HOW THREE MEN HELD A TOWN IN TERROR
It was towards evening, a dark November evening, that we came near the
little town of Biggar. The place lies on a sandy bank raised from the
wide moss which extends for miles by the edge of the sluggish stream.
It is a black, desolate spot, where whaups and snipe whistle in the back
streets, and a lane, which begins from the causeway, may end in a pool
of dark moss-water. But the street is marvellous broad, and there, at
the tail of the autumn, is held one of the greatest fairs in the
lowlands of Scotland, whither hawkers and tinkers come in hordes, not to
speak of serving-men and serving-lasses who seek hire. For three days
the thing goes on, and for racket and babble it is unmatched in the
countryside.
We halted before the entrance to the town on a square of dry in the
midst of the water-way. The weather had begun to draw to storm, and
from the east, great masses of rolling cloud came up, tinged red and
yellow with the dying sun. I know not how many the gipsies were, but,
with women and children, they were not less in number than ninety or a
hundred. They had with them a great quantity of gear of all kinds, and
their animals were infinite. Forbye their horses and asses, they had
dogs and fowls, and many tamed birds which travelled in their company.
One sight I yet remember as most curious. A great long man, who rode on
a little donkey, had throughout the march kept an ugly raven before him,
which he treated with much kindness; and on dismounting lifted off with
assiduous care. And yet the bird had no beauty or accomplishment to
merit his good-will. It is a trait of these strange people that they
must ever have something on which to expend their affection; and while
the women have their children, the men have their pets. The most grim
and quarrelsome tinker will tend some beast or bird and share with it
his last meal.
When the camp was made, the fire lit, and the evening meal prepared, the
men got out their violins and bagpipes, and set themselves to enliven
the night with music. There in the clear space in front of the fire
they danced to the tunes with great glee and skill. I sat beside the
captain and watched the picture, and in very truth it was a pleasing
one. The men, as I have said, were for the most part lithe and tall,
and they danced with grace. The gipsy women, after the age of twenty,
grow too harsh-featured for beauty, and too manly in stature for
elegance. But before that age they are uniformly pretty. The free,
open-air life and the healthy fare make them strong in body and
extraordinarily graceful in movement. Their well-formed features, their
keen, laughing black eyes, their rich complexions, and, above all, their
masses of coal-black hair become them choicely well. So there in the
ruddy firelight they danced to the quavering music, and peace for once
in a while lay among them.
Meanwhile I sat apart with William Baillie, and talked of many things.
He filled for me a pipe of tobacco, and I essayed a practice which I had
often heard of before but never made trial of. I found it very
soothing, and we sat there in the bield of the tent and discoursed of
our several wanderings. I heard from him wild tales of doings in the
hills from the Pentlands to the Cumberland fells, for his habits took
him far and wide in the country. He told all with the greatest
indifference, affecting the air of an ancient Stoic, to whom all things,
good and evil alike, were the same. Every now and then he would break
in with a piece of moralising, which he delivered with complete gravity,
but which seemed to me matter for laughter, coming, as it did, after
some racy narrative of how he vanquished Moss Marshall at the shieling
of Kippertree, or cheated the ale-wife at Newbigging out of her score.
On the morrow all went off to the fair save myself, and I was left with
the children and the dogs. The captain had judged it better that I
should stay, since there would be folk there from around Barns and
Dawyck, who might penetrate my disguise and spread the tidings.
Besides, I knew naught of the tinker trade, and should have been sorely
out of place. So I stayed at home and pondered over many things,
notably my present predicament. I thought of all my old hopes and
plans--to be a scholar and a gentleman of spirit, to look well to my
lands and have a great name in the countryside, to study and make books,
maybe even to engage in Parliament and State business. And what did I
now? Travelling in disguise among tinkers, a branded man, with my love
and my lands in danger, nay all but lost. It was this accursed thought
that made the bitterest part of my wanderings.
I was in such a mood when a servant came from a farmhouse near to get
one of the gipsies to come and mend the kitchen pot. As I was the only
one left, there was nothing for it but to go. The adventure cheered me,
for its whimsicality made me laugh, and laughter is the best antidote to
despair. But I fared very badly, for, when I tried my 'prentice hand at
the pot, I was so manifestly incapable that the good-wife drove me from
the place, calling me an idle sorner, and a lazy vagabond, and many
other well-deserved names. I returned to the camp with my ears still
ringing from her cuff, but in a more wholesome temper of mind.
The greater part of the others returned at the darkening, most with
well-filled pockets, though I fear it was not all come by honestly; and
a special feast was prepared. That gipsy meal was of the strangest yet
most excellent quality. There was a savoury soup made of all kinds of
stewed game and poultry, and after that the flesh of pigs and game
roasted and broiled. There was no seasoning to the food save a kind of
very bitter vinegar; for these people care little for salt or any
condiment. Moreover, they had the strange practice of grating some hard
substance into their wine, which gave it a flavour as if it had been
burned in the mulling.
The meal was over and I was thinking of lying down for the night, when
William Baillie came back. I noted that in the firelight his face was
black with anger. I heard him speak to several of his men, and his tone
was the tone of one who was mastering some passion. By and by he came
to where I sat and lay down beside me.
"Do you wish to pleasure me?" he said, shortly.
"Why, yes," I answered; "you have saved my life and I would do all in my
power to oblige you, though I fear that just now my power is little."
"It's a' I want," said he, leaving his more correct speech for the broad
Scots of the countryside. "Listen, and I'll tell ye what happened the
day at the fair. We tinker-folk went aboot our business, daein' ill to
nane, and behavin' like dacent, peaceable, quiet-mainnered men and
women. The place was in a gey steer, for a heap o' Wast-country trash
was there frae the backs o' Straven and Douglasdale, and since a' the
godly and reputable folk thereaways hae ta'en to the hills, nane but the
rabble are left. So as we were gaun on canny, and sellin' our bits o'
things and daein' our bits o' jobs, the drucken folk were dancin' and
cairryin' on at the ither end. By and by doun the Fair come a drucken
gairdener, one John Cree. I ken him weel, a fosy, black-hertit scoondrel
as ever I saw. My wife, whom ye know, for it was her that lookit after
ye when ye were sick, was standin' at the side when the man sees her.
He comes up to her wi' his leerin', blackgairdly face, and misca's her
for a tinkler and a' that was bad, as if the warst in our tribe wasna
better than him.
"Mary, she stands back, and bids him get out or she wad learn him
mainners.
"But he wadna take a tellin'. 'Oh, ho, my bawbee joe,' says he, 'ye're
braw and high the day. Whae are you to despise an honest man? A wheen
tinkler doxies!' And he took up a stane and struck her on the face.
"At this a' our folk were for pittin' an end to him there and then. But
I keepit them back and bade them let the drucken ful be. Syne he gaed
awa', but the folk o' the Fair took him up, and we've got nocht but
ill-words and ill-tongue a' day. But, by God! they'll pay for it the
morn." And the captain looked long and fiercely into the embers.
"I hae a plan," said he, after a little, "and, Master Burnet, I want ye
to help me. The folk of the fair are just a wheen scum and riddlings.
There are three o' us here, proper men, you and myself and my son
Matthew. If ye will agree to it we three will mount horse the morn and
clear oot that fair, and frichten the folk o' Biggar for the next
twalmonth."
"What would you do?" said I.
"I hae three suits," he said, "o' guid crimson cloth, which I got frae
my grandfather and have never worn. I have three braw horses, which cam
oot o' England three year syne. If the three o' us mount and ride
through the fair there will be sic a scattering as was never heard tell
o' afore i' the auld toun. And, by God, if that gairdener-body doesna
gang wud wi' fricht, my name's no William Baillie."
Now, I do not know what madness prompted me to join in this freak. For
certain it was a most unbecoming thing for a man of birth to be perched
on horseback in the company of two reckless tinkers to break the king's
peace and terrify His Majesty's lieges of Biggar. But a dare-devil
spirit--the recoil from the morning's despondency--now held me.
Besides, the romance of the thing took me captive; it was as well that a
man should play all the parts he could in the world; and to my foolish
mind it seemed a fine thing that one who was a man of birth and learning
should not scruple to cast in his lot with the rough gipsies.
So I agreed readily enough, and soon after went to sleep with weariness,
and knew nothing till the stormy dawn woke the camp.
Then the three of us dressed in the crimson suits, and monstrously fine
we looked. The day was dull, cloudy, and with a threat of snow; and the
massing of clouds which we had marked on the day before was now a
thousandfold greater. We trotted out over the green borders of the bog
to the town, where the riot and hilarity were audible. The sight of the
three to any chance spectator must have been fearsome beyond the common.
William Baillie, not to speak of his great height and strange dress, had
long black hair which hung far below his shoulders, and his scarlet hat
and plume made him look like the devil in person. Matthew, his son, was
something smaller, but broad and sinewy, and he sat his horse with an
admirable grace. As for myself, my face was tanned with sun and air and
the gipsy dye, my hair hung loosely on my shoulders in the fashion I
have always worn it, and I could sit a horse with the best of them.
When we came near the head of the street we halted and consulted. The
captain bade us obey him in all and follow wherever he went, and above
all let no word come from our mouth. Then we turned up our sleeves
above the elbows, drew our swords and rode into the town.
At the first sight of the three strange men who rode abreast a great cry
of amazement arose, and the miscellaneous rabble was hushed. Then, in a
voice of thunder, the captain cried out that they had despised the
gipsies the day before, and that now was the time of revenge. Suiting
the action to the word he held his naked sword before him, and we
followed at a canter.
I have never seen so complete a rout in my life. Stalls, booths, tables
were overturned, and the crowd flew wildly in all directions. The
others of the tribe, who had come to see the show, looked on from the
back, and to the terrified people seemed like fresh assailants. I have
never heard such a hubbub as rose from the fleeing men and screaming
women. Farmers, country-folk, plowmen mingled with fat burgesses and the
craftsmen of the town in one wild rush for safety. And yet we touched
no one, but kept on our way to the foot of the street, with our drawn
swords held stark upright in our hands. Then we turned and came back;
and lo! the great fair was empty, and wild, fearful faces looked at us
from window and lane.
Then, on our second ride, appeared at the church gate the minister of
the parish, a valiant man, who bade us halt.
"Stop," saul he, "you men of blood, and cease from disturbing the town,
or I will have you all clapt in the stocks for a week."
Then the captain spoke up and told him of the wrong and insult of the
day before.
At this the worthy man looked grave. "Go back to your place," he said,
"and it shall be seen to. I am wae that the folk of this town, who have
the benefit of my ministrations, set no better example to puir heathen
Egyptians. But give up the quarrel at my bidding. 'Vengeance is mine,
and I will repay,' saith the Lord."
"But haply, sir," said I, "as Augustine saith, we may be the Lord's
executors." And with this we turned and rode off, leaving the man
staring in open-mouthed wonder.