first greeted his ears--"and wha are ye, man, wha hae made yer bed this
dark night wi' the howlets and the wull-cats--ye wha meddle wi' what
naething concerns ye, and burn yer fingers in ither folk's kail-pats?
Speak, man, and dinna keep me blethering here, for I hae got ither fish
to fry, I trow, than standing here palavering wi' sic as you--come,
speak, body, or I'll send ye, pack an' a', sixty yards lower into the
bumbling pool o' Balachun Linn."
Mungo Clark was neither soldier nor belted knight, nor was he armed for
any deadly conflict; but he was not accustomed to submit without
resentment to such rough usage.
"Unhand me, rascal!" was the packman's reply; and making, at the same
time, a lateral jerk, he twisted himself fairly out of the assailant's
grasp.
A whistle was immediately set up, and in an instant our traveller was
surrounded by four strong, ablebodied men, who immediately flashed the
light side of a dark lantern full in his face.
"Oh ho!" said one of the newly-assembled assailants; "this is neither
the deil, nor the factor, nor the wood-keeper, nor the old boy,
Colliston himsel, but just plain Mungo Clark, Widow Clark o' Penpont's
son, who has been at Manchester feathering his pack, for the first time,
wi' all manner o' varieties; such as Bibles, psalm-books, ribands,
shawls, and waistcoat-pieces. Why, by the flesh-pots o' Yetholm--and
that's a terrible oath--we'll adopt Brother Clark into our number, and
teach him how to snare game, and spear salmon, instead of drivelling
away his time and strength under the pressure of a load" (trying to
raise the pack) "which would break the back-bone of an elephant."
The matter appeared to Mungo to be settled without any consent of his,
asked or obtained; so, knowing somewhat of the character and habits of
this wandering and peculiar race, he was compelled to make a virtue of
necessity, and, raising his pack again on his shoulders, to descend with
them into the very lowest depths of the linns of Balachun. Even at
noonday, on the 23d of June, the Pass, as it is called, is dreary, dark,
and dreadful; but now, under the cover of night, and with no other
guidance than a small lantern, which scarcely made darkness visible,
Mungo hesitated ere he would commit himself to the crossing of a fearful
gully, and the walking along the face of a rock, or scaur, scarcely
eight inches wide, and overhanging a fearful pool, well known by the
terrible appellation of "Hell's Caldron." The party at last arrived at a
small grassy plot, encircled on the one side by the roaring stream
called Clauchry Burn, and on the other by an amphitheatre of steep,
high, and overhanging rocks, fringed and darkened in with brushwood and
furze, and guarded, at the upper and lower extremities, by the rocks,
which, after receding a little to make room for this grassy retreat,
closed in again upon the current, and prevented all _easy_ entrance or
escape. Soon after Mungo's arrival, he discovered a large kettle,
boiling and bubbling, in a crevice of the cliff, suspended from a
transverse beam; and beheld around it, now that a parcel of sticks and
dry leaves were kindled, a most picturesque and motley group--women,
children, men, boys, and lasses, of all hues, aspects, and sizes, were
scattered about in profusion; and, as the flame flashed back from the
red sandstone of the linn, their faces glared on Mungo with a demoniac
expression. It seemed the very picture of Pandemonium; and yet the
hearty laugh, the bold oath, and the occasional inquiry, bespoke the
inhabitants to be at least one remove from devils. Mungo was desired to
rest him and his load on the apron of the rock, and compelled, without a
nay-say, to unstrap his pack, and expose his goods, not (seemingly) for
sale, but for plunder. This was not the way, assuredly, to turn the
penny to advantage, but what can one say, "_durum telum
necessitas?_"--there was no avoiding the spoliation. To be sure, the
king, or leader of the gipsy tribe--amounting probably to not less than
forty or fifty persons--hinted in his ear that he should not be a loser
at last; but, in the meantime, to his no small mortification, he saw his
shawls, napkins, stockings, and waistcoat-pieces, making the round of
the company without ceremony, and forgetting, like the dove from the
ark, to return whence they had fled. The pack having been thus
ransacked, and the pot having given audible intimation for some time of
its preparatory doings, the king--for such he was--the notorious Donald
Faa, with his three sons, Duncan, Cuthbert, and _Donnert_ Davie,
together with the king's fair daughter, Helen Yetholm Faa, squatted down
on the grass, and without the help of forks, made a hearty meal on
hares, chickens, turkeys, geese, and half-a-dozen brace of partridges,
which might have rejoiced the heart even of a Dominie Sampson. The other
members of the community seemed to acknowledge the deputed authority of
a young man of good features, and an athletic and genteel appearance,
who went by the name of the Squire. After _eating_ had had its fair
share of devoted and unremitted attention, a barrel, of considerable
dimensions, began to make its way downward from amidst the recesses of
this water-worn and excavated rock; and a tub being hurled sideways into
the service, boiling water was procured, and sugar in no ordinary
quantity commingled; and, by the help of a ladle and several chopin
decanters, the whole mass of Egyptian humanity was stirred up into song,
laugh, scream, inebriety, quarrel, battle, stupor, and insensibility.
Our friend Mungo had no objections whatever to the feast, or to the
means by which it was prolonged. He was afterwards notorious for his
drinking habits, insomuch that his observation on this occasion is still
repeated in the neighbourhood of the place of his nativity. When
questioned by the king respecting the size of his native village,
Penpont, his reply was--"It is an exceeding great city." This being
questioned, his proof was equally ingenious, and descriptive of his
habits--"Why, Nineveh took Jonah three days to travel through it,
whereas Penpont generally takes me _seven_." He referred manifestly to
his habit of stopping and drinking at every petty inn and public-house
in the village! The jest told exceedingly in his favour. Mungo, however,
in spite of his losses and crosses, had a noble night of it, as he
afterwards said, with the gipsies, and awakened next morning from his
grassy couch to cool his aching temples in the stream, and restore his
stomach by a hair of the dog that had bit him. He then observed that the
two sons, Duncan and Cuthbert, but not Davie (yclept Donnert, from his
peculiarity of mental constitution), were absent, and that their father
not only exhibited no surprise respecting his sons' absence, but refused
to give any account to his guest of the cause of it. Meanwhile, Mungo
had an opportunity of marking the appearances of the various objects
around him somewhat more distinctly than he had been able to do on the
preceding evening. Blankets, supported by forked poles, old clothes and
rags of every description, formed a kind of nightly shelter for the
common herd; whilst the royal head reposed in the midst of his male
progeny, on the lap of a projecting rock, with a few hare-skins for his
pillow, and a corn-sack for his coverlet. His fair daughter's bedchamber
was somewhat more removed beyond a projecting corner of the winding
linn, and she was protected from observation by the branches of the
overhanging trees being drawn closely down over her, and by what had
once, in all probability, been a soldier's tent, but which was now
miserably rent, and unweather-worthy. It was manifest that this child
was the darling and care of a fond father; for she was not only provided
in a superior manner, but, by the position of his own sleeping
apartment, she was protected from all intercourse with the other members
of the tribe. Honest nature! thou art too many, even for a gipsy life;
and even here parental affection hallowed and refined what was unseemly
and revolting. I say revolting; for, in an obscure corner, and under the
shelter of a hazel-bush, lay a figure, emaciated with disease, and
probably with dissipation and crime, groaning in agony, and regarded
with no more sympathy by the great mass of the tribe than if he had been
a strangled hare or a mangled horse. There was something indeed terrible
in this sight. True, Helen Faa did all that she was permitted, but that
was but little, to alleviate his sufferings; but death was in his eye
and in his throat--he made one great effort to rise, grasped a branch
convulsively, and ceased to live. Mungo would willingly have retired,
even with the losses he had sustained, but he was not
permitted--probably because old Donald conjectured that information
would be immediately lodged against him, and he would be compelled to
relinquish one of his strongest holds in the south of Scotland.
Meantime, Mungo had an opportunity of beholding more closely the female
portion of this society; and was exceedingly struck--for he was yet a
young man and unmarried--with the really handsome faces and well-formed
persons which characterised the whole; but far and away above all the
rest shone Miss Helen Yetholm Faa--for thus was she designated by the
clan--in the pride of health, youth, and black, or rather brown,
eyes--those weapons of female onset which are sharper than a two-edged
sword, as Mungo used to sing or say afterwards, in a song which he
composed on the occasion:--
"They were jet, jet black, and like a hawk,
And wadna let a body be."
All this seemed to be fully appreciated by the Squire, who evidently
paid the young princess particular attention, and seemed, at the same
time, sufficiently jealous of any foreign interference with the object
of his attention. Donnert Davie was a stout, ill-made, squint-eyed
being, who stammered in his speech, and seemed particularly useful in
carrying on the culinary operations, under the direction of Helen, in
the retreat. He felled wood for the fire, carried water to the kettle,
heated cow and sheep horns in the flame; brought round about and close
to the operator old pots, pans, and trenchers, which had been obtained
to be clouted, clasped, and mended. He was, in short, a kind of gipsy
factotum; and when "the house affairs did not call him thence," he would
associate with the stranger, stammering out such incoherent inquiries
as--"Whare been?--What do?--What do?--Mother dead?--Mother dead?--
Yes--yes--yes--true--true--true"--muttering to himself, and repeating
the same monosyllable half-a-dozen times. His sister Helen was
manifestly kind to him, and would not permit any of the company to
insult or ill-use him.
Night arrived, but with it not Duncan or Cuthbert; and it was not till
late on the following evening that they made their appearance, and with
them came silver and gold in abundance: consequently Mungo Clark's
claims were satisfied; and he was informed that, next morning, as they
were all about to decamp, he might pursue his journey homewards; but
about the following dawn, an authoritative voice from the top of the
precipice summoned the whole party to a surrender. One figure stood
prominently forward, looking over the rock; and Donnert Davie, whose
blunderbuss always lay charged beside him, immediately fired, and the
figure came tumbling down headlong, and sunk in the yawning abyss of
boiling water. In a word, the whole party, after a most determined
resistance, were taken prisoners by a military party obtained from
Dumfries; and it being proved against Duncan and Donald Faa that they
had stolen some cattle from Dalswinton Mains, and sold them on the sands
of Dumfries--as also against Donnert Davie, that he had shot the
serjeant who commanded on the occasion--the whole three brothers were
tried, condemned, and sentenced to be executed, _in terrorem_, near the
spot where their depredations had been committed. As there were three
persons to execute, and the famous tree already referred to had three
branches, they appeared to the sheriff to be destined for each other;
and accordingly all the three were hung at the same time on the same
tree, which has ever since retained the appellation of "The Three
Brethren."
Old Donald, his fair daughter, Mungo Clark, Squire Cockburn, and the
rest, were set at liberty; but the gipsies were conveyed by a military
escort across the Borders; and I have been given to understand that the
Squire, who was the young laird of Glenae, after considerable opposition
from the old father, was married to fair Helen Yetholm Faa; and that he
was the happy husband of the fair dame who used afterwards to go about
the country in disguise, attending in gipsy garb at weddings, kirns, and
merry-meetings, and giving origin to the well-known reel--"Auld Glenae."
THE MISTAKE RECTIFIED.
"Now," said the traveller, as he wandered up one of those retired
Highland glens, which characterise and beautify the Grampian range, "I
shall once more visit my dear father and mother; and my sister, now
woman grown; and, what is more, my sweet Helen M'Donald, who used to
gather the mountain berries along with me, and pursue the little kids
and lambs. Ah, Helen was only about thirteen years old when I left; she
will now be eighteen; a full-grown beautiful woman, I have no doubt. I
wonder if old Andrew, her grandfather, be still living; he used to tell
me such tales of Prince Charlie, and Prestonpans, and Culloden, that my
hair yet almost stands erect at the recollection of them. And then there
was Euphemia M'Gregor, his son's wife, the mother of my dear Helen; and
Oscar and Fingal, my father's faithful attendants and servants: and we
had such fun during the long winter nights, when the sheep were in a
place of safety, and the door was barred, and the peat-fire was burning
clear, and the very cat and kitten enjoyed the cheery fireside--such
questions and commands, such guessing and forfeiting, and riding round
the fire on a besom, and holding one's mouth full of water to discharge
on the person's face who should first laugh at our grotesque gestures
and looks: but night is approaching whilst I linger by the way--my whole
heart heaves to behold once more the sweet home of my youth and
innocence."
Thus said, or thought aloud, a young man, seemingly about twenty-two
years of age, as he ascended Glen----and approached the thatched
shieling which stood on the margin of a small mountain stream, which
wended its mazes along the tortuous glen. He had been five years, come
the time, absent from his mountain home, and had, during that period,
endured and encountered a variety of fortune. He sung as he went along--
"A light heart and thin pair of breeches,
Goes through the world, brave boys!"
switching the bent and heather-bells with his cane, and treading with a
step as elastic as was his bosom. At last, just as the sun was tinging
with his departing ray the top of the highest mountain in the
neighbourhood, he turned the corner of a projecting rock, and came at
once into full and distinct view of his home. It was then grey twilight,
and objects began to assume an indistinct appearance. Walking by the
side of the stream, as if meditating, there appeared a figure wrapped up
in a Highland plaid. It immediately struck the young sailor that this
was his sister; and in order to give her what is called an agreeable
surprise, he stepped aside unperceived by her, and stood concealed
behind a projecting cliff, which the stream had stripped bare of soil in
its passing current. The figure came nearer and nearer, and then,
sighing deeply, uttered some sound, which his ear could not catch. At
last, tears and sobs followed, and he heard the words most distinctly
pronounced--"Alas, I can never truly love him! I shall be the most
wretched of women! But he whom I loved as angels love--oh, he, my own
dear William M'Pherson, is dead and gone, and I can never see him more."
"But you can though, my own dear Helen;" and in an instant he held her
lifeless and motionless in his arms. She had uttered just one awful
scream, which was re-echoed by the surrounding cliffs, and had ceased to
feel or know anything connected with the living world. Alas! she was
dead, and he was distracted. He ran to the house, calling aloud for
help; but every one of its inmates, even the mother who bore him, fled
from his presence, uttering ejaculations, intimating the greatest terror
at his presence. In vain did he protest with tears--I am your son and no
other--I am Willie M'Pherson, your lost boy! His words bore no
conviction along with him. Avaunt, foul fiend! Avaunt, in the name of
God and the Holy Trinity--trouble me not--trouble me not; my dear child
is in heaven; and thou, foul spirit, art permitted for a time to assume
his shape. His sister, too, was equally incredulous, and his father had
not yet returned from the hill. What was to be done? Helen M'Donald was
in all probability dead, or dying, helpless and alone, and yet no one
would come to her assistance. At last, Oscar and Fingal made their
appearance in advance of his father; and though they barked at first
upon his naming them, they immediately ran up to him, and jumped upon
his back, his neck, his head, his whole person. They seemed in as much
danger of expressing joy as poor Helen had been of dying of fearful
surprise.
"Stand back," said the delighted and believing father to his wife, who
absolutely clung to his knees to prevent his advance--"stand back,
woman; d'ye think Fingal and Oscar would caress the foul fiend in that
manner? Na--na--na. Ha! ha! ha!" And he fell upon his son's shoulders,
weeping and crying convulsively.
"My father--my dear, dear father."
"My son--my lost, my only, my restored son," was the response.
But Helen, in an instant, brought the whole party, consisting of father,
mother, sister, and son, to her aid: a light was procured and held over
her face; her bosom was bared, and rubbed; her forehead had water
plentifully poured upon it from the stream; and, at last, symptoms of
returning life appeared. Oscar and Fingal, in the meantime, had licked
Helen's face, and neck, and shoulders, all over; and whether from any
virtue in the peculiar touch of their tongues, or from the natural
expiry of the trance, Helen breathed heavily--her bosom heaved; William
looked on her cheeks, and they were flushed with red. In a moment he had
her in his arms. Helen, for some time, suffered exquisite bodily
torture; but was at last capable of having the truth made gradually
known to her. She said surely she had been dreaming, as she had often
done, and that she was still surely asleep, and that she would waken at
last, as she had done before, to a dreadful perception of the reality.
William M'Pherson still continued to clasp and assure Helen of his
personal identity. But, even when convinced of the reality of William's
presence, Helen did not evince that degree of happiness which might have
been expected; she sat stupified and passive, and seemingly insensible
to everything around her; her mind was evidently wandering to a
disagreeable subject. However, she was prevailed upon to return with the
family into the house, and, worn out and fatigued, she was soon after
put to rest in an adjoining apartment.
In the meantime, the young sailor was questioned minutely respecting the
reason of his reappearance, after he had been so long reported, and
believed by everybody, to be dead.
Without repeating his answer in his own words, which were interlarded
with sea phrases, we may state, in general, that it was to the following
purpose:--He had gone to Dundee, with the view of making some small
purchases for the household, when he accidentally fell in with a
recruiting party, who were beating up for marines for the fleet, then
just returned from the capture of the Danish fleet at Copenhagen.
Inexperienced as he was, he was enticed into a public-house on the
shore, and awakened, after a stupor of some hours, on board a British
man-of-war. In a few hours, he was conveyed out to sea, along with
several others, and was conveyed immediately to Spithead. Having it
ultimately put to his choice whether he would stand by a gun, or handle
a musket and a sabre, he chose the former, and was regularly entered as
an ablebodied seaman on board His Majesty's ship the Victory. In her,
along with Admiral Nelson, he sailed for the West Indies, and then
crossed the Atlantic, back to the shores of France. The enemy still
eluding the eagle-eye of Lord Nelson, he sailed for the Mediterranean,
and, after various landings and inquiries, came upon the French fleet,
moored closely inland on the coast of Egypt, at the mouth of the Nile.
He was in the dreadful battle of the Nile, and assisted in rescuing
several who were blown up, but not killed, in the L'Orient. After the
battle, he had promotion, and ultimately prize-money, on account of his
brave and humane conduct, and sailed again for Naples, and latterly in
quest of the Spanish fleet on the coast of Spain. He was close by Nelson
when he was shot by a rifleman from the mast of the ship with which he
had grappled, and saw the fellow who did the deed drop on the deck,
being shot through the heart by a marine on board of Lord Nelson's ship.
After the battle, he was returned to Plymouth, having been wounded in
the leg--a musket-ball had passed through the flesh, and somewhat, but
not greatly, injured the bone. He spent some months in the hospital, and
was then despatched to the coast of France on board the Spitfire. There
he had distinguished himself in cutting out and burning several of the
enemy's craft at Havre; and being again wounded, though slightly, in the
arm, he was put upon the pension list, and allowed to dispose of himself
till his country should again require his services. In these
circumstances, he began to think of his home; and, with some hundreds of
pounds in the bank, and a pension order of about two shillings and
sixpence a-day in his pocket, he arrived at Dundee in a sailing vessel,
and was on his way to his _native glen_ when the reader first became
acquainted with him. When this narrative was finished, his father
retired for an instant, and then appeared with some papers, which he had
extracted from his private depositories. He first read a letter which
purported to come from a king's officer, who signed himself William
Wilson, and who informed his afflicted father that his son had been
induced to go on board a king's ship, to see the arrangements which it
exhibited; but that, in passing from the small boat to the deck, he had
missed a foot, and been drowned. The letter was dated on board the
Spitfire; and mentioned, likewise, that the ship was under sailing
orders for the general rendezvous at Spithead. The poor distracted
parent had come to Dundee, but could obtain no information of his
son--only, about three months after, he heard that a dead body, severely
mutilated, had been thrown out upon the sands of St Andrews; and, on
account of the state of its decomposition, had immediately been interred
in Christian burial-ground. A second pilgrimage to St Andrews was
undertaken by the father and daughter; but nothing satisfactory was
discovered, except that the corpse exhibited marks of having been
dressed in a blue-and-white striped waistcoat, which answered to that in
which he had left Denhead, his home in the Highlands. After this last
discovery, all further inquiry ceased, and the afflicted family
fulfilled the period of their sincere mourning, and things returned
nearly to their usual bearing. But, when father, and mother, and sister
had seemingly got over the worst of their grief, Helen M'Donald still
pined in silence over the recollections of her early companion; and as
she expanded into womanhood, her grief seemed to grow "with her growth;"
and her father became extremely anxious to have Helen properly and
creditably disposed of in marriage.