THE GUISARDS.
O mother, thus to fret is vain--
My loss must needs be borne;
Death, death is now mine only gain--
Would I had ne'er been born.
God's mercies cease to flow--
Woe to me, poor one, woe!
BURGER'S LEONORA.
Walter had now been absent many weeks, and the constant fears
expressed by Lady Grisel, with all the querulous and tedious
prolixity of age, in no way tended to soothe the anxiety of Lilian.
She was excessively superstitious, though guileless, kind, and
simple, and daily saw terrible omens of impending ill. Black corbies
flapped their wings incessantly on the steep gables, and the
dead-bell was never done ringing in the cranies of the old house.
Strange sounds rumbled behind the wainscoting, shrouds guttered in
the candles, coffins fell out of the embers, and the indefatigable
death-watch rang the live-long night in the recesses of her old
tester bed. Her kindly-meant, but ominous insinuations, and her
dreams of stricken fields and riderless horses, nearly drove Lilian
to distraction, while old Elsie Elshender, who had been admitted to
her confidence, failed not to make matters worse by shaking her
palsied head mysteriously, and saying--
"It boded ill-luck to be betrothit wi' a dead woman's ring."
So passed the first weeks of their separation in tears and dark
forboding, save when Lilian was with Annie Laurie, whose joyous
buoyancy of spirit banished care and fear together. Of Lord
Clermistonlee she had seen nothing of late, save on one occasion,
when he had followed her from the Abbey porch to the Bowhead; but as
she was attended by Drouthy, the butler, and another liveryman, well
armed with swords, and pistols in their girdles, she was under no
apprehension.
The state of Edinburgh was daily becoming more and more alarming.
As yet there had been no tidings of William's landing; but his
friends were on the alert. Under Sir George Munro, a strong division
of militia occupied the city; but on the march of the regular troops,
these failed to prevent the disaffected from making the capital the
focus of their operations. No sooner had the Scottish army crossed
the borders, than the Presbyterians, and all revolutionary spirits,
crowded to Edinburgh well armed, and there held secret and seditious
meetings, which were attended by the Earls of Dundonald, Crauford,
Glencairn, and others.
The subtle Mersington, the proud Earl of Perth, the reckless Lord
Clermistonlee, and others of the haughty council, were made aware of
all this by their numerous spies; but the formidable tribunal which
had so long ruled the land by the sword and gibbet, was now
completely paralysed by the appearance of many "sulky blue bonnets"
crowding the streets; they failed to arrest a single individual,
though treason, like a hundred-headed hydra, stalked in daylight
through their thoroughfares, and declaimed in their public places.
The lords had no tidings of events in the south; all their dispatches
from the King being effectually intercepted by Sir James Montgomery,
a revolutionist.
And now came hoary Christmas; but it seemed not as of old. It was a
dreary one to poor Lilian; and the forebodings that hung over bolder
hearts, chilled hers with apprehension. Old Arthur's bare ridge and
rocky cone, the great chain of the Pentlands, and all the lesser
hills that lie around them, were mantled with shining snow; the deep
glens were impassable, and many flocks had perished in them. The
cold norlan blast howled over the bleak Burghmuir, then a wide and
frozen heath, save where, in some places, a venerable oak spread its
glistening branches in the sparkling air. Above the lofty city to
the north, that towered afar off on its ridgy hill, the dun smoke of
a myriad winter fires ascended into the clear mid-air, and overhung
its spires and fortress like a thunder-cloud, portentious of the
storm that was brewing among its denizens. The great loch of the
burgh lay frozen like a sheet of shining crystal; and there a few
jovial curlers, forgetful of the desperate game of politics, shot the
ponderous stones along their slippery rinks.
The great Yule-logs crackled and blazed merrily, as in other days, in
the wide stone fire-place of the dining-hall, and old familiar
objects and beloved faces glowed in its light; but Lilian's heart and
thoughts were far away, and she seemed wholly intent on watching the
sparks as they flew up the broad-tunnelled chimney.
The eve of Christmas was dark and gloomy. The moon was enveloped in
clouds, and not a star was visible; but the frozen snow that covered
the whole ground gave, by its whiteness, a reflected light. The
hollow wind blustered in the bare copsewood and rumbled in the
chimnies, and a very social but hum-drum party of old friends formed
a circle round the fire-place in the chamber-of-dais.
Old Lady Grisel occupied her great-cushioned chair, with her
spinning-wheel on one hand, and her cup of milk posset on a tripod
table at the other. The neighbouring Laird of Drumdryan, a plain,
hard-featured man, in an unlaced coat and hideous wig; Sir Thomas
Dalyell, in a gala suit of laced buff, rather cross and irritable
with a lumbago contracted in Muscovy; and the dowager Lady
Drumsturdy, all stomacher, starch, and black satin, with Mistress
Priscilla, her daughter and exact counterpart, occupied the
foreground; while honest Syme of the Greenhill, in his plain
hodden-gray coat, a flaming red vest, with ribbed galligaskins rolled
over his knees, and his fat, comely dame, with her serge gown, laced
coif, and bunch of household keys, sat respectfully a little behind.
While the two lairds were accommodated with silver tankards, which
Mr. Drouthy replenished again and again with the burnt sack, then so
much in vogue, the bluff ground baillie, in virtue of his humbler
station, drank nut-brown ale from plain pewter. Every thing in the
apartment was trimmed with green holly branches, and a mistletoe
bough hung from the great dormont-tree of the ceiling, under which
the long-bearded old cavalier saluted Lady Grisel's faded cheek with
much good humour and courtesy.
"Yes, Simeon, it was the case," continued the latter, who was engaged
in some prosy reminiscence of King Charles the First's days. "A
fiery dragon _was_ seen in the west, and it flew owre the Muirfute
hills, towards the castle of Dunbar; and, that day month, a mournful
field was fought and lost there."
"I weel mind the time, your ladyship," replied Simeon, scratching his
galligaskins where he had received a thrust from a Puritan's pike;
"but the fleeing dragon, wi' its fiery tail, was thought to
portend----"
"Just such things, Simeon, as the bright lights in the north hae
portended this month past. And ye ken, Sir Thomas, that the
miraculous shower of Highland bannets whilk preceded the irruption of
the ill-faured Redshanks into the west, in the December of '84, was
another wonderful and terrible omen."
"True, Lady Grisel," replied Dalyell, taking a sip from his tankard;
"but ane partaking owre mickle o' the leaven o' the auld Covenant
(d--n it!) for an auld cavalier like myself to believe; unless auld
Mahoud was the merchant that made sae free wi' his gear. He has owre
lang been poking his neb in our Scottish affairs."
"O' which my late lord (rest him!) had most ocular proof," said Lady
Drumsturdy, in a low impressive voice--"when he saw him, wi' horns
and tail, dancing on the walls o' Blackness, in the hoar o' its
upblawin', in the year 1652."*
* See Nicol's _Diary_.
"Cocksnails!" muttered Drumdryan, "here's the snow coming down the
lum," and he shook the flakes from his wig.
"You are sitting owre far ben the ingle, laird."
"We'll hae a storm this night, sirs," said Simeon. "I ken by the
sough o' the norlan wind--its gey driech and eerie."
"'Sdeath! I hope not," said Drumdryan. "I've a score o' braw
bell-wethers owre the muir at the Buckstane; and I lost enough at
Martinmas-tide, when twa hundred black faces were smoored in the Glen
o' Braid."
"And there has been no word from England since the snow fell--six
weeks?" said Lilian sighing.
"Some say the roads are deep, sweet mistress," said General Dalyell;
"and others say the Orangemen are deeper: but the deil a scrap hath
reached the Council since that rinawa' loon Craigdarroch arrived; and
gude kens wha's hand maybe strongest by this time. But God bless the
King and the gude auld cause!" continued the old cavalier, draining
his tankard.
Drumdryan did the same, adding cautiously,--"The King, whae'er he be!"
"Out upon ye, Laird!" exclaimed Lady Grisel with great asperity.
"Wha could he be but his sacred Majesty King James VII., whom I pray
the blessed God to counsel wisely and protect."
"'Live and let live' has ever been my maxim, Lady Grisel; but such
words may cost ye dear, if the next news frae Berwick be such as I
expect," replied the sly laird, drinking with quiet composure.
Rage bristled in every hair of Dalyell's beard, and his eyes
glistened like those of a rattlesnake. He could not speak; but the
old lady, whose loyalty, fostered by that of the umquhile baronet,
was tickled by these observations, brought her chair sharply round,
and, striking her long cane emphatically on the floor, said to the
shrinking delinquent--
"Shame on ye, Drumdryan!--is your blood turning to water, or what?
Gif ye expect bad tidings, it is time that ye donned your buff coat
and bandoliers, and had your steed in stall wi' garnissing and
holsters. And mair let me tell thee, Sir Laird----but what is that I
hear?--singing and mumming, eh? What is it, Simeon?"
"Guisards!" exclaimed Lilian, looking from the window down the
snow-covered avenue--"guisards with links glinting and ribbons
flaunting. A braw band, in sooth!"
At that moment a faint but merry chorus was heard upon the night wind
that rumbled in the wide stone chimney, and a loud knocking rung on
the barbican gate.
"Drouthy," said Lady Grisel, "away with ye to the buttery, and get
some cogues of ale ready for the loons; and bid Elsie prepare some
farls of bannock and cheese, while John the gardener lets them into
the barbican, where we will hear them sing. Let twa men keep the
door with partisans, that none may cross our threshold. In my time I
heard of some foul treachery done by masked faces. Wow but the
knaves are impatient," she added, as the knocking was energetically
renewed at the outer gate. "And, Drouthy, d'ye hear, take a gude
survey of them through the vizzy-hole."
The butler trotted off.
"Lady Grisel," said the General, rubbing his hands, "ye speak like a
prudent dame; and a usefu' helpmate meet Sir Archibald maun hae found
ye, for he saw hot work in his time."
"Kittle times mak' cautious folk," said the malecontent Drumdryan
slowly; "but wi' a that, General, had I feared snow, my braw
bell-wethers----"
"D--n you, and your bell-wethers to boot!" growled the fierce old
Royalist. "Here come the guisards," and, save him, all rushed to the
windows; the veteran cavalier, whose lumbago chained him to his
bolstered chair, fidgetted and stroked his beard with a most vinegar
expression of face.
Lilian clapped her hands with delight at the merry scene below.
From time immemorial, it has been the custom in Scotland for young
people of the lower class, in the evenings of the last days of the
old year, to go about from house to house in their neighbourhood,
disguised in fantastic dresses, whence their name, guisards. The
usual practice was to present them with refreshment; but that custom
has departed with the other hospitalities of the olden time. They
dance and sing a doggrel rhyme, adapted to the occasion or the person
they visit; but, while the Catholic faith was the established one of
Scotland, in their songs, the guisards were wont to proclaim the
birth of Christ and the approach of the three kings who were to
worship him; and some trace of this ancient religious ditty was
discernible in the song sung by the visitors at Bruntisfield.
There were ten or more men, all stout, athletic fellows, each bearing
a blazing torch, the united lustre of which lit up the deepest
recesses of the old façade, under which they performed a fantastic
morrice dance to their own music. They were all furnished with
enormous masks, of the most grotesque fashion; from these rose
head-dresses like sugar-loaves, covered with belis, beads, and pieces
of mirror. Their attire was equally _outré_.
One was clad in the skin of a cow, having its horns fixed to the
crown of his head, and the long tail trailing behind him in the snow.
Another was furnished with an enormous nose, from which ever and anon
a red carbuncle exploded with a loud report; and a third had nearly
his whole body encased in an enormous head, which had a face
expressive of the most exquisite drollery. Under this prodigious
caput the diminished legs appeared to totter, while the jaunty
waggery of its aspect was increased by a little hat and feather which
surmounted it.
But the principal figure was a tall, fierce, and brawny, but very
graceful man, clad in a fantastic robe of scarlet, with his legs
curiously cased in shining metal scales: he had a black face of
dreadful aspect, from three hideous red gashes, in which the blood
was constantly dropping. He wore a crown of green ivy-leaves and
scarlet hollyberries, wreathed among the sable masses of a voluminous
beard and shock head of coarse hair. Through the openings of his
scarlet robe, close observers might have observed a corslet glint at
times. All were accoutred with swords and daggers.
Dancing in front, the red masker brandished his sputtering torch, and
chanted in a deep bass voice the following rhyme:
"Trip and goe, heave and hoe,
Up and down, and to and fro;
By firth and fell, by tower and grove,
Merrily, merrily let us rove!"
Then the whole choristers struck in while whirling round, they
brandished their torches and jangled their bells.
"Hogmenay! Hogmenay!
Trois Rois la! Homme est ne!
Never before had so droll and jovial a band of guisards been seen;
and Lady Grisel, preceding all her guests, came cane in hand to the
doorway to see their grotesque morrice-dance, and listen to their
rhymes; and while the servitors were busy regaling them with ale,
cheese, and bannocks, Lilian brought a cup of wine, which, in
courtesy, she tendered to their leader. As he approached, she could
not repress a shudder, so formidable was his aspect--so tall his
stature--so large and dark the eyes with which he regarded her
through that terrible mask, down the gaping lips of which he poured
the ruddy Burgundy, and again tendered the cup to the fair Hebe who
brought it.
As Lilian received it, his strong arm was thrown around her.
"_Homme est ne!_" he shouted, in a voice like a trumpet. There was a
confused discharge of pistols--swords were seen to flash, and in an
instant all the torches were extinguished. There was a stifled
shriek; and the whole party were seen rushing down the avenue,
leaving the barbican gate locked behind them.
"Clermistonlee!" exclaimed Lady Grisel, and swooned away in the arms
of her people.
"Boot and saddle!--Horse and spear!--Ride and rescue!" exclaimed old
Dalyell, forgetful of his lumbago and everything but the danger of
Lilian. Rushing to the hall, no readier weapon than the poker was at
hand; but, alas! it was chained to the stone pillar of the
chimney-piece. Shrieks and outcries filled the mansion. Old Simeon
the baillie, John Leekie the gardener, and others, snatched such
weapons as came to hand; and, headed by Dalyell, who was now armed
with his great Muscovite sabre, sallied forth to find themselves
_within_ the barbican, the strong iron gate of which defied all their
attempts. The fierce old soldier rent his beard, and swore some
terrible oaths in the Tartar, Russ, and Scottish tongues, till
ladders were procured and the walls scaled.
They rushed down the avenue to find only the traces of many feet in
the snow, the extinguished torches strewn about, the marks of
horse-hoofs and coach-wheels, which, instead of going towards the
city, wound over the Burghmuir towards the Castle of Merchiston; and,
after many turnings and windings--made evidently to mislead pursuers,
were lost altogether among the soft furzy heath at the Harestone, the
standard-stone of the old Scottish muster-place.