found it a vast square, its sides composed merely of the rude strata of
earth or rock; and measuring nearly six times the length of my extended
arms. As often as I moved, bones seemed to crackle beneath my feet; and
a noise, like the falling of armour and the sounding of steel,
accompanied the crumbling fragments. Once I stooped to ascertain the
cause, and raising a heavy body, a part of it fell with a loud, hollow
crash among my feet, leaving the lighter portion in my hands. It was a
round bony substance, covered, and partly filled, with damp, cold dust.
I was neither superstitious nor a coward; but, as I drew my hand around
it, my body quivered, the hair upon my head moved, and my heart felt
heavy. It was the form of a human skull. The damp dust had once been the
temple of a living soul. My fingers entered the sockets of the eyes--the
teeth fell in my hands--and the still fresh and dewy hair twined around
it. I shuddered--it fell from my grasp--the chill of death passed over
me. The horrid conviction that I was immured in a living grave absorbed
every other feeling; and smiting my brow in horror, I threw myself, with
a groan, amidst the dead of other years.
"I again sprang to my feet, with the undetermined and confused wildness
of despair. The mournful howlings of the assassin continued to render
the horrid sepulchre still more horrible, and gave to its darkness a
deeper ghostliness. Dead to every emotion of sympathy, stricken with
dismal realities, and more terrible imaginations, yet burning for
revenge, directed by the howlings of the miserable man, and hesitating
to distinguish between them and their incessant echoes, stretching my
hands before me, I again approached him, to extort a confession of the
cause and place of my imprisonment, or rather living burial. Vainly I
raised him from the ground--threatening, soothing, and expostulation
were alike unavailing. On hearing my voice, the miserable being shrieked
with redoubled bitterness, plunged furiously, and gnashed his teeth,
fastening them, in the extremity of his frenzy, in his own flesh. His
fierce agony recalled to my bosom an emotion of pity; and, for a moment,
forgetful of my own injuries and condition, I thought only of relieving
his suffering; but my presence seemed to add new madness to his
tortures; and he tore himself from my hold with the lamentable yells of
a tormented mastiff, and the strength of a giant who, in the last throe
of expiring nature, grapples with his conqueror. He reeled wildly a few
paces, and fell, with a crash, upon the earth.
"Slowly and dismally the hours moved on, with no sound to measure their
progress, save the audible beating of my own heart, and the death-like
howling moan of my companion. As I leaned against the wall, counting
these dismal divisions of time, which appeared thus fearfully to mete
out the duration of my existence, through the black darkness, whose
weight had become oppressive to my eyeballs, I beheld, far above me, on
the opposite wall, a faint shadow, like the ghost of light, streaking
its side, but so indistinct and imperfect, I knew not whether it was
fancy or reality. With the earnestness of death, my eyes remained fixed
on the 'gloomy light;' and it threw upon my bosom a hope dim as itself.
Again I doubted its existence--deemed it a creation of my brain; and
groping along the damp floor, where my hand seemed passing over the ribs
of a skeleton, I threw a loose fragment in the air, towards the point
from whence the doubted glimmering proceeded; and perceived, for a
moment, as it fell, the shadow of a substance. Then, springing forward
to the spot, I gasped to inhale, with its feeble ray, one breath that
was not agony.
"Thirst burned my lips, and, to cool them, they were pressed against the
damp walls of the prison; but my tongue was still dry--my throat
parched--and hunger began to prey upon me. While thus suffering, a faint
light streamed from a narrow opening in the roof of the vault. Slowly a
feeble lamp was lowered through the aperture, and descended within two
or three feet of my head. A small basket, containing a portion of bread
and a pitcher of water, suspended by a cord, was let down into the
vault. I seized the pitcher, as I would have rushed upon liberty; and
raising it to my lips, as the pure, grateful beverage allayed the fever
of my thirst, I shed a solitary tear, and, in the midst of my misery,
that tear was a tear of joy--like the morning-star gilding the horizon,
when the surrounding heavens are wrapped in tempest. With it the
feelings of the Christian and the man met in my bosom; and, bending over
my fellow-sufferer, I applied the water to his lips. The poor wretch
devoured the draught to its last drop with greediness.
"The presence and the unceasing groans of my companion--yea, the dungeon
and darkness themselves--were forgotten in the one deadening and bitter
idea, that my wife and child were also captives, and in the power of
ruffians. If any other thought was indulged a moment, it was longing for
liberty, that I might fly to their rescue--and it was then only that I
became again sensible of captivity; and my eyes once more sought the
dubious gleam that stretched fitfully across the wall, becoming more
evident to perception as I became inured to the surrounding blackness.
Hope burned and brightened, as I traced the source of its dreamy
shadows; and from thence weaved plans of escape, which, in the
calculation of fancy, were already as performed; though, before reason
and common possibilities, they would have perished as the dewy nets
that, with the damps of an autumnal morning, overspread the hawthorn
with their spangled lacework, and, before the rising sunbeam, shrink
into nothing.
"But gradually my grief and despair subsided, and gave place to the
cheering influence of hope, and the resolution of attempting my escape;
and I rose to eat the bread and drink the water of captivity, to
strengthen me for the task. For many hours, the presence of my companion
had been forgotten; he still continued to howl, as one whom the horrors
of an accusing conscience were withholding from the grasp of death; and
I, roused from the reverie of my feelings and projects at the sound of
his sufferings, hastened to apply water and morsels of bread to the lips
of my perishing fellow-prisoner; for bread and water had been lowered
into the vault.
"In order to carry my plan of escape into effect, for the first time,
aided by the lamp that was suspended over me, I gazed inquisitively, and
with a feeling of dismay, around the Golgotha in which I was immured.
There lay my hideous companion, the foam of pain and insanity gurgling
from his mouth; beside him the skeleton of a mailed warrior, and around,
the uncoffined bones of four others, partly covered with their armour,
and
'The brands yet rusted in their bony hands.'
"Although prepared for such a scene, I placed my hands before my eyes,
shuddering at the thought of becoming as one of those--of being their
companion while I lived--of lying down by the side of a skeleton to die!
The horror of the idea fired anew my resolution, and added more than
human strength to my arm. I again eagerly sought the direction of the
doubtful gleam, which formerly filled me with hope; and was convinced
that from thence an opening might be effected, if not to perfect
liberty, to a sight of the blessed light of heaven, where freedom, I
dreaded not, would easily be found. Filled with determination, which no
obstacle could impede, I took one of the swords, which had lain by the
side of its owner untouched for ages, and with this instrument commenced
the laborious and seemingly impossible task of cutting out a flight of
steps in the rude wall, and thereby gaining the invisible aperture from
which something like light was seen to emanate. The ray proceeded from
an extreme angle of the dungeon, and apparently at its utmost height.
The materials on which I had to work were chiefly a hard granite rock,
and other lighter, but scarce more manageable strata.
"Several anxious and miserable weeks thus passed in sluggish succession.
Half of my task was accomplished; and hope, with impatience, looked
forward to its completion. I still divided my scanty meals with my
companion, who, although recovered from the bruises occasioned by his
fall, was become more horrible and fiend-like than before. As his body
resumed its functions, his mind became the terrible imaginings of a
guilty conscience. He had either lost, or forgotten, the power of
walking upright, and prowled, howling round the dungeon, on his hands
and feet; while his dark bushy beard and revolting aspect gave him more
the manner and appearance of a wild beast than a human being.
"Our portion of food being barely sufficient for the sustenance of one,
hunger had long been added to the list of our sufferings; but
particularly to those of the maniac. And, with the cunning peculiar to
such unfortunates, he watched the return of the basket, which was daily
lowered with provisions, and frequently before I--who, absorbed in the
completion of my task, forgot or heeded not my jailer's being within
hearing--could descend to the ground, he would grasp the basket, swallow
off the water at a draught, and hurry with the bread to a corner of a
dungeon; thus leaving me without food for the next twenty-four hours.
"It was at the period when I had half completed my object, that my
companion, springing, as was his wont, upon the basket, before I could
approach to withhold him, succeeded in draining off the contents of a
goblet, in which a few drops of a dark-coloured liquid still remained;
and the pitcher of water was untouched. The wretched maniac had
swallowed the draught but a few minutes, when, rolling himself together,
his screams and contortions became more frightful than before, and
increased in virulence for an hour. He lay motionless a few seconds,
gasping for breath; then, springing suddenly to his feet, he gazed
wistfully above and around him, with a look of extreme agony, and
exclaiming, 'Heaven help me!' he rushed fiercely towards the wall in the
opposite direction to where I was attempting to effect my escape, gave
one furious pull at what appeared the solid rock, and, with a groan,
fell back, and expired.
"When the horror occasioned by his death in some degree abated, the
singularity of the manner in which he tore at the wall of the dungeon,
fixed my attention; and, with almost frantic joy, I perceived that a
portion of the hitherto thought impenetrable rock, had yielded several
inches to his dying grasp. I hastily removed the body, and pulling
eagerly at the unloosed fragment, it fell upon the ground, a rough
unhewn lump of granite, leaving an opening of about two feet square in
the rude rocky wall, from which it was so cut, as to seem to feeling and
almost appearance a solid part of it.
"My task was now abandoned. The gleam of light, which for weeks was to
me an object of such intense interest, proceeded from a mere hairbreadth
cleft in the rock. Taking up a sword which lay upon the ground, I drew
my body into the aperture formed by the removal of the piece of rock;
and creeping slowly on my hands and knees, groping with the weapon
before me, I at length found the winding and dismal passage sufficiently
lofty to permit me to stand erect. I seemed enveloped in an interminable
cavern, now opening into spacious chambers, clothed with crystal; again
losing itself in low passages, or narrow chinks of the rock, and
suddenly terminating in a slippery precipice, beneath which gurgling
waters were heard to run. Hours and hours passed; still I was groping
onward; when I suddenly found my hopes cut off, by the interposition of
a precipice. I probed fearfully forward with the sword, but all was an
unsubstantial void; I drew it on each side, and then it met but the
solid walls. I knelt, and reached down the sword to the length of my
arm, but it touched nothing. In agony, I dropped the weapon, by its
sound to ascertain the depth; and, delighted, found it did not exceed
eight or ten feet. I cautiously slid down, and groping around, again
placed my hand upon the sword. Though my heart occasionally sank within
me, yet the overcoming of each difficulty lent its inspiring aid to
overcome its successor. Often every hope appeared extinct. Now I
ascended, or again descended the dropping and crystalled rocks; now
crept into openings, which suddenly terminated, and turning again,
anxiously listened to the sound of the rippling water as my only guide.
Often, in spite of every precaution, I was stunned with a blow from the
abrupt lowness of the roof, or suddenly plunged to the arms in the
numerous pools, whose waters had been dark from their birth.
"Language cannot convey an idea of the accumulating horrors of my
situation. Struggling with suffocation, with a feeling more awful than
terror, and with despair, the agony of darkness must be _experienced_ to
be imagined.
"Still I moved on; and suddenly, when ready to sink, wearied, fainting,
hopeless, the glorious light of day streamed upon my sight. I bounded
forward with a wild shout; but the magnificent sun, bursting from the
eastern heavens, blinded my unaccustomed gaze.
"I again found that I was free: but my wife--my child--where were they?
It was many years before I learned that the nephew of the inquisitor,
who had sought her hand, having died, she regained her liberty, and fled
with our infant son to Scotland, to seek the home of her lost husband.
Since then I have never heard of them again."
When the major had thus concluded his narrative,
"Here," said Christopher, "are two rings which were taken from the
fingers of my mother--both bear inscriptions."
The old officer gazed upon them.
"They were hers--my Maria's!" he exclaimed; "I myself placed them upon
her fingers. Son of my Maria, thou art mine!"
The major purchased a commission for his long-lost son; and when peace
was proclaimed throughout Europe, they returned to Northumberland
together, where Christopher gave his sword as a memorial to his
foster-father, Peter Thornton, and his hand to Jessie Wilkinson.
THE TRIALS OF MENIE DEMPSTER.
In the contemplation of the affairs of the world, there is perhaps
nothing that strikes a philosophical observer with more wonder than what
has been quaintly called the mutability of truth. With the exception of
some of the best ascertained laws of matter, and the evidences and
sanctions of our holy religion, there is scarcely anything around us
that can be said to be absolutely determined and ascertained in all its
bearings--including the influential cause, in a chain extending its
unseen links through many minds; the proximate cause, involved in the
dark recesses of the soul of the actor; and the effects, spread forth in
endless ramification through society. Men are judged of, condemned,
hanged, reviled, ruined, elevated, applauded, and rewarded upon less
than a thousandth part of the real moral truth that is evident to the
eye of the Almighty; and it too often happens, that what seems to be
best ascertained by the united testimony of many soothfast witnesses, is
after all little better than a lie, or an invention of men's minds,
rolled up in the clouds of prejudice, selfishness, or hallucination.
This truth, of no truth, is apparent to all thinking men; and yet how
melancholy is it to reflect that we are so constructed that we cannot
but live and act upon the principle and practice that we see the whole,
when we see only an insignificant part, that, if observed in the midst
of the general array brought out by divine light, would appear not only
a speck, but by the influence of surrounding evidence, changed in its
nature, and reversed in its object and bearing! It was but a partial,
though a striking illustration of this fact, that the murder which Sir
Walter Raleigh saw committed with his own eyes from the Tower window
came to him so distorted and changed, through the medium of public and
judicial report, that he could scarcely recognise in it the lineaments
of the vision of his senses; for if the act he witnessed performed in
the streets of London were falsified by the errors or inventions of man,
how little could have been known of the motives that led to its
commission! This subject, if carried out, might open up a dreadful array
of the effects of man's conceit and blindness, exhibiting innocent
individuals paying the penalty of death for the crimes of others;
characters without a stain immolated at the shrine of public prejudice;
and innocence suffering in ten thousand different ways under the cruel
scorn of the bloodthirsty Chiun of a blind yet self-sufficient public.
We are led into these observations by the facts of a curious case of
false implication that occurred near Edinburgh many years ago, from
which, besides the interest it may inspire, we may learn the lesson of
that charity which our blessed Saviour laboured so much to make a ruling
principle in the men of the world, but with a success that might form a
melancholy theme for the fair investigations of philanthropists.
In the village of Old Broughton, situated on the north of the old town
of Edinburgh, and now nearly swallowed up by the surrounding masses of
architectural grandeur that compose the new town of that proud city,
there lived (we love the good old style of beginning a story) the old
widow of William Dempster, who long officiated in the capacity of
precentor in the ancient kirk of the Tron; where his voice, loud as that
of Cycloborus, stirred the sleeping power of vocal worship in the
breasts of the good citizens. His voice had long been mute, not as that
of Elihu, who trembled to speak to the Lord, but as that of those who
lie in the mould till that day when there shall be no hindrance by the
chilling hand of death, to sing the praises of the King of heaven and
earth. Yet the voice of thanksgiving was not silent in the house of the
widow and fatherless, where old Euphan, as she was styled, and her
pretty daughter Menie, lived that life whose enjoyments the proud may
despise, but whose end and reward they may envy in vain. It may not be
that it was their choice (as whose choice is it?) to be poor; but it was
their wisdom to know, as expressed by old Boston, that it may be more
pleasant to live in a palace, but it is more easy to die in a cottage.
The characters of these individuals, who happily never dreamed of
forming heroines in the "Border Tales," can be best appreciated by those
who lived in the last century; for in these jaunty days, when the sun of
perfectibility is beginning to dawn on the moral horizon of a once
sinful world, the contentment that is derived from a trust in heaven,
and the pride that is begotten of a virtue that rejoices in itself, are
more often pictured by the pen of the fictioneer than found in the place
and personages that be. The representations of our old painter, George
Jamesone, would be true as applied to Euphan Dempster and her daughter;
for the dresses of the women of Scotland underwent small change until
the eventful era of the nineteenth century; but we need them not--for
our faithful memory has treasured the description of our parent, who
lived to set forth the old representative of the Covenanters, sitting
with her linsey-woolsey gown, of green or cramosie, made close in the
sleeves--the body tight, and peaked in the form of the old separate
bodice--the huge swelling skirt of many folds, twined out at the
pocket-holes, and open in front, to show the bright-coloured petticoat
of callimankey--her round-eared mutch that served the purpose of bonnet
and coif--her clear-bleached tuck, with its row of mother-of-pearl
buttons running down the front--and her hose of white woollen, that
disappeared at the extremities in the shoe, whose high-turned heels gave
a kind of dignity to the step of the poor. The dress of the mother in
those days was almost that of the daughter, with the exception of the
head-gear, which, in the latter, was limited to a band of black velvet
(the _bandeau_), to restrain the flowing locks; and, high as the word
velvet may sound, there were few maidens, however poor, that wanted the
small strip of the costly material that now is seen covering the whole
persons of the wives of rich tradesmen.
Such were the external characteristics of the inhabitants of the old
red-tiled dwelling, so long known by the name of Dominie Dempster's
House, in the village of Old Broughton; and, if we will form a character
out of a combination of the virtues that dignified and graced the wives
and daughters of the old Cameronians, we might make a fair approach to
the dispositions and habits of this solitary pair, whose earthly stay
and support being gone, trusted implicitly to Heaven, for what Heaven
has seldom denied to the good. The mother was one of those
happily-constituted beings, whose minds are so completely formed, as it
were, upon the Bible, that not only were her actions regulated by the
precepts of the holy book, but her thoughts were naturally and almost
unconsciously expressed in Scripture language; nor could it be said
that, dearly as she loved the old defenders of our faith, who reared
their temples among the mountains, and died on the altars, she imitated
their speech and manners merely because she loved their virtues--she
only drew from the same fountain from which they drew; and the water
that slaked their thirst in the wilderness of their persecution
sustained her in the hour of her privation. Obeying the holy behest,
"Let thine heart retain my words," she made the religion of Christ "the
life of her soul;" and that which was a part of her spirit could not
fail to regulate her conversation. An heir of an ever-blessed eternity,
in which she believed soon to enter, the only worldly feeling that bound
her to life was her desire to see her beloved Menie exhibit the fruits
of her parental culture as fair to the eye of virtue, as the many
simple beauties of her person--her blooming Scotch face, with the blue
eye, and cheek that rivalled the peach in softness and colour; her
mermaiden hair, and the graces of an almost perfect harmony of
proportions--were to the eye of the admirer of female loveliness. And
this the mother had already in part seen in the evolution of all those
estimable qualities of the heart, that, when joined to physical beauty,
form the fairest object among all the fair creatures of this fair but
fleeting world.