[Illustration: ROBERT SCOTT FITTIS]
MEMORIAL VOLUME.
THE MOSSTROOPER.
A LEGEND OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER.
BY ROBERT SCOTT FITTIS.
WITH INTRODUCTORY BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH BY
A. H. MILLAR, F.S.A. (SCOT.).
_A stark, mosstrooping Scott was he,
As e’er couch’d Border lance by knee._
--LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.
_They were all stark mosstroopers and arrant thieves;
both to England and Scotland outlawed; yet sometimes
connived at._
--HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND.
PERTH:
WOOD AND SON, 52 HIGH STREET.
1906.
PREFATORY NOTE.
After the death of my husband, ROBERT SCOTT FITTIS, several of his
friends suggested to me that some of his earlier writings should be
re-published in book form as a MEMORIAL OF THE AUTHOR, especially as
it is now quite impossible to procure them otherwise. For these
reasons I have chosen “The Mosstrooper,” which, although now
re-published here as he revised it in a subsequent edition, was
originally written by my late husband when he was only between sixteen
and seventeen years of age.
I take this public opportunity of thanking Mr. A. H. MILLAR for his
great kindness in writing the very full and accurate biographical
notice which is prefixed to this Memorial Volume.
KATHARINE FITTIS.
89 HIGH STREET,
PERTH, December, 1906.
* * * * *
ROBERT SCOTT FITTIS.
(BIOGRAPHICAL).
BORN 15TH NOVEMBER, 1824.
DIED 11TH OCTOBER, 1903.
Robert Scott Fittis represented a type of the Scottish man of letters
which is rapidly disappearing. While it could not justly be said that
he was unique as a personality, or that he introduced a novel
combination of intellectual qualities and thereby formed an epoch, the
honour must be ascribed to him of having continued the best traditions
of the Augustan Age of Scottish Literature, and of maintaining the
dignity in literary affairs to which his native land had attained. He
was a Scotsman “through and through,” loving the land of his birth
with intense devotion, reverencing the heroes whom she had brought
forth to adorn the records alike of war and literature, and devoting
the energies of a long life to setting before his countrymen the best
models of patriotism for their imitation. His natural gifts were so
strenuously cultivated that in his later days he was regarded as an
inexhaustible encyclopædia of recondite information of the most varied
kind. He was from his youth an omnivorous reader, and he possessed
that best of all gifts “a reference memory,” as Dean Stanley called
it, and could bring forth from his treasures, new and old, a
surprising variety of apt quotations and original inferences. In some
respects his mind was akin to that of the late John Hill Burton, the
historian. He had the same finical love of accuracy, the same fervid
Scottish spirit, and a similarly broad outlook upon general literature
which prevented him from becoming merely a local historian and nothing
more. While his labours in connection with Perthshire history were
unceasing, and have produced a rich storehouse of facts, he dealt with
national history and literature in a manner which showed the breadth
of his mind and the variegated nature of his studies. He was a
historian, earnest to separate veritable truth from tradition; yet he
was one eager to collect these very traditions as fragments of
national character. A student of charters and a genealogist, over whom
any time-stained charter or antique paper scrawled with crabbed
penmanship exercised a fascination, he was still an ardent lover of
poetry, especially such as described the flowery banks of Tay or
Tummel, the gowany lea of Gowrie, or the Bens and Straths of Garth and
Glen Lyon. Upon one of his title-pages he placed two quotations which
aptly express his characteristics:--
Let me the page of History turn o’er,
The instructive page, and heedfully explore
What faithful pens of former times have wrote.
--Wondrous skilled in genealogies,
And could in apt and voluble terms discourse
Of births, of titles, and alliances;
Of marriages, and inter-marriages;
Relationship remote, or near of kin.
To describe adequately the life of such a man within limited space is
impossible. All that can here be done is to outline his industrious
career, as a tribute to one whose devotion to national literature,
even in times of severe distress and difficulty, must ever command
sincere respect.
The Fair City of Perth was the birth-place of ROBERT SCOTT FITTIS, and
there he spent all his days, from his birth on 15th November, 1824,
till his death on 11th October, 1903, when he had almost completed his
79th year. He was educated at one of the Burgh Schools, and in May,
1837, he was apprenticed for three years (at that time the usual
period) to Mr. John Flockhart, Solicitor in the City. So well did he
acquit himself during his apprenticeship that he was retained in the
office for two years as a clerk. From Mr. Flockhart’s place he went to
several lawyers’ offices in Perth, until 1853, when he bade farewell
to the Law as a profession, and took to literature. It was not
altogether a rash step which made him take the crutch of literature
and form it into a sustaining staff. Twelve years before this time--in
1841--he had begun to write for the press, and for over sixty years it
supported him.
The late Mr. John Fisher, Printer, Perth, had started in 1841 in that
city a penny weekly periodical of twelve pages called “The Perth
Saturday Journal.” It was the first of its kind in the locality.
Knowing the literary aspirations of Mr. Fittis, then a youth of 17
years, Mr. Fisher secured his aid as a contributor. The first editor
was Mr. Rennie, afterwards one of the sub-editors of “Hogg’s
Instructor,” and Mr. Fittis began in the second number, published in
August, 1841, a series entitled “Legends of Perth.” At that time the
Rev. George Clark Hutton (afterwards Principal Hutton, of the United
Presbyterian Church) was a Perth youth just beginning his theological
studies, and he also became a contributor of poems and tales.
Rennie was succeeded by Mr. James Davidson, a local reporter, who soon
resigned the office into the hands of Mr. Thomas Hay Marshall, also a
reporter, who came to be known as the “historian of Perth.” Before the
end of the year, however, this periodical may be said to have entered
upon another stage of its existence, with an alteration of the title
to “The Perth and Dundee Saturday Journal,” and in an eight-page
issue.
The first number was dated 27th November, 1841, and in No. 28, July
16th, 1842, Mr. Fittis began a serial story entitled “The Mysterious
Monk.” This issue ran on to fifty-two numbers, the last one appearing
31st December, 1842. In this number it was announced that “the second
volume of the ‘JOURNAL’ will appear on the day it is due--on the first
Saturday of 1843, and will continue to be issued, as usual, weekly.”
It was not, however until Saturday, January 21st, 1843, that the
first number of Vol. II. made its appearance. The volume consisted of
fifty numbers of eight pages, as before, but the last, which was
issued on Saturday, 30th December, 1843, consisted of two leaves (4
pp.) only, and intimated that the Journal was to be continued in 1844,
and that the talented writer (Fittis) of “Anguswood” and many other
tales which have appeared in the Journal, and met with so favourable
reception, is, in an early number, to favour us with the first chapter
of another tale entitled the “Mosstrooper.” Accordingly, in 1844, the
Journal again made its appearance, this time under the title of “The
Perth and Dundee Journal,” and in this year’s issue, as promised, the
tale called “The Mosstrooper,” by Fittis, was first published. With
this year the career of the Journal was terminated.
The literary ability of Mr. Fittis had been so conspicuously displayed
in connection with the “Journal,” that when Mr. Fisher contemplated a
new venture it was to Fittis he first looked for aid. On 1st January,
1845, there was started a periodical entitled “The Tales of Scotland,”
similar in character to Wilson’s “Tales of the Borders,” but taking a
wider scope. Fittis was editor and principal contributor, and he was
assisted by Thomas Soutar, Solicitor, Crieff, George Hay of Rait, and
James Stewart of Dunkeld. The experiment was entirely successful. So
great was the demand for the “Tales” that the first twelve numbers
were reprinted three times, and Fisher spared no effort to push the
sale of the publication in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and
Aberdeen. The work was completed in four half-yearly volumes, the
greater portion of the contents having been written by Mr. Fittis.
Shortly after its completion Mr. Fittis became a contributor to “The
Scottish Miscellany,” which was begun in 1847. Four years afterwards
(1851) he edited a short series under the title of “Miscellany of
Scottish Tradition,” and in the following year (1852) he began the
“Tales and Traditions of Scotland,” in which he re-published “The
Mosstrooper” in a revised and improved version. The tales in this
periodical were all from his industrious pen.
In 1853 Fittis found himself sufficiently secure in literature to
resign his connection with Law; and he then became connected with the
“Perthshire Courier,” which had been acquired by the Dewars from the
old-established firm of the Morisons of Perth. His work at first was
to assist Mr. Thomas Hay Marshall in writing summaries and paragraphs,
and in supplying from notes the abstracts of speeches which were then
rarely printed verbatim. He remained in this position till 1861,
providing also original articles for the “Courier” and for other
newspapers. One of the incidents of this period of his life may be
narrated, as showing how steadfastly he remained true to the memory of
his early friends. James Stewart, the Dunkeld shoemaker, who had
contributed Scottish poetry to the “Saturday Journal,” died in Perth
Infirmary in 1843, and was buried in Greyfriars Burying-ground. His
grave was not marked by any tomb-stone, and Fittis determined that
this neglect should be remedied. In 1857 he brought out a volume of
Stewart’s works bearing the title “Sketches of Scottish Character, and
other Poems,” which he published by subscription, and with the
proceeds he was able to place a memorial stone over the grave of his
former comrade. The “People’s Journal,” which was begun in Dundee in
1858, provided an avenue for occasional contributions by Fittis, and
in 1864 his serial story, “The Secret Witness,” appeared in its
columns. His connection with the “People’s Journal” continued
intermittently for many years, his latest contribution being a series
published in 1891, under the title of “Haunted Houses in Perth.” In
1865 he wrote the novel “Gilderoy,” which was issued as a serial in
the “Scottish Journal,” and was published in the following year as a
volume in Routledge’s Railway Library. Mr. Fittis was married in 1866,
and, after a union lasting for 37 years, his wife survived him. At
that time the “Penny Post,” published in Glasgow, was the most popular
of weekly papers in that district, and was early in the field as one
of the first journals to issue serial stories. The late Mr. David Pae,
of Dundee (afterwards editor of “The People’s Friend”) ran several of
his most successful stories in the “Penny Post” in the “fifties.” Mr.
Fittis in 1866 supplied his novel “The King of the Cairds”; in 1867 “A
Master’s Crime”; and in 1872 “A Lass with a Tocher,” and “In the Pages
of the Past” to this periodical. The “Edinburgh North Briton” was
another of the weekly papers to which he contributed, his stories
there published being “Aggie Lyon,” in 1866, and “The Sexton’s
Mystery” in 1871. To the “North Berwick Advertiser” he contributed in
1870 “The Captain of the Bass,” besides reprinting some of the “Tales
of Scotland.” By his writings in these papers the name of Robert Scott
Fittis became widely known throughout Scotland.
A change came over the literary work of Mr. Fittis in the early
“seventies.” While he did not entirely give up writing fiction, he
devoted most of his time and energy to veritable history. In 1872 the
Rev. Thomas Morris, a promising young Glasgow student, who became
assistant in one of the Edinburgh churches, had started a weekly
column in the “Perthshire Constitutional,” under the title of the
“Antiquarian Repository.” He died suddenly in 1873, and Mr. Fittis was
then engaged to carry on this column, which had become a feature of
the paper. The work was entirely congenial to him. There was ample
scope for the use of his vast stores of miscellaneous knowledge of
Scottish history, tradition, and literature, and he fully utilised his
opportunity. From 1873 till 1881 he continued to produce two weekly
columns, republishing the matter in book form at the end of every
year. He thus brought together the most complete and varied series of
volumes relating to the history, antiquities, and literature of
Perthshire ever attempted. The following table gives the titles and
dates of these seven remarkable volumes:--
“Illustrations of the History and Antiquities
of Perthshire” (455 pages), 1874
“Perthshire Antiquarian Miscellany” (634 pages), 1875
“Historical and Traditionary Gleanings
concerning Perthshire” (521 pages), 1876
“Chronicles of Perthshire” (540 pages), 1877
“Sketches of the Olden Times in Perthshire” (560 pages), 1878
“Perthshire Memorabilia” (567 pages), 1879
“Recreations of an Antiquary in Perthshire
History and Genealogy” (556 pages), 1881
A mere glance at the list will give an idea of the industry of the
writer, while the fact that the books have been accepted as the work
of a painstaking and accurate historian proves their value. All these
books are at present (1906) out of print, and command good prices when
they come into the market.
After he had ceased his regular contributions to the “Perthshire
Constitutional,” much of the time of Mr. Fittis was taken up in
genealogical research, a task for which his long experience peculiarly
fitted him. Yet he did not neglect historical writing, though severe
illness frequently interrupted his labours. The five last volumes
which he published were not issued serially, but made their first
appearance in book form. Their titles and dates are as follows:--
“Ecclesiastical Annals of Perth” (322 pages), 1885
“Heroines of Scotland” (327 pages), 1889
“Sports and Pastimes of Scotland” (212 pages), 1891
“Curious Episodes in Scottish History” (326 pages), 1895
“Romantic Narratives from Scottish History and
Tradition” (363 pages), 1903
The activity of Mr. Fittis continued almost up to the close of his
life, and his two last books were produced after he had passed the
allotted span of three-score years and ten. His death took place on
11th October, 1903, after he had been engaged in literature for
sixty-two years.
The work of Robert Scott Fittis was not allowed to pass unnoticed and
unrewarded by those best qualified to appreciate it. In 1893 his case
was brought to the knowledge of Mr. W. E. Gladstone, and he then
received £100 from the Queen’s Bounty Fund. Three years later (1896)
Mr. A. J. Balfour gave £100 from the same fund. In 1899, Mr. Thomas,
Sheriff-Clerk of Perthshire, raised a sum of money among the friends
and admirers of Mr. Fittis, which Mr. Balfour doubled. With this sum
an annuity of £20 was purchased, which Mr. Fittis received till his
death. During his literary life Mr. Fittis had brought together an
extensive and valuable library, chiefly of books relating to Scottish
history and literature, and containing nearly 7000 volumes. After his
decease these books were purchased by Dr. Andrew Carnegie, and
presented to the Sandeman Library, Perth. Shortly after the death of
Mr. Fittis a movement was set on foot for the securing and erecting of
a suitable monument over his grave in Wellshill Cemetery, and
sufficient money was raised not only to accomplish this purpose, but
also to provide an enlarged photographic portrait of Mr. Fittis, which
was presented to the Sandeman Library, as a memorial of one of Perth’s
most notable sons. Even from this brief outline of his career it will
be seen that Robert Scott Fittis, by his self-sacrificing and
protracted labours, in the Roman phrase, “merits remembrance for his
services to the commonweal.”
A. H. MILLAR.
[Illustration: MEMORIAL TO THE LATE ROBERT SCOTT FITTIS.
erected in WELLSHILL CEMETERY, PERTH.]
THE MOSSTROOPER.
CHAPTER I.
O mirk, mirk is this midnight hour,
And loud the tempest’s roar;
A waefu’ wanderer seeks thy tower,
Lord Gregory, ope thy door.
--_Burns._
It was an early Spring eve in a year long before King James III. of
Scotland perished in his flight from the lost field of Sauchieburn,
and was succeeded on the throne by his son, Prince James, who headed
the rebellion which resulted in the hapless monarch’s assassination at
Beaton’s Mill.
On that Spring eve the setting sun, breaking through heavy
cloud-masses, poured his red radiance athwart the snow-flecked summits
of the hilly chain known as the Cheviots, the scene of Chevy Chase and
of many another Border fight, and the boundary for a considerable
distance between Scotland and the sister kingdom. The day had been
dull and bleak, scarce enlivened by a transient glint of sunshine;
nevertheless, the aspect of Nature somewhat indicated that the reign
of “surly Winter” was over. As far as the eye could reach, the snow
and ice had almost wholly melted from the face of the low country on
either side of the hills; and the drooping snowdrop, emblem of purity,
and harbinger of genial skies, decked the Frost-king’s grave.
The red sun went down, leaving a trail of fire at the “gates of the
west”; and a dreary quietude brooded on the hills--scant sign or sound
of life being apparent save what the homeward-bound rooks made as they
sailed, weary of wing, this way and that. But as the gloaming fell, a
solitary pedestrian emerged from one of the passes on the Scottish
side of the marches--a tall and stoutly-built but youthful man. A
short cloak of untanned deerskin hung from his shoulders, being
secured at the throat by a knot of thongs, and it partly hid a
doublet, called, in Border phrase, a _jack_, of boiled leather,
fitting close to the body, and strengthened on the breast (if not also
all over the shoulders and sleeves) by small circular plates of
hammered iron sewed on in overlapping fashion like the scales of a
fish. A broad buff belt around his waist, held by a polished brass
buckle, sustained an iron-hiked sword and a long knife or dagger,
termed a _whinger_, hafted with buck-horn, curiously carved. His
right hand--the other being studiously concealed under his mantle, and
apparently carrying something rather bulky--was encased in a leathern
gauntlet, the back of which was defended by little plates of mail like
those on the jack. On his head he wore an iron bascinet cap, rusty and
much dinted, and from under its rim straggled locks of dark brown hair
inclining to curl. He had a thin, sallow, unprepossessing physiognomy,
which expressed a combination of cunning and effrontery: two keen,
grey eyes sparkled under heavy brows; and a slender moustache, lighter
in colour than his locks, sparsely covered his upper lip; but the
livid scar of a cicatrized wound, evidently from a sword-cut, adown
his left cheek, gave, on close observation, a peculiar grimness to his
otherwise sinister mien. Altogether, he might be considered as a
typical Borderer of the time, rough-living, law-defying, rarely ever
out of “sturt and strife.”
On quitting the defile, he struck across a stretch of open moorland,
over which the rising night-wind fitfully sighed among the furze. Now
and then he paused and gazed eagerly behind, seeming to listen, as if
dreading pursuit; but pursuers there seemed none, save the
cloud-billows that rolled in endless succession over the dim hills and
darkened above his head. The waste soon became both rugged and marshy,
and a shallow rivulet, fed from the moss-hags, ran in a serpentine and
perplexing course, necessitating its being repeatedly waded, but the
water never came much above the traveller’s ankles, and he wore a pair
of strong buskins reaching to the calf of his leg. When he had finally
left the sinuosities of the sluggish stream in his rear, he made a
dead halt, as if come to the end of his journey, and scowled all
around him in the gloom. Throwing back the left side of his cloak, he
disclosed a young child, well wrapped up, and fast asleep, whom he was
carrying, and whom he immediately laid down on the heath at his feet.
The infant awoke, and began to whimper and wail. The man stood bending
his moody gaze upon it till his eyeballs glowed with dusky fire.
“This nicht,” he said, in a low tone, savouring of fierce exultation,
“this nicht will the proud Southron grieve, and the bonnie lady greet
in her bower, for the loss o’ the young heir that was the hope o’
their hearts. The retainers may scour hill and dale, and the pathless
wilds echo the bay o’ their sleuth-hound. Let them speed far and wide
wi’ horse and ban-dog. In my hand rests the young heir’s fate. By the
Black Rood o’ Melrose! this is the revenge o’ gentle Edie Johnston!”
He stamped on the ground, and could have crushed the infant under his
heel; but he started back a pace, as if, indeed, the fiend of revenge
had prompted such a thought in his troubled brain, and he revolted at
it--but he revolted only for a moment, as the savage suggestion seemed
to be followed by another equally remorseless. What did he now
meditate? Was he one
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
Had so incens’d, that he was reckless what
He did, to spite the world?
Nervously his fingers clutched the hilt of his whinger, and he
unsheathed it and waved it in the air, and then, stepping forward and
stooping over the child, pointed the steel as if to deal a mortal
stab. The weapon trembled in his grasp. Again the powers of
compunction and shame overcame the murderous impulse. He raised
himself erect, with an impatient ejaculation, and his armed hand fell
slowly, and as if reluctantly, by his side.
“Frae sunset to sunset has this hand been feckless as a withered
rush,” he said. “In darkness as in licht I ha’e been weak as water. I
micht ha’e flung the brat, like a stane, frae the brow o’ a fathomless
precipice, never mair to be seen but by the ravens: or he micht ha’e
been thrown into a rushing stream that would ha’e swirled him awa’ to
the sea; and nae mortal could ha’e fyled me wi’ the deed; and yet he
is spared, as if his life were charmed by a spell o’ power. Maun I, a
gentle Johnstone, forget my wrangs? My faither fell in an inroad o’
the Southrons: my mither was twice harried out o’ her cot-house in the
cleugh: and I--” He paused, and stroking his scarred cheek, glanced
alternately around him and at the sobbing boy on the cold turf: then
sheathed his whinger, lifted the babe, and strode hurriedly on his
way.
Soon he came to a spring-well, a round, brimful _well-e’e_, fringed
with furze. There he stopped, mused some space, and muttering a curse,
suspended the child over the water, as if intending to let it drop and
drown. But as he gazed fixedly on the limpid element, which shimmered
under the dim sky, a lustrous planet shone out through the clouds and
glittered in the natural mirror, the golden similitude sparkling up
like the eye of an accusing spirit. It was what guilt could not
withstand. The mystic gleam of the shadowy star smote the gentle
Johnston to the soul. Drawing a harsh breath, he succumbed once more
to a power that shamed his fierce nature. Huddling the infant under
his rude mantle, he hurried from a spot where temptation had pressed
him so strongly.
Straight northwards he held his route, with the shades of night
deepening on what seemed a desert, where no living things seemed near
save the heath-birds that started at his approach, and sped away with
shrill screams. Some heavy drops of rain, “like the first of a
thunder-shower,” pattered on his head-piece and deerskin garment, and
louder grew the sough of the gale, which prognostications of an
inclement night caused him to quicken his pace. The child had now wept
itself to sleep, and its bearer showed every care to screen it from
the rough weather. Happily, the threatened storm blew by. But although
the night settled down, the Borderer still travelled comparatively
fast, with long, unwearied stride, as being well inured to exertion
and well acquainted with the country which he was traversing. Indeed,
we may not err in supposing that in the latter respect he could rival
“stout Deloraine,” of whom the Last Minstrel tells us that--
Through Solway sands, through Tarras moss,
Blindfold he knew the paths to cross;
* * * * *
In Eske, or Liddel, fords were none,
But he would ride them, one by one;
Alike to him was time or tide,
December’s snow, or July’s pride;
Alike to him was tide or time,
Moonless midnight, or matin prime.
Sometimes the traveller changed his course to a certain extent,
inclining now to the right, now to the left, probably to avoid the
neighbourhood of hamlets: his darkling journey was one of hours; but
eventually the blustering blast swept away the clouds, and a frosty
starlight shone down, enabling him to perceive that he was nearing the
spurs of a range of low hills. On he went towards a wide ravine, and
entering it, was soon plodding sturdily along a well-beaten but
winding path, whilst the gale whistled shrilly through the underwood
that clad both sides of the glen. As he progressed, his eye caught
the feeble glimmer of a light in the distance, which he knew was not
the twinkle of a star, and which was inconstantly seen and lost
according to the turnings of the road.
“The auld keep o’ Hawksglen at last!” he muttered. “An’ gude fortune
speed me, the seeds o’ a double revenge will be sawn.”
The glen debouched on what dimly appeared to be a spacious
amphitheatre among the low hills, and in the foreground loomed the
dark and turreted mass of a Border keep or castle, in a high casement
of which burned the light that had been attracting the wayfarer’s
attention. He trudged forward to the strength, and speedily reached
the outer wall surrounding it, which was machicolated or embrasured
along the top for the discharge of all sorts of missiles on the heads
of assailants attempting escalade: and now the angry, deep-mouthed
bark of a dog within the wall broke the silence. The Borderer halted
in front of an arched and strong portal, which was closed by a gate
which he felt was faced with iron. He gave a peculiar whistle and then
a halloo, which the dog answered vigorously, rousing others of its
kind in their kennel in the rear of the place. But next the gruff
voice of an elderly man responded to the Borderer’s call from over
the gateway--“Who goes there?”
The keen starlight could enable only the mere outline of the
stranger’s figure to be discerned. “A friend to Hawksglen,” he
answered.
“From whence, and on what errand?”
“From Rowanstane, and on matter o’ life and death. I bring a letter to
the worthy Elliot. Open the _vizzy_, and I will wait his pleasure.”
“So, so: and bring you also the Rowanstane password?” demanded the
scrupulous warder.
“_Hand and glove._”
Prompt was the result of this response--almost like the effect of the
“Open, Sesame” of the Forty Thieves. The warder, confident that the
knowledge of the password was confined to friends (and it was changed
at intervals), descended from his coign of vantage; and after some
preliminary clank of chains, an aperture, measuring scarcely a foot
square, opened in the side of the portal, without the iron-sheeted
gate, and about breast-high from the ground, whilst the dog was heard
sniffing and growling along the bottom of the gate.
“Hand in your letter,” said the warder.
The gentle Johnston deftly thrust the sleeping infant through the
opening, and feeling that it was grasped by the other, turned without
a word, took to his heels, and was lost in the gloom.
Judge of the amazement which seized upon the guardian of the portal
when he found that instead of a letter he had received a bundle
containing a young child, who being roughly awakened began to cry. For
a moment was the warder struck speechless, but then, recovering his
voice, he shouted through the aperture--“Hillo! man--what is this?
Where’s the letter? A bairn! what does this mean? Curse the knave! and
he had the password too. A vile trickster! Down, Ranger! down,
lad!”--for the dog was climbing upon him, and smelling at the child in
his arms. “By our lady! a rare gift at midnight! What will Sir James
say to it? or his mother, either? I was a dolt to open the vizzy-hole;
but the false-tongued knave swore it was a matter of life and death.
The foul-fiend rive him! What ho! within there! Robin, Robin--up,
man!”
A young serving-man rushed out to the gateway, with a spear in one
hand, and a round buckler on his arm, and ejaculated--“What’s the
steer, Allan? I was dovering ower the ha’ fire, after dipping ower
deep in the ale-jack, and I thocht I heard the dogs bark.”
“Bring a torch,” cried Allan, “mayhap the wean is but a fairy
changeling, and I must see to that ere it comes under our roof.”
“The wean? whatna wean?” inquired Robin, rubbing his sleepy eyes with
the knuckles of the hand that held the spear.
“You hear the wean yaumering: and fairy weans are ever girning--devil
take them!”
“Allan, Allan, dinna speak o’ _them_ in sic a way, and at sic an hour.
Ha’e you forgotten the auld rhyme?
“Gin you ca’ me Imp or Elf,
I rede you look weel to yourself.
Gin you ca’ me Fairy,
I’ll work you muckle tarrie.
“I beseech you, Allan, bethink yoursel’ that this is just the time
when the _gude neighbours_ are busiest for gude and ill.”
“Pshaw!” exclaimed the warder. “I think a bad neighbour has been here.
Fetch a torch, in Mahound’s name!”
Robin hurried back to the hall, and, transferring his spear to his
left hand that the right might be free, kindled a flambeau at the
fire, and returned with it to the courtyard. The infant, on seeing
the light, ceased crying, and stretched out his little hands towards
the bickering flame.
“By the mass! a bonnie babe, and no fairy changeling, I’ll be sworn,”
said Allan, and he shut the espial opening. “Let us now within doors.”
They accordingly withdrew into the hall, where Allan sat down on a
buffet stool at the side of the hearth, with the young stranger on his
knee, while the watch-dog stretched itself at his feet, and the
clamour of its companions in the kennel died away. Robin fixed his
torch into an iron sconce projecting half a foot from the wall,
stirred the faggots on the andirons to a blaze, and was then told the
story of the adventure.
Seemingly nobody else in the place had been aroused, all remaining
quiet; but Allan now directed his subordinate to call up one of the
female domestics, to whose care the foundling should be committed till
morning. The woman, when she came, being dubious as to whether the boy
was not a fairy changeling after all, suggested the test usually
applied to such supernatural impostors, namely, by “putting it on the
fire to see if it wadna flee up the lum wi’ an eldritch lauch!” But
Allan was opposed to the experiment. The child’s clothes were of fine
materials, and around its neck was a slender gold chain of curious
links suspending an antique golden reliquary; but there was no
inscription on the trinket, or mark about the dress, to afford a clue
to the little wearer’s parentage.
The foundling being provided for, old Allan pulled his deerskin mantle
closer around him, and went out to satisfy himself that the fastening
of the aperture in the portal was secure.
“By our lady,” he muttered, “I’ll not open that vizzy again until
daylight, although a score of stories of life and death should be told
me. A small family might be foisted upon me ere morning.”