THE BROWNIE OF THE BLACK HAGGS.
When the Sprots were Lairds of Wheelhope, which is now a long time
ago, there was one of the ladies who was very badly spoken of in the
country. People did not just openly assert that Lady Wheelhope (for
every landward laird's wife was then styled Lady) was a witch, but
every one had an aversion even at hearing her named; and when by
chance she happened to be mentioned, old men would shake their heads
and say, "Ah! let us alane o' her! The less ye meddle wi' her the
better." Old wives would give over spinning, and, as a pretence for
hearing what might be said about her, poke in the fire with the tongs,
cocking up their ears all the while; and then, after some meaning
coughs, hems, and haws, would haply say, "Hech-wow, sirs! An a' be
true that's said!" or something equally wise and decisive.
In short, Lady Wheelhope was accounted a very bad woman. She was an
inexorable tyrant in her family, quarrelled with her servants, often
cursing them, striking them, and turning them away; especially if they
were religious, for she could not endure people of that character, but
charged them with every thing bad. Whenever she found out that any of
the servant men of the Laird's establishment were religious, she gave
them up to the military, and got them shot; and several girls that
were regular in their devotions, she was supposed to have got rid of
by poison. She was certainly a wicked woman, else many good people
were mistaken in her character; and the poor persecuted Covenanters
were obliged to unite in their prayers against her.
As for the Laird, he was a big, dun-faced, pluffy body, that cared
neither for good nor evil, and did not well know the one from the
other. He laughed at his lady's tantrums and barley-hoods; and the
greater the rage that she got into, the Laird thought it the better
sport. One day, when two maid-servants came running to him, in great
agitation, and told him that his lady had felled one of their
companions, the Laird laughed heartily, and said he did not doubt it.
"Why, sir, how can you laugh?" said they. "The poor girl is killed."
"Very likely, very likely," said the Laird. "Well, it will teach her
to take care who she angers again."
"And, sir, your lady will be hanged."
"Very likely; well, it will teach her how to strike so rashly
again--Ha, ha, ha! Will it not, Jessy?"
But when this same Jessy died suddenly one morning, the Laird was
greatly confounded, and seemed dimly to comprehend that there had been
unfair play going. There was little doubt that she was taken off by
poison; but whether the Lady did it through jealousy or not, was never
divulged; but it greatly bamboozled and astonished the poor Laird, for
his nerves failed him, and his whole frame became paralytic. He seems
to have been exactly in the same state of mind with a colley that I
once had. He was extremely fond of the gun as long as I did not kill
any thing with it, (there being no game laws in Ettrick Forest in
those days,) and he got a grand chase after the hares when I missed
them. But there was one day that I chanced for a marvel to shoot one
dead, a few paces before his nose. I'll never forget the astonishment
that the poor beast manifested. He stared one while at the gun, and
another while at the dead hare, and seemed to be drawing the
conclusion, that if the case stood thus, there was no creature sure of
its life. Finally, he took his tail between his legs, and ran away
home, and never would face a gun all his life again.
So was it precisely with Laird Sprot of Wheelhope. As long as his
lady's wrath produced only noise and uproar among the servants, he
thought it fine sport; but when he saw what he believed the dreadful
effects of it, he became like a barrel organ out of tune, and could
only discourse one note, which he did to every one he met. "I wish she
mayna hae gotten something she had been the waur of." This note he
repeated early and late, night and day, sleeping and waking, alone and
in company, from the moment that Jessy died till she was buried; and
on going to the churchyard as chief mourner, he whispered it to her
relatives by the way. When they came to the grave, he took his stand
at the head, nor would he give place to the girl's father; but there
he stood, like a huge post, as though he neither saw nor heard; and
when he had lowered her head into the grave, and dropped the cord, he
slowly lifted his hat with one hand, wiped his dim eyes with the back
of the other, and said, in a deep tremulous tone, "Poor lassie! I wish
she didna get something she had been the waur of."
This death made a great noise among the common people; but there was
little protection for the life of the subject in those days; and
provided a man or woman was a real Anti-Covenanter, they might kill a
good many without being quarrelled for it. So there was no one to take
cognizance of the circumstances relating to the death of poor Jessy.
After this, the Lady walked softly for the space of two or three
years. She saw that she had rendered herself odious, and had entirely
lost her husband's countenance, which she liked worst of all. But the
evil propensity could not be overcome; and a poor boy, whom the Laird,
out of sheer compassion, had taken into his service, being found dead
one morning, the country people could no longer be restrained; so they
went in a body to the Sheriff, and insisted on an investigation. It
was proved that she detested the boy, had often threatened him, and
had given him brose and butter the afternoon before he died; but
notwithstanding of all this, the cause was ultimately dismissed, and
the pursuers fined.
No one can tell to what height of wickedness she might now have
proceeded, had not a check of a very singular kind been laid upon her.
Among the servants that came home at the next term, was one who called
himself Merodach; and a strange person he was. He had the form of a
boy, but the features of one a hundred years old, save that his eyes
had a brilliancy and restlessness, which were very extraordinary,
bearing a strong resemblance to the eyes of a well-known species of
monkey. He was froward and perverse, and disregarded the pleasure or
displeasure of any person; but he performed his work well, and with
apparent ease. From the moment he entered the house, the Lady
conceived a mortal antipathy against him, and besought the Laird to
turn him away. But the Laird would not consent; he never turned away
any servant, and moreover he had hired this fellow for a trivial wage,
and he neither wanted activity nor perseverance. The natural
consequence of this refusal was, that the Lady instantly set herself
to embitter Merodach's life as much as possible, in order to get early
quit of a domestic every way so disagreeable. Her hatred of him was
not like a common antipathy entertained by one human being against
another,--she hated him as one might hate a toad or an adder; and his
occupation of jotteryman (as the Laird termed his servant of all work)
keeping him always about her hand, it must have proved highly
annoying.
She scolded him, she raged at him; but he only mocked her wrath, and
giggled and laughed at her, with the most provoking derision. She
tried to fell him again and again, but never, with all her address,
could she hit him; and never did she make a blow at him, that she did
not repent it. She was heavy and unwieldy, and he as quick in his
motions as a monkey; besides, he generally contrived that she should
be in such an ungovernable rage, that when she flew at him, she hardly
knew what she was doing. At one time she guided her blow towards him,
and he at the same instant avoided it with such dexterity, that she
knocked down the chief hind, or foresman; and then Merodach giggled so
heartily, that, lifting the kitchen poker, she threw it at him with a
full design of knocking out his brains; but the missile only broke
every article of crockery on the kitchen dresser.
She then hasted to the Laird, crying bitterly, and telling him she
would not suffer that wretch Merodach, as she called him, to stay
another night in the family.
"Why, then, put him away, and trouble me no more about him," said the
Laird.
"Put him away!" exclaimed she; "I have already ordered him away a
hundred times, and charged him never to let me see his horrible face
again; but he only grins, and answers with some intolerable piece of
impertinence."
The pertinacity of the fellow amused the Laird; his dim eyes turned
upwards into his head with delight; he then looked two ways at once,
turned round his back, and laughed till the tears ran down his dun
cheeks; but he could only articulate, "You're fitted now."
The Lady's agony of rage still increasing from this derision, she
upbraided the Laird bitterly, and said he was not worthy the name of
man, if he did not turn away that pestilence, after the way he had
abused her.
"Why, Shusy, my dear, what has he done to you?"
"What done to me! has he not caused me to knock down John Thomson? and
I do not know if ever he will come to life again!"
"Have you felled your favourite John Thomson?" said the Laird,
laughing more heartily than before; "you might have done a worse deed
than that."
"And has he not broke every plate and dish on the whole dresser?"
continued the Lady; "and for all this devastation, he only mocks at my
displeasure,--absolutely mocks me,--and if you do not have him turned
away, and hanged or shot for his deeds, you are not worthy the name of
man."
"O alack! What a devastation among the cheena metal!" said the Laird;
and calling on Merodach, he said, "Tell me, thou evil Merodach of
Babylon, how thou dared'st knock down thy Lady's favourite servant,
John Thomson?"
"Not I, your honour. It was my Lady herself, who got into such a
furious rage at me, that she mistook her man, and felled Mr Thomson;
and the good man's skull is fractured."
"That was very odd," said the Laird, chuckling; "I do not comprehend
it. But then, what set you on smashing all my Lady's delft and cheena
ware?--That was a most infamous and provoking action."
"It was she herself, your honour. Sorry would I be to break one dish
belonging to the house. I take all the house servants to witness, that
my Lady smashed all the dishes with a poker; and now lays the blame on
me!"
The Laird turned his dim eyes on his lady, who was crying with
vexation and rage, and seemed meditating another personal attack on
the culprit, which he did not at all appear to shun, but rather to
court. She, however, vented her wrath in threatenings of the most deep
and desperate revenge, the creature all the while assuring her that
she would be foiled, and that in all her encounters and contests with
him, she would uniformly come to the worst; he was resolved to do his
duty, and there before his master he defied her.
The Laird thought more than he considered it prudent to reveal; he had
little doubt that his wife would find some means of wreaking her
vengeance on the object of her displeasure; and he shuddered when he
recollected one who had taken "something that she had been the waur
of."
In a word, the Lady of Wheelhope's inveterate malignity against this
one object, was like the rod of Moses, that swallowed up the rest of
the serpents. All her wicked and evil propensities seemed to be
superseded, if not utterly absorbed by it. The rest of the family now
lived in comparative peace and quietness; for early and late her
malevolence was venting itself against the jotteryman, and against him
alone. It was a delirium of hatred and vengeance, on which the whole
bent and bias of her inclination was set. She could not stay from the
creature's presence, or, in the intervals when absent from him, she
spent her breath in curses and execrations; and then, not able to
rest, she ran again to seek him, her eyes gleaming with the
anticipated delights of vengeance, while, ever and anon, all the
ridicule and the harm redounded on herself.
Was it not strange that she could not get quit of this sole annoyance
of her life? One would have thought she easily might. But by this time
there was nothing farther from her wishes; she wanted vengeance, full,
adequate, and delicious vengeance, on her audacious opponent. But he
was a strange and terrible creature, and the means of retaliation
constantly came, as it were, to his hand.
Bread and sweet milk was the only fare that Merodach cared for, and
having bargained for that, he would not want it, though he often got
it with a curse and with ill will. The Lady having, upon one occasion,
intentionally kept back his wonted allowance for some days, on the
Sabbath morning following, she set him down a bowl of rich sweet milk,
well drugged with a deadly poison; and then she lingered in a little
anteroom to watch the success of her grand plot, and prevent any other
creature from tasting of the potion. Merodach came in, and the
house-maid said to him, "There is your breakfast, creature."
"Oho! my Lady has been liberal this morning," said he; "but I am
beforehand with her.--Here, little Missie, you seem very hungry
to-day--take you my breakfast." And with that he set the beverage
down to the Lady's little favourite spaniel. It so happened that the
Lady's only son came at that instant into the anteroom seeking her,
and teasing his mamma about something, which withdrew her attention
from the hall-table for a space. When she looked again, and saw Missie
lapping up the sweet milk, she burst from her hiding-place like a
fury, screaming as if her head had been on fire, kicked the remainder
of its contents against the wall, and lifting Missie in her bosom,
retreated hastily, crying all the way.
"Ha, ha, ha--I have you now!" cried Merodach, as she vanished from the
hall.
Poor Missie died immediately, and very privately; indeed, she would
have died and been buried, and never one have seen her, save her
mistress, had not Merodach, by a luck that never failed him, looked
over the wall of the flower garden, just as his lady was laying her
favourite in a grave of her own digging. She, not perceiving her
tormentor, plied on at her task, apostrophizing the insensate little
carcass,--"Ah! poor dear little creature, thou hast had a hard
fortune, and hast drank of the bitter potion that was not intended for
thee; but he shall drink it three times double for thy sake!"
"Is that little Missie?" said the eldrich voice of the jotteryman,
close at the Lady's ear. She uttered a loud scream, and sunk down on
the bank. "Alack for poor Missie!" continued the creature in a tone of
mockery, "my heart is sorry for Missie. What has befallen her--whose
breakfast cup did she drink?"
"Hence with thee, fiend!" cried the Lady; "what right hast thou to
intrude on thy mistress's privacy? Thy turn is coming yet; or may the
nature of woman change within me!"
"It is changed already," said the creature, grinning with delight; "I
have thee now, I have thee now! And were it not to show my superiority
over thee, which I do every hour, I should soon see thee strapped like
a mad cat, or a worrying bratch. What wilt thou try next?"
"I will cut thy throat, and if I die for it, will rejoice in the deed;
a deed of charity to all that dwell on the face of the earth."
"I have warned thee before, dame, and I now warn thee again, that all
thy mischief meditated against me will fall double on thine own head."
"I want none of your warning, fiendish cur. Hence with your elvish
face, and take care of yourself."
It would be too disgusting and horrible to relate or read all the
incidents that fell out between this unaccountable couple. Their
enmity against each other had no end, and no mitigation; and scarcely
a single day passed over on which the Lady's acts of malevolent
ingenuity did not terminate fatally for some favourite thing of her
own. Scarcely was there a thing, animate or inanimate, on which she
set a value, left to her, that was not destroyed; and yet scarcely one
hour or minute could she remain absent from her tormentor, and all the
while, it seems, solely for the purpose of tormenting him. While all
the rest of the establishment enjoyed peace and quietness from the
fury of their termagant dame, matters still grew worse and worse
between the fascinated pair. The Lady haunted the menial, in the same
manner as the raven haunts the eagle,--for a perpetual quarrel, though
the former knows that in every encounter she is to come off the loser.
Noises were heard on the stairs by night, and it was whispered among
the servants, that the Lady had been seeking Merodach's chamber, on
some horrible intent. Several of them would have sworn that they had
seen her passing and repassing on the stair after midnight, when all
was quiet; but then it was likewise well known, that Merodach slept
with well-fastened doors, and a companion in another bed in the same
room, whose bed, too, was nearest the door. Nobody cared much what
became of the jotteryman, for he was an unsocial and disagreeable
person; but some one told him what they had seen, and hinted a
suspicion of the Lady's intent. But the creature only bit his upper
lip, winked with his eyes, and said, "She had better let that alone;
she will be the first to rue that."
Not long after this, to the horror of the family and the whole country
side, the Laird's only son was found murdered in his bed one morning,
under circumstances that manifested the most fiendish cruelty and
inveteracy on the part of his destroyer. As soon as the atrocious act
was divulged, the Lady fell into convulsions, and lost her reason; and
happy had it been for her had she never recovered the use of it, for
there was blood upon her hand, which she took no care to conceal, and
there was little doubt that it was the blood of her own innocent and
beloved boy, the sole heir and hope of the family.
This blow deprived the Laird of all power of action; but the Lady had
a brother, a man of the law, who came and instantly proceeded to an
investigation of this unaccountable murder. Before the Sheriff
arrived, the housekeeper took the Lady's brother aside, and told him
he had better not go on with the scrutiny, for she was sure the crime
would be brought home to her unfortunate mistress; and after examining
into several corroborative circumstances, and viewing the state of the
raving maniac, with the blood on her hand and arm, he made the
investigation a very short one, declaring the domestics all
exculpated.
The Laird attended his boy's funeral, and laid his head in the grave,
but appeared exactly like a man walking in a trance, an automaton,
without feelings or sensations, oftentimes gazing at the funeral
procession, as on something he could not comprehend. And when the
death-bell of the parish church fell a-tolling, as the corpse
approached the kirk-stile, he cast a dim eye up towards the belfry,
and said hastily, "What, what's that? Och ay, we're just in time, just
in time." And often was he hammering over the name of "Evil Merodach,
King of Babylon," to himself. He seemed to have some far-fetched
conception that his unaccountable jotteryman was in some way connected
with the death of his only son, and other lesser calamities, although
the evidence in favour of Merodach's innocence was as usual quite
decisive.
This grievous mistake of Lady Wheelhope can only be accounted for, by
supposing her in a state of derangement, or rather under some evil
influence, over which she had no control; and to a person in such a
state, the mistake was not so very unnatural. The mansion-house of
Wheelhope was old and irregular. The stair had four acute turns, and
four landing-places, all the same. In the uppermost chamber slept the
two domestics,--Merodach in the bed farthest in, and in the chamber
immediately below that, which was exactly similar, slept the Young
Laird and his tutor, the former in the bed farthest in; and thus, in
the turmoil of her wild and raging passions, her own hand made
herself childless.
Merodach was expelled the family forthwith, but refused to accept of
his wages, which the man of law pressed upon him, for fear of farther
mischief; but he went away in apparent sullenness and discontent, no
one knowing whither.
When his dismissal was announced to the Lady, who was watched day and
night in her chamber, the news had such an effect on her, that her
whole frame seemed electrified; the horrors of remorse vanished, and
another passion, which I neither can comprehend nor define, took the
sole possession of her distempered spirit. "He _must_ not go!--He
_shall_ not go!" she exclaimed. "No, no, no--he shall not--he shall
not--he shall not!" and then she instantly set herself about making
ready to follow him, uttering all the while the most diabolical
expressions, indicative of anticipated vengeance.--"Oh, could I but
snap his nerves one by one, and birl among his vitals! Could I but
slice his heart off piecemeal in small messes, and see his blood
lopper, and bubble, and spin away in purple slays; and then to see him
grin, and grin, and grin, and grin! Oh--oh--oh--How beautiful and
grand a sight it would be to see him grin, and grin, and grin!" And in
such a style would she run on for hours together.
She thought of nothing, she spake of nothing, but the discarded
jotteryman, whom most people now began to regard as a creature that
was "not canny." They had seen him eat, and drink, and work, like
other people; still he had that about him that was not like other men.
He was a boy in form, and an antediluvian in feature. Some thought he
was a mongrel, between a Jew and an ape; some a wizard, some a kelpie,
or a fairy, but most of all, that he was really and truly a Brownie.
What he was I do not know, and therefore will not pretend to say; but
be that as it may, in spite of locks and keys, watching and waking,
the Lady of Wheelhope soon made her escape, and eloped after him. The
attendants, indeed, would have made oath that she was carried away by
some invisible hand, for it was impossible, they said, that she could
have escaped on foot like other people; and this edition of the story
took in the country; but sensible people viewed the matter in another
light.
As for instance, when Wattie Blythe, the Laird's old shepherd, came in
from the hill one morning, his wife Bessie thus accosted him.--"His
presence be about us, Wattie Blythe! have ye heard what has happened
at the ha'? Things are aye turning waur and waur there, and it looks
like as if Providence had gi'en up our Laird's house to destruction.
This grand estate maun now gang frae the Sprots; for it has finished
them."
"Na, na, Bessie, it isna the estate that has finished the Sprots, but
the Sprots that hae finished the estate, and themsells into the boot.
They hae been a wicked and degenerate race, and aye the langer the
waur, till they hae reached the utmost bounds o' earthly wickedness;
and it's time the deil were looking after his ain."
"Ah, Wattie Blythe, ye never said a truer say. And that's just the
very point where your story ends, and mine begins; for hasna the deil,
or the fairies, or the brownies, ta'en away our Leddy bodily! and the
haill country is running and riding in search o' her; and there is
twenty hunder merks offered to the first that can find her, and bring
her safe back. They hae ta'en her away, skin and bane, body and soul,
and a', Wattie!"
"Hech-wow! but that is awsome! And where is it thought they have ta'en
her to, Bessie?"
"O, they hae some guess at that frae her ain hints afore. It is
thought they hae carried her after that Satan of a creature, wha
wrought sae muckle wae about the house. It is for him they are a'
looking, for they ken weel, that where they get the tane they will get
the tither."
"Whew! Is that the gate o't, Bessie? Why, then, the awfu' story is
nouther mair nor less than this, that the Leddy has made a 'lopement,
as they ca't, and run away after a blackguard jotteryman. Hech-wow!
wae's me for human frailty! But that's just the gate! When aince the
deil gets in the point o' his finger, he will soon have in his haill
hand. Ay, he wants but a hair to make a tether of, ony day! I hae seen
her a braw sonsy lass; but even then I feared she was devoted to
destruction, for she aye mockit at religion, Bessie, and that's no a
good mark of a young body. And she made a' its servants her enemies;
and think you these good men's prayers were a' to blaw away i' the
wind, and be nae mair regarded? Na, na, Bessie, my woman, take ye this
mark baith o' our ain bairns and ither folk's--If ever ye see a young
body that disregards the Sabbath, and makes a mock at the ordinances
o' religion, ye will never see that body come to muckle good.--A braw
hand our Leddy has made o' her gibes and jeers at religion, and her
mockeries o' the poor persecuted hill-folk!--sunk down by degrees into
the very dregs o' sin and misery! run away after a scullion!"
"Fy, fy, Wattie, how can ye say sae? It was weel kenn'd that she hatit
him wi' a perfect and mortal hatred, and tried to make away wi' him
mae ways nor ane."
"Aha, Bessie; but nipping and scarting is Scots folk's wooing; and
though it is but right that we suspend our judgments, there will
naebody persuade me if she be found alang wi' the creature, but that
she has run away after him in the natural way, on her twa shanks,
without help either frae fairy or brownie."
"I'll never believe sic a thing of ony woman born, let be a leddy weel
up in years."
"Od help ye, Bessie! ye dinna ken the stretch o' corrupt nature. The
best o' us, when left to oursells, are nae better than strayed sheep,
that will never find the way back to their ain pastures; and of a'
things made o' mortal flesh, a wicked woman is the warst."
"Alack-a-day! we get the blame o' muckle that we little deserve. But,
Wattie, keep ye a geyan sharp look-out about the cleuchs and the caves
o' our hope; for the Leddy kens them a' geyan weel; and gin the twenty
hunder merks wad come our way, it might gang a waur gate. It wad
tocher a' our bonny lasses."
"Ay, weel I wat, Bessie, that's nae lee. And now, when ye bring me
amind o't, I'm sair mista'en if I didna hear a creature up in the
Brockholes this morning, skirling as if something war cutting its
throat. It gars a' the hairs stand on my head when I think it may hae
been our Leddy, and the droich of a creature murdering her. I took it
for a battle of wulcats, and wished they might pu' out ane anither's
thrapples; but when I think on it again, they war unco like some o'
our Leddy's unearthly screams."
"His presence be about us, Wattie! Haste ye--pit on your bonnet--tak'
your staff in your hand, and gang and see what it is."
"Shame fa' me, if I daur gang, Bessie."
"Hout, Wattie, trust in the Lord."
"Aweel, sae I do. But ane's no to throw himsell ower a linn, and trust
that the Lord will kep him in a blanket. And it's nae muckle safer for
an auld stiff man like me to gang away out to a wild remote place,
where there is ae body murdering another.--What is that I hear,
Bessie? Haud the lang tongue o' you, and rin to the door, and see what
noise that is."
Bessie ran to the door, but soon returned, with her mouth wide open,
and her eyes set in her head.
"It is them, Wattie! it is them! His presence be about us! What will
we do?"
"Them? whaten them?"
"Why, that blackguard creature, coming here, leading our Leddy by the
hair o' the head, and yerking her wi' a stick. I am terrified out o'
my wits. What will we do?"
"We'll _see_ what they _say_," said Wattie, manifestly in as great
terror as his wife; and by a natural impulse, or as a last resource,
he opened the Bible, not knowing what he did, and then hurried on his
spectacles; but before he got two leaves turned over, the two
entered,--a frightful-looking couple indeed. Merodach, with his old
withered face, and ferret eyes, leading the Lady of Wheelhope by the
long hair, which was mixed with grey, and whose face was all bloated
with wounds and bruises, and having stripes of blood on her garments.
"How's this!--How's this, sirs?" said Wattie Blythe.
"Close that book, and I will tell you, goodman," said Merodach.
"I can hear what you hae to say wi' the beuk open, sir," said Wattie,
turning over the leaves, pretending to look for some particular
passage, but apparently not knowing what he was doing. "It is a
shamefu' business this; but some will hae to answer for't. My Leddy, I
am unco grieved to see you in sic a plight. Ye hae surely been dooms
sair left to yoursell."
The Lady shook her head, uttered a feeble hollow laugh, and fixed her
eyes on Merodach. But such a look! It almost frightened the simple
aged couple out of their senses. It was not a look of love nor of
hatred exclusively; neither was it of desire or disgust, but it was a
combination of them all. It was such a look as one fiend would cast on
another, in whose everlasting destruction he rejoiced. Wattie was glad
to take his eyes from such countenances, and look into the Bible, that
firm foundation of all his hopes and all his joy.
"I request that you will shut that book, sir," said the horrible
creature; "or if you do not, I will shut it for you with a
vengeance;" and with that he seized it, and flung it against the wall.
Bessie uttered a scream, and Wattie was quite paralysed; and although
he seemed disposed to run after his best friend, as he called it, the
hellish looks of the Brownie interposed, and glued him to his seat.
"Hear what I have to say first," said the creature, "and then pore
your fill on that precious book of yours. One concern at a time is
enough. I came to do you a service. Here, take this cursed, wretched
woman, whom you style your Lady, and deliver her up to the lawful
authorities, to be restored to her husband and her place in society.
She has followed one that hates her, and never said one kind word to
her in his life; and though I have beat her like a dog, still she
clings to me, and will not depart, so enchanted is she with the
laudable purpose of cutting my throat. Tell your master and her
brother, that I am not to be burdened with their maniac. I have
scourged--I have spurned and kicked her, afflicting her night and day,
and yet from my side she will not depart. Take her. Claim the reward
in full, and your fortune is made; and so farewell!"
The creature went away, and the moment his back was turned, the Lady
fell a-screaming and struggling, like one in an agony, and, in spite
of all the old couple's exertions, she forced herself out of their
hands, and ran after the retreating Merodach. When he saw better
would not be, he turned upon her, and, by one blow with his stick,
struck her down; and, not content with that, continued to maltreat her
in such a manner, as to all appearance would have killed twenty
ordinary persons. The poor devoted dame could do nothing, but now and
then utter a squeak like a half-worried cat, and writhe and grovel on
the sward, till Wattie and his wife came up, and withheld her
tormentor from further violence. He then bound her hands behind her
back with a strong cord, and delivered her once more to the charge of
the old couple, who contrived to hold her by that means, and take her
home.
Wattie was ashamed to take her into the hall, but led her into one of
the out-houses, whither he brought her brother to receive her. The man
of the law was manifestly vexed at her reappearance, and scrupled not
to testify his dissatisfaction; for when Wattie told him how the
wretch had abused his sister, and that, had it not been for Bessie's
interference and his own, the Lady would have been killed outright, he
said, "Why, Walter, it is a great pity that he did _not_ kill her
outright. What good can her life now do to her, or of what value is
her life to any creature living? After one has lived to disgrace all
connected with them, the sooner they are taken off the better."
The man, however, paid old Walter down his two thousand merks, a
great fortune for one like him in those days; and not to dwell longer
on this unnatural story, I shall only add, very shortly, that the Lady
of Wheelhope soon made her escape once more, and flew, as if drawn by
an irresistible charm, to her tormentor. Her friends looked no more
after her; and the last time she was seen alive, it was following the
uncouth creature up the water of Daur, weary, wounded, and lame, while
he was all the way beating her, as a piece of excellent amusement. A
few days after that, her body was found among some wild haggs, in a
place called Crook-burn, by a party of the persecuted Covenanters that
were in hiding there, some of the very men whom she had exerted
herself to destroy, and who had been driven, like David of old, to
pray for a curse and earthly punishment upon her. They buried her like
a dog at the Yetts of Keppel, and rolled three huge stones upon her
grave, which are lying there to this day. When they found her corpse,
it was mangled and wounded in a most shocking manner, the fiendish
creature having manifestly tormented her to death. He was never more
seen or heard of in this kingdom, though all that country-side was
kept in terror for him many years afterwards; and to this day, they
will tell you of THE BROWNIE OF THE BLACK HAGGS, which title he seems
to have acquired after his disappearance.
This story was told to me by an old man named Adam Halliday, whose
great-grandfather, Thomas Halliday, was one of those that found the
body and buried it. It is many years since I heard it; but, however
ridiculous it may appear, I remember it made a dreadful impression on
my young mind. I never heard any story like it, save one of an old
fox-hound that pursued a fox through the Grampians for a fortnight,
and when at last discovered by the Duke of Athole's people, neither of
them could run, but the hound was still continuing to walk after the
fox, and when the latter lay down, the other lay down beside him, and
looked at him steadily all the while, though unable to do him the
least harm. The passion of inveterate malice seems to have influenced
these two exactly alike. But, upon the whole, I scarcely believe the
tale can be true.