and stiff as the poker. I maun get on the kettle and heat some water to
thaw the snaw aff him."
"Na, na," cried James, "that wad mak him waur, woman. Rin ye to the door
and get a gowpen o' snaw, and rub his hands wi' _it_ and a rough clout
time aboot, and sprinkle some cauld water in his face, and he'll may be
sune come till himsel again."
"Jamie," said the guidwife, in a tone of gentle remonstrance, "the lad's
gotten owre muckle snaw and cauld water already; that's just what's the
matter wi' him. I maun hae up the fire and get something warm till 'im."
"Ye're haverin, Nanny," said James, who was too much agitated to be
respectful. "Gang ye and get the snaw, I tell ye; for ye understand
naething o' the matter."
"Aweel, aweel, then," said Nanny, "ye hae mair skill o' doctory than me,
Jamie; but it's a very unnatural-like cure, to rub cauld snaw on a man
perishin' wi' the cauld."
Nanny got the snow, and commenced the operation with great activity,
while James reached his hand to a pitcher which was standing near, and
sprinkled a few drops of water in the stranger's face. He soon began to
show some symptoms of returning animation, and James earnestly
inquired--
"How are ye yet? Are ye better noo?"
After a considerable pause, the stranger replied, as if the question had
only then reached him--
"I'm better now, I thank you!"
"God be praised that it's sae!" said James. "Gie him a drink, Nanny,
woman, and he'll be a' richt in a wee again."
Nanny brought some water, and, while she was endeavouring to pour it
into the stranger's mouth, James got a full view of his face, and cried
out--
"He's the very young gentleman that I cam doon the hill wi' this
afternoon. Dear me, what a nicht he's had, wanderin amang the drift sin
yon time!"
"He's a bonny laddie at ony rate," said Nanny, looking close into his
face, "Ye'll no grudge to let him get some heat noo, Jamie. Help me aff
wi' his coat and his shoon; and we'll just coup him inowre in oor ain
warm bed, here."
"That's weel thocht on," said James. "I canna say but ye hae sometimes a
gliffin o' sense aboot ye, Nanny."
The stranger soon recovered so far as to be able to put off his own
clothes; and though he remonstrated strongly against taking possession
of the honest couple's bed, they would not be resisted in their
kindness; and he was obliged to comply. Nanny now took the management of
the patient wholly into her own hands; and, as she had all her life
considered heat the only remedy for a man perishing with cold, she began
to make preparations for applying her own cure. She stirred the fire,
supplied it with fresh fuel, laid a brick across it on each side, and
placed a panful of water between them. She then took James's leather
apron, and folded it so as to form a substitute for a fan; and with it
she blew the slumbering embers into flaming activity. In a very short
time the bricks were _red_, and the water boiling hot. The former were
immersed in water, and then wrapped up in flannel, and laid to the
stranger's feet and breast; the latter was converted into gruel, which,
though not very thirsty, he drank with a very good appetite--having
missed his supper that night on the hill.
"Noo, sir," said Nanny, "ye maun just lie doon and try if ye can get a
gloffen o' sleep; for I'll warrant ye're baith tired and drowsy, after
sic a wrastle amang the snaw. Gin ye want onything, Jamie and me'll just
be sittin at the ingle here; but we'll mak nae din to disturb ye."
Thus heated within and without, the stranger soon lost all recollection
of his wanderings, in a deep and refreshing sleep.
"The storm without micht rair and rustle,
_He_ didna mind the storm a whustle."
James betook himself to his old companion, Josephus; and Nanny sat down
by the other side of the fire, and resumed her evening's employment,
which had been the knitting of a pair of stockings for the guidman. She
now felt all a mother's anxiety for the comfort of the stranger; and she
frequently rose and peeped into the bed, to see how he rested; then
returned to her husband, with a smile, and whispered into his ear--
"The lad's sleepin as sound as a tap, yet."
The night passed away; and by the time that daylight dawned down the
_lum_--the little windows being drifted up with the snow--Nanny had
prepared a warm breakfast for the stranger, the guidman, and herself. It
consisted of oatmeal porridge, served up in two wooden platters, with a
jugful of milk and three horn spoons set down on the table between them.
Nanny now awakened the stranger by asking how he had rested. She then
took his clothes, which had been carefully dried and warmed before the
fire; and, handing them into the bed, which had to serve the purpose of
a dressing-room also, she closed the lids--remarking, that "the parritch
was ready; and it wad be better to sup them afore they got owre cauld."
The stranger dressed, and took a seat beside his kind entertainers.
James asked a blessing, apologised for the coarseness of the fare, and
despatched his portion of the repast in shorter time than a fashionable
eater would take to stir about his coffee and crack the shell of his
egg. It occurred to Nanny that she might make the porridge more
agreeable to the stranger's delicate taste, by giving him cream, instead
of milk, to sup them with. She accordingly brought her evening's
_meltith_, and skimmed it into his dish, remarking, at the same time--
"Ye'll no like oor coorse way o' livin, sir; but hunger's guid kitchen,
they say, and that's no ill sap, I think, for it was just drawn frae the
coo yestreen." The stranger assured her that he liked the dish
exceedingly well; and Nanny added--"Ye'll be used to drappies o' tea, I
warrant; but we haena had ootower twa brewins i' the hoose sin we were
married; and, though a wee sirple o't may do brawly when the sap's
scarce, yet I aye thocht that it was an unco feckless sort o' a diet,
for a manbody especially."
After breakfast, the young student (for such was the stranger) gave his
entertainers an account of his wildered wanderings on the hill, as we
have already narrated them; and James explained all the mysteries which
he had met to his entire satisfaction. We shall only give his exposition
of the last; namely, the fearful minglings of sounds which had alarmed
him so much when he approached the lake. These were occasioned by the
breaking up of the ice, which, driven ashore in innumerable fragments by
the wind, rose and fell with every wave, making a confused tinkling,
like the ringing of a thousand little bells.
The storm had now abated; and, though the roads in many places were
entirely blocked up, by keeping along the high ground it was possible
for a person on foot to pursue his journey. The stranger, who was
travelling to the College of St. Andrews, prepared to depart. He offered
Nanny such a sum of money as he could spare, in acknowledgement of her
kindness; but she refused it.
"Na, sir!" said she, "we'll hae nae reward. Only look what a dad o' a
stockin I've wrocht, that wadna been wrocht gin ye hadna been here; and
the guidman's gotten as muckle lear oot o' that auld book, as may ser'
him for a twalmonth to crack aboot; sae, ye see, we hae made some profit
o' yer visit, forby a' the pleasure o' yer company."
James also refused money; and still further enhanced his kindness, by
accompanying the stranger to the top of the hill, where he gave him the
best directions with respect to the road, and bade him an affectionate
farewell.
Many years after this, a medical student from the neighbourhood was
attending the lectures of the celebrated Dr. B---- of Edinburgh, who one
evening intimated a desire to speak with him after the class was
dismissed. He accordingly waited, and the doctor opened the conversation
by inquiring if he knew an individual of the name of James W----, who
lived near the village of Lindores. He was answered in the affirmative.
"Well," said the doctor, "I owe my life to the exertions of that old man
and his wife; and I received my first lessons in medical science from
them. When I was a student at the College of St. Andrews, I lost my way
among the hills, and was nearly smothered among the snow. I at last
discovered their cottage, and was kindly admitted. Like all good knights
of _misventure_, I fainted and fell down upon the floor. James and his
wife held a consultation over me, and I afterwards came to learn that
even here 'doctors differed.' James was an Emperic, and argued from
experience, or experiment, that cold water and friction was the best
remedy for numbed fingers. Nanny adhered to the Dogmatics, and inferred,
from reason and nature, that heat was the best application for driving
away cold.
"Thus Epilogism and Dogmatism contended in the mouths of people who had
probably never heard of the names of Aristotle and Plato in their lives.
But, in my case, both the systems were adopted with advantage. I was
resuscitated by the empiric with cold, and recovered by the theorist
with heat. And, what is more wonderful still, my kind physicians, unlike
all other members of the profession, refused to take any fee. But they
are not forgotten. They cast their bread upon the water, and they shall
find it again after many days."
We shall only add, that in a short time after this James received an
elegant silver-mounted snuff-box, bearing the following
inscription:--"From Dr B---- to James W----. 'I was a stranger, and ye
took me in.'"
Nanny at the same time received a more useful present; and both rejoiced
that they had once possessed an opportunity of being useful to a man
whose genius had made him an honour to his country, and an ornament to
the profession to which he belonged.
THE CROOKED COMYN.
Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, one of the "three Comyns," all earls,
who, in the minority of Alexander III., possessed so much power in
Scotland as to be able to oppose all the other nobility together, was a
very remarkable man. Of low stature, deformed in his person, dark in his
complexion, of gigantic strength--he possessed the spirit of a lion with
the subtlety of a fox. Neither in the planning nor the executing of a
political scheme could any man in Scotland or England cope with him. He
made his two brothers, and the thirty-three knights who joined him
against the measures of the English regency, his puppets, allowing them
no will of their own, but subjugating them entirely to his direction. He
could read the human countenance even of a courtier of Henry III. of
England as easily as he could do the court hand of the clerks of his
time; and, to complete his character, he so falsified the muscles of his
face, by mixing up smiles and frowns in such a thorough confusion of
activity and change, that no one could tell his thoughts or his
feelings.
His wife, the countess, was directly the reverse of her husband. Tall in
her person, handsomely formed, with graceful movements and accomplished
manners, she was accounted open-hearted, good-humoured, approaching to
simplicity, destitute of all guile and deceit. Her countenance wore a
continual smile, and was so open and ingenuous, that it might be read
like the page of a book. The best proof of her goodness was the kindness
she exhibited to the deformed partner of her life. She boasted--and he
admitted--that she was the only person who could read him, not from her
powers of penetration, but from his yielding relaxation of the deceptive
discipline of his face and manners. He often remarked that it was
fortunate for him that his Countess Margaret was so much of a child; for
he felt and acknowledged that it was only in the presence of children
that he considered himself safe in throwing off his disguise, and
appearing for a time in his natural character. Such are the effects of
ambition.
A legend saith that, on one occasion, the following conversation took
place between these dissimilar yet well-mated companions--
"Wert thou not so simple, fair Margaret," said the earl, "I would
suspect thou hadst no great affection for him whom King Henry calleth
the 'Crooked Comyn.' Men may love me for my subtlety and power, from
interest; my brothers because I am their brother, from instinct; and my
wolf-dog, Grim, because I join him in the chase. Now, to gratify my
humour for frolic on this night when I think I have overturned the power
of the English regent, tell me what thou lovest me for, good simpleton;
for I cannot doubt that simpletons have their fancies like other folks;
and, if thou dost not love me, why hast thou prepared for me, even now
on this night of my triumph, that cup of warm milk curdled with sack
which thou callest a posset? I asked it not of thee, and love must have
suggested it."
"What should I love my Walter for," replied Countess Margaret, "but his
noble qualities, placed in a person the defects of which, as he states
them, I cannot see? Custom hath made thee straight, and love hath
embellished both thy mind and body; but, above all, I love thee because
thou lovest me; for it is an old saying in our cottage, that love begets
love, and"--patting him playfully on the cheek--"my heart must have been
barren indeed, if, after ten years of thy wooing, it produced no more
affection than was able to prepare for thee a posset of milk and sack on
the evening of the day of thy triumph."
"Thou hast made a good turn of the subject, simpleton," said Comyn. "If
I beat my political opponents during the day, thou worstest me at night
by thy ingenious pleasantry. Thou conquerest even nature's twists and
torsels, for my crooked mind and deformed body become straight under the
soft ministration of thy simple manners. I cannot help sometimes
thinking that, if it had been thy fate to be wedded to such a fair piece
of nature's handiwork as the English baron, John Russel, who banqueted
with us yesterday--a thing of red and white pigment--an automaton
mannerist, without a mind--every woman's slave, and never his own
master--thy simplicity would have lost its power, for, having no foil,
it would have merged into the idiocy of thy husband, and you would have
become a pair of quarrelsome simpletons."
"And if thou hadst got a wife," answered Countess Margaret, smiling, "as
deep and subtle as thyself, the charm thou hast for me--thy mental
superiority--would have been lost, for want of a foil; but thou wert too
clever to fall into that snare, and didst avoid artful and knowing
women, though beautiful, as anxiously as I, if I were still unmarried,
would avoid that fair painted Jackalent thou hast mentioned, the English
baron, John Russel. Sheep, thou knowest often fight, and get entangled
in each other's horns. They are then an easy prey to the wolves. I would
not give my 'Crooked Comyn' for all the Russels of England."
"Thy rattle pleaseth me, sweet Margaret," said Comyn. "But how is this?
I feel ill. What can ail Comyn on the night of his day of triumph? These
pains rack me. So sudden an attack! These are not usual feelings that
now assail me."
"Ill in the midst of health!" cried Countess Margaret. "What meaneth
this!--where is the complaint? Speak, dear husband! tell thy devoted
wife what may enable her to yield thee relief."
"A burning pain wringeth my heart," replied Comyn, with an expression of
agony, "and unmanneth a soul that never knew subjugation; that is to me
the only symptom of danger. When Comyn trembleth, death cannot be far
distant."
"Thou alarmest me, dear husband," cried Countess Margaret; "speak not in
such ominous terms of what I could not survive one solitary moon. What
can I minister to thee?"
"Water, water from the icy springs of Lapland!" cried the frantic earl;
"yet the frozen sea will not quench this burning fire! What availeth now
the wiles, the subtlety, the courage of Scotland's proudest earl? I
never was master or director of such pains as these. Death! how
successfully dost thou earn thy reputation of being the grim king!
Water, beloved Margaret, for this miniature hell!"
"It is here, good heart," cried Countess Margaret. "God bless its
efficacy!--drink."
"It is as nothing," cried Comyn, after swallowing the contents of the
cup. "It is as nothing--these tormina laugh at the puny quencher of
fires fiercer than those of Gehenna. I must submit. Thou wilt have no
terce from my earldom, wherein I am not yet feudally seised. Alas! shall
my innocent be left terceless--a beggar--the dependant of my brothers?
'Sdeath, this is worse than these scorching fires! Call the clerk of St
John's--quick."
The countess flow out of the room, and in a short time returned with the
clerical lawyer.
"Attend, sir," cried Comyn. "Thou seest one in the hands of death;
prepare, with the greatest speed of thy quill, a liferent disposition of
my whole earldom in favour of Countess Margaret, my wife. I shall then
confess to thee, and thou shalt pray for me."
"The liferent disposition I shall make out," replied the clerk of St
John's; "for Comyn's commands must be obeyed. But I, in behalf of the
holy brethren of our order, must tell thee, noble earl, that our prayers
can be of little avail if they are limited, in point of time, to the
period of thy sojourn on earth. Thy mausoleum must be lighted for ten
years with wax tapers, a thousand masses must be said for thy soul, and
a pilgrimage to the Holy Land must be performed, ere we can hope to
bring thee out of purgatory. If thou leavest the liferent of thy earldom
to Countess Margaret--the fee going to thy eldest brother as heir--what
is to pay the monks of St John for all their labours, in thus
endeavouring to free thee from the pains of that temporary place of
punishment?"
"No purgatory can equal these pains, man," cried the earl. "Thou shalt
have my earldom this instant for one hour's relief from this hell-fire."
"Why, good priest," said the lady, "canst thou thus talk of worldly
possessions to one in such agony? While I am thus ministering to the
body, it would better become thee to minister to the soul, while it is
still in its earthly tabernacle. I, his dear wife, asked for no
liferent, and yet thou requirest a mortification."
"It is for his own sake," said the priest, "that I have recommended the
provision of the means for saving his soul. We are not bees, to produce
wax for tapers; nor birds of paradise, to fly from hence to Jerusalem,
and sit on the holy shrine, without being fed as other birds; nor are we
canonised saints, requiring no meat nor drink. We must live, or we
cannot pray. Wilt _thou_, madam, give up a half of thy liferent, to aid
in the redemption of the soul thou lovest so ardently?"
"Thou hast heard my lord's commands," rejoined the lady. "I cannot allow
my mind to be occupied at present with thoughts of that contemptible
trash thou callest gold. What is all the earldom of the Comyns to the
preservation of the life of my dear husband?--Walter, dear Walter! what
can be done for thee?"
"The priest hath already my commands," answered the earl. "The
parchment!--the parchment!--and--and--water--water!"
"Hie thee away to thy work, good monk," cried the lady. "There's no time
for parley. Away. Thou seest that _I_ deny him not his request."
"Water costeth little," said the priest, with a smile of suspicion, "and
availeth little either to assuage these pains or those of purgatory."
The priest retired, and in the course of an hour returned, with the deed
extended, and two witnesses at his back. The paper was read. Comyn was
still able to sign it. He attached his name, and in a few minutes
expired.
Thus died that remarkable man. A dark story now arose in Scotland:
Countess Margaret had encouraged a criminal passion for the English
baron, John Russel, and was openly accused of having poisoned her
husband, by means of a posset of milk and sack, to make way for her
paramour, whom she married with indecent haste. Insulted and disgraced,
she and her husband were thrown into prison, despoiled of their estate,
and compelled to leave the kingdom. It was afterwards rumoured in
Scotland that she quarrelled with Russel--who ill-used her, and stood in
continual fear of being treated in the same way as Comyn--and, finally,
drowned herself in the river Thames.
END OF VOL. X