CHAPTER I.

Produced by David Clarke, Anne Storer and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

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. II.

LONDON:

WALTER SCOTT, 14 PATERNOSTER SQUARE,

AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

1884.

CONTENTS.

A WIFE OR THE WUDDY, (_John Mackay Wilson_), 1

LORD DURIE AND CHRISTIE'S WILL, (_Alexander Leighton_), 33

RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS, (_Hugh Miller_), 65

THE PROFESSOR'S TALES (_Professor Thomas Gillespie_)--

THE CONVIVIALISTS, 122

PHILIPS GREY, 144

DONALD GORM, (_Alexander Campbell_), 155

THE SURGEON'S TALES, (_Alexander Leighton_)--

THE CURED INGRATE, 188

THE ADOPTED SON, (_John Mackay Wilson_), 220

THE FORTUNES OF WILLIAM WIGHTON, (_John Howell_), 247

MY BLACK COAT; OR, THE BREAKING

OF THE BRIDE'S CHINA, (_John Mackay Wilson_), 276

WILSON'S

TALES OF THE BORDERS

AND OF SCOTLAND.

THE WIFE OR THE WUDDY.

"There was a criminal in a cart

Agoing to be hanged--

Reprieve to him was granted;

The crowd and cart did stand,

To see if he would marry a wife,

Or, otherwise, choose to die!

'Oh, why should I torment my life?'

The victim did reply;

'The bargain's bad in every part--

But a wife's the worst!--drive on the cart.'"

Honest Sir John Falstaff talketh of "minions of the moon;" and, truth

to tell, two or three hundred years ago, nowhere was such an order of

knighthood more prevalent than upon the Borders. Not only did the

Scottish and English Borderers make their forays across the Tweed

and the ideal line, but rival chieftains, though of the same nation,

considered themselves at liberty to make inroads upon the property

of each other. The laws of _meum_ and _tuum_ they were unable to

comprehend. Theirs was the strong man's world, and with them _might_ was

_right_. But to proceed with our story. About the beginning of the

seventeenth century, one of the boldest knights upon the Borders was

William Scott, the young laird of Harden. His favourite residence was

Oakwood Tower, a place of great strength, situated on the banks of the

Ettrick. The motto of his family was "_Reparabit cornua Phoebe_," which

being interpreted by his countrymen, in their vernacular idiom, ran

thus--"We'll hae moonlight again." Now, the young laird was one who

considered it his chief honour to give effect to both the spirit and

the letter of his family motto. Permitting us again to refer to honest

Falstaff, it implied that they were "gentlemen of the night;" and he was

not one who would loll upon his pillow when his "avocation" called him

to the foray.

It was drawing towards midnight, in the month of October, when the

leaves in the forest had become brown and yellow, and with a hard sound

rustled upon each other, that young Scott called together his retainers,

and addressing them, said--"Look ye, friends, is it not a crying sin and

a national shame to see things going aglee as they are doing? There

seems hardly such a thing as manhood left upon the Borders. A bit

scratch with a pen upon parchment is becoming of more effect than a

stroke with the sword. A bairn now stands as good a chance to hold and

to have, as an armed man that has a hand to take and to defend. Such a

state o' things was only made for those who are ower lazy to ride by

night, and ower cowardly to fight. Never shall it be said that I,

William Scott of Harden, was one who either submitted or conformed to

it. Give me the good, old, manly law, that 'they shall keep who can,'

and wi' my honest sword will I maintain my right against every enemy.

Now, there is our natural and lawful adversary, auld Sir Gideon Murray

o' Elibank, carries his head as high as though he were first cousin to a

king, or the sole lord o' Ettrick Forest. More than once has he slighted

me in a way which it wasna for a Scott to bear; and weel do I ken that

he has the will, and wants but the power, to harry us o' house and ha'.

But, by my troth, he shall pay a dear reckoning for a' the insults he

has offered to the Scotts o' Harden. Now, every Murray among them has a

weel-stocked mailing, and their kine are weel-favoured; to-night the

moon is laughing cannily through the clouds:--therefore, what say ye,

neighbours--will ye ride wi' me to Elibank? and, before morning, every

man o' them shall have a toom byre."

"Hurra!" shouted they, "for the young laird! He is a true Scott from

head to heel! Ride on, and we will follow ye! Hurra!--the moon glents

ower the hills to guide us to the spoils o' Elibank! To-night we shall

bring langsyne back again."

There were twenty of them, stout and bold men, mounted upon light

and active horses--some armed with firelocks, and others with Jeddart

staves; while, in addition to such weapons, every man had a good sword

by his side. At their head was the fearless young laird; and, at a brisk

pace, they set off towards Elibank. Mothers and maidens ran to their

cottage doors, and looked after them with foreboding hearts when they

rode along; for it was a saying amongst them, that "when young Willie

Scott o' Harden set his foot in the stirrup at night, there were to be

swords drawn before morning." They knew, also, the feud between him and

the house of Elibank, and as well did they know that the Murrays were a

resolute and a sturdy race.

Morn had not dawned when they arrived at the scene where their booty

lay. Not a Murray was abroad; and to the extreme they carried the threat

of the young laird into execution, of making "toom byres." By scores and

by hundreds, they collected together, into one immense herd, horned

cattle and sheep, and they drove them before them through the forest

towards Oakwood Tower. The laird, in order to repel any rescue that

might be attempted, brought up the rear, and, in the joy of his heart,

he sang, and, at times, cried aloud, "There will be dry breakfasts in

Elibank before the sun gets oot, but a merry meal at Oakwood afore he

gangs doun. An entire bullock shall be roasted, and wives and bairns

shall eat o' it."

"I humbly beg your pardon, Maister William," said an old retainer, named

Simon Scott, and who traced a distant relationship to the family; "I

respectfully ask your pardon; but I have been in your faither's family

for forty years, and never was backward in the hoor o' danger, or in a

ploy like this; but ye will just alloo me to observe, sir, that wilfu'

waste maks wofu' want, and I see nae occasion whatever for roasting a

bullock. It would be as bad as oor neebors on the ither side o' the

Tweed, wha are roast, roastin', or bakin' in the oven, every day o' the

week, and makin' a stane weight o' meat no gang sae far as twa or three

pounds wad hae dune. Therefore, sir, if ye will tak my advice, if we are

to hae a feast, there will be nae roastin' in the way. There was a fine

sharp frost the other nicht, and I observed the rime lying upon the

kail; so that baith greens and savoys will be as tender as a weel-boiled

three-month-auld chicken; and I say, therefore, let the beef be boiled,

and let them hae ladlefu's o' kail, and ye will find, sir, that instead

o' a hail bullock, even if ye intend to feast auld and young, male and

female, upon the lands o' Oakwood, a quarter o' a bullock will be amply

sufficient, and the rest can be sauted doun for winter's provisions. Ye

ken, sir, that the Murrays winna let us lichtly slip for this nicht's

wark; and it is aye safest, as the saying is, to lay by for a sair fit."

"Well argued, good Simon," said the young laird; "but your economy

is ill-timed. After a night's work such as this there is surely

some licence for gilravishing. I say it--and who dare contradict

me?--to-night there is not one belonging to the house of Harden, be

they old or young, who shall not eat of roast meat, and drink of

the best."

"Weel, sir," replied Simon, "wi' reverence be it spoken, but I would beg

to say that ye are wrang. Folk that ance get a liking for dainties tak

ill wi' plainer fare again; and, moreover, sir, in a' my experience, I

never kenned dainty bits and hardihood to go hand in hand; but, on the

contrary, luxuries mak men effeminate, and discontented into the

bargain."

The altercation between the old retainer and his young master ran

farther; but it was suddenly interrupted by the deep-mouthed baying of a

sleuth-hound; and its threatening howls were followed by a loud cry, as

if from fifty voices, of--"To-night for Sir Gideon and the house of

Elibank!"

But here we pause to say that Sir Gideon Murray of Elibank was a man

whose name was a sound of terror to all who were his enemies. As a foe,

he was fierce, resolute, unforgiving. He had never been known to turn

his back upon a foe, or forgive an injury. He knew the meaning of

justice in its severest sense, but not of compassion; he was a stranger

to the attribute of mercy, and the life of the man who had injured him,

he regarded as little as the life of the worm which he might tread

beneath his heel upon his path. He was a man of middle age; and had

three daughters, none of whom were what the world calls beautiful; but,

on the contrary, they were what even the dependents upon his estates

described as "very ordinary-looking young women."

Such was Sir Gideon Murray of Elibank; and, although the young laird

of Harden conceived that he had come upon him as "a thief in the

night"--and some of my readers, from the transaction recorded, may be

somewhat apt to take the scriptural quotation in a literal sense--yet I

would say, as old Satchel sings of the Borderers of those days, they

were men--

"Somewhat unruly, and very ill to tame.

I would have none think that I call them thieves;

For, if I did, it would be arrant lies."

But, stealthily as the young master of Harden had made his preparations

for the foray, old Sir Gideon had got timely notice of it; and hence it

was, that not a Murray seemed astir when they took the cattle from the

byres, and drove them towards Oakwood. But, through the moonlight, there

were eyes beheld every step they took--their every movement was watched

and traced; and amongst those who watched was the stern old knight, with

fifty followers at his back.

"Quiet! quiet!" he again and again, in deep murmurs, uttered to his

dependents, throwing back his hand, and speaking in a deep and earnest

whisper, that awed even the slow but ferocious sleuth-hound that

accompanied them, and caused it to crouch back to his feet. In a yet

deeper whisper, he added, encouragingly--"Patience, my merry men!--bide

your time!--ye shall hae work before long go by."

When, therefore, the young laird and his followers began to disperse in

the thickest of the forest, as they drove the cattle before them, Sir

Gideon suddenly exclaimed--"Now for the onset!" And, at the sound of his

voice, the sleuth-hound howled loud and savagely.

"We are followed!--Halt! halt!--to arms! to arms!" cried the heir of

Harden.

Three or four were left in charge of the now somewhat scattered herd of

cattle, and to drive them to a distance; while the rest of the party

spurred back their horses as rapidly as the tangled pass in the forest

would permit, to the spot from whence the voice of their young leader

proceeded. They arrived speedily, but they arrived too late. In a

moment, and with no signal save the baying of the hound, old Sir Gideon

and his armed company had burst upon young Scott and Old Simon, and ere

the former could cry for assistance, they had surrounded them.

"Willie Scott! ye rash laddie!" cried Sir Gideon--"yield quietly, or

a thief's death shall ye die; and in the very forest through which

ye have this night driven my cattle, the corbies and you shall become

acquaint--or, at least, if ye see not them, they shall see you and feel

you too."

"Brag on, ye auld greybeard," exclaimed the youth; "but while a Scott o'

Harden has a finger to wag, no power on earth shall make his tongue say

'I am conquered!' So come on!--do your best--do your worst--here is the

hand and the sword to meet ye!--and were ye ten to one, ye shall find

that Willie Scott isna the lad to turn his back, though ten full-grown

Murrays stand before his face."

"By my sooth, then, callant," cried the old knight, "and it was small

mercy, after what ye hae done, that I intended to show ye; and after

what ye hae said, it shall be less that I will grant ye. Sae come on

lads, and now to humble the Hardens."

"Arm! every Scott to arms!" again shouted the young laird; "and now,

Sir Gideon, if ye will measure weapons, and leave your _weel-faured_

daughters as a legacy to the world, be it sae. But there are lads among

your clan o' whom they would hae been glad, and who, belike in _pity_,

might hae offered them their hands, but who will this night mak a bride

o' the green sward! Sae come on, Sir Gideon, and on you and yours be the

consequence!"

"Before sunrise," returned Sir Gideon, "and the winsome laird o' Harden

shall boast less vauntingly, and rue that he had broke his jeers upon an

auld man. Touch me, sir, but not my bairns."

The conflict began, and on each side the strife was bloody and

desperate. Bold men grasped each other by the throat, and they held

their swords to each other's breasts, scowling one upon another with

the ferocity of contending tigers, ere each gave the deadly plunge

which was to hurl both into eternity. The report of fire-arms, the

clash of swords, the clang of shields, with the neighing of maddened

horses, the lowing of affrighted cattle, the howl of the sleuth-hounds,

and the angry voices of fierce men, mingled wildly together, and, in

one fearful and discordant echo, rang through the forest. This wild

sound was followed by the low melancholy groans of the dying. But, as

I have already stated, the Scotts, and the cattle which they drove before

them, were scattered, and ere those who were in advance could arrive to

the rescue of their friends in the rear, the latter were slain, wounded,

or overpowered. They also fought against fearful odds. The young laird

himself had his sword broken in his grasp, and his horse was struck

dead beneath him. He was instantly surrounded and made prisoner by the

Murrays; and, at the same time, old Simon fell into their hands.

The few remaining retainers of the house of Harden gave way when they

found their leader a captive, and they fled, leaving the cattle behind

them. Sir Gideon Murray, therefore, recovered all that had been taken

from him; and though he had captured but two prisoners, the one was the

chief, and the other his principal adviser and second in command. The

old knight, therefore, commanded that they should be bound with cords

together, and in such rueful plight led to his castle at Elibank. It was

noon before they reached it, and Lady Murray came forth to welcome her

husband, and congratulate him upon his success. But when she beheld the

heir of Harden a captive, and thought of how little mercy was to be

expected from Sir Gideon when once aroused, she remembered that she was

a mother, and that one of her children might one day be situated as

their prisoner then was.

The young laird, with his aged kinsman and dependent, were thrust into

a dark room; and he who locked them up informed them that the next day

their bodies would be hung up on the nearest tree.

"My life and lang fasting!" exclaimed Simon, "ye surely wouldna be

speaking o' sic a thing as hanging to an auld man like me. If we were

to be shot or beheaded--though I would like neither the ane nor the

ither--it wouldna be a thing in particular to be complained o'; but to

be hanged like a dog is so disgracefu' and unchristian-like, that I

would rather die ten times in a day, than feel a hempen cravat about my

neck ance. And, moreover, I must say that hanging is not treating my

dear young maister and kinsman as he ocht to be treated. His birth, his

rank, and the memory o' his ancestors and mine, demand mair respect; and

therefore, I say, gae tell your maister, that, if he is determined that

we are to die--though I have no ambition to cut my breath before my

time--that I think, as a gentleman, it is his duty to see that we die

the death o' gentlemen.

"Silence, Simon," cried the young laird; "let Murray hang us in his

bedchamber if he will. No matter what manner o' death we die, provided

only that we die like men. Let him hang us if he dare, and the disgrace

be his that is coward enough so to make an end of his enemy.

"O sir," said Simon, "but that is poor comfort to a man that has to

leave a small family behind him.

"Simon! are you afraid to die?" cried the captive laird, in a tone of

rebuke.

"No, your honour," said Simon--"that is, I am no more afraid to die than

other men are, or ought to be--but only ye'll observe, sir, that I have

no ambition--not, as I may say, to draw my last breath upon a wuddy, but

to have it very unnaturally stopped. Begging your pardon, but you are a

young man, while I have a wife and family that would be left to mourn

for me!--and O sir! the wife and the bits o' bairns press unco sairly

upon a man's heart, when death tries to come in the way between him and

them. In exploits like that in which we were last night engaged, and

also in battles abroad, I have faced danger in every shape a hundred

times--yet, sir, to be shot in a moment, as it were, or to be run

through the body, and to die honourably on the field, is a very

different thing from deliberately walking up a ladder to the branch o'

a tree, from which we are never to come doun in life again. And mair

than that, if we had been o' Johnny Faa's gang, they couldna hae treated

us mair disrespectfully than to condemn us to the death that they have

decreed for us."

"Providing ye die bravely, Simon," said the young laird, "it is little

matter what manner o' death ye die; and as for your wife and weans, fear

not; my faither's house will provide for them. For, though I fall now,

there will be other heirs left to the estate o' Harden."

While the prisoners thus conversed in the place of their confinement,

Lady Murray spoke unto her husband, saying--"And what, Sir Gideon, if

it be a fair question, may ye intend to do wi' the braw young laird o'

Harden, now that he is in your power?"

He drew her gently by the arm towards the window, and pointing towards

a tree which grew at the distance of a few yards, he said--"Do ye see

yonder branch o' the elm tree that is waving in the wind? To-morrow,

young Scott and his kinsman shall swing there together, or hereafter say

that I am no Murray."

"O guidman!" said she, "it is because I was terrified that ye would be

doing the like o' that, that caused me to ask the question. Now, I must

say, Sir Gideon, whatever ye may think, that ye are not only acting

cruelly, but foolishly."

"I care naething about the cruelty," cried he; "what mercy did ever a

Scott among them show to me or to mine? Lady Murray, the ball is at my

foot, and I will kick it, though I deprive Scott o' Harden o' a head.

And what mean ye, dame, by saying I act foolishly?"

"Only this, guidman," said she--"that ye hae three daughters to marry,

whom the world doesna consider to be ower weel-faured, and it isna every

day that ye hae a husband for ane o' them in your hand."

"Sooth!" cried he, "and for once in your life ye are right,

guidwife--there is mair wisdom in that remark than I would hae

gien ye credit for. To-morrow, the birkie o' Harden shall have his

choice--either upon the instant to marry our daughter, Meikle-mouthed

Meg, or strap for it."

"Weel, Sir Gideon," added she, "to make him marry Meg will be mair

purpose-like than to cut off the head and the hope of an auld house, in

the very flower o' his youth; and there is nae doubt as to the choice he

will mak, for there is an unco difference between them."

"Dinna be ower sure," continued the knight; "there is nae saying what

his choice may be. There is both pluck and a spirit o' contradiction in

the callant, and I wouldna be in the least surprised if he preferred the

wuddy. I ken, had I been in his place, what my choice would hae been."

"I daresay, Sir Gideon," replied the old lady, who was jocose at the

idea of seeing one of her daughters wed, "I daresay I could guess what

that choice would hae been."

"And what, in your wisdom," said he sharply, "do ye think it would hae

been--the wife or the wuddy?"

"O Gideon! Gideon!" said she, good-humouredly, and shaking her head,

"weel do ye ken that your choice would hae been a wife."

"There ye are wrang," cried he; "I would rather die a death that was

before me, than marry a wife I had never seen. But go ye and prepare Meg

for becoming a bride the morn, and I shall see what the intended

bridegroom says to the proposal."

In obedience to his commands, she went to an apartment in which their

eldest daughter Agnes, but commonly called "Meikle-mouthed Meg," then

sat, twirling a distaff. The old dame sat down by her daughter's side,

and, after a few observations respecting the weather, and the quality of

the lint she was then torturing into threads, she said--"Weel, I'm just

thinking, Meggie, that ye mak me an auld woman. Ye would be

six-and-twenty past at last Lammas."

"So I believe, mother!" said Meggie; and a sigh, or a very deep and

long-drawn breath, followed her words.

"Dear me!" continued the old lady, "young men maun be growing very

scarce. I wanted four months and five days o' being nineteen when I

married your faither, and I had refused at least six offers before I

took him!"

"Ay, mother," replied the maiden; "but ye had a weel-faured face--there

lay the difference! Heigho!"

"Heigho!" responded her mother, as in pleasant raillery--"what is the

lassie heighoing at? Certes, if ye get a guidman before ye be six and

twenty, ye may think yoursel' a very fortunate woman."

"Yes," added the maiden; "but I see sma' prospect o' that. I doubt ye

will see the Ettrick running through the 'dowie dells o' Yarrow,' before

ye hear tell o' an offer being made to me."

"Hoot, hoot!--dinna say sae, bairn," added her mother; "there is nae

saying what may betide ye yet. Ye think ye winna be married before ye

are six and twenty; but, truly, my dear, there has mony a mair unlikely

ship come to land. Now, what wad ye think o' the young laird o' Harden?"

"Mother! mother!" said Agnes, "wherefore do ye mock me? I never saw ye

do that before. My faither has ta'en William Scott a prisoner; and, from

what I hae heard, he will hang him in the morning. Ye ken what a man my

faither is--when he says a thing he will do it; and how can you jest

about the young man, when his very existence is reduced to a matter o'

minutes and moments. Though, rather than my faither should tak his life,

if I could save him, he should take mine."

"Weel said, my bairn," replied the old woman; "but dinna ye be put about

concerning what will never come to pass. I doubtna that, before morning,

ye will find young Scott o' Harden at your feet, and begging o' you to

save his life, by giving him your hand and troth, and becoming his wife:

and then, ye ken, your faither couldna, for shame, hang or do ony harm

to his ain son-in-law."

"O mother! mother!" replied Agnes, "it will never be in my power to save

him; for what ye hae said he will never think o'; and even if I were his

wife, I question if my faither would pardon him, though I should beg it

upon my knees."

"Oh, your faither's no sae ill as that, Meggie, my doo," said the old

lady. "Mark my words--if Willie Scott consent to marry you, ye will

henceforth find him and your faither hand and glove."

While this conversation between Lady Murray and her daughter took place,

Sir Gideon entered the room where his prisoners were confined, and,

addressing the young laird, said--"Now, ye rank marauder, though death

is the very least that ye deserve or can expect from my hands, yet I

will gie ye a chance for your life, and ye shall choose between a wife

and the wuddy. To-morrow morning, ye shall either marry my daughter Meg,

or swing from the branch o' the nearest tree, and the bauldest Scott

upon the Borders shanna tak ye down, until ye drop away, bone by bone,

a fleshless skeleton."

"Good save us! most honourable and good Sir Gideon!" suddenly

interrupted Simon, in a tone which bespoke his horror; "but ye certainly

dinna intend to make an anatomy o' me too; or surely, when my honoured

maister marries Miss Murray (as I hope and trust he will), ye will

alloo me to dance at their wedding, instead o' dancing in the air, and

keeping time to the music o' the soughing wind. And, O maister! for

my sake, for your ain sake, and especially out o' regard to my sma'

and helpless family, consent to marry the lassie, though she isna

extraordinar' weel-faured; for I am sure that, rather than die a dog's

death, swinging from a tree, I would marry twenty wives, though they

were a' as auld as the hills, as ugly as a starless midnicht, and had

tongues like trumpets."

"Peace, Simon!" cried the young laird, impatiently; "if ye hae turned

coward, keep the sound o' yer fears within yer ain teeth. And ye, Sir

Gideon," added he, turning towards the old knight, "in your amazing

mercy and generosity, would spare my life, upon condition that I should

marry your _bonny_ daughter Meg! Look ye, sir--I am Scott o' Harden, and

ye are Murray o' Elibank; there is no love lost between us; chance has

placed my life in your hands--take it, for I wouldna marry your daughter

though ye should gie me life, and a' the lands o' Elibank into the

bargain. I fear as little to meet death as I do to tell you to your

teeth that, had ye fallen into my hands, I would have hung ye wi' as

little ceremony as I would bring a whip across the back o' a disobedient

hound. Therefore, ye are welcome to do the same by me. Ye have taken

what ye thought to be a sure mode o' getting a husband for ane o' your

_winsome_ daughters; but, in the present instance, it has proved a wrong

one, auld man. Do your worst, and there will be Scotts enow left to

revenge the death o' the laird o' Harden."

"There, then, is my thumb, young braggart," exclaimed Sir Gideon, "that

I winna hinder ye in your choice; for to-morrow ye shall be exalted as

Haman was; and let those revenge your death who dare."

"Maister!--dear maister!" cried Simon, wringing his hands, "will ye

sacrifice me also, and break the hearts o' my puir wife and family!

O sir, accept o' Sir Gideon's proposal, and marry his dochter."

"Silence! ye milk-livered slave!" cried the young laird. "Do ye pretend

to bear the name o' Scott, and yet tremble like an ash leaf at the

thought o' death!"

"Ye will excuse me, sir," retorted Simon, "but I tremble at no such

thing; only, as I have already remarked, I have no particular ambition

for being honoured wi' the exaltation o' the halter; and, moreover, I

see no cause why a man should die unnecessarily, or where death can be

avoided. Sir Gideon," added he, "humble prisoner as I at this moment

am, and in your power, I leave it to you if ever ye saw ony thing in my

conduct in the field o' battle (and ye have seen me there) that could

justify ony ane in calling me either milk-livered or a coward? But, sir,

I consider it would be altogether unjustifiable to deprive ane o' life,

which is always precious, merely because my maister is stubborn, and

winna marry your daughter. But, oh, sir, I am not a very auld man yet,

and if ye will set me at liberty, though I am now a married man, in the

event o' my ever becoming a widower, I gie ye my solemn promise that I

will marry ony o' your dochters that ye please!"

"Audacious idiot!" exclaimed the old knight, raising his hand and

striking poor Simon to the ground.

"Sir Gideon Murray!" cried the young laird fiercely, "are ye such a base

knave as to strike a fettered prisoner! Shame fa' ye, man! where is the

pride o' the Murrays now?"

Sir Gideon evidently felt the rebuke, and, withdrawing from the

apartment, said, as he departed--"Remember that when the sun-dial shall

to-morrow note the hour of twelve, so surely shall ye be brought

forth--and a wife shall be your lot, or the wuddy your doom."

"Leave me!" cried the youth impatiently, "and the gallows be it--my

choice is made. Till my last hour trouble me not again."

"Sir! sir!" cried Simon, "I beg, I pray that ye will alter your

determination. There is surely naething so awful in the idea o'

marriage, even though your wife should have a face not particularly

weel-favoured. Ye dinna ken, sir, but that the young woman's looks are

her worst fault; and, indeed, I hae heard her spoken o' as a lassie o'

great sense and discretion, and as having an excellent temper; and, oh,

sir, if ye kenned as weel what it is to be married as I do, ye would

think that a good temper was a recommendation far before beauty."

"Hold thy fool's tongue, Simon," cried the laird; "would ye disgrace the

family wi' which ye make it your boast to be connected, when in the

power and presence o' its enemies? Do as ye see me do--die and defy

them."

It was drawing towards midnight, when the prison-door was opened, and

the sentinel who stood watch over it admitted a female dressed as a

domestic.

"What want ye, or whom seek ye, maiden?" inquired the laird.

"I come," answered she mildly, "to speak wi' the laird o' Harden, and to

ask if he has any dying commands that a poor lassie could fulfil for

him."

"Dying commands!" responded Simon; "oh, are those no awful words!--and

can ye still be foolhardy enough to say ye winna marry?"

"Who sent ye, maiden?--or who are ye?" continued the laird.

"A despised lassie, sir," answered she, "and an attendant upon Sir

Gideon's lady, in whom ye hae a true and steadfast friend; though I

doubt that, as ye hae refused poor Meg, her intercession will avail ye

little."

"And wherefore has Lady Murray sent you here?" he continued.

"Just, sir, because she is a mother, and has a mother's heart; and, as

ye hae a mother and sisters who will now be mourning for ye at Oakwood,

she thought that, belike, ye would hae something to say that ye would

wish to hae communicated to them; and, if it be sae, I am come to offer

to be your messenger."

"Maiden!" said he, with emotion, "speak not of my poor mother, or you

will unman me, and I would wish to die as becomes my father's son."

"That's right, hinny," whispered Simon; "speak to him about his mother

again--talk about her sorrow, poor lady, and her tears, and distraction,

and mourning--and I hae little doubt but that we shall get him to marry

Meg, or do onything else, and I shall get back to my family after a'."

"What is it that ye whisper, Simon, in the maiden's ear?" inquired the

laird, sternly.

"Oh, naething, sir--naething, I assure ye," answered Simon, falteringly;

"I was only saying that, if ye sent her ower to Oakwood wi' a message to

your poor, honoured, wretched mother, that she would inquire for my poor

widow, Janet, and my bits o' bairns, and that she would tell them that

nothing troubled me upon my death-bed--no, no, not my death-bed, but--I

declare I am ashamed to think o't!--I was saying that I was simply

telling her to inform my wife and bairns, that nothing distracted me in

the hour o' death but the thought o' being parted from them."

Without noticing the evasive reply of his dependent and fellow-prisoner,

the laird, addressing the intruder, said--"Ye speak as a kind and

considerate lassie. I would like to send a scrape o' a pen to my poor

mother, and, if ye will be its bearer, she will reward ye."

"And, belike," she replied, "ye would like to hear if the good lady has

an answer back, or to learn how she bore the tidings o' your unhappy

fate."

"Before you could return," said he, "the time appointed by my adversary

for my execution will be past, and I shall feel for my mother's sorrows

with the sympathy of a disembodied spirit."

"But," added she, "if you would like to hear from your poor mother, or,

belike, to see her--for there may be family matters that ye would wish

to have arranged--I think, through the influence of my lady, Sir Gideon

could be prevailed upon to grant ye a respite for three or four days;

and, as he isna a man that keeps his passion long, perhaps by that time

he may be disposed to save your life upon terms that would be more

acceptable."

"No, maiden," he replied; "he is my enemy; and from him I wish no

terms--no clemency. Let him fulfil his purpose--I will die; but my death

shall be revenged; and tell my mother that it was my latest injunction

that she should command every follower of our house to avenge her son's

death, while there is a Murray left in all Scotland to repent the deed

o' the knight o' Elibank."

"Oh, sweet young ma'am, or mistress!" cried Simon; "bear the lady no

such message; but rather, as ye hae said, try if it be possible to get

your own good lady to persuade Sir Gideon to spare our lives for a few

days; and, as ye say, the edge o' the auld knight's revenge may be

blunted by that time, or, perhaps, my worthy young maister may be

brought to see things in a clearer light, and, perhaps, to marry Miss

Margaret, by which means our lives may be spared. For it is certainly

the height o' madness in him to sacrifice my life and his own, rather

than marry her before he has seen her."

"Simon," interrupted the laird, "the maiden has spoken kindly; let her

endeavour to procure a respite--a reprieve for you. In your death my

enemy can have no gratification; but for me--leave me to myself."

"O sir," replied Simon, "ye wrong me--ye mistake my meaning a'thegither.

If you are to die, I will die also; but do ye no think it would be as

valorous, and mair rational, at least to see and hear the young leddy

before ye determine to die rather than to marry her?"

"And hae ye," said the maiden, addressing the laird, "preferred the

gallows to poor Meg without even seeing her?"

"If I haena seen her I hae heard o' her," said he; "and by all accounts

her countenance isna ane that ony man would desire to see accompanying

him through the world like a shadow at his oxter."

"Belike," said the maiden, "she has been represented to you worse than

she looks like--if ye saw her, ye might change your opinion; and,

perhaps, after a', that she isna bonny is a' that any one can say

against her."

"Wheesht, lassie!" said he; "I winna be forced to onything. A Scott may

be led, but he winna drive. I have nae wish to see the face o' your

young mistress, for I winna hae her. But you speak as one that has a

feeling heart, and before I trust ye wi' my last letter to my poor

mother, I should like to have a glance at your face, and by your

countenance I shall judge whether or not it will be safe to trust ye."

"I doubt, sir," replied she, throwing back the hood that covered her

head, "ye will see as little in my features as ye expect to find in my

young mistress's to recommend me; but, sir, you ought to remember that

jewels are often encrusted in coarser metals, and ye will often find a

delicious kernel within an unsightly shell."

"Ye speak sweetly, and as sensibly as sweet," said he, raising the

flickering lamp, which burned before them upon a small table, and gazing

upon her countenance; "and I will now tell ye, lassie, that if your

features be not beautiful, there is honesty and kindliness written upon

every line o' them; and though ye are a dependent in the house o' my

enemy, I will trust ye. Try if I can obtain writing materials to address

a few lines to my mother, and I will confide in you to deliver them."

"Ye may confide in me," rejoined she, "and the writing materials which

ye desire I hae brought wi' me. Write, and not only shall your letter be

faithfully delivered, but, as ye hae confided in me, I will venture to

say that your life shall be spared until ye receive her answer; for I

may say that what I request, Lady Murray will try to see performed. And

if I can find any means in my power by which ye can escape, it shall not

be lang that ye will remain a prisoner."

"Thank ye!--doubly thank ye!" cried Simon; "ye are a good and a kind

creature; and though my maister refuses to marry your mistress, yet, had

I been single, I would hae married you. But, oh, when ye go wi' the

letter to his mother, my honoured lady, will ye just go away down to a

bit white house which lies by the river side, about a mile and a half

aboon Selkirk, and there ye will find my poor wife and bairns--or

rather, I should say, my unhappy widow and my orphans--and tell

them--oh, tell my wife--that I never kenned how dear she was to me till

now; but that, if she marries again, my ghost will haunt her night and

day; and tell also the bairns that, above everything, I charge them to

be good to their mother."

The young laird sat down, and, writing a letter to his mother, intrusted

it to the hands of the stranger girl. He raised her hand to his lips as

she withdrew, and a tear trickled down his cheeks as he thanked her.

It was early on the following morning that Meikle-mouthed Meg, as

she was called, requested an interview with her father, which being

granted, after respectfully rendering obeisance before him, she

said--"So, faither, I understand that it is your pleasure that I shall

this day become the wife o' young Scott o' Harden. I think, sir, that

it is due to the daughter o' a Murray o' Elibank, that she should be

courted before she gies her hand. The young man has never seen me; he

kens naething concerning me; an' never will yer dochter disgrace ye by

gieing her hand to a man who only accepted it to save his neck from a

hempen cord. Faither, if it be your command that I am to marry him, I

will an' must marry him; but, before I just make a venture upon him for

better for worse, an' for life, I wad like to hae some sma' acquaintance

wi' him, to see what sort o' a lad he is, and what kind o' temper he

has; and therefore, faither, I humbly crave that ye will put off the

death or the marriage for a week at least, that I may hae an opportunity

o' judging for mysel' how far it would be prudent or becoming in me to

consent to be his wife."

"Gie me your hand, Meg," cried the old knight; "I didna think ye had as

muckle spirit and gumption in ye as to say what ye hae said. But your

request is useless; for he has already, point blank, refused to hae ye;

an' there is naething left for him, but, before sunset, to strike his

heels against the bark o' the auld elm tree."

"Say not that, faither," said she--"let me at least hae four days to

become acquainted wi' him; and if in that time he doesna mak a request

to you to marry me without ony dowry, then will I say that I look even

waur than I get the name o' doing."

"He shall have four days, Meg," cried the old knight; "for your sake he

will have them; but if, at the end o' four days, he shall refuse to take

ye, he shall hang before this window, and his poor half-crazed companion

shall bear him company."

With this assurance Agnes, or, as she was called, Meg left her father,

and bethought her of how she might save the prisoners and secure a

husband.

The mother of the laird sat in the midst of her daughters, mourning for

him, and looking from the window of the tower, as though, in every form

that appeared in the distance, she expected to see him, or at least to

gather tidings regarding him, when information was brought to her that

he was the prisoner of Murray of Elibank.

"Then," cried she, and wept, "the days o' my winsome Willie are

numbered, and his death is determined on; for often has Sir Gideon

declared he would gie a' the lands o' Elibank for his head. My Willie is

my only son, my first-born, and my heart's hope and treasure; and, oh,

if I lose him now, if I shall never again hear his kindly voice say

'_mother_!' nor stroke down his yellow hair--wi' him that has made me

sonless I shall hae a day o' lang and fearfu' reckoning; cauld shall be

the hearth-stane in the house o' many a Murray, and loud their

lamentation."

Her daughters wept with her for their brother's fate; but they wist not

how to comfort her; and, while they sat mingling their tears together,

it was announced to them that a humble maiden, bearing a message from

the captive laird, desired to speak with her.

"Show her in!--take me to her!" cried the mother, impatiently. "Where is

she?--what does she say?--or what does my Willie say?" And the maiden

who has been mentioned as having visited the laird in his prison, was

ushered into her presence.

"Come to me, lassie--come and tell me a'," cried the old lady; "what

message does Willie Scott send to his heart-broken mother?"

"He has sent you this bit packet, ma'am," replied the bearer; "and I

shall be right glad to take back to him whatever answer ye may hae to

send."

"And wha are ye, young woman?" inquired the lady, "that speaks sae

kindly to a mother, an' takes an interest in the fate o' my Willie?"

"A despised lassie," was the reply; "but ane that would risk her ain

life to save either yours or his."

"Bless you for the words!" replied Lady Scott, as she broke the seal of

her son's letter, and read:--

"My mother, my honoured mother,--Fate has delivered me into the power of

Murray of Elibank, the enemy of our house. He has doomed me to death,

and I die to-morrow; but sit not down to mourn for me, and uselessly

to wring the hands and tear the hair; but rouse every Scott upon the

Borders to rise up and be my avenger. If ye bewail the loss o' a son,

let them spare o' the Murrays neither son nor daughter. Rouse ye, and

let a mother's vengeance nerve your arm! Poor Simon o' Yarrow-foot is

to be my companion in death, and he whines to meet his fate with the

weakness of a woman, and yearns a perpetual yearning for his wife and

bairns. On that account I forgie him the want o' heart and determination

which he manifests; but see ye to them, and take care that they be

provided for. As for me, I shall meet my doom wi' disdain for my enemy

in my eyes and on my tongue. Even in death he shall feel that I despise

him; and a proof o' this I have given him already; for he has offered to

save my life, providing I would marry his daughter, Meikle-mouthed Meg.

But I have scorned his proposal."----

"Ye were right, Willie! ye were right, lad!" exclaimed his mother, while

the letter shook in her hand; but, suddenly bursting into tears, she

continued--"No, no! my bairn was wrong--very wrong. Life is precious,

and at all times desirable; and, for his poor mother's sake, he ought to

have married the lassie, whate'er she may be like." And, turning to the

bearer of the letter, she inquired--"And what like may the leddy be, the

marrying o' whom would save my Willie's life?"

"Ye have nae doubt heard, my leddy," replied the stranger, "that she

isna what the world considers to be a likely lass--though, take her as

she is, and ye might find a hantle worse wives than poor Meg would make;

and, as to her features, I may say that she looks much the same as I do;

and if she doesna appear better, she at least doesna look ony waur."

"Then, if she be as ye say, and look as ye say," continued the lady, "my

poor headstrong Willie ought to marry her. But, oh! weel do I ken that

in everything he is just his father ower again, and ye might as weel

think o' moving the Eildon hills as force him to onything."

She perused the concluding part o' her son's letter, in which he spoke

enthusiastically of the kindness shown him by the fair messenger, and of

the promise she had made to liberate him if possible. "And if she does,"

he added, "whatever be her parentage, on the day that I should be free,

she should be my wife, though I have preferred death to the hand o' Sir

Gideon's _comely_ daughter."

"Lassie," said the lady, weeping as she spoke, "my poor Willie talks a

deal o' the kindness ye have shown him in the hour o' his distress, and

for that kindness his mother's heart thanks ye. But do you not think

that it is possible that I could accompany ye to Elibank? and, if ye can

devise no means for him to escape, perhaps, if ye could get me admitted

into his presence, when he saw his poor distressed mother upon her knees

before him, his heart would saften, and he would marry Sir Gideon's

daughter, ill-featured though she may be."

"My leddy," answered the stranger maiden, "it is little that I can

promise, and less that I can do; but if ye desire to see yer son, I

think I could answer for accomplishing yer request; an' though nae guid

micht come oot o't, I could also say that I wad see ye safe back again."

Within an hour, Lady Scott, disguised as a peasant, and carrying a

basket on her arm, set out for Elibank, accompanied by the fair

stranger.

Leaving them upon their melancholy journey, we shall return to the

young laird. From the windows of his prison-house, he beheld the sun

rise which was to be the last on which he was to look. He heard the

sentinels, who kept watch over him, relieve each other; he heard them

pacing to and fro before the grated door, and as the sun rose towards

the south, proclaiming the approach of noon, the agitation of Simon

increased. He sat in a corner of the prison, and strove to pray; and, as

the footsteps of the sentinels quickened, he groaned in the bitterness

of his spirit. At length the loud booming of the gong announced that the

dial-plate upon the turret marked the hour of twelve. Simon clasped his

hands together. "Maister! maister!" he cried, "our hour is come, an' one

word from yer lips could save us baith, an' ye winna speak it. The very

holding oot o' yer hand could do it, but ye are stubborn even unto

death."

"Simon," said the laird, "I hae left it as an injunction upon my mother,

that yer wife an' weans be provided for--she will fulfil my request.

Therefore, be ye content. Die like a man, an' dinna disgrace both

yourself an' me."

"O sir! I winna disgrace, or in any manner dishonour ye," said

Simon--"only I do not see the smallest necessity for us to die, and

especially when both our lives could be saved by yer doing yerself a

good turn."

While he spoke, the sound of the sentinels' footsteps, pacing to and

fro, ceased. The prison-door was opened; Simon fell upon his knees--the

laird looked towards the intruder proudly.

"Your lives are spared for another day," said a voice, "that the laird

o' Harden may have time to reflect upon the proposal that has been made

to him. But let him not hope that he will find mercy upon other terms;

or that, refusing them for another day, his life will be prolonged."

The door was again closed, and the bolts were drawn. The spirit of Sir

Gideon was too proud and impatient to spare the lives of his prisoners

for four days, as he had promised to his daughter to do, and he now

resolved that they should die upon the following day.

The sun had again set, and the dim lamp shed around its fitful and

shadowy lights from the table of the prison-room, when the maiden, who

had carried the letter to the laird's mother, again entered.

"This is kind, very kind, gentle maiden," said he; "would that I could

reward ye! An' hoo fares it with my puir mother?--what answer does she

send?"

"An' oh, ma'am, or mistress!" cried Simon, "hoo fares it wi' my dear

wife an' bairns? I hope ye told them all that I desired ye to say. Hoo

did she bear the news o' being made a widow? An' what did she say to my

injunction that she was never to marry again?"

"Ye talk wildly, man," said the maiden, addressing Simon; "it wasna in

my power to carry yer commands to yer wife; but, I trust, it will be

longer than ye expect before she will be a widow, or hae it in her power

to marry again."

"O ye angel! ye perfect picture!" cried Simon, "what is that which I

hear ye say? Do ye really mean to tell me that I stand a chance o' being

saved, an' that I shall see my wife an' bairns again?"

"Even so," said she; "but whether ye do or do not, rests with yer

master."

"Speak not o' that, sweet maiden," said the laird; "but tell me, what

says my mother? How does she bear the fate o' her son; an' hoo does she

promise to avenge my death?"

"She is as one whose heart-strings are torn asunder," was the reply,

"and who refuses to be comforted; but she wad rather hae another dochter

than lose an only son; an' her prayer is, that ye will live and mak her

happy, by marrying the maiden ye despise."

"What!" he cried, "has even my mother so far forgot herself as to desire

me to marry the dochter o' oor enemy, whom no other man could be found

to take! It shall never be. I wad obey her in onything but that."

"But," said the maiden, "I still think ye are wrong to reject and

despise puir Meg before that ye hae seen her. She may baith be better

an' look better than ye are aware o'. There are as guid as Scott o'

Harden who hae said, that were it in their power they wad mak her their

wife; an' ye should remember, sir, that it will be as pleasant for you

to hear the blithe laverock singing ower yer head, as for another person

to hear the wind soughing and the long grass rustling ower yer grave. Ye

hae another day to live, an' see her, an' speak to her, before ye decide

rashly. Yours is a cruel doom, but Sir Gideon is a wrathfu' man; an'

even for his ain flesh an' bluid he has but sma' compassion when his

anger is provoked. Death, too, is an awfu' thing to think aboot; an',

therefore, for yer ain sake, an' for the sake o' yer puir distressed

mother an' sisters, dinna come to a rash determination."

"Sweet lass," replied he, "I respect the sympathy which ye evince; but

never shall Sir Gideon Murray say that, in order to save my life, he

terrified me into a marriage wi' his daughter. An' when my puir mother's

grief has subsided, she will think differently o' my decision."

"Weel, sir," said the maiden, "since ye will not listen to my

advice--an' I own that I hae nae richt to offer it--I will send ane to

ye whose persuasion will hae mair avail."

"Whom will ye send?" inquired the laird; "it isna possible that ye can

hae been playing me false?"

"No," she replied, "that isna possible; an' from her that I will send to

you, you will see whether or not I hae kept my word, guid and truly, to

fulfil yer message."

So saying, she withdrew, leaving him much wondering at her words, and

yet more at the interest which she took in his fate. But she had not

long withdrawn when the prison-door was again opened, and Lady Scott

rushed into the arms of her son.

"My mother!" cried he, starting back in astonishment--"my mother!--hoo

is this?"

"Oh, joy an' gladness, an' every blessing be upon my honoured lady!

for noo I may stand some chance o' walkin' back upon my ain feet to

see my family. Oh! yer leddyship," Simon added, "join yer prayers to my

prayers, an' try if ye can persuade my maister to marry Sir Gideon's

dochter, an' thereby save baith his life an' mine."

But she fell upon the neck of her son, and seemed not to hear the words

which Simon addressed to her.

"O my son! my son!" she cried; "since there is no other way by which yer

life can be ransomed, yield to the demand o' the fierce Murray. Marry

his daughter an' live--save yer wretched mother's life; for yer death,

Willie, wad be mine also."

"Mother!" answered he, vehemently, "I will never accept life upon such

terms. I am in Murray's hands, but the day may come--yea, see ye that it

does come--when he shall fall into the hands o' the Scotts o' Harden;

an' see ye that ye do to him as he shall have done to me. But, tell

me, mother, hoo are ye here? Wherefore did ye venture, or hoo got ye

permission to see me? Ken ye not that if he found ye in his power, upon

your life also he wad fix a ransom?"

"The kind lassie," she replied, "that brought the letter from ye, at my

request conducted me here, and contrived to get me permission to see

ye; an' she says that my visit shall not come to the knowledge o' Sir

Gideon. But, O Willie! as ye love an' respect the mother that bore ye,

an' that nursed ye nicht an' day at her bosom, dinna throw awa yer life

when it is in yer power to save it, but marry Miss Murray, an' ye may

live, an' so may I, to see many happy days; for, from a' that I hae

heard, though not weel-favoured, she is a young lady o' an excellent

disposition!"

"Oh! that's richt, my leddy," interrupted Simon; "urge him to marry her,

for it would be a dreadfu' thing for him an' I to be gibbeted, as a pair

o' perpetual spectacles for the Murrays to mak a jest o'. Ye ken if he

does marry, an' if he finds he doesna like her, he can leave her; or

he needna live wi' her; or, perhaps, she may soon die; an' ye will

certainly agree that marriage, ony way ye tak it, is to be desired, a

thousand times ower, before a violent death. Therefore, urge him again,

yer leddyship, for he may listen to what ye say, though he despises my

words, an' will not hearken to my advice."

"Simon," said the laird, "never shall a Murray hae it in his power to

boast that he struck terror into the breast o' a Scott o' Harden. My

determination is fixed as fate. I shall welcome my doom, an' meet it as

a man. Come, dear mother," he added, "weep not, nor cause me to appear

in the presence o' my enemies with a blanched cheek. Hasten to avenge my

death, an' think that in yer revenge yer son lives again. Come, though I

die, there will be moonlight again."

She hung upon his breast and wept, but he turned away his head and

refused to listen to her entreaties. The young maiden again entered the

prison, and said--

"Ye must part noo, for in a few minutes Sir Gideon will be astir, an'

should he find yer leddyship here, or discover that I hae brought ye, I

wad hae sma' power to gie ye protection."

"Fareweel, dear mother!--fareweel!" exclaimed the youth, grasping her

hand.

"O Willie! Willie!" she cried, "did I bear ye to see ye come to an end

like this! Bairn! bairn! live--for yer mother's sake, live!"

"Fareweel, mother!--fareweel!" he again cried, and the sentinel

conducted her from the apartment.

It again drew towards noon. The loud gong again sounded, and Simon

sank upon his knees in despair, as the voice of the warder was heard

crying--"It is the hour! prepare the prisoners for execution!"

Again the prison-door was opened, and Sir Gideon, with wrath upon his

brow, stood before them.

"Weel, youngster," said he, addressing the laird, "yer hour is come.

What is yer choice--a wife or the wuddy?"

"Lead me to execution, ye auld knave," answered the laird, scornfully;

"an' ken, that wi' the hemp around my neck, in contempt o' you an'

yours, I will spit upon the ground where ye tread."

"Here, guards!" cried Sir Gideon; "lead forth William Scott o' Harden to

execution. Strap him upon the nearest tree, an' there let him hang until

the bauldest Scott upon the Borders dare to cut him down. As for you,"

added he, addressing Simon, "I seek not your life; depart, ye are free;

but beware hoo ye again fall into the hands o' Gideon Murray."

"No, sir!" exclaimed Simon, "though I am free to acknowledge that I hae

nae ambition to die before it is the wise will an' purpose o' nature,

yet I winna, I canna leave my dear young maister; an' if he be to

suffer, I will share his fate. Only, Sir Gideon, there is ae thing I hae

to say, an' that is, that he is young, an' he is proud an' stubborn,

like yersel', an' though he will not, o' his ain free will an' accord,

nor in obedience to yer commandments, marry yer dochter--is it not

possible to compel him, whether he be willing or no, an' so save his

life, as it were, in spite o' him?"

"Away with both!" cried the knight, striking his ironed heel upon the

ground, and leaving the apartment.

"Then, if it is to be, it must be," said Simon, folding his arms in

resignation, "an' there is no help for it! But, oh, maister! maister!

ye hae acted foolishly."

They were led from the prison-house, and through the court-yard, towards

a tall elm-tree, round which all the retainers of Sir Gideon were

assembled to witness the execution; and the old knight took his place

upon an elevated seat in the midst of them.

The executioners were preparing to perform their office, when Agnes, or

Muckle-mouthed Meg, as she was called, came forth, with a deep veil

thrown over her face, and sinking on her knee before the old knight,

said, imploringly--"A boon, dear faither--yer dochter begs a simple

boon."

"Ye tak an ill season to ask it, Meg," said the knight, angrily; "but

what may it be?"

She whispered to him earnestly for a few minutes, during which his

countenance exhibited indignation and surprise; and when she had

finished speaking, she again knelt before him and embraced his knees.

"Rise, Meg, rise!" said he, impatiently, "for yer sake, an' at yer

request, he shall hae another chance to live." And, approaching the

prisoner, he added--"William Scott, ye hae chosen death in preference to

the hand o' my dochter. Will ye noo prefer to die rather than marry the

lassie that ran wi' the letter to yer mother, an' without my consent

brought her to see ye?"

"Had another asked me the question," said the laird, "though I ken not

who she is, yet she has a kind heart, and I should hae said 'No,' an'

offered her my hand, heart, an' fortune; but to you, Sir Gideon, I only

say--do yer worst."

"Then, Willie, my ain Willie!" cried his mother, who at that moment

rushed forward, "another does request ye to marry her, an' that is yer

ain mother!"

"An'," said Agnes, stepping forward, and throwing aside the veil that

covered her face, "puir Meg, ower whom ye gied a preference to the

gallows, also requests ye!"

"What!" exclaimed the young laird, grasping her hand, "is the kind

lassie that has striven, night and day, to save me--the very Meg that I

hae been treating wi' disdain?"

"In troth am I," she replied, "an' do ye prefer the wuddy still?"

"No," answered he; and, turning to Sir Gideon, he added--"Sir, I am now

willing that the ceremony end in matrimony."

"Be it so," said the old knight, and the spectators burst into a shout.

The day that began with preparations for death ended in a joyful bridal.

The honour of knighthood was afterwards conferred upon the laird; and

Meg bore unto him many sons and daughters, and was, as the reader will

be ready to believe, one of the best wives in Scotland; while Simon

declared that he never saw a better-looking woman in Ettrick Forest,

his own wife and daughters not excepted.

LORD DURIE AND CHRISTIE'S WILL.

Who can journey, now-a-days, along the high parts of Selkirkshire, and

hear the mire-snipe whistle in the morass, proclaiming itself, in the

silence around, the unmolested occupant of the waste, or descend into

the green valley, and see the lazy shepherd lying folded up in his

plaid, while his flocks graze in peace around him and in the distance,

and not think of the bold spirits that, in the times of Border warfare,

sounded the war-horn till it rang in reverberating echoes from hill to

hill? The land of the Armstrongs knows no longer their kindred. The

hills, ravines, mosses, and muirs, that, only a few centuries ago,

were animated by the boldest spirits that ever sounded a war-cry, and

defended to the death by men whose swords were their only charters of

right, have passed into other hands, and the names of the warlike

holders serve now only to give a grim charm to a Border ballad. An

extraordinary lesson may be read on the banks of the Liddel and the

Esk--there is a strange eloquence in the silence of these quiet dales.

Stand for a while among the graves of the chief of Gilnockie and his

fifty followers, in the lonely churchyard of Carlenrig--cast a

contemplative eye on the roofless tower of that brave riever, then

glance at the gorgeous policies of Bowhill, and resist, if you can, the

deep sigh that rises as a tribute to the memories of men who, having,

by their sleepless spirits, kept a kingdom in commotion, died on the

gallows, and left no generation to claim their lands from those who,

with less bravery and no better sense of right, had the subtle policy

to rise on their ruins. Poorly, indeed, now sound the names of Johnny

Armstrong, Sim of Whittram, Sim of the Cathill, Kinmont Willie, or

Christie's Will, besides those of Dukes of Buccleuch and Roxburgh,

Scott of Harden, and Elliot of Stobbs and Wells; and yet, without

wishing to take away the _merit_ or the _extent_ of their ancestors'

own "reif and felonie," how much do they owe to their succession to the

ill-got gear of those hardy Borderers whose names and scarcely credible

achievements are all that have escaped the rapacity that, not satisfied

with their lands, took also their lives! For smaller depredations, the

old laws of the Border--and it would not be fair to exclude those of the

present day, not confined to that locality--awarded a halter; for thefts

of a larger kind, they gave a title. Old Wat of Buccleuch deserved the

honour of "the neck garter" just as much as poor Johnny Armstrong; yet

all he got was a reproof and a dukedom.

"Then up and spake the noble king--

And an angry man, I trow, was he--

'It ill becomes ye, bauld Bucclew,

To talk o' reif or felonie;

For, if every man had his ain cow,

A right puir clan yer name would be.'"

There is a change now. The bones of the bold Armstrongs lie in

Carlenrig, and the descendants of their brother-rievers who got their

lands sit in high places, and speak words of legislative command. But

these things will be as they have ever been. We cannot change the world,

far less remake it; but we can resuscitate a part of its moral wonders;

and, while the property of Christie's Will, the last of the bold

Armstrongs, is now possessed by another family, under a written title,

we will do well to commit to record a part of his fame.

It is well known that the chief of the family of Armstrongs had his

residence[A] at Mangerton in Liddesdale. There is scarcely now any

trace of his tower, though time has not exerted so cruel a hand against

his brother Johnny Armstrong's residence, which lies in the Hollows near

Langholme. We know no tumult of the emotions of what may be called

antiquarian sentiment, so engrossing and curious as that produced by

the headless skeleton of "auld Gilnockie's Tower," as it is seen in the

grey gloaming, with a breeze brattling through its dry ribs, and a stray

owl sitting on the top, and sending his eldritch screigh through the

deserted hollows. The mind becomes busy on the instant with the former

scenes of festivity, when "their stolen gear," "baith nolt and sheep,"

and "flesh, and bread, and ale," as Maitland says, were eaten and drunk

with the _kitchen_ of a Cheviot hunger, and the sweetness of stolen

things; and when the wild spirit of the daring outlaws, with Johnny

at their head, made the old tower of the Armstrongs ring with their

wassail shouts. This Border turret came--after the execution of Johnny

Armstrong, and when the clan had become what was called a broken

clan--into the possession of William Armstrong, who figured in the times

of Charles I. He was called Christie's Will, though from what reason

does not now seem very clear; neither is it at all evident why, after

the execution of his forbear, Johnny, and his fifty followers, at

Carlenrig, the Tower of Gilnockie was not forfeited to the crown, and

taken from the rebellious clan altogether; but, to be sure it was in

those days more easy to take a man's life than his property, insomuch as

the former needed no guard, while the other would have required a small

standing army to keep it and the new proprietor together. Certain,

however, it is, that Christie's Will did get possession of the Tower of

Gilnockie, where, according to the practice of the family, he lived "on

Scottish ground and English kye;" and, when the latter could not easily

be had, on the poorer land of his neighbours of Scotland.

[A] In a MS. we have seen, as old as the end of the 15th

century, "the Laird of Mangerton" is placed at the head of the

Liddesdale chiefs--Harden, Buccleuch, and others coming after him

in respectful order.

This descendant of the Armstrongs was not unlike Johnny; and, indeed, it

has been observed that throughout the whole branches of the family there

was an extraordinary union of boldness and humour--two qualities which

have more connection than may, at first view, be apparent. Law-breakers,

among themselves, are seldom serious; a lightness of heart and a turn

for wit being necessary for the sustenance of their outlawed spirits, as

well as for a quaint justification--resorted to by all the tribe--of

their calling, against the laws of the land. In the possession of these

qualities, Will was not behind the most illustrious of his race; but he,

perhaps, excelled them all in the art of "_conveying_"--a polite term

then used for that change of ownership which the affected laws of the

time denominated _theft_. This art was not confined to cattle or

plenishing, though

"They left not spindell, spoone, nor speit,

Bed, boster, blanket, sark, nor sheet:

John of the Park ryps kist and ark--

To all sic wark he is sae meet."[B]

[B] See Maitland's curious satire on the Border robberies.--ED.

It extended to abduction, and this was far seldomer exercised on damsels

than on men, who would be well ransomed, especially of those classes,

duke, earl, or baron, any of whom Johnny offered (for his life) to

bring, "within a certain day, to his Majesty James V., either quick

or dead." This latter part of their art was the highest to which the

Borderers aspired; and there never was a riever among them all that

excelled in it so much as Christie's Will. "To steal a stirk, or wear a

score o' sheep _hamewards_," he used to say, "was naething; but to steal

a _lord_ was the highest flicht o' a man's genius, and ought never to be

lippened to a hand less than an Armstrong's;" and, certainly, if the

success with which he executed one scheme of that high kind will

guarantee Will's boasted abilities, he did not transcend the truth in

limiting lord-stealing to the Armstrongs.

Will married a distant relation of the true Border breed, named Margaret

Elliot--a lass whose ideas of hussyskep were so peculiar, that she

thought Gilnockie and its laird were going to ruin when she saw in the

kail-pot a "heugh bane" of their _own_ cattle, a symptom of waste,

extravagance, and laziness, on the part of her husband, that boded less

good than the offer made by "the Laird's Jock," (Johnny Armstrong's

henchman,) to give "Dick o' the Cow" a piece of his own ox, which he

came to ask reparation for, and, not having got it, tied with St. Mary's

knot (hamstringed) thirty good horses. To this good housewife, in fact,

might be traced, if antiquaries would renounce for it less important

investigations, the old saying, that stolen joys (qu. queys?) are

sweetest, undoubtedly a Border aphorism, and now received into the

society of legitimate moral sayings. When lazy and not inclined for

"felonie," Will would not subscribe to the truth of the dictum, and

often got for grace to the dinner he had not taken from the English, and

yet relished, the wish of the good dame, that, for his want of spirit,

it might choke him. That effect, however, was more likely to be produced

by the beef got in the regular Border way; for the laws were beginning

now to be more vigorously executed, and many a riever was astonished and

offended by the proceedings of the Justice-Ayr at Jedburgh, where they

were actually going the length of _hanging_ for the crime of _conveying_

cattle from one property to another.

It was in vain that Will told his wife these proceedings of the Jedburgh

court; she knew very well that many of the Armstrongs, and the famous

Johnny among the rest, had been strung up, by the command of their king,

for rebellion against his authority; but it was out of all question,

beyond the reach of common sense, and, indeed, utterly barbarous and

unjust to hang a man, as Gilderoy's lover said, "for gear," a thing that

never yet was known to be stationary, but, even from the times of the

Old Testament, given to taking to itself wings and flying away. It was,

besides, against the oldest constitution of things, the old possessors

being the _Tories_, who acted upon the comely principle already alluded

to, that right was might--the new lairds, again, being the Whigs, who

wished to take from the Tories (the freebooters) the good old law of

nature and possession, and regulate property by the mere conceits of

men's brains. To some such purpose did Margaret argue against Will's

allusions to the doings at Jedburgh; but, secretly, Will cared no more

for the threat of a rope, than he did for the empty bravado of a

neighbour whom he had eased of a score of cattle. He merely brought

in the doings of the Justice-Ayr at Jedburgh, to screen his fits of

laziness; those states of the mind common to rievers, thieves, writers,

and poets, and generally all people who live upon their wits, which

at times incapacitate them for using sword or pen for their honest

livelihood. But all Margaret's arguments and Will's courage were on one

occasion overturned, by the riever's apprehension for stealing a cow,

belonging to a farmer at Stobbs, of the name of Grant. He was carried

to Jedburgh jail, and indicted to stand his trial before the Lord

Justice-General at the next circuit. There was a determination, on the

part of the crown authorities, to make an example of the most inveterate

riever of the time, and Will stood a very fair chance of being hanged.

The apprehension of Will Armstrong made a great noise throughout all

Liddesdale, producing, to the class of victims, joy, and to the class

of spoilers, great dismay; but none wondered more at the impertinence

and presumption of the government authorities in attempting thus to

dislocate the old Tory principle of "might makes right," than Margaret

Elliot; who, as she sat in her turret of Gilnockie, alternately wept and

cursed for the fate of her "winsome Will," and, no doubt, there was in

the projected condemnation and execution of a man six feet five inches

high, with a face like an Adonis, shoulders like a Milo, the speed of

Mercury, the boldness of a lion, and more than the generosity of that

noble animal, for the crime of stealing a stirk, something that was very

apt to rouse, even in those who loved him not so well as did Margaret,

feelings of sympathy for his fate, and indignation against his

oppressors. There was no keeping, as the artists say, in the picture, no

proper causality in a stolen cow, for the production of such an effect

as a hanged Phaon or strangled Hercules; and though we have used some

classic names to grace our idea, the very same thought, at least as good

a one, though perhaps not so gaudily clothed, occupied the mind of

Margaret Elliot. She sobbed and cried bitterly, till the Gilnockie

ravens and owls, kindred spirits, were terrified from the riever's

tower.

"What is this o't?" she exclaimed, in the midst of her tears. "Shall

Christie's Will, the bravest man o' the Borders, be hanged because a

cow, that kenned nae better, followed him frae Stobbs to the Hollows;

and shall it be said that Margaret Elliot was the death o' her braw

riever? I had meat enough in Gilnockie larder that day I scorned him wi'

his laziness, and forced him to do the deed that has brought him to

Jedburgh jail. But I'll awa to the warden, James Stewart o' Traquair,

and see if it be the king's high will that a man's life should be ta'en

for a cow's."

Making good her resolution, Margaret threw her plaid about her

shoulders, and hied her away to Traquair House, the same that still

stands on the margin of the Tweed, and raises its high white walls,

perforated by numerous Flemish-shaped windows, among the dark woods of

Traquair. When she came to the front of the house, and saw the two stone

figures stationed at the old gate, she paused and wondered at the

weakness and effeminacy of the Lord High Steward in endeavouring to

defend his castle by fearful representations of animals.

"My faith," muttered she to herself, as she approached to request

entrance, "the warden was right in no makin' choice o' the figure o' a

_quey_ to defend his castle." And she could scarcely resist a chuckle in

the midst of her tears, at her reference to the cause of her visit.

"Is my Lord Steward at hame?" said she to the servant who answered her

call.

"Yes," answered the man; "who is it that wishes to see him?"

"The mistress o' Gilnockie," rejoined Margaret, "has come to seek a guid

word for Christie's Will, who now lies in Jedburgh jail for stealing a

tether, and I fear may hang for't."

The servant heard this extraordinary message as servants who presume to

judge of the sense of their messages ever do, with critical attention,

and, after serious consideration, declared that he could not deliver

such a message to his lord.

"I dinna want ye to deliver my message, man," said Margaret. "I merely

wished to be polite to ye, and show ye a little attention. God be

thankit, the mistress o' Gilnockie can deliver her ain errand."

And, pushing the waiting man aside by a sudden jerk of her brawnie arm,

she proceeded calmly forward to a door, which she intended to open; but

the servant was at her heels, and, laying hold of her plaid, was in the

act of hauling her back, when the Warden himself came out, and asked the

cause of the affray.

"Is the house yours, my Lord, or this man's?" said Margaret. "Take

my advice, my Lord," (whispering in his ear,) "turn him aff--he's a

traitor; would you believe it, my Lord, that, though placed there for

the purpose o' lettin' folk into yer Lordship, he actually--ay, as sure

as death--tried to keep me oot! Can ye deny it, sir? Look i' my face,

and deny it if ye daur!"

The man smiled, and his Lordship laughed; and Margaret wondered at the

easy good-nature of a Lord in forgiving such a heinous offence on the

part of a servitor.

"If ye're as kind to me as ye are to that rebel," continued Margaret, as

she followed his Lordship into his sitting chamber, "Christie's Will

winna hang yet."

"What mean you, good woman?" said the Warden. "What is it that you

want?"

"As if your Lordship didna ken," answered Margaret, with a knowing look.

"Is it likely that a Liddesdale woman frae the Hollows, should ca' upon

the great Warden for aught short o' the life and safety o' the man wha's

in Jedburgh jail?" (Another Scotch wink.)

"I am still at a loss, good woman," said the Warden.

"At a loss!" rejoined Margaret. "What! doesna a' the Forest,[C] and

Teviotdale and Tweeddale to boot, ken that Christie's Will is in

Jedburgh jail?"

[C] Selkirkshire.

"I know, I know, good dame," replied the Warden, "that that brave riever

is in prison; but I thought his crime was the stealing of a cow, and not

a tether, as I heard you say to my servant."

"Weel, weel--the cow may have been at the end o' the tether," replied

Margaret.

"She is a wise woman who concealeth the _extremity_ of her husband's

crime," replied Lord Traquair, with a smile, "But what wouldst thou have

me to do?"

"Just to save Christie's Will frae the gallows, my Lord," answered

Margaret. And, going up close to his Lordship, and whispering in his

ear--"And sometimes a Lord needs a lift as weel as ither folk. If

there's nae buck on Traquair when your Lordship has company at the

castle, you hae only to gie Christie's Will a nod, and there will be

nae want o' venison here for a month. There's no a stouthriever in a'

Liddesdale, be he baron or bondsman, knight or knave, but Christie's

Will will bring to you at your Lordship's bidding, and a week's biding;

and if there's ony want o' a braw leddie," (speaking low,) "to keep the

bonny house o' Traquair in order, an' she canna be got for a carlin

keeper, a wink to Christie's Will will bring her here, unscathed by sun

or wind, in suner time than a priest could tie the knot, or a lawyer

loose it. Is sic a man a meet burden for a fir wuddy, my Lord?"

"By my faith, your husband hath good properties about him," replied

Traquair. "There is not one in these parts that knoweth not Christie's

Will; but I fear it is to that fame he oweth his danger. He is the last

of the old Armstrongs; and there is a saying hereaway, that

'Comes Liddesdale's peace

When Armstrongs cease;'

and since, good dame, it would ill become the King's Warden to let slip

the noose that is to catch peace and order for our march territories,

yet Will is too noble a fellow for hanging. Go thy ways. I'll see

him--I'll see him."

"Hech na, my Lord," answered Margaret; "I'll no budge frae this house

till ye say ye'll save him this ance. I'll be caution and surety for

him mysel', that he'll never again dine in Gilnockie on another man's

surloins. His clan has been lang a broken ane; but I am now the head

o't, and it has aye been the practice in our country to make the head

answer for the rest o' the body."

"Well, that is the practice of the hangman at Jedburgh," replied

Traquair, laughing. "But go thy ways. Will shall not hang yet. He hath

a job to do for me. There's a 'lurdon'[D] of the north he must steal for

me. I'll take thy bond."

[D] It has been attempted to derive this word from "Lord,"

(paper lord); but we have no faith in the etymology; it was, however,

often applied to the wigged and gowned judges, as being, in their

appearance, more like women than men--for "lurdon," though applied

to a male, is generally used for a lazy woman.--ED.

"Gie me your hand then, my Lord," said the determined dame; "and the

richest lurdon o' the land he'll bring to your Lordship, as surely as

he ever took a Cumberland cow--whilk, as your Lordship kens, is nae

rieving."

Traquair gave the good dame his hand, and she departed, wondering, as

she went, what the Lord Warden was to do with a stolen lurdon. A young

damsel might have been a fair prize for the handsome baron; but an "auld

wife," as she muttered to herself, was the most extraordinary object of

rieving she had ever heard of, amidst all the varieties of a Borderer's

prey. Next day Traquair mounted his horse, and--

"Traquair has riden up Chaplehope,

An' sae has he doun by the Grey-Mare's-Tail;

He never stinted the light gallop,

Until he speered for Christie's Will."

Having arrived at Jedburgh, he repaired direct to the jail, where

Margaret had been before him, to inform her husband that the great Lord

Warden was to visit him, and get him released; but upon the condition of

stealing away a lurdon in the north--a performance, the singularity of

which was much greater than the apparent difficulty, unless, indeed, as

Will said, she was a bedridden lurdon, in which case, it would be no

easy matter to get her conveyed, as horses were the only carriers of

stolen goods in those days. But the wonder why Traquair should wish to

steal away an old woman had perplexed the wits of Will and his wife to

such an extent, that they had recourse to the most extraordinary

hypotheses; supposing at one time that she was some coy heiress of

seventy summers, who had determined to be carried off after the form of

young damsels in the times of chivalry; at another, that she was the

parent of some lord, who could only be brought to concede something to

the Warden by the force of the impledgment of his mother; and, again,

that she was the duenna of an heiress, who could only be got through the

confinement of the old hag. Be who she might, however, Christie's Will

declared, upon the faith of the long shablas of Johnny Armstrong, that

he would carry her off through fire and water, as sure as ever Kinmont

Willie was carried away by old Wat of Buccleuch from the Castle of

Carlisle.

"Oh, was it war-wolf in the wood,

Or was it mermaid in the sea,

Or was it maid or lurdon auld,

He'd carry an' bring her bodilie."

Such was the heroic determination to which Christie's Will had come,

when the jailor came and whispered in his ear, that the Lord Warden was

in the passage on the way to see him. Starting to his feet, the riever

was prepared to meet the baron, of whom he generally stood in so much

awe in his old tower of Gilnockie, but who came to him now on a visit

of peace.

"Thou'lt hang, Will, this time," said the Warden, with an affectation of

gruffness, as he stepped forward. "It is not in the power of man to save

ye!"

"Begging yer Lordship's pardon," replied Will, "I believe it, however,

to be in the power o' a woman. The auld lurdon will be in Gilnockie

tower at yer Lordship's ain time."

"And who is the 'auld lurdon?'" replied the Warden, trying to repress a

laugh, which forced its way in spite of his efforts.

"Margaret couldna tell me that," said Will; "but many a speculation we

had on the question yer Lordship has now put to me. 'Wha can she be?'

said Peggy; and 'Wha can she be?' replied I; but it's for yer Lordship

to say wha she _is_, and for me to steal the auld limmer awa, as sure as

ever I _conveyed_ an auld milker frae the land o' the Nevills. I'm nae

sooner free than she's a prisoner."

The familiarity with which Will spoke of the female personage thus

destined to durance vile, produced another laugh on the part of the

Warden, not altogether consistent, as Will thought, with the serious

nature of the subject in hand.

"Where is she, my Lord?" continued Will; "in what fortress?--wha is her

keeper?--whar will I tak her, and how long retain her a prisoner?"

"I fear, Will, she is beyond the power o' mortal," said his Lordship, in

a serious voice; "but on condition of thy making a fair trial, I will

make intercession for thy life, and take the chance of thy success. Much

hangeth by the enterprise--ay, even all my barony of Coberston dependeth

upon that 'lurdon' being retained three months in a quiet corner of

Graeme's Tower. Thou knowest the place?"

"Ay, weel, weel," replied Will, who began to see the great importance of

the enterprise, while his curiosity to know who the object was had

considerably increased. "That tower has its 'redcap sly.' E'en Lord

Soulis' Hermitage is no better guarded. Ance there, and awa wi' care,

as we say o' Gilnockie as a rendezvous for _strayed_ steers. But who is

she, my Lord?"

"Thou hast thyself said she is a woman," replied the Warden, smiling,

"and I correct thee not. Hast thou ever heard, Will, of fifteen old

women--'lurdons,' as the good people call them--that reside in a large

house in the Parliament close of Edinburgh?"

"Brawly, brawly," answered Will, with a particular leer of fun and

intelligence; "and weel may I ken the limmers--real lurdons, wi' lang

gowns and curches. Ken them! Wha that has a character to lose, or a

property to keep against the claims o' auld parchment, doesna ken thae

fifteen auld runts? They keep the hail country side in a steer wi' their

scandal. Nae man's character is safe in their keeping; and they're sae

fu' o' mischief that they hae even blawn into the king's lug that my

tower o' Gilnockie was escheat to the king by the death o' my ancestor,

who was hanged at Carlenrig. They say a' the mischief that has come on

the Borders sin' the guid auld times, has its beginning in that coterie

o' weazened gimmers. Dootless, they're at the root o' the danger o' yer

bonny barony o' Coberston. By the rood! I wish I had a dash at their big

curches."

"Ay, Will," responded Traquair; "but they're securely lodged in their

strong Parliament House, and the difficulty is how to get at them."

"But I fancy ane o' the lurdons will satisfy yer Lordship," said Will,

"or do ye want them a' lodged in Graeme's Tower? They would mak a bonny

nest o' screighing hoolets, if we had them safely under the care o'

the sly redcap o' that auld keep: they wad hatch something else than

scandal, and leasin-makin, and reports o' the instability o' Border

rights, the auld jauds."

"I will be content with one of them," rejoined the Warden.

"Ha! ha! I see, I see," replied Will. "Ane o' the limmers has been

sapping and undermining Coberston wi' her hellish scandal. What's the

lurdon's name, my Lord?"

"Gibson of Durie," rejoined Traquair.

"Ah! a weel-kenned scandalous runt that," replied Will. "She's the

auldest o' the hail fifteen, if I'm no cheated--Leddie President o' the

coterie. She spak sair against me when the King's advocate claimed for

his Majesty my auld turret o' Gilnockie. I owe that quean an auld score.

How lang do you want her lodged in Graeme's Tower?"

"Three months would maybe change her tongue," replied the Warden;

"but the enterprise seems desperate, Will."

"Desperate! my Lord," replied the other--"that word's no kenned on the

Borders. Is it the doing o't, or the dool for the doing o't, that has

the desperation in't?"

"The consequences to you would be great, Will," said Traquair. "You are

confined here for stealing a cow, and would be hanged for it if I did

not save ye. Our laws are equal and humane. For stealing a cow one may

be hanged; but there's no such law against stealing a paper-lord."

"That shows the guid sense o' our lawgivers," replied Will, with a leer

on his face. "The legislator has wisely weighed the merits o' the twa

craturs; yet, were it no for your case, my Lord, I could wish the law

reversed. I wad be in nae hurry stealing ane o' thae cummers, at least

for my ain use; and, as for Peggy, she would rather see a cow at

Gilnockie ony day."

"Weel, Will," said his Lordship, "I do not ask thee to steal for me old

Leddie Gibson. I dare not. You understand me; but I am to save your

life; and I tell thee that, if that big-wigged personage be not, within

ten days, safely lodged in Graeme's Tower, my lands of Coberston will

find a new proprietor, and your benefactor will be made a lordly

beggar."

"Fear not, my Lord," replied Will. "I'm nae suner out than she's in.

She'll no say a word against Coberston for the next three months, I

warrant ye. But, by my faith, it's as teuch a job as boilin' auld Soulis

in the cauldron at the Skelfhill; and I hae nae black spae-book like

Thomas to help my spell. Yet, after a', my Lord, what spell is like the

wit o' man, when he has courage to act up to 't!"

The Warden acknowledged the truth of Will's heroic sentiment; and,

having satisfied himself that the bold riever would perform his promise,

he departed, and in two days afterwards the prisoner was liberated, and

on his way to his residence at the Hollows. It was apparent, from Will's

part of the dialogue, that he had some knowledge of the object the Lord

Warden had in view in carrying off a Lord of Session from the middle of

the capital; yet it is doubtful if he troubled himself with more than

the fact of its being the wish of his benefactor that the learned judge

should be for a time confined in Graeme's Tower; and, conforming to a

private hint of his Lordship before he departed from the jail, he kept

up in his wife Margaret's mind the delusion that it was truly "an auld

lurdon" whom he was to steal, as a condition for getting out of prison.

On the morning after his arrival at Gilnockie, Will held a consultation

with two tried friends, whose assistance he required in this most

extraordinary of all the rieving expeditions he had ever yet been

engaged in; and the result of their long sederunt was, that, within two

hours after, the three were mounted on as many prancing Galloways, and

with a fourth led by a bridle, and carrying their provisions, a large

cloak, and some other articles. They took the least frequented road to

the metropolis of Scotland. Having arrived there, they put up their

horses at a small hostelry in the Grassmarket; and, next day, Will,

leaving his friends at the inn, repaired to that seat of the law and

learning of Scotland, where the "hail fifteen" sat in grim array,

munching, with their toothless jaws, the thousand scraps of Latin

law-maxims (borrowed from the Roman and feudal systems) which then

ruled the principles of judicial proceedings in Scotland.

Planting himself in one of the litigants' benches--a line of seats in

front of the semicircle where the fifteen Lords sat--the Liddesdale

riever took a careful survey of all the wonders of that old laboratory

of law. The first objects that attracted his attention, were, of course,

the imposing semicircular line of judges, no fewer than fifteen (almost

sufficient for a small standing army for puny Scotland in those days),

who, wigged and robed, sat and nodded and grinned, and munched their

chops in each other's faces, with a most extraordinary regularity of

mummery, which yielded great amusement to the stalworth riever of the

Borders. Their appearance in the long gowns, with sleeves down to the

hands, wigs whose lappets fell on their breasts, displaying many a line

of crucified curl, and white cambric cravats falling from below their

gaucy double-chins on their bosoms, suggested at once the appellation of

lurdons, often applied to them in those days, and now vivid in the fancy

of the staring Borderer, whose wild and lawless life was so strangely

contrasted with that of the drowsy, effeminate-looking individuals who

sat before him. He understood very little of their movements, which had

all the regularity and ceremony of a raree-show. One individual (the

macer) cried out, at intervals, with a cracked voice, some words he

could not understand; but the moment the sound had rung through the

raftered hall, another species of wigged and robed individuals

(advocates) came forward, and spoke a strange mixture of English and

Latin, which Will could not follow; and, when they had finished, the

whole fifteen looked at each other, and then began, one after another,

but often two or three at a time, to speak, and nod, and shake their

wigs, as if they had been set agoing by some winding-up process on the

part of the advocates. Not one word of all this did Will understand;

and, indeed, he cared nothing for such mummery, but ever and anon fixed

his keen eye on the face of the middle senator, with an expression that

certainly never could have conveyed the intelligence that that rough

country-looking individual meditated such a thing as an abduction of the

huge incorporation of law that sat there in so much state and solidity.

"Ha! ha! my old lass," said Will to himself; "ye little ken that the

Laird o' Gilnockie, whom ye tried to deprive of his birthright, sits

afore ye; and will a' the lear 'neath that big wig tell ye that that

same Laird o' Gilnockie sits here contriving a plan to run awa wi' ye?

Faith, an' it's a bauld project; but the baulder the bonnier, as we say

in Liddesdale. I only wish I could tak her wig and gown wi' her--for, if

the lurdon were seen looking out o' Graeme's Tower, wi' that lang lappet

head-gear, there would be nae need o' watch or ward to keep her there."

Will had scarcely finished his monologue, when he heard the macer cry

out, "Maxwell against Lord Traquair;" then came forward the advocates,

and shook their wigs over the bar, and at length old Durie, the

President, said, in words that did not escape Will's vigilant ear--

"This case, I believe, involves the right to the large barony of

Coberston. Seven of my brethren, you are aware, have given their

opinions in favour of the defendant, Lord Traquair, and seven have

declared for the pursuer, Maxwell. My casting vote must, therefore,

decide the case, and I have been very anxious to bring my mind to a

conclusion on the subject, with as little delay as possible; but there

are difficulties which I have not yet been able to surmount."

"Ay, and there's a new ane here, sittin' afore ye," muttered Will,

"maybe the warst o' them a'."

"I still require some new lights," continued the judge. "I have already,

as the case proceeded, partially announced an opinion against Lord

Traquair; but I wish confirmation before I pronounce a judgment that is

to have the effect of turning one out of possession of a large barony.

I am sorry that my learned friends at the bar have not been able to

relieve me of my scruples."

"Stupid fules," muttered Will; "but I'll relieve ye, my Lord Durie.

It'll ne'er be said that a Lord o' Session stood in need o' relief, and

a Border riever in the court, wha has a hundred times made the doubtin'

stirk tak ae road (maybe Gilnockie-ways) in preference to anither."

The Traquair case being the last called that day, the court broke up,

and the judges, followed still by the eye of Christie's Will, retired

into the robing-room to take off their wigs and gowns. The Borderer now

inquired, in a very simple manner, at a macer, at what door the judges

came out of the court, as he was a countryman, and was curious to see

their Lordships dressed in their usual every-day clothes. The request

was complied with; and Will, as a stupid gazing man from the Highlands,

who wished to get an inane curiosity gratified by what had nothing

curious in it, was placed in a convenient place to see the Solomons pass

forth on their way to their respective dwellings. They soon came; and

Will's lynx eye caught, in a moment, the face of the President, whom,

to his great satisfaction, he now found to be a thin, spare, portable

individual, and very far from the unwieldy personage which his judge's

dress made him appear to be when sitting on the bench--a reversing of

the riever's thoughts, in reference to the spareness and fatness of his

object of seizure, that brought a twinkle to his eye in spite of the

serious task in which he was engaged. Forth went the President with

great dignity, and Christie's Will behind him, dogging him with the

keen scent of a sleuth-hound. To his house in the Canongate he slowly

bent his steps, ruminating as he went, in all likelihood, upon the

difficulties of the Traquair case, from which his followers were so

anxious to relieve him. Will saw him ascend the steps and enter, and

his next object was to ascertain at what time he took his walk, and to

what quarter of the suburbs he generally resorted; but on this point he

could not get much satisfaction, the good judge being in his motions

somewhat irregular, though (as Will learned) seldom a day passed without

his having recourse to the country in some direction or other. Will,

therefore, set a watch upon the house. Another of his friends held the

horses at the foot of Leith Wynd, while he himself paced between the

watchman and the top of the passage, so that he might have both ends of

the line always in his eye. A concerted whistle was to regulate their

movements.

The first day passed without a single glimpse being had of the grave

senator, who was probably occupied in the consultation of legal

authorities, little conscious of the care that was taken about his

precious person by so important an individual as the far-famed

Christie's Will of Gilnockie. On the second day, about three of the

afternoon, and two hours after he had left the Parliament House, a

whistle from Will's friend indicated that the grave judge was on the

steps of his stair. Will recognised him in an instant, and, despatching

his friend to him who held the horses at the foot of the Wynd, with

instructions to keep behind him at a distance, he began to follow his

victim slowly, and soon saw with delight that he was wending his

senatorial steps down towards Leith. The unconscious judge seemed

drowned in study: his eyes were fixed on the ground; his hands placed

behind his back; and, ever and anon, he twirled a gold-headed cane that

hung suspended by a silken string from one of his fingers. Will was

certain that he was meditating the fall of Coberston, and the ruin of

his benefactor, Traquair; and, as the thought rose in his mind, the fire

of his eye burned brighter, and his resolution mounted higher and

higher, till he could even have seized his prey in Leith lane, and

carried him off amidst the cries of the populace. But his opportunity

was coming quicker than he supposed. To enable him to get deeper and

deeper into his brown study, Durie was clearly bent upon avoiding the

common road where passengers put to flight his ideas; and, turning to

the right, went up a narrow lane, and continued to saunter on till he

came to that place commonly known by the name of the Figgate Whins. In

that sequestered place, where scarcely an individual was seen to pass in

an hour, the deep thinking of the cogitative senator might trench the

soil of the law of prescription, turn up the principle which regulated

tailzies under the second part of the act 1617, and bury Traquair's

right to Coberston. No sound but the flutter of a bird, or the moan of

the breaking waves of the Frith of Forth, could there interfere with his

train of thought. Away he sauntered, ever turning his gold-headed cane,

and driving his head farther and farther into the deep hole where, like

the ancient philosopher, he expected to find truth. Sometimes he struck

his foot against a stone, and started and looked up, as if awakened from

a dream; but he was too intent on his study to take the pains to make a

complete turn of his wise head, to see if there was any one behind him.

During all this time, a regular course of signals was in progress among

Will and his friends who were coming up behind him, the horses being

kept far back, in case the sound of their hoofs might reach the ear of

the day-dreamer. He had now reached the most retired and lonely part of

the common, where, at that time, there stood a small clump of trees at

a little distance from the whin-road that gave the place its singular

name. His study still continued, for his head was still bent, and he

looked neither to the right nor to the left. In a single instant, he was

muffled up in a large cloak, a hood thrown over his face, and his hands

firmly bound by a cord. The operation was that of a moment--finished

before the prisoner's astonishment had left him power to open his mouth.

A whistle brought up the horses; he was placed on one of them with the

same rapidity; a cord was passed round his loins and bound to the

saddle; and, in a few minutes, the party was in rapid motion to get to

the back part of the city.[E]

[E] This famous abduction was reported by Lord Fountainhall.

Every circumstance is literally true.--ED.

During all this extraordinary operation, not a single word passed

between the three rievers, to whom the proceeding was, in a great

degree, perfectly familiar. Through the folds of the hood of the

cloak in which the President's head was much more snugly lodged than

it ever was in his senatorial wig, he contrived to send forth some

muffled sounds, indicating, not unnaturally, a wish to know what was

the meaning and object of so extraordinary a manoeuvre. At that time,

be it understood, the belief in the power of witches was general, and

Durie himself had been accessary to the condemnation of many a wise

woman who was committed to the flames; but though he had, to a great

extent, emancipated his strong mind from the thraldom of the prevailing

prejudice, the mode in which he was now seized--in broad day, in the

midst of a legal study, without seeing a single individual (his head

being covered first), and without hearing the sound of man's

voice--would have been sufficient to bring him back to the general

belief, and force the conviction that he was now in the hands of the

agents of the Devil. It is, indeed, a fact (afterwards ascertained),

that the learned judge did actually conceive that he was now in the

power of those he had helped to persecute; and his fears--bringing up

before him the burning tar-barrels, the paid prickers, the roaring

crowds, and the expiring victim--completed the delusion, and bound

up his energies, till he was speechless and motionless. There was,

therefore, no cause of apprehension from the terror-struck prisoner

himself; and, as the party scoured along, they told every inquiring

passenger on the way (for they were obliged, in some places, to ask the

road) that they were carrying an auld lurdon to Dumfries, to be burnt

for exercising the power of her art on the innocent inhabitants of that

district. It was, therefore, no uncommon thing for Durie to hear himself

saluted by all the appellations generally applied to the poor persecuted

class to which he was supposed to belong.

"Ay, awa wi' the auld limmer," cried one, "and see that the barrels are

fresh frae Norraway, and weel-lined wi' the bleezing tar."

"Be sure and prick her weel," cried another; "the foul witch may be

fireproof. If she winna burn, boil her like Meg Davy at Smithfield, or

Shirra Melville on the hill o' Garvock."

These cries coming on the ear of the astonished judge, did not

altogether agree with his preconceived notions of being committed to the

power of the Evil One; but they tended still farther to confuse him, and

he even fancied at times that the vengeance of the populace, which thus

rung in his ears, was in the act of being realized, and that he was

actually to suffer the punishment he had so often awarded to others.

Some expressions wrung from him by his fear, and overheard by the quick

ear of Will, gave the latter a clue to the workings of his mind, and he

did not fail to see how he might take advantage of it. As night began to

fall, they had got far on their way towards Moffat, and, consequently,

far out of danger of a pursuit and a rescue. Durie's horse was pricked

forward at a speed not inconsistent with his power of keeping the

saddle. They stopped at no baiting place, but kept pushing forward,

while the silence was still maintained, or, if it ever was broken, it

was to introduce, by interlocutory snatches of conversation, some

reference to the doom which awaited the unhappy judge. The darkness in

which he was muffled, the speed of his journey, the sounds and menaces

that had met his ear, all co-operating with the original sensations

produced by his mysterious seizure, continued to keep alive the terrors

he at first felt, to over-turn all the ordinary ideas and feelings of

the living world, and to sink him deeper and deeper in the confusion

that had overtaken his mind in the midst of his legal reverie at the

Figgate Whins.

The cavalcade kept its course all next day, and, towards the evening,

they approached Graeme's Tower, a dark, melancholy-looking erection,

situated on Dryfe Water, not very distant from the village of Moffat. In

a deep cell of this old castle the President of the Court of Session was

safely lodged, with no more light than was supplied by a small grating,

and with a small supply of meat, only sufficient to allay at first the

pangs of hunger. Will having thus executed his commission, sat down and

wrote on a scrap of paper these expressive words--"The brock's in the

pock!" and sent it with one of his friends to Traquair House. The moment

the Earl read the scrawl, he knew that Will had performed his promise,

and took a hearty laugh at the extraordinary scheme he had resorted to

for gaining his plea. It was not yet, however, his time to commence

his proceedings; but, in a short while after the imprisonment of the

President, he set off for Edinburgh, which town he found in a state of

wonder and ferment at the mysterious disappearance of the illustrious

Durie. Every individual he met had something to say on the subject; but

the prevailing opinion was, that the unhappy President had ventured

upon that part of the sands near Leith where the incoming tide usually

encloses, with great rapidity, large sand-banks, and often overwhelms

helpless strangers who are unacquainted with the manner in which the

tide there flows. Numbers of people had exerted themselves in searching

all the surrounding parts, and some had traversed the whole coast from

Musselburgh to Cramond, in the expectation of finding the body upon the

sea-shore. But all was in vain: no President was found; and a month of

vain search and expectation having passed, the original opinion settled

down into a conviction that he had been drowned. His wife, Lady Durie,

after the first emotions of intense grief, went, with her whole family,

into mourning; and young and old lamented the fate of one of the most

learned judges and best men that ever sat on the judgment-seat of

Scotland.

There was nothing now to prevent Traquair from reaping the fruits of his

enterprise. He pressed hard for a judgment in his case; and pled that

the fourteen judges having been equally divided, he was entitled to a

decision in his favour as _defender_. This plea was not at that time

sustained; but a new president having been appointed, who was favourable

to his side of the question, the case was again to be brought before the

court, and the Earl expected to carry his point, and reap all the

benefit of Will's courage and ingenuity.

Meantime, the dead-alive President was closely confined in the old tower

of Graeme, and had never recovered from the feelings of superstition

which held the sovereign power of his mind at the time of his

confinement. He never saw the face of man, his food being handed into

him by an unseen hand, through a small hole at the foot of the door. The

small grating was not situated so as to yield him any prospect; and the

only sounds that greeted his ears were the calls of the shepherds who

tended their sheep in the neighbouring moor. Sometimes he heard men's

voices calling out "Batty!" and anon a female crying "Maudge!" The

former was the name of a shepherd's dog, and the latter was the name

of the cat belonging to an old woman who occupied a small cottage

adjoining to the tower. Both the names sounded strangely and ominously

in the ears of the President, and sorely did he tax his wits as to what

they implied. Every day he heard them, and every time he heard them he

meditated more and more as to the species of beings they denominated.

Still remaining in the belief that he was in the hands of evil powers,

he imagined that these strange names, Batty and Maudge, were the earthly

titles of the two demons that held the important authority of watching

and tormenting the President of the Court of Session. He had heard these

often, and suffered so much from their cruel tyranny, that he became

nervous when the ominous sounds struck on his ear, and often (as he

himself subsequently admitted) he adjured heaven, in his prayers, to

take away Maudge and Batty, and torment him no longer by their infernal

agency. "Relieve me, relieve me, from these conjunct and confident

spirits, cruel Maudge and inexorable Batty," (he prayed,) "and any

other punishment due to my crimes I will willingly bear." Exorcisms

in abundance he applied to them, and used many fanciful tricks of

demon-expelling agency to free him from their tyranny; but all to no

purpose. The names still struck his ear in the silence of his cell,

and kept alive the superstitious terror with which he was enslaved.

Traquair, meanwhile, pushed hard for a decision, and, at last, after a

period of about three months, the famous cause was brought before the

court, and the successor of the dead-alive President having given his

vote for the defender, the wily Warden carried his point, and secured to

him and his heirs, in time coming, the fine barony in dispute, which,

for aught we know to the contrary, is in the family to this day.

It now remained for the actors in this strange drama to let free the

unhappy Durie, and relieve him from the power of his enemies. The

Warden accordingly despatched a messenger to Christie's Will, with the

laconic and emphatic demand--"Let the brock out o' the pock"--a return

of Will's own humorous message, which he well understood. Will and his

associates accordingly went about the important deliverance in a manner

worthy of the dexterity by which the imprisonment had been effected.

Having opened the door of his cell, they muffled him up in the same

black cloak in which he was enveloped at the Figgate Whins, and leading

him to the door, placed him on the back of a swift steed, while they

mounted others, with a view to accompany him. Setting off at a swift

pace, they made a circuit of the tower in which he had been confined,

and continuing the same circuitous route round and round the castle for

a period of two or three hours, they stopped at the very door of his

cell from which they had started. They then set him down upon the

ground, and again mounting their horses, took to their heels, and never

halted till they arrived at Gilnockie.

On being left alone, Durie proceeded to undo the cords by which the

cloak was fastened about his head; and, for the first time after three

months, breathed the fresh air and saw the light of heaven. He had

ridden, according to his own calculation, about twenty miles; and,

looking round him, he saw alongside of him the tower of Graeme, an old

castle he had seen many years before, and recollected as being famous

in antiquarian reminiscence. The place he had been confined in must

have been some castle twenty miles distant from Graeme's Tower--a

circumstance that would lead him, he thought, to discover the place

of his confinement, though he was free to confess that he was utterly

ignorant of the direction in which he had travelled. Thankful for his

deliverance, he fell on his knees, and poured out a long prayer of

gratitude for being thus freed from his enemies, Batty and Maudge. The

distance he had travelled must have taken him far away from the regions

of their influence--the most grateful of all the thoughts that now rose

in his wondering mind. No more would these hated names strike his ear

with terror and dismay, and no more would he feel the tyranny of their

demoniac sway. As these thoughts were passing through his mind a sound

struck his ear.

"Hey, Batty, lad!--far yaud, far yaud!" cried a voice by his side.

"God have mercy on me! here again," ejaculated the president.

"Maudge, ye jaud!" cried another voice, from the door of a poor woman's

cottage.

The terrified president lifted his eyes, and saw a goodly shepherd, with

a long staff in his hand, crying to his dog, Batty, to drive his sheep

to a distance; and, a little beyond, a poor woman sat at her door,

looking for her black cat, that sat on the roof of the cottage, and

would not come down for all the energies of her squeaking voice.

"What could all this mean?" now ejaculated Durie. "Have I not been for

three months tortured with these sounds, which I attributed to evil

spirits? I have ridden from them twenty miles, and here they are again,

in the form of fair honest denominations of living animals. I am in

greater perplexity than ever. While I thought them evil spirits, I

feared them as such; but now, God help me, they have taken on the forms

of a dog and cat, and this shepherd and this old woman are kindred

devils, under whose command they are. What shall I do, whither run to

avoid them, since twenty miles have been to them as a flight in the

air?"

"It's a braw morning, sir," said the shepherd. "How far hae ye come this

past night?--for I ken nae habitation near whar ye may hae rested."

"It's seldom we see strangers hereawa," said the old woman, "at this

early hour--will ye come in, sir, and rest ye?"

Durie looked first at the one and then at the other, bewildered and

speechless. The fair face of nature before him, with the forms of God's

creatures, and the sounds of human voices in his ears, were as nothing

to recollections and sensations which he could not shake from his mind.

He had, for certain, heard these dreadful sounds for three months; he

had ridden twenty miles, and now he heard them again, mixed up with the

delusive accompaniments of the enticing speeches of a man and a woman.

He would fly, but felt himself unable; and, standing under the influence

of the charm of his own terrors, he continued to look, first at the

shepherd and then at the old woman, in wonder and dismay. The people

knew as little what to think of him as he did in regard to them. He

looked wild and haggard, his eyes rolled about in his head, his voice

was mute; and the cloak, which he had partially unloosed from his head,

hung in strange guise down his back, and flapped in the wind. The old

castle had its "red cap," a fact known to both the shepherd and the old

woman, who had latterly heard strange sounds coming from it. Might not

Durie be the spirit in another form? The question was reasonable, and

was well answered by the wildly-staring president, who was still under

the spell of his terrors.

"Avaunt ye!--avaunt! in the name o' the haly rude o' St. Andrews!" cried

the woman, now roused to a state of terror.

The same words were repeated by the simple-minded shepherd, and poor

Durie's fears were, if possible, increased; for it seemed that they

were now performing some new incantation, whereby he would be again

reduced to their power; but he was now in the open air, and why not

take advantage of the opportunity of escaping from their thraldom? The

moment the idea started in his mind, he threw from him the accursed cloak,

and flew away over the moor as fast as his decayed limbs, inspired by

terror, would carry him. As he ran, he heard the old woman clapping her

hands, and crying "Shoo, shoo!" as if she had been exorcising a winged

demon. After running till he was fairly out of the sights and sounds

that had produced in him so much terror, he sat down, and took a

retrospect of what had occurred to him during the preceding three

months; but he could come to no conclusion that could reconcile all the

strange things he had experienced with any supposition based on natural

powers. It was certain, however, that he was still upon the earth, and

it was probable he was now beyond the power of his evil genius. His best

plan, therefore, under all the circumstances, was to seek home, and

Lady Durie and his loving family, who would doubtless be in a terrible

condition on account of his long absence; and even this idea, pleasant

as it was, was qualified by the fear that he might, for aught he knew,

have been away, like the laird of Comrie, for many, perhaps a hundred

years, and neither Lady Durie, nor friend or acquaintance, would be

alive to greet him on his return. Of all this, however, he must now

take his chance; and, rising and journeying forward, he came to a

house, where he asked for some refreshment by way of charity; for he

had nothing in the world to pay for what he required. He was fortunate

in getting some relief from the kind woman to whom he had applied, and

proceeded to speak to her on various topics with great sense and

propriety, as became the ex-President of the Court of Session; but when,

to satisfy his scruples, he asked her the day of the month, then the

month of the year, and then the year of the Lord, the good woman was

satisfied he was mad; and, with a look of pity, recommended him to

proceed on his way, and get home as fast as he could.

So on the president went, begging his way from hamlet to hamlet, getting

alms from one and news from another, but never gratified with the year

of the Lord in which he lived; for, when he put that question, he was

uniformly pitied, and allowed to proceed on his way for a madman. He

heard, however, several times that President Durie had been drowned in

the Frith of Forth, and that a new President of the Court of Session had

been appointed in his place. Whether his wife was married again or not,

he could not learn, and was obliged to wrestle with this and other fears

as he still continued his way to the metropolis. At last Edinburgh came

in view, and glad was he to see again the cat's head of old St.

Arthur's, and the diadem of St. Giles rearing their heights in the

distance. Nearer and nearer he approached the place of his home,

happiness, and dignity; but, as he came nearer still, he began to feel

all the effects of his supposed demise. Several of his old acquaintances

stared wildly at him as they passed, and, though he beckoned to them to

stand and speak, they hurried on, and seemed either not to recognise

him, or to be terrified at him. At last he met Lord F----, the judge who

had sat for many years next to him on the bench; and, running up to him,

he held out his hand in kindly salutation, grinning, with his long thin

jaws and pallid cheeks, a greeting which he scarcely understood himself.

By this time it was about the gloaming, and such was the extraordinary

effect produced by his sudden appearance and changed cadaverous look,

that his old brother of the bench got alarmed, and fairly took to his

heels, as if he had seen a spectre. Undaunted, however, he pushed on,

and by the time he reached the Canongate it was almost dark. He went

direct to his own house, and peeping through the window, saw Lady Durie

sitting by the fire dressed in weeds, and several of his children

around, arrayed in the same style. The sight brought the tears of joy

to his eyes, and, forgetting entirely the effect his appearance would

produce, he threw open the door, and rushed into the room. A loud scream

from the throats of the lady and the children rang through the whole

house, and brought up the servants, who screamed in their turn, and some

of them fainted, while others ran away; and no one had any idea that the

emaciated haggard being before them was other than the grim ghost of

Lord President Durie, come from the other world to terrify the good

people of this. The confusion, however, soon ceased; for Durie began to

speak softly to them, and, taking his dear lady in his arms, pressed her

to his bosom in a way that satisfied her that he was no ghost, but her

own lord, who, by some mischance, had been spirited away by some bad

angels. The children gradually recovered their confidence, and in a

short time joy took the place of fear, and all the neighbourhood was

filled with the news that Lord Durie had come alive again, and was in

the living body in his own house. Shortly after the good lord sat down

by the fire and got his supper, and, by the quantity he ate, satisfied

his lady and family still more that he carried a good body, with as

fair a capability of reception as he ever exhibited after a walk at the

Figgate Whins. He told them all he had undergone since first he was

carried away, not forgetting the two spirits, Batty and Maudge, that had

tormented him so cruelly during the period of his enchantment. The lady

and family stared with open mouths as they heard the dreadful recital;

but a goodly potation of warm spiced wine drove off the vapours produced

by the dismal story, and, by-and-by, Lord Durie and his wife retired to

bed--the one weary and exhausted with his trials, and the other with her

terrors and her joys.

RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS.[F]

CHAPTER I.

"Wear we not graven on our hearts

The name of Robert Burns!"--_American Poet._

The degrees shorten as we proceed from the higher to the lower

latitudes--the years seem to shorten in a much greater ratio as we pass

onward through life. We are almost disposed to question whether the

brief period of storms and foul weather that floats over us with such

dream-like rapidity, and the transient season of flowers and sunshine

that seems almost too short for enjoyment, be at all identical with the

long summers and still longer winters of our boyhood, when day after day

and week after week stretched away in dim perspective, till lost in the

obscurity of an almost inconceivable distance. Young as I was, I had

already passed the period of life when we wonder how it is that the

years should be described as short and fleeting; and it seemed as if

I had stood but yesterday beside the death-bed of the unfortunate

Ferguson, though the flowers of four summers and the snows of four

winters had now been shed over his grave.

[F] Our author, Hugh Miller, never communicated to the Editor

his authority for these "Recollections." Probably it was of the same

kind as that possessed by Lucian, Lord Lyttleton, and Walter Savage

Lander; but whether so or not, we must at least be well satisfied that

the parts of the conversation sustained by the principal interlocutor

are true to the genius and character of Burns, and that, however

searching the thoughts or beautiful the sentiments, they do not

transcend what might have been expected from the Bard himself.--ED.

My prospects in life had begun to brighten. I served in the capacity of

mate in a large West India trader, the master of which, an elderly man

of considerable wealth, was on the eve of quitting the sea; and the

owners had already determined that I should succeed him in the charge.

But fate had ordered it otherwise. Our seas were infested at this

period by American privateers--prime sailors, and strongly armed; and,

when homeward bound from Jamaica with a valuable cargo, we were attacked

and captured when within a day's sailing of Ireland, by one of the most

formidable of the class. Vain as resistance might have been deemed--for

the force of the American was altogether overpowering--and though our

master, poor old man! and three of the crew, had fallen by the first

broadside, we had yet stood stiffly by our guns, and were only

overmastered when, after falling foul of the enemy, we were boarded by

a party of thrice our strength and number. The Americans, irritated by

our resistance, proved on this occasion no generous enemies; we were

stripped and heavily ironed, and, two days after, were set ashore on the

wild coast of Connaught, without a single change of dress, or a sixpence

to bear us by the way.

I was sitting, on the following night, beside the turf fire of a

hospitable Irish peasant, when a seafaring man, whom I had sailed

with about two years before, entered the cabin. The meeting was equally

unexpected on either side. My acquaintance was the master of a smuggling

lugger then on the coast; and on acquainting him with the details of my

disaster, and the state of destitution to which it had reduced me, he

kindly proposed that I should accompany him on his voyage to the west

coast of Scotland, for which he was then on the eve of sailing. "You

will run some little risk," he said, "as the companion of a man who has

now been thrice outlawed for firing on his Majesty's flag; but I know

your proud heart will prefer the danger of bad company at its worst, to

the alternative of begging your way home." He judged rightly. Before

daybreak we had lost sight of land, and in four days more we could

discern the precipitous shores of Carrick stretching in a dark line

along the horizon, and the hills of the interior rising thin and blue

behind, like a volume of clouds. A considerable part of our cargo,

which consisted mostly of tea and spirits, was consigned to an Ayr

trader, who had several agents in the remote parish of Kirkoswald, which

at this period afforded more facilities for carrying on the contraband

trade than any other on the western coast of Scotland; and, in a rocky

bay of the parish, we proposed unlading on the following night. It was

necessary, however, that the several agents, who were yet ignorant of

our arrival, should be prepared to meet with us; and, on volunteering my

service for the purpose, I was landed near the ruins of the ancient

castle of Turnberry, once the seat of Robert the Bruce.

I had accomplished my object; it was evening, and a party of

countrymen were sauntering among the cliffs, waiting for nightfall and

the appearance of the lugger. There are splendid caverns on the coast of

Kirkoswald; and, to while away the time, I had descended to the shore by

a broken and precipitous path, with a view of exploring what are termed

the Caves of Colzean, by far the finest in this part of Scotland. The

evening was of great beauty; the sea spread out from the cliffs to the

far horizon, like the sea of gold and crystal described by the prophet;

and its warm orange hues so harmonized with those of the sky, that,

passing over the dimly-defined line of demarcation, the whole upper and

nether expanse seemed but one glorious firmament, with the dark Ailsa,

like a thunder-cloud, sleeping in the midst. The sun was hastening to

his setting, and threw his strong red light on the wall of rock which,

loftier and more imposing than the walls of even the mighty Babylon,

stretched onward along the beach, headland after headland, till the last

sank abruptly in the far distance, and only the wide ocean stretched

beyond. I passed along the insulated piles of cliff that rise thick

along the basis of the precipices--now in sunshine, now in shadow--till

I reached the opening of one of the largest caves. The roof rose more

than fifty feet over my head--a broad stream of light, that seemed

redder and more fiery from the surrounding gloom, slanted inwards, and,

as I paused in the opening, my shadow, lengthened and dark, fell athwart

the floor--a slim and narrow bar of black--till lost in the gloom of the

inner recess. There was a wild and uncommon beauty in the scene that

powerfully affected the imagination; and I stood admiring it in that

delicious dreamy mood in which one can forget all but the present

enjoyment, when I was roused to a recollection of the business of the

evening by the sound of a footfall echoing from within. It seemed

approaching by a sort of cross passage in the rock, and, in a moment

after, a young man, one of the country people whom I had left among the

cliffs above, stood before me. He wore a broad Lowland bonnet, and his

plain homely suit of coarse russet seemed to bespeak him a peasant of

perhaps the poorest class; but, as he emerged from the gloom, and the

red light fell full on his countenance, I saw an indescribable something

in the expression that in an instant awakened my curiosity. He was

rather above the middle size, of a frame the most muscular and compact I

have almost ever seen, and there was a blended mixture of elasticity and

firmness in his tread, that to one accustomed, as I had been, to

estimate the physical capabilities of men, gave evidence of a union of

immense personal strength with great activity. My first idea regarding

the stranger--and I know not how it should have struck me--was that of a

very powerful frame, animated by a double portion of vitality. The red

light shone full on his face, and gave a ruddy tinge to the complexion,

which I afterwards found it wanted--for he was naturally of a darker hue

than common; but there was no mistaking the expression of the large

flashing eyes, the features that seemed so thoroughly cast in the mould

of thought, and of the broad, full, perpendicular forehead. Such, at

least, was the impression on my mind, that I addressed him with more of

the courtesy which my earlier pursuits had rendered familiar to me, than

of the bluntness of my adopted profession. "This sweet evening," I said,

"is by far too fine for our lugger; I question whether, in these calms,

we need expect her before midnight; but, 'tis well, since wait we must,

that 'tis in a place where the hours may pass so agreeably." The

stranger, good-humouredly, acquiesced in the remark, and we sat down

together on the dry, water-worn pebbles, mixed with fragments of broken

shells and minute pieces of wreck, that strewed the opening of the cave.

"Was there ever a lovelier evening!" he exclaimed; "the waters above the

firmament seem all of a piece with the waters below. And never surely

was there a scene of wilder beauty. Only look inwards, and see how the

stream of red light seems bounded by the extreme darkness, like a river

by its banks, and how the reflection of the ripple goes waving in golden

curls along the roof!"

"I have been admiring the scene for the last half hour," I said;

"Shakspeare speaks of a music that cannot be heard, and I have not yet

seen a place where one might better learn to comment on the passage."

Both the thought and the phrase seemed new to him.

"A music that cannot be heard!" he repeated; and then, after a momentary

pause, "you allude to the fact," he continued, "that sweet music, and

forms such as these, of silent beauty and grandeur, awaken in the mind

emotions of nearly the same class. There is something truly exquisite in

the concert of to-night."

I muttered a simple assent.

"See," he continued, "how finely these insulated piles of rock,

that rise in so many combinations of form along the beach, break and

diversify the red light, and how the glossy leaves of the ivy glisten

in the hollows of the precipices above! And then, how the sea spreads

away to the far horizon, a glorious pavement of crimson and gold!--and

how the dark Ailsa rises in the midst, like the little cloud seen by

the prophet! The mind seems to enlarge, the heart to expand, in the

contemplation of so much of beauty and grandeur. The soul asserts its

due supremacy. And, oh! 'tis surely well that we can escape from those

little cares of life which fetter down our thoughts, our hopes, our

wishes, to the wants and the enjoyments of our animal existence; and

that, amid the grand and the sublime of nature, we may learn from the

spirit within us that we are better than the beasts that perish!"

I looked up to the animated countenance and flashing eyes of my

companion, and wondered what sort of a peasant it was I had met with.

"Wild and beautiful as the scene is," I said, "you will find, even among

those who arrogate to themselves the praise of wisdom and learning, men

who regard such scenes as mere errors of nature. Burnet would have told

you that a Dutch landscape, without hill, rock, or valley, must be the

perfection of beauty, seeing that Paradise itself could have furnished

nothing better."

"I hold Milton as higher authority on the subject," said my companion,

"than all the philosophers who ever wrote. Beauty, in a tame unvaried

flat, where a man would know his country only by the milestones! A very

Dutch Paradise, truly!"

"But would not some of your companions above," I asked, "deem the scene

as much an error of nature as Burnet himself? They could pass over these

stubborn rocks neither plough nor harrow."

"True," he replied; "there is a species of small wisdom in the world

that often constitutes the extremest of its folly; a wisdom that would

change the entire nature of _good_, had it but the power, by vainly

endeavouring to render that good universal. It would convert the entire

earth into one vast corn field, and then find that it had ruined the

species by its improvement."

"We of Scotland can hardly be ruined in that way for an age to come," I

said. "But I am not sure that I understand you. Alter the very nature of

good in the attempt to render it universal! How?"

"I daresay you have seen a graduated scale," said my companion,

"exhibiting the various powers of the different musical instruments, and

observed how some of limited scope cross only a few of the divisions,

and how others stretch nearly from side to side. 'Tis but a poor truism,

perhaps, to say that similar differences in scope and power obtain

among men--that there are minds who could not join in the concert of

to-night--who could see neither beauty nor grandeur amid these wild

cliffs and caverns, or in that glorious expanse of sea and sky; and

that, on the other hand, there are minds so finely modulated--minds that

sweep so broadly across the scale of nature, that there is no object,

however minute, no breath of feeling, however faint, but that it awakens

their sweet vibrations--the snow-flake falling in the stream, the daisy

of the field, the conies of the rock, the hysop of the wall. Now, the

vast and various frame of nature is adapted not to the lesser, but to

the larger mind. It spreads on and around us in all its rich and

magnificent variety, and finds the full portraiture of its Proteus-like

beauty in the mirror of genius alone. Evident, however, as this may

seem, we find a sort of levelling principle in the inferior order

of minds, and which, in fact, constitutes one of their grand

characteristics--a principle that would fain abridge the scale to their

own narrow capabilities--that would cut down the vastness of nature to

suit the littleness of their own conceptions and desires, and convert it

into one tame, uniform, _mediocre good_, which would be _good_ but to

themselves alone, and ultimately not even that."

"I think I can now understand you," I said; "you describe a sort of

swinish wisdom that would convert the world into one vast sty. For my

own part, I have travelled far enough to know the value of a blue hill,

and would not willingly lose so much as one of these landmarks of our

mother land, by which kindly hearts in distant countries love to

remember it."

"I daresay we are getting fanciful," rejoined my companion; "but

certainly, in man's schemes of improvement, both physical and moral,

there is commonly a littleness and want of adaptation to the general

good that almost always defeats his aims. He sees and understands but a

minute portion--it is always some partial good he would introduce; and

thus he but destroys the just proportions of a nicely-regulated system

of things by exaggerating one of the parts. I passed of late through

a richly-cultivated district of country, in which the agricultural

improver had done his utmost. Never were there finer fields, more

convenient steadings, crops of richer promise, a better regulated system

of production. Corn and cattle had mightily improved; but what had man,

the lord of the soil, become? Is not the body better than food, and life

than raiment? If that decline for which all other things exist, it

surely matters little that all these other things prosper. And here,

though the corn, the cattle, the fields, the steadings had improved, man

had sunk. There were but two classes in the district: a few cold-hearted

speculators, who united what is worst in the character of the landed

proprietor and the merchant--these were your gentleman farmers; and

a class of degraded helots, little superior to the cattle they

tended--these were your farm servants. And for two such extreme

classes--necessary result of such a state of things--had this

unfortunate, though highly-eulogized district, parted with a moral,

intelligent, high-minded peasantry--the true boast and true riches of

their country."

"I have, I think, observed something like what you describe," I said.

"I give," he replied, "but one instance of a thousand. But mark how the

sun's lower disk has just reached the line of the horizon, and how the

long level rule of light stretches to the very innermost recess of the

cave! It darkens as the orb sinks. And see how the gauze-like shadows

creep on from the sea, film after film!--and now they have reached the

ivy that mantles round the castle of The Bruce. Are you acquainted with

Barbour?"

"Well," I said; "a spirited, fine old fellow, who loved his country and

did much for it. I could once repeat all his chosen passages. Do you

remember how he describes King Robert's rencounter with the English

knight?"

My companion sat up erect, and, clenching his fist, began repeating the

passage, with a power and animation that seemed to double its inherent

energy and force.

"Glorious old Barbour!" ejaculated he, when he had finished the

description; "many a heart has beat all the higher when the bale-fires

were blazing, through the tutorage of thy noble verses! Blind Harry,

too--what has not his country owed to him!"

"Ah, they have long since been banished from our popular literature," I

said; "and yet Blind Harry's 'Wallace,' as Hailes tells us, was at one

time the very Bible of the Scotch. But love of country seems to be

getting old-fashioned among us, and we have become philosophic enough to

set up for citizens of the world."

"All cold pretence," rejoined my companion; "an effect of that small

wisdom we have just been decrying. Cosmopolitism, as we are accustomed

to define it, can be no virtue of the present age, nor yet of the next,

nor perhaps for centuries to come. Even when it shall have attained to

its best, and when it may be most safely indulged in, it is according

to the nature of man, that, instead of running counter to the love of

country, it should exist as but a wider diffusion of the feeling, and

form, as it were, a wider circle round it. It is absurdity itself to

oppose the love of our country to that of our race."

"Do I rightly understand you?" I said. "You look forward to a time when

the patriot may safely expand into the citizen of the world; but, in the

present age, he would do well, you think, to confine his energies within

the inner circle of country."

"Decidedly," he rejoined; "man should love his species at all times,

but it is ill with him if, in times like the present, he loves not his

country more. The spirit of war and aggression is yet abroad--there are

laws to be established, rights to be defended, invaders to be repulsed,

tyrants to be deposed. And who but the patriot is equal to these things?

We are not yet done with the Bruces, the Wallaces, the Tells, the

Washingtons--yes, the Washingtons, whether they fight for or against

us--we are not yet done with them. The cosmopolite is but a puny

abortion--a birth ere the natural time, that at once endangers the life

and betrays the weakness of the country that bears him. Would that he

were sleeping in his elements till his proper time! But we are getting

ashamed of our country, of our language, our manners, our music, our

literature; nor shall we have enough of the old spirit left us to assert

our liberties or fight our battles. Oh, for some Barbour or Blind Harry

of the present day, to make us, once more, proud of our country!"

I quoted the famous saying of Fletcher of Salton--"Allow me to make the

songs of a country, and I will allow you to make its laws."

"But here," I said, "is our lugger stealing round Turnberry Head. We

shall soon part, perhaps for ever, and I would fain know with whom I

have spent an hour so agreeably, and have some name to remember him by.

My own name is Matthew Lindsay; I am a native of Irvine."

"And I," said the young man, rising and cordially grasping the proffered

hand, "am a native of Ayr; my name is Robert Burns."