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WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS
AND OF SCOTLAND.
HISTORICAL, TRADITIONARY, & IMAGINATIVE.
WITH A GLOSSARY.
REVISED BY
ALEXANDER LEIGHTON
ONE OF THE ORIGINAL EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS.
VOL. XIII.
LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT, 14 PATERNOSTER SQUARE
AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
1885.
CONTENTS.
THE UNKNOWN, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_
THE TRIALS OF MENIE DEMPSTER, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_
THE PROFESSOR'S TALES, _(PROFESSOR THOMAS GILLESPIE)_
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF IDIOTS
THE FLOSHEND INN, _(ALEXANDER CAMPBELL)_
LOTTERY HALL, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_
THE DOMINIE AND THE SOUTER, _(JAMES WILSON)_
THE DOMINIE'S COURTSHIP
THE SOUTER'S WEDDING
ROSEALLAN'S DAUGHTER, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_
THE TWO SAILORS, _(OLIVER RICHARDSON)_
THE DREAM, _(ALEXANDER CAMPBELL)_
WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS, AND OF SCOTLAND.
THE UNKNOWN.
In the year 1785, a young and beautiful woman, whose dress and features
bespoke her to be a native of Spain, was observed a few miles beyond
Ponteland, on the road which leads to Rothbury. She appeared faint and
weary; dimness was deepening over the lustre of her dark eyes, and their
glance bespoke anxious misery. Her raiment was of the finest silk; but
time had caused its colour to fade; and it hung around her a tattered
robe--an ensign of present poverty and wretchedness, a ruined remnant of
prouder days that were past. She walked feebly and slowly along, bearing
in her arms an infant boy; and she was observed, at intervals, to sit
down, press her pale lips to her child's cheek, and weep. Several
peasants, who were returning from their labours in the fields, stood and
spoke to her; but she gazed on them with wild looks of despair, and she
answered them in a strange language, which they did not understand.
"She has been a lady, poor thing," said some of them.
"Ha!" said others, who had less charity in their breasts, "they have not
all been ladies that wear tattered silk in strange fashions."
Some inquired at her if she were hungry; if she wanted a lodging; or
where she was going. But, like the mother of Thomas a Beckett, to all
their inquiries she answered them but one word that they understood,
and that word was "_Edinburgh_!"
Some said, "the poor creature is crazed;" and when she perceived that
they comprehended her not, she waved her hand impatiently for them to
depart, and pressing her child closer to her bosom, she bent her head
over him, and sighed. The peasants, believing from her gestures that she
desired not their presence, left her, some pitying, all wondering.
Within an hour, some of them returned to the place where they had seen
her, with the intent of offering her shelter for the night; but she was
not to be found.
On the following morning, one Peter Thornton, a farmer, went into his
stackyard before his servants were astir, and his attention being
aroused by the weeping and wailing of a child, he hastened toward the
spot from whence the sound proceeded. In a secluded corner of the yard,
he beheld a woman lying, as if asleep, upon some loose straw; and a
child was weeping and uttering strange sounds of lamentation on her
bosom. It was the lovely, but wretched-looking foreigner whom the
peasants had seen on the evening before. Peter was a blunt, kind-hearted
Englishman; he resembled a piece of rich though unpolished metal. He
approached the forlorn stranger; and her strange dress, her youth, the
stamp of misery that surrounded her, and the death-like expression of
her features, moved him, as he gazed upon her and her child, almost to
tears.
"Get up, woman," said he; "why do you lie there? Get up, and come wi'
me; ye seem to be ill, and my wife will get ye something comfortable."
But she spoke not, she moved not, though the child screamed louder at
his presence. He called to her again; but still she remained motionless.
"Preserve us!" said he, somewhat alarmed, "what can have come owre the
woman? I daresay she is in a trance! She sleeps sounder there in the
open air, and upon the bare straw, wi' her poor bairn crying like to
brak its heart upon her breast, than I could do on a feather-bed, wi'
everything peace and quietness around me. Come, waken, woman," he added;
and he bent down, and took her by the hand. But her fingers were stiff
and cold--there was no sign of life upon her lips, neither was there
breath in her nostrils.
"What is this?" exclaimed Peter, in a tone of horror--"a dead woman in
my stackyard! Has there been a murder at my door through the night? I'll
gie a' that I am worth as a reward to find it out!" And, leaving the
child screaming by the side of its dead mother, he rushed breathless
into the house, exclaiming, "Oh, wife! wife!--Jenny, woman!--I say,
Jenny, get up! Here has been bloody wark at our door! What do ye
think?--a dead woman lying in our stackyard, wi' a bonny bairn screaming
on her breast!"
"What's that ye say, Peter!" cried his wife, starting up in terror; "a
dead woman! Ye're dreaming--ye're not in earnest!"
"Haste ye! haste ye, Jenny!" he added; "it's as true as that my name is
Peter Thornton."
She arose, and, with her household servants, accompanied him to where
the dead body lay.
"Now," added Peter, with a look which bespoke the troubled state of his
feelings, "this will be a job for the crowner, and we'll a' have to be
examined and cross-examined, backward and forward, just as if we had
killed the woman, or had onything to do wi' her death. I would rather
have lost five hundred pounds, than that she had been found dead upon my
stackyard."
"But see," said Jenny, after she had ascertained that the mother was
really dead, and as she took up the child in her arms, and kissed
it--"see what a sweet, bonny, innocent-looking creature this is! And,
poor thing, only to think that it should be left an orphan, and
apparently in a foreign land, for I dinna understand a word that it
greets and says!"
A coroner's inquest was accordingly held upon the body, and a verdict of
"_Found dead_" returned. Nothing was discovered about the person of the
deceased which could throw light upon who she was. All the money she had
had with her consisted of a small Spanish coin; but on her hand she wore
a gemmed ring, of curious workmanship and considerable value, and also a
plain marriage-ring. On the inside of the former were engraven the
characters of C. F. _et_ M. V.; and within the latter, C. _et_ M. F. The
fashion of her dress was Spanish, and the few words of lamentation which
her poor child could imperfectly utter were discovered to be in that
language. There being small likelihood of discovering who the stranger
had been, her orphan boy was about to be committed to the workhouse; but
Mrs Thornton had no children of her own, the motherless little one had
been three days under her care, and already her heart began to feel for
him a mother's fondness.
"Peter," said she unto her husband, "I am not happy at the thought o'
this poor bairn being sent to the workhouse. I'm sure he was born above
such a condition. Death, in taking his mother, left him helpless and
crying for help at our door, and I think it would be unnatural in us to
withhold it. Now, as we have nae family o' our own, if ye'll bear the
expense, I'm sure I'm willing to tak the trouble, o' bringing him up."
"Wi' a' my heart, Jenny, my dow," said Peter; "it was me that found the
bairn, and if ye say, keep it, I say, keep it, too. His meat will never
be missed; and it will be a worse year wi' us than ony we hae seen, when
we canna get claes to his back."
"Peter," replied she, "I always said ye had a good heart; and by this
action ye prove it to the world."
"I care not that," said he, snapping the nail of his thumb upwards from
his forefinger, "what the world may say or think about me, provided
_you_ and my conscience say that it is right that I hae done."
They therefore, from that hour, took the orphan as the child of their
adoption; and they were most puzzled to decide by what name he should be
called.
"It is perfectly evident to me," said the farmer, "from the letters on
the rings, that his faither's first name has begun wi' a C, and his
second wi' an F; but we could never be able to find out the outlandish
foreign words that they may stand for. We shall therefore just give him
some decent Christian name."
"And what name more decent or respectable could we gie him than our
own?" said Jenny. "Suppose we just call him Thornton--Peter Thornton?"
"No, no, good wife," said he, "there must twa words go to the making o'
that bargain; for, though nobody would charge you wi' being his mother,
the time may come when folk would be wicked enough to hint that I was
his faither; therefore, I do not think it proper that he should tak my
name. What say ye, now, as it is probable that his faither's name began
wi' a C, if we were to call him Christopher? and, as we found him in the
month o' May, we should gie him a surname after the month, and call him
Christopher May? That, in my opinion, is a very bonny name; and I hae
nae doubt that, if he be spared till those dark een o' his begin to look
after the lasses, mony a ane o' them will be o' the same way o'
thinking."
The child soon became reconciled to the change in his situation, and
returned the kindness of his foster-mother with affection. She rejoiced
as he gradually forgot the few words of Spanish which he at first
lisped, and in their stead began to speak the language of the Borders.
With delight in her eyes, she declared that "she had learned him his
_mother tongue_, which he now spoke as _natural as life_, though, when
she took him under her care, he could say nothing but some heathenish
kind o' sounds, which nobody could mak ony mair sense o' than it was
possible to do out o' the yaumerin o' an infant o' six months old."
As the orphan grew up, he became noted as the liveliest boy in the
neighbourhood. He was the tallest of his age, and the most fearless.
About three years after Peter Thornton had taken him under his
protection, he sent him to school. But, lively as the orphan Christopher
May was (for so we shall now call him), he by no means showed an aptness
to learn. For five years, and he never rose higher than the middle of
the class. The teacher was often wroth with the thoughtlessness of his
pupil; and in his displeasure said, "It is nonsense, sirrah, to say that
ye was ever a Spaniard. There is something like sense and stability o'
character about the people o' Spain; but you--ye're a Frenchman!--a
thoughtless, dancing, settle-to-nothing fool. Or, if ever ye were a
Spaniard, ye belong to the family o' Don Quixote; his name would be
found in the catalogue o' your great-grandfathers." Even Peter Thornton,
though no scholar, was grieved when the teacher called upon him, and
complained of the giddiness of his adopted son, and of the little
progress which he made under his care.
"Christie, ye rascal ye," said Peter, stamping his foot, "what news are
these your master tells o' ye? He says he's ashamed o' ye, and that
ye'll never learn."
But even for his thoughtlessness the kind heart of Jenny found an
excuse.
"Dear me, goodman," said she, "I wonder to hear the master and ye talk;
I am surprised that both o' ye haena mair sense. Do ye not tak into
consideration that the bairn is learning in a foreign language? Had his
mother lived, he would hae spoken Spanish; and how can ye expect him to
be as glib at the English language as those that were learned--born, I
may say--to speak it from the breast?" "True, Jenny," answered Peter,
sagely, "I wasna thinking o' that; but there may be something in't.
Maister," added he, addressing the teacher, "ye mustna, therefore, be
owre hard wi' the laddie. He is a fine bairn, though he may be dull--and
dull I canna think it possible he could be, if he would determine to
learn."
Christopher, however, was as wild on the play-ground as he was dull and
thoughtless in the school-room. Every person admired the happy-hearted
orphan. Good Jenny Thornton said that he had been a great comfort to
her; and that all the care she had taken over him was more than repaid
by the kindness and gratitude of his heart. They were evident in all he
said, and all that he did. Peter also loved the boy; he said, "Kit was
an excellent laddie--for his part, indeed, he never saw his equal. He
had now brought him up for nine years, and he could safely say that he
never had occasion to raise a hand to him--indeed he did not remember
the time that ever he had had occasion to speak an angry word to him;
and he declared that he should inherit all that he possessed, as though
he had been his own son."
Mrs Thornton often showed to him the rings which had been taken from his
mother's fingers, with the inscriptions thereon; and on such occasions
she would say, "Weel do I remember, hinny, when our goodman came running
into the house one morning, shaking as though he had seen an apparition
at midnight, and crying to me, quite out o' breath, 'Rise--rise,
Jenny!--here is the dead body o' a woman in our stackyard!' I canna tell
ye what my feelings were when he said so. I wished not to believe him.
But had I wakened, and found myself in a grave, I could not have gotten
a greater fricht. My heart louped to my throat, just as if it had gotten
a sudden jerk with a person's whole might and strength! I dinna ken how
I got my gown thrown on, for my teeth were chattering in my head--I
shaked like a 'natomy! And when we did get to the stackyard, there was
ye, like a dear wee lammie, mourning owre the breast o' yer dead mother,
wi' yer bits o' handies pulling impatiently at yer bonny black hair,
kissing her cold lips, or pulling her by the gown, and crying and
uttering words which we didna understand. And oh, hinny, but your mother
had been a weel-faured woman in her day!--I never saw her but a cold
corpse, and I thought, even then, that I had never looked upon a bonnier
face. She had evidently been a genteel person, but was sore, sore
dejected. But she had two rings upon her fingers; one of them was a ring
such as married women wear--the other was set wi' precious stones, which
those who have seen them say, none but a duchess in this country could
wear. Ye must examine them."--And here Mrs Thornton was in the habit of
producing the rings, which she had carefully locked away, wrapped up in
twenty folds of paper, and secured in a housewife which folded together
within all. Then she would point out to him the initial letters, the C.
F. and the M. V., and would add, "That has been your faither and your
mother's name when they were sweethearts--at least so our Peter says
(and he is seldom wrong); but the little _e t_ between them--I canna
think what it stands for. O Christopher, my canny laddie, it is a pity
but that ye would only endeavour to be a scholar, as ye are good
otherwise, and then ye might be able to tell what the _e t_ means. Who
kens but it may throw some light upon your parentage; for, if ever ye
discover who your parents were, it will be through the instrumentality
o' these rings. Peter always says that (and, as I say, he is seldom
wrong) and therefore I always keep them locked away, lest onythin should
come owre them; and when they are out o' the drawer, I never suffer them
to be out o' my sight."
In the fulness of her heart Mrs Thornton told this story at least four
times in the year, almost in the same words, and always exhibiting the
rings. Her kindly counsels, and the cogent reasons which she urged to
Christopher why he should become a scholar, at length awoke his
slumbering energies. For the first time, he stood dux of his class, and
once there, he stood like a nail driven into a wall, which might not be
removed. His teacher, who was a man of considerable knowledge and
reading (though perhaps not what those calling themselves _learned_
would call a man of _learning_--for _learned_ is a very vague word, and
is as frequently applied where real ignorance exists, as to real
knowledge)--that teacher who had formerly said that Christopher could
not be a Spaniard, because that he had not solidity enough within
him--now said that he believed he was one, and not a descendant of Don
Quixote; but, if of anybody, a descendant of _him_ who gave the immortal
Don "a local habitation and a name;" for he now predicted that
Christopher May would be a genius.
But, though the orphan at length rose to the head of his class, and
though he passed from one class to another, he was still the same wild,
boisterous, and daring boy, when they ran shouting from the school, cap
in hand, and waving it over their heads, like prisoners relieved from
confinement. If there was a quarrel to decide in the whole school, the
orphan Christopher was the umpire. If a weak boy, or a cowardly boy, was
threatened by another, Christopher became his champion. If a sparrow's
nest was to be robbed, to achieve which a tottering gable was to be
climbed, he did the deed; yea, or when a football match was to be played
on Eastern E'en (or, as it was there called, Pancake Tuesday), if the
orphan once got the ball at his foot, no man could again touch it.
His birth-day was not known; but he could scarce have completed his
thirteenth year when his best friend died. Good, kind-hearted Jenny
Thornton--than whom a better woman never breathed--was gathered with the
dead; and her last request to her husband was, that he would continue to
be the friend and protector of the poor orphan, and especially that he
would take care of the rings which had been found upon his mother's
hand. Now Peter was so overwhelmed with grief at the idea of being
parted from her who, for twenty years, had been dearer to him than his
own existence, that he could scarce hear her dying words. He followed
her coffin like a broken-hearted man; and he sobbed over her grave like
a weaned child on the lap of its mother. But many months had not passed
when it was evident that the orphan Christopher was the only sincere
mourner for Jenny Thornton. The widower was still in the prime and
strength of his days, being not more than two-and-forty. He was a
prosperous man--one who had had a cheap farm and a good one; and it was
believed that Peter was able to purchase the land which he rented. Many,
indeed, said that the tenant was a better man than his master--by a
"better man," meaning a richer man.
Fair maidens, therefore, and widows to boot, were anxious to obtain the
vacant hand of the wealthy widower. Some said that Peter would never
forget Jenny, and that he would never marry again, for that she had been
to him a wife amongst a thousand: and they spoke of the bitterness of
his grief.
"Ay," said others, "but we ne'er like to see the tears run owre fast
down the cheeks of a man. They show that the heart will soon drown its
sorrow. Human nature is very frail; and a thing that we thought we would
love _for ever_ last year, we find that we only _occasionally remember_
that we loved it this. If there be a real mourner for the loss of Mrs
Thornton, it's the poor, foreign orphan laddie. Peter, notwithstanding
all his greeting at the grave, will get another wife before twelve
months go round."
They who said so were in the right. Poor Jenny had not been in her grave
eleven months and twenty days, when Peter led another Mrs Thornton from
the altar. When he had brought her home, he introduced to her the orphan
Christopher.
"Now, dear," said he, "here is a laddie--none know whom he belongs to.
I found him one morning, when he was a mere infant, screaming on the
breast o' his dead mother. Since then I have brought him up. My late
wife was very fond o' him--so, indeed, was I; and it is my request that
ye will be kind to him. Here," added he, "are two rings which his mother
had upon her fingers when I found her a cold corpse. Poor fellow, if
anything ever enable him to discover who his parents were, it will be
them, though there is but little chance that he ever will. However, I
have been as a father to him for more than ten years, and I trust, love,
that ye will act towards him as a mother. Come forward, Christopher,"
continued he, "and welcome your new mother."
The boy came forward, hanging his head, and bashfully stretched out his
hand towards her; but the new-made Mrs Thornton had his mother's
jewelled ring in her hand, and she observed him not. He stood with his
eyes now bent upon the ground, now upon her, and again upon his mother's
ring, as she turned it round and round.
"Well," said she, addressing her husband, and still turning it round as
she spoke, "it is, indeed, a beautiful ring--a very beautiful ring!"
"I am glad ye think so," said he; "she had been a bonny woman that wore
it."
She placed the ring upon her finger, she turned it round again, and
gazed on it with admiration. "I should like to wear such a ring," she
added.
"Why, hinny, and ye may wear it," said Peter; "for the ring is mine
twenty times owre, whatever its value may be, considering what I have
done for the laddie."
With an expression of countenance which might be described as something
between a smile and a blush, or, as the people north the Tweed very
aptly express it, with a "_smirk_," she slipped the ring upon her
finger, saying that it fitted as well as though it had been made for
her.
Passion flashed in the eyes of the orphan. His "new mother," as Peter
styled her, had done what poor Jenny never ventured to do. He withdrew
his hand which he had extended to greet her, and he was turning away
sullenly, when his foster-father said, "Stop, Christopher, ye must not
go away until you have shaken hands with your mother." And he turned
again, and once more extended to her his hand.
"Well," said she, addressing her husband, and putting forth two of her
fingers to Christopher, "is it really possible that you have brought up
this great boy! What a trouble he must have been--and expense too!"
"Oh, you are quite mistaken," said Peter; "Christopher never cost us the
smallest trouble. I have been proud of him and pleased with him, since
ever I took him under my roof; and, poor fellow, as to the expense that
he has cost me, if I never had seen his face, I wouldna hae been a penny
richer to-day, but very possibly poorer; for he has very often amused me
wi' his drollery, and keepit me in the house, when, but for him, I would
have been down at Ponteland, or somewhere else, getting a glass wi' my
neighbours."
Many weeks had not elapsed ere Christopher discovered that his protector
who was dead had been succeeded by a living persecutor. A month had not
passed when he was not permitted to enter the room where the second Mrs
Thornton sat. Before two went round, he was ordered to take his meals
with the servants; and he could do nothing with which a fault was not
found. He had often, after scraping his shoes for five minutes together,
to take them off and examine them, before he durst venture into the
passage leading to the kitchen, which was now the only apartment in the
house to which he had access.
Peter Thornton beheld the persecution which his adopted son endured; and
he expostulated with his better half, that she would treat him more
kindly. But she answered him, that he might have children enough of his
own to provide for, without becoming a father to those of other people.
Now, a stripling that is in love generally says and does many foolish
things which he does not wish to have recalled to his recollection after
he has turned thirty; but the middle-aged man who is so smitten
invariably acts much more foolishly than the stripling. I have smiled to
see them combing up their few remaining locks to cover their bald
forehead, or carefully pulling away the grey hairs which appeared about
their temples, and all to appear young in the eyes of some widowed or
matronly divinity. I do not exactly agree with the poet who says--
"Love never strikes but once, that strikes at all!"
for I think, from nineteen to five-and-twenty, there are few men (or
women either) who have not felt a peculiar sensation about their hearts
which they took to be love, and felt it more than once too, and which
ultimately would have become love, but for particular circumstances
which broke off the acquaintanceship; and, before five-and-thirty, we
forget that such a feeling had existed, and laugh at, or profess to have
no patience with, those who are its victims. We should always remember,
however, that it is not easy to put an old head upon young shoulders,
and think of how we once felt and acted ourselves; and to recollect,
also, how happy, how miserable, we were in those days. Love is an abused
word. Elderly people turn up their nostrils when they see it in print.
They will hardly read a book where the word occurs. They will fling it
away, and cry "stuff!" But, if they would look back upon their days of
old, they would treat it with more respect. But the second love of your
middle-aged men and women--call it _doting_, or call it by any other
name, but do not call it love, for that it is not, and cannot be. Man
never knows what love is, until he has experienced the worth of an
affectionate wife, who for his sake would suffer all that the world's
ills can inflict.
Now, Peter Thornton, though not an old man, and although his first wife
had certainly been dear unto him, yet he had a doting fondness for his
second spouse, who obtained an ascendency over him, and, to his
surprise, left him no longer master of his own house.
But she bore to him a son; and, after the birth of the child, his care
over Christopher every day diminished. The orphan was given over to
persecution--the hand of every one was raised against him--and, finding
that he had now no one to whom he could apply for redress, he lifted up
his own hand in his defence. The serving-maids who ill-treated him soon
found him more than their equal; and to the men-servants, when they used
him roughly, he shook his head, threatening that he would soon be a
match for them.
The coldness which Mrs Thornton had at first manifested towards him soon
relapsed into perfect hatred. He was taken from the school; and she
hourly forced upon him the most menial offices. For hours together he
was doomed to rock the cradle of her child, and was sure of being beaten
the moment it awoke. Nor was this all--but, when friends visited her,
poor Christopher was compelled to wait at the table, at which he had
once sat by the side of Jenny Thornton, and whoever might be the guests,
he was first served. She even provoked her husband, until he lifted his
hand and struck the orphan violently--forgetting the proverb, that "they
should have light hands who strike other people's bairns." The boy
looked upbraidingly in Peter's face as he struck him for the first time,
though he uttered no complaint; but that very look whispered to his
heart, "What would Jenny have said, had she seen this?" And Peter,
repenting of what he did, turned away and wept. Yet a sin that is once
committed is less difficult to commit again, and remorse becomes as an
echo that is sinking faint. Having, therefore, once lifted his hand
against the orphan--though he then wept for having done so--it was not
long until the blows were repeated without compunction.
Christopher, however, was a strange boy--perhaps what some would call a
provoking one--and often, when Mrs Thornton pursued him from the house
to chastise him, he would hastily climb upon the tops of the houses of
the farm-servants, and sitting astride upon them, nod down to her
triumphantly, as with threats she shook her hand in his face; and,
smiling, sing
"Loudon's bonny woods and braes."
But his favourite song, on such occasions, was the following, which, if
it be not the exact words that he sang, embodies the sentiment--
"'Can I forget the woody braes
Where love and innocence foregather;
Where aft, in early summer days,
I've croon'd a sang among the heather?
Can I forget my father's hearth--
My mother by the ingle spinnin--
Their weel-pleased look to see the mirth
O' a' their bairnies round them rinnin?
'It was a waefu hour to me,
When I frae them and love departed:
The tear was in my mother's ee--
My father blest me--broken-hearted;
My aulder brithers took my hand--
The younkers a' ran frae me greetin!
But, waur than this--I couldna stand
My faithfu lassie's fareweel meetin!
'Can I forget her partin kiss,
Her last fond look, and true love token?
Forget an hour sae dear as this!
Forget!--the word shall ne'er be spoken!
Forget!--na, though the foamin sea,
High hills, and mony a sweepin river,
May lie between their hearth and me,
My heart shall be at hame for ever.'"
Now, when Christopher was pursued by his persecutor, and sought refuge
on the house-tops, sitting upon them much after the fashion of a tailor,
he carolled the song we have just quoted most merrily. Many, indeed,
wondered that he, never having known the hearth of either a father or a
mother, should have sung such a song; but it was so, and the orphan
delighted to sing it. Yet we often do many things for which we find it
difficult to assign a reason. There was one amusing trait in the
character of Christopher; and that was, that the more vehemently Mrs
Thornton scolded him, and the more bitter her imprecations against him
became, so, while he sat as a tailor on the house-top, did his song wax
louder and more loud, and his strain become merrier. We have heard women
talk of being ready to eat the nails from their fingers with vexation,
and on such occasions Mrs Thornton was so. But her anger did not amend
the disposition of Christopher, though it often drew down upon him the
indignation of her husband.
It has already been mentioned that he struck him once; and, having done
so, he felt no repugnance to do it frequently. For it is only the first
time that we commit a sin that we have the horror of its commission
before us. The orphan now became like unto Ishmael; for every man's hand
was against him, and I might say every woman's too. Now, during the
lifetime of Jenny, he had had everything his own way, and whatsoever he
said was done; some said that he was a spoiled child, and it was at
least evident that his humour was never thwarted. This caused him to
have the more enemies now; and every menial on the farm of Peter
Thornton became his persecutor. It is the common fate of all
favourites--to-day they are treated with abject adulation, and
to-morrow, if the sun which shone on them be clouded, no one thinks him
too low to look on them with disdain.
For more than three years, Christopher's life became a scene of
continual martyrdom. He was now, however, a tall and powerful young man
of seventeen; and many who had been in the habit of raising their hands
against him found it discreet to do so no more. But Mrs Thornton was not
of this number; she found some cause to lift her hand and strike the
orphan, as often as he came into her presence. Even Peter, kind as he
had once been, treated him almost as cruelly as his wife. It was not
that he disliked him as she did; but she had soured and fretted his
disposition; and, unconsciously to himself, from being the orphan's
friend, he became his terror and tormentor.
But one day, when the violence of Mrs Thornton far exceeded the bounds
of endurance, Christopher turned upon her, and, with the revenge of a
Spaniard glistening in his eyes, grasped her by the throat. She screamed
aloud for help, and her husband and the farm-servants rushed to her
assistance.
"Back, back!" exclaimed Christopher. "Woman, give me the rings--give me
the rings!--they are mine--they were my mother's!"
Peter sprang forward, and grasped hold of him.
"Touch me not!" exclaimed the orphan; "I will be your slave no longer!
Give me the rings--my mother's rings!"
Peter stood aghast at the manner of the boy. His every look, his every
action, bespoke desperation. He thrust his clenched hand towards Mr
Thornton, exclaiming, "Touch me not!--the rings are mine!--I will have
them!"
"The muckle mischief confound ye!" exclaimed Peter, with a look of half
fear and bewilderment; "what in a' the world is the matter wi' ye,
Christopher? Is the laddie out o' his head?"
"The rings--my mother's rings!" cried the orphan; and, as he spoke, he
grasped more violently the hand of Mrs Thornton.
"The like o' that," said Peter, "I never saw in my existence. In my
opinion, the laddie is no in his right judgment."
But Christopher tore the rings from the hands of Mrs Thornton,
exclaiming, "Farewell--farewell!"
"The like o' that!" said Peter, in amazement, holding up his hands; "the
laddie is surely daft. Follow him, some o' ye."
Mrs Thornton sank down in hysterics. Her husband endeavoured to soothe
and restore her; and the men-servants followed Christopher. But it was
an idle task. No one had rivalled him in speed of foot, and they could
not overtake him.
"The time will come," he cried, as he ran, "when Peter Thornton will
repent his conduct towards me. Follow me not; for the first who shall
lay a hand upon me shall die."
The farm-servants who pursued him were awed by his manner, and, after
following him about a mile, turned back.
"Where can the laddie have gone to?" said Peter; "he never took ony o'
those fits in Jenny's time. I hope, wife, that ye have done nothing to
him that ye ought not to have done."
"Me done to him!" she cried; "ye will bring up your beggars, and this is
your reward."
"Mrs Thornton," answered he, "I am amazed and astonished to behold this
conduct in Christopher. For more than fourteen years he has been an
inmate beneath my roof; seldom have I had to quarrel him, and never
until you became my wife."
The words between Peter and his better half grew loud and angry; but,
instead of describing their matrimonial altercations, we shall follow
the orphan Christopher.
But, before accompanying him in his flight from the house of Peter
Thornton, we shall go back a few years, and take up another part of his
history.
There resided in the neighbourhood in which Christopher had been brought
up one George Wilkinson, who had a daughter named Jessie. Christopher
and Jessie were school-mates together; and when the other children ran
hallooing from the school, they walked together, whispering, smiling at
each other. It was strange that affection should have sprung up in such
young hearts. But it was so.
Christopher became the one absorbing thought upon which the mind of
Jessie dwelt; and she became the day-dream of his being. She was
comparatively a child when he left the house of his foster-father--so
was he; yet, although they became thus early parted, they forgot not
each other. Young as she was, Jessie Wilkinson lay on her bed and wept
for the sake of poor Christopher. They indeed might be said to be but
the tears of a child; yet they were tears which we can shed but once.
Young as Jessie was, Christopher became the dream of her future
existence. She remembered the happy days that they had passed together,
when the hawthorn was in blossom or the bean was in the bloom, when they
loitered together, side by side, and the air was pregnant with
fragrance, while his hand would touch hers, and he would say, "Jessie!"
and look in her face and wonder what he meant to have said; and she
would answer him, "Christopher!" Still did those days haunt the
recollection of the simple girl; and as she grew in years and stature,
his remembrance became the more entwined around her heart. When she had
reached the age of womanhood, other wooers offered her their hand; but
she thought of the boy that had first loved her; and to him her memory
clung, as the evening dawn falleth on the hills. Her father was but a
poor man; and when many perceived the liking which Christopher May, the
adopted son and supposed heir of the rich Peter Thornton, entertained
for her, they said that nothing, or at least no good, would proceed from
their acquaintance. But they who so said did not truly judge of the
heart of Jessie. She was one of those who can love but once, and that
once must be for ever. In their early childhood, Christopher had become
a part of her earliest affection, and she now found it impossible to
forget him, or shake his remembrance from her bosom. It was certainly a
girl's love, and elderly people will laugh at it; but why should they
laugh? They were the feelings which they once cherished--the feelings
which were once dearest to them--the feelings without which they
believed they could not exist--and wherefore could they blame poor
Jessie for remembering what they had forgot?
Many years passed, and no one heard of Christopher. Even Peter Thornton
knew nothing of where he was, or what had become of him--the child of
his adoption was lost to him. He heard his neighbours upbraid him with
having treated the boy with cruelty; and Peter's heart was troubled. He
reflected upon his wife for her conduct towards the orphan, and it gave
rise to bickerings between them.
Hitherto we have spoken of the unknown orphan--we must now speak of an
unknown soldier. At the battle of Salamanca, amongst the men who there
distinguished themselves, there was a young serjeant whose feats of
valour attracted the notice of his superiors. Where the battle raged
fiercest, there were the effects of his arm made visible; his
impetuosity over all his enemies had attracted the notice of his
superior officers. But, in the moment of victory, when the streets were
lined with dead, the young hero fell, covered with bayonet wounds. A
field-officer, who had been an observer of his conduct, ordered a party
of his men to attempt his rescue. The life of the young hero was long
despaired of; and when he recovered, several officers, in admiration of
his courage, agreed to present him with a sword. It was beautifully
ornamented, and bore the inscription--
_"Presented to Christopher May, serjeant in the ---- regiment of
infantry, by several officers who were witnesses of the heroism he
displayed at the battle of Salamanca."_
The sword was presented to him at the head of his regiment, and the
officer who placed it in his hand addressed him, saying, "Young soldier,
the gallant bearing which you exhibited at Salamanca has excited the
admiration of all who beheld it. The officers of your own regiment,
therefore, and others, have deemed it their duty to present you with
this sword, as a reward of merit, and a testimony of the admiration with
which your heroism has inspired them. I have now the gratification of
placing it in the hands of a brave man. Take it, and if your parents yet
live, it will be a trophy of which they will be proud, and which your
posterity will exhibit with admiration."
"My parents!" said the young soldier, with a sigh; "alas, sir! I never
knew one whom I could call by the endearing name of father or of mother.
I am an orphan--an unknown one. I believe I am not even an Englishman,
but a native of the land for the freedom of which we now fight!"
"You a Spaniard!" said the officer, with surprise; "it is
impossible--neither your name nor features bespeak you to belong to this
nation. But you say that you never knew your parents--what know you of
your history?"
"Little, indeed," he replied; and as he spoke, the officers gathered
around him, and he continued--"I have been told that in the month of
May, four-and-twenty years ago, the dead body of a woman was found in a
farm-yard, about fifteen miles north of Newcastle. She was dressed in
Spanish costume, and a child of about three years of age hung weeping on
her bosom. I was that child; and I have been told that the few words I
could then lisp were Spanish. The kind-hearted wife of the honest
Northumbrian who found me brought me up as her own child; and while she
lived, I might almost have said I had a mother. But at her death, I
found indeed that I had neither parent, kindred, nor country, but that I
was in truth, what some called me in derision, '_The Unknown_.' I
entered the army, and have fought in defence of the land to which I
believe I belong. This only do I know of my history, or of who or what I
am."
While the young serjeant spoke, every eye was bent upon him
interestedly; but there was one who was moved even to tears. He was an
officer of middle age, named Major Ferguson. He approached the gallant
youth, he gazed earnestly in his face.
"You say that you were about three years old," he said, "when you were
found clinging to the breast of your mother; have you no remembrance of
her--no recollection of the name by which you were then called?"
"None! none!" answered the other. "I sometimes fancy that, as the vague
remembrance of a dream, I recollect clinging around my mother's neck,
and kissing her cold lips; but whether it indeed be remembrance, or
merely the tale that has been often told me, I am uncertain. I often
imagine, also, that her beautiful features yet live in my memory, though
with the indistinctness of an ethereal being--like a vapour that is
dying away on the far horizon; and I am uncertain, also, whether the
fair vision that haunts me be indeed a dim remembrance of what my mother
was, or a creation of my brain."
The interest of the scene was heightened by the resemblance which Major
Ferguson and the young serjeant bore to each other. All observed it--all
expressed their surprise--and the major, in his turn, began his tale.
"Your features, young man," said he, "and your story, have drawn tears
to the eyes of an old soldier. Thirty years ago I was in this country,
and became an inmate in the house of a rich merchant in Madrid. His
name was Valdez, and he had an only daughter called Maria. When I first
beheld her, she was about nineteen, and a being more beautiful I had
never seen--I have not seen. Affection sprang up between us; for it was
impossible to look on her and not love. Her father, though he at first
expressed some opposition to our wishes, on the ground of my being a
Protestant, at length gave his consent, and Maria became my wife. For
several months our happiness was as a dream--as a summer sky where there
is no cloud. But our days of felicity were of short continuance. We have
all heard of the revengeful disposition of the Spanish people, and it
was our lot to be its victims. I have said that it was impossible to
look upon the face of Maria, and not love; and many of the grandees and
wealthiest citizens of Madrid sought her hand. Amongst the former was a
nephew of an Inquisitor. He vowed to have his revenge--and he has had
it. In the dead of night, a band of ruffians burst into the bedchamber
of Maria's father, and dragged him to the dungeons of the Inquisition.
For several weeks, and we could learn nothing of what had become of him;
but his property was seized and confiscated, as though he had been a
common felon. My wife was then the mother of an infant son, and I
endeavoured to effect our concealment, until an opportunity of escaping
to England might be found. We had approached within a hundred yards of
the vessel, when a band of armed men rushed upon us. They overpowered
me; and while one party bore away my wife and child, others dragged me
into a carriage, one holding a pistol to my breast, while another tied a
bandage over my eyes. They continued to drive with furious rapidity for
about six hours, when I was torn from the carriage, and dragged between
the ruffians through numerous winding passages. I heard the grating of
locks and the creaking of bolts, as they proceeded. Door succeeded door,
groaning on their unwilling hinges, as they ascended stairs, and
descended others, in an interminable labyrinth. Still the men who
hurried me onward maintained a sullen silence; and no sound was heard,
save the clashing of prison doors, and the sepulchral echo of their
footsteps ringing through the surrounding dungeons. They at length
stopped. A cord, suspended from a block in the roof was fastened round
my waist; and, when one, turning a sort of windlass, which communicated
with the other end of the cord, raised me several feet from the ground,
his comrade drew a knife, and cut asunder the fastenings that bound my
arms. While one, holding the handle of the machine, kept me hanging in
the air, other two applied a key to a large, square stone in the floor,
which, aided by a spring, they with some difficulty raised, and revealed
a yawning opening to a dungeon, yet deeper and more dismal than that
which formed its entrance. The moment my hands were at liberty, I tore
the bandage from my eyes, and perceiving, through the aid of a dim lamp
that flickered in a corner of the vault, the horror of my situation, I
struggled in desperation. But my threatenings and my groans were
answered only by their hollow echoes, or the more dismal laughter of my
assassins.
"Down--down!" vociferated both voices to their companion, as the stone
was raised; and, in a moment, I was plunged into the dark mouth of the
dungeon. I uttered a cry of agony louder and longer than the rest; and,
as my body sunk into the abyss, I clutched its edge in despair. One of
the ruffians sprang forward, and, blaspheming as he raised his foot,
dashed his iron heels upon my fingers. Mine was the grasp of a dying
man; and, thrusting forward my right hand, I seized the ankle of the
monster, who attempted to kick me in the face. With my left I
strengthened my hold, and my body plunging downward with the movement,
dragged after me the wretch, who, uttering a piercing shriek, as his
head dashed on the brink of the fearful dungeon, escaped instantly from
my grasp, and with an imprecation on his tongue, he was plunged headlong
into darkness many fathoms deep. Startled by the cry of his comrade, the
other sprang from the machine by which he was lowering me into the
vault, and I in consequence descended with the violence of a stone
driven from a strong arm. But, before I reached the bottom, the cord by
which I hung was expended, and I swung in torture between the sides of
the dungeon. In this state of agony I remained for several minutes, till
one of the miscreants cutting the rope, I fell with my face upon the
bloody and mangled body of their accomplice; and the huge stone was
placed over us, enveloping both in darkness, solid and substantial as
the pit of wrath itself.
"A paralysing feeling of horror and surprise, and the violence with
which I fell upon the mangled body of my victim, for a time deprived me
of all consciousness of my situation; nor was it until the convulsive
groans of the bleeding wretch beneath me recalled me in some measure to
a sense of other miseries than my own, that a remembrance of the past,
and a feeling of the present, opened upon my mind, like the confused
terror of a dismal dream. I rose slowly to my feet, and, disengaging
myself from the rope by which I was suspended into the vault,
endeavoured to look around the walls of my prison-house--but all was
dark as the grave. Recollecting the part sustained in seizing me by the
wounded man, who still groaned and writhed at my feet, I darted fiercely
upon him; and hurling him from the ground, exclaimed, 'Villain!--tell me
or die!--where am I? or by whom am I brought here?' A loud, long yell of
terror, accompanied by violent and despairing struggles, like a wild
beast tearing from the paws of a lion, was the only answer returned by
the miserable being. And as the piteous and heart-piercing yell rang
round the cavern, and its echoes, multiplying in darkness, at length
died away, leaving silence more dolorous than ourselves, I felt as a
man from the midst of a marriage-feast, suddenly thrust into the cells
of Bedlam; where, instead of the music of the harp and the lute, was the
shriek and the clanking chains of insanity; for bridal ornaments, the
madman's straw; and for the gay dance, the convulsions of the maniac,
and the sorrowful gestures of idiocy. Every feeling of indignation
passed away--my blood grew cold--the skin moved upon my flesh--I again
laid the wretched man on the damp earth, and fearfully groped to the
opposite side of the dungeon.