GAY GARLAND CARRIES DOUBLE.
So after that we played yet another game, hiding together in the hags
and crawling from bent bush to rush clump with mighty caution and
discernment, making believe that the troopers sought us both. For this
was the favourite bairns' play everywhere in the West and South.
Once when we came near to the house Gay Garland followed us, having been
turned out on the Duchrae home park. He ran to me, as he ever did, for
farings, and I fed him with crumblings out of my jacket
pocket--"moolings" Maisie Lennox called them--which he ate out of my
hand, a pretty thing to see in so noble a beast. Then he followed us
about in our hidings, begging and sorning upon us for more. This made
him not a little troublesome, till we would gladly have sent him back.
But Gay Garland was a beast not easily turned.
After a while we came to the little wood of Mount Pleasant, where I saw
some red rags fluttering on a bush. I was for going aside to see what
they might be, but Maisie Lennox cried at me to turn back.
"There are people hereabouts that are not very chancy. My father saw the
Marshalls go by this morning!"
Often and often I had heard of the tribe before, and they had a singular
name for their ill-done deeds. Indeed the whole land was so overrun with
beggars of the Strong Hand, and the times so unsettled, that nothing
could be done to put a stop to their spoilings. For the King and his men
were too busy riding down poor folk that carried Bibles and went to
field-preachings, to pay attention to such as merely invaded homesteads
and lifted gear.
As we set breast to the brae and came to the top of the little hill, I
stumbled over something white and soft lying behind a heather bush. It
was a sheep--dead, and with much of it rent and carried away. The ground
about was all a-lapper with blood.
"A worrying dog has done this!" I said.
But Maisie Lennox came up, and as she caught sight of the carcase her
face fell. She shook her head mighty seriously.
"Two-footed dogs," she said. "See here!" She lifted a piece of paper on
which a bloody knife had been wiped. And she showed me, very wisely, how
the best parts had been cut away by some one that had skill in
dismemberment.
"'Tis Jock Marshall's band," she said; "an ill lot, but they shall not
get off with this!"
And she went forward eagerly, keeping on the broad trail through the
grass. We had not gone a hundred yards when we came upon another sheep
in like case, and then by the ford of the Black Water we found yet
another. I asked Maisie Lennox if we should not go home and lodge
information.
"They'll get ower far away," was all she said.
"But you are not feared of them?" I asked, marvelling at the lassie. For
even our Sandy that counted himself so bold, and could lift a bullock
slung in a sheet with his teeth, would have thought twice before
following up Jock Marshall and his band for the sake of an orra sheep or
two.
But Maisie Lennox only turned to me in a curious way, in which there
seemed mingled something of contempt.
"Feared!" she said. "What for should I be feared? The sheep are my
faither's; but gang you back gin ye be feared."
So for very shame I answered that I was feared none--which was a great
lie, for I had given a hundred pounds (Scots) to have been able to turn
back with some credit. But we went along the broad trail boldly enough,
and Gay Garland trotted loose-foot after us, sometimes stopping to crop
the herbs by the way, and anon coming dancing to find us. At which I was
glad, for it was at least some company besides the lassie.
Soon we came to a link of the path by the water-side, at a place that is
called the Tinklers' Loup, where these sorners and limmers were mostly
wont to congregate. There was blue smoke rising behind the knowe, and
Maisie Lennox took a straight path over the heather toward it. I
wondered to see the lass. She seemed indeed not to know fear.
"They are my faither's ain sheep," she said, as though that were
sufficient explanation.
So to the top we came, and looked down. There was a whole camp beneath
us. Dirty low reeky tans were set here and there amid a swarm of bairns
and dogs. The children were running naked as they were born, and the
dogs turning themselves into hoops to bite their tails. About a couple
of fires with pots a-swing over them, bubbling and steaming, little
clouds of wild-looking folk were gathered. Some had bones in their hands
which they thrust into the fire for a minute and then took out again to
gnaw at the burned portion. Tattered women looked within the pots. Once
a man threw a knife at a boy, which struck him on the side. The boy
cried out and the blood ran down, but none took any heed to his
complaint or of the circumstance.
For a moment Maisie Lennox stood still and looked at me. Then she went a
step or two forward, and her face was white and angered. I saw she was
about to speak to them, yet for my life I could not keep her from it.
"Sheep stealers!" she cried; "vagabonds, ye shall hang for this! Not for
naught shall ye harry an honest man's sheep. I ken you, Jock Marshall
and all your crew. The Shirra shall hear of this before the morrow's
morn!"
The encampment stood still at gaze looking up at us, fixed like a show
painted on a screen, while one might slowly count a score. Then Babel
brake loose.
With a wild rush, man, woman, child, and dog poured towards us. Of mere
instinct I came up abreast of Maisie Lennox. Behind me came Gay Garland,
and snuffed over my shoulder, scenting with some suspicion the tinklers'
garrons[2] feeding in the hollow below.
[Footnote 2: Shaggy ponies.]
We stood so still on the knowe-top that, I think, we must have feared
them a little. We were by a gap in the bushes, and the ill-doers, seeing
no more of us thought, no doubt, that there must be more behind, or two
bairns had never been so bold. I think, too, that the very want of arms
daunted them, for they drew back and seemed to consult together as
though uncertain what to do.
Then a great scant-bearded unkempt man with long swinging arms, whom I
took to be Jock Marshall, the chief tinkler and captain of their gang,
pointed to them to scatter round the little knoll, no doubt with the
purpose of making observations and cutting us off.
"Who may you be?" he cried, looking up at us.
"Right well you know," Maisie said, very loud and clear, speaking out
like a minister in the tent at a field-preaching; "I am Anton Lennox of
the Duchrae's daughter, whose sheep ye have boiling in your pots--and
that after being well served with meal at the door, and louting low for
thankfulness. And this is your thanks, ye robbers-behind-backs, gallow's
thieves of Kelton Hill."
On my part I thought it was not good judgment so to anger the wild crew.
But Maisie was not to be spoken to at such a time; so perforce I held my
tongue.
"But ye shall all streek a tow for this," she said; "this day's wark
shall be heard tell o' yet!"
By this time the word had been passed round the hill to Jock the tinkler
that there were but two of us, and we unarmed. At which the loon became
at once very bold.
"Have at them! Blood their throats! Bring the basin!" he cried. And the
words were no vain things, for that was their well-accustomed way of
killing--to let their victim's blood run into a basin, so that there
might be no tell-tale stains upon the grass.
So from all sides they came speeling and clambering up the hill, loons
yelling, dogs barking, till I thought my latest hour was come, and
wished I had learned my Catechism better--especially the proofs. Gay
Garland stood by with a raised look upon him, lifting his feet a little,
as though going daintily over a bridge whose strength he was not sure
of, and drawing all the while the wind upward through his nostrils.
Then though Maisie had been very bold, I can lay claim on this occasion
to having been the wiser, for I caught her by the arm, taking Gay
Garland's mane firmly with the other hand the while, lest he should
startle and flee.
"Up with you," I cried, bending to take her foot in my hand, and she
went up like a bird.
In a moment I was beside her, riding bare-back, with Maisie clasping my
waist, as indeed we had often ridden before--though never so perilously,
nor yet with such a currish retinue yowling at our tail.
I wore no weapon upon me--no, not so much as a bodkin. But stuck in my
leather belt I had the two crooked sticks, which I had blackened with
soot for pistols at our play of Troopers and Wanderers. I put my heels
into Gay Garland's sides, and he started down-hill, making the turf fly
from his hoofs as he gathered way and began to feel his legs under him.
The gang scattered and rounded to close us in, but when Gay Garland came
to his stride, few there were who could overtake him. Only Jock Marshall
himself was in time to meet us face to face, a great knife in either
hand. And I think he might have done us an injury too, had it not been
for the nature of the ground where we met.
It was just at the spring of a little hill and the good horse was
gathering himself for the upstretch. I held the two curved sticks at the
tinkler's head, as though they had been pistols, at which I think he was
a little daunted. Jock Marshall stopped in his rush, uncertain whether
to leap aside; and in that very moment, Gay Garland spread his fore-feet
for the spring, throwing up his head as if to clear the way. One of his
iron-shod heels took the tinkler chief fair on the chest, and the
breast-bone gave inwards with a crunch like the breaking of many farles
of cake-bread. He fell down on the moss like one dead, and Gay Garland
went over the moor with the whole tribe of whooping savages after him,
spurning their fallen chief with his hoof as he passed.
Well it was for us that the noble horse carried us with such ease and
that his feet were so sure. For a stumble in a rabbit hole and our
throats were as good as slit.
But by the blessing of Providence and also by my good guiding of Gay
Garland's mane, we passed the ford of the Black Water without hurt. Then
was I very croose at the manner of our coming off, and minded not that
the hardest blaff of downcome is ever gotten at the doorstep.
We were passing by the path that goes linking along the water-side, and
talking to one another very cantily, when without warning a musket
barked from the woodside, and as it were a red-hot gaud of iron ran into
my thigh behind my knee. The world swayed round me and the green trees
ran withershins about. I had fallen among the horse's feet, but that
Maisie Lennox caught me, meeting Gay Garland's swerve with the grip of
her knee--for she ever rode across and acrop like a King's horseman,
till it was time for her to ride side-saddle and grow mim and prudent.
Haply just by the turn we met my father and old Anthony Lennox coming
running at the sound of the shot. But as for me I never saw or heard
them, for they ran past, hot to find the man who had fired at me. While
as for me I came up the loaning of the Duchrae upon Gay Garland, with my
head leaning back upon the young lassie's shoulder and the red blood
staining her white skirt.
And this was the beginning of my lameness and sometime lack of
vigour--the beginning also of my life friendship with Maisie Lennox, who
was to me from that day as my brother and my comrade, though she had
been but a bairn's playmate aforetime.