the civil wars. He had been a zealous partizan of the first Charles,
and he fought for the fortunes of his son to the last. He was
present at the battle of Worcester, which Cromwell calls his
"crowning mercy," in the September of 1651, where the already
dispirited royalists were finally routed; and he fought by the side
of the king until the streets were heaped with dead; and when Charles
fled, he, with others, accompanied him to the borders of
Staffordshire.
Having bid the young prince an affectionate farewell, Clennel turned
back, with the intention of proceeding on his journey, on the
following day, to Northumberland, though he was aware, that, from the
part which he had taken in the royal cause, even his person was in
danger. Yet the desire again to behold his wife and daughter
overcame his fears, and the thought of meeting them in some degree
consoled him for the fate of his prince, and the result of the
struggle in which he had been engaged.
But he had not proceeded far when he was met by two men dressed as
soldiers of the Parliamentary army--the one a veteran with grey
hairs, and the other a youth. The shades of night had set in; but
the latter he instantly recognised as a young soldier whom he had
that day wounded in the streets of Worcester.
"Stand!" said the old man, as they met him; and the younger drew his
sword.
"If I stand!" exclaimed Clennel, "it shall not be when an old man and
a boy command me." And, following their example, he unsheathed his
sword.
"Boy!" exclaimed the youth; "whom call ye boy?--think ye, because ye
wounded me this morn, that fortune shall aye sit on your arm?--yield
or try."
They made several thrusts at each other, and the old man, as an
indifferent spectator, stood looking on. But the youth, by a
dexterous blow, shivered the sword in Clennel's hand, and left him at
his mercy.
"Now yield ye," he exclaimed; "the chance is mine now--in the morning
it was thine."
"Ye seem a fair foe," replied Clennel, "and loath am I to yield, but
that I am weaponless."
"Despatch him at once!" growled the old man. "If he spilled your
blood in the morning, there can be no harm in spilling his the
night--and especially after giein' him a fair chance."
"Father," returned the youth, "would ye have me to kill a man in cold
blood?"
"Let him submit to be bound then, hands and eyes, or I will," cried
the senior.
The younger obeyed, and Clennel, finding himself disarmed, submitted
to his fate; and his hands were bound, and his eyes tied up, so that
he knew not where they led him.
After wandering many miles, and having lain upon what appeared the
cold earth for a lodging, he was aroused from a comfortless and
troubled sleep, by a person tearing the bandage from his eyes, and
ordering him to prepare for his trial. He started to his feet. He
looked around, and beheld that he stood in the midst of a gipsy
encampment. He was not a man given to fear, but a sickness came over
his heart when he thought of his wife and daughter, and that, knowing
the character of the people in whose power he was, he should never
behold them again.
The males of the Faa tribe began to assemble in a sort of half circle
in the area of the encampment, and in the midst of them, towering
over the heads of all, he immediately distinguished the tall figure
of Willie Faa, in whom he also discovered the grey-haired
Parliamentary soldier of the previous night. But the youth with whom
he had twice contended and once wounded, and by whom he had been made
prisoner, he was unable to single out amongst them.
He was rudely dragged before them, and Willie Faa cried--"Ken ye the
culprit?"
"Clennel o' Northumberland!--our enemy!" exclaimed twenty voices.
"Yes," continued Willie, "Clennel, our enemy--the burner o' our
humble habitations--that left the auld, the sick, the infirm, and the
helpless, and the infants o' our kindred to perish in the flaming
ruins. Had we burned his house, the punishment would have been
death; and shall we do less to him than he would do to us?"
"No! no!" they exclaimed with one voice.
"But," added Willie, "though he would have disgraced us wi' a
gallows, as he has been a soldier, I propose that he hae the honour
o' a soldier's death, and that Harry Faa be appointed to shoot him."
"All! all! all!" was the cry.
"He shall die with the setting sun," said Willie, and again they
cried, "Agreed!"
Such was the form of trial which Clennel underwent, when he was again
rudely dragged away, and placed in a tent round which four strong
Faas kept guard. He had not been alone an hour, when his judge, the
Faa king, entered, and addressed him---
"Now, Laird Clennel, say ye that I haena lived to see day about wi'
ye. When ye turned me frae beneath your roof, when the drift was
fierce and the wind howled in the moors, was it not tauld to ye that
_ye would rue it!_--but ye mocked the admonition and the threat, and,
after that, cruelly burned us out o' house and ha'. When I came
hame, I saw my auld mother, that was within three years o' a hunder,
couring ower the reeking ruins, without a wa' to shelter her, and
crooning curses on the doer o' the black deed. There were my
youngest bairns, too, crouching by their granny's side, starving wi'
hunger as weel as wi' cauld, for ye had burned a', and haudin' their
bits o' hands before the burnin' ruins o' the house that they were
born in, to warm them! That night I vowed vengeance on you; and even
on that night I would have executed it, but I was prevented; and glad
am I now that I was prevented, for my vengeance has been complete--or
a' but complete. Wi' my ain hand I snatched your son and heir from
his mother's side, and a terrible chase I had for it; but revenge
lent me baith strength and speed. And when ye had anither bairn that
was like to live, I forced a lassie, that some o' our folk had stolen
when an infant, to bring it to us. Ye have got your daughter back
again, but no before she has cost ye mony a sad heart and mony a saut
tear; and that was some revenge. But the substance o' my
satisfaction and revenge lies in what I hae to tell ye. Ye die this
night as the sun gaes down; and, hearken to me now--the young soldier
whom ye wounded on the streets o' Worcester, and who last night made
you prisoner, was your son--your heir--your lost son! Ha!
ha!--Clennel, am I revenged?"
"My son!" screamed the prisoner--"monster, what is it that ye say?
Strike me dead, now I am in your power--but torment me not!"
"Ha! ha! ha!" again laughed the grey-haired savage--"man, ye are
about to die, and ye know not that ye are born. Ye have not heard
half I have to tell. I heard that ye had joined the standard o' King
Charles. I, a king in my ain right, care for neither your king nor
parliament; but I resolved to wear, for a time, the cloth o' old
Noll, and to make your son do the same, that I might hae an
opportunity o' meeting you as an enemy, and seeing _him_ strike you
to the heart. That satisfaction I had not; but I had its equivalent.
Yesterday, I saw you shed his blood on the streets o' Worcester, and
in the evening he gave you a prisoner into my hands that desired you."
"Grey-haired monster!" exclaimed Clennel, "have ye no feeling--no
heart? Speak ye to torment me, or tell me truly, have I seen my son?"
"Patience, man!" said the Faa, with a smile of sardonic triumph--"my
story is but half finished. It was the blood o' your son ye shed
yesterday at Worcester--it was your son who disarmed ye, and gave ye
into my power; and best o' a'! now, hear me! hear me! lose not a
word!--it is the hand o' your son that this night, at sunset, shall
send you to eternity! Now, tell me, Clennel, am I no revenged? Do
ye no rue it?"
"Wretch! wretch!" cried the miserable parent, "in mercy strike me
dead. If I have raised my sword against my son, let that suffice
ye!--but spare, oh, spare my child from being an involuntary
parricide!"
"Hush, fool!" said the Faa; "I have waited for this consummation o'
my revenge for twenty years, and think ye that I will be deprived o'
it now by a few whining words? Remember, sunset!" he added, and left
the tent.
Evening came, and the disk of the sun began to disappear behind the
western hills. Men and women, the old and the young, amongst the
Faas, came out from their encampment to behold the death of their
enemy. Clennel was brought forth between two, his hands fastened to
his sides, and a bandage round his mouth, to prevent him making
himself known to his executioner. A rope was also brought round his
body, and he was tied to the trunk of an old ash tree. The women of
the tribe began a sort of yell or coronach; and their king, stepping
forward, and smiling savagely in the face of his victim, cried aloud--
"Harry Faa! stand forth and perform the duty your tribe have imposed
on you."
A young man, reluctantly, and with a slow and trembling step, issued
from one of the tents. He carried a musket in his hand, and placed
himself in front of the prisoner, at about twenty yards from him.
"Make ready!" cried Willie Faa, in a voice like thunder. And the
youth, though his hands shook, levelled the musket at his victim.
But, at that moment, one who, to appearance, seemed a maniac, sprang
from a clump of whins behind the ash tree where the prisoner was
bound, and, throwing herself before him, she cried--"Hold!--would you
murder your own father? Harry Clennel!--would you murder your
father? Mind ye not when ye was stolen frae your mother's side, as
ye gathered wild flowers in the wood?"
It was Elspeth Faa.
The musket dropped from the hands of the intended executioner--a
thousand recollections, that he had often fancied dreams, rushed
across his memory. He again seized the musket, he rushed forward to
his father, but, ere he reached, Elspeth had cut the cords that bound
the laird, and placed a dagger in his hand for his defence, and, with
extended arms, he flew to meet the youth, crying--"My son!--my son!"
The old Faa king shook with rage and disappointment, and his first
impulse was to poniard his wife--but he feared to do so; for although
he had injured her, and had not seen her for years, her influence was
greater with the tribe than his.
"Now, Willie," cried she, addressing him, "wha rues it now? Fareweel
for ance and a'--and the bairn I brought up will find a shelter for
my auld head."
It were vain to tell how Clennel and his son wept on each other's
neck, and how they exchanged forgiveness. But such was the influence
of Elspeth, that they departed from the midst of the Faas unmolested,
and she accompanied them.
Imagination must picture the scene when the long-lost son flung
himself upon the bosom of his mother, and pressed his sister's hand
in his. Clennel Hall rang with the sounds of joy for many days; and,
ere they were ended, Andrew Smith placed a ring upon the finger of
Susan, and they became one flesh--she a respectable woman. And old
Elspeth lived to the age of ninety and seven years beneath its roof.
THE RIVAL NIGHTCAPS.
BY ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
In the neighbourhood of the suburban village of Bridgeton, near
Glasgow, there lived, a good many years ago, a worthy man, and an
excellent weaver, of the name of Thomas Callender, and his wife, a
bustling, active woman, but, if anything, a little of what is called
the randy. We have said that Thomas's occupation was the loom. It
was so; but, be it known, that he was not a mere journeyman
weaver--one who is obliged to toil for the subsistence of the day
that is passing over him, and whose sole dependence is on the labour
of his hands. By no means. Thomas had been all his days, a careful,
thrifty man, and had made his hay while the sun shone;--when wages
were good, he had saved money--as much as could keep him in a small
way, independent of labour, should sickness or any other casualty
render it necessary for him to fall back on his secret resources.
Being, at the time we speak of, however, suffering under no bodily
affliction of any kind, but, on the contrary, being hale and hearty,
and not much past the meridian of life, he continued at his loom,
although, perhaps, not altogether with the perseverance and assiduity
which had distinguished the earlier part of his brilliant career.
The consciousness of independence, and, probably, some slight
preliminary touches from approaching eild, had rather abated the
energy of his exertions; yet Thomas still made a fair week's wage of
it, as matters went. Now, with a portion of the honest wealth which
he had acquired, Mr Callender had built himself a good substantial
tenement--the first floor of which was occupied by looms, which were
let on hire; the second was his own place of residence; and the third
was divided into small domiciles, and let to various tenants. To the
house was attached a small garden, a kail-yard, in which he was wont,
occasionally, to recreate himself with certain botanical and
horticultural pursuits, the latter being specially directed to the
cultivation of greens, cabbages, leeks, and other savoury and useful
pot herbs.
But Thomas's mansion stood not alone in its glory. A rival stood
near. This was the dwelling of Mr John Anderson, in almost every
respect the perfect counterpart of that of Mr Thomas Callender--a
similarity which is in part accounted for by the facts that John was
also a weaver, that he too had made a little money by a life of
industry and economy, and that the house was built by himself. By
what we have just said, then, we have shown, we presume, that Thomas
and John were near neighbours; and, having done so, it follows, of
course, that their wives were near neighbours also; but we beg to
remark, regarding the latter, that it by no means, therefore, follows
that they were friends, or that they had any liking for each other.
The fact, indeed, was quite otherwise. They hated each other with
great cordiality--a hatred in which a feeling of jealousy of each
other's manifestations of wealth, whether in matters relating to
their respective houses or persons, or those of their husbands, was
the principal feature. Any new article of dress which the one was
seen to display, was sure to be immediately repeated, or, if
possible, surpassed by the other; and the same spirit of retaliation
was carried throughout every department of their domestic economy.
Between the husbands, too, there was no great good will; for, besides
being influenced, to a certain extent, in their feelings towards each
other by their wives, they had had a serious difference on their own
account. John Anderson, on evil purpose intent, had once stoned some
ducks of Thomas Callender's out of a dub, situated in the rear of,
and midway between the two houses; claiming said dub for the especial
use of his ducks alone; and, on that occasion, had maimed and
otherwise severely injured a very fine drake, the property of his
neighbour, Thomas Callender. Now, Thomas very naturally resented
this unneighbourly proceeding on the part of John; and, further,
insisted that his ducks had as good a right to the dub as Anderson's.
Anderson denied the justice of this claim; Callender maintained it;
and the consequence was a series of law proceedings, which mulcted
each of them of somewhere about fifty pounds sterling money, and
finally ended in the decision that they should divide the dub between
them in equal portions, which was accordingly done.
The good-will, then, towards each other, between the husbands, was
thus not much greater than between their wives; but, in their case,
of course, it was not marked by any of those outbreaks and overt acts
which distinguished the enmity of their better halves. The dislike
of the former was passive, that of the latter active--most
indefatigably active; for Mrs Anderson was every bit as spirited a
woman as her neighbour, Mrs Callender, and was a dead match for her
in any way she might try.
Thus, then, stood matters between these two rival houses of York and
Lancaster, when Mrs Callender, on looking from one of her windows one
day, observed that the head of her rival's husband, who was at the
moment recreating himself in his garden, was comfortably set off with
a splendid, new striped Kilmarnock nightcap. Now, when Mrs Callender
saw this, and recollected the very shabby, faded article of the same
denomination--"mair like a dish-cloot," as she muttered to herself,
"than onything else"--which her Thomas wore, she determined on
instantly providing him with a new one; resolved, as she also
remarked to herself, not to let the Andersons beat her, even in the
matter of a nightcap. But Mrs Callender not only resolved on
rivalling her neighbour, in the matter of having a new nightcap for
her husband, but in surpassing her in the quality of the said
nightcap. She determined that her "man's" should be a red one; "a
far mair genteeler thing," as she said to herself, "than John
Anderson's vulgar striped Kilmarnock." Having settled this matter to
her own satisfaction, and having dexterously prepared her husband for
the vision of a new nightcap--which she did by urging sundry reasons,
totally different from those under whose influence she really acted,
as she knew that he would never give in to such an absurdity as a
rivalship with his neighbour in the matter of a nightcap: this matter
settled then, we say, the following day saw Mrs Callender sailing
into Glasgow, to purchase a red nightcap for her husband--a mission
which, we need not say, she very easily accomplished. Her choice was
one of the brightest hue she could find--a flaming article, that
absolutely dazzled Thomas with the intensity of its glare, when it
was triumphantly unrolled before him.
"Jenny," said the latter, in perfect simplicity of heart, and utter
ignorance of the true cause of his wife's care of his comfort in the
present instance--"Jenny, but that _is_ a bonny thing," he said,
looking admiringly at the gaudy commodity, into which he had now
thrust his hand and part of his arm, in order to give it all possible
extension, and thus holding it up before him as he spoke.
"Really it _is_ a bonny thing," he replied, "and, I warrant, a
comfortable."
"Isna't?" replied his wife, triumphantly. And she would have added,
"How far prettier and mair genteeler a thing than John Anderson's!"
But as this would have betrayed secrets, she refrained, and merely
added, "Now, my man, Tammas, ye'll just wear't when ye gang about the
doors and the yard. It'll mak' ye look decent and respectable--what
ye wasna in that creeshy cloot that ye're wearin', that made ye look
mair like a tauty bogle than a Christian man."
Thomas merely smiled at these remarks, and made no reply in words.
Thus far, then, Mrs Callender's plot had gone on swimmingly. There
only wanted now her husband's appearance in the garden in his new red
nightcap, where the latter could not but be seen by her rival, to
complete her triumph; and this satisfaction she was not long denied.
Thomas, at her suggestion (warily and cautiously urged, however)
instantly took the field in his new nightcap; and the result was as
complete and decisive as the heart of woman, in Mrs Callender's
circumstances, could desire. Mrs Anderson saw the nightcap, guessed
the cause of its appearance, and resolved to be avenged. In that
moment, when her sight was blasted, her pride humbled, and her
spirits roused, which they were all at one and the same time by the
vision of Thomas Callender's new red nightcap, she resolved on
getting her husband to strike the striped cap, and mount one of
precisely the same description--better, if possible, but she was not
sure if this could be had.
Now, on prevailing on _her_ husband to submit to the acquisition of
another new nightcap, Mrs Anderson had a much more difficult task to
perform than her rival; for the cap that John was already provided
with, unlike Thomas's, was not a week out of the shop, and no earthly
good reason, one would think, could therefore be urged why he should
so soon get another. But what will not woman's wit accomplish?
Anything! As proof of this, if proof were wanted, we need only
mention that Mrs Anderson _did_ succeed in this delicate and
difficult negotiation, and prevailed upon John, first, to allow her
to go into Glasgow to buy him a new red nightcap, and to promise to
wear it when it should be bought. How she accomplished this--what
sort of reasoning she employed--we know not; but certain it is that
it was so. Thus fully warranted, eagerly and cleverly did Mrs
Anderson, on the instant, prepare to execute the mission to which
this warrant referred. In ten minutes she was dressed, and in one
more was on her way to Glasgow, to make the desiderated purchase.
Experiencing of course as little difficulty in effecting this matter
as her rival had done, Mrs Anderson soon found herself in possession
of a red nightcap, as bright, every bit, as Mr Callender's; and this
cap she had the happiness of drawing on the head of her unconscious
husband, who, we need scarcely add, knew as little of the real cause
of his being fitted out with this new piece of head-gear as his
neighbour, Callender.
Thus far, then, with Mrs Anderson too, went the plot of the nightcaps
smoothly; and all that she also now wanted to attain the end she
aimed at, was her husband's appearance in _his_ garden, with his new
acquisition on.
This consummation she also quickly brought round. John sallied out
with his red nightcap; and, oh, joy of joys! Mrs Callender saw it.
Ay, Mrs Callender saw it--at once recognised in it the spirit which
had dictated its display; and deep and deadly was the revenge that
she vowed.
"Becky, Becky!" she exclaimed, in a tone of lofty indignation--and
thus summoning to her presence, from an adjoining apartment, her
daughter, a little girl of about ten years of age--"rin owre dereckly
to Lucky Anderson's and tell her to gie me my jeely can immediately."
And Mrs Callender stamped her foot, grew red in the face, and
exhibited sundry other symptoms of towering passion. Becky instantly
obeyed the order so peremptorily given; and, while she is doing so,
we may throw in a digressive word or two, by the way of more fully
enlightening the reader regarding the turn which matters seemed now
about to take. Be it known to him, then, that the demand for the
jelly pot, which was now about to be made on Mrs Anderson, was not a
_bonâ fide_ proceeding. It was not made in good faith; for Mrs
Callender knew well, and had been told so fifty times, that the said
jelly pot was no longer in existence as a jelly pot; and, moreover,
she had been, as often as she was told this, offered full
compensation, which might be about three farthings sterling money of
this realm, for the demolished commodity. Moreover, again, it was
three years since it had been borrowed. From all this, the reader
will at once perceive what was the fact--that the sending for the
said jelly pot, on the present occasion, and in the way described,
was a mere breaking of ground previous to the performance of some
other contemplated operations. It was, in truth, entirely a tactical
proceeding--a dexterously and ingeniously-laid pretext for a certain
intended measure which could not decently have stood on its own
simple merits. In proof of this, we need only state, that it is
beyond all question that nothing could have disappointed Mrs
Callender more than the return of the desiderated jelly pot. But
this, she knew, she had not to fear, and the result showed that she
was right. The girl shortly came back with the usual reply--that the
pot was broken; but that Mrs Anderson would cheerfully pay the value
of it, if Mrs Callender would say what that was. To the
inexpressible satisfaction of the latter, however, the message, on
this occasion, was accompanied by some impertinences which no woman
of spirit could tamely submit to. She was told, for instance, that
"she made mair noise aboot her paltry, dirty jelly mug, a thousand
times, than it was a' worth," and was ironically, and, we may add,
insultingly entreated, "for ony sake to mak' nae mair wark aboot it,
and a dizzen wad be sent her for't."