to Lady Home, and to little Grisell, for could not
their imagination readily paint a picture of _their_ dear "traitor"
hanging where his friend had hung. No time was to be lost, and Grisell
at once began work on her father's wardrobe, and in the coming days and
nights, with anxious fingers, made such alterations in his clothing as
seemed necessary for a disguise.
Meantime a friend and neighbour of Sir Patrick's, John Home of
Halyburton, had "jaloused" that his namesake was not hidden so far
afield as some imagined, and when, one cold January afternoon, he heard
the clatter of hoofs on the high-road and saw the red coats of the
dragoons, he had a stab at his heart at the thought of another good son
of the Merse going to martyrdom.
"Where do you ride to-day?" he asked, when the party came up.
"To take Polwarth at Redbraes," they said.
"Is it so?" said Home. "Then I'll go with you myself and be your guide.
But come your ways into the house and rest you a little, till I get
ready for the road."
Nothing loth, the troopers followed him, and were still contentedly
testing the quality of the contents of his big case-bottles when a groom
galloped off to Redbraes. Halyburton's message to Lady Home of Polwarth
was a brief one, for when she opened his envelope there was nothing
there to read--only a little feather fluttered out, giving as plainly
the advice to instant flight as pages of words might have done.
There was nothing for it but to take another into their secret. John
Allen, the grieve, was sent for, and fainted dead away when he heard
that his master was in the house instead of being in safety in foreign
lands, and that the dragoons were even then on his tracks. He, too, had
visions of a figure dangling from a gibbet, and of a head on the Nether
Bow--and small blame to him, worthy man.
It was then the darkening, and Allen's instructions were at once to tell
his fellow-servants that he had received orders to sell three horses at
Morpeth Fair, and to be off on the road without further delay.
Sir Patrick took farewell of his wife and of Grisell, climbed out of a
window, met the grieve near the stables, and was off in the darkness,
with as little noise as might be. It was a sorrowful parting, but when,
not long after he was gone, the dragoons rode up to Redbraes, Lady Home
and her daughter were glad indeed that he was away.
Somewhat regretting their prolonged enjoyment of the hospitality of Home
of Halyburton, the search-party thoroughly ransacked every hole and
corner of Redbraes Castle. Inside they could find no trace nor pick up
one crumb of information, but from an outside servant they heard of John
Allen's departure, Morpeth way, with three horses.
"_Horses,_ indeed! for Morpeth Fair?" the dragoon officer hooted at the
thought. "Boot and saddle, lads!" he called to his men; "we'll run the
traitorous fox to earth long before he gets to Berwick!" At a canter
they were off down the drive, the contents of Halyburton's case-bottles
still warming their hearts and giving extra zest to their enterprise. It
was a dark night, and they were thick black woods that they rode
between, but they had not ridden very many miles when they were able to
make out, some way in front of them, the outlines of two horses.
"We've got him, lads!" cried the officer; "run him down at last. Worry,
worry, worry!"
But instead of the horses in front breaking into a gallop at the sound
of pursuit, they were pulled up short by the roadside, and instead of
there being two riders there was only one, leading an unsaddled horse.
More exasperating than all to the ardour of the hunters was the fact
that in place of the thin, clever face of Sir Patrick Home being the one
to confront them, the round, scared face of a Berwickshire peasant
stared at them in dismay. In vain did the officer question, bully,
cross-examine. John Allen was unshakeable. He was gaun tae Morpeth Fair
tae sell the horse. Na, he didnae ken where the maister was. Sure's
daith he didnae ken. Aye, he left Redbraes mebbes twa hour sin', in the
darkening. No amount of hectoring, no quantity of loudly--shouted oaths
could move the grieve from his tale. "A wuss a _did_ ken whaur he is,"
he said, "but _a_ dinnae ken." Finally he had to be given up as
hopeless, and the dragoons rode back, a little shamefacedly and cursing
their luck. John Allen, his honest face still full of scared amazement,
rode slowly on. Every now and again he would check his horse, look round
and listen, mutter to himself bewilderedly, shake his head, and go on
once more. The clatter of the dragoons had not long died away when,
coming towards him from the other direction, he heard the regular beat
of a horse's hoofs. It was no strange horse, he soon realised, nor was
the rider a stranger. The gay smile that his face so often wore
irradiated Home of Polwarth's when he heard his servant's greeting.
"Eh, losh me, Polwarth!" he said, "a never had sic a gliff in a' _ma_
days! Here a' em, thinking aye that ye was riding no far ahint us, and
when a hears a gallopin' an' turns roond, ye've santed, an' here's a
pack o' thae bluidy dragoons that wad blast ye black in the face an'
speir the inside oot o' a wheelbarra. Man, where were ye? It's naething
short o' a meericle?"
Nor was it much short of a miracle, as Sir Patrick acknowledged. He had
followed Allen at first as the grieve had thought, but his mind was full
of the parting he had just gone through and of the misty future before
him, and when his thoughts came back with a jerk to the actualities of
the present, he heard the rush of a winter river and found that he was
close by the side of the Tweed. It was some time before he could exactly
find his bearings, but he did so at last, and, after some reconnoitring,
found a place that could be safely forded. Once across the river, he
rode quickly back towards Redbraes, hoping that by good fortune he might
yet meet with Allen, and so neatly escaped the soldiers who pursued him.
The high-road after this was no longer deemed safe, and the rest of his
ride to London was done on bye-ways and across the moors. In two days
honest John returned to Redbraes and brought to the sad hearts of Lady
Home and Grisell the joyful news that Sir Patrick had not fallen into
the hands of the dragoons, as they had greatly feared, but was now
safely on his way to England. As a travelling surgeon, calling himself
Dr. Wallace, Sir Patrick Home worked his way south, bleeding patients
when need be, prescribing homely remedies when called upon to do so.
None ever penetrated his disguise, and he was able to cross from London
to France and journey, on foot from France to Holland with complete
success.
Years afterwards, when Sir Patrick was Earl of Marchmont, Chancellor of
Scotland, and President of the Privy Council, it was his lot to have to
try for his life a certain Captain Burd. And during the trial there came
back to him like a flash the old days when, in company with another
wayfarer, he tramped the long French roads, unwinding themselves like
white ribbons before him, between the avenues of stiff, tall, silvery
poplars on to the flat, windmill-dotted Dutch country, with the
brown-sailed boats that seemed to sail along the fields. And here, in
Captain Burd, he recognised the companion of those often weary, often
hungry days, when pockets were empty, fortunes at dead-low tide, and
Scotland and wife and children very far away. In public the Chancellor
treated his old friend with severity, but arranged with his son, Sir
Andrew Home, then a young lawyer, to see Captain Burd alone. Timidly and
nervously, with downcast eyes, the poor man repeated the tale to which
the Chancellor had already listened. In silence he heard it again, and
then: "Do you not know me?" he asked, smiling.
"God's wounds! Dr. Wallace!" cried Captain Burd, and fell with tears of
joy on the neck of the Chancellor, who was readily and gladly able to
prove the innocence of his old companion.
No sooner had Sir Patrick Home left Scotland than his estates were
forfeited and given to Lord Seaforth, and although Lady Home went by sea
to London, and there for a long time did all possible to obtain from
Government an adequate allowance for the support of her family of ten,
£150 a year was all that she was able to secure. Of course Grisell was
her companion there, and her companion also when she sailed to Holland
to join Sir Patrick. Of the ten, a little girl, Julian by name, had to
be left behind with friends as she was too ill to travel, and when
Grisell had safely handed over her mother and brothers and sisters to
her father's care, she returned to Scotland alone, to act as escort to
the little sister, "to negotiate business, and to try if she could pick
up any money of some that was owing to her father." The brave and
capable little woman of business, having managed affairs to her
satisfaction, secured, for the passage, a nurse for the sister, who was
still a weakly invalid. Moreover, the voyage to Holland, being in those
days more than just the affair of a night, a cabin-bed--the only one in
the ship, apparently--was engaged for Julian, and a good store of
provisions laid in. But when the ship had sailed, Grisell found that the
cabin-bed had been separately engaged and paid for by four other ladies,
and at once these four began a violent dispute as to which should have
it. "Let them be doing," said a gentleman, who had to share the cabin
with the rest, "you will see how it will end."
So the disappointed little maid had to arrange a bed on the floor as
best she could for herself and her sister, with a bag of books that she
was taking to her father for pillow, while two ladies shared the bed and
the others lay down where they could find room. Any place where they
could lie flat must have been welcome, for a storm was brewing, and as a
cradle the North Sea usually leaves a good deal to be desired. As they
all lay, in fairly sickening discomfort, in the cabin, lit only by an
evil-smelling oil-lamp that swayed back and forwards with each roll, the
heavy step of the captain was heard coming down the companion way.
Grisell had expected honesty from her fellow-travellers, and her store
of provisions was laid out in what she had considered a convenient
place. It did not take the captain long to devour every scrap of what
had been meant to last the girls and their maid for days. His gluttonous
meal over, he tramped up to the bed.
"Turn out! turn out!" he said to the women who lay there, and having
undressed himself lay down to snore in that five time's paid for
sleeping-place. It must have been somewhat of a comfort--if, indeed,
comfort was to be found in anything that night--that the captain did not
long enjoy his slumbers. A fierce gale began to blow, and during the
furious storm that never abated for many an hour to come, the captain
had to remain, drenched to the skin, on deck, working and directing with
all his might, in order to save his ship. They never saw him again until
they landed at the Brill. That night the two girls set out on foot to
tramp the weary miles to Rotterdam, a gentleman refugee from Scotland,
who had come over in the same boat, acting as their escort. The stormy
weather of the North Sea had followed them to land. It was a cold, wet,
dirty night, and Julian Home, still frail from illness, soon lost her
shoes in the mud. There was but one solution to the difficulty. The
gentleman shouldered their baggage along with his own; Grisell
shouldered her sister, and carried her all the rest of those weary
miles. At Rotterdam they found Sir Patrick Home and his eldest son
awaiting them, to take them on to their new home in Utrecht, and wet and
cold and tiredness were all forgotten at the sight of those dear faces,
and Grisell "felt nothing but happiness and contentment."
For three years and a half they lived in Utrecht, and once again during
that time Grisell voyaged to Scotland to see to her father's business
affairs. It is difficult to discover what, during the rest of that time,
she did not do for her parents and family. There were many Scottish
refugees then in Holland, and the Homes kept open house, and spent
nearly a fourth part of their income on a mansion sufficiently
commodious to allow of their hospitalities. This made it impossible for
them to keep any servant save a little girl who washed the dishes, and
consequently Grisell acted as cook, housekeeper, housemaid, washerwoman,
laundress, dressmaker, and tailoress. Twice a week she sat up at night
to do the family accounts. Daily she rose before six, went to the market
and to the mill to see their own corn ground, and--in the words of her
daughter, who proudly tells the tale--"dressed the linen, cleaned the
house, made ready the dinner, mended the children's stockings and other
clothes, made what she could for them, and in short did everything." She
was very musical and loved playing and singing, but when, for a small
sum, a harpsichord was bought, it was her younger sister, Christian, who
was the performer, and by it "diverted" her parents, and the girls had
many a joke over their different occupations. Yet even with all her
other work she found time to take an occasional lesson in French and
Dutch from her father along with the younger ones, and even wrote a book
of songs--many of them half written, broken off in the middle of a
sentence as a pot boiled over or an iron grew hot enough to use. Some
of them are dear to us still. Do we ever think of all the hardships that
were nobly endured by a Scottish girl two hundred years ago when we
quote the words of her exquisite song?--
"Were na my heart licht, I wad dee."
Of all her brothers and sisters, her eldest brother, Patrick, was her
closest friend, and, when he became one of the Prince of Orange's
Guards, Grisell had extra labours, for the Guards wore little point-lace
cravats and cuffs, and many a night she sat up to have these in such
perfect order that no dandy officer in the service could compete with
the young Scottish soldier. An added happiness to those happy, busy days
came to Grisell through her brother's fellow-guardsman and greatest
friend, for George Baillie, the lad she first met in the Tolbooth, gave
his heart to her that day within the gloomy prison walls, and they were
lovers still when, after forty-eight years of married life, death came
to part them.
With the accession of the Prince of Orange the merry, light-hearted days
in Holland came to an end. There was probably no poorer Scottish family
to be found in all Holland. There was certainly no happier one. When
they came home they were prosperous once again, and honours were
showered upon Sir Patrick Home. Grisell was asked to become a maid of
honour to the Princess but she preferred to go back to the quiet country
life at Redbraes. Already, during their least prosperous days, Grisell's
beauty and charm had made at least two Berwickshire gentlemen "of
fortune and character" beg for her hand, and it was to her parents'
regret that she refused them both, because her heart was already in the
keeping of a penniless guardsman in the Dutch service. Only poverty kept
them apart, and when King William gave back to George Baillie his lands,
there was no other obstacle in the way, and they were married forthwith.
They were man and wife for forty-eight years, "in all of which time,"
writes their daughter, "I have often heard my mother declare that they
never had the shadow of a quarrel, or misunderstanding, or dryness
betwixt them--not for a moment"; and that, "to the last of his life, she
felt the same ardent and tender love and affection for him, and the same
desire to please him in the smallest trifle that she had at their first
acquaintance." To the day his last illness began, her husband never went
out without her going to the window to watch him till he was out of
sight of those kind, bright, beautiful eyes, through which shone as
beautiful a soul as any that ever made the earth a better and a happier
place for having been in it.
Grisell Home was Lady Grisell Baillie when, in 1703, her mother died.
"Where is Grisell," she asked, almost with her latest breath. And when
Lady Grisell came and held her hand the old lady said, "My dear Grisell,
blessed be you above all, for a helpful child you have been to me."
Lady Grisell Baillie lived through the '15 and the '45, and those who
suffered in the first of those years had the kindest of friends and
helpers in her large-minded husband and in herself. She was eighty at
the time of the '45, but during that year and during the next, when her
death took place, she helped by every means in her power those who had
suffered from fighting for a cause that was dear to their hearts. She
always remembered what she herself had gone through. "Full of years, and
of good works," as her somewhat pompous epitaph has it, Lady Grisell
Baillie died in December 1746, and was buried at Mellerstain on the day
upon which she should have celebrated her eighty-second birthday. And
surely the angels who, on that first Christmas Eve, long, long ago, sang
of "Peace on earth--goodwill towards men," must have been very near when
she, who was a Christmas baby, and whose whole long life had been one of
love and of peace, of goodwill and of charity to others, was laid in the
earth as the snowflakes fell, on Christmas Day, one hundred and
sixty-eight years ago.
KINMONT WILLIE
A venerable and highly respected Scottish professor of literature was
once asked what was his ruling passion--his heart's desire? If the
secrets of his soul could be laid bare, what, above all, would be found
to be his predominant wish? The question was an indiscreet one, but he
was tolerant. He tightly compressed his gentle mouth, and firmly
readjusted his gold-rimmed glasses.
"I _wish_" said he, "to be a corsair."
It would have been interesting to know how many of a following he would
have had from sedate academic circles had he been given his heart's
desire and had sailed down the Clyde with the raw head and bloody bones
showing on the black flag that flew at his mast-head. How many of us are
there with whom law-abiding habits, decorous respectability, form but a
thin covering of ice over unplumbed depths of lawless desire? Not long
since, when a wretched criminal case in which the disappearance of a
pearl necklace was involved, was agitating every Scottish club and
tea-table, a charming old Scottish lady, whose career from childhood up
has been one of unblemished virtue, was heard to bemoan the manner of
commission of the crime. "She did it _very_ stupidly. Now, if _I_ had
been doing it I should"--And her astounded auditors listened to an able
exposition of the way in which she would successfully have eluded
justice. Is it the story of the villain who is successfully tracked to
his doom that attracts us most? or that of the great Raffles and his
kind whose villainies almost invariably escape detection, and who
burgles with a light and easy touch and the grace and humour of a Claude
Duval? Let us be honest with ourselves. How many of us really wish to be
corsairs? Which of us would _not_ have been a reiver in the old reiving
days? Have we not noticed in ourselves and other Borderers an undeniable
complacency, a boastful pride in a mask of apology that would not
deceive an infant, when we say, "Oh yes; certainly a good many of my
ancestors were hanged for lifting cattle." And, however "indifferent
honest" we ourselves may be, which of us does not lay aside even that
most futile mask and boast unashamedly when we can claim descent from
one of those princes among reivers--Wat o' Harden, Johnnie Armstrong, or
Kinmont Willie?
William Armstrong, better known as Kinmont Willie, lived in the palmiest
days of the Border reivers. The times of purely Scottish and purely
English kings were drawing to a close, and with one monarch to rule over
Britain the raider could no longer plead that he was a patriot who
fought for king and country when he made an incursion over the Cheviots,
burned a few barns and dwelling-houses, lifted some "kye and oxen,"
horses, and goats, and what household gear and minted money he could lay
hands on, slew a man or two, and joyously returned home.
But with Elizabeth still on the English throne, and with Queen Mary, and
afterwards her son, reigning in Scotland, the dance could go merrily on,
and when we look at those days in retrospect it seems to us that the
last bars of the music, the last turns in the dance, went more rapidly
than any that had gone before.
In Kinmont Willie's lifetime the Wardens of the Marches had but little
leisure. It was necessary for them to be fighting men with a good head
for figures, for on the days of truce when the Wardens of the Scottish
and English Marches met to redd up accounts, not only had they to work
out knotty arithmetical problems with regard to the value of every sort
of live stock, of buildings, of "insight," and the payment of such
bills, but they had to have expert knowledge in fair exchange of a
Scottish for an English life, an English for a Scotch. Little wonder if
their patience sometimes ran short, as did that of a Howard of Naworth
upon one famous occasion. He was deeply engrossed in studies that had no
bearing upon Border affairs when an officer came to announce the
capture of some Scottish moss-troopers, and to ask for the Warden's
commands with regard to them. The interruption was untimely, and Lord
Howard was exasperated. "Hang them, in the devil's name!" he said
angrily, and went on with his studies. A little later he felt he could
better give his mind to the consideration of the case, and sent for his
officer. "Touching the prisoners," said he, "what have you done with
them?"
Proud of being one of those who did not let the grass grow beneath their
feet, the officer beamingly responded: "Everyone o' them's hangit, my
lord!"
It was a March day in 1596, when a Wardens' meeting took place at
Dayholm, near Kershopefoot. The snow was still lying in the hollows of
the Cheviots, the trees were bare, the Liddel and the Esk swollen by
thaws and winter rains; but weather was a thing that came but little
into the reckoning of the men of the Marches unless some foray was
afoot. They got through the business more or less satisfactorily, and
proceeded to ride home before the day of truce should be ended. From
sunrise on the one day until sunset on the next, so the Border law
ordained, all Scots and Englishmen who were present at the Wardens'
meeting should be free of scathe. Now the Warden of Liddesdale at that
time was Sir Walter Scott of Branxholme, laird of Buccleuch. He was one
of the greatest men of his century; a "fyrebrande," according to Queen
Elizabeth, and a fierce enemy according to those who incurred his
enmity; but, according to all others, a man of perfect courage,
stainless loyalty and honour, charming wit, and great culture. He never
spared an enemy nor turned his back on a friend, and he was a born
winner of hearts and leader of men. Amongst his retainers was Kinmont
Willie, and as Willie rode from the Wardens' meeting, along the banks of
the Liddel, in company with only three or four men, a body of two
hundred English horsemen, commanded by Salkeld, Warden of the Eastern
March, marked him from across the water. Truce or no truce, the chance
seemed to them one that was too good to lose. Speedily some of them
pushed on ahead, and an ambush was laid for Kinmont Willie. He and his
friends were naturally totally unprepared for such a dastardly attack,
but it took them but little time to gather their wits, and Willie gave
them a good run for their money. For nearly four miles they chased him,
but ran him down at length. After some hard giving and taking, he had to
acknowledge his defeat, and, pinioned like a common malefactor--arms
tied behind him, legs bound under his horse's belly--they rode with him
into Carlisle town.