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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. VII.
LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT, 14 PATERNOSTER SQUARE
AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
1885.
CONTENTS.
JUDITH THE EGYPTIAN; OR, THE FATE OF THE HEIR OF RICCON, _(JOHN MACKAY
WILSON)_
THE DROICH, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_
THE LYKEWAKE, _(HUGH MILLER)_
THE PENNY WEDDING, _(ALEXANDER CAMPBELL)_
THE AMATEUR LAWYERS, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_
THE PROFESSOR'S TALES, _(PROFESSOR THOMAS GILLESPIE)_
FAMILY INCIDENTS
HOME AND THE GIPSY MAID
THE RETURN
THE POOR SCHOLAR, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_
THE LAIRD OF DARNICK TOWER, _(J. H. )_
THE BROKEN HEART. A TALE OF THE REBELLION, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_
THE CATERAN OF LOCHLOY, _(JAMES MAIDMENT)_
SERJEANT'S TALES, _(JOHN HOWELL)_
JOHN SQUARE'S VOYAGE TO INDIA
WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS, AND OF SCOTLAND.
JUDITH THE EGYPTIAN; OR, THE FATE OF THE HEIR OF RICCON.
"The black-eyed Judith, fair and tall,
Attracted the heir of Riccon Hall.
* * * * *
For years and years was Judith known,
Queen of a wild world all her own;
By Wooler Haugh, by silver Till,
By Coldstream Bridge, and Flodden Hill:
Until, at length, one morn, when sleet
Hung frozen round the traveller's feet,
By a grey ruin on Tweedside,
The creature laid her down and died."--_Border Ballad._
More than three hundred years have elapsed since the people called
Gipsies first made their appearance in this country; and, from all that
I have been able to trace concerning them, it seems to have been about
the same period that a number of their tribes or families proceeded
northwards, and became dwellers and wanderers on the Borders. Their
chief places of resort, and where, during the inclemency of winter, they
horded or housed together, were, Kirk Yetholm, Rothbury, Horncliff,
Spittal, and Tweedmouth. I believe that there are none of them now in
Horncliff, which, on the bringing in of the muir, ceased to be a refuge
for them; and there are but few in Spittal. But, in Rothbury and Kirk
Yetholm, they still abound, and of late years have increased in
Tweedmouth--that is, during the winter season, for they take to the
hedges as soon as the primrose appears, and begin their wanderings. The
principal names borne by the different tribes in these parts are Faa,
Young, Gordon, Bailie, Blyth, Ruthven, and Winter. Their occupations
are chiefly as itinerant muggers or potters, horners or "cuttie-spoon"
makers, tinkers or smiths and tin-workers, and makers of besoms and
foot-basses. They are still, with very few exceptions, a wandering and
unlettered race, such as their fathers were when they first entered
Britain. At Kirk Yetholm, however--which is their seat of royalty on the
Borders, and where they have a lease of the houses in what is called
Tinkler Row, for nineteen times nineteen years, on payment of a quit
rent--they have not been so neglectful of the education of their
children as in other parts of the country.
At the period of their first appearance in this kingdom, the land was
overrun with thieves and vagabonds, who, in the severe and sanguinary
laws of Queen Elizabeth and her father Harry, were described as
"_loyterers_" and "_sturdy beggars_;" and it is more than probable that
many of these, finding the mode of life followed by the gipsies
congenial to them, associated with or intermarried amongst them, and so
became as a part of them; and this may account for many, calling
themselves gipsies, having European, or, I may say, British features.
But the real gipsy there is no mistaking--their dark piercing eyes and
Asiatic countenance mark them as distinctly as do the eyes and peculiar
features of a Jew. (By the by, I wonder that no searcher after the
marvellous has endeavoured to prove them to be a remnant of the lost
tribes of Israel.) Like the Jews, they are scattered over the whole
earth--like them, they are found in every land; and in every land they
remain a distinct people.
Who they are, or whence they came, are questions involved in
considerable mystery. Their being called Gipsies or Egyptians in this
country, I hold to be a popular error which they themselves propagated.
Egypt, from the earliest period, was distinguished above all lands for
its soothsayers and diviners; and, as the chief occupation of the
wanderers then was (and in many places still is) fortune-telling, they
had cunning enough to profess to be Egyptians, or natives of the land
wherein was taught the mysteries of rolling away the clouds which
conceal fate and futurity. They have neither the language nor the
manners of the Egyptians. No reason could be assigned for their leaving
the land of the Pharaohs; and, although the gipsies of the present day
profess to be Egyptians, they can bring forward no proof in support of
the pretension. From all that I have read concerning them, it seems to
me to be clearly proved that they are natives of Hindostan, where they
formed a part of the lowest caste of Indians, called Pariars or
Suders--a class held in detestation and abhorrence by the other castes.
That the gipsy clans have a language peculiar to themselves, and which
they frequently speak amongst themselves, is well known. It is not a
written language; and they have endeavoured to conceal a knowledge of it
from the people amongst whom they dwell. They have called it
_gibberish_; and it has been very generally believed to be nothing more
than what is usually understood by that term, or that at most it was a
sort of _slang_, similar to the phrases used among thieves. This is an
error. So far as those who have examined it have been able to ascertain,
the secret language spoken by the British gipsies appears to be, with
but trifling corruptions, the same as that which is spoken by the Indian
caste of Suders in Hindostan.[1]
[Footnote 1: We subjoin a few words as specimens. They are taken from
the Glossaries of Grellmann and Richardson.--ED.
_Gipsy._ _Hindostanee._ _English._
Bebee Beebe An Aunt.
Mutchee Muchee Fish.
Can Kan The Ear.
Gur Ghur A House.
Riah Raye A Lord.
Dai Da'ee Mother.
Mass Mas Food.
Nack Nak The Nose.
Loon Loon Salt.]
But a stronger proof that the gipsies scattered over Europe derive their
origin from the Suders of India is demonstrated by the facts that the
Suders were the only people who professed the art of palmistry--that
they, like the gipsies, are a wandering race--that their occupations are
almost identically the same, being fortune-tellers, dancers, and
wandering musicians--that the smiths amongst them go about exactly in
the same manner as the tinkers, in this country--that, like the gipsies,
their favourite food is that of animals that have died of disease--that,
like them, they have no fixed religion--and, like them, they endeavour
to conceal their language. And the certainty of their being originally
the same people is further strengthened, from the Suders having fled in
thousands from India, during the murderous ravages of Timur Beg in 1408,
which corresponds with the period of the first appearance of the gipsies
in Europe. And that they are not Egyptians is strongly proved by the
fact, that there are tribes of them in Egypt, where, as in other
countries, they are regarded as _strangers and foreigners_.
I may have wearied the patience of the reader with this long and perhaps
prosy introduction; but there may be some to whom it will not be
uninteresting, as throwing a light on the probable origin of a singular
people, of whom Judith the gipsy was one. And now to our story.
One of the chief men amongst the gipsies on the Borders, at the
beginning of the last century, was Lussha Fleckie, who was only inferior
in authority among the tribes to King Faa, who dwelt at Kirk Yetholm,
and boasted of reigning lord over a _free_ people. Lussha's avocations,
like the avocations of all his brethren, were mere apologies for
idleness. He was one day a tinker, on another a grinder, and on a third
a wandering piper. He was a man of great stature and uncommon strength,
and renowned for his exploits as a fisher and a sportsman.
The name of his wife was Mariam, and they had a daughter, called Judith,
who, as she grew up towards womanhood, became known throughout Roxburgh
and Northumberland as the Gipsy Beauty, or the Beautiful Gipsy. The
appellation was not unmeritedly bestowed; for, though her skin was
slightly tinged with the tawny hue of her race, a soul seemed to glow
through her regular and lovely features, and the lustre of her dark eyes
to throw a radiance over them. She was tall, and her figure was perfect
as her face--it was symmetrical and commanding. Yet she was at once
conscious of her beauty and vain of it, and her parents administered to
her vanity. They had her fingers adorned with trinkets, her neck with
bugles; for Lussha Fleckie, like most of his race, was fond of gold and
silver ornaments; and, amongst others, he had in his possession a silver
urn, which had been handed down to him through generations, and in which
his fathers, as he now did, had deposited the fruits of their spoils and
plunder, until it was filled with rich coins as a miser's coffer. He
therefore, although a vagrant, was not a poor man, and could afford to
deck the charms of his daughter. Judith was early initiated by her
mother into the mysteries of the sybilline leaves--her education indeed
extended no farther; and, at the age of fifteen, she was an adept in the
art of palmistry. The proudest ladies in broad Northumberland or fair
Roxburghshire eagerly submitted their hands to the inspection of the
beautiful fortune-teller. The searching brightness of her dark eyes
seemed to give a prophetic reality to her words; and, as she caused them
to kindle with apparent joy or become transfixed at the discovery of
coming wo, her fair and high-born patrons have trembled before her, and
inquired, "What is it, Judith?" And, being a favourite with them all,
for they both loved and feared her, her person was bedecked with their
cast-off garments.
It was early in summer when about forty of the Faa people encamped near
the foot of the Eildon Hills. A few minutes served for the erection of
their portable village in a secure and sheltered situation, and
speedily, supported on pieces of crossed branches, the caldrons swung
over the crackling fires, each of which blazed fierce and merrily from
between two stones. Savoury exhalations impregnated the air, and gave
token of a feast. The banquet being spread upon the sward, when it was
finished, and the brandy cup had been sent round, Lussha Fleckie took up
his Northumbrian pipes, and began to play a merry reel. Old and young,
men, women, and children, started to their feet, and joyous
"Tripp'd the light fantastic toe."
Judith glided through the midst of them, with her bright waving tresses
falling on her shoulders, as queen of the glad scene. Of her it might
have been said--
"A foot more light, a step more true,
Never from heath-flower dash'd the dew;
Even the light harebell raised its head,
Elastic from her airy tread!"
Her partner in the dance was Gemmel Graeme; and in his veins also flowed
gipsy blood. Gemmel was now a youth of twenty, and one of the most
daring of his race. A passionate enthusiasm marked his disposition. In
agile sports and feats of strength he had no competitor. In these he was
what Lussha Fleckie had been. He boasted of his independence, and that
he had never placed a finger on the property of friend or neighbour, nor
been detected in levying his exactions on a stranger or a foe. His
merits were acknowledged by all the tribes on the Borders; and, though
he was not of the royal family of Faas, many looked to him as
heir-apparent to the sovereignty. He held in princely contempt all
trades, professions, and callings, and thought it beneath the dignity of
a "lord of creation" to follow them. When, therefore, he accompanied the
tribes in their migrations from place to place, he did not, as was the
habit of others, assume the occupation of either tinker, grinder,
bass-manufacturer, or the profession of a musician--but he went forth
with his gun and his hound, or his leister and net, and every preserve,
plantation, and river supplied him with food, and the barns of strangers
with bread.
Judith was two years younger than Gemmel Graeme, and he had not looked
upon her lovely face with indifference; for the stronger passions and
the gentler feelings of the soul find a habitation in the breast of the
wandering gipsy as in those of other men. He had a bold manly bearing,
and an expressive countenance. Judith, too, had seen much of his
exploits. She had beheld him, to the neck in water, struggle with the
strong salmon, raise it up, and cast it on the shore. She, too, had
witnessed instances of his daring spirit, and in every sport had seen
all vanquished who dared to contend with him. Yea, when the scented
blossom, like fragrant fleece, overspread the hawthorn hedgerows, and
the primrose and wild violet flowered at its roots--when the evening
star shone glorious in the west, brightening through the deepening
twilight--when the viewless cuckoo sighed "goodnight" to its mate, and
the landrail took up its evening cry--then have Judith and Gemmel sat
together by the hedge-side, at a distance from the encampment, with her
hand in his. Then he would tell her of the feats he had achieved, of the
wrestling-matches he had won, or the leaps he had made, and, pressing
her hand, add, "But what care I for what I do, or for what others say,
when the bright een o' my bonny Judith werena there to reward me wi' a
blink o' joy!"
"Ye're a flatterer, Gemmel," whispered she.
"No, bonniest," answered he; "I deny that; I am nae flatterer. But if I
were, ye are far beyont flattery sic as mine; and it is nane to say,
that to my een ye are bonnier than yon gowden star, that shines by its
single sel' in the wide heavens--and to me ye are dearer than the
mountain is to the wild deer, or the green leaves to the singing birds."
Then he would press his lips to hers, and she blushed, but upbraided him
not. But in the character of Judith, as in that of every woman over
whose bosom vanity waveth its butterfly wings, there was something of
the coquette. She did not at all times meet the affections of Gemmel
with mutual tenderness, though she loved him beyond any one else, and
was proud to see him wear her yoke. She had often smiled upon others,
while her eyes glanced cold as illuminated ice upon him. Yet never was
there one on whom she so smiled that repented not having courted or
obtained it. For, as Gemmel's hand was strong and his love passionate,
so was his jealousy keen and his revenge insatiate. There were cripples
in the tribe, who owed their lameness to the hand of Gemmel, because, in
some instance, Judith had shown a capricious preference to them while
she slighted him.
Now, as has been said, it was a day of feasting and rejoicing amongst
them, and Judith was Gemmel's partner in the dance. Walter, the young
heir of Riccon, was riding round the Eildons, with his grey goshawk upon
his arm, and his servant following him; and hearing sounds of music and
shouts of revelry, he turned in the direction from whence they
proceeded. He drew up his horse within a few yards of the merry group,
and, from the first glance, the striking figure and the more striking
features of Judith arrested his attention. His eyes followed her through
the winding mazes of the dance. They sought to meet hers. Gemmel Graeme
observed him, and a scowl gathered on his brow. When the dance was
ended, he led Judith to a green hillock on which her father sat, and
approaching the heir of Riccon, inquired, fiercely, "What want ye,
sir?--what look ye at?"
"Troth, friend," replied Walter, the master of Riccon, who was of too
courageous a temperament to be awed by the face or frown of any man, "I
look at yer bonny partner, and I want to speak to her, for a lovelier
face or a gentler figure my een haena looked on since my mother bore
me."
"Sir," retorted Gemmel, more fiercely, "ye hae yer grey goshawk, yer
horses, and yer servant; I dinna covet them, and dinna ye covet what is
mine, and to me mair precious. Awa' the road ye cam, or ony road ye
like, but remain not here. Your company isna desired. Is it the manners
o' you gentry to break in where ye are uninvited? Again, I warn ye,
_while the earth is green_, to turn your horse's head away! I, Gemmel
Graeme, wha never vowed revenge but I satisfied it, warn ye!"
"As well," replied young Walter, haughtily, "might you vend your threats
upon the rocks that compose those cloven mountains, as waste them upon
me. I shall speak wi' your bonny partner;" and he struck his spurs into
his horse to proceed towards her.
Gemmel grasped the bridle, and in a moment horse and rider were upon the
ground.
"Gemmel Graeme!" shouted Lussha Fleckie, "is that the welcome ye gie to
strangers? Foul fa' ye! ye passionate tyke!--tak yer hands aff the
gentleman, and if he wishes to join in oor merriment he's welcome. Gae,
Judith, bring forward the gentle stranger."
Gemmel withdrew his hand from young Walter's throat; and, as he did so,
he uttered wild and bitter words, and flung himself, as if in
carelessness, on the ground, his head resting on his hand.
Judith, at her father's bidding, went and conducted the heir of Riccon
to where her father sat and the late dancers were assembled, and Gemmel
was left alone. A brief conversation passed between Lussha and Walter,
during which the latter failed not to express his admiration of Judith.
Her father smiled--there was a look of triumph in the eyes of her
mother. The pipes again struck up, the dance was resumed, and Walter the
heir of Riccon was the partner of Judith; while Gemmel Graeme lay upon
the ground, gazing upon them and gnashing his teeth.
"We maun see that nae harm come to the young Riccon oot o' this,"
whispered some of the eldest of the tribe to each other, who had not
again joined in the dance, "for Gemmel is kicking his heel upon the
ground, and whistlin' to himsel', and the horse-shoe is on his brow. It
was wrong in Lussha to provoke him. There is an ill drink brewing for
the young laird. He is dancing owre gunpoother where the touch-fire is
creeping to it."
The dance was ended, and young Walter, taking a costly ring from his
finger, placed it on Judith's, and whispered, "Wear it for my sake." And
her cheeks seemed more lovely as she blushed, smiled, and accepted the
gift.
Gemmel started to his feet as he beheld this. But Walter dashed his
spurs into his horse, and, riding away, in a few minutes was out of
sight. Gemmel glanced upbraidingly on Judith, and he passed by her
parents in sullenness and in silence.
But the heir of Riccon had not ridden far, when he turned round and said
to his servant, "We go now to Melrose, and from thence we shall go back
and watch the movements o' the party we have seen. Mark ye weel the
maiden wi' whom I danced, and whose marrow ye never saw; for rather
would I that she was lady o' Riccon Ha', than that I shouldna meet her
again."
Shortly after the departure of Walter, some of the tribe, perceiving
that what had passed between him and Judith was likely to lead to a
quarrel between Lussha Fleckie and Gemmel Graeme, and knowing, from the
nature of both, that such a quarrel would be deadly in its results,
proposed that the festivities should terminate, and the encampment break
up. The proposal was carried by a majority of voices; and even Lussha,
though conscious of the reason why it was made, knew so well the fiery
and desperate nature of him who was regarded by the tribe as the future
husband of his daughter, that he brooked his own temper, and agreed to
it. And, while they began to move their tents, and to load their asses
and their ponies, Gemmel stood, whistling moodily, leaning against a
tree, his eyes ever and anon directed with an inquisitive scowl towards
the tent of Judith's father, his arms folded on his breast, and at
intervals stamping his foot upon the ground; while his favourite hound
looked in his face, howled, and shook its tail impatiently, as though it
knew that there was work for it at hand.
Early on the following day, the servant of the heir of Riccon returned,
and brought him tidings that the encampment had broken up, and Judith
and her father had erected their tent in the neighbourhood of Kelso;
for, as the ballad upon the subject hath it,
"Often by Tweed they saunter'd down
As far as pleasant Kelso town."
Walter mounted his horse, and arrived within sight of their tent before
the sun had gone down. At a distance from it he perceived Judith. She
was alone, and holding her hand towards the declining sun, gazing upon
her fingers as if admiring the ring he had presented to her on the
previous day. He rode to where she stood. She seemed so entranced that
she perceived not his approach. She was indeed admiring the ring. Yet
let not her sex blame her too harshly: men and women have all their
foibles--this was one of Judith's; and she was a beautiful but ignorant
girl of eighteen, whose mind had never been nurtured, and whose heart
had been left to itself, to be swayed by every passion. He
dismounted--he threw himself on his knees before her--he grasped her
hand. "Loveliest of women!" he began----But I will not follow him
through his rhapsody. Such speeches can be spoken but at one period of
our lives, and they are interesting only to those to whom they are
addressed: therefore I will spare my readers its recital. But it made an
impression on the heart of Judith. He spoke not of _his_ feats of
strength, of his running, leaping, and wrestling, as Gemmel did; but he
spoke of _her_, and in strains new but pleasant to her ear. And,
although she had chided her first lover as a flatterer, she did not so
chide the heir of Riccon. Vanity kindled at his words, and even while he
knelt and spoke before her, she forgot Gemmel, and already fancied
herself the jewelled lady of Riccon Hall.
He perceived the effect which his first gift had produced, and he saw
also how earnestly she listened to his words. He wore a golden repeater,
which he had purchased in Geneva, and which was secured by a chain of
the same metal, that went round his neck. He placed the chain around her
neck, he pressed the watch upon her bosom. In her bosom she heard, she
felt it beat, while her own heart beat more rapidly.
"Hark!--hark!" said he, "how constantly it beats upon your breast--yet,
trust me, loved one, my heart beats more truly for you."
Before they parted, another assignation was arranged. From that period,
frequent interviews took place between Walter and the lovely Judith, and
at each visit he brought her presents, and adorned her person with
ornaments. Her parents knew of his addresses, but they forbade them not.
Now, one evening they had taken up their abode in a deserted building
near to Twisel Bridge; and thither the young laird came to visit Judith.
Her father invited him into what had once been an apartment in the
ruined building, and requested him to sup with them. Walter consented;
for the love he bore to Judith could render the coarsest morsel sweet.
But, when he beheld the meat that was to be prepared and placed before
him, his heart sickened and revolted, for it consisted of part of a
sheep that had died; and, when Lussha beheld this, he said, "Wherefore
shudder ye, young man, and why is your heart sick? Think ye not that the
flesh o' the brute which has been slain by the hand o' its Creator, is
fitter for man to eat than the flesh o' an animal which man has
butchered?"[2]
[Footnote 2: Gipsies always assign this as a reason for their preferring
the flesh of animals that have died to that of such as are
slaughtered.--ED.]
Walter had not time to reply; for, as Lussha finished speaking, a dog
bounded into the ruins amongst them. Judith started from the ground; she
raised her hands, her eyes flashed with horror.
"Ah!" she exclaimed, in a voice of suppressed agony, "it is
Gemmel's--Gemmel's hound! Fly, Walter, fly!"
"Wherefore should I fly?" returned the youth; "think ye, Judith, I am
not able to defend myself and you against any man? Let this fierce
braggart come."
"Away!--haste ye away, sir!" said Lussha, earnestly, grasping him by the
arm, "or there will be blood and dead bodies on this floor! Come away!
Gemmel Graeme is at hand, and ye dinna ken him sae weel as I do!"
Walter would have remonstrated, but the gipsy, still grasping him by the
arm, dragged him to a door of the ruin, adding, "Steal away--quick!
quick among the trees, and keep down by the Till to Tweedside. Dinna
speak!--away!"
It was a grey midnight in July, and the heir of Riccon had not been
absent three minutes, when Gemmel Graeme stalked into the ruin, and with
his arms folded sat down upon a stone in sullen silence.
"We are glad to see ye, Gemmel," said Mariam; "ye hae been an unco
stranger."
"Humph!" was his brief and cold reply.
The supper was spread upon the ground, and the mother of Judith again
added, "Come, Gemmel, lad, it is o' nae use to be in a cankered humour
for ever. Draw forward and help yersel'--ye see there is nae want."
"So I see!" replied he, sarcastically; "did ye expect company? I doubt
yer fare would hardly be to _his_ palate!"
"What do you mean, Gemmel?" cried Lussha; "think ye that we are to put
up wi' yer fits?--or wherefore, if ye hae naething to say, come ye
glunching here, wi' a brow as dark and threatening as a nicht in
December?"
Gemmel rose angrily, and replied, "I hae something to say, Lussha, and
that something is to Judith, but not in your presence. Judith, will ye
speak wi' me?" added he, addressing her.
Judith, who had sat in a corner of the ruin, with her hands upon her
bosom, covering the watch which young Walter had given her, and
forgetting that the golden chain by which it was suspended from her neck
was visible, cast a timid glance towards her father, as if imploring his
protection.
"I am no sure, Gemmel," said Lussha, "whether I can trust my daughter in
your company or no. If I do, will ye gie me yer thumb that ye winna harm
her, nor raise your hand against her."
"Harm her!" exclaimed Gemmel, disdainfully: "I scorn it!--there's my
thumb."
"Ye may gang, Judith," said her father.
Judith, with fear and guilt graven on her lovely features, rose and
accompanied Gemmel. He walked in silence by her side until they came to
an old and broad-branched tree, which stood about forty yards from the
ruin. A waning summer moon had risen since he arrived, and mingled its
light with the grey gloam of the night, revealing the ornaments which
Judith wore.
"Judith," said Gemmel, breaking the silence, and raising her hand from
her bosom, with which she concealed the watch, "where got ye thae braw
ornaments? Has yer faither found a heart to lay his fingers on the
treasures in the silver jug?"
She trembled, and remained silent.
"Poor thing! poor thing!--lost Judith!" exclaimed Gemmel. "I see how it
is. For the sake o' thae vile gewgaws, ye hae deserted me--ye hae
sacrificed peace o' mind, and bidden fareweel to happiness! O Judith,
woman!--wha is the flatterer noo? Do you mind syne we sat by the
hedge-side thegither, when the corn-craik counted the moments round
about us, and tried to mind us hoo they flew--when the sun had sunk down
in the west, and the bonny hawthorn showered its fragrance owre us, as
though we sat in the garden where our first parents were happy? Do you
mind o' thae days, Judith?--and hoo, when my heaving bosom beat upon
yours, as we sat locked in ilka other's arms, I asked, 'Will ye be
mine?' and ye let yer head fa' on my shouther, and said, '_I
will!_'--Judith! do ye mind o' thae things, and where are they noo?"
"Gemmel Graeme," replied she, and she wept as she spoke, "let me gang--I
canna bide wi' ye--and ye hae nae richt to put yer questions to me."
"Nae richt!" he returned. "O Judith! hae ye forgotten a' yer vows?--or
hae ye forgotten the time when, in caulder nichts than this, when the
snaw was on the ground, and the trees were bare o' leaves, that ye hae
stood or wandered wi' me, frae the time that the sun gaed down, until
the sea-birds and the craws sailed owre our heads seeking for their food
on the next morning?--and now ye tell me ye canna bide wi' me! O Judith!
ye hae dune what has made my heart miserable, and what will mak yer ain
as miserable?" And as he spoke he still held her hand.
"Let me gang, Gemmel," she again sobbed, and struggled to wrest her hand
from his grasp--"I hae naething to say to ye."
"Then ye will leave me, Judith!" he cried, wildly--"leave me for ever,
wi' a withered heart and a maddened brain!" She answered him not, but
still wept and struggled the more to escape from him.
"Then gang, Judith!" he cried, and flung her hand from him, "but beware
hoo we meet again!"
Some months after this, and when the harvest-moon shone full on the
fields of golden grain, and the leaves rustled dry and embrowned upon
the trees, there was a sound of voices in a wood which overhung the
Tweed near Coldstream. They were the voices of Walter the heir of Riccon
and of Judith.
"Leave," said he, "dear Judith, leave this wandering life, and come wi'
me, and ye shall be clad in silks, dearest, hae servants to wait on ye,
and a carriage to ride in!"
"Ah!" she sighed, "but a wandering life is a pleasant life; and, if I
were to gang wi' ye, would ye aye be kind to me, and love me as you do
now?"
"Can ye be sae cruel as doubt me, Judith?" was his reply.
"Weel," returned she, "it was for yer sake that I left Gemmel Graeme, wha
is a bald and a leal lad, and one that I once thought I liked weel. Now,
I dinna understand about your priests and your books, but will ye come
before my faither and my mother, and the rest o' oor folk, and before
them swear that I am yer lawfu' wife, the only lady o' Riccon Ha', and I
will gang wi' ye?"
"My own Judith, I will!" replied Walter, earnestly.
"You will not!" exclaimed a loud and wild voice, "unless over the dead
body of Gemmel Graeme!"
At the same moment a pistol flashed within a few yards of where they
stood, and Walter the heir of Riccon fell with a groan at the feet of
Judith. Her screams rang through the woods, startling the slumbering
birds from the branches, and causing them to fly to and fro in
confusion. Gemmel sprang forward, and grasped her hand. "Now, fause
ane," he cried, "kiss the lips o' yer bonny bridegroom!--catch his
spirit as it leaves him! Hang roond his neck and haud him to yer heart
till his corpse be cauld! Noo, he canna hae ye, and I winna!
Fareweel!--fareweel!--fause, treacherous Judith!"
Thus saying, and striking his forehead, and uttering a loud and bitter
scream, he rushed away.
Judith sank down by the dead body of Walter, and her tears fell upon his
face. Her cries reached the encampment, where her parents and others of
her race were. They hastened to the wood from whence her cries
proceeded, and found her stretched upon the ground, her arms encircling
the neck of the dead. They raised her in their arms, and tried to soothe
her, but she screamed the more wildly, and seemed as one whose senses
grief has bewildered.
"Judith," said her father, "speak to me, bairn--wha has done this? Was
it----"
"Gemmel!--wicked Gemmel!" she cried; and in the same breath added, "No!
no!--it wasna him! It was me!--it was me! It was fause Judith."
Gemmel Graeme, however, had dropped his pistol on the ground when he
beheld his victim fall, and one of the party taking it up, they knew him
to be the murderer. Lussha Fleckie, touched by his daughter's grief, and
disappointed by his dream of vain ambition being broken, caused each of
his party to take a vow that they would search for Gemmel Graeme, and
whosoever found him should take blood for blood upon his head.
And they did search, but vainly, for Gemmel was no more heard of.
Twelve months passed, and autumn had come again. A young maniac mother,
with a child at her breast, and dressed as a gipsy, endeavoured to cross
the Tweed between Norham and Ladykirk. The waters rose suddenly, and as
they rose she held her infant closer to her bosom, and sang to it; but
the angry flood bore away the maniac mother and her babe. She was
rescued and restored to life, though not to reason, but the child was
seen no more.
For thirty years the poor maniac continued at intervals to visit the
fatal spot, wandering by the river, stretching out her arms, calling on
her child, saying, "Come to me--come to yer mother, my bonny bairn, for
ye are heir o' Riccon, and why should I gang shoeless amang snaw! Come
to me--it was cruel Gemmel Graeme that murdered yer bonny faither--it
wasna me!"
It was in January the body of a grey-haired woman, covered with a
tattered red cloak, was found frozen and dead, below Norham Castle. It
was the poor maniac Judith, the once beautiful gipsy. Some years
afterwards, an old soldier, who had been in foreign wars, came to reside
in the neighbourhood, and on his death-bed requested that he should be
buried by the side of Judith, and the letters G. G. carved on a stone
over his grave.
THE DROICH.
On the evening of that eventful day which saw Patrick Hamilton, Abbot of
Ferne, the young and learned Scotch proto-martyr to the Protestant
faith, bend his head and resign his soul at the burning stake, in the
head-quarters of Scottish superstition--St Andrews--a young man was
slowly bending his steps from the scene of execution towards his home, a
good many miles distant. The effect produced by that day's proceedings
was, as is well known, felt throughout all Scotland, where the scene of
martyrdom was, as yet, one of these _mira nova_ which startle a country,
and extort from the innermost recesses of the heart thoughts and
feelings as new as intense. In the case of Hamilton, there were many
features calculated, in an eminent degree, to strike deep into the minds
of a sympathetic and meditative people; and doubtless, his birth,
descended from the royal house of Albany--his learning, derived from the
deep wells of Mair's philosophy--and his extreme youth--were not the
least impressive; yet there was something in the mere _manner_ of his
death--abstracted even from the species of immolation not altogether new
to Scotland, cruelly mangled, as he was, by an awkward or cold-blooded
executioner--that deepened and riveted the effect produced by the
extraordinary scene of his martyrdom. If casual or merely curious
spectators might dream of that scene till their dying hour, we may form
some estimate of what the friend and college companion of the
martyr--for such was the young man whom we have now introduced to the
reader--felt and thought, as, with eyes bent on the ground, he
prosecuted his journey homewards, after witnessing the execution. Imbued
himself with the spirit of the new faith, he had that day seen it
proved, in a manner little less than miraculous. One of the softest and
gentlest of mankind, who would have shrunk from the sight of pain
inflicted on the meanest of God's creatures, had been enabled, by
celestial influence, to stand, in the midst of a scorching and
destroying fire, undaunted, unmoved, with smiles on his countenance, and
words of exhortation on his lips. The feelings of the religionist were
roused and sublimed by the contemplation of one of heaven's marvels; but
the pity of the man and the friend was not lost in the admiration of the
heaven-born fortitude that simulated total relief from bodily agony.
Tears filled the eyes of the youth, and were wiped away only to rise
again with the recurring thoughts of the various stages of the trial and
triumph of his beloved friend. He had already wandered a considerable
distance; but the space bore no proportion to the time occupied; for he
had sat down often by the roadside, hid his face in his hands, and been
lost in a species of charmed contemplation of images at which he
shuddered.
While yet some miles from the end of his journey, the shades of night
began to fall over the undulating heights that form the end of the Ochil
chain to the west; but, as yet, the sun, the only object seen in the
whole horizon, appeared in full disk, red and lurid, like the mass of
ember-faggots which, some hours before, lay in the street of St Andrews,
surmounted by the blackened corpse of the martyr. The traveller turned
his eye in the direction of the luminary; but quickly passed his hand
over his brow, from an instinctive feeling of horror, as a dim wreath of
cloud, stretching along the superior part of the fiery circle, seemed to
realise again, in solemn magnificence, the sight he had witnessed. The
altitude of the object which suggested the resemblance, with the
gorgeousness in which it was arrayed, again claimed the aspiring
thought, that the spirit of his friend, sublimed by the doctrines of
the new faith, was even then journeying to the spheres which he
contemplated. The final triumph of the martyr was completed in the scene
of his agonies; and the seal of eternal truth was, by God's finger,
imprinted on the doctrines he had published and explained in the midst
of the melting fire of the furnace. Placing his hand in his breast, he
drew forth the beautiful Latin treatise which his friend had composed on
the subject of the justification of the sinner, through a believing
faith in Him who was foretold from the beginning of time; and, sitting
again down by the side of a hedge, he struggled, in the descending
twilight, to store his mind with some of those precepts which were
destined to claim the reverence of an enlightened world. He was soon
lost in the rapt meditation in which the spirits of the early reformers
rejoiced amidst the persecution with which they were surrounded, and was
again in regions brighter than those of this world, in communion with
him who, when the flames were already crackling among the faggots, cried
out, "Behold the way to everlasting life!" From the exalted sphere of
his dreamy cogitations he looked down with a contempt which, as his head
reclined among the grass, might have been observed curling the lip of
indignant scorn, upon all the thousand corruptions of the Old
Church--its sold indulgences, its certified beatifications, its pardons,
its soul-redeeming masses, its chanting music, its sins, and its
ineffectual mortifications. The bright spirit of Christianity, arrayed
in her pure garment of white, was before the view of his fancy; her
clear seraphic eye beamed through his soul: and, with finger pointed to
heaven, she invited him to brave the pile and the persecution of men,
and gain the crown which was now encircling the temples of Hamilton. He
thought he could then have died as his friend had perished, and that the
pangs of the circling flames would have been felt by him merely as the
smart pungency of a healing medicament, which the patient rejoices in as
the means of acquiring health.
How long he remained under the influence of this beatific vision he knew
not himself. He had fallen asleep. He opened his eyes: the sun had now
gone down into the western main; and all that was left of his glory was
a thin stream of wavy light, which, shooting across the dark firmament,
looked like the wake of the passing spirit of his friend on its journey
to heaven. He arose. The searching dews of evening had penetrated to his
skin; a cold shiver shot through his frame; and again, clutched by the
humbling and levelling harpies of worldly feelings, fears, and
experiences, he felt all the terror of his former sensations when he
beheld the corpse of the martyr sink with a crash among the embers,
which, as they received the body, sent forth a cloud of hissing,
crackling sparkles of fire, mixed with a dense cloud of smoke.
"Alas! this spirit of mine is strong only in dreams," he muttered to
himself, as the shiver of the night air passed over him. "It is as the
eagle of Bencleugh, which, with his eye in the sun and his feet under
his tail-plumes, will resist the storms that shiver the pines of the
Ochils; yet bring him to earth, and draw one feather from his wing, and
he can only raise a streperous noise amidst the sweltering suffocation
of his earth-crib."
He had scarcely uttered the words, when he saw the short, thick figure
of a man coming along the road, enveloped in a gown, and bearing a stick
like a thraw-crook in his hand. Starting to his feet, he stood, for a
moment, to see if he could recognise the individual.
"Good even to ye, young Master o' Riddlestain," said the individual, as
he came up, and was recognised by the youth--"good even to ye; and God
send ye a warmer bed than the hedge-beild, and a caulder than ane o'
bleezing faggots."
"Good even, Carey," replied the youth. "I return your salutation. The
one lair, as a beadsman of Pittenweem, you may have experienced ere now;
the other you stand in small fears of. From St Andrews, if I can judge
from your allusion to the sad doings of to-day in that part?"
"Ye guess right," replied the beadsman, as they proceeded forward, side
by side; "but how could you guess wrang, when every outlyer and
rinner-about in the East Neuk has been this day at the head-quarters o'
prelacy. A strange day and a selcouth sight for auld een. It's no often
that Carey Haggerston carries a fu' ee and a fu' wallet."
"Then you were moved by the fate of poor Hamilton, Carey?" replied the
youth.
"And wha, Papist or heretic, could stand yon sight wi' dry een?" replied
the man, in a voice that trembled in the sinews of his throat. "I wad
hae gien a' the bodles the prelates threw me--the mair by token, I
think, that the puir callant was writhing in the fire-flaughts o' their
anger--for ae stroke wi' this kevel at the head o' yon culroun caitiff
o' an executioner. The bonny youth was roasted as if he'd been a capon
for the table o' the cardinal, only there was mair smoke than might hae
suited his lordship's palate, I reckon."
"You have got a good awmous, Carey, will sleep sound, and think nothing
of it on the morrow?" said the youth.
"Anster Fair was naething to it," replied the beadsman. "The scene
seemed to open the hearts o' prelates and priors, that never gave a
plack to a bluegown before. I held up the corner o' my gown beneath the
chapel o' the cardinal, and, sure enough, there were mair groats than
tears fell into it. Ah, sir, though my wallet was yape, my heart was
youden. But we're near the haugh road to Riddlestain, Master Henry, and,
as the night is loun and light, I carena though I step up past the
Quarryheugh wi' ye."
"You may expect small alms from the Droich," said Henry.
"No muckle, I daresay," replied the bluegown; "but I stand in nae fear
o' him, and that's mair than the bauldest heart o' the East Neuk can
say. I wad stroke the lang hair o' the creature any day for an awmous,
unearthly as he is."
"Know you aught of this extraordinary being, Carey?" said the youth, as
they turned up the haugh loan.
"Ye're no the first nor the hundredth that has put that question to the
beadsman," replied the other, as he looked up with a side-glance in the
face of the questioner. "Everybody thinks I should ken auld Mansie o'
the Quarryheugh--the mair by token, I fancy, that naebody on earth kens
mair o' him than just that he is a hurklin, gnarled carle, wha cam to
the Quarryheugh some months syne, and biggit, wi' his ain hands, a beild
which has mair banes than stanes in its bouk."
"I know more of him myself than that, Carey," said the young man.
"What ken ye?" rejoined the other, with a laugh.
Henry's silence was probably meant as a quickener of the beadsman's
garrulity.
"Ye may ken, maybe," said the other, "that he speels the sides o' the
Quarryheugh--that is, whar there are trees to haud by--like a squirrel,
swinging frae ae ryss to anither, and sometimes dangling over the deep
pool aneath him, like a showman's signboard, or a gammon frae the
kitchen ciel o' the Priory o' Pittenweem; but the creature's legs are
nae bigger than an urchin's, while his trunk and arms are like the knur
and branches of an oak. What ken ye mair o' him? What kens ony ane mair
o' him, an it bena that he has been seen, in the moonlight, howking the
banes o' the dead Melvilles o' Falconcleugh frae the side o' the quarry,
whar it marches wi' the howf o' the auld house that stands by the brink?
An auld wife's tale, doubtless, though maybe he needed the banes for his
biggin."
"I believe the people in these parts would know more of him, were they
not afraid to go near him," said the youth. "They stand peeping over the
quarry brink at him, as if he were the 'gudeman of the croft,' Mahoun
himself."
"And nae ferly either, Henry," said Carey; "for his face speaks as
clearly o' the skaith o' fire as did that o' Patrick Hamilton when yon
gust o' wind drove the flames to the east, and showed his cheeks--sae
pale, alace! and like a delicate leddy's, as they ance were--burnt as
brown as the wa's o' Falconcleugh House there."
The two speakers had now arrived at the old mansion of the Melvilles,
which stood on the brink of the deep crater, whose high sides had
procured for it the appellation of the Quarryheugh. At the side or end
next the chasm, rose, beetling over it, a high turret, perforated in
several storeys by small embrasures, and surrounded by three tiers of
bartisans. From this flanking strength, the two side walls--relieved, at
intervals, by circular projections containing spiral stairs--ran back,
and were terminated by an ordinary gable, the inclined sides of which
were cut in gradually-receding steps. The care which seemed to have been
taken in securing the casements by closed shutters within, indicated,
more certainly than did the general appearance of the withered house,
that, though unoccupied, it was still deemed suitable for serving the
uses of a dwelling, and that the choughs and stannyels that perched on
its roofs were mere tenants at will, and might be removed on a day's
warning. For a considerable distance around, there was nothing to be
seen but a bare heath, the dark brown aspect of which suggested the
probability of its having been swept by the destroying flames of
muirburn. Even the few straggling boulders that shot up their grey heads
through the scanty gorse stems, springing from their bases, wore a
black, scathed appearance, as if they had still retained the traces of
the ravage of the sweeping scourge. Hidden, except to near gazers amidst
this wild waste, and shelving down from the tower of the mansion, the
chasm or quarry, in the form of a huge crater, lay deep and still, with
a dark mass of greenish-hued water reposing like another Dead Sea in its
bosom. Around two sides of it, where there was a sufficiency of soil to
support them, grew a number of stunted pines, the heads of none of which
appeared above the superior circle; but, dipping down, added to the
darkness of the water beneath, by the shadows they flung over its
surface. At the eastern part, and where the pines in that direction
ended, there seemed to have fallen down a large portion of the
superincumbent bank, whereby there was formed a species of island, whose
nearer edge might be about ten feet from the bank from which it had been
severed.
On this insular spot, which was now accessible from the mainland by
means of two pine trunks thrown across and wattled together, lived the
extraordinary individual whose form and habits had, in the conversation
of the two speakers, been, in a partial manner, described. The small
domicile he had reared for himself was entirely composed of materials
supplied by the chasm in which it was situated, and constructed in the
rudest manner of a self-taught artist, whose object was to shield
himself from the inclemency of the weather, without any view to
comforts, which he either despised, or deemed it unsafe or improper to
indulge. It was, indeed, a mere rough shieling, with four walls,
composed of rubble stones, mixed with--what probably excited more wonder
than all the other supernatural attributes of the place, and the being
himself--a due proportion of bones, collected from the cemetery of the
family of Falconcleugh House, which had, on some disruption of the sides
of the chasm, been laid open on its western side. The roof was supported
by one or two rough trunks of pines, thrown in a slanting direction
across, and composed of small twigs and leaves, wattled and compressed
in such a manner as to save the inmate from a part, at least, of
heaven's more profuse inundations.