I CLAIM A PROMISE, AND WE SEEK THE HILLS
And now I set myself resolutely to think out something that might be the
saving of my life and my love. I was in a perilous case, for when
Gilbert found that I had escaped him, he would come on forthwith to
Dawyck, and, in all likelihood, be here ere nightfall. One thing was
clear--that I could not bide myself nor leave Marjory to his tender
mercies. The hills for me; and for her--ah, that was the rub in the
matter!
At last I made out some semblance of a plan. On the edge of Douglasdale,
in the shire of Lanark, dwelt William Veitch at the house of Smitwood,
the uncle of the dead Sir John, an old man well fallen in the vale of
years. He was unmolested by all, being a peaceable soldier who had
served God and the king in his day, and now thought of nothing save
making a good ending. He would gladly take the lass, I knew, and
shelter her till such time as I should come and take her again. Nor
would Gilbert follow her thither, for no word should come to his ear of
her destined harbour, and he knew naught of the place nor the
relationship. The plan came upon me with such convincing force that I
took no other thought on the matter. Nicol should be left there both as
a guard of the place--and who so vigilant?--and as some means of
communication between me and my mistress. For my own part, when once I
had seen my lass safely sheltered, I should take to the hills with a
light heart. I should love to be free and careless among the wide
moors, and try my wits in a fair contest against my sweet cousin.
I told the thing to Nicol and he gladly agreed. Then I sought out
Marjory, who had gone to make some preparations for my flight, and found
her talking gravely to the old man, the only remaining servant. I drew
her to the little oak parlour.
"Marjory, lass," I said, "I am but new come home, and I little thought
to have to take flight again so soon. Do you mind ere I went to the Low
Countries I came here to bid you farewell, and you sang me a song?"
"I mind it well," said she.
"Have you a remembrance of the air, my dear? How did it go?" and I
whistled a stave.
"Ay, even so. You have a good ear, John."
"I think, too, that I have mind of a verse or so," said I. "There was
one which ran like this:
"'And if he were a soldier gay
And tarried from the town,
And sought in wars, through death and scars,
To win for him renown,
I'd place his colours in my breast
And ride by moor and lea,
And win his side, there to abide
And bear him company.'
Was it not so?"
"Yes," she said, smiling; "how well you remember, John."
"And there was a refrain, too," I went on.
"'For sooth a maid, all unafraid,
Should by her lover be,
With wile and art to cheer his heart,
And bear him company.'"
Marjory blushed. "Why do you remind me of my old song?" she said. "It
pains me, for I used to sing it ere the trouble came upon us, and when
we were all as happy as the day was long."
"Nay," I said, "it is a song for the time of trouble. It was your
promise to me, and I have come to claim its fulfilment. I am for the
hills, Marjory, and I cannot leave you behind. Will you come and bear
me company? I will take you to Smitwood, where even the devil and my
cousin Gilbert could not follow you. There you will be safe till I come
again when this evil time is past, for pass it must. And I will go to
the hills with a blithe heart, if once I knew you were in good keeping."
"Oh, John, to be sure I will follow you," she said, "even to the world's
end. I will fare among rough hills and bogs if I may but be near you.
But I will go to Smitwood, for most terribly I dread this place."
So it was all brought to a conclusion, and it but remained to make ready
with all speed and seek the uplands. We trusted ourselves wholly to
Nicol's guidance, for he knew the ways as he knew his own name, and had
a wide acquaintance with the hillmen and their hiding-places. On him it
lay to find shelter for us on the road and guide us by the most
unfrequented paths. So we set about the preparing of provisions and
setting the house in order. The old man, who was the sole servant
remaining, was left in charge of the place against our uncertain return.
For myself I should have taken but one horse, Marjory's roan mare, and
tramped along on foot; but Nicol bade me take Maisie, for, said he,
"I'll tak ye by little-kenned ways, where ye may ride as easy as walk;
and forbye, if it cam to the bit, a horse is a usefu' cratur for rinnin'
awa on. I could trot fine on my feet mysel', but though ye're a guid
man at the sma'-swird, Laird, I doubt ye'd no be muckle at that." The
words were wise, so I saddled Maisie and prepared to ride her to
Smitwood, and there leave her.
It was, I think, about three hours after midday when we were ready to
start on our journey. A strange cavalcade we formed--Marjory on the
roan, dressed plainly as for the hills, and with a basket slung across
the saddlebow, for all the world like a tinker's pannier; I myself on
Maisie, well-mounted and armed, and Nicol on foot, lean and ill-clad as
ever. It was not without a pang that we set out, for it is hard to
leave the fair and settled dwellings of home for haphazard lodging among
rough morasses. Marjory in especial could scarce refrain from tears,
while I own that as I looked down the vale and saw the woods of Barns
and the green hills of Manor, I could have found it in me to be
despondent.
But once we left the valley and began to ascend the slopes, our spirits
returned. It was an afternoon among a thousand, one such as only April
weather and the air of the Tweed valley can bring. The sky was
cloudless and the wind sharp, and every hill and ridge in the great
landscape stood out clear as steel. The grass was just greening beneath
our feet, the saugh bushes were even now assuming the little white
catkins, and the whole air was filled with a whistling and twittering of
birds. We took our road straight through the pine wood which clothes
the western slopes of Scrape. The ground was velvet-dry, and the deer
fled swiftly as we neared their coverts. It was glorious to be abroad
and feel the impulse of life stirring everywhere around. Yet I could
not keep from the reflection that at this very time the day before I had
been nearing the port of Leith in the Seamaw, expecting nothing save a
pleasant homecoming, and thereafter a life of peace. Truly in one short
day and night I had led a somewhat active life, and now was fleeing from
the very place I had most longed to return to.
Soon we left the woods and came out on the heathery brow of Scrape, and
crossing it, entered the deep glen where the burn of Scrape flows to
join the Powsail. The heather had been burned, as is the custom here in
the early spring, and great clouds of fine white dust rose beneath the
hooves of our horses. A dry crackling of twigs and the strident creak of
the larger roots as they grated on one another, filled our ears. Then
once more we ascended, high and ever higher, over rocks and treacherous
green well-eyes and great spaces of red fern, till we gained the brow of
the hill which they call Glenstivon Dod, and looked down into the little
glen of Powsail.
We crossed the lovely burn of Powsail, which is the most beautiful of
all Tweedside burns, since the water is like sapphire and emerald and
topaz, flashing in every ray like myriad jewels. Here we watered our
horses, and once more took the hills. And now we were on the wild ridge
of upland which heads the glens of Stanhope and Hopecarton and Polmood,
the watershed 'twixt the vales of Tweed and Yarrow. Thence the sight is
scarce to be matched to my knowledge in the south country of Scotland.
An endless stretching of hills, shoulder rising o'er shoulder, while
ever and again some giant lifts himself clean above his fellows, and all
the while in the glen at our feet Tweed winding and murmuring.
I asked Nicol what was the purpose of our journey, for this was by no
means the shortest way to Douglasdale and Smitwood. He answered that to
go straight to our destination would be to run our heads into the lion's
mouth. He purposed that we should go up Tweed to a hiding-place which
he knew of on the Cor Water, and then make over by the upper waters of
the Clyde and the Abington moors to the house of Smitwood. These were
the more deserted and least accessible places, whereas the villages and
lowlands around the skirts of the hills were watched like the High
Street of Edinburgh.
In a little we passed the wild trough where the Stanhope Burn flows
toward Tweed. It was now drawing toward the darkening, and the deep,
black glen seemed dark as the nether pit. Had we not had a guide to
whom the place was familiar as his own doorstep, we should soon have
been floundering over some craig. As it was, our case was not without
its danger. It is not a heartening thing to go stumbling on hilltops in
the dusk of an April evening, with black, horrific hill-slopes sinking
on all sides. Marjory grew frightened, as I knew by the tightened clutch
at her horse's rein, and her ever seeking to draw nearer me, but like
the brave lass that she was, she breathed never a word of it. Every now
and then an owl would swoop close to our faces, or a great curlew dart
out of the night with its shrill scream, and vanish again into the dark.
It was an uncanny place at that hour, and one little to be sought by
those who love comfort and peace. But the very difficulty of the way
gladdened us, for it gave us assurance that we would be unmolested by
wayfaring dragoons. By and by stars came out and the moon rose,
glorious and full as on the night before, when I had ridden from Leith.
Then it served to light my course to Dawyck, now to guide me from it.
We were now descending a steep hillside, all rough with _sklidders_, and
coming to the Water of Talla, which we forded at a shallow a little
below the wild waterfall called Talla Linns. Even there we could hear
the roar of the cataract, and an awesome thing it was in that lonely
place. But we tarried not a minute, but urged our horses up a desperate
ravine till once more we were on the crest of the hills. And now a
different land was around us. Far to the right, where the Talla joins
the Tweed, we could mark the few lights of the little village of
Tweedsmuir. The higher hills had been left behind, and we were on a
wide expanse of little ridges and moor which the people of Tweedside
call "The Muirs," and which extends from the upper Clyde waters to the
source of the Annan and the monstrous hills which line its course. I
had been but once before in the place, in the winter time, when I was
shooting the duck which come here in great plenty. To me, then, it had
seemed the bleakest place in God's creation, but now, under the silver
moonlight, it seemed like a fantastic fairyland, and the long, gleaming
line of Tweed like the fabled river which is the entrance to that happy
domain.
We were now near our journey's end, and in the very heart of the moors
of Tweed. The night was bright with moonlight, and we went along
speedily. Soon we came to a narrow upland valley, walled with
precipitous green hills. Here Nicol halted.
"There'll be watchers aboot," he said, "and our coming 'ill hae been
tellt to the folk in the cave. We'd better gang warily." So we turned
our horses up the glen, riding along the narrow strip of meadowland
beside the burn. I had heard of the place before, and knew it for the
Cor Water, a stream famous for trout, and at this time, no less renowned
among the hillmen as a hiding-place. For in the steep craigs and screes
there were many caves and holes where one might lie hid for months.
Soon we came to a steep, green bank, and here we drew rein. Nicol
whistled on his fingers, with a peculiar, piercing note like a whaup's
cry. It was answered by another from the near neighbourhood. Again
Nicol whistled with a different pitch, and this time a figure came out
as from the hillside, and spoke.
"Whae are ye," he said, "that come here, and what do ye seek? If ye
come in the Lord's name, welcome and a night's lodging await ye. If no,
fire and a sword."
"I'm Nicol Plenderleith," said my servant, "as weel ye ken, John
Laidlaw. And these are twae gentlefolk, whose names are no convenient
to be mentioned here, for hillsides hae ears. If ye come near, I'll
whisper it in your lug."
The man approached and appeared well-satisfied. He bade us dismount and
led the horses off, while we waited. Then he returned, and bidding us
follow, led the way up a steep gully which scarred the hillside. In a
little he stopped at an out-jutting rock, and crept round the corner of
it. At the side next the hill was an opening large enough to allow a
man of ordinary stature to pass, and here he entered and motioned us to
follow.