could not think of parting with it. We carried off all that had belonged to
my mistress, even her body-clothes and the body of the dead babe, resolved
to shew it to my master, and impose upon him by saying that his wife had
died in childbed, and that we had left her to be buried by the clergyman.
Our object in this was to do away all suspicion of unfair play. Our excuse
for not seeing the body interred was haste to inform him, and prevent
inquiries that might lead to his discovery. On the day after we left the
cabin, I found my master at the appointed place, in the utmost anxiety for
the arrival of his wife. Every hour of delay was attended by the utmost
danger. A government cruiser had been seen on the coast; and there were
fears that the small vessel might be discovered. Oh, moment that has ever
since embittered my life! The agony he endured no human tongue can
describe. He was in a state of distraction. I, with a guilty officiousness,
displayed her wardrobe. He turned from it in an agony. The dead body of the
babe he kissed and pressed to his bosom. Low groans had as yet only escaped
him; but suddenly, to my alarm, he resolved to go with me and die on her
grave. I trembled and felt a faintness come over me--for I was then young
in guilt. My associate, hardened and inventive, began to urge the folly of
the attempt. He pushed her from him with violence, and would have set out;
but at that moment word was given that the cruiser was in sight, as if
bearing for the land. Two friends and some of the crew seized him, and by
force hurried him on board the vessel, and set sail. I felt as if reprieved
from death, and did not go on board; for I dreaded the presence of my
injured master. We returned to Glasgow, where we remained for a few weeks,
rioting on the fruits of our guilt. One morning when I awoke after a
debauch, I found my companion fled, and all the gold and valuables gone. I
arose in a state of distraction, ran to the port in quest of her; but in
vain--no vessel had sailed. I proceeded to Greenock; on the way I got
traces of her, and dogged her at every turn. My mind took a new direction
as I followed her. I looked upon her now as a fiend that had led me to
ruin, and left me, loaded with guilt, to die under the pangs of poverty and
an awakened conscience. My mind was distracted. Holding up my hands to
heaven, I vowed vengeance, and cursed and swore in such a manner that
people on the road turned and looked at me, and thought me mad. I was mad;
but it was the madness of passion that burned in my brain, and the stings
of conscience that pierced my heart. I paused several times in my pursuit.
I was told by one traveller that the woman I sought was not a mile from me,
that she was sitting by the road-side drinking ardent spirits alone, and
muttering strange words to herself. Ha! thought I, conscience is busy with
her too, and she drinks to drown its dreadful voice. 'Shall I kill her?' I
said to myself. My heart yearned for her blood. Why should I deny it? I
felt that I required that satisfaction to enable me to live a little longer
upon earth. So much was my frenzy roused, that I pictured to myself a total
impossibility to live and breathe if I did not feel the satisfaction of
having visited on that woman's head the evil she brought on that sweet lady
who died by her hands. Then did her beautiful face beam before me in full
contrast with that of the hag who had led me to ruin, to misery, to hell.
Every thought inflamed me more and more, and on I flew to the relief of my
burning brain. Wretch! How little did I think that, even in meditating her
death, who deserved that punishment, I was only adding more and more power
to my burning conscience? But all calculation of future accidents died
amidst my thirst of vengeance. Breathless I hurried on. I had a dagger in
my hand ready for the work of death. At a turn of a beech wood, I saw her
sitting by the road-side. She was drinking spirits; and, as I approached, I
heard her muttering strange words--yet she was not intoxicated. She was
only under the power of the demons that ruled her. Her back was to me, and
she knew not of my approach. I saw her take out the money and jewels she
had stolen from me, and for which, by her advice, I had sold my soul to
Satan. The sight again brought before me the horrid crime I had committed.
I saw the sweet lady before me, extended in the grasp of death; and
conscience, with a thousand fangs, tore at my heart. I grasped the dagger
firmer and firmer as she counted the money, and wrought myself up to the
pitch of a demon's fury. I advanced quietly. She burst into a loud laugh as
she finished the counting of the gold. 'Ha, ha, ha!' she cried--'I
have'--she would have said 'outwitted him,' but my dagger fixed the word in
her death-closed jaws. I struck her to the heart through her back, and the
word 'outwitted' died in her throat. She lay at my feet a corpse. I threw
the body in a ditch, and took up the money and jewels for which I had sold
my soul. I would have cast them away; but the devil again danced in the
faces of the gold coins. I put them in my pocket. The gold again corrupted
me. I drowned my conscience in drink at the next inn. I fled into England,
where I have lived by rapine ever since, until the other day, when I
returned to Scotland to meet the fate I so well deserve, from the hands of
the son of those I had injured. Of my old master I have never heard
anything. If he is alive, he is still in France."
Life seemed only to have been prolonged until he had made the horrid
disclosure; for he fell into convulsions and expired, soon after the
Colonel, whose wound had become stiff and painful, had left the house. Next
morning, William visited his friend, and was grieved to find that he was
rather feverish. His wound was still painful. The occurrence of the
preceding evening occupied both their minds. William had no doubt of his
being the lawful son of Henry Seaton by Miss Somerville; but was as much in
doubt as to whether his father was alive as ever. In a few days, the
Colonel was enabled to leave his bed-room, and became convalescent. He
urged the propriety of William's proceeding to France in quest of his
father; and, as the vessel was not yet to sail for a few days, he resolved
to pay a visit to his friend, the minister, to inform him of his
intentions, and relate the history of his mother's murderers. The Colonel
would have accompanied him; but he could not ride. He rode along to the
manse, with feelings very different from those with which he had left it.
The worthy minister rejoiced to see him, and held up his pious hands at
the horrid recital. He approved of William's determination of going in
quest of his father, and, after paying a visit to his mother's and foster
parents' graves, he once more mounted to return to Edinburgh. As he rode
slowly along, musing upon the wayward fate of his parents unconscious of
all around, he was roused by the tread of horses' feet behind him. He
looked back, and saw a gentleman, attended by a servant in livery,
approaching. He roused himself, and put his horse off the slow pace at
which he had been going. The stranger and he saluted each other, and
entered into conversation upon indifferent subjects. At length they became
interested in each other, and found that they were both on the eve of
sailing for France in the same vessel. The stranger requested to have the
pleasure of knowing the name of his fellow-traveller.
"Seaton," said William, "is my name."
"Seaton, Seaton," said the other--"I am surprised I did not recognise you
before. I thought we had met before; but your youth made me always doubt
the truth of my surmises. Colonel Henry Seaton was an intimate acquaintance
of mine--have I the pleasure of seeing his son?"
"I hope you have," replied William. "Pray, sir, when saw you him last? Was
he in good health?"
"It is some time since I left France," said the other. "At that time he was
in his ordinary health; but not more cheerful than usual--always grave and
sad as ever."
"Thank God!" cried William; "he is, I trust, then, still alive." And he
pressed the stranger's hand with a warmth that surprised him. "Where do you
mean to stay," resumed William, "until the vessel sails?"
"I have no relations," replied he, "in Edinburgh. I meant to stay at an inn
in the Canongate, where I have lived before; but it is all one to me--I may
as well tarry in the White Hart with you."
When they arrived, William sent a cadie to give notice to Colonel Gordon
that he was arrived in town; but was detained upon business with a
stranger, to whom he would be happy to introduce him, as he was an
acquaintance of his father's, and had seen him within the last few years.
Soon after dinner, they were all seated at their wine, and deep in
conversation. The stranger had been, from what he said, well acquainted
with the exiled party in France, and, more particularly, with Colonel
Seaton; but he knew nothing of his history, further than that he had lost a
beloved wife and child at the time of his expatriation, and had, both by
friends here and every other means, endeavoured in vain to get any
information of where she was buried, or what had become of a faithful
servant who had not embarked with him in the confusion of his flight--that
on this account he was often oppressed by a lowness of spirits, and had
many suspicions that all had not been as it ought to have been. This
subject discussed, they would have had recourse to politics; but each
seemed cautious of betraying his opinions, and the stranger, who did not
seem to relish much some of the sentiments that occasionally escaped the
Colonel, appeared to be a Tory. After the Colonel departed, the
conversation of William and Mr Graham--for this was the gentleman's
name--became more pointed, and it appeared that he was on business
connected with the exiles. He had assumed that William was of his own way
of thinking in politics, and was evidently much disappointed when he
discovered that he was not. He became much more reserved, but not less
attached to him; for William gave him a general outline of his misfortunes
and early education, and they parted for the night with the best opinion of
each other. Next morning both proceeded to Leith, where Graham expected to
find a messenger from the north with a packet of letters for him. When they
reached Leith, they found that the messenger had arrived on the previous
day, and was waiting for Mr Graham, who, having several persons to visit in
the neighbourhood, William and he parted, agreeing to meet in the Colonel's
to supper. They met in the evening.
"I have been making some inquiries," said Mr Graham, "about Colonel Henry
Seaton, on your account, and am happy to say that he is well. I fear I
shall not have the pleasure of your company to France. I have every reason
to believe that he is now in Scotland, or will be very soon. Excuse me if I
am not more particular. I shall, I hope, to-morrow, or at least before the
vessel sails, be able to give you more particular information. I can rely,
I think, upon your honour, that no harm shall come from my confidence."
Both thanked him for the interest he took, and the good news he had
communicated. They parted for the night, all in the best spirits--William
anticipating the joy he should feel at the sight of his parent, and the
Colonel anxious to see his old friend. Afterwards Mr Graham and William
occasionally met. Their evenings were spent with the Colonel, and all party
discussion carefully avoided. On the evening of the fourth day after Mr
Graham's last information, William had begun to fear that the vessel might
sail before any certainty could be obtained; and he was in doubt whether to
proceed with her or remain. Upon Mr Graham's arrival, which was later than
usual, he went directly up to William--
"I have good news for you," said he. "Colonel Seaton is at present in
Scotland--somewhere in Inverness-shire. He is the bearer of intelligence
that will render it unnecessary for me to proceed at present to France. I
am, I confess, much disappointed; but you, I perceive, are not."
"From my soul I thank you," said William. "Where shall I find my father?"
"That is more than I can tell you," answered the other--"I cannot even tell
the name he has at present assumed; all I know is, that he is the bearer of
intelligence from the Prince that crushes for a time our sanguine hopes.
The fickle and promise-breaking Louis has again deceived us. The Prince,
and the lukewarm, timid part of his adherents, the worshippers of the
ascendant, refuse to act without his powerful aid. His concurrence we have,
and a prospect of future aid at a more convenient season; but, bah! for a
Frenchman's promise! I am off from ever taking a leading part again. I will
wait the convenient season. I may be led, but shall never lead again. He
does not deserve a crown that will not dare for it; nor does he deserve the
hearts of a generous people that would not dare everything to free them
from the yoke of a foreign tyrant. Excuse me, gentlemen,--I go too far, and
am giving you offence; but I assure you it is not meant. My heart is full
of bitterness, and I forget what I say."
The Colonel, whose blood had begun to inflame when Graham checked himself,
cooled and felt rather gratified at the intelligence thus so unexpectedly
communicated. He felt for a generous mind crossed in its favourite object,
however much he thought that mind misled, from education and early
prejudice, and assured him he had already forgot his expressions. A
different turn was given to the conversation, by William's continued
inquiries after his father. Graham meant to set off for the north in a few
days, for a secret meeting of the heads of the disaffected, at which
Colonel Seaton was to communicate the message he had to them from France.
He offered to be William's guide. The Colonel, whose shoulder was now quite
well, requested to accompany them; and on the Monday morning after, they
crossed at Kinghorn, and proceeded by the most direct route, passing
through Perthshire to the Highlands. They arrived at Glengarry, and found
that Colonel Seaton was at the time on a visit, with the chief, to Glenelg,
but would be back on the following day. There were a number of visiters at
the castle, with all whom Graham was on the most intimate terms. Gordon and
William were introduced, and the latter was most cordially received, from
the strong resemblance he bore to his father. They got a guide to conduct
them to see the beautiful scenery around the house, and they were amusing
themselves admiring the grandeur of the mountain scenes, when the guide
said, pointing to a bend in the road--
"Gentlemen, there is Glengarry."
They looked towards the spot, and could perceive two persons on horseback,
approaching in earnest conversation. William's heart beat quick--the reins
almost dropped from his hand--he felt giddy, and his temples throbbed as if
they would have burst. They approached--they bowed to each other--William's
eyes were fixed upon the countenance of his father, who returned his gaze,
but neither spoke a word. The Colonel said, in answer to the polite
salutation, that he and his young friend had had the honour to accompany Mr
Graham on a visit.
"Has Graham come back so soon?" he said, with surprise, "I feared as much;
but, gentlemen, you are kindly welcome." And he shook hands with them.
"Macdonald, what is this?" he said, turning to Seaton, who was absorbed in
thought. "Here is a youthful counterpart of yourself!"
"My father!" exclaimed William, as he leaped from his horse, and clasped
his leg, leaning his face upon it, and bedewing it with his tears.
"Young man," said Seaton, coldly, "you are mistaken; I have no son."
William lifted his hands in an imploring manner, and the ring met his
father's eye. "Good heavens! what do I see!" he exclaimed, and sank
forward, overpowered by his feelings, upon his horse's neck. The chief and
the Colonel raised him up--the tears were streaming from his eyes. "A
thousand painful remembrances," said he, "have quite unmanned me. Young
man, you just now called me father--where, for mercy's sake tell me, did
you get that ring?"
"It was found on the bosom of my dead mother," faltered William.
"Then you are my son!"
And the next moment they were locked in each other's embrace. The chief and
Gordon were moved. They passed their hands hastily across their eyes.
"Dear father," said William, "have you forgot your old friend and associate
in arms--my best of friends?"
Seaton for the first time looked to him, and, extending his disengaged
hand, grasped the Colonel's, saying--
"Excuse me, Gordon--I am now too happy. I have found a son and a brother."
They walked to the castle, and William detailed to his father his mournful
story. Often had he to stop, to allow his father to give vent to his
anguish.
"Ah, I often feared," said he, "that my Helen had been hardly dealt with;
but this I never did suspect. Cursed villain! and, oh! my poor murdered
Helen!"
They returned to the castle. It was agreed that Seaton should still retain
the name of Macdonald, until the Colonel should obtain, through the
influence of his friends, a pardon for him. He also had lost all hopes of
success for the Prince, and wished to enjoy the company of his son, visit
the grave of his beloved wife, and, at death, be buried by her side. All
was obtained; and Henry Seaton lived for many years, blessed in the society
of his son, who studied the law, at the suggestion of the Colonel, and
became distinguished in his profession.
HUME AND THE GOVERNOR OF BERWICK.
It has been asserted by at least one historian, that it has been observed,
that the inhabitants of towns which have undergone a cruel siege, and
experienced all the horrors of storm and pillage, have retained for ages
the traces of the effects of their sufferings, in a detestation of war,
indications of pusillanimity, and decline of trade. If there be any truth
in this observation, what caitiffs must the inhabitants of Berwick be! No
town in the world has been so often exposed to the "ills that wait on the
red chariot of war;" for Picts, Romans, Danes, Saxons, English, and Scotch
have, in their turn, wasted their rage and their strength upon her broken
ribs. Her boasted "barre," (barrier,) from which her name, Barrewick, is
derived, has never been able to save her effectually, either from her
enemies of land or water. From the reign of Osbert, the king of
Northumberland, down to the time when Lord Sidmouth saw treason in her big
guns, she has been devoted to the harpies of foreign and intestine war and
discord. Yet who shall say, that the hearts or spirits of the inhabitants
of this extraordinary town lost either blood or buoyancy from their
misfortunes? No sooner were her bulwarks raised than they appeared
renascent; the inhabitants defended the new fortifications with a spirit
that received a salient power from the depression produced by the
demolition of the old; and her ships, that one day were shattered by
engines of war, sailed in a state of repair with the next fair wind, to
fetch from distant ports articles of merchandise, not seldom for those who
were fighting or had fought against her liberties. Such was Berwick; and
her sons of to-day inherit too much of the nobility and generosity of her
old children, to find fault with us for telling them a tale which, while it
exhibits some shades of the warlike spirit of their ancestors, shews also
that war and citizen warriors have their foibles, and are not always exempt
from the harmless laugh that does the heart more good than the touch of an
old spear.
The Lord Hume of the latter period of the seventeenth century, had a
natural son, Patrick, an arch rogue, inheriting the fire of the blood of
the Humes, along with that which burnt in the black eyes of the gipsies of
Yetholm. He was brought up by his father; and, true to the principles of
his education, would acknowledge no patrons of the heart, save the three
ruling powers of love, laughter, and war--Cupid, Momus, and Mars--a trio
chosen from all the gods, (the remainder being sent to Hades,) as being
alone worthy of the worship of a gentleman. How Patrick got acquainted,
and, far less, how he got in love with the Mayor of Berwick's daughter,
Isabella, we cannot say, nor need antiquarians try to discover; for where
there was a Southron to be slain or a lady to be won, Patrick Hume cared no
more for bar, buttress, battlement, fire, or water, than did Jove for his
own thunder-cloud, under the shade of which he courted the daughter of
Inachus. Letting alone the recondite subject of "love's beginning," we
shall tread safer ground in stating, that the affection had been very
materially increased on both sides by the walls of Berwick; for, although
Patrick was a great despiser of fortifications, he had felt, in the affair
of his love for Isabella, the fair daughter of the Mayor of Berwick, that
there is no getting a damsel through a _loop-hole_, though there might be
poured as much sentimental and pathetic speech and sigh-breath through the
invidious opening, as ever passed through the free air that fills the
breeze under the trysting thorn.
What we have now said requires the explanation, that at the period of our
story, the town of Berwick belonged to the English; and the Mayor, being
himself either an Englishman, or connected by strong ties of relationship
with the English, had a strong antipathy towards the Scottish Border
raiders, whom he denominated as gentlemen-robbers, headed by the noble
robber Hume. But, above all, he hated young Patrick--into whose veins, he
said, there had been poured the distilled raid-venom and love-poison of all
the gentlemen-scaumers that ever infested the Borders. The origin of this
hatred had some connection with an affair of the Newmilne, belonging to
Berwick; the dam-dike of which, Patrick alleged, prevented the salmon from
getting up the river, and hence destroyed all his angling sport, as well as
that of all the noblemen and gentlemen that resorted to the river for the
purpose of practising the "gentle art." He had therefore threatened to pull
it down, to let up the fish; and sounded his threat in the ears of the
indignant Mayor, in terms that were, peradventure, made stronger and
bitterer by the thought that dikes and walls were his greatest bane upon
earth: by the walls of Berwick the Mayor kept from his arms the fair
Isabella, and by the dam-dike of Newmilne the same Mayor deprived him of
the pleasure of angling. Was such power on the part of a Mayor to be borne
by the high-spirited youth who had been trained to look upon mason-work as
a mere stimulant to love or war--a thing that raised the value of what it
enclosed by the opposition it offered to the young blood that raged for
entrance? The youth thought not. He vowed that he would neither lose his
Isabella nor his salmon; and, as fate would have it, the old Mayor had
heard the vow, and vowed also that young Patrick should lose both.
Having fished one day to no purpose, in consequence of the obstruction of
"that most accursed of all dam-dikes, the Newmilne dike," as Patrick styled
it, he threw down his rod, and lay down upon the bank of the river, to wait
the hour when the moon should summon and lighten him to the loop-hole in
the other of his hated obstructions, the walls of Berwick--where that
evening he expected to meet his beloved Isabella, and commune with her in
the eloquent language of their mutual passion. The bright luminary burst in
the midst of his reveries from behind an autumn cloud, and flashed a long
silver beam upon the rolling waters. He started to his feet.
"It is beyond my time," he said, self-accusingly. "My Isabella is on
Berwick Wall, and I am still lingering here by the banks of the river,
three miles from where my love and honour require me to be. The loiterer in
love is a laggard in war; and shame on the Hume who is either!"
In a short time the young Hume was standing beneath a buttress of the old
walls of the town, looking earnestly through a small opening, in which he
expected to see the face of the fair daughter of the Mayor.
"Art there at last, love?" said he, in a soft voice, as he saw, with
palpitating heart, the pretty but arch face of the bewitching heiress of
all the wealth of the old burgher lord peering through the aperture. "What,
in the name of him who got his wings in the lap of Venus, and useth them to
this hour as cleverly as doth our pretty messenger of Spring, hath kept
thee, wench?"
"Ha! ha! hush! hush, man!" responded she, whose spirit equalled that of the
boldest Hume that ever headed a raid. "Thou'rt the laggard. I've waited for
thee an hour, until I've sighed this little love-hole into an oven-heat,
waiting thee, thou lover of broken troth! Some gipsy queen in Haugh of the
Tweed hath wooed thee out of thy affection for thy Isabel; and now thou
askest what hath kept me. Ha! ha! Good--for a Hume."
"The moon cheated me, and went skulking under a cloud," responded Hume.
"And the cloud threw thy love in the shade," added quickly the gay girl.
"Methought love kept his own dial, and was independent of sun or moon. What
if a rebel vapour cometh over the queen of heaven that night thou art to
make me free? My hope of liberty, I fancy, would be clouded; and I would be
remitted again to the care of Captain Wallace, who keepeth the town and the
Mayor's daughter from the spoiling arms of the robber Humes."
"Ha! ha!" replied he--"thy father wanteth not a Mayor's wits, Isabella, in
offering thee as a prize to the Governor of the town. Excellent device,
i'faith! The old burgher lord knew he could not keep thee, mad-cap wench as
thou art, from a hated Hume's arms, unless he gave the Captain an interest
as a _lover_ in guarding thee, like a piece of the old wall of Berwick."
"And therein thou'rt well complimented," replied she; "for my father could
not get, in all Berwick, a man that could keep me from thee, but he who
guardeth town, and Mayor, and maiden together. Since the Governor, as a
lover, got charge of me, I am more firmly caged than ever was the old
countess, who was so long confined in the grated wing-cage of the old
castle. When art thou to free me from the Governor's love and surveillance,
good Patrick? If what I have now to tell thee hath no power to quicken thy
wits and nerve thine arm, thou art indeed thyself no better than one of
those stones, to which, in thy wit, thou hast likened me. Knowest that a
day is fixed for Captain Wallace being my _legal_ governor?"
"Ha!" cried Hume, in agitation. "This soundeth differently from the playful
hammer of thy wit, Bell. What day is fixed? Thou hast fired me with high
purposes."
"How high tower they?" cried the maiden, laughing. "Do they reach thy
former threat, to pull down the Newmilne dam-dike, and let _up_ the salmon,
in revenge for the letting _down_ of the Mayor's daughter?"
"Another time for thy wit, Bell," replied Patrick, in a more serious tone.
"Thou hast put to flight my spirits. The grey owl Meditation is flapping
his dingy wing over my heart. The time--the time--when is the day?"
"This day se'ennight," answered Isabel. "Hush! hush! here cometh the
Governor, blowing like a Tweedmouth grampus, fresh from the German Sea, in
full run after a lady-fish of the queen of rivers."