STORIES OF THE BORDER MARCHES

[Illustration]

BY JOHN LANGAND JEAN LANG

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK LTD. 67 LONG ACRE, W. C. , AND EDINBURGH

1916

PREFACE

The quotation that speaks of "Old, unhappy, far-off things, and battleslong ago, " has grown now to be hackneyed. Yet, are not they those "old, unhappy, far-off things" that lure us back from a very commonplace andutilitarian present, and cause us to cling to the romance of storiesthat are well-nigh forgotten?

In these days of rushing railway journeys, of motor cars, telegrams, telephones, and aeroplanes, we are apt to lose sight of the tales ofmore leisurely times, when lumbering stage-coaches and relays of willinghorses were our only means of transit from one kingdom to the other. 

Because the "long ago" means to us so infinitely valuable a possession, we have striven to preserve in print a few of the stories that stillremain--flotsam and jetsam saved from the cruel rush of an overwhelmingtide. 

One or two of the tales in this volume are perhaps not quite so familiaras is the average Border story, and some may contain less of violenceand of bloodshed than is common. Yet it must be owned that it is no easytask to divorce the Border from its wedded mate, violence. 

 JOHN LANG. JEAN LANG. 

CONTENTS

THE WHITE LADY OF BLENKINSOPP 1

DICKY OF KINGSWOOD 17

STORM AND TEMPEST 28

GRISELL HOME, A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY HEROINE 45

KINMONT WILLIE 66

IN THE DAYS OF THE '15 82

SEWINGSHIELDS CASTLE, AND THE SUNKEN TREASURE OF BROOMLEE LOUGH 108

THE KIDNAPPING OF LORD DURIE 115

THE WRAITH OF PATRICK KERR 132

THE LAIDLEY WORM OF SPINDLESTON-HEUGH 136

A BORDERER IN AMERICA 147

BORDER SNOWSTORMS 164

THE MURDER OF COLONEL STEWART OF HARTRIGGE 187

AULD RINGAN OLIVER 195

A LEGEND OF NORHAM 208

THE GHOST OF PERCIVAL REED 223

DANDY JIM THE PACKMAN 231

THE VAMPIRES OF BERWICK AND MELROSE 237

A BORDER MIDDY 244

SHEEP-STEALING IN TWEEDDALE 256

A PRIVATE OF THE KING'S OWN SCOTTISH BORDERERS 271

HIGHWAYMEN IN THE BORDER 282

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE 295

ILLICIT DISTILLING AND SMUGGLING 304

SALMON AND SALMON-POACHERS IN THE BORDER 322

THE GHOST THAT DANCED AT JETHART 342

A MAN HUNT IN 1813 346

LADY STAIR'S DAUGHTER 351

STORIES OF THE BORDER MARCHES

THE WHITE LADY OF BLENKINSOPP

Among the old castles and peel towers of the Border, there are few towhich some tale or other of the supernatural does not attach itself. Itmay be a legend of buried treasure, watched over by a weeping figure, that wrings its hands; folk may tell of the apparition of an ancientdame, whose corpse-like features yet show traces of passions unspent; ofsolemn, hooded monk, with face concealed by his cowl, who passes downthe castle's winding stair, telling his beads; they whisper, it may be, of a lady in white raiment, whose silken gown rustles as she walks. Orthe tale, perhaps, is one of pitiful moans that on the still night airecho through some old building; or of the clank of chains, that comesringing from the damp and noisome dungeons, causing the flesh of thelistener to creep. 

They are all to be found, or at least they _used_ all to be found, somewhere or other in the Border, by those who love such legends. And, perhaps, nowhere are they more common than amongst the crumbling, grass-grown ruins of Northumberland. 

Away, far up the South Tyne, and up its tributary the Tipalt Burn, closeto the boundary of Cumberland, there stands all that is left of anancient castle, centuries ago the home of an old and once powerfulfamily. The building dates probably from early in the fourteenthcentury. In the year 1339 "Thomas de Blencansopp" received licence tofortify his house on the Scottish Border, and it is supposed that hethen built this castle. 

Truly that was a part of England where a man had need be careful in hisbuilding if he desired to sleep securely and with a whole skin, for onall sides of him were wild and turbulent neighbours. From the strenuousday of the old Romans, who built across those hills that long line ofwall, which stands yet in parts solid and strong, for centuries thecountryside was lawless and unruly, the inhabitants "ill to tame, " andevery man a freebooter. The Thirlwalls, the Ridleys, the Howards ofNaworth, the wild men of Bewcastle; the Armstrongs, Elliots, Scotts, andothers across the Border, they were all of them--they and theirforebears to the earliest times--of the stuff that prefers action, however stormy, to inglorious peace and quiet, and the man who "kept uphis end" in their neighbourhood could be no weakling. 

Whether the Blenkinsopps were strong enough permanently to hold theirproperty intact among such neighbours one does not know, but at anyrate, in 1488 John de Blenkinsopp and his son Gerrard committed thecastle to the custody of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, Warden ofthe East and Middle Marches. Percy's care of the building, however, doesnot seem to have been particularly zealous, or else "the false Scottes"had again, as was their wont, proved themselves to be unpleasantneighbours, for in 1542 the place is described as "decayed in the Roof, and not in good reparation. "

Before this date, however, there had been at least one of theBlenkinsopp family on whose reputation for daring and strength no manmight cast doubt. Far and wide, Bryan de Blenkinsopp was known for hisdeeds in war; he was counted gallant and brave even amongst the bravestand most gallant, and his place in battle was ever where blows fellthickest. But it is said that he had one failing, which eventuallywrecked his life--he was grasping as any Shylock. Love of money was hisundoing. 

In spite of many chances to do so, in spite of the admiration in whichhe was universally held, Bryan de Blenkinsopp had never married. He wasgreatly admired, and yet, for a certain roughness and brutality in him, greatly feared, by many women, and he had been heard many a timescoffingly to say that only would he bring home a wife when he had founda woman possessed of gold sufficient to fill a chest so large that tenof his men might not be able to carry it into his castle. Brides of thiscalibre did not then grow in profusion on either side of the Border, andhad he continued to live uninterruptedly in his own country, no doubtBryan de Blenkinsopp might have remained to the end unmarried. But:"When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live tillI was married. " In that, Bryan might have anticipated _Benedick_, aswell as in the resolution. "Rich she shall be, that's certain. " He wentabroad to the wars. Perhaps he was with Henry V at Agincourt, andthenceforward, till the king's death in 1422, saw more of France than ofEngland. In any case, to the unbounded wonder of the countryside, whenat length he did return, Bryan brought back with him a foreign bride toBlenkinsopp. And what added to the wonder, the bride brought with her achest of treasure so heavy that twelve of Bryan's retainers could withdifficulty bear it into the castle. 

Naturally, all this gave rise to endless talk; what prattling littlebusybody but would relish so succulent a morsel! Ere long the localgossip-mongers revelled in a perfect feast of petty scandal. Stories inminute detail spread quickly from mouth to mouth. The eccentricities andshortcomings of the foreign bride were a priceless boon to the scantypopulation of the district; in castle and in peel tower little else fora time was talked of. To begin with, the mere fact that she was aforeigner, and that neither she nor any of her immediate followers couldspeak English, told heavily against the lady in the estimation of thecountryside. Then, hardly anyone ever saw her (which in itself was anoffence, and the cause of still further tattle). She was very little, folk said who professed to be well informed, and her face and handsshowed strangely brown against the white robes that she habitually wore;her eyes were like stars; her temper quick to blaze up without duecause. Backstairs gossip, no doubt; but there were even pious souls who, in strictest confidence, went so far as to hazard the opinion that thelady was not quite "canny"; she might, they thought, quite possibly turnout to be an imp of the Evil One sent with her gold to wile Bryan's soulto perdition. The belief was not more fantastic than many another thatprevailed at that day, and later; and the fact that she was never knownto go to mass, nor had been seen to cross the threshold of a sacredbuilding, lent some weight to it. This was the kind of "clash" thatfloated about the countryside. 

But assuredly there was this much foundation for talk: Bryan and hisforeign bride were far from happy together. As time went on, theirquarrels, indeed, became notorious. It was whispered that the fount fromwhich flowed all the trouble was nothing more nor less than that chestof gold which the bride had brought for dowry. The lady, folk said, would not surrender it to her husband; no matter how he stormed. _She_was not of the kind that tamely submits, or cringes before a bully; onthe contrary, she ever gave back as good as she received. Finally, things came at length to such a pitch, that the lady and her foreignservants, it was said, at dead of night had secretly dug a great holesomewhere in the huge vaulted dungeons of the castle, and had thereburied her gold and the rich jewels which now she hated as the cause ofher troubles. 

Then, a little later, followed the climax--after violent scenes, Bryanhimself disappeared, as if to show that, the treasure being somewherebeyond his ken, or out of his reach, he had no further use for the wife. He might, no doubt, have resorted to poison, or to the knife, in orderto revenge himself; or he might have so made life a burden to her--as isdone sometimes, one is told, even by modern husbands--that she wouldhave been glad to lick his hand like a whipped spaniel, and to haveowned up, perhaps, to the place where she had hid the gold. But if hekilled her, her secret might die with her, or the servants who were inher confidence might themselves secure the treasure. Again, she hadplenty of spirit, and, indeed, rather seemed to enjoy a fight, and itwas possible that bullying might not cause her to try to conciliate himby revealing the whereabouts of the hidden treasure. So Bryan took thecourse that he judged would make things the most unpleasant for hiswife, and which would at the same time rid him of her. He simplydisappeared. 

And now the poor little lady, fierce enough in quarrel, and bitterenough in tongue, was inconsolable. In spite of all--it is one of themost inscrutable of the many inscrutable points in the nature of somewomen--in spite of all, she had loved her great, strong, brutal, bullying husband, and probably was only jealous of the gold because hehad showed too plainly that in his estimation it, and not she, camefirst. Her days, unhappy enough before, were now spent in fruitlessmisery, waiting for him who returned never again. A year and a daypassed, and still no tidings came to her of Bryan de Blenkinsopp. Thedeserted wife could bear no longer her life in this alien country, andshe, too, with all her servants, went away. Folk, especially those whohad always in their hearts suspected her of being an imp of Satan, saidthat no man saw them go. Probably she went in search of her husband; butwhether or not she ever found him, or whether she made her way back tothe land from which she had come, none can say, for from that day tothis all trace is lost of husband and of wife. Only the tale remained inthe country people's minds; and probably it lost nothing in the tellingas the years rolled on. 

The story of the White Lady of Blenkinsopp became one to which thedwellers by Tyneside loved to listen of a winter's evening round thefire, and it even began to be whispered that she "walked. " More than onedweller in the castle claimed to have seen her white-robed figurewandering forlorn through the rooms in which she had spent her short, unhappy wedded life. Perhaps it may have been due to her influence thatby 1542 the roof and interior had been neglected and allowed to fallinto decay. 

Yet though shorn of all its former grandeur, for some centuries thecastle continued to be partly occupied, and as late as the first quarterof last century, in spite of the dread in which the White Lady had cometo be held, there were families occasionally living in the less ruinedparts of the building. 

About the year 1820 two of the more habitable rooms were occupied by alabouring man with his wife and their two children, the youngest a boyof eight. They had gone there, the parents at least well knowing thereputation of the place; but weeks had passed, their rest had never inany way been disturbed, and they had ceased to think of what they nowconsidered to be merely a silly old story. All too soon, however, therecame a night when shriek upon shriek of ghastly terror rang in the earsof the sleeping husband and wife, and brought them, with sick dread intheir hearts, hurrying to the room where their children lay. 

"Mither! mither! oh mither! A lady! a lady!" gasped the sobbingyoungest boy, clinging convulsively to his mother. 

"What is't, my bairn? There's never a lady here, my bonny boy. There'snobody will harm ye. "

But the terrified child would not be comforted. He had seen a lady, "abraw lady, a' in white, " who had come to his bedside and, sitting down, had bent and kissed him; she "cried sore, " the child said, and wrung herhands, and told him that if he would but come with her she would makehim a rich man, she would show him where gold was buried in the castle;and when the boy answered that he dare not go with her, she had stoopedto lift and carry him. Then he had cried out, and she had slipped fromthe room just as his father and mother hurried in. 

"Ye were dreamin', my bonny lamb, " cried the mother; and the parents, after a time, succeeded in calming the child and in getting him again tofall asleep. Night after night, however, as long as the boy remained inthat room, this scene was re-enacted; the same terror-stricken screams, the same hurried rush of the parents, the same frightened tale from thequivering lips of the child. Dreams, no doubt, induced by some childishmalady; a common enough form of nightmare, suggested by previousknowledge of a story likely to impress children. But to the day of hisdeath--and he died an old man, a successful colonist, prosperous andrespected, a man in no way prone to superstitious weakness--the dreamerever maintained that it was something more than a dream that had come tohim those nights in Blenkinsopp Castle. He could feel yet, he said, andshuddered to feel, the clasp of her arms and the kiss on his cheek fromthe cold lips of the White Lady; and the dream, if dream it were, wasnot due to suggestion, for he was conscious of no previous knowledge ofthe legend. 

The White Lady of Blenkinsopp has fled now, scared from her haunt by theblack smoke of tall chimneys and the deep--throated blare of steamhooters; coal dust might well lay a more formidable spectre than that ofa Lady in White. But no man has ever yet discovered the whereabouts ofher hidden treasure, though many have sought. 

Seventy or eighty years ago, there came to the inn of a neighbouringvillage a lady, who confided to the hostess of the inn that in a dreamshe had seen herself find, under a certain stone, deep in the dungeon ofa ruined castle, a chest of gold; and Blenkinsopp, she said, answered inevery detail to the castle of her dream. Assuredly, she thought, to hernow was to be revealed the long-sought burial-place of the White Lady'streasure. But patiently though the dreamer waited on and importuned thecastle's owner, permission to make a systematic search among the ruinswas too hard to obtain, and the disheartened seer of visions departed, and returned no more. And so the hidden treasure to this day remainshidden; no prospector has yet lit on that rich "claim, " no "dowser" haspoised his magic hazel twig above its bed, nor has clairvoyant revealedits whereabouts. 

But rumour had it once that the long-sought hiding-place was found. Orders had been given that the vaults of the castle should be cleared ofrubbish, and fitted up as winter quarters for cattle, and as the workmenproceeded with their task they came on a low doorway, hitherto unknown, on a level with the bottom of the keep. This doorway gave on a narrowpassage, leading no man knew whither. The report flew abroad that hereat last was the Lady's vault, and people flocked to see what might beseen. None dared venture far along this passage, till one, bolder thanthe rest, taking his courage in both hands, went gingerly down the wayso long untrod by human foot. The passage was narrow and low, too lowfor a man to walk in erect; after a few yards it descended a shortflight of steps, and then again went straight forward to a door sodecayed that only a rusted bolt, and one rust-eaten hinge, held it inplace. Beyond this door, an abrupt turn in the passage, and then aflight of steps so precipitous that the feeble beam of his lantern couldgive the explorer no help in fathoming their depth; and when thislantern was lowered as far as it was in his power to do so, the flameburned blue and went out, killed by the noxious gases that stagnantcenturies had breathed. Dizzy and frightened, the explorer withdifficulty groped his way back to the fresher air of the vault, and nopersuasion could induce him, or any of his fellows, to venture again sofar as to that long flight of steps. The employer of those labourers wasa man entirely devoid of curiosity or of imagination, possessed of nointerest whatsoever in archaeology; so it fell out that the passage wasclosed, without any further effort being made to discover to whatmysteries it might lead. 

About the year 1845, one who then wrote about the castle visited theplace, and found that boys had broken a small hole in the wall where thepassage had been built up. Through this hole they were wont to amusethemselves by chucking stones, listening, fascinated, to the strangesounds that went echoing, echoing through the mysterious depths farbelow. Here, say some, lies the buried treasure of the White Lady ofBlenkinsopp. But there are not wanting unsympathetic souls, who pridethemselves on being nothing if not practical, who pretend to think thatthis hidden depth is nothing more mysterious than the old draw-well ofthe castle. 

This story of the White Lady is not the only legend of the supernaturalwith which the old family of Blenkinsopp is connected. 

Where Tipalt Burn falls into Tyne, stand on the opposite bank the ruinsof Bellister Castle. There, many hundred years ago, dwelt a branch ofthe Blenkinsopps. To Bellister there came one night at the gloaming awandering harper, begging for shelter from the bitter northerly blastthat gripped his rheumatic old joints, and sported with his failingstrength. He was a man past middle age, with hair thin and grey, and aface worn and lined; his tattered clothes gave scant protection frominclement weather. As was the custom in those times, the minstrel'swelcome was hearty. Food and drink, and a seat near the fire, were his, and soon his blood thawed, the bent form of the man seemed tostraighten, and his eye kindled as, later in the evening, "high placedin hall, a welcome guest, " he touched his harp and sang to the company. You could scarcely now recognise the weary, bent, old scarecrow that buttwo hours back had trailed, footsore and tired, across the castledrawbridge. The change was astonishing, and many jested with the harperon the subject. 

But one there was who noticed, and who did not jest. They wereincreasingly uneasy looks that the lord of the castle from time to timethrew towards the minstrel. What, he pondered unquietly, caused thisamazing change in the appearance of one who so lately had seemed to bealmost on the verge of the grave? Was he in truth the frail old man hehad pretended to be, or had he overacted his part, and was he nominstrel, but an enemy in disguise? The lord's looks grew blacker andmore black, and ever more uneasy as the evening proceeded; and the morehe suspected, the more he drank to drown the disquiet of his mind. Atlength his unease became so marked that unavoidably it communicateditself to the rest of the company. Even the rough men-at-arms desistedfrom their boisterous jests, and spoke beneath their breath. The harperglancing around as the silence grew, and finding the lord's black looksever upon him, trailed off at last in his song and sat mute, withuncertain fingers plucking at the strings of his instrument. The companybroke up, glad to escape from the gloom of their lord's glances, andsomebody showed the old man to a rude chamber, where a bundle of peasestraw was to serve him for bed. 

But the lord of Bellister sat on, "glooming" morbidly to himself. Bitterfeud existed between him and a neighbouring baron. Had he not cause todistrust that baron, and to believe that means neither fair norhonourable might be employed by his enemy to wipe out the feud? What ifthis self-styled harper should turn out to be no minstrel after all, buta hired assassin, a follower of that base churl, his hated foe! Tosuspect was to believe. In his excited, drink-clouded brain wrath sprangup, fully armed. He would speedily put an end to that treacherousscheme; his enemies should learn that if one can plot, another may havecunning to bring to naught such treachery. And little mercy should beshown to the base tool of a baser employer. 

"Bring hither quickly to me that minstrel, " he called. "And it will bethe better for some of you that there be no delay, " he muttered beneathhis breath, with a threatening blow of his fist on the table. 

Of old his servants and dependants had learned the lesson that it waswell not to linger over the carrying out of their passionate lord'sorders. But in this instance, speed was of no avail; they were obligedto return, to report to a wrathful master that the bird had flown; theplace was empty, the old man gone. Threatening glances and black lookshad scared him; without waiting for rest, he had fled while yet therewas time, less afraid of exposure to a wild and stormy night than tofind himself in the clutches of a petty tyrant. 

That the man had fled was to Blenkinsopp quite convincing proof that hissuspicions were justified. Immediate pursuit was ordered. "Lay thesleuth hounds on his trail without an instant's delay. Let _them_ dealwith him!"

 * * * * *

Less than a mile away, by some willows that once marked a ford in theriver, men hurrying after the baying hounds came up too late. Echoingacross the heath, an agonised shriek rang on their ears, drowned by thesnarling as of wild beasts. Lying on its back on the river bank, headand shoulders in the shallow stream, the man-hunters found but a frail, mutilated body that had once been the wandering old minstrel. 

This was what gave rise to the legend of the Grey Man of Bellister. Eversince that hideous night, at intervals the "Grey Man" has been wont toappear to belated travellers along that road. Near the clump of willowshe might first be seen, hurrying, hurrying, his long grey cloak flyingin the wind. And woe to him on whom he chanced to turn and look; hiswild eye and torn face, his blood-clotted beard, would freeze withhorror those who gazed, and disaster or death followed hard on the trackof the vision. 

It is a hundred years now, and more, since last the "Grey Man" was seen. Perhaps his penance for sins committed on earth is ended; or perhaps itis that against railways, and drainage, and modern scoffings, he and hislike cannot stand. He is gone; but even yet, about the scene where onceas a man the old minstrel fled for dear life, there hangs at the deadtime of night a sense of mystery and awe. As the chilly wind comeswailing across the everlasting hills, blending its voice with themelancholy dirge of the river, one may almost believe that through thegloom there passes swiftly a bent, hurrying figure. Perhaps it is butthe swaying of a branch near by, that so startlingly suggests the wavingin the wind of a threadbare cloak. 

DICKY OF KINGSWOOD

Your Border ruffian of the good old days was not often a humorist. Lifeto him was a serious business. When he was not reiving other people'skye, other people were probably reiving his; and as a general rule oneis driven to conclude that he was not unlike that famous Scotch terrierwhose master attributed the dog's persistently staid and even melancholydisposition to the fact that he "jist couldna get enough o' fechting. "

In olden times, "fechting" was the Border man's strong point; but inlater, and perhaps less robust, days there were to be found some whotook a degenerate pride in getting by craft what their fathers wouldhave taken by force. Of such, in the early days of the eighteenthcentury, was Dicky of Kingswood. Had he lived a hundred or a hundred andfifty years earlier, Dicky would no doubt have been a first-classreiver, one of the "tail" of some noted Border chieftain, for he lackedneither pluck nor strength. But in his own day he preferred the_suaviter in modo_ to the _fortiter in re_; his cunning, indeed, was notunworthy of the hero of that ancient Norse tale, "The Master Thief, " andin his misdeeds there was not seldom to be found a spice of humour sodisarming that at times his victims were compelled to laugh, and inlaughter to forget their just resentment; and with the perishing ofresentment, to forego their manifest duty and that satisfaction whichvirtue should ever feel in the discomfiture of vice. Compounding afelony, we should call it now. And no doubt it was. But in those days, when the King's writ ran with but halting foot through the wild Borderhills, perhaps least said was soonest mended. 

Kingswood lies just across the river from Staward Peel, but Dicky dweltgenerally at the latter place--in former days an almost unassailablestronghold, standing on a bold eminence overlooking Allen Water, somemiles to the east of Haltwhistle. Here of old, when beacon-fires blazedon the hill-tops, "each with warlike tidings fraught, " flashing theirwarning of coming trouble from "the false Scottes, " the people of theseregions were wont to hurry for safety, breathlessly bearing with themwhatsoever valuables they prized and had time to save. Many a treasureis said to lie here, buried, and never again dug up, because those whoalone knew where to look had perished in defence of the Peel. Truly, ifthe troubled spirits of those slain ones yet wander, brooding overhidden chattels and lost penates, they are not greatly to be pitied, fora spot more beautiful, one less to be shunned if our spirits _must_wander, it would be hard to find in all Northumberland or in allEngland. Not distant would they be, too, from good company, for away tothe north across the Tyne, in a mighty cavern in the rock--below whatonce was the castle of Sewing Shields--does not local tradition tellthat Arthur and his knights lie asleep, waiting the inevitable day whenEngland's dire need shall bring them again to life, to strike a blow forthe land they loved. And along that noble line of wall which spannedEngland from sea to sea, might they not perchance foregather--some darkand stormy night, when snow drives down before a north-east wind--withthe dim forms of armoured men, wraiths of the Roman legions, patrollingonce more the line that they died to defend?

Dicky of Kingswood was making for home one day in early spring. He wasoutside the radius of his usual field of operations, far to the east ofKingswood and Staward, plodding along with the westering sun in hiseyes, and thinking ruefully that he had come a long way for nothing. Sometimes it is convenient for gentlemen of Dicky's habits to visitforeign parts, or parts, at least, where their appearance may notattract undue notice--for such as he are often of modest and retiringdisposition. On this occasion he had so far done no business of profit, and Dicky was depressed. He would fain turn a more or less honest pennyere he reached home, if it might but be done quietly. 

Late in the day came his chance. Grazing in a neighbouring lush pasturewere two fine fat bullocks. Dicky paused to look, and the more helooked, the more he admired; the more he admired, the more he coveted. They were magnificent beasts, seldom had he seen finer; nothing couldbetter suit his purpose. Such beasts would fetch a high priceanywhere--they _must_ be his. So, with what patience he could command, till darkness should come to his aid, Dicky discreetly retired to aneighbouring copse, where, himself unseen, he might feast his eyes onthe fat cattle, and at the same time make sure that if they did happento be removed from that particular pasture, at least he would not beignorant of their whereabouts. But the bullocks fed on undisturbed. Noone came to remove them; only their owner stood regarding them for awhile. Darkness fell, and the call of an owl that hooted eerily, or thedistant wail of a curlew, alone broke the stillness. Then up cameDicky's best friend, a moon but little past the full. Everything was inhis favour, not a hitch of any kind occurred; quietly and without anyfuss the great fat beasts began to make their slow way west across thehills for Cumberland. 

Morning came, bringing with it a great hue and cry on that farm bereftof its fat cattle, and things might chance to have fared ill with Dickyhad he not adroitly contrived to lay a false trail, that headed thefurious owner in hasty pursuit north, towards Tweed and Scotland. Meanwhile, in due time--not for worlds would Dicky have overdriventhem--the bullocks and their driver found themselves in Cumberland, nearby Lanercost. There, as they picked their leisurely way along, theyencountered an old farmer riding a bay mare, the like of which forquality Dicky had never seen. His mouth watered. 

"Where be'st gangin' wi' the nowt?" asked the farmer. 

"Oh, to Carlisle, " said Dicky. 

"Wad ye sell?"

"Oh aye!" answered Dicky. "For a price. But the beasts are good. "

"Yes, they were good, " admitted the farmer. And Dicky must come in, andhave a drink, and they'd talk about the oxen. So in they went to thefarmer's house, and long they talked, and the more they talked the morethe farmer wanted those bullocks; but the more he wanted them the morehe tried to beat Dicky down. But Dicky was in no haste to sell; he coulddo better at Carlisle, said he; and the upshot, of course, was that hegot the price he asked. And then said Dicky, when the money was paid, and they had had another drink or two, and a mighty supper:

"That was a bonnie mare ye were riding. "

"Aye, " said the farmer. "An' she's as good as she's bonnie. There's noher like in a' Cumberland. "

"Wad ye sell?"

"Sell!" cried the farmer. "No for the value o' the hale countryside. Herlike canna be found. Sell! Never i' this world. "

"Well, well, " said Dicky, "I canna blame ye. She's a graund mare. Butthey're kittle times, thir; I wad keep her close, or it micht happenyour stable micht be empty some morning. "

"Stable!" roared the fanner boisterously. "Hey! man, ah pit her in nostable. She sleeps wi' me, man, in my ain room. Ah'm a bachelor, ah am, an' there's non' to interfere wi' me, and ivvery nicht she's tied to myain bed-post. Man, it's music to my ear to hear her champin' her corn a'the nicht. Na, na! Ah trust her in no stable; an' ah'd like to see thethief could steal her awa' oot o' my room withoot wakenin' me. "

"Well, maybe ye're right, " said Dicky. "But mind, there's some cunnin'anes aboot. Ye'll hae a good lock on your door, nae doot?"

"Aye, I _have_ a good lock, as ye shall see, " cried the farmer, cautionswamped in brandy and good fellowship. "What think ye o' that for alock?"

"Uhm--m!" murmured Dicky reflectively, carefully scrutinising lock andkey--and he was not unskilled in locks. "Aye, a good lock; a very goodlock. Yes, yes! Just what you want; the very thing. They'll no pickthat. "

"No! They'll never pick _that_. Ho! Ho!" laughed the complacent farmer. 

Then Dicky said he "maun be steppin'. It was gettin' late. " And so, after one more drink, and another "to the King, God bless him, " and yetone more to "themselves, " and a fourth, just to see that the others wentthe right way and behaved themselves, the two parted, the best anddearest of friends. 

It might have been the outcome of a good conscience, or perhaps it wasthe soothing thought that he had made a good bargain, and had got thosebullocks at a figure lower than he had been prepared to pay; or, possibly, it may only have been the outcome of that extra last glass ortwo that he had had with Dicky. But whatever it was, the fact remainedthat the farmer's slumbers that night were very profound, his snoringheavier than common. Towards morning, but whilst yet the night was dark, dreaming that he and the mare were swimming a deep and icy river, hewoke with a start. Everything was strangely still; even the mare made nosound. And--surely it must be freezing! He was chilled to the bone. Andthen, on a brain where yet sang the fumes of brandy, it dawned that hehad absolutely no covering on him. Sleepily he felt with his hands thisway and that, up and down. To no purpose. His blankets must certainlyhave fallen on the floor, but try as he might, no hand could he lay onthem. Slipping out of bed to grope for flint and steel wherewith tostrike a light, with soul-rending shock he ran his forehead full buttagainst the open door of his room. 

"De'il tak' it! What's this?" he bellowed. It was inconceivable that hehad forgotten to close and lock that door before getting into bed, however much brandy he might have drunk overnight. What was the meaningof it? At last a light, got from the smouldering kitchen fire, revealedthe hideous truth--his room was empty, the cherished mare gone! The door(as he had found to his cost) stood wide open; along the floor werecarefully spread his blankets, and over them no doubt the mare had beenled out without making noise sufficient to awaken even a light sleeper, let alone one whose potations had been deep as the farmer's. 

Lights now flashed and twinkled from room to room, from house to stableand byre, and back again, as the frenzied, cursing farmer and hisservants tumbled over each other in their haste to find the lost animal. It is even said that one servant lass, in her ardour of search, wasfound looking under the bed in an upstairs room--scarcely a likelygrazing ground for any four-footed animal (unless perhaps it might be anight-mare). But whether she expected to find there the lost quadruped, or the man guilty of its abduction, tradition says not. At any rate, allthat any of the searchers found--and that not till broad daylight--wasthe print of the good mare's hoofs in some soft ground over which shehad been ridden fast. And no one had heard even so much as the smallestsound. 

The day was yet young, and the breeze played gratefully cool on Dicky'sbrow, as, fearless of pursuit, he rode contentedly along towards home afew hours later. Skirting by Naworth, thence up by Tindale Tarn and downthe burn to South Tyne, he had now come to the Fells a little to thesouth and east of Haltwhistle. To him came a man on foot; and, said he:

"Have ye seen onny stray cattle i' your travels? I've lost a yoke o' fatbullocks. "

"What micht they be like?" asked Dicky innocently; for he had nodifficulty in recognising the farmer from whom he had stolen the beasts, though the latter, having never set eyes on Dicky, had no idea of whomhe was talking to. 

"Oh, " said the man, "they were fine, muckle, fat beasts, red, baith o'them, ane wi' a bally face, an' the tither wi' its near horn sair turnedin. " And some other notable peculiarities the farmer mentioned, such asmight strike a man skilled in cattle. 

"We-el, " answered Dicky thoughtfully, "now that ye mention it, I believeI did see sic a pair, or twa very like them, no later agone thanyesterday afternoon. If I'm no mista'en, they're rinnin' on Maister----'s farm, no far frae Lanercost. "

"Man, ah'm that obleeged to ye. But ah'm that deid tired wi' walkin', seekin' them, ah canna gang that far, " said the farmer. "That's a geyguid mare ye're ridin'. Ye wadna be for sellin' her, likely?"

"Oh aye, I'll sell. But she's a braw mare; there's no her like i' thecountryside, or in a' Northumberland. I'll be wantin' a braw price. "Dicky was always ready for a deal, and in this instance of course itsuited him very well to get rid of his steed. 

So, after some chaffering, Dicky was promised his "braw price, " and heaccompanied the farmer home to get the money. A long way it was. Thefarmer perforce walked, but Dicky, with native caution, rode, for, saidhe, in excuse to his companion:

"I'm loth to part wi' my good auld mare, for I've never owned her like. Sae I'll jist tak' a last bit journey on her. "

In due course Dicky got his money, and food and drink, as much as hecould swallow, into the bargain. Then the farmer rode away forLanercost; and Dicky, of course, remembered that he had business in adifferent part of the country. 

Sure enough, when the farmer reached Lanercost there were his bullockscontentedly grazing in a field, while contemplatively gazing at themstood an elderly man, with damaged face. 

Up rode the farmer on the mare. 

"Here!" shouted he angrily, "what the de'il are ye doin' wi' mybullocks?"

"Wh-a-at?" bellowed the other with equal fury. "_Your_ bullocks! And bed----d to ye! If it comes to that, what the de'il are _ye_ doin' ridin'my mare? I'll hae the law o' ye for stealin' her, ye scoondrel! Come_doon_ oot o' my saiddle afore ah pu' ye doon. " And the two elderly men, each red in the face as a "bubbly jock, " both spluttering and almostspeechless with rage, glared at each other, murder in their eyes. 

Then came question and answer, and mutual explanation, and gradually thecomic side of the affair struck them; each saw how the other had beendone, and they burst into roar after roar of such laughter as left themweak and helpless. They had been properly fooled. But the fat bullockswere recovered, and the well-loved mare, even if the money paid for eachwas gone. And after all, he laughs best who laughs last. But they saw nomore of Dicky of Kingswood. 

STORM AND TEMPEST

When we think of "the Border, " the picture that rises to mind is usuallyone of hill and dale, of peat-hag and heathery knoll, of brimming burnsthat tumble headlong to meet the embrace of rivers hurrying to theirrest in the great ocean. One sees in imagination the solemn, round-shouldered hills standing out grim in the thin spring sunshine, their black sides slashed and lined with snow; later, one pictures thesehills decked with heartsease and blue-bells a-swing in the summerbreeze, or rich with the purple bloom of heather; and, again, oneimagines them clothed in November mists, or white and ghost-like, shrouded in swirling clouds of snow. 

But there is another part of the Border which the inland dweller is aptto forget--that which, in sweep upon sweep of bay, or unbroken line ofcliff, extends up the coasts of Northumberland and Berwickshire. That isa part of the Border which those who are not native to it know only inthe months of summer, when the sea is sapphire-blue, when surf creamssoftly round the feet of limpet-covered rocks, and the little waveletslaugh and sparkle as they slide over the shining sands. It is anothermatter when Winter with his tempests comes roaring from the North. Whereare then the laughing waters and the smiling sunlit sands? Swallowed upby wild seas with storm-tossed crests, that race madly landward to dashthemselves in blind fury on shoreless cliffs, or sweep resistless over ashingly beach. 

It is a cruel coast in the winter time, and its children had need bestrong men and fearless, for they who make their living on the face ofits waters surely inherit a share greater than is their due of toil anddanger; they, verily, more than others "see the works of the Lord, andHis wonders in the deep. " From earliest times when men first sailed theseas this coast has taken heavy toll of ships and of human lives, and inthe race that it has bred, necessarily there has been little room forweaklings; their men are even to this day of the type of the oldVikings--from whom perhaps they descend--fair-bearded and strong, blue-eyed and open of countenance. And their women--well, there are manywho might worthily stand alongside their countrywoman, Grace Darling, many who at a pinch would do what she did, and "blush to find it fame. "

Yet one must admit that, as a whole, this community was not always keento save ship and crew from the breakers, nor prone to warn vessels offfrom dangerous reef or sunken rock. In days long gone by, if all talesare true, the people of these coasts had no good reputation amongsailors, and their habits and customs were wont to give rise to muchfriction and ill-will betwixt England and Scotland. It is certain thatin 1472 they plundered the great foreign-going barge built by BishopKennedy of St. Andrews--the greatest ship ever seen in those days--whenshe drove ashore one stormy night off Bamborough. And of her passengers, one, the Abbot of St. Colomb, was long held to ransom by James Carr, adeed the consequences of which, in those days of an all-powerful Church, might be dreadful to contemplate. Pitscottie says the "Bishop's Barge"cost her owner something like £10, 000 sterling. Perhaps the harvestreaped by Bamborough when she came ashore may have encouragedNorthumbrians to adopt this line of business in earnest, for by 1559 weread that "wreckers" were common down all that coast; and their prayer:"Let us pray for a good harvest this winter, " contained no allusion tothe fruits of the field. 

In 1643 there was a Scottish priest, Gilbert Blakhal, confessor in Paristo the Lady Isabelle Hay, Lord Errol's daughter, who in the course of ajourney to his native land visited Holy Island, and in the account ofhis travels he makes mention of the ways of the island's inhabitants, and of their prayer when a vessel was seen to be in danger. "They al sitdowne upon their knees and hold up their handes, and say very devotely, 'Lord, send her to us. God, send her to us. ' You, seeing them upontheir knees, and their handes joyned, do think that they are praying foryour sauvetie; but their myndes are far from that. They pray, not God tosauve you, or send you to the porte, but to send you to them byship-wrack, that they may gette the spoile of her. And to showe thatthis is their meaning, if the ship come wel to the porte, or eschewnaufrage (shipwreck), they gette up in anger, crying: 'The Devil stickher; she is away from us. '" Father Blakhal does not pretend that withhis own ears he heard the Holy Islanders so pray. It was told to him bythe Governor of the island. But, then, this Governor, Robin Rugg byname, was "a notable good fellow, as his great read nose, full ofpimples, did give testimony. " Perhaps he exaggerated, or it was but oneof his "merry discourses. " Yet I think he told the truth in thisinstance. To "wreck" was the habit of the day, and by all coastalpeoples the spoil of wrecks was regarded as not less their just due thanwas the actual food obtained by them from the sea. On our own coasts andin our islands until quite recent times such was undoubtedly the case, just as in savage lands it continues to be the case to this day; and thedistinction is a fine-drawn one between doing nothing to prevent avessel from running into danger which would result in profit to thespectators, and the doing of a something, greater or less--say theshowing of a light, or the burning of a beacon--which may make itcertain that the same vessel shall go where she may be of "the greatestgood to the greatest number"--the "greatest number" in such instancesbeing always, of course, the wreckers. A wrecked vessel was theirlegitimate prey, and the inhabitants of many coastal parts are known tohave deeply resented the building of lighthouses where wrecks werefrequent. In his notes to _The Pirate_, Sir Walter Scott mentions thatthe rent of several of the islands in Shetland had greatly fallen sincethe Commissioners of Lighthouses ordered lights to be established on theIsle of Sanda and the Pentland Skerries. And he tells of the reflectioncast upon Providence by a certain pious island farmer, the sails ofwhose boat were frail from age and greatly patched: "Had it been _His_will that a light hadna been placed yonder, " said he, with piousfervour, "I wad have had enough of new sails last winter. "

Then as to the saving of life--in those days, and well on into theeighteenth century, it was believed to be a most unlucky thing to save adrowning person; he was sure eventually to do his rescuer some deadlyinjury. A similar belief, as regards the ill luck, prevails in China tothis day; nothing will induce a Chinaman to help a drowning man from thewater. In our own case, probably this superstition as to ill luckoriginated in the obvious fact that if there were no survivor from awreck, there could be no one to interfere with the claim made by thefinders to what they considered their lawful due. If a vessel droveashore on their coast, that surely was the act and the will of God, andit was not for them to question His decrees or to thwart His intentions. 

Many, since the days of the wreckers, have been the ships cast awayalong that rugged coast-line which starts southward from the grimpromontory of St. Abb's Head, and runs, cruelly rock-girt or stretchedin open bay of yellow sand, away past Berwick and down by Holy Island. Many have been the disasters, pitiful on occasion the loss of life. Butnever, since history began, has disaster come upon the coast like tothat which befell the little town of Eyemouth in the early autumn of1881, never has loss of life so heartrending overwhelmed a smallcommunity. Once the headquarters of smuggling on our eastern coast, andbuilt--as it is well known was also built a certain street of smallhouses in Spittal--with countless facilities for promoting theoperations of "Free Trade, " and with "bolt-holes" innumerable for thesmugglers when close pressed by gangers, Eyemouth is still a quaintlittle town, huddling its strangely squeezed-up houses in narrow lanesand wynds betwixt river and bay. There, too, as at a northern townbetter known to fame than Eyemouth, "The grey North Ocean girds it round, And o'er the rocks, and up the bay, The long sea-rollers surge and sound, And still the thin and biting spray Drives down the melancholy street. "

 * * * * *

Truly, in Eyemouth it is not alone spray that drives. So close aneighbour is the protecting sea-wall to some of the houses that turnweather-beaten backs on the bay, that at high tide during anorth-easterly gale the giant seas, breaking against the wall, burstalso clear over the houses, hurling themselves in torrents of icy waterinto the street beyond. And up the width of one little street that runsto the bay, and past its barricaded doors, you may see sometimes billowsthat have overleapt the wall come charging, to ebb with angry swish andlong-drawn clatter of shingle as the waves suck back. It is a strangesight, and it causes one to wonder what manner of men they are who dwellhere, who draw their living from the bosom of a sea that thus harshlytreats its children. Yet it is a sea that can be kindly enough; and inthe long, golden summer evenings, when the brown-sailed fishing-boats inendless procession draw out from the "haven under the hill, " to vanishseaward in the deepening twilight, you would scarce believe that a thingso gentle could be guilty of treachery, or ever could arise in suddenmad frenzy to slay those who had trusted it. 

Yet that was what happened that terrible Friday, the 14th of October1881. No summer's morning could have dawned more peaceful and fair. Andhere we were but in mid-October, when the woods are in their glory andScotland looks still for the settled weather of her "Indian summer";there should yet be ample measure of quiet days and nights ere wintergales rumble in the chimneys and wail through the rigging of boats lyingweather-bound in harbour. 

A cloudless day, sea of deepest blue, without even the faintestcat's-paw to wrinkle its shining face; a morning warm, genial, windless, reminiscent of fairest summer, such a day as landsmen rejoice in, feeling that it is good to be alive. But the glass came tumbling down, the sea heaved sullenly in the oily calm, seething around the baredfangs of jagged rocks, drawing back with threatening snarl or snatchingirritably at the trailing sea-weed; and high aloft the gulls wheeled, clamouring. Old men amongst the fishers looked askance. Why did they nottake warning? Alas! The year had been a lean year; the weather latterlyhad been bad, and for near on a week the boats had been unable to goout. The fish were there for the taking. Prices now were good. And "menmust work" even if "women must weep. " So it befell that boat after boatput out from harbour and headed over the windless sea, dragged, galley-like, by the clumsy sweeps, till, clear of the land, the fanningof a light air from the south-west gave her gentle steerage way. Soonnot a boat was left in port; even those whose weather-wise "skeely" oldskippers had counselled caution, at length, against their will andbetter judgment, were shamed into starting. After all, it was no greatdistance they were going; with ordinary luck they might be back beforemuch wind came. And if the worst came to the worst and they were caughtout at sea, why, the boats were weatherly craft, manned by the best ofseamen, and an hour or two at the most would see them fight their wayback to port. It was all in the day's work. Nothing venture, nothingwin. If one may take a risk, so may another. It does not do to standidle in the background whilst one's neighbour by superior daring securesthe prize we also sorely need. 

So by 9 A. M. The last boat of the five and forty had got to sea. Beforemidday all had made an offing of eight or ten miles, and had started toshoot their lines. Folk who had watched them creep out of the harbournow gave no further heed, save perhaps that wives may chance to havecast anxious looks seaward now and again. But none dreamt of evil. 

Then of a sudden, as the morning passed, some on shore became aware of astrange, death-like stillness that had fallen over all things, a feelingof gloom and oppression in the air. The sun indeed still shone uncloudedover the land, but away out at sea to the north-east there was ahorrible canker of blackness that was eating up the sky, and thatalready had hid from sight, as by a wall, those boats that lay farthestfrom the land, whilst those still visible could be seen hurriedlyletting everything go by the run. Then the blackness shut down over all, and men could but guess what was going on behind that terrible veil. Over the town, as people deserted their houses and hurried to cliff orsea wall, or wherever there seemed possibility of gaining sight orknowledge of the fleet, the same horror of darkness came rushing; windraved and screamed, and already a sea, indescribable in its appallingfury, was raging into the bay, the crests, cut off as with a knife, flying through the air like densest smoke. Rain scourged and blinded, the driving spray lashed beyond bearing the faces of those who, dread intheir souls, peered through their sheltering hands, trying vainly topenetrate the smother to windward. A few hundred yards of raging water, a blurred vision of rushing, tumbling seas; tumultuous, deafening roarof surf, the tortured scream of wind; and that was all. It was as if onemight try to gaze into the mouth of hell. 

Then through this Hades of waters, rolling, tumbling, pitching, buriedalmost in the breaking seas, into the bay came rushing three yawls, manned by crab-fishers from St. Abb's, past the Hurcar Rock, and roundsafely into the harbour; then a large Eyemouth fishing-boat, andanother, and another, and then a pause of sickening suspense, and twomore large boats from St. Abb's fought their way to safety. Men beganfaintly to pluck up heart. If these had come out of the jaws of death, why not the others? But now again they hoped with ever sinking hearts, for minutes passed and there came no more. Then, even as they strainedtheir eyes despairingly, there came one into the bay that failed to getfar enough to windward. Down on the rock behind the breakwater shedrove, helpless, and went to pieces. Another took the same road, andsmashed to atoms almost at the pierhead, so near, and yet so far fromhuman aid, that the voices of both crews could be heard by the helpless, distracted spectators--white-lipped men, wailing women, who clusteredthere by the rocks in impotent agony. One struggling drowning man foughthard--it is said that the outermost of a chain of rescuers once eventouched his hand. But no help was possible, no human power could havedrawn those helpless men from that raging cauldron; against such wind norocket could fly, near these rocks no lifeboat could live. Even if shecould have lived, there was no crew to man her; all were away with thefleet. 

It was near low water now, and into the bay came driving a big boat thatrushed on the rocks at Fort Point, pounded there a brief second, and washurled by the following sea on to the beach, so nearly high and dry thather crew, by the aid of lines, were readily saved. And then into viewthrough the welter came staggering a new boat, one whose first trip itwas, sore battered, but battling gallantly for life, and makingwonderful weather of it. Yet, even as hope told the flattering tale ofher certain safety, there came racing up astern a sea, gigantic even inthat giant sea, raced her, caught her, and, as it passed ahead, sotilted her bows that the ballast slid aft, and down she sank by thestern, so near to safety that betwixt ship and shore wife mightrecognise husband and husband wife. 

As at Eyemouth, so it was all down the coast. At Burnmouth, at Berwick(though no boat belonging to Berwick that day was out), at Goswick Bay, and elsewhere, boat after boat, driven before the fury of the gale, wasforced over by wind and sea, and sunk with all her crew, or was dashedto pieces on the shore. 

Night fell on Eyemouth; and, God, what a night! "In Rama was there avoice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning; Rachelweeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they arenot. "

By little and little, by ones and twos, boats, battered and with sailstorn to ribbons, with crews exhausted and distraught, kept arrivingduring the Saturday and Sunday, bringing men, as it were, back from thedead. One or two, under bare poles, had ridden the gale out at sea, lying up into the wind as near as might be, threshing through thoseawful seas hour after hour, buried almost, sometimes, in the seethingcauldron, or struck by tons of solid water when some huge mountain of awave, toppling to its fall, rushed at her out of the blackness. Fromminute to minute the men never knew but that the next roaring billowwould engulf them also, as already they had seen it roll over andswallow up their neighbours. 

It was the skipper of the _White Star_ that told afterwards how, beforethe tornado burst--as some said, "like a clap of thunder"--the firstthing to take his attention from the shooting of his lines was boats onthe weather side of him hurriedly shortening sail, or letting all run. To the nor'ard, from horizon almost to zenith, already the sky was blackas ink, the sea beneath white with flying spume. Then like magic the seagot up, and the _White Star_ turned to run for Eyemouth, with the_Myrtle_ in company. But darkness and the fierce turmoil of watersforced them to lay to in order to make certain of their position. Asthey lay, pitching fearfully and many times almost on their beam endsfrom the violence of the wind, a foaming mountain of water camethundering down on the _White Star_, so that for a brief moment allthought that she was gone; and almost as she shook herself free, justsuch another tremendous wave struck the _Myrtle_, and rolled her overlike a walnut-shell skiff, a child's plaything. As the _White Star_ roseon successive waves, her crew twice afterwards saw the _Myrtle_ heave upher side for a second ere she went to the bottom, but of her sevenhands no man was ever seen again. Head-reaching into the wind, the_White Star_ gradually made her perilous way, presently passing yetanother boat floating bottom up, her rigging trailing in the wateraround her, but no bodies visible anywhere. Of the rest of the fleet, nosign. Four and forty hours later the _White Star_ reached safety atNorth Shields. Other boats that also headed for the open sea were evenlonger in coming to port, but all, as they drew farther and farther fromland, found weather less terrible, a sea less dangerous, than that fromwhich by the skin of their teeth they had escaped. Some of the smittencraft drove far to the south before the wind, and after escapes many andincredible, reached a haven of safety, with men worn and dazed, but notall with crews complete; too many paid toll to the sea with one or morelives. For as long as a day and a half, there were skippers who sat, unrelieved, at the tiller of their boat, an awful weight ofresponsibility on their shoulders, human lives depending on their nerveand skill. Some of these men had to be carried ashore, when at lengththey reached safety; the legs of one were found to be so twisted andwedged in beneath his seat, that it was only with the greatestdifficulty and pain that he was got out of the boat. 

There was one boat that found refuge at Shields on the Sunday. Shearrived too late to permit of a telegram being sent announcing hersafety, but in time to allow her crew--or what was left of it--to catcha late train to the north, and the solemn, echoing tramp of their heavyfeet at midnight in the silent street of Eyemouth brought the strickenpeople from their beds with a start, and with vague apprehension offresh disaster. But their dread was turned to rejoicing, except for thefamily of that man who came home never again. In all, on that Sundaynight it was known that sixty-four of the men of Eyemouth had perished, and seventy-one were still missing. Of these but a handful everreturned. Eyemouth alone lost one hundred and twenty-nine--the men ofwhole families, almost of clans, swept away. Truly to her that day wasas of old had been Flodden Field to Scotland. The total number of menwho perished along this coast in that hurricane was one hundred andeighty-nine. 

Will the terror of that time ever be forgotten, or its horror wiped outfrom the town of Eyemouth? In the face of disaster such as that, smallerhappenings appear for the time almost insignificant. Yet it was but theother year that another great gale on that coast brought disaster mostpitiful. A Danish steamer, feeling her way to the Firth of Forth inweather thick with fog and with a great gale blowing, mistaking herposition, came creeping in the darkness close in to the little villageof St. Abb's. Nearer and nearer to the people, snug in their warm, well-lit houses, came the roar of her fog-horn. And then, from theneighbourhood of a treacherous rock--awash at low water--and little morethan a stone's throw from the village houses, there rushed up a rocket, and a flare was seen dimly burning. In the heavy sea, the steamer hadbrought her bows with a mighty crash on to that sunken rock, and thereshe lay, the great seas sweeping her from stem to stern. Rockets fromthe cliff that overlooked the wreck could not reach her in that fiercewind; the life-boat, when it arrived from Berwick, could not live in thebroken water near to her. All was done that man could do to rescue theperishing men in that hapless vessel; but that "all" in the end amountedto just nothing. Helpless, the watchers listened with sick hearts to thecries of her doomed crew and to the deep baying of a great hound thatwas on board the doomed ship; helpless, they gazed in impotent agony atthe despairing signals made. In the morning she was still there, but thecries were fainter, the faces seen fewer, the vessel more often buriedunder breaking seas. Then the cries ceased. And when daylight came asecond time, where the hull had been there was now but white, ragingwater, and seas that spouted high in air from a black rock that showedits cruel head at intervals. And of the crew there was found no sign. Only to and fro on the shore there ran a great white dog, that would letno man approach it, that would take no food from strange hands. Day andnight, like a lost spirit, to and fro between Eyemouth and St. Abb'sHead trotted the great white hound, never resting. And ever when a sailhove in sight, or a steamship passed near in, he would run hurriedly tothe farthest projecting point, and throwing back his head, wailpiteously for the drowned sailors, his friends. 

GRISELL HOME, A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY HEROINE

The Merse has given many a gallant man to the mother-country, oftentimesa fighter, now and again a martyr, but no fairer flower has everblossomed in that stretch of land that has the North Sea for one of itsboundaries, and looks across fertile plains to the long, blue line ofCheviots in the south, than one whose name must ever find a sure placein the hearts of those whom courage and fortitude, sweetness and merryhumour, exquisite unselfishness, and gay uncomplainingness in the faceof dire emergency are things to be honoured and held dear. 

Grisell Home was the eldest of eighteen children, two of whom died ininfancy. She was born at Redbraes Castle--now Marchmont--on December 25, 1665. There is a belief that Christmas babies always have an extra largeshare of the nature of Him who was born on Christmas Day; and trulyGrisell Home was one of those who never seemed to know the meaning ofSelf. Her father, Sir Patrick Home, a man of strong character and largefortune, was known to be a rigid Presbyterian, no friend to the house ofStuart, and he was regarded by the Government of his day as "a factiousperson. " His great friendship with his neighbour, Robert Baillie ofJerviswoode, in no way increased the favour with which either of thosegood men was regarded in high places. Jerviswoode and Home were"suspects, " and being known as close allies, where one was supposed tobe plotting, the other was always expected to be at his back. 

To be the eldest of so large a brood must have been a sobering thing forany little girl, but Grisell shouldered her responsibilities with ahappy heart, and united with that happy, child-like heart the wisdom anddiscretion of a woman. She was only twelve when she was chosen asmessenger from her father to his friend Mr. Baillie, who was then inprison in Edinburgh. Over lonely Soutra Hill (where highway robbery andmurder were things not unknown), it was no easy or pleasant ride fromMarchmont to the Port of Edinburgh; and here the bleaching skulls ofmartyred covenanters gave to those who entered the town grim warning ofthe risks of nonconformity. Doubtless little Grisell had been providedby her parents with a suitable escort, but, even so, her heart must havebeat faster as she went up the High Street to where the "Heart ofMidlothian" then stood, and asked to see Mr. Robert Baillie, herfather's friend. The bright-eyed, slim little maid, with her chestnuthair and exquisite complexion, must have been as unexpected a sight inthat gloomy place as a wild rose in a desert. None could suspect her ofmeddling with affairs of State, or of tampering with the prisoners ofhis gracious Majesty. Thus Grisell Home was able successfully to carry aletter of advice and information, and to bring back to her father in theMerse tidings of a blameless martyr. 

With his father in prison that day was Baillie's son, George, a boy oneyear older than Grisell. He had been, as were many of the well-born ladsof his time, at his studies in Holland, reading law, when his father wasput in prison, but hastened home on hearing the news. Boys wore swords, and not Eton jackets, in George Baillie's day. He had, as his daughterafterwards wrote of him, "a rough, manly countenance"; and from that dayuntil the day of her death that face, which she knew first as a boy's, was more beautiful to Grisell Home than any other face on earth. Severaltimes afterwards was Grisell sent as bearer of important letters fromher father to him whose son, in days still long to come, was to be herhusband, and never once was the douce little messenger suspected. 

Not many months later her own father was a prisoner in Dumbarton Castle, and during the fifteen months in which he lay there, Grisell was stillthe messenger, not only to him, but to his friends in various parts. Herearly childhood may have been unharassed, but Grisell Home's girlhoodwas a careful and anxious one. On the discovery of the Rye House Plot, Baillie of Jerviswoode and Home of Polwarth, innocent men both, weredenounced as traitors to their King. Baillie was taken, and afterseveral months of imprisonment in London, so heavily loaded with chainsthat his health completely broke down, he was brought by sea toEdinburgh in stormy November weather which kept the ship a fortnight onits way. A dying man when he was put in the Tolbooth, he yet had toundergo many exhausting examinations and a farcical trial, with "BluidyMackenzie" for chief inquisitor, and on Christmas Eve, 1684, hegallantly and cheerfully met a martyr's death at the Market Cross ofEdinburgh. 

Sir Patrick Home's denunciation was longer in coming than that of hisfriend, and not until November 1684 was the warrant for his apprehensionissued. He, good man, had no desire for martyrdom; moreover, at thattime he already possessed ten children, whose future as orphans waslikely to be wretched, and so Sir Patrick sought concealment from thehounds of the law. Foiled in laying hold of him, the law seized hiseldest son, Patrick, and cast him into prison. Two days afterJerviswoode's death, the lad petitioned the Privy Council for release. He was but "a poor afflicted young boy, " he said, loyal to hisprinciples and with a hatred of plots, and only craved liberty that hemight "see to some livelihood for himself" and "be in some condition" tohelp and serve his disconsolate mother and the rest of his father's tenstarving children. Most grudgingly was the boon bestowed, and not untilthe boy had obtained security for his good behaviour to the extent oftwo thousand pounds sterling was he allowed to return to the Merse. 

Meantime Redbraes Castle was constantly kept under supervision. Scarcelya week passed without a party of redcoats clattering up the drive, interrogating the servants, tramping through all the rooms, huntinground the policies, and doing everything in their power to make thingsunpleasant for the wife and children of this attainted rebel. To onlytwo people in the house, and to one out of it, was the secret of SirPatrick Home's hiding-place known. With the help of a faithful friendand retainer, Jamie Winter, the carpenter, Lady Home and her daughterGrisell had one dark night carried bed and bedclothes to theburying-place of the Homes, a vault under Polwarth Church, a mile fromRedbraes. A black walnut folding-bed, exactly underneath the pulpit fromwhich the minister of Polwarth preached every Sunday, was the fugitive'sresting-place at night, while for a month he saw no more daylight thanwas able to reach him from a slit at one end of the vault. The ashes ofhis ancestors were scarcely lively company, but Sir Patrick found "greatcomfort and constant entertainment" by repeating to himself Buchanan'sLatin Version of the Psalms. Each night, too, the prisoner was cheeredby a visit from his daughter Grisell. Through an open glen by theSwindon Burn, down what is called The Lady's Walk, Grisell nightly cameto the vault with her little store of provisions. She was animaginative, poetic little maid, and the whisper of the wind in the limetrees that grew on either hand would make her shiver, and yet moreloudly would her heart thump when in the darkness she stumbled over thegraves in the kirkyard, and remembered all the tales she had ever heardof bogles and of ghosts. That lonely walk in the night must always havebeen full of terrors, yet Grisell's love for her father was so greatthat she steadfastly braved them all. One fear only she had--that of thesoldiers. The wind moaning through the trees or rustling the long grass, the sound of a rabbit or some other wild thing in the bracken, thesudden bark of a dog, --all these made her sure that some spy had foundout her secret, and sent her running as fast as her little legs couldcarry her to try to save her father from his captors. The first nightshe went was the worst, for the minister kept dogs, and the manse wasnear the church, and even her light footfall was sufficient to set everyone of them a-barking. But Lady Home sent for the minister next day, andupon the pretence of one of them being mad, persuaded their owner tohang them all. Grisell and her father had the same sunny nature, andboth dearly loved a joke, and each amusing little incident of the daywas saved up by the former to be told while the prisoner made a meal onthe food which she brought with her. Many a hearty laugh they hadtogether in that dark, dismal place, and often Grisell stayed so latethat she had to run up the glen, so as to get home before day dawned. The difficulties she encountered in securing food enough for her fatherwithout arousing the suspicion of the servants was always a subject forjest, for, more often than not, the only possible means of getting thefood was by surreptitiously conveying it, during a meal, from her ownplate into her lap. Her amazing appetite was bound to be commented upon, but never did she surprise her brothers and sisters more than on a daywhen the chief dish at dinner was her father's favourite one--sheep'shead. While the younger members of the family were very busy over theirbroth, Grisell conveyed to her lap the greater part of the head. Herbrother Sandy, afterwards Lord Marchmont, dispatched his plateful first, looked up, and gave a shout of amazement. 

"Mother!" he cried, "will ye look at Grisell! while we have been eatingour broth, she has eaten up the whole sheep's heid!"

"Sandy must have an extra share of the next sheep's heid, " said thelaughing father when he heard the tale. 

During the month that Sir Patrick Home lay hid in the vault, it was notonly by collecting food for him by day, and by taking it to him bynight, that his young daughter gave proof of her devotion. In a room ofwhich Grisell kept the key, on the ground floor at Redbraes Castle, sheand Jamie Winter worked in the small hours, making a hiding-place forthe fugitive. Underneath a bed which drew out they lifted up the boards, and with their hands, scraped and burrowed in the earth to make a holelarge enough for a man to lie in. To prevent making a noise they used notools, and as they dug out the earth it was packed in a sheet, put onJamie's back, and carried, Grisell helping, out at the window into thegarden. Not a nail was left upon her fingers when the task wascompleted, and a sorely unslept little maid she must have looked at theend of a month's foraging by day and hard work by night, with thatnerve-tearing walk as a beginning to her nightly labours. The hole beingready, Jamie Winter conveyed to it a large deep wooden box which he hadmade at home, with air-holes in the lid, and furnished with mattress andbedding, and this was fitted into the place made for it. It was thenGrisell's duty to examine it daily, and to keep the air-holes cleanpicked, and when it had for some weeks stood trial of no water cominginto it from its being sunk so low in the ground, Sir Patrick one nightcame home. For a couple of weeks only was Redbraes his sanctuary, for, on Christmas Day, upon Grisell lifting the boards as usual to see thatall was well with the lair that her father was to retire to in case of asudden surprise, the mattress bounced to the top, the box being full ofwater. The poor child nearly fainted from horror, but Sir Patrickremained quite calm. 

"Obviously, " he said to his wife and daughter, "we must tempt Providenceno longer. It is now fit and necessary for me to go off and leave you. "Later in the day, news brought by the carrier confirmed him in hisresolution. Baillie of Jerviswoode had been hanged in Edinburgh on theprevious day, and his head now adorned a spike on the Nether Bow. Thedeath of his best friend was a great shock to Sir Patrick, perhaps aneven greater one to Lady Home, and to little Grisell, for could nottheir imagination readily paint a picture of _their_ dear "traitor"hanging where his friend had hung. No time was to be lost, and Grisellat once began work on her father's wardrobe, and in the coming days andnights, with anxious fingers, made such alterations in his clothing asseemed necessary for a disguise. 

Meantime a friend and neighbour of Sir Patrick's, John Home ofHalyburton, had "jaloused" that his namesake was not hidden so farafield as some imagined, and when, one cold January afternoon, he heardthe clatter of hoofs on the high-road and saw the red coats of thedragoons, he had a stab at his heart at the thought of another good sonof the Merse going to martyrdom. 

"Where do you ride to-day?" he asked, when the party came up. 

"To take Polwarth at Redbraes, " they said. 

"Is it so?" said Home. "Then I'll go with you myself and be your guide. But come your ways into the house and rest you a little, till I getready for the road. "

Nothing loth, the troopers followed him, and were still contentedlytesting the quality of the contents of his big case-bottles when a groomgalloped off to Redbraes. Halyburton's message to Lady Home of Polwarthwas a brief one, for when she opened his envelope there was nothingthere to read--only a little feather fluttered out, giving as plainlythe advice to instant flight as pages of words might have done. 

There was nothing for it but to take another into their secret. JohnAllen, the grieve, was sent for, and fainted dead away when he heardthat his master was in the house instead of being in safety in foreignlands, and that the dragoons were even then on his tracks. He, too, hadvisions of a figure dangling from a gibbet, and of a head on the NetherBow--and small blame to him, worthy man. 

It was then the darkening, and Allen's instructions were at once to tellhis fellow-servants that he had received orders to sell three horses atMorpeth Fair, and to be off on the road without further delay. 

Sir Patrick took farewell of his wife and of Grisell, climbed out of awindow, met the grieve near the stables, and was off in the darkness, with as little noise as might be. It was a sorrowful parting, but when, not long after he was gone, the dragoons rode up to Redbraes, Lady Homeand her daughter were glad indeed that he was away. 

Somewhat regretting their prolonged enjoyment of the hospitality of Homeof Halyburton, the search-party thoroughly ransacked every hole andcorner of Redbraes Castle. Inside they could find no trace nor pick upone crumb of information, but from an outside servant they heard of JohnAllen's departure, Morpeth way, with three horses. 

"_Horses, _ indeed! for Morpeth Fair?" the dragoon officer hooted at thethought. "Boot and saddle, lads!" he called to his men; "we'll run thetraitorous fox to earth long before he gets to Berwick!" At a canterthey were off down the drive, the contents of Halyburton's case-bottlesstill warming their hearts and giving extra zest to their enterprise. Itwas a dark night, and they were thick black woods that they rodebetween, but they had not ridden very many miles when they were able tomake out, some way in front of them, the outlines of two horses. 

"We've got him, lads!" cried the officer; "run him down at last. Worry, worry, worry!"

But instead of the horses in front breaking into a gallop at the soundof pursuit, they were pulled up short by the roadside, and instead ofthere being two riders there was only one, leading an unsaddled horse. More exasperating than all to the ardour of the hunters was the factthat in place of the thin, clever face of Sir Patrick Home being the oneto confront them, the round, scared face of a Berwickshire peasantstared at them in dismay. In vain did the officer question, bully, cross-examine. John Allen was unshakeable. He was gaun tae Morpeth Fairtae sell the horse. Na, he didnae ken where the maister was. Sure'sdaith he didnae ken. Aye, he left Redbraes mebbes twa hour sin', in thedarkening. No amount of hectoring, no quantity of loudly--shouted oathscould move the grieve from his tale. "A wuss a _did_ ken whaur he is, "he said, "but _a_ dinnae ken. " Finally he had to be given up ashopeless, and the dragoons rode back, a little shamefacedly and cursingtheir luck. John Allen, his honest face still full of scared amazement, rode slowly on. Every now and again he would check his horse, look roundand listen, mutter to himself bewilderedly, shake his head, and go ononce more. The clatter of the dragoons had not long died away when, coming towards him from the other direction, he heard the regular beatof a horse's hoofs. It was no strange horse, he soon realised, nor wasthe rider a stranger. The gay smile that his face so often woreirradiated Home of Polwarth's when he heard his servant's greeting. 

"Eh, losh me, Polwarth!" he said, "a never had sic a gliff in a' _ma_days! Here a' em, thinking aye that ye was riding no far ahint us, andwhen a hears a gallopin' an' turns roond, ye've santed, an' here's apack o' thae bluidy dragoons that wad blast ye black in the face an'speir the inside oot o' a wheelbarra. Man, where were ye? It's naethingshort o' a meericle?"

Nor was it much short of a miracle, as Sir Patrick acknowledged. He hadfollowed Allen at first as the grieve had thought, but his mind was fullof the parting he had just gone through and of the misty future beforehim, and when his thoughts came back with a jerk to the actualities ofthe present, he heard the rush of a winter river and found that he wasclose by the side of the Tweed. It was some time before he could exactlyfind his bearings, but he did so at last, and, after some reconnoitring, found a place that could be safely forded. Once across the river, herode quickly back towards Redbraes, hoping that by good fortune he mightyet meet with Allen, and so neatly escaped the soldiers who pursued him. The high-road after this was no longer deemed safe, and the rest of hisride to London was done on bye-ways and across the moors. In two dayshonest John returned to Redbraes and brought to the sad hearts of LadyHome and Grisell the joyful news that Sir Patrick had not fallen intothe hands of the dragoons, as they had greatly feared, but was nowsafely on his way to England. As a travelling surgeon, calling himselfDr. Wallace, Sir Patrick Home worked his way south, bleeding patientswhen need be, prescribing homely remedies when called upon to do so. None ever penetrated his disguise, and he was able to cross from Londonto France and journey, on foot from France to Holland with completesuccess. 

Years afterwards, when Sir Patrick was Earl of Marchmont, Chancellor ofScotland, and President of the Privy Council, it was his lot to have totry for his life a certain Captain Burd. And during the trial there cameback to him like a flash the old days when, in company with anotherwayfarer, he tramped the long French roads, unwinding themselves likewhite ribbons before him, between the avenues of stiff, tall, silverypoplars on to the flat, windmill-dotted Dutch country, with thebrown-sailed boats that seemed to sail along the fields. And here, inCaptain Burd, he recognised the companion of those often weary, oftenhungry days, when pockets were empty, fortunes at dead-low tide, andScotland and wife and children very far away. In public the Chancellortreated his old friend with severity, but arranged with his son, SirAndrew Home, then a young lawyer, to see Captain Burd alone. Timidly andnervously, with downcast eyes, the poor man repeated the tale to whichthe Chancellor had already listened. In silence he heard it again, andthen: "Do you not know me?" he asked, smiling. 

"God's wounds! Dr. Wallace!" cried Captain Burd, and fell with tears ofjoy on the neck of the Chancellor, who was readily and gladly able toprove the innocence of his old companion. 

No sooner had Sir Patrick Home left Scotland than his estates wereforfeited and given to Lord Seaforth, and although Lady Home went by seato London, and there for a long time did all possible to obtain fromGovernment an adequate allowance for the support of her family of ten, £150 a year was all that she was able to secure. Of course Grisell washer companion there, and her companion also when she sailed to Hollandto join Sir Patrick. Of the ten, a little girl, Julian by name, had tobe left behind with friends as she was too ill to travel, and whenGrisell had safely handed over her mother and brothers and sisters toher father's care, she returned to Scotland alone, to act as escort tothe little sister, "to negotiate business, and to try if she could pickup any money of some that was owing to her father. " The brave andcapable little woman of business, having managed affairs to hersatisfaction, secured, for the passage, a nurse for the sister, who wasstill a weakly invalid. Moreover, the voyage to Holland, being in thosedays more than just the affair of a night, a cabin-bed--the only one inthe ship, apparently--was engaged for Julian, and a good store ofprovisions laid in. But when the ship had sailed, Grisell found that thecabin-bed had been separately engaged and paid for by four other ladies, and at once these four began a violent dispute as to which should haveit. "Let them be doing, " said a gentleman, who had to share the cabinwith the rest, "you will see how it will end. "

So the disappointed little maid had to arrange a bed on the floor asbest she could for herself and her sister, with a bag of books that shewas taking to her father for pillow, while two ladies shared the bed andthe others lay down where they could find room. Any place where theycould lie flat must have been welcome, for a storm was brewing, and as acradle the North Sea usually leaves a good deal to be desired. As theyall lay, in fairly sickening discomfort, in the cabin, lit only by anevil-smelling oil-lamp that swayed back and forwards with each roll, theheavy step of the captain was heard coming down the companion way. Grisell had expected honesty from her fellow-travellers, and her storeof provisions was laid out in what she had considered a convenientplace. It did not take the captain long to devour every scrap of whathad been meant to last the girls and their maid for days. His gluttonousmeal over, he tramped up to the bed. 

"Turn out! turn out!" he said to the women who lay there, and havingundressed himself lay down to snore in that five time's paid forsleeping-place. It must have been somewhat of a comfort--if, indeed, comfort was to be found in anything that night--that the captain did notlong enjoy his slumbers. A fierce gale began to blow, and during thefurious storm that never abated for many an hour to come, the captainhad to remain, drenched to the skin, on deck, working and directing withall his might, in order to save his ship. They never saw him again untilthey landed at the Brill. That night the two girls set out on foot totramp the weary miles to Rotterdam, a gentleman refugee from Scotland, who had come over in the same boat, acting as their escort. The stormyweather of the North Sea had followed them to land. It was a cold, wet, dirty night, and Julian Home, still frail from illness, soon lost hershoes in the mud. There was but one solution to the difficulty. Thegentleman shouldered their baggage along with his own; Grisellshouldered her sister, and carried her all the rest of those wearymiles. At Rotterdam they found Sir Patrick Home and his eldest sonawaiting them, to take them on to their new home in Utrecht, and wet andcold and tiredness were all forgotten at the sight of those dear faces, and Grisell "felt nothing but happiness and contentment. "

For three years and a half they lived in Utrecht, and once again duringthat time Grisell voyaged to Scotland to see to her father's businessaffairs. It is difficult to discover what, during the rest of that time, she did not do for her parents and family. There were many Scottishrefugees then in Holland, and the Homes kept open house, and spentnearly a fourth part of their income on a mansion sufficientlycommodious to allow of their hospitalities. This made it impossible forthem to keep any servant save a little girl who washed the dishes, andconsequently Grisell acted as cook, housekeeper, housemaid, washerwoman, laundress, dressmaker, and tailoress. Twice a week she sat up at nightto do the family accounts. Daily she rose before six, went to the marketand to the mill to see their own corn ground, and--in the words of herdaughter, who proudly tells the tale--"dressed the linen, cleaned thehouse, made ready the dinner, mended the children's stockings and otherclothes, made what she could for them, and in short did everything. " Shewas very musical and loved playing and singing, but when, for a smallsum, a harpsichord was bought, it was her younger sister, Christian, whowas the performer, and by it "diverted" her parents, and the girls hadmany a joke over their different occupations. Yet even with all herother work she found time to take an occasional lesson in French andDutch from her father along with the younger ones, and even wrote a bookof songs--many of them half written, broken off in the middle of asentence as a pot boiled over or an iron grew hot enough to use. Someof them are dear to us still. Do we ever think of all the hardships thatwere nobly endured by a Scottish girl two hundred years ago when wequote the words of her exquisite song?--

 "Were na my heart licht, I wad dee. "

Of all her brothers and sisters, her eldest brother, Patrick, was herclosest friend, and, when he became one of the Prince of Orange'sGuards, Grisell had extra labours, for the Guards wore little point-lacecravats and cuffs, and many a night she sat up to have these in suchperfect order that no dandy officer in the service could compete withthe young Scottish soldier. An added happiness to those happy, busy dayscame to Grisell through her brother's fellow-guardsman and greatestfriend, for George Baillie, the lad she first met in the Tolbooth, gavehis heart to her that day within the gloomy prison walls, and they werelovers still when, after forty-eight years of married life, death cameto part them. 

With the accession of the Prince of Orange the merry, light-hearted daysin Holland came to an end. There was probably no poorer Scottish familyto be found in all Holland. There was certainly no happier one. Whenthey came home they were prosperous once again, and honours wereshowered upon Sir Patrick Home. Grisell was asked to become a maid ofhonour to the Princess but she preferred to go back to the quiet countrylife at Redbraes. Already, during their least prosperous days, Grisell'sbeauty and charm had made at least two Berwickshire gentlemen "offortune and character" beg for her hand, and it was to her parents'regret that she refused them both, because her heart was already in thekeeping of a penniless guardsman in the Dutch service. Only poverty keptthem apart, and when King William gave back to George Baillie his lands, there was no other obstacle in the way, and they were married forthwith. They were man and wife for forty-eight years, "in all of which time, "writes their daughter, "I have often heard my mother declare that theynever had the shadow of a quarrel, or misunderstanding, or drynessbetwixt them--not for a moment"; and that, "to the last of his life, shefelt the same ardent and tender love and affection for him, and the samedesire to please him in the smallest trifle that she had at their firstacquaintance. " To the day his last illness began, her husband never wentout without her going to the window to watch him till he was out ofsight of those kind, bright, beautiful eyes, through which shone asbeautiful a soul as any that ever made the earth a better and a happierplace for having been in it. 

Grisell Home was Lady Grisell Baillie when, in 1703, her mother died. 

"Where is Grisell, " she asked, almost with her latest breath. And whenLady Grisell came and held her hand the old lady said, "My dear Grisell, blessed be you above all, for a helpful child you have been to me. "

Lady Grisell Baillie lived through the '15 and the '45, and those whosuffered in the first of those years had the kindest of friends andhelpers in her large-minded husband and in herself. She was eighty atthe time of the '45, but during that year and during the next, when herdeath took place, she helped by every means in her power those who hadsuffered from fighting for a cause that was dear to their hearts. Shealways remembered what she herself had gone through. "Full of years, andof good works, " as her somewhat pompous epitaph has it, Lady GrisellBaillie died in December 1746, and was buried at Mellerstain on the dayupon which she should have celebrated her eighty-second birthday. Andsurely the angels who, on that first Christmas Eve, long, long ago, sangof "Peace on earth--goodwill towards men, " must have been very near whenshe, who was a Christmas baby, and whose whole long life had been one oflove and of peace, of goodwill and of charity to others, was laid in theearth as the snowflakes fell, on Christmas Day, one hundred andsixty-eight years ago. 

KINMONT WILLIE

A venerable and highly respected Scottish professor of literature wasonce asked what was his ruling passion--his heart's desire? If thesecrets of his soul could be laid bare, what, above all, would be foundto be his predominant wish? The question was an indiscreet one, but hewas tolerant. He tightly compressed his gentle mouth, and firmlyreadjusted his gold-rimmed glasses. 

"I _wish_" said he, "to be a corsair. "

It would have been interesting to know how many of a following he wouldhave had from sedate academic circles had he been given his heart'sdesire and had sailed down the Clyde with the raw head and bloody bonesshowing on the black flag that flew at his mast-head. How many of us arethere with whom law-abiding habits, decorous respectability, form but athin covering of ice over unplumbed depths of lawless desire? Not longsince, when a wretched criminal case in which the disappearance of apearl necklace was involved, was agitating every Scottish club andtea-table, a charming old Scottish lady, whose career from childhood uphas been one of unblemished virtue, was heard to bemoan the manner ofcommission of the crime. "She did it _very_ stupidly. Now, if _I_ hadbeen doing it I should"--And her astounded auditors listened to an ableexposition of the way in which she would successfully have eludedjustice. Is it the story of the villain who is successfully tracked tohis doom that attracts us most? or that of the great Raffles and hiskind whose villainies almost invariably escape detection, and whoburgles with a light and easy touch and the grace and humour of a ClaudeDuval? Let us be honest with ourselves. How many of us really wish to becorsairs? Which of us would _not_ have been a reiver in the old reivingdays? Have we not noticed in ourselves and other Borderers an undeniablecomplacency, a boastful pride in a mask of apology that would notdeceive an infant, when we say, "Oh yes; certainly a good many of myancestors were hanged for lifting cattle. " And, however "indifferenthonest" we ourselves may be, which of us does not lay aside even thatmost futile mask and boast unashamedly when we can claim descent fromone of those princes among reivers--Wat o' Harden, Johnnie Armstrong, orKinmont Willie?

William Armstrong, better known as Kinmont Willie, lived in the palmiestdays of the Border reivers. The times of purely Scottish and purelyEnglish kings were drawing to a close, and with one monarch to rule overBritain the raider could no longer plead that he was a patriot whofought for king and country when he made an incursion over the Cheviots, burned a few barns and dwelling-houses, lifted some "kye and oxen, "horses, and goats, and what household gear and minted money he could layhands on, slew a man or two, and joyously returned home. 

But with Elizabeth still on the English throne, and with Queen Mary, andafterwards her son, reigning in Scotland, the dance could go merrily on, and when we look at those days in retrospect it seems to us that thelast bars of the music, the last turns in the dance, went more rapidlythan any that had gone before. 

In Kinmont Willie's lifetime the Wardens of the Marches had but littleleisure. It was necessary for them to be fighting men with a good headfor figures, for on the days of truce when the Wardens of the Scottishand English Marches met to redd up accounts, not only had they to workout knotty arithmetical problems with regard to the value of every sortof live stock, of buildings, of "insight, " and the payment of suchbills, but they had to have expert knowledge in fair exchange of aScottish for an English life, an English for a Scotch. Little wonder iftheir patience sometimes ran short, as did that of a Howard of Naworthupon one famous occasion. He was deeply engrossed in studies that had nobearing upon Border affairs when an officer came to announce thecapture of some Scottish moss-troopers, and to ask for the Warden'scommands with regard to them. The interruption was untimely, and LordHoward was exasperated. "Hang them, in the devil's name!" he saidangrily, and went on with his studies. A little later he felt he couldbetter give his mind to the consideration of the case, and sent for hisofficer. "Touching the prisoners, " said he, "what have you done withthem?"

Proud of being one of those who did not let the grass grow beneath theirfeet, the officer beamingly responded: "Everyone o' them's hangit, mylord!"

It was a March day in 1596, when a Wardens' meeting took place atDayholm, near Kershopefoot. The snow was still lying in the hollows ofthe Cheviots, the trees were bare, the Liddel and the Esk swollen bythaws and winter rains; but weather was a thing that came but littleinto the reckoning of the men of the Marches unless some foray wasafoot. They got through the business more or less satisfactorily, andproceeded to ride home before the day of truce should be ended. Fromsunrise on the one day until sunset on the next, so the Border lawordained, all Scots and Englishmen who were present at the Wardens'meeting should be free of scathe. Now the Warden of Liddesdale at thattime was Sir Walter Scott of Branxholme, laird of Buccleuch. He was oneof the greatest men of his century; a "fyrebrande, " according to QueenElizabeth, and a fierce enemy according to those who incurred hisenmity; but, according to all others, a man of perfect courage, stainless loyalty and honour, charming wit, and great culture. He neverspared an enemy nor turned his back on a friend, and he was a bornwinner of hearts and leader of men. Amongst his retainers was KinmontWillie, and as Willie rode from the Wardens' meeting, along the banks ofthe Liddel, in company with only three or four men, a body of twohundred English horsemen, commanded by Salkeld, Warden of the EasternMarch, marked him from across the water. Truce or no truce, the chanceseemed to them one that was too good to lose. Speedily some of thempushed on ahead, and an ambush was laid for Kinmont Willie. He and hisfriends were naturally totally unprepared for such a dastardly attack, but it took them but little time to gather their wits, and Willie gavethem a good run for their money. For nearly four miles they chased him, but ran him down at length. After some hard giving and taking, he had toacknowledge his defeat, and, pinioned like a common malefactor--armstied behind him, legs bound under his horse's belly--they rode with himinto Carlisle town. 

The news of the treacherous taking of his follower was not long inreaching Buccleuch, who at once raised an angry protest. Scrope, theEnglish Warden, received this with an evasive and obviously trumped-upcounter-charge of Kinmont Will having first broken truce. Moreover, hesaid, he was a notorious enemy to law and order, and must bear thepenalty of his misdeeds. This was more than the bold Buccleuch couldstomach. 

 "He has ta'en the table wi' his hand, He garr'd the red wine spring on hie-- 'Now Christ's curse on my head, ' he said, 'But avenged of Lord Scrope I'll be! O, is my basnet a widow's curch? Or my lance a wand o' the willow-tree? Or my arm a ladye's lilye hand, That an English lord should lightly me?'"

No time was lost in making an appeal to King James, which resulted in anapplication to the English Government. But while the English authoritiesquibbled, paltered, and delayed--with a little evasion, a little extrared-tapism, a little judicious procrastination--the days of KinmontWillie were being numbered by his captors. The triumph of putting an endto the daring deeds of so bold a Scottish reiver when they had himsafely in chains in Carlisle Castle, was one that they were not likelylightly to forego. It would be indeed a merry crowd of English Borderersthat flocked to Haribee Hill on the day that Will of Kinmont dangledfrom the gallows. 

Buccleuch saw that he had no time to lose. He himself must strike atonce, and strike with all his might. 

The night of April 13, 1596, was dark and stormy. All the Border burnsand rivers were in spate; the winds blew shrewd and chill through theglens of Liddesdale, and sleet drifted down in the teeth of the gale. The trees that grew so thick round Woodhouselee bent and cracked, andsent extra drenching showers of rain down on the steel jacks of a bandof horsemen who carefully picked their way underneath them, on to thesouth. Buccleuch was leader, and with him rode some forty picked men ofhis friends and kinsmen, to meet some hundred and fifty or so of otherchosen men. Scotts, Elliots, Armstrongs, and Grahams were there, andalthough Buccleuch had requested that only younger sons were to risktheir lives in the forlorn hope that night, Auld Wat o' Harden and manyanother landowner rode with their chief. "Valiant men, they would notbide, " says Scott of Satchells, whose own father was one of the number. Kinmont Willie's own tower of Morton, on the water of Sark, about tenmiles north of Carlisle, was their rallying point. Buccleuch hadarranged every detail most carefully at a horse-race held at Langholm afew days before, and one of the Grahams, an Englishman whose countrymenwere not yet aware that the Graham clan had allied themselves to that ofthe Scotts, had conveyed his ring to Kinmont Willie to show him that hewas not forgotten by his feudal lord. One and all, the reivers were wellarmed, "with spur on heel, and splent on spauld, " and with them theycarried scaling ladders, picks, axes, and iron crowbars. The Esk andEden were in furious flood, but no force of nature or of man could staythe reivers' horses that night. 

 "We go to catch a rank reiver Has broken faith wi' the bauld Buccleuch. "

That was the burden of their thoughts, and although they well knew thatere the dawning each one of them might be claiming the hospitality ofsix feet of English sod, their hearts were light. To them a message thatthe fray was up was like the sound of the huntsman's horn in the ears ofa thoroughbred hunter. 

 "'Where are ye gaun, ye mason lads, Wi' a' your ladders, lang and hie?' 'We gang to berry a corbie's nest, That wons not far frae Woodhouselee. '"

No light matter was it to harry that corbie's nest. Carlisle Castle wasa strong castle, strongly garrisoned, and to make a raid on an Englishtown was a bold attempt indeed. But fear was a thing unknown to theBorder reivers, and the flower of them rode with Buccleuch thatnight--close on his horse's heels Wat o' Harden, Walter Scott ofGoldielands, and Kinmont's own four stalwart sons--Jock, Francie, Geordie, and Sandy. As the dark night hours wore on, sleet and wind werereinforced by a thunderstorm. 

 "And when we left the Staneshaw-bank, The wind began full loud to blaw, But 'twas wind and weet, and fire and sleet, When we came beneath the castle wa'. "

When the besiegers reached the castle they found some of the watchasleep, and the rest sheltering indoors from the storm. The outside ofthe castle was left to take care of itself. It was dismaying to find thescaling ladders too short to be of any use, but a small postern gate wasspeedily and quietly undermined. Drifting sleet, growling thunder, andthe wails of the wind drowned all sounds of the assault, and soon therewas no further need for concealment, for the lower court of the castlewas theirs. The guard started up, to find sword-blades at their throats;two of them were left dead, and the rest were speedily overpowered. Buccleuch, the fifth man in, gave the command to proclaim aloud theirtriumph:

 "'Now sound out trumpets!' quoth Buccleuch; 'Let's waken Lord Scroope right merrilie!' Then loud the Warden's trumpet blew-- _'O wha daur meddle wi' me?'_"

While Buccleuch himself kept watch at the postern, two dozen stoutmoss-troopers now rushed to the castle gaol, a hundred yards from thepostern gate, forced the door of Kinmont Willie's prison, and found himthere chained to the wall, and carried him out, fetters and all, on theback of "the starkest man in Teviotdale. "

"Stand to it!" cried Buccleuch--so says the traitor, a man from theEnglish side, who afterwards acted as informer to the EnglishWarden--"for I have vowed to God and my Prince that I would fetch out ofEngland, Kinmont, dead or alive. "

Shouts of victory in strident Scottish voices, the crash of picks onshattered doors and ruined mason-work, and that arrogant, insolent, oft-repeated blast from the trumpet of him whom Scrope described in hisreport to the Privy Council as "the capten of this proud attempt, " werenot reassuring sounds to the Warden of the English Marches, his deputy, and his garrison. Five hundred Scots at least--so did Scrope swear tohimself and others--were certainly there, and there was no gainsayingthe adage that "Discretion is the better part of valour. " So, in thewords of the historian, he and the others "did keip thamselffis close. "

But no sooner had the rescue party reached the banks of the Eden thanthe bells of Carlisle clanged forth a wild alarm. Red-tongued flamesfrom the beacon on the great tower did their best, in spite of storm andsleet, to warn all honest English folk that a huge army of Scots was onthe war-path, and that the gallows on Haribee Hill had been insulted bythe abduction of its lawful prey. 

 "We scarce had won the Staneshaw-bank, When a' the Carlisle bells were rung, And a thousand men on horse and foot, Cam' wi' the keen Lord Scroope along. 

 Buccleuch has turn'd to Eden Water, Even where it flow'd frae brim to brim, And he has plunged in wi' a' his band, And safely swam them through the stream. 

 He turned them on the other side, And at Lord Scroope his glove flung he-- 'If ye like na' my visit in merry England, In fair Scotland come visit me!'

 All sore astonished stood Lord Scroope, He stood as still as rock of stane; He scarcely dare to trew his eyes, When through the water they had gane. 

 'He is either himsel' a devil frae hell, Or else his mother a witch maun be; I wadna' have ridden that wan water For a' the gowd in Christentie. '"

At a place called "Dick's Tree, " not far from Longtown, there stillstands the "smiddy" where lived the blacksmith who had the honour ofknocking off Kinmont Willie's fetters. Sir Walter Scott has handed onthe story of the smith's daughter who, as a little child, was roused atdaybreak by a "sair clatter" of horses, and shouts for her father, followed, as the smith slept soundly, by a lance being thrust throughthe window. Looking out in the dim grey of the morning, the child saw"more gentlemen than she had ever seen before in one place, all onhorseback, in armour, and dripping wet--and that Kinmont Willie, who satwoman-fashion behind one of them, was the biggest carle she eversaw--and there was much merriment in the party. "

Furious was the hive of wasps that Buccleuch brought about his head bythus insultingly casting a stone into the English bike. The wrath ofQueen Elizabeth was unappeasable. Scrope found it sounded better tomultiply the number of the raiders by five, but Scottish tongues werenot slow to tell the affronting truth, and the Englishmen of Carlislehad the extra bitterness of being butts for the none too subtle jests ofevery Scot on the Border. The success of so daring a venture made theScottish reivers arrogant. Between June 19 and July 24 of that year, thespoils of the western Marches were a thousand and sixty-one cattle andninety-eight horses, and some thirty steadings and other buildings, mostly in Gilsland, were burned. The angry English made reprisals. Itwas in one of them that the Scots who were taken were leashed "likedoggis, " and for this degradation Buccleuch and Ker of Cessford made theEnglish pay most handsomely. Together those "twoo fyrebrandes of theBorder" led an incursion into Tynedale, where, in broad daylight, theyburned three hundred steadings and dwelling-houses, many stables, barns, and other outhouses, slew with the sword fourteen of those who had beenin the Scottish raid, and brought back a handsome booty. 

King Jamie was in a most uncomfortable position. Queen Elizabethdemanded Buccleuch's punishment, and he argued. She nagged, and hewriggled. Finally, after continual angry remonstrances from the insultedEnglish monarch, he had to give in, and Buccleuch and Ker had both, atdifferent periods, to suffer imprisonment for the sin, in the virginQueen's eyes, of the rescue of Kinmont Willie, and of its bloodyconsequences. We realise what was the reputation of Buccleuch and of hisfollowers when we see into what a state of panic the mere prospect ofhaving the Border chieftain as prisoner at Berwick-on-Tweed threw SirJohn Carey, the governor. To Lord Hunsdon he wrote: "I entreat yourLordship that I may not become the jailor of so dangerous a prisoner or, at least, that I may know whether I shall keep him like a prisoner orno? for there is not a worse or more dangerous place in England to keephim than this; it is so near his friends, and, besides, so many in thistown willing to pleasure him, and his escape may be so easily made; andonce out of this town he is past recovery. Wherefore I humbly beseechyour honor, let him be removed from hence to a more secure place, for Iprotest to the Almightie God, before I will take the charge to kepe himhere, I will desire to be put in prison myself, and to have a keeper ofme. For what care soever be had of him here, he shall want nofurtherance whatsoever wit of man can devise, if he himself list to makean escape. So I pray your Lordship, even for God's sake and for the loveof a brother, to relieve me from this danger. " But there was no attemptat a rescue of Buccleuch. He did not desire it. Not as a criminal, butas a state prisoner he gave himself up to the English governor, and, having given his parole, he kept it, like the gentleman of stainlesshonour that he was. 

Two years after his imprisonment at Berwick-on-Tweed, Buccleuch, on hisway with two hundred followers to serve with Prince Maurice of Nassau inthe Low Countries--a raid from which many a Borderer never returned--wassufficiently received into favour to be permitted to go to London andkiss the hand of her most gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth. Theremembrance of Kinmont Willie still rankled in that most unforgiving ofroyal breasts. 

"How dared you, " she imperiously demanded, "undertake an enterprise sodesperate and presumptuous?"

"Dared?" answered Buccleuch; "what is it that a man _dares_ not do?"

Elizabeth turned impetuously to a lord-in-waiting. "With ten thousandsuch men, " she said, "our brother of Scotland might shake the firmestthrone in Europe. "

That Kinmont Willie avenged himself not once, but many times, on thosewho had treacherously trapped him and done their best to make him meatfor the greedy English gibbet, is not a matter of surmise, but one ofhistory. His ride into Carlisle on that bleak March day, and the longdays and dreary nights he spent in chains in the English gaol, werelittle likely to engender a gentle and forgiving spirit in the breast ofone of the most fiery of the "minions of the moon. " When, in 1600, heraided Scrope's tenants, they were given good cause to regret thehappenings in which Scrope had taken so prominent a part. 

We have no record of the end of Kinmont Willie, and can but hope, forhis sake, that he died the death he would have died--a good horse underhim almost to the end, a good sword in his hand, open sky above him, andround him the caller breeze that has blown across the Border hills. In alonely little graveyard in the Debatable Land, close to the Water ofSark, and near the March dyke between the two countries, his body issaid to rest. Does there never come a night, when the moon is hiddenbehind a dark scud of clouds, and the old reiver, growing restless inhis grave, finds somewhere the shade of a horse that, in its day, couldgallop with the best, and rides again across the Border, to meet oncemore his "auld enemies" of England, and, to the joyous accompaniment ofthe lowing of cattle and the jingle of spurs, returns to his lodging asthe first cock crows, and grey morning breaks?

 "O, they rade in the rain, in the days that are gane, In the rain and the wind and the lave; They shoutit in the ha' and they routit on the hill, But they're a' quaitit noo in the grave. "

IN THE DAYS OF THE '15

Close on two hundred years back from the present time there stood far upthe South Tyne, beyond Haltwhistle, on the road--then little better thana bridle-track--running over the Cumberland border by Brampton, an innwhich in those days was a house of no little importance in that wild andremote country. 

If its old walls could speak, what, for instance, might they not havetold of Jacobite plottings? Beneath its roof was held many a meeting ofthe supporters of the King "over the water, " James the Eighth; and here, riding up from Dilston, not seldom came the unfortunate Earl ofDerwentwater, to take part in the Jacobite deliberations. The young lordand the horse he usually rode were figures familiar and welcome to thecountry folk around, and at the inn they were as well known as was thelandlord himself. It was not long after a secret meeting held here inthe earlier half of the year 1715 that the warrants were issued whichled to Derwentwater's flight from Dilston, and precipitated the Risingthat within a few months rolled so many gallant heads in the dust of thescaffold. 

It might perhaps have been better for Lord Derwentwater had he beenless beloved in Northumberland, and had his devoted admirers been unableto send him notice of the coming of the warrant for his arrest. He mightnot then have had opportunity to commit himself so deeply; and theremight have been a romantic and pathetic figure the less in the dolefulhistory of that unhappy period. As it was, he had time to get clearaway, and was able to lie securely hid, partly in farmhouses, partlynear Shaftoe Crags, till the news reached him that Forster had raisedthe standard of rebellion. On 6th October 1715, at the head of a littlecompany of gentlemen and armed servants, he joined Forster at Greenrig. 

A poor affair at the best, this muster in Northumberland; and though thecounty was seething with excitement, and a few notable men went out withthe Earl, his personal following did not exceed seventy in all. Thenfollowed the march which ended so disastrously in pitiful surrender atPreston that fatal November day. However gallant personally, Forster wasan incapable soldier, no leader of men, and General Wills had but tospread wide his net to sweep in the bulk of the insurgents--Forster, Derwentwater, Kenmure, Nithsdale, Carwath, Wintoun, and men less exaltedin rank by the score and the hundred. The bag was a heavy one, that dayof disaster to the Stuart cause; and alas, for many of those who filledit! Alas, too, for the wives and the mothers who sat at home, waiting!Not to everyone was given the opportunity to dare all for husband orson; to few came such chance as was seized by the Countess of Nithsdale, who so contrived that her husband escaped from the Tower disguised inwoman's clothing. It was boldly schemed, and success followed herattempt. Others could but pray to God and petition the King. She notonly prayed, but acted. Would that there might have been one so to actfor Derwentwater! More happy had it been, perhaps, for his Countess hadshe never uttered the taunt that ended his hesitation to join in theRebellion: "It is not fitting that the Earl of Derwentwater shouldcontinue to hide his head in hovels from the light of day, when thegentry are up in arms for their lawful sovereign. " They say that herspirit mourns yet within the tower of Dilston. 

Away up the valley of the Tyne, amongst the wild Northumberland hills, news went with lagging gait, those leisurely days of the eighteenthcentury; even news of battle or of disaster did not speed as it is thewont of ill news to do: "For evil news rides fast, while good newsbaits. " Tidings, in those good old days, but trickled through from earto ear, slowly, as water filters through sand. Little news, therefore, of Lord Derwentwater, or of the Rising, was heard in or aroundHaltwhistle after the insurgent force left Brampton; no man knew for acertainty what fortune, good or bad, had waited on the fortunes of hisfriends. 

Night was closing down on the desolate Border hills on a drear Novemberevening of 1715. Throughout a melancholy day, clinging mist had blurredthe outline of even the nearest hills; distance was blotted out. Thinrain fell chillingly and persistently, drip, dripping with monotonousplash from the old inn's thatched eaves; a light wind sobbed fitfullyaround the building, moaning at every chink and cranny of theill-fitting window-frames. "A dismal night for any who must travel, "thought the stableman of the inn, as he looked east and then west alongthe darkening road. No moving thing broke the monotony of the depressingoutlook, and the groom turned to his work of bedding down for the nightthe few animals that happened to be in his charge. They were not many;most of those that so frequently of late had stood here were away withtheir owners, following the fortunes of the Earl of Derwentwater;business was dull at the inn. Well, let the weather be what it liked, atleast the groom's work was over for the night, and he might go sit bythe cheerful peat fire in the kitchen, and drink a health to theKing--the rightful King, God bless him; and it was little harm, thoughthe, if he drank another to the Earl--whom might the Saints protect. 

Even as he turned to go, in the dusk at the door, framed, as it were, ina picture, there appeared a horseman leading a tired horse, the reinsloose over his arm. Though seen only in that half light, the outline ofman and beast were familiar to the stableman. Both seemed far spent; thehorse held low its head, and sweat stood caked and thick on neck andheaving flanks, and dripped off inside down by the hocks. 

"Ye've ridden hard, sir, " said the groom, bustling forward to take thehorse. 

The stranger said no word, but himself led the tired animal into anempty stall. Yet, as the groom remembered later, of the other horses inthe stable, not one raised its head, or whinnied, or took any noticewhatever as the new-comer entered. 

The stableman turned to lift his lantern, and when, an instant later, heagain faced about, he stared to find himself alone; the strange horsemanwas nowhere to be seen. And the horse in the stall? Him the groom knewwell; there was no possibility of mistake; it was the well-known grey onwhich Lord Derwentwater had ridden away to cast in his lot with Forster. 

"Mistress! Mistress!" he cried, hurrying into the house, "has hislordship come in? He's led his grey gelding into the stable the noo, andniver a word wad he say to me or he gaed oot. An' I'm feared a's no weelwi' him; he was lookin' sair fashed, an' kind o' white like. "

"His lordship i' the inn? Guide us!" cried the landlady, snatching up atallow dip and hurrying into the unlit guest-room. 

"Ye hae gotten back, my lord? And is a' weel wi' your lordship?And--e-eh! what ails--?" she gasped, as a tall figure, seated in thegreat oak chair by the smouldering fire, turned on her a face wan anddrawn, disfigured by bloody streaks across the cheek. Slowly, like a manin pain, or one wearied to the extreme of exhaustion, the seated figurerose, stood for a moment gazing at her, and then, ere the landlady couldcollect her scattered wits, it had vanished. Vanished, too, was the greyhorse that the groom had seen brought into the stable; and, what wasmore, the bedding in the stall where the animal had stood was entirelyundisturbed, and showed no trace of any beast having been there. 

It was long that night ere anybody slept within the walls of the oldinn, and broken was their sleep. None doubted but that the Earl waskilled, or if not killed, at least soon to die; and the news of Preston, when it came, was to those faithful friends no news, only confirmationof their fears. None, after that, dared hope; they knew that he mustdie. And the 24th of February 1716 saw a countryside plunged in grief, for that day fell on the scaffold the head of one whom everybody loved, who was every man's friend, who never turned empty away those who wentto him seeking help. 

Blood-red were the northern lights that flashed and shimmered so wildlyin the heavens that night, red as the blood that had soaked into thesawdust of a scaffold; never before in the memory of living man hadaurora gleamed with hue so startling. But the sorrow in the hearts ofhis people passed not away like the fading of the northern lights. Hismemory lives still in Northumberland; still, when they see the gleam andflicker of the aurora, folk there call it "Lord Derwentwater's Light";and even yet it is a tradition that dwellers by the stream which flowspast Dilston were wont to tell how, on that fatal day, its waters ranred like blood. 

When "a' was done that man could do, and a' was done in vain, " thereremained but to convey his headless body, if it might be, to the spotwhere his forebears lie at rest. 

 "Albeit that here in London Town, It is my fate to die, O, carry me to Northumberland, In my fathers' grave to lie. "

The Earl's body had been buried at St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and of thosewho went to recover it and to bring it home, there was one famous inNorthumberland story, Frank Stokoe of Chesterwood. A remarkable man wasStokoe, of enormous personal strength and of great height--in stature averitable child of Anak--a man without fear, brave to recklessness, agood friend and a terrible enemy. Added to all this, he was anextraordinarily expert swordsman. He was a man, too, of much influenceand acknowledged authority in the county--a useful man to have on theside of the King--one to whom the people listened, and to whom often anappeal for help was made in ticklish affairs. 

There was, for instance, that affair of the feud between Lowes ofWillimoteswick Castle and Leehall of Leehall, which kept a great part ofTynedale in hot water for so many years. Leehall appears to have beenphysically the better man; at any rate, on more than one occasion Lowesseems to have escaped from the clutches of his enemy solely by thesuperior speed of the horse he rode, or possibly he was a light, and hisenemy a heavy, weight, which would make all the difference in a rousinggallop across deep ground or heathery hill. In any case, as a generalrule, Lowes was more often the hunted than the hunter. Yet, to thefollowers of Lowes--there must always be two sides to a story--it washe, and not Leehall, who was the finer man, for, of an encounter betweenthe pair near Bellingham, when Lowes' horse was killed by a sword-thrustdirected at the rider's thigh, the old ballad says:

 "Oh, had Leehall but been a man As he was never ne-an, He wad have stabbed the rider And letten the horse alean. "

But perhaps the animosity here shown to Leehall comes more from one whowas a lover of horses--as who in Northumberland is not?--than from apartisan of Lowes. However, the feud ran on, year in, year out, as isthe custom of such things, and no doubt it might have been bequeathedfrom father to son, like a property under entail, had it not been forthe intervention of Frank Stokoe. Lowes and Leehall, it seems, had metby chance near Sewing Shields, with the usual result. Only, upon thisoccasion, the former was possibly not on the back of an animal thesuperior in speed and stamina of the horse on which Leehall was mounted. At least, Lowes was captured. 

But, having got him, his enemy did not proceed to cut him into gobbets, or even to "wipe the floor" with him. Something lingering and long wasmore to his taste; he would make Lowes "eat dirt. " With every mark, therefore, of ignominy and contempt, he dragged his fallen foe home toLeehall, and there chained him near to the kitchen fire-place, leavingjust such length of chain loose as would enable the prisoner to sit withthe servants at meals. The position can scarcely have been altogether apleasing one to the servants, to say nothing of the prisoner. Doubtlessthe former, or some of them, may have found a certain joy in baiting, and in further humiliating, a helpless man, their master's beaten enemy. Yet that pleasure, one would think, could scarcely atone for theconstant presence among them of an uninvited guest--a guest, too, whohad not much choice in the matter of personal cleanliness. However, trifles of that nature did not greatly embarrass folk in days innocentof sanitary science. As for Lowes, it must have been difficult so to actconsistent with the maintenance of any shred of dignity, or ofconciliatory cheerfulness. If, for example, the cook should happen of amorning to have got out of bed "wrong foot first, " how often must theattentions of that domestic have taken the form of a pot or a pan, orother domestic utensil, flung at his head. Here, no soft answer would belikely to turn away wrath. On the spur of the moment, when a pot, or aniron spit, has caught one on elbow or shins, it might not be altogethereasy to think promptly of the repartee likely to be the mostconciliating. And he could not "make himself scarce. " The situation wasembarrassing. 

Now, the law, in those breezy times, took small cognisance of suchlittle freaks as this; the law, indeed, was pretty powerless up amongthose wild hills. It wanted some force stronger, or, at all events, someforce less magnificently deliberate, than that of the law. 

Frank Stokoe was that force. To him went the friends of Lowes; and nextmorning saw the peel tower of Leehall besieged. Frank demanded thesurrender of Lowes, uninjured. Leehall retorted that he might takehim--if he could. But Leehall had reckoned without his retainers; theydared not fight against Frank Stokoe. So they said. But was it not, inreality, a sort of incipient Strike? Did they, perhaps, being wearied ofthe somewhat tame sport of baiting him, think the opportunity a fittingone to get rid of their uninvited guest for good and all? In any case, before an hour had passed, Leehall found it convenient to hand Lowesover to Stokoe, who safely deposited him by his own fireside atWillimoteswick, and the feud was pursued no further. 

Whether or not Leehall was content to have thus played second fiddle, one does not know. Perhaps it was his men who, a year or two later, paida nocturnal visit to Stokoe's peel tower. Frank was roused from sleepone winter night by his daughter, who told her father that some one wasattempting to force the outer door. Stokoe stole quietly downstairs, tofind that some one outside was busy with the point of a knife tryinggently to prise back the great oaken bolt which barred his door. A verylittle more, a few minutes longer of work, and the beam would have beenslid back, the door would have been quietly opened, and the throats ofall the occupants of the house might have been cut. Whispering to hisdaughter to stand behind the door, and softly to push back the bolt eachtime the attempt was made to prise it open, Frank snatched down, andloaded with slugs, his old musket. Then very quietly he let himself downthrough the trap-door into the cow-house, which in all, or nearly all, old peel towers formed the lower story of the building. Cautiouslyunclosing the door of the cow-house, which opened on the outer air closeto the flight of stone steps leading up to the main door of the tower, he stepped out. There, plainly to be seen at top of the stair, wereseveral men, busily employed in trying to gain an entrance. 

"Ye bluidy scoundrels, " roared Stokoe, "I'll knock a hole in some o' yethat the stars will shine through. "

And with that he let drive at the nearest, the charge, at so close arange, literally "knocking a hole" in him. Like a startled covey ofpartridges the remaining robbers fled, not only without attemptingreprisals, but without even waiting to use the steps as an aid toescape; they simply flew through the air to mother earth and made trackstowards safety, anywhere, out of the reach of Frank Stokoe's vengeance;which perhaps was the wisest thing they could have done, for Stokoe wasthe kind of man who in a case such as this would willingly have knockeda hole in each one of them. In those days people were not verysqueamish, and Stokoe seems to have gone quietly back to bed withoutgreatly troubling himself about the slain robber; but the man's friendsmust have stolen back during the night, for in a copse near by, in ashallow grave hastily scooped out of the frozen earth, the dead body wasfound next day. 

It is almost needless to say that Frank Stokoe was of those who would becertain to concern themselves in an enterprise such as the Rising of1715. His sympathies were entirely with the Stuart, and against theHanoverian King. Moreover, though he owned his peel tower and the landsurrounding it, he was yet, as regards other land, a tenant of the Earlof Derwentwater, as well as being a devoted admirer of that nobleman. Naturally, therefore, when the Earl took the field, Stokoe followed him;and had all been of his frame of mind, there had been no ignominioussurrender at Preston. Whilst fighting was to be done, no man fought sohard, or with such thorough enjoyment, as Stokoe. "Surrender" was a partof the great game that he did not understand; he was not of the stuffthat deals in "regrettable incidents. " At Preston that day, when all wasdone, there stood King George's men on either side, as well as in hisfront; in his rear a high stone wall, even to a man less heavilyhandicapped than he by weight, an obstacle almost insurmountable. Buthis horse was good--Stokoe's horses _had_ to be good--and it knew itsmaster. Never hitherto had the pair refused any jump, and they were notlike to begin now. With a rush and a scramble, and the clatter of fourgood feet against the stone coping, they were over; over and away, galloping hard for the North Countrie, the free wind whistling pasttheir ears as they sped, Stokoe throwing up his arm and giving amocking cheer as each ineffective volley of musketry from the troopsspluttered behind him; and the great roan horse snatched at his bit, andsnorted with excitement. 

Yes, that part of it was worth living for, and the blood danced in theveins of horse and man while the chase lasted. But what of it when oncemore the hills of Northumberland were regained, when the great moorsthat lay grim and frowning under the dark November skies were againbeneath his horse's feet? It was a different matter then, for the hueand cry was out, and the earths all stopped against this gallant fox. Chesterwood was closed to him, no friend dared openly give him shelter. 

"He had fled, had got clear away to France, " was the story they gaveout. But Frank Stokoe all the time lay snug and safe in hiding, not sovery far from his own peel tower. And he was one of those who, disguised--perhaps in his case not very effectually--ventured to London, intent on bringing back the body of their chief, that it might lie atrest in the grave where sleep the fathers of that noble race. 

There, in London, Frank narrowly escaped being taken. As it chanced, atthat time an Italian bravo was earning for himself an unsavourynotoriety by going about boastfully challenging all England to stand upbefore him to prove who was the better man. He would mark his man, picka quarrel with him, and the result was always the same. The Italian'strick of fence was deadly, his wrist a wrist of steel. None yet had beenable to stand long before him; not one had got inside his guard. 

As he walked once near Leicester Field in the dusk of an evening, Stokoe's great figure caught the eye of this little Italian, in whosemind suddenly arose the irresistible longing to bring this huge bulktoppling to earth. That would be something not unworth boastingabout--that he, a sort of eighteenth-century David, should slay thismodern Goliath. 

No one had ever been able to complain that it was difficult to pick aquarrel with Frank Stokoe. Not that he was quarrelsome--far otherwise;but never was he known to shrink from any combat that was pressed onhim, and on this occasion the venomous little foreigner found him mostready to oblige. It wanted but a slight jostle, an Italian oath hissedout, a few words in broken English to the effect that big men wereproverbially clumsy, and that bigness and courage were not always to befound united. Stokoe knew very well who his assailant was, knew hisreputation, and the slender chance the ordinary swordsman might expectto have against this foreigner's devilish skill, but his weapon wasunsheathed almost before the Italian had ceased to curse. Cautiouslykeeping a check on his habitual impetuosity, calling to his aid everyounce of the skill he possessed, and content meanwhile if he could evadethe vicious thrusts of his enemy, Stokoe for a time kept the fierylittle man well at bay. Irritated at length by the giant's coolness, andby finding him, perhaps, not quite so easy a conquest as he hadanticipated, unable to draw him on to expose himself by attacking, theItalian for a moment lost patience. None other in England had given himso much trouble. It was time this farce ended; he would spit the giantnow. Once, twice, thrice--it was with the utmost difficulty that Stokoesaved himself from being run through the body, and once the sword of hisenemy went through his clothes, grazing his ribs, and sending a warmstream trickling down his side. Then, suddenly, again the Italianlunged. This time it surely had been all over with Stokoe. But the footof the hectoring little foreigner slipped, or he stumbled owing to someslight inequality of the ground. For a single instant the man wasoverbalanced and off his guard, and before he could recover, FrankStokoe's sword passed through his body, sending out of this world onewho whilst in it had wrought much evil. 

"Well done, Stokoe! Old Northumberland for ever!" cried a voice fromamongst the considerable crowd of spectators who had run up before thefight had been in progress many seconds. "Well done, Stokoe!"

Here was danger greater even than that from which he had but nowescaped. He was recognised! And for him to be recognised in Londonprobably meant instant arrest, and an almost certain end on thegallows. He was too deeply involved in the late Rebellion; King George'sGovernment would show him as little mercy as they had showed to hischief. 

Stokoe glanced round uneasily as he wiped his sword, but it was notpossible to say which in the group of spectators was the man who hadgiven that compromising cry; it might be one of several who, to Stokoe'sextreme discomposure, seemed to look at him rather intently. Time to beout of this, thought he; the farther he was from London the more freelyhe would breathe just at present, and the less chance was there of thatbreathing being permanently stopped. Policemen had not been invented inthose days, and there was not much chance of his being arrested forduelling, for what was then called "the watch" was singularlyinefficient, and seldom to be found when wanted. Nevertheless, it wasnow no easy matter for Stokoe to shake off the little "tail" of admirerswho insisted on following him; it was not every day that they had thechance of seeing a man killed in fair fight, and they were loth to losesight of the man who had done it--a hero in their eyes. However, by dintof plunging down one narrow street and up some other unsavoury alley, and repeating the manoeuvre at intervals, blinding his trail as far aspossible, he at length shook off the last persevering remnant of hisadmirers, and, without being tracked or shadowed, gained the shelter ofthe house where he lodged. A few days saw him and his friends safely outof London, bearing with them the body of the Earl of Derwentwater, whichwas later buried at Dilston. 

Frank Stokoe's position was an unfortunate one from now on. He was aproscribed man; his property had been seized, and those now inpossession threatened if he put in an appearance, or made any attempt toregain the property, that they would give him up to Government. Timesconsequently became hard for poor Stokoe; his affairs went from bad toworse, and though his name was included in the general pardon whichGovernment issued some time later, he never got back his land nor any ofhis possessions. Part of the land passed with the Derwentwater Estate toGreenwich Hospital, part, including the peel tower, where he and hisancestors had lived for generations, remained in the clutches of thosewho had seized it. Old age came upon Frank and found himpoverty-stricken; want came, "as an armed man, " and found him too weakto resist. The spirit was there, but no longer the strength that shouldhave helped the spirit. He sank and died, leaving behind him no shred ofworldly gear. 

Another noted Northumbrian who was "out" in the '15 was him whom menthen called "Mad Jack Hall" of Otterburn. Not that he was in any sensemad, or even of weak intellect--far from it; the name merely arose fromthe fiery energy of the man, and from the reckless courage with which hewould face any danger or any odds. As a man, he was extremely popular, and no one could have been more beloved by his dependents. His fineestate he managed himself, and managed well, though before he went "out"misfortunes fell on him which no management could have averted. Theywere misfortunes so crushing, and following so immediately on eachother's heels, that amongst the simple country folk they were looked on, and spoken of, with awe, as manifestly judgments from Heaven for somefancied sin they supposed him to have committed. He might, people said, have prevented, but did not prevent, a duel which took place in thestreets of Newcastle, in which a very popular young man was killed. Itwas "murder, " and no fair fight, folk said; and, whatever the rights ofthe case, at least the successful duellist was afterwards hanged for themurder. Hall's failure to interfere seems to have strained hispopularity for a time. In such circumstances people are prone to assumethat an all-wise Providence, necessarily seeing eye to eye with them, inflicts some special punishment on the person who has sinned somespecial sin, or who has, at all events, done (or not done) somethingwhich, in the popular judgment, he should not have done (or done, as thecase may be). Misfortune or accident comes to some one who has rousedpopular clamour. "I told you so, " cries the public; "a judgment!"

In this instance, the sin of not interfering to prevent a duel--or amurder, as popular opinion called it--was punished, firstly, by Hall'shouse at Otterburn being burned to the ground, together with all hisfarm buildings and great part of his farm stock; and, secondly, thisgrievous loss was followed in the time of harvest by a devastating floodin the Rede, which swept away from the rich, low-lying haughs everyparticle of the fat crops which already had been cut, and were nowmerely waiting to be carried home. 

By such drastic means having apparently been purged of his sin, Mr. Hallseems to have regained his normal popularity, and an incident whichpresently occurred raised it to an even greater height than before. Asfar back at least as the time of Cromwell it had been customary to sendoffenders against the law, political prisoners and the like who were notjudged quite worthy of the gallows or the block, to what in Charles theSecond's day were called His Majesty's Plantations--our colonies, thatis, in America or the West Indies. Not only were "incorrigible rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars" thus dealt with, but those also whoattended illegal prayer-meetings found themselves in the same box ifthey happened to have been previously convicted of this heinous offence;and the moss-troopers of Northumberland and Cumberland were treated insimilar fashion when taken--deported from their own heathery hills andgrey, weeping skies, to the hot swamps and savannahs of Jamaica orVirginia. In the beginning, those sentenced were merely compelled, underpenalty of what Weir of Hermiston called being "weel haangit, " to removethemselves to the Plantations. Later, a custom sprang up under whichcriminals of all sorts were delivered over by the authorities to thetender mercies of contractors, who engaged to land them in the WestIndies or America, it being one of the conditions of the contract thatthe services of the prisoner were the property of the contractor for agiven number of years. On landing, these wretched prisoners were put upto auction and sold to the highest bidder--in other words, they wereslaves. Many men made large sums of money in this inhuman trade, trafficking in the lives of their fellow-countrymen. The thing at lastreached such a pitch that practically no able-bodied man was safe fromthe danger of being kidnapped, sold to some dealer, and shipped off toslavery in the Plantations. That was the fate of many a young man whomysteriously disappeared from the ken of his friends in thoseseventeenth- and eighteenth-century days. Once shipped to thePlantations, the chance was small of a man ever returning to his nativeland. Fever, brought on by exposure to the hot sun and heavy rain of atropical or semi-tropical climate, took care of that; in the WestIndies, at least, they died like flies. Not many had the luck, or theconstitution, of one Henry Morgan, who, kidnapped in Bristol when a boyand sold as a slave in Barbadoes, lived to be one of the most famous--orrather notorious--buccaneers of all time, and died a knight, Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica, and commander of our forces in thatisland. 

It was "Mad Jack Hall's" fortune to save from this fate of beingkidnapped and sent to rot in fever-laden swamps of the West Indies ayoung Northumbrian at that time in his service. It was the time of yearwhen Stagshaw Bank Fair was held, and Mr. Hall, meaning to attend thefair, had instructed this young man to join him there at a certain hour, and himself had ridden over to Corbridge, there to pass the night. Inthe morning, when Jack Hall reached the fair at the appointed hour, hewas astonished to find his servant, very dejected in appearance, beingled away in charge of a man on horseback. Hall questioned the lad, whobrightened up vastly at sight of his master, but could give noexplanation as to the cause of this interference. All he knew was thatas he stood waiting for Mr. Hall, this man had ridden up, claimed him asa prisoner, and was now marching him off. Hall looked at the mountedman, and recognised him as one of a family named Widdrington, whoclaimed to be invested by the Government of Queen Anne with authority toarrest from time to time sundry persons who, so far as the generalpublic knew, were guilty of no crime, but who nevertheless were in theend sent to the dreaded Plantations. These Widdringtons were greatlyfeared throughout the countryside, but as they had always selected theirvictims from amongst people who had few friends, and who were littlelikely to have the means of making any great outcry, no person ofinfluence had yet been moved to take the matter up, or to maketroublesome inquiries. 

Hall, however, was not the man to let his servant be taken withoutprotest, even if this Widdrington really had the authority he claimed topossess. But to all Hall's remonstrances Widdrington merely repliedhaughtily that he was accountable to no one, save only to her mostgracious Majesty the Queen; that he was there in the execution of hisduty, and that anyone interfering with him did so at his own peril. Thesituation was awkward. On the one hand, if this man really was actingwithin his rights and in the execution of his duty, then Hall himselfwas likely to get into serious trouble; on the other, he was not goingto see a young man, his own servant, a man, so far as he knew, innocentof all offence against the law, marched off in this way, if by any meanshe might be saved. As mere remonstrances appeared to be of no avail, Hall hotly pressed his horse close up to Widdrington's, completelybarring his way, and demanded that, if he were really acting within thelaw, he should show his authority. 

"_This_ is my authority, " cried Widdrington, drawing his sword. 

"We'll soon prove whether that's strong enough, " replied Hall, jumpingfrom his horse and also drawing his weapon. There was, as it chanced, close to the lane in which the two had been wrangling, a bit of nicelevel ground covered with short, crisp turf, and to this Hall quicklymade his way, followed by Widdrington and by a crowd of people who hadrun up from the fair, attracted by the quarrel. A very few minutessufficed to prove that Widdrington's "authority" was _not_ strongenough. He fought well enough for a time, it is true, and his opponenthad need of all the skill he could command, but within five minutes Hallhad caught Widdrington's point in the big basket hilt of his sword, andwith a sudden jerk had sent the weapon flying, leaving the disarmed manentirely at his mercy. That was enough to satisfy Hall, who was too muchof a man to push his advantage further. But it by no means satisfied thesurrounding crowd of country people. By them these Widdringtons had longbeen feared and detested, and only the belief in the minds of thosesimple country folk that, in some mysterious way beyond their ken, thelaw was on the side of their oppressors, had on more than one occasionprevented an outbreak of popular fury. Here, now, was one of the hatedbrood, proven to be in the wrong, and with no authority to arrest beyondthat bestowed by bluster and brute force. The air grew thick with groansand savage threats, and a clod flung by a boy gave the mob a lead. In aninstant sticks and stones began to fly. Widdrington was unable to reachhis sword or to get to his horse; there was nothing for it but to taketo his heels, pursued by a crowd thirsting for his blood. That was thelast of the oppression of the Widdringtons; their horrible traffic inhuman beings was ended, and none of them ever again dared show theirfaces in that part of the country. 

As for Hall, henceforward an angel of light could not have been morehighly regarded, and his fate, a very few years later, brought grief onthe county almost as universal as that felt for the Earl of Derwentwaterhimself. 

Hall was at Preston with Derwentwater, but he did not, like FrankStokoe, ride for it when Forster surrendered. One would almost haveexpected a man of his fiery, reckless disposition to have made a dashfor it, and to fight his way through or fall in the attempt. Perhaps heconsidered it a point of honour to stick by his friends, and share theirfate, whatever it might be. Anyhow, he surrendered with the rest, andwith the rest was condemned to death. Time after time he was reprieved, owing to the exertions of friends who happened to be high in favourwith the Hanoverian King's Government, but time after time he wasrecommitted, and finally Tyburn saw the last of poor "Mad Jack Hall. "They hanged him on the 13th of July 1716. 

SEWINGSHIELDS CASTLE, AND THE SUNKEN TREASURE OF BROOMLEE LOUGH

The old castle of Sewingshields is one of which there are many legends. If local tradition might be accepted as a guide, we should find thatArthur the King lived there once on a time. But surely another Arthurthan him of whom Tennyson sang. One, "Not like that Arthur, who, with lance in rest, From spur to plume a star of tournament, Shot through the lists at Camelot, and charged Before the eyes of ladies and of kings, "

but a being even more mythical than that Arthur to whom, with hisknights, legend assigns so many last resting-places--in that vast hallbeneath the triple peak of Eildon, here in a cavern below the rocks atSewingshields, and in many a spot besides. This Arthur of Sewingshieldsin his feats was indeed more akin to the old Norse gods and heroes. Andit is told that, as he talked with his Queen one day when they sat onthose great rocks to the north of the castle, which still bear as namesthe King's and the Queen's Crag, Guinevere chanced to let fall a remarkwhich angered Arthur; whereupon he, snatching up a rock that lay readyto his hand, hurled it at his royal consort. Now, Guinevere at themoment was combing her long, fair locks; but she saw the stone comehurtling through the air, and, with remarkable presence of mind anddexterity, with her comb she fended off the missile, so that it fellbetween them, doing no harm. And if anyone should presume to disbelievethis tale, there lies the rock to this day, and the marks of the teethof the Queen's comb are on it still for all to see. The distance thatthe King hurled this missile is not above a quarter of a mile, and thepebble itself may weigh a trifle of twenty tons or so. 

Local tradition tells also how once on a time there came toSewingshields, to visit Arthur, a great chieftain from the wild north, one named Cumin. And when Cumin departed from the castle to go back tohis own land, he bore with him a certain gold cup that Arthur, in tokenof friendship, had given to him. But sundry of the King's retainers, having learned that the Scot was bearing away with him this cup, greatlydesired that they might themselves possess it, and they pursued Cumin, and slew him ere he had gone many miles. Wherefore Arthur caused a crossto be erected there on the spot where the slain man fell; and the placeis called Cumming's Cross to this day. 

Of the building of the castle of Sewingshields, or Seven-shields, thereis the legend told in _Harold the Dauntless_:

 "The Druid Urien had daughters seven, Their skill could call the moon from heaven; So fair their forms and so high their fame, That seven proud kings for their suitors came. 

 King Mador and Rhys came from Powis and Wales, Unshorn was their hair, and unpruned were their nails; From Strath-Clywd came Ewain, and Ewain was lame, And the red-bearded Donald from Galloway came. 

 Lot, King of Lodon, was hunchback'd from youth, Dunmail of Cumbria had never a tooth; But Adolph of Bambrough, Northumberland's heir; Was gay and was gallant, was young and was fair. 

 There was strife 'mongst the sisters, for each one would have For husband King Adolph, the gallant and brave; And envy bred hate, and hate urged them to blows, When the firm earth was cleft, and the Arch-fiend arose!

 He swore to the maidens their wish to fulfil-- They swore to the foe they would work by his will, A spindle and distaff to each hath he given, 'Now hearken my spell, ' said the Outcast of Heaven. 

 'Ye shall ply these spindles at midnight hour, And for every spindle shall rise a tower, Where the right shall be feeble, the wrong shall have power, And there shall ye dwell with your paramour. '

 Beneath the pale moonlight they sate on the wold, And the rhymes which they chaunted must never be told; And as the black wool from the distaff they sped, With blood from their bosom they moisten'd the thread. 

 As light danced the spindles beneath the cold gleam, The castle arose like the birth of a dream-- The seven towers ascended like mist from the ground, Seven portals defend them, seven ditches surround. 

 Within that dread castle seven monarchs were wed, But six of the seven ere the morning lay dead; With their eyes all on fire, and their daggers all red, Seven damsels surround the Northumbrian's bed. 

 'Six kingly bridegrooms to death we have done, Six gallant kingdoms King Adolf hath won; Six lovely brides all his pleasure to do, Or the bed of the seventh shall be husbandless too. '

 Well chanced it that Adolf the night when he wed Had confessed and had sain'd him ere boune to his bed; He sprung from the couch, and his broadsword he drew, And there the seven daughters of Urien he slew. 

 The gate of the castle he bolted and seal'd, And hung o'er each arch-stone a crown and a shield; To the cells of St. Dunstan then wended his way, And died in his cloister an anchorite grey. 

 Seven monarchs' wealth in that castle lies stow'd, The foul fiends brood o'er them like raven and toad. Whoever shall questen these chambers within, From curfew to matins, that treasure shall win. 

 But manhood grows faint as the world waxes old! There lives not in Britain a champion so bold, So dauntless of heart, and so prudent of brain, As to dare the adventure that treasure to gain. 

 The waste ridge of Cheviot shall wave with the rye, Before the rude Scots shall Northumberland fly, And the flint cliffs of Bambro' shall melt in the sun Before that adventure be perill'd and won. "

Long afterwards, when Harold the Dauntless entered the castle, the sevenshields still hung where Adolf had placed them, each blazoned with itscoat of arms:

 "A wolf North Wales had on his armour coat, And Rhys of Powis-land a couchant stag; Strath Clwyd's strange emblem was a stranded boat; Donald of Galloway's a trotting nag; A corn-sheaf gilt was fertile Lodon's brag; A dudgeon-dagger was by Dunmail worn; Northumbrian Adolf gave a sea-beat crag; Surmounted by a cross, --such signs were borne Upon these antique shields, all wasted now and worn. "

And within the castle, in that chamber where Adolf repelled theembarrassing advances of that most unmaidenly band of sisters, and did"a slaughter grim and great":

 "There of the witch brides lay each skeleton, Still in the posture as to death when dight; For this lay prone, by one blow slain outright; And that, as one who struggles long in dying; One bony hand held knife, as if to smite; One bent on fleshless knees, as mercy crying; One lay across the floor, as kill'd in act of flying. "

Perhaps it is part of the wealth of those "seven monarchs" that now liessunken in Broomlee Lough. Did some one, greatly daring, "adventure thattreasure to win, " and succeed in his attempt? Tradition tells that adweller in Sewingshields Castle, long ago, being compelled to flee thecountry, and unable to bear away with him his hoard of gold, resolvedto sink it in the lough. Rowing, therefore, far out into deep water, hehove overboard a chest containing all his treasure, putting on it aspell that never should it be again seen till brought to land by aid of"Twa twin yauds, twa twin oxen, twa twin lads, and a chain forged by asmith of kind. "

Long centuries the treasure remained unsought; yet all men might knowexactly where lay the chest beneath the waves, for it mattered not howfierce blew the gale, above the gold the surface of the water was everunbroken. At last there came one who heard the tradition, and set aboutthe task of recovering the sunken chest. The twin horses, twin oxen, andtwin lads he procured readily enough, but to find a smith of kind wasnot so easy--"a smith of kind" being a blacksmith whose ancestors forsix generations have been smiths, he himself being the seventhgeneration. But this, too, at length was found, and the smith forged thenecessary length of chain. Then, taking advantage of a favourable day, when breeze sufficient blew to reveal the tell-tale spot of calm water, the treasure-hunter started in his boat, leaving one end of the chain onshore and paying out fathom after fathom as his boat swept round thecalm and again reached shore. Now hitching the yauds to one end and theoxen to the other, the animals were cautiously started by the twindrivers. Slowly the chain swept over the bed of the lough, andtightened, fast in something heavy that gave and came shoreward in thebight of the chain. Cannily the drivers drove, and ever came the weightnearer to dry land. Already the treasure-seeker in his boat, peeringeagerly down into the quiet water, fancied that he was a made man; hecould almost _see_ that box. But a few more yards and it was his. Alas!In his eagerness to secure "a smith of kind" he had made insufficientinquiries into that smith's ancestry. There was (as he discovered whentoo late) a flaw in his pedigree! Some ancestress, it was said, couldnot show her marriage lines, or something else was wrong. At any rate, there was a flaw, and that was sufficient to upset the whole thing, forthe chain, not being made by a smith of kind, was of course not of thetrue temper. Hence, just when success was about to crown their efforts, the horses made a violent plunge forward--and the chain parted at aweak link! No further attempts to ascertain the exact bearings of thatbox have ever been successful. It is, as of old, at the bottom of thelough--at least so says tradition. 

And Sewingshields Castle is now no longer a castle; its very vaults andits walls have disappeared. 

 "No towers are seen On the wild heath, but those that Fancy builds, And save a fosse that tracks the moor with green, Is nought remains to tell of what may there have been. "

THE KIDNAPPING OF LORD DURIE

"It is commonly reported that some party, in a considerable actionbefore the Session, finding that Lord Durie could not be persuaded tothink his plea good, fell upon a stratagem to prevent the influence andweight which his lordship might have to his prejudice, by causing somestrong masked men to kidnap him, in the Links of Leith, at his diversionon a Saturday afternoon, and transport him to some blind and obscureroom in the country, where he was detained captive, without the benefitof daylight, a matter of three months (though otherwise civilly and wellentertained); during which time his lady and children went in mourningfor him as dead. But after the cause aforesaid was decided, the LordDurie was carried back by incognitos, and dropt in the same place wherehe had been taken up. " (Forbes's _Journal of the Session_, Edinburgh, 1714. )

With the early part of the seventeenth century, moss-trooping in theBorder country had not yet come to an end. Its glory, no doubt, and itsglamour, had begun to fade before even the sixteenth century was farspent, and where were now to be found heroes such as the far-famedJohnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie? Yet, as a few stout-hearted leaves, defiant of autumn's fury, will cling to the uttermost branches of aforest tree, so, in spite of King or Court, there were even now somereckless souls, scornful of new-fangled modern ways and more thancontent to follow in the footsteps of their grandsires, who still heldfast to precept and practice of what seemed to them "the good old days. "It is true their reiving partook now somewhat more of the nature ofhorse-stealing pure and simple. No longer were fierce raids over theEnglish Border permissible; not now could they, practically withimpunity, "drive" the cattle of those with whom they were at feud, andlive on the stolen beeves of England till such time as the larder againgrew bare. The times were sadly degenerate; Border men all too quicklywere becoming soft and effeminate. 

Yet in Eskdale there was one patriot, at least, who boasted himself thatas his fathers had been, so was he. Willie Armstrong of Gilnockie wasthat man--"Christie's Will, " he was commonly called, a great-grandson ofthe famous Johnnie, and not unworthy of his descent. Had he lived whenJohnnie flourished, there might indeed have been two Armstrongs equallyfamous. As it was, Willie spent his days at constant feud with the law, and even the strong walls of Gilnockie were not for him always a secureshelter. Once it befell that the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, theEarl of Traquair, visiting Jedburgh, there found Willie lying in the"tolbooth. "

"Now, what's broucht ye to this, Gilnockie?" the Earl inquired. 

"Oh, nocht but having twa bit tethers in my hand, my lord, " said Willie. But: "Weel, I wadna say but there micht mebbes hae been twa cowt at thetae end o' the tethers, " he admitted, on being pressed by the Earl. 

Now, it happened that Willie was well known to Lord Traquair--had, infact, more than once been of considerable service to his lordship; andit was no failing of the Earl to desert a friend in trouble, if helpmight be given quietly and judiciously. So it came about that the prisongates swung back for Christie's Will, the halter no longer threatenedhis neck, and Lord Traquair acquired a follower who to repay his debt ofgratitude would stick at nothing. 

Some little time later it chanced that a great lawsuit fell to bedecided in the Court of Session. In this lawsuit Lord Traquair wasdeeply concerned. A verdict in his favour was of vital importance tohim, but he very well knew that the opinion of the presiding judge waslikely to be unfavourable to his claim, and that should Lord Duriepreside, the case in that event would almost certainly go against him. Could that judge, however, by any means be quietly spirited away fromEdinburgh before the date fixed for the trial, with almost equalcertainty he might count on a favourable verdict. In this predicamentLord Traquair turned his thoughts to Christie's Will; if anyone couldaid him it must be the bold Borderer. 

 "'Bethink how ye sware, by the salt and the bread, By the lightning, the wind, and the rain, That if ever of Christie's Will I had need, He would pay me my service again. '"

And Lord Traquair did not plead in vain. It was a little thing to do, Will thought, for one who had saved him from the gallows tree. 

 "'O mony a time, my lord, ' he said, 'I've stown the horse frae the sleeping loon; But for you I'll steal a beast as braid, For I'll steal Lord Durie frae Edinboro toon. '"

 * * * * *

A light northerly breeze piped shrill through the long bent grass beyondLeith Links, sweeping thin and nippingly across shining sands left bareby a receding tide; down by the rippling water-line, as the sun of alate spring day neared his setting, clamouring gulls bickered noisilyover the possession of some fishy dainty. Out from near-lying patches ofwhin, and from the low, wind-blown sand-hills, rabbits stole warily, nibbling the short herbage now and then, but ever with an air ofsuspicion and manifest unease, for behind a big clump of whin, duringhalf the day there had lain hid a thick-set, powerfully built man. 

"De'il tak' the body!" he grumbled, sitting up and stretching himself ashe glanced along the beach; "he's lang o' comin'. "

As he gazed, the sight of a distant horseman riding westward brought himsharply to his feet, and snatching up a long cloak that lay by his side, he walked leisurely through the yielding sand till he reached the firmbeach within tide mark, along which the horseman was now quietlycantering. 

"Ye'll be Lord Durie, I'm thinkin', " he cried, raising his hand to staythe rider, a middle-aged, legal-faced man, who sat his sober steed nonetoo confidently, with thighs but lightly wed to the saddle. 

"Yes, I'm Lord Durie. What can I do for you?"

"Weel, my lord, I've come far to see ye. They say there's no' a lawyerleevin' or deid that kens mair nor you on a' thing. It's jist a bit pleathat I've gotten, " said the man, laying a hand on the horse's neck andsidling along close to his rider's knee. 

"For onny advice on kittle points o' law, ye maun go to counsel, myfriend. I'm a judge, no' an advocate. Gude e'en to ye. "

"Ay, but, my lord, " said the man, laying a detaining left hand on thenear rein, "it's this way it is; ye see--" and at that, with a suddenpowerful upward push of the unskilled rider's leg, Lord Durie was hurledfrom the saddle and lay sprawling on his back on the wet sand, as thehorse sprang forward with a startled bound. 

"Goad's sake! what's this o't?" cried the poor judge, already tangled inthe folds of the long cloak, and struggling to rise. "Wad ye murder areo' his Majesty's judges!"

"Lie still, my lord, lie still! There's no skaith will come to ye 'ginye but lie still. De'il's i' the body; wull the auld lurdane no handsae!"

Of small avail were the judge's struggles; as well might an infantstruggle in the folds of a python. Ere even an elderly man's scantbreath was quite spent, he lay among the whins, bound hand and foot, trussed like a fowl, and with the upper part of his body and his headwrapped in the stifling folds of the great cloak. 

That was the last of the outer world that Lord Durie knew or saw formany a long day. His horse, with muddied saddle, and broken reinstrailing on the ground (muddied and broken, no doubt, by the horserolling), was found next day grazing on the links. But of the judge, notrace. He might--as some, with the superstition of the day, weredisposed to believe[1]--have been spirited away by a warlock; or, perhaps, even like Thomas the Rhymer, he had vanished into Fairyland. Tidings of him there were none. The flowing waters of the Forth hadeffectually wiped out his horse's tracks along the shore, and during thenight a rising wind had effaced the footsteps of his captor in the dryloose sand between tide-mark and links. Thus every trace of him waslost. His body, maybe, might have drifted out to sea; perhaps it lay nowby the rocks of some lonely shore, or on the sands, with mouth a-washand dead hands playing idly with the lapping water. Wife and familymourned as for one dead. And after the first nine days' wonder, even inParliament House and Law Courts, for lack of food speculation as to hisfate languished and died. A successor filled his office. 

[1: In the seventeenth century belief in witchcraft was almost at itsheight over the whole of Europe, and in Scotland the hunt after witchesand warlocks was peculiarly vindictive. To obtain confession, the mostincredible tortures--as cruel as anything practised by Red Indians ontheir prisoners--were inflicted on accused persons, men and women, andescape was seldom possible for these poor creatures. Nor were suchbeliefs and practices confined to the benighted times of the seventeenthcentury. Even as late as 1722, in Sutherlandshire, a woman was burnedfor witchcraft. Her crime was that she had transformed her own daughterinto a pony, and had ridden her throughout an entire night. Conclusiveproof of the charge was found in the fact that the poor woman's daughterwas lame afterwards both in hands and feet. 

Nothing was too absurd, no charge too wicked or too childish, to obtainuniversal belief in those times. ]

Meantime, bound to the saddle in front of his captor, by little-knownhill paths the judge had been borne swiftly through the night. The long, melancholy wail of a whaup, the eerie hoot of an owl, at times smotedully on his ear; but to all his entreaties and his questions no humanvoice made answer; in stony silence his abductor rode steadily on. Overhill and dale, over rough ground and smooth, splashing through marshysoil where the hoofs of the heavily laden horse sucked juicily, throughburns, and across sodden peaty moor where the smell of swamp rose rankon the night air, they floundered; and once the homely smell of peatreek told the unhappy judge that they passed within hail of some humandwelling. But throughout the night he saw nothing, and gradually thelong strain, the discomfort of being pitched forward or back as thehorse scrambled up or down where the ground was extra rough and broken, the pain of sitting half in, half out, of a saddle, told upon a frameunaccustomed to much exercise, and at intervals he wholly or partiallylost consciousness. Thus unutterably distressed in body and broken inspirit, in one of these partial lapses it seemed to the judge--as itmight be in some disordered nightmare--that there came a respite fromthe torment of ceaseless motion, and that by means of some unknownagency he lay in heavenly peace, stretched full length on a couch orbed. He thought--or did he dream?--that he had heard, as it were faroff, the muffled trairip of feet and the murmur of low voices; and itseemed almost as if his body, after falling from some vast height, hadbeen lifted and gently swung in the air. But exhaustion of mind and bodywas so great that the problem of what might be happening was quitebeyond solution; let him only rest and sleep. 

Then, later, it seemed to him that he woke from broken, tossingslumber. But it was dark, and he fell again into an uneasy doze, inwhich every muscle and bone in his harassed old body ached pitifully, every spot of sorely chafed skin stung and burned, till the multitude ofpains put an end to sleep. Where was he, and how had he got there? On alow couch, free and unbound, he lay; by his side, on a rude table, wasfood and a jack of small-beer. Whether the time was morning or eveninghe could not tell, but it was very dark; what little light entered theroom came through a narrow slit, high up in the wall, and all thingssmelled strangely of damp. Somewhere he could hear faintly a slow, shuffling step and the rustle of a dress; then the mew of a cat. Wherewas he?

Few, very few, persons at that day were above the weakness of a firmbelief in witchcraft; even a judge of the Court of Session would notdare openly to question the justice and humanity of the Mosaical law:"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. " Superstition was rampant, andto Lord Durie there had ever seemed nothing incongruous in acceptingbelief in the undoubted existence of both witches and warlocks. Could itbe that he was now actually in the power of such beings? His mind wasyet in a whirl, and he could form to himself no connected account ofyesterday's happenings, if indeed it was really yesterday, and not insome remote, far-away time, that he had last ridden along the sands ofLeith. Thirst consumed him, but he hesitated to drink; if he were now inthe hands of those wretches who, it was well known, that they might workevil sold themselves to the Prince of Darkness, then might it not bethat by voluntarily drinking, his soul would be delivered into theclutches of the Evil One? The thought brought him painfully to his feetwith many a groan, and roused him to a careful examination of his gloomyprison. Rough stone walls, oozing damp, an earthen floor, three stonesteps leading up to a heavy iron-studded door in a corner of the room;and nothing else. The one small window was far out of his reach. Afeeling of faintness crept over him; it might be a wile of Satan, or aspell cast over him by supernatural powers, but the time was past forhesitation, and he drank a great draught from the jack, sank feebly onthe couch, and slept profoundly. 

When the judge again awoke it was in a prison somewhat less gloomy, fora thin splash of pale sunlight now struck the wall, and gave lightsufficient to show every corner of the room. Again Lord Durie wentthrough his fruitless search, and then, feeling hungry, and havingsuffered no visible ill effects from his first incautious draught ofsmall-beer, he ate and drank heartily. From the way in which the patchof sunlight crept up the wall, it was easy to tell that the time wasevening. Could it indeed be that no more than twenty-four hours back hehad ridden, secure and free from this horrible care, along the shiningsands by the crisp salt wavelets of the Forth?

What was that voice that he now heard, thin and hollow, on the eveningair? "Far yaud! far yaud!" and then, with eldritch scream, "_Bauty_, " itcried. Such sounds, coming from he knew not where, fell disturbingly onthe unaccustomed ears of a seventeenth-century Judge of Session, andLord Durie's sleep that night was broken by grim dreams. 

Day followed day, week pressed on the heels of week, and still never ahuman face smiled on the unhappy judge. Each morning he found on hislittle table a supply of food and drink, all good of their kind andplenty--boiled beef or mutton, oaten cakes, pease bannocks, and alwaysthe jack of small-beer--but never did he see human hand place themthere, never did human form cheer him by its presence. 

The solitary confinement and the utter want of occupation told on anervous, somewhat highly strung temperament; and in the judge's mindsuperstition began to hold unquestioned sway. Things taught him inchildhood by an old nurse, things which now folks, indeed, stillbelieved, but which he himself had to some extent given up or dismissedfrom his thoughts, began to crowd back again into his brain. No merehuman power, surely, could have brought him here as he had been brought. Was it in the dungeon of some sorcerer, of some disciple of the Devil, that he now lay? Then, the shuffling old step that he heard sofrequently, the thin voice calling, "Hey! Maudge, " followed always bythe mewing of a cat--what could that be but some old hag, given over toevil deeds, talking to her familiar? It was but the other day that, withhis own eyes, he had seen nine witches burned together on Leith Sands, and all, ere they died, had confessed to the most horrid commerce withthe Devil. It was no great time since a witch, under torture, hadrevealed in her confession the terrible truth, of how two hundred womenhad been wont to flock at night to a certain kirk in North Berwick, there to listen eagerly to Satan preaching blasphemy and denouncing theKing. Even a judge was not safe from their malice. And could he butescape from the snare in which he now lay entangled, assuredly, LordDurie thought, there should be more witch-burnings. 

So the weeks dragged past, and Lord Durie lost all reckoning of theflight of time; but ever the belief strengthened that it was no merehuman power that held him in bondage. And this belief receivedconfirmation at last, for he awoke one night from confused and heavysleep, to find himself once more bound, and wrapped, body and head, inthe thick folds of a cloak. Then, seemingly without moving from his bed, he was borne through the air and set upon a horse; and again began thatawful journey which once before he had endured. This time, too, inconfirmation of his theory of the supernatural, when he came to his fullsenses it was to find himself lying behind a clump of whins by the sandsof Leith, near to the very spot where, ages before, he had met astrange-looking man who tried to draw him into conversation on law. Andnowhere was any cloak to be seen, nor trace of human agency. Only, heached sorely, and his legs almost refused to bear the weight of hisbody, and in his head was the buzzing as of a thousand bees. 

It was warlocks who had dealt with him--so his family and all hisfriends agreed when his tale was told. But his successor in officemourned, perhaps, that their dealings had not been more effectual, forhe liked ill to give up a post he had filled with ability for an all tooshort three months. 

To Lord Durie's regret, his return was too late to enable him to presidein the famous case which was about to come on shortly after the date ofhis disappearance. That had already been decided in a manner of which hecould not have failed to disapprove, and Lord Traquair had secured averdict. 

For long the judge held to the warlock theory, and he was not averse, after dinner, over a bottle, from telling at great length the story ofhis terrible experiences during those mysterious three months ofcaptivity. Younger men, indeed, began to find the tale somewhat boring, and in private some had been known to wish that the devil had flown awaypermanently with Lord Durie. But those scoffers were chiefly a fewrising young advocates; the judge's family and his friends accepted thetale in its entirety. Nor ever did any man, to the end of his days, actually hear Lord Durie express doubt as to the supernatural nature ofhis adventure. 

Yet something did happen, later, which at least seemed in some measureto have shaken his faith, and it was noticed that, towards the end ofhis life, he was not fond of dwelling on the subject--had even beenknown, in fact, to become irritable when pressed to tell his story. Itfell out, a year or two after the events which he had loved to narrate, that Lord Durie had occasion to visit Dumfries. On the way back toEdinburgh, travelling with some colleagues, it chanced that a heavystorm caught them, and necessity drove them to take shelter for thenight in a farmhouse near to an old peel tower which stood on the vergeof the wild moorland country beyond Moffat. 

That night Lord Durie, in his stuffy box-bed, dreamed a terrible dream. He was once more in the power of the wizard or warlock; and it seemed tohim that in his dream he even heard again those mysterious words thathad once so haunted him. With a start he woke, bathed in perspiration, to find that day had broken, and that from the hillside echoed thelong-drawn cry: "Far yaud! Far yaud! _Bauty!_" While, ben the house, hecould hear a slow, shuffling step, and a thin old voice quavering: "Hey, Maudge!" to a mewing cat. 

"What was yon cry oot on the hill? Oh, jist oor Ailick cryin' on hisdowg, Bauty, to weer the sheep, " said the grey-haired, brown-faced oldwoman to whom they had owed their shelter for the night. 

"Veesitors?" she continued, in reply to further questions. "Na. We haenae veesitors here. There was aince a puir sick man lay twa three monthsi' the auld tower yont by, a year or twa back, but there's been naeveesitors. They said he was daft, an' I was kind o' feared whiles to giehim his meat. But, oh, he wad be jist a silly auld body that did naebodyhairm. Na, I never richtly got sicht o' his face, for I aye put his bitmeat an' drink doon beside him whan he was sleepin'. An' them thatbroucht him took him awa again whan they thoucht he was some better. "

It was noted that after this visit Lord Durie no longer pursued thesubject of warlocks. 

[NOTE. --The story of Lord Durie's abduction and captivity is differentlytold by Chambers in his _Domestic Annals of Scotland_, as far, at least, as the instigator of the kidnapping and its accomplisher are concerned. It is there recorded that the maker of the plot to kidnap the judge wasGeorge Meldrum the Younger of Dumbreck. Accompanied by two Jardines anda Johnston--good Border names--and by some other men, Meldrum seizedLord Durie and a friend near St. Andrews, robbed them of their purses, then carried the judge across the Firth of Forth to the house of oneWilliam Kay in Leith, thence past Holyrood, and, by way doubtless ofSoutra Hill, to Melrose, from which town he was hurried over the Borderto Harbottle, and there held prisoner. An account of the trial of theperpetrators of the abduction is to be found in Pitcairns' _CriminalTrials. _ Sir Walter Scott, however, in his _Minstrelsy of the ScottishBorder_, gives to Will Armstrong of Gilnockie the credit, or discredit, of carrying out the abduction single-handed. Will was certainly a muchmore picturesque ruffian than ever was Meldrum, and many a wild deedmight be safely fathered on him. 

Tradition tells of his long ride to convey important papers from LordTraquair to King Charles I, and of his perilous return journey, bearinga reply from his Majesty. Tidings of his mission had come to the ears ofthe Parliamentarians, and orders were issued to seize him at Carlisle. In that town, Will, unwitting of special danger, had halted an hour torefresh man and beast, and as he proceeded on his journey, and wasmidway over the high, narrow bridge across the Eden, the sudden clatterof horses' feet and the jingle of accoutrements at either end of thebridge showed him that his way was effectually blocked by the Roundheadtroopers. Without a moment's hesitation, Will faced his horse at theparapet, and with a touch of the spur and a wild cheer over went thepair into the flooded river, disappearing in the tawny, foaming waterwith a mighty splash. Instead of hastening along the bank, Cromwell'stroopers crowded on to the bridge, gazing with astonishment into theraging torrent. Thus, when Will and his horse, still unparted, came tothe surface a considerable way down, there was time for them to reachthe bank. But the bank was steep and the landing bad, and the weight ofWill's saturated riding-cloak was the last straw that hindered the horsefrom scrambling up. With a curse Will cut the fastening that held thecloak about his neck, and, relieved from the extra weight, the animalwith a desperate struggle gained the top of the bank and got away wellahead of the pursuing troopers. Had it not been for the speed andstamina of his horse, Will had surely been taken that night. As it was, ere they reached the Esk, one trooper was already far in front of hiscomrades, and thundering on Will's very heels. But a pistol pointed athis head by Will, a pistol with priming saturated, and incapable ofbeing fired--had the man only thought of it--caused the trooper to drawback out of danger, and Will gained Esk's farther bank in safety, where, regardless of possible pistol shots, he waited to taunt his baffledpursuers. 

THE WRAITH OF PATRICK KERR

This is a tale they tell at the darkening, and you who are Rulewaterfolk probably know it well. But however well you may know it, you haveto own that it is an eerie thing to listen to when the fire is dyingdown, and there are queer-shaped shadows playing on the walls, andoutside in the wood the owls are beginning to hoot, or, from the farmoor, there comes a curlew's cry. 

Not long after Prince Charlie's day there lived at Abbotrule, inRulewater, a laird named Patrick Kerr. Patrick Kerr was a Writer to HisMajesty's Signet, a dour man, with a mischancy temper. The kirk andkirkyard of Abbotrule, as still may be seen, lay near the laird'shouse--too near for the pleasure of one who had no love for the kirk andwho could not thole ministers. Most unfortunately, too, the laird took ascunner at the minister of the parish of Abbotrule. It may be that heand the minister saw too much of each other, and only saw each other'sfaults, but of that no one now can tell. But, about the year 1770, Patrick Kerr set about to put an end to Abbotrule Parish and AbbotruleKirk, that had seen many an open-air Sacrament on summer Sabbaths longago. For four years the laird laboured to attain his end, and a blitheman was he when, in 1774, he got Eliott of Stobs and Douglas of Douglasto side with him and wipe out for evermore the kirk and parish ofAbbotrule. The parish was joined to the parishes of Hobkirk andSouthdean, and the glebe--twenty-five acres of good land--which shouldhave been shared between the Southdean and Hobkirk ministers, was takenby Patrick Kerr for his own use. Fifty acres of poor soil lying betweenDoorpool and Chesters he certainly gave them in its stead, and must havehad pleasure in his bargain, for he had gained a rich glebe and had forever freed himself from his clerical neighbours. Speedily he pulled downthe manse and unroofed the kirk. He would willingly have ploughed up thekirkyard, but this could not be. For a hundred years after he was gone, the Rulewater folk still buried there. 

Now, in Patrick Kerr's day, a Sacrament Sabbath was not quite what it isnow. They were solemn enough about the fencing of the tables, seriousand longfaced enough were ministers and elders as the bread and winewere handed round, but the minister's wife, poor body, found it took herall her time to preserve an earnest spirituality and to search her soulas the roasts and pies and puddings spread out on the manse dining-tablehaunted her anxious mind. Harder still, too, it was for a tired ministerand elders to abstain from all appearance of casuality as thehospitality of the manse went on far into the afternoon, and the whiskytoddy had more than once gone the round of the table. 

Seventeen years after the doing away with Abbotrule Parish there tookplace at the manse of Southdean, after the Sacrament had been dispensed, one of these gatherings of sanctified conviviality. It was dusk beforethe party broke up, and it was probably due to the kindly forethought ofthe minister that he and his guests strolled in little companies oftwo's and three's out into the caller air before their final parting. Their gait was solemn--if a trifle uncertain--as they slowly daunderedup the road between the trees. It was a still Sabbath evening, when onecan hear the very whispers of the fir branches, the murmur of a burn faraway--when suddenly the stillness was broken by the thud of a horse'shoofs. Beat--beat--beat--on the turf by the side of the road they came, and each man of the party cocked his ears and strained his eyes into thedarkness to see who might be the horseman who profaned the Sabbath byriding in such hot haste. There was an elder there who, had the partybeen held at any time but on the Sacrament Sabbath and anywhere but inthe manse dining-room, might have been said to have a trifle exceeded. So when, cantering on the turf between the two fir woods, they saw awhite horse appear, he looked byordinar grave. 

"I mind, " said he, "a passage in the Revelations, '_Behold a palehorse; and his name that sat on him was Death_. '" With that the horsewas upon them, and one and all looked up at the rider's face. Fearsomeand gash was the countenance they looked upon. Hatred and scorn was inthe burning eyes--anger, and the hatred that does not die. And there wasnot one man of them but ran like hunted sheep back into the manse, andthere, in the light, faced each other, forfeuchen and well-nigh greetinglike terrified bairns, that did not know the face for that of PatrickKerr, the laird of Abbotrule. 

Next day they all had the news that Patrick Kerr, who hated the kirk andall ministers, and had done away with the parish of Abbotrule, had diedin the darkening of that Sabbath evening and gone to his last account. 

THE LAIDLEY WORM OF SPINDLESTON-HEUGH

In a land where fairy tales die hard, it is sometimes no easy task todiscriminate between what is solid historical fact, what is fact, moss-grown and flower-covered, like an old, old tomb, and what is merefantasy, the innocent fancy of a nation in its childhood, turned at lastinto stone--a lasting stalactite--from the countless droppings of beliefbestowed upon it by countless generations. 

Scientists nowadays crushingly hold prehistoric beasts, or stillexistent marsh gas, accountable for dragons and serpents and other faunaof legendary history; but in certain country districts there are someanimals that no amount of Board School information, nor countlessScience Siftings from penny papers can ever destroy, and to thisinvulnerable class belongs the Laidley Worm of Spindleston-Heugh. 

High above the yellow sand that borders the fierce North Sea on theextreme north of the Northumbrian coast still stands the castle ofBamborough. Many a fierce invasion has it withstood during the thousandodd years since first King Ida placed his stronghold there. Many a cruelstorm has it weathered, while lordly ships and little fishing cobleshave been driven to destruction by the lashing waves on the rocks downbelow. And there it was that, once on a day, there lived a King who, when his fair wife died and left to him the care of her handsome, fearless boy, and her beautiful, gentle daughter, did, as is the fashionof every King of fairy tale, wed again, and wed a wicked wife. To thesouth land he went, while his son sailed the seas in search of highadventure, and his daughter acted as chatelaine in the castle by thesea, and there he met the woman who came to Bamborough all those manyyears ago, and who, they say, remains there still. 

As the dawn rose over the grey sea, making even the dark rocks of theFarnes like a garden where only pink roses grew, the Princess Margaretwould be on the battlements looking out, always looking out, for herfather and brother to return. At sunset, when the sea was golden and theplain stretched purple away to the south, landward and seaward her eyeswould still gaze. And at night, when the silver moon made a path on thesea, the Princess would listen longingly to the lap of the waves, andstrain her beautiful eyes through the darkness for the sails of the shipthat should bring the two that she loved safe home again. But when theday came when the King, her father, returned, and led through the gatethe lady who was his bride, there were many who knew that it would havebeen well for the Princess had she still been left in her loneliness. Gracious indeed was her welcome to her mother's supplanter, for sheloved her father, and this was the wife of his choice. 

"Oh! welcome, father, " she said, and handed to him the keys of thecastle of which she had kept such faithful ward, and, holding up a faceas fresh and fragrant as a wild rose at the dawn of a June day, shekissed her step-mother. 

"Welcome, my step-mother, " she said, "for all that's here is yours. "

Many a gallant Northumbrian lord was there that day, and many a lordfrom the southern land was in the King's noble retinue. One of them itwas who spoke what the others thought, and to the handsome Queen who hadlistened already overmuch to the praises her husband sang of hisdaughter, the Princess Margaret, the words were as acid in a wound. "Meseemeth, " said he, "that in all the north country there is no lady sofair, nor none so good as this most beautiful Princess. "

Proudly the Queen drew herself up, and from under drooped eyelids, withthe look of a hawk as it swoops for its prey, she made answer to thelord from the south. 

"I am the Queen, " she said; "ye might have excepted me. " Then, turningswift, like a texel that strikes its quarry, she said to the Princess:"A laidley worm shalt thou be, crawling amongst the rocks; a laidleyworm shalt thou stay until thy brother, Wynd, comes home again. "

So impossible seemed such a threat to the Princess that her red lipsparted over her white teeth, and she laughed long and merrily. But thosewho knew that the new Queen had studied long all manner of wicked spellsand cruel magic were filled with dread, for greatly they feared that thefair Princess's joyous days were done. 

The Farne Islands were purple-black in a chill grey sea, and the wavesthat beat on the rocks beneath the castle seemed to have a more dolorousmoan than common when next evening came. The joyous Princess, jinglingher big bunch of keys and smiling a welcome to her father's guests, hadgone as completely as though she lay buried beside the drowned mariners, for whom the silting sand under the waves makes a safe graveyard allalong that bleak and rugged coast; but a horror--a crawling, shapeless, loathsome thing--writhed itself along the pathway from cliff to village, and sent the terror-striken peasants shrieking into their huts andbattering at the castle gates for sanctuary. The old ballad tells usthat:

 "For seven miles east and seven miles west, And seven miles north and south, No blade of grass or corn could grow, So venomous was her mouth. "

Like an embodied plague, the bewitched Princess preyed on the people ofher father's kingdom, who daily brought to the cave, where she coiledherself up at night to sleep, a terrified tribute of the milk of sevencows. All over the North Country spread the dread of her name, but nowshe was no longer the lovely Princess Margaret, but the Laidley Worm ofSpindleston-Heugh. 

 "Word went east, and word went west, And word is gone over the sea, That a Laidley Worm in Spindleston-Heughs Would ruin the North Countrie. "

Far over the sea, with his thirty-three bold men-at-arms, the Princess'sbrother, "Childe Wynd, " was carving a career for himself with his sword. Nothing on earth did Childe Wynd fear, yet ever and again, when successin battle had been his, he would have a heavy heart, dreading he knewnot what, and often he longed to see again the castle on the high rockby the sea, and the fair little sister with whom so many happy days hadbeen spent amongst the blue grass and on the yellow sand of the dunes atBamborough. To his camp came rumour of the strange monster that wasdevastating his father's lands, and down to the coast he hastened withhis men, a great home-sickness dragging at his heart--home-sickness, anda terror that all was not well with Margaret. Some rough, brown-facedmariners, whose boat had not long before nearly suffered wreck on therocks of the Northumbrian coast, were able to tell the Prince thatrumour spoke truth, and that a laidley worm was laying waste hisfather's kingdom. Of the Princess they could give no tidings, but thePrince needed no words from them to tell him that all was not well. 

 "We have no time now here to waste, Hence quickly let us sail: My only sister Margaret Something, I fear, doth ail. "

And so, with haste, they built a ship, a ship for a Prince of Faery, forits masts were made of the rowan tree, against which no evil witchcraftcould prevail, and its sails were of fluttering silk. With fair windsand kindly waves the Prince and his men soon sped across the sea, andgladly they saw again the square towers of the castle King Ida hadbuilt, proudly looking down on the fields of restless water that onlythe bravest of the King's husbandmen durst venture to plough. From herturret window the Queen watched the sails of the gallant ship gleamingin the sun, and knew full well that Prince Wynd was nearly home again. Speedily she summoned all the witch wives along with whom she worked herwicked magic, and set them to meet the ship, to use every spell theyknew that could bring shipwreck, and disaster, and death, and to rid herof the youth whom she had always dreaded. But they returned to herdespairingly. No spell was known to them that could work against a shipwhose masts were made of the rowan tree. Then, casting aside magic, theWitch Queen dispatched a boat-load of armed men to meet the ship, toboard it, and to slay all that they could. Little cared Wynd and his menfor a boat-load of warriors, and few there were left alive in the boat, and those sore wounded, when Wynd's ship came to anchor in the shallowsunder the dark cliff. 

But here a more dangerous adversary met Prince Wynd. Threshing throughthe water came the horrible, writhing thing that Northumbrians knew asthe Laidley Worm; and ever as they would have beached the ship, the hugeserpent beat them off again, till all the sea round them was a welter offroth and slime and blood. Then Childe Wynd ordered his men to taketheir long oars once more and bring the ship farther down the coast andbeach her on Budle sand. Down the coast they went, while the Queeneagerly watched from the battlements, and the Laidley Worm followed themfast along the shore, and all the folk of Bamborough scrambled up thecliff side, and, holding on by jagged bits of crags and tough clumps ofgrass and of yellow tansy, kept a precarious foothold, waiting, wide-eyed, to see what would be the outcome of the fray. As near thesandy beach of Budle as they durst venture their ship came Prince Wyndand his thirty-three men, then the rowers sat still, and the Princeleapt out, shoulder deep, into the water, and waded to the shore. Like awounded tiger that has been baulked of its prey but gets it into itspower at last, the Laidley Worm came to meet him, and all who watchedthought his last hour had come. But like the white flash of a sea-bird'swings as it dives into the blue sea, the Prince's broad sword gleamedand fell on the loathsome monster's flat, scaly head, and in a greatvoice he cried aloud on all living things to witness that if thiscreature of evil magic did him any harm, he would strike her dead. Thenthere befell a great wonder, for in human voice, but all hoarse andstrange and ugly, as though almost too great were the effort for humansoul to burst through brute form, the Laidley Worm spoke to herconqueror: "Oh! quit thy sword and put aside thy bow!" it moaned--somoans the sea through the crash of the waves on nights when the stormstrews the beach of the North Country with wreckage--"Oh! quit thysword, for, poisonous monster though I be, no scaith will I do thee. "Then those who heard the wonder felt sure that the Worm sought bysubtilty to destroy their Prince, for still as a white, dead man hestood, and gazed at the brute that shivered before him like a whippeddog that would fain lick his master's feet. But again it spoke, in thatterrible, fearsome voice of mortal pain:

 "Oh! quit thy sword and bend thy bow, And give me kisses three; If I'm not won ere the sun go down, Won I shall never be. "

Brave men, well-proved soldiers, were Childe Wynd's three-and-thirty, but they cried out aloud to him, and some let go of their oars andsprang shoulder-deep in the sea that they might drag their lord backfrom this noisome horror that would destroy him. Prince Wynd's heartgave a great stound, and back rushed the blood into his face, that hadbeen so pale and grim, and none was quick enough to come between him andwhat his heart had told his mind, and what his mind most gladly willed. As though he were kissing for the first time the one he loved, and shethe fairest of the land, so did he bow his head in courtly fashion, andthree times kiss with loving lips the Laidley Worm of Spindleston-Heugh. And at the third kiss a great cry of wonder rose from his men, for lo, the Laidley Worm had vanished, as fades an evil dream when one awakes, and in its place there stood the fairest maid in all England, their owndear Princess Margaret. With laughter and with tears did Childe Wynd andhis sister then embrace; but when the Princess had told her tale, herbrother's brow grew dark, and on his sword he vowed to destroy the vilewitch who had been his gentle sister's cruel enemy. With tears and withlaughter, and with gladsome shoutings the folk of Bamborough came inhaste to greet their Prince and Princess, and to speed them up to thecastle, where the King, their father, welcomed them full joyously. Butthere were angry murmurs from the men of Northumbria, who called forvengeance on her who had so nearly ruined their dear land, and who hadstriven to slay both Prince and Princess. Childe Wynd held up his hand:"To me belongs the payment, " he said, and the men laughed loud when theysaw his stern face, for those were days when grim and bloody deeds weregaily done, and blithe they were to think of torture for the WitchQueen. Cowering in a corner of her bower in the turret, white-faced andhaggard, they found her, and dragged her out to Childe Wynd. But nospeedy end by a clean sword blade was to be hers, nor any slower deathby lingering torture. 

"Woe be to thee, thou wicked witch!" said the Prince; and she shiveredand whimpered piteously, for well she knew that in far-off lands acrossthe sea Childe Wynd had studied magic, and that for her were designedeternal terrors. 

 "Woe be to thee, thou wicked witch, An ill death mayst thou dee; As thou my sister hast lik'ned, So lik'ned shalt thou be. 

 I will turn you into a toad, That on the ground doth wend; And won, won, shalt thou never be, Till this world hath an end. "

To the fairy days of long, long ago belong Prince Wynd and the PrincessMargaret and the wicked Witch Wife. But still in the country nearBamborough, as maids go wandering in the gloaming down by the yellowsands and the rough grass where the sea-pinks grow, they will besuddenly startled by a horrible great dun-coloured thing that movesquickly towards them, as though to do them a harm. With loudly beatinghearts they run home to tell that they have encountered the venomoustoad that hates all virtuous maidens, who once was a queen, her whocreated the Laidley Worm of Spindleston-Heugh. 

A BORDERER IN AMERICA

It would be matter for wonder if, in the histories of old Borderfamilies, record of strange personal experiences did not at times cropup. Sons of the Border have wandered far, and have sojourned in manylands, and borne their part in many an untoward event. But it is notlikely that any can lay claim to adventures more strange and romanticthan those which, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, befell ayouthful member of one of the most ancient of these Border clans. Thisstory of his adventures is literally true, as the family records prove, but the descendants of the person to whom they happened prefer that heshould not figure in the tale under his own name. For convenience, therefore, it must suffice here to call him Andrew Kerr. 

The responsibilities of life began early in his day. A boy who would nowfind himself in a very junior form at school, was then considered oldenough to serve his Majesty in a marching regiment, or left his home toengage in business whilst yet his handwriting had scarcely emerged fromchildhood's clumsy formation, and veritable infants served asmidshipmen in ships of war. Young Kerr was no exception to this generalrule. Long before the boy had reached the age of sixteen he was shippedoff to New York, there to join an uncle who, in order to engage incommerce, had lately retired from the 60th "Royal American" Regiment, then a famous colonial corps. 

Those were stirring times, and for a passenger the voyage to America wasno hum-drum affair devoid of excitement or peril. We were at war withFrance and Spain. Every white sail, therefore, that showed above thehorizon meant the coming of a possible enemy; no day passed, in somepart of which there might not chance to arise the necessity to employevery device of seamanship if escape were to be effected should theenemy prove too big to fight, or in which there was not at least thepossibility of smelling powder burned in earnest. 

Nor were danger and excitement necessarily ended with the ship's arrivalin New York harbour. We were still fighting the French in Canada; menyet told grim tales of Braddock's defeat and of the horrors of Indianwarfare. To him whom business or duty took far from the sea-board intothe country of the savage and treacherous Iroquois, there was theever-present probability that he would some day--perhaps many times--becompelled to fight for his life, with the certainty that, if disabled bywounds he fell into the enemy's hands, the scalp would be torn from hisskull ere death could put an end to his sufferings; whilst capturemeant, almost for a certainty, the being eventually put to death afterundergoing the most hideous tortures that the cruelty of the Redskinscould devise. To the colonists, "the only good Indian was a deadIndian"; and doubtless, by the newly-landed Andrew Kerr, the order atonce to proceed up-country with a convoy in charge of military storesmust have been received with somewhat mixed feelings. On the one hand, his boyish love of adventure would be amply satisfied, while, on theother, there were risks to be faced which might well have caused morethan uneasiness to many an older man--risks which the boy'sacquaintances possibly were at no pains to conceal, which, indeed, a fewof them would probably take pleasure in painting in the gloomiest ofcolours. But duty was duty, and the lad had too great a share of Borderstubbornness and grit to let himself be badly scared by such tales aswere told to him. 

The destination of the convoy was Fort Detroit. In those far-off daysNew York was but a little city of some twenty thousand inhabitants, andthe western part of New York State was quite outside the bounds ofcivilisation. To reach the Canadian frontier there were then two greatroutes of military communication--one, up the Hudson River, and so byway of Lakes George and Champlain and down the Richelieu to the St. Lawrence; the other, by the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers, then by way ofLake Oneida and the Oswego River to the first of the great lakes, LakeOntario; thence the journey to Fort Detroit would be chiefly by canoe, up Lakes Ontario and Erie. Between the last military post at the head ofthe Mohawk, however, and the mouth of the Oswego River, there was agreat gap in which no military post had been established. Thus the routeof the convoy to which Kerr was attached necessarily took them throughcountry overrun by hostile Indian tribes. 

No mishap, however, befell the party; probably they were too strong, toowary and well skilled in Indian warfare, to give the enemy a chance ofambushing or taking them by surprise on their march through the woods. 

At Fort Detroit, it was found that a small exploring party, under aCaptain Robson, was about to set out with the object of determiningwhether or not certain rivers and lakes were navigable, and young Kerr, boylike, eagerly volunteered to join the expedition. 

Here began his strange adventures. The party, all told, consisted but ofeleven persons--Captain Robson, Sir Robert Davers, six soldiers, twosailors, and young Kerr. Apparently they did not think it necessary totake with them any colonists, or Indian scouts. It is a curiouscharacteristic of the average Britisher who finds himself in a new land, that he appears to regard it as an axiom that he must necessarily knowmuch more than the average colonist; can, in fact, teach that person"how to suck eggs. " The colonist, of course, on his part--and in themajority of cases with justice--regards the "new chum, " or "tenderfoot, " as a somewhat helpless creature. But the Britisher despises, orat least he used to despise, the mere colonist. Hence have arisen not afew disasters. The little--travelled Britisher does not readily learnthat local conditions in all countries are not the same, thatdispositions and customs which suit one are totally out of place anduseless in another. That was how General Braddock made so terrible andabsolute a fiasco of his expedition; it was the custom of the Britisharmy to fight standing in line--(and, in truth, many a notable victoryhad they won before, and many have they won since, in thatformation)--therefore fight thus in line they must, no matter what thenature of the country in which they fought. Hence, in dense forest, surrounded by yelling savages, our men stood up to be shot by a foe whomthey never saw till it was too late, and panic had set in amongst thefew survivors. Had our troops been taught to adapt themselves tocircumstances and to fight as the colonists fought, as the French inCanada had learned to fight, as the Red Indians fought, taking everyadvantage of cover, Braddock need not thus unnecessarily have lostnearly seventy per cent, of his force. In matters appertaining to waror to fighting, it was beneath the dignity, most unhappily it wasbeneath the dignity, of a British general to regard as of possible valuethe opinion of a mere colonial, no matter how experienced in Indianfighting the latter might be, or how great his knowledge of the country. It was that, no doubt, which induced Braddock to disregard the opinion, and to pooh-pooh the knowledge of his then A. D. C. George Washington. Yetit was nothing but Washington's knowledge that saved the van ofBraddock's defeated force. 

In like manner, had this little exploring expedition been accompanied bycolonists experienced in Indian ways, or had they chosen to make use ofIndian scouts, disaster might have been averted. As it was, almost onthe threshold of their journey they were ambushed, and cut off by theRedskins. Robson, Davers, and two of the men were speedily picked off bythe concealed enemy, or were killed in the final rush of the painted, yelling savages. The little force was scattered to the winds. One ortwo, taking to the water, under cover of the darkness, and protected bythat Providence which sometimes watches over helpless persons, eventually reached safety. But young Kerr was not amongst thesefortunate ones. For him, experiences more trying were in store. In thelast mêlée he fell into the hands of a grim-looking, powerfully-builtwarrior, who bound him to a tree, and in that most unpleasantpredicament the lad for a time remained, from moment to momentanticipating for himself the treatment he saw being dealt out on thebodies of his friends. His youth saved him. Too young to be consideredby the Indians as fit to be a warrior, his scalp was not added to theother bloody trophies of victory; for him was reserved the fate ofslavery, the disgrace (from an Indian point of view) of performingmenial offices, of doing the work usually performed by squaws. Kerr'scaptor, a warrior named Peewash, of the tribe of the Chippeways, draggedhis prisoner home to his wigwam. There the boy was stripped naked, painted as Indians were painted, his head clean shaved except for onetuft on top called "the scalp lock, " which amongst the Indians it wasthe custom to leave in order to facilitate the operation of scalping bytheir enemies should the owners chance to fall in battle. A scalp wasthe recognised trophy of victory. It was not regarded as absolutelynecessary to kill an enemy; if his scalp could be torn from his head, nomore was required, and not infrequently a wounded man was left scalplesson the ground, writhing in speechless agony, to linger and diemiserably. 

After undergoing the preliminaries of an Indian toilet, young Kerr hadmoccasins given to him, and a blanket to wear--a costume perhaps moreconvenient than becoming--and he entered on a round of duties new andstrange. He was not, after a time, unkindly treated by Peewash and hissquaw. But the work was far from pleasant, and many were the terriblesights forced on his unwilling notice at this time. Once, when thelittle garrison of Detroit sent out a small party, which, making a dashat the Indian camp, succeeded in killing a Chippeway Chief, the Redskinsin revenge tortured and killed Captain Campbell, a Scot, who had beencaptured by the Ottawas. Such sights filled the boy with sick horror, and with a not unnatural dread of the fate which might yet awaithimself. Rather than remain to furnish in his own person the leadingfeature of an Indian festival, it was surely better, he thought, to diein attempting escape. 

As it chanced later, a French trader--these tribes were the allies ofthe French--arrived in camp, and remained there some time. Moved to pityby the boy's unhappy condition, this man, with some difficulty, persuaded Peewash to sell the lad to him for goods to the value of £40. Great was Kerr's exultation; once more he was free, free too withouthaving had to face the terrible ordeal of attempting to escape fromthese murderous Indian devils. All would now be well, for assuredly he, or his friends, would repay to the Frenchman the ransom money. The boyfelt as if his troubles were already over; in a day or two at longest hewould sleep again under the flag of his own land; perhaps even, at nodistant date, he might once more gaze on scenes for which throughout hiscaptivity his soul had hungered, see, once more, Cheviot lying blue inthe distance, the Eildons with their triple crown, hear the ripple ofthe Border streams. What tales of adventure he would have to tell. 

Alas! he counted without his hosts. The Chippeways when they heard ofthe transaction would have none of it. The captive boy had been theproperty of the tribe, they said, and they refused to part with him; hemust be given up by the Frenchman. And the latter had no choice but tocomply. 

Black now were the nights, gloomy the days, for Andrew Kerr, the blackerand the more gloomy for the false dawn that for brief space had cheeredhim; unbearable was his burden, more hopeless and wretched than everbefore, a thousandfold, his captivity. It was as it might be with a mandying of thirst if a cup of cold water were dashed from his lips andspilt on the sandy desert at his feet. Who can blame the boy if only theknowledge of what treatment he would avowedly receive from the youngIndians if he should play the squaw and weep, kept him from sheddingtears of misery and vexation. 

A new master was now his, a chief of the Chippeways; a new squaw set himhateful, degrading tasks, and ordered him about; the young men and thesquaws laughed him to scorn; life became more bitter than ever before. 

Gradually, however, Kerr's new owners relaxed their severity oftreatment, and his lines grew less unpleasant. Time, indeed, made himalmost popular--embarrassingly popular--for there came a day when thetribe more than hinted its desire that the Pale-face should wed one ofits most beauteous daughters. Happily, the question of who should bebride was left in abeyance. He became, too, almost reconciled to hisdress, or want of dress--though, to be sure, a coat of paint and ablanket cannot, at the best, be regarded as more than a passablyefficient hot-weather costume. With the easy adaptability of boyhood, Andrew Kerr had become almost a veritable Indian. 

Now, Peewash all this time had looked with covetous eye on his formerslave, and desired to repossess him. A big price would have to be paid, no doubt; but Peewash was prepared to bid high, and the owner could notwithstand a temptation, backed, as it was, by that bait irresistible toa Red Indian, "firewater. " The boy again changed hands, and now for sometime served his original captor. 

About this period the Tribes again "dug up the hatchet, " and set out ona big war-trail. Cruel and bloody was the fighting, many the prisonerstaken and brought into camp from time to time. On one occasion youngKerr was compelled to stand, a horrified spectator, among the exultingRedskins as with yells of gratified triumph, warriors and squaws, youngmen and children, gloated fiercely over the brutal torture and lingeringdeath of eight English prisoners. It was a grim and grisly spectacle, for no form of torment--from the nerve-wracking test of knife andtomahawk, arrow or bullet, aimed with intent to graze the flesh and notimmediately to kill, to the ghastly ordeal of red-hot ramrods andblazing pine-root splinters thrust into the flesh or under the nails--was omitted by those bloodthirsty red devils. Many a sleepless hour, many a night broken by awful dreams, must the sight have cost the boy. But it determined him to attempt escape at all hazards whenever kindfortune should put the chance in his way. 

And fortune did help him ere long. There was a French trader namedBoileau who came much about the camp. To him Andrew very cautiously madeadvances, and succeeded at last in enlisting the man's sympathies. Kerrconfided to the trader his desire to attempt escape, and, none toowillingly at the beginning, Boileau agreed to take the risk of helping. It was no easy task to lull the suspicions and to evade the watchful eyeof the crafty Indians; but the boy had never, so far, shown any desireto escape, and he was not now so everlastingly under supervision. Invery bad English on Boileau's part, and in worse French on that of Kerr, a plan of escape was devised. Early in the day, Boileau, after his usualhabit, was to leave camp in his canoe, ostensibly setting out on anordinary trapping expedition. After nightfall, he would return to acertain rock on the lake shore, and then Kerr was to steal out andattempt to join him; thereafter, a night's paddling ought to take thefugitive out of the immediate danger-zone. 

The night was cloudy and black, and not too still; everything, in fact, was in the boy's favour as, with beating heart, he wormed his way out ofthe wigwam and crawled stealthily on his belly from the camp towards thedense gloom of the forest. Then, almost as he had succeeded in gainingthe comparative safety of the trees, beneath his moccasined foot a sticksnapped, and a cursed Indian dog gave tongue, rousing the entire pack, and the sleeping camp, like an angry swarm of bees, woke at once tovenomous life. 

But Kerr by this time was at least clear of the wigwams; if he could butreach that rock by the lake-side, and if the Frenchman had kept faith, he might get safely away. Boileau would surely never fail him. Hamperedand constantly tripped up by roots and tangled undergrowth, confused bythe blackness of the night, the boy toiled on with thumping heart andshortening breath; and at last, looming above him, was the welcomeoutlines of the great rock. But on neither side of it could he find signof the trader or of his canoe. And already by the rustlings in the woodsand the occasional snapping of dry sticks, he could tell that thepursuing Indians were drawing perilously near him. 

"Boileau!" he whispered. "Boileau!" And then, in an agony of mind herisked all, and shouted:

"Boileau, Boileau! _A moi!_"

An angry whisper from almost at his side replied viciously:

"_Pas de chahut, malheureux! A bord vite, mille dieux!_"

And as the canoe silently glided from the shore with the boy safely onboard, the form of an Indian could be dimly seen where Kerr had stoodthe previous moment, and a bullet sang past his ear. 

There for the time his more acute troubles ended. A few days later, atDetroit, a throng of persons, half helpless with laughter, noisilyescorted to the Fort a forlorn, bald-headed, painted scare-crow, clad ina tattered Indian blanket, which scare-crow presently introduced itselfto the commandant as Andrew Kerr, lately a prisoner of the Indians. 

Once recovered from his fatigues and hardships, Andrew, as one of asmall force, was sent to Niagara to obtain supplies for the Detroitgarrison. The outward voyage down Lake Erie was safely and pleasantlyaccomplished. But these vast American lakes are subject to sudden andviolent storms, and on the return trip, during an exceptionally fiercesquall, the little 40-ton sloop, heavily laden as she was with militarystores, sprang a leak, and to save themselves the crew were forced torun her aground on a gravelly beach under the lee of a projectingheadland. The situation at best was most critical, for if the windshould shift but a few points the sloop must inevitably break up; andnot only was the one boat available a mere skiff incapable of living ina heavy sea, but even should they all succeed in safely getting ashorewith muskets intact and ammunition dry, their position would still be inthe last degree precarious. For well they knew in what manner of countrythey were about to set unwilling foot--forest land occupied by thefiercest and most treacherous of the hostile Indian tribes. Capturemeant death, probably with torture to precede it. 

With great difficulty and some danger the ship-wrecked crew did atlength succeed in getting ashore, with their rifles and a fair supply ofpowder and lead, and without an instant's delay they set about buildinga rude breastwork for protection if matters should come to a fight. Thestranded vessel must certainly have been already seen by the Indians; atany moment they might appear. But the breastwork was completed withoutinterruption, and still no sign of the Redskins had been seen. It was atleast breathing space, though all knew what must assuredly follow, andto some the actual immediate combat would have been less unwelcome thanwas now the suspense. 

After consultation, a few of the party, including Kerr, whose knowledgeof Indian ways it was thought might be useful, left the breastwork tospy on the enemy--or at least to try to pick up some knowledge of theirwhereabouts. Had it been into that enchanted land that they nowentered, where lay the Sleeping Beauty, the forest shades could not havebeen more still, more apparently devoid of life. No breath of windstirred leaf or bough, all nature breathed peace, and, lulled to a senseof security, the little party ventured farther among the trees than wasprudent. In Indian warfare, appearances were ever deceitful; the greaterthe apparent security, the greater the need for caution. So it was nowhere. 

"I guess it ain't all right, " one man was saying; "I don't like it. Getback, boys. "

And even as he spoke, "crack" went a rifle on their left--"crack, ""crack, " "crack, " came the sound of fire-arms on three sides; and asthey turned and ran for the breastwork, a man hiccoughed and fell on hisface, clutching at the grass, coughing up his life-blood. No time toturn and help; the yelling Redskins were at their heels, tomahawk andscalping knife in hand; delay meant certain death for all, and thefugitives tumbled into the breastwork just in time. Then, save for oneawful scream of agony, again for a time all was quiet; for any sign thatmight be seen of them by the white men, the forest might have swallowedup the enemy. But let one of these white men for but an instant show hishead over the breastwork, or in any way expose an arm or even a hand, then from the concealed foe came at once a hail of bullets, and theforest rang with the crack of rifles. Several of the little garrison, careless, or too impatient to fire only through the roughly madeloopholes, lost their lives in this way; and some others were picked offby Indians who had managed to get into the high branches of neighbouringtrees, and thence, concealed behind thick foliage, fired on thegarrison, for a time with impunity, till by chance it was discoveredfrom where the fatal shots were coming. 

Meantime, for the white men it was almost like letting off their riflesinto the night; seldom could a Redskin be seen, and men fired only atthe spots where the smoke of Indian muskets hung about the undergrowth, or where they saw a spirt of flame. 

And so the fight went on, hour after hour, till many of the defendershad fallen, and the necessity of husbanding ammunition slackened thefire of Kerr and his comrades. Then the Indians, knowing that the whitemen were few, abandoning caution tried to rush the breastwork. But nownecessarily they exposed themselves, and as the white men had reloadedthe empty rifles of their dead and wounded comrades, and thus had atleast two apiece ready, heavy toll was taken of the stormers, and theRedskins were beaten back. Time and again was this repeated, once evenduring the night--just before dawn. But each attempt failed, and thebaffled Indians finally drew off. 

With thankful hearts, if with sore labour, the surviving white men, bylightening their vessel, got her off the ground, and succeeded infinding and stopping the leak. A few days saw them again safely atDetroit. 

No more, as a civilian, did Andrew Kerr face the Indians. On gettingback to New York in 1764 he was given a commission as ensign in the 1stbattalion of the 42nd Regiment, and in various parts of the world he sawmuch service, finally retiring about 1780 with the rank of captain. Hedid not wholly, however, sever his connection with the service, forlater, after he had purchased an estate in the Border, and had married, he became a major in the Dumfries Militia. 

It is given to few to pass a youth so stormy as Kerr's, and to end, ashe did, by becoming a peaceful, prosperous Border laird. 

BORDER SNOWSTORMS

 "St. Agnes' Eve--ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass, And silent was the flock in woolly fold. "

The great round-backed, solemn Border hills, in summer time kindlysleeping giants, smiling in their sleep, take on another guise whenwinter smites with pitiless blast, when

 "The sounds that drive wild deer and fox To shelter in the brake and rocks, "

bellow fearsomely among the crags, and down glen and burn rushes theWhite Death, bewildering, blinding, choking, and at the last, perhaps, with Judas kiss folding in its icy arms some luckless shepherd whom dutyhas sent from his warm fireside to the rescue of his master's sheep. Youwould not know for the same those hills that so little time gone pastnursed you in their soft embrace. Then, in the warm, sunny days, shadowsof great fleecy clouds chased each other leisurely up the braes throughthe bracken and the purpling heather; the burn sang to itself a merrytune as it tumbled from boulder to boulder, rippling through pools wherethe yellow trout lay basking; on the clear air came the call of grouse, and afar off a solitary raven croaked in the stillness of a sun-steepedglen. Now the bracken is dead, the bent sodden and chill with November'ssleet; against a background of heavy, leaden-grey sky the heather liesblack as if washed in ink. Across from the wild North Sea comes a windthin and nipping, waxing in strength, and with the gathering stormpiping ever more shrilly down the glen, driving before it now a fine, powdery white dust that chokes nostril and mouth, and blinds the eyes ofthose whom necessity compels to be out-doors. It is "an oncome, " a"feeding storm. " Thus have begun many of the great snowstorms that fromtime to time have devastated the Border and taken heavy toll of man andbeast. 

In March 1615 snow fell to such a depth, and drifted so terribly, thatnot only did many men perish, but likewise "most part of all the horse, nolt, and sheep of the kingdom. " In the years 1633 and 1665 there weregreat storms, when vast numbers of sheep perished, and "the frost wassevere enough to kill broom and whins. " But greater than these, both indevastating effect and in duration, was the memorable storm of 1674. Theearly part of that year was marked by extraordinarily tempestuousweather. In January came a violent gale from east and by north thatstrewed the coasts with wreckage. Down by Berwick and Eyemouth, by St. Abb's, and along all that rugged shore, the cruel sea sported dailywith bodies of drowned sailors, flinging them from wave to wave, tossingthem headlong on to a stony beach, only with greedy far-stretched graspto snatch them back again to its hungry maw. In every rocky fissure, where angry waves spout cliff-high and burst in clouds of spray; inevery rugged inlet, where the far-flung roaring seas boil furiously, timbers and deck-hamper of vessels driven on a lee-shore churnedceaselessly, pounding themselves to matchwood. 

Throughout January, and till February was far advanced, this bittereasterly gale blew fiercely. In mid-February the wind died down, leavinga sky black with piled-up cloud gravid with coming evil. Inland, hilland river lay frost-bound, white with snow, and already the pinch ofwinter had begun to make itself seriously felt amongst the sheep. Inthose days, beyond driving the flocks, when necessary, from the hill tomore sheltered, low-lying country, but little provision was ever madefor severe weather, and even the precaution of shifting the sheep tolower ground was frequently too long delayed. Turnips, of course, hadnot yet come into cultivation in Scotland, and feed-stuffs weregenerally unknown. 

This time farmers were caught napping. On 20th February a rising winddrove before it snow, fine powdered and dry as March dust, and with thewaxing gale, and cold "intense to a degree never before remembered, " thedrift quickly became a swirling blizzard which no living thing couldface. Day and night for thirteen days this maelstrom of snow continued, and till the 29th of March no decided improvement took place in theweather; the snow lay deep, and the frost held, so that there was "muchloss of sheep by the snow, and of whole families in the moor and highlands; much loss of cows everywhere, also of wild beasts, as of doe androe. "

"The Thirteen Drifty Days, " folk called this storm, and by that name ithas gone down to history. "About the fifth and sixth days of the storm, "says the Ettrick Shepherd, writing in _Blackwood's Magazine_ of July1819, "the young sheep began to fall into a sleepy and torpid state, andall that were affected in the evening died over-night. The intensity ofthe frost wind often cut them off when in that state quiteinstantaneously. About the ninth and tenth days, the shepherds began tobuild up huge semicircular walls of their dead, in order to afford someshelter for the remainder of the living; but they availed but little, for about the same time they were frequently seen tearing at oneanother's wool with their teeth. When the storm abated on the fourteenthday from its commencement, there was, on many a high-lying farm, not aliving sheep to be seen. Large misshapen walls of dead, surrounding asmall prostrate flock, likewise all dead, and frozen stiff in theirlairs, was all that remained to cheer the forlorn shepherd and hismaster. "

As a matter of fact, something like nine-tenths of all the sheep in thesouth of Scotland perished in this one storm, or if they did not thenactually perish, their vitality was so lowered, their constitutions sowrecked, by the intense cold and the long deprivation of food, that theynever again picked up condition, but died like flies when the spring wasfurther advanced. Hogg says that in Eskdalemuir, out of 20, 000 sheep"none were left alive but forty young wedders on one farm, and five oldewes on another. The farm of Phaup remained without a stock and withouta tenant for twenty years subsequent to the storm. " On another farm allthe sheep perished save one black-faced ewe; and she was not long leftto perpetuate her breed, for dogs hunted her into a loch, and she toowent the way of her fellows. 

Amongst other great storms, Hogg also mentions one in this same century, long remembered as the "Blast o' March. " It occurred on a Monday, thetwenty-fourth day of March, and was of singularly short duration, considering the havoc it wrought. The previous Sunday was so warm thatlassies returning from Yarrow Kirk in the evening took off shoes andstockings and walked barefoot; the young men cast plaids and coats. Totheir unconcealed astonishment, as they sauntered homeward these youngpeople found that an old shepherd, named Walter Blake, had driven hisentire flock of sheep into a sheltered position by the side of a wood, near the road. Now, Blake was a deeply religious man, one to whom theSabbath was in the strictest sense a holy day, a day too sacred to bebroken in any fashion whatever, except for some extraordinarily powerfulreason. On being asked how it came to pass that he was found thusfollowing his worldly vocation, to the neglect of church-going, he saidthat in the morning he had seen to the northward so ill-looking a"weather-gaw" that he was convinced a heavy storm was coming, and thatprobably before morning there would be a dangerous drift. The young menlaughed the old one to scorn. A snowstorm! The auld man was daft! Why, the air was like June; no sensible body would even so much as dream ofsnow. 

"Belike we'll be up to oor oxters in snaw, the morn, Wattie, " chirruppedone damsel, in the bicker of rustic wit and empty laughter that flewaround. 

"Weel, weel, lads! Time will show. Let them laugh that win, " said oldWattie. 

That night there came a sudden shift of wind, and ere morning thecountry-side was smothered in snow. Twenty thousand sheep perished, andnone but old Walter Blake came out of that storm free from loss. 

The years 1709, 1740, and 1772 were all notable for unusually heavyfalls of snow. In the latter year the country was snow-clad frommid-December till well on in April, and the loss of sheep was verygreat, chiefly because partial thaws, occurring at intervals, encouragedhill farmers to believe each time that the back of the winter wasbroken. Hence, they delayed too long in shifting their sheep to lowerlands, and when the imperative necessity of removal at length becameobvious, if life were to be saved, it was too late; from sheer weaknessthe poor animals were unable to travel. 

Then came that terrible storm of 1794, a calamity that old men of ourown day may yet remember to have heard talked about by eye-witnesses ofthe scenes they described. Nothing in nature ever wrought such havoc inthe Border. Seventeen shepherds perished in the endeavour to rescuetheir flocks; no less than thirty others, overwhelmed by the intensecold, the fury of the gale, and the blinding, choking whirlwind of snow, dropped and lay unconscious, to all intents dead, sleeping the dreamlesssleep of those whom King Frost slays with his icy darts. And dead wouldthose thirty assuredly have been, but for the timely aid of brave men, themselves toil-worn to the verge of collapse, who, through the deepdrifts and the swirling snow, bore home the heavy, unconscious bodies, to revive them with difficulty. 

The storm began on the 24th of January, and though the snow lay but aweek, whole flocks were overwhelmed, in some instances buried fifty feetdeep. Countless numbers of sheep, driven into burns and lochs by thepitiless strength of the wind, were never again seen, swept away intothe sea by the tremendous floods that followed the melting of the snow. There is on Solway Sands a place called the Beds of Esk, where withterrible persistency the tides cast up whatever may have been carried tosea by the rivers which in this neighbourhood empty themselves into theFirth. Ghastly was the burden here strewn when the floods now went down. In those Beds lay the lifeless bodies of two men and of one woman; theswollen carcasses of five-and-forty dogs, eighteen hundred and fortysheep, nine black cattle, three horses, one hundred and eighty hares;and of rabbits and small animals a multitude innumerable. Death heldhigh carnival in Eskdalemuir that January of 1794. 

Hogg gives a vivid picture of his own adventures in this storm. He hadgone from home the previous day, tramping over the Ettrick hills many along mile to attend some friendly meeting of fellow-shepherds, leavinghis sheep in charge of his master. Arrived at his destination, andrendered uneasy by the unwonted appearance of the sky, without waitingfor rest or for anything but a little food and drink, he turned and setout straightway on his homeward journey. A tramp of thirty or fortymiles over the hills is ordinarily no great matter for a young andactive shepherd. But now snow was falling; already it lay to somedepth, making the footing toilsome and insecure. Moreover, a curiousyellow mist had spread over the hills, shrouding the hollows from sight;darkness must be on him hours before he could hope to reach home, andthe night promised to be wild. But what would daunt an ordinarypedestrian has no terrors for the Border shepherd, and Hogg safelyreached his home before bedtime, to learn, greatly to his dismay, thathis master, good easy man, had left the sheep that evening on an exposedpart of the hill. Not even the master's "Never mind them the nicht, Jamie; they're safe eneuch, and I'll gie ye a hand in the morning, "could calm his anxiety. However, on looking out before going to bed, hewas comforted to find the wind coming from the south, and apparently athaw beginning. He might sleep in peace after all; things were going toturn out less bad than he had feared. 

Tired as he was, however, try as he might, sleep would not come thatnight; an unaccountable feeling of restlessness and of vagueapprehension had him in its grip. Hour after hour he lay, listeningirritably to the snoring of his fellow-shepherd, Borthwick, startingnervously at every scraping of rat or creak of timber. At last, longafter midnight, he rose and looked out. The wind had fallen, but snowstill fell; there was nothing abnormal in the night, and the weathermight have been described as merely "seasonable. " But away in thenorthern sky, low down, appeared a strange break in the mist, such asin all his experience he had never before seen. And it came to his mindthat the previous day, when on his homeward way he had "looked in" athis uncle's house, the old man had predicted the coming of a violentstorm, which would surely spring from that quarter in which should firstbe seen a phenomenon such as that on which Hogg was now looking. Theshepherd returned to bed, and had almost succeeded in falling into adoze, when again some impulse caused him to sit up and listen. From farin the distant hills came quivering a strange low moaning that broughtwith it something of awe and suspense. Nearer it drove, and nearer, rising at length to a fierce bellow; and then, with appalling roar, asof thunder, the gale hurled itself on to the building, shaking it to thefoundations. In the pitch blackness of the night Hogg groped his way toan opening in the byre over which he and Borthwick slept, and thrust outa hand and arm. "So completely was the air overloaded with falling anddriving snow that, but for the force of the wind, I felt as if I hadthrust my arm into a wreath of snow, " he writes. 

Presently he roused Borthwick, who had slept soundly through the hubbub, and at once his fellow-shepherd dressed and tried to make his way fromthe byre to the kitchen, a distance of no more than fourteen yards. Buteven in the little time which had elapsed since the breaking of thestorm the space between kitchen and byre had drifted up with snow ashigh as the house walls, and Borthwick straightway lost himself; neithercould he find his way to the house, nor succeed in regaining the byre. Eventually both men with no small toil made their way to the kitchen, where they found master and maids already assembled, and in a state ofno little alarm. 

Their first concern was manifestly the safety of the sheep. But at suchan hour, in such a night, what could be done? Nevertheless, two hoursbefore daylight shepherds and master started for the hill, taking firstthe precaution to _sew_ their plaids round them, and to tie on theirbonnets. For the thrilling details of the dangerous undertaking one mustrefer to Hogg's own account, but it may here be noted that no sooner wasthe kitchen door closed on the men than they lost each other, and lostalso all sense of direction; it was only by the sound of their voicesthat the little party succeeded in keeping in each other'sneighbourhood. And such was the fury of the wind and the confusion ofthe drift that frequently, in order to draw breath, they were compelledto bend till their faces were between their knees. The farmhouse stoodwithin what in Scotland is called a "park, " in this instance a smallenclosure, the wall of which might be at most three hundred yardsdistant from the house door. It was two hours before daylight when theyentered this park; when morning broke, they had not yet succeeded inmaking their way out of it. 

Hogg's own story must be read, to learn how, and at what dire peril tothe searchers, Borthwick's flock was at length found. They were huddledtogether, and buried deep in a snow wreath so compact that when theoutside sheep had been extricated, most of the remainder were able ofthemselves to walk out, leaving where they had stood a sort of vastcave. Hogg himself, when the bulk of Borthwick's sheep had been atlength saved, started alone to rescue his own flock. With comparativelylittle trouble he found them, got them by slow degrees to a place ofsafety, and then turned to make his way home. Of the course to steer, itnever occurred to him to doubt; he had known the hills from infancy, andcould have walked blindfold across them. His instinct for locality wasas the instinct of some wild animal, or of an Australian black-fellow. But what put some dread in his mind was the knowledge that between himand home lay the Douglas Burn, possibly by now in spate, and dangerousto cross. The noise of the wind would prevent him from hearing the roarof the swollen torrent, the driving snow prevent him from seeing thedanger, and a false step on the bank might deposit him where he wouldnever come out alive. To a man alone on the hill in such weather, thetask was arduous, the danger great; moreover, in the last thirty-sixhours he had walked far, had undergone great toil, and he had beenwithout sleep all night. The prospect was no pleasing one. But hestruggled on through the blinding, wind-driven snow, heading, as heconfidently believed, straight for home. Yet doubt presently began tofill his mind. He should long ago have reached the Douglas Burn, but nota sign even suggestive of such a thing as a watercourse had he yet seen. Presently he roused with a start, for now he stood amongst trees, stretching apparently in endless succession to an infinite distance. After all, it seemed that he _had_ missed his way. Where he was he couldnot tell; and it needed some minutes of anxious groping ere he couldclear his mind and make certain of his position. He stood not much morethan fifty yards from the farm-house door, by the side of a little clumpof trees, which in that blurred light and in the confusion of thedrifting snow took on the semblance of some vast forest. Without beingaware of it, Hogg had crossed the gully of the Douglas Burn on a bridgeformed by the deep snow, and crossed over the park wall in similarfashion. 

Many have been the terrible winters since those of which Hogg wrote, many the lives lost, and more, perhaps, the narrow escapes from whatseemed certain death. In 1803 the frozen, deep-buried body of a man wasfound near Ashestiel, within what--but for the raging storm the previousnight--must have been easy hail of his own cottage, where, sick withanxiety, his wife and little ones sat waiting his return from the hill. In that same storm a young shepherd, within sight of his own father, fell over a precipice near Birkhill, and, with spine hopelessly injured, lay helpless amongst the snow-covered boulders in a place inaccessibleto the distracted father. A party succeeded in rescuing him, but rescueavailed him little; he lay afterwards at home for several weeks unableto stir hand or foot, and in great pain, till death mercifully releasedhim. 

In 1825 came an on-fall so sudden and violent that scores of people whohappened to be on journeys were compelled to remain for weeks whereverthey had chanced to be when the storm broke. There was no possibility ofgetting away; except those in the immediate vicinity of large towns, allroads were completely blocked, and communication was absolutely cut off. The mails had ceased to run, and of course in those days the electrictelegraph was unknown. Thus, many a man, the father of a family, wasparted indefinitely from wife and children without possibility ofallaying their anxiety for his welfare; many a commercial travellerpassed week after week in some roadside inn, waiting vainly for thelong-delayed thaw to enable him to communicate with his employer. Andhad country people in those days depended for their supplies ontradesmen's carts, as is the custom now, many a family must have founditself in the direst straits ere the storm was half over. 

Then a few years later came that memorable storm of 1831, of which menin Tweedsmuir still speak almost as if it were an event of yesterday. Itwas in the days of the old mail coaches, and the event which served tofix this storm indelibly in the public mind occurred on or near the oldcoach road from Dumfries to Edinburgh. The road runs past Moffat and upsomething like five miles of very heavy gradient to the Devil's BeefTub, ascending in that distance nearly nine hundred feet; from the Tubit crosses the lonely, desolate watershed which divides Tweed fromAnnan, then by easy slope drops past Tweedshaws and Badlieu, and so byTweedsmuir and the old Crook Inn--with Broad Law upheaving his massiveshoulder on the right--slips gradually into country less unkind in daysof storm than are those bleak upper regions. 

Snow had been falling all day on the 1st of February 1831, and themorning mail from Dumfries to Edinburgh was already late in reachingMoffat. Would "she" go on, would "she" risk the terrible drifts thateven now must have formed nearer the bleak moorland summit? And thelittle knot of faithful admirers who, according to custom, dailyassembled by one's and two's about the inn door at Moffat to wait thecoming of the coach--their one excitement--agreed that "MacGeorge wouldgang on if the de'il himsel' stude across the road. " MacGeorge wasguard of the mail-coach, a fine, determined man, an old soldier, oneimbued with abnormally strong sense of duty. Once before, for some quiteunavoidable delay, the Post-Office authorities had "quarrelled" him (ashe expressed it), and this undeserved blame rankled in the old soldier'sheart. It should not be said of him a second time that he had failed toget his mails through on time. So it came to pass that, in spite ofrising gale and fiercer driving snow, in spite of earnest remonstrancefrom innkeepers and spectators, with "toot-toot" of horn away into thewhite smother, spectral-like, glided the silent coach. A mile from theinn she was blocked by a huge drift. That safely won through, a coupleof miles farther she plodded on, slowly and ever more slow; and finally, in a mighty wreath, stuck fast; "all the King's horses" might not havebrought her through that. MacGeorge was urged to turn now, to make thebest of a bad business and to go back to Moffat. The delay wasunavoidable; no one could cast blame on him, for the worst part of theroad was yet to come, and no power on earth could get the mails throughthat. But no! It was his duty to go on, and go he would. 

The horses were taken out of the coach. Some were sent back to Moffat incharge of the lads who rode the extra tracers used in snowy weather forthe few miles of heavy collar-work out of Moffat; of the rest, loadedwith the mail-bags, MacGeorge led one, Goodfellow, the coachman, another; and the two set off for Tweedshaws, accompanied by a man namedMarchbanks, the Moffat roadman, who had been a passenger on the coach. It was but four miles to Tweedshaws, yet before they had struggledthrough half the distance the horses had come to a standstill, utterlyblown and exhausted; nothing could get them to stir forward, or longerto face the drift. Marchbanks suggested that now at length they mightreasonably turn and fight their way back. Goodfellow hesitated. 

"What say ye, Jamie?" he asked of MacGeorge. 

"Come ye or bide ye, I go on, " answered the stern old soldier. "I cancarry the bags mysel'. "

"Then that settles the maitter. If ye gang, I gang. "

So the horses were turned adrift to find their own way home, and the twomen went off into the mirk, carrying the bags; whilst Marchbanks, ontheir urgent advice, turned to force his arduous way back to Moffat. 

Snow still fell in the morning, but the worst of the storm seemed overwhen Marchbanks again started to try for Tweedshaws to ascertain ifMacGeorge and Goodfellow had won their way through. The country was onevast drift; the snow-posts by the roadside, where not altogether buriedor so plastered with the driving snow on their weather side as to beinvisible, pushed their black heads through the universal ghostlyshroud; where the road had been, the abandoned coach itself loomed, ashapeless white mound. On and on Marchbanks toiled, and, far past thespot where last night he had parted from his comrades, something unusualhanging to a snow post caught his eye. It was the mail-bags, securelytied there by hands which too evidently had been bleeding from the cold;but of guard or coachman there was never a sign. The meagre winter daywas already drawing to a close; with the gathering darkness a risingwind drove the snow once more before it, and the clouds to windwardpiled black and ominous. By himself Marchbanks was powerless to help, ifhelp were indeed yet possible; he could but return to Moffat and givethe alarm. 

That night men with lanterns and snow-poles fought their way toTweedshaws, only to learn there what all had feared--neither guard norcoachman had come through. Therefore, if by remote chance they stilllived, the men must lie buried in the snow, perhaps within very fewyards of the high-road. For two days scores of men searched every likelyspot, but never a clue they found, except Goodfellow's hat, which lay ina peat-hag at no great distance from the post where the mail-bags hadbeen hung. 

Then--some said it was a dream that guided them--some one thought of anold, disused road along which there was possibility the lost men mighthave made their way. There, from a drift protruded something black--aboot; and on his back, deep buried, lay Goodfellow. Near at hand theyfound MacGeorge, in an easy attitude, as if quietly sleeping, on hisface a smile--"a kind o' a pleasure, " the finders called it--such asmile, perhaps, as the face of the "good and faithful servant" may wearwhen he entereth into the joy of his Lord. 

Many have been the snowy years since that in which MacGeorge threw awaylife for duty's sake. Besides winters, such as that hard "Crimean" oneof 1854-5, there have been, for example, the terrible season of 1860-1, the bitter winter of 1878-9, when snow lay, practically unbroken, fromNovember till March, and the frost was unrelenting in severity; andthere have been others, too numerous to specify. Many a man has perishedon the hill, before and since, but no tragedy ever seized the popularimagination so firmly as did that on the Moffat road in 1831. It is adistrict lonely enough even in summer time, that joint watershed ofTweed, Annan, and Clyde, but when winter gales sweep over those loftymoorlands, and snow drives down before the bitter blast, let no manunused to the hill attempt that road. It was but the other year that alonely shepherd's wife near Tweedshaws, one stormy evening when snowdrove wildly across the moor, thought that she heard the cry of a humanvoice come down the gale. Again and again, as she sat by her cosy fireof glowing peat she imagined that some one called for help. Again andagain she rose, and opening the door, listened, but never, when shestood by the open door waiting for the call to come again, was anythingto be heard but the noise of the storm and the rush of the wind, anything to be seen but the driving snow. Long she listened, but the crycame no more, and naturally she concluded that imagination had fooledher. In the morning, not very many yards away from the door, half-covered by its snowy winding-sheet, lay the stiff-frozen body of ayoung man. There had been the breakdown of some vehicle down the roadthe previous evening, and he had thought to make his way to Moffat onfoot. Of what do men think when they are lost in the snow? Of nothing, probably, one may conclude; very likely, before it has dawned upon themthat there is danger, the mind, like the body, has become numbed withthe cold, and they probably only think of rest and sleep. To some spotsheltered from the blast they may perhaps have stumbled, and they pauseto take breath. After the turmoil through which they have beenstruggling, this sheltered spot seems a quiet little back-water, out ofthe raging torrent, peaceful, even warm, by comparison. A littlerest--even, it may be, a few minutes' sleep--will revive them, andafterwards they will push on, refreshed. All will be well; it is not farto safety. And the snow falls quietly, ceaselessly, softly lapping themin its gentle folds, and the roar of the wind comes now from very faraway--their last lullaby, heard vaguely through "death's twilight dim. "The desire to sleep, men say, is irresistible, and once yielded to, sleep's twin brother, death, is very near at hand. There was found manyyears ago in the Border hills the body of a man, who had taken off hisplaid, folded it carefully to make a pillow, on it had rested his head, and so had passed to his long rest, contented enough, if one might judgefrom the smile on his face. 

But men do not always thus loose consciousness when buried in the snow. There was the case of Mr. Alexander Laidlaw of Bowerhope, on St. Mary'sLoch, in the year 1842. One wild day of storm and deep-lying snow hestarted out to see after the safety of his sheep. Hours had passed, darkness had fallen, and he did not come home. Then a shepherdremembered having seen him crossing a certain hill where snow lay extradeep. To this hill in the morning the searchers betook themselves, tofind that a great avalanche had taken place, leaving the hill bare butfor the night's coating of snow. At the hill-foot the old snow was piledin giant masses. Here a dog sniffed, and whimpered, and began to scrape. They found Laidlaw buried there in tons of snow, uninjured save in onearm, and after fourteen hours burial in his snowy sepulchre he was stillpartly conscious. When the tumbling snow mass overwhelmed him he had hadpresence of mind and strength to clear from before his face breathingspace sufficient to preserve life. Laidlaw lived for many years after, in no permanent respect a sufferer from his burial and resurrection. 

His was an experience of no common order, yet it was a case less strangethan that of a sportsman, many years ago, who, unused to the hills, waslost amongst the snow one evening of sudden storm. Far and long hewandered, till, utterly exhausted, dropping from fatigue and cold, hechanced on a roof-less cottage, the crumbling walls of which promisedsome shelter from the wind and the terrible drifting snow. By the emptychimney-place he sat down, thankful that at least the bitter gale nolonger buffeted him. But the snow fell thick and fast, eddying intoevery corner, gently covering his feet and stealing up over his body. Adrowsy languor crept over his senses, an irresistible feeling of warmthand comfort came to him; his head fell forward. Again and again, knowingthe deadly peril, he roused himself with ever-increasing effort; againand again his head sank. Then suddenly it seemed that all was well. How_could_ he have fancied that he was out amongst the snow? The sound ofthe gale still thundered in his ears, but dully, muffled by thick walls, and he stood in a bedroom wherein burned a cheerful fire. On the bed laya man, who presently, with a start, sat up, looked at him, and lay downagain. Three times this happened, but the fourth time the man in bed gotup and hurriedly began to dress. He was a man unknown to the dreamer--ifdreaming he was--but his features were strongly marked, and bore ascar on the cheek, unmistakable to anyone who had once seen it. Then, suddenly, except for himself, the room was empty, and, as the dreamer inhis dream strove to reach the fire, to thrust cold hands close to thepleasant glow, room and fire faded, and he knew no more till a brightlight shone in his dazed eyes, and by his side, a hand on his shoulder, vigorously shaking him, knelt the man whom he had seen in his dreams. "Iknew you were coming, " drowsily murmured the awakened sleeper, glancingfeebly at his rescuer, and immediately dropping off to sleep again. 

When next he came to full consciousness, it was in a warm bed in acomfortable room, where every evidence of luxury met his eyes. In anarmchair by the fire, with outstretched feet, sat his rescuer, his faceturned towards the bed. And presently:

"Why did you say last night that you knew I was coming?" he asked. 

And when the dreamer had told his dream:

"It is strange, " said the other, "that last night I should have beenforced, as it were, to get up and go to the old cottage by the wood. Over and over again I woke, plagued by an unaccountable impulse to visitthose ruined walls. Struggle as I might against it, argue with myself asI would on its folly, it always returned; and at last, about midnight, it conquered me, and I arose and went. "

THE MURDER OF COLONEL STEWART OF HARTRIGGE

Since a time long prior to the Raid of the Redeswire--when on Caterfellthe rallying cry, "Jethart's here, " fell like sweetest music on the earsof a sore-pressed little band of armed Scots, fighting for their lives, and giving back sullenly before superior English strength--the worstenemies of Jedburgh have never been able to taunt her with apathy, orwith want of strenuousness. In the fighting of days long gone by, inquestions social or political of more modern times, lack of zeal has notbeen one of her characteristics; nor, perhaps, in past times have herinhabitants, or those resident in the district, been conspicuous fortolerance of the religious or political convictions of neighbours whomight chance not to see eye to eye with them in such matters. 

The first half of the eighteenth century was a time more fully chargedthan most with questions which, on the Border as elsewhere, goaded mento fury. There was, for example, the Union; there had been, prior tothat, the unhappy Darien Scheme, which ruined half Scotland and raisedhatred of England to white heat; there was, later, the advent of Georgethe First and his "Hanoverian Rats, " to the final ousting of therightful King over the water; there was the Rising of 1715, and, finally, there was the gallant attempt by Bonnie Prince Charlie toregain his father's crown in 1745. Thus they had, indeed, a superfluityof subjects over which men might legitimately quarrel. And when it isremembered that gentlemen in those days universally carried swords, andas a rule possessed some knowledge of how to use them, and that the manwho did not habitually drink too much at dinner was a veritable _raraavis_--a poor creature, unworthy to be deemed wholly a man--the wonderwill be, not that so many, but rather that so few, fatal quarrels tookplace. 

Whatever in other respects might be their failings--and these were, indeed, many and grave--Scottish inns in those days were noted for thegoodness of their claret. As a consequence of our ancient alliance anddirect trade with France, that wine was not only good, but was plentifuland cheap--cheap enough, indeed, to become almost the nationaldrink--and vast quantities were daily consumed; though there were notwanting those who, protesting that claret was "shilpit" and "cauld onthe stomach, " called loudly for brandy, and with copious draughts ofthat spirit corrected the acidity of the less potent wine. 

Possibly the very depth of the drinking in those days guarded many alife from sacrifice; the hand is not steady, nor the foot sure, when thebrain is muddled by fumes of wine, and it was perhaps more often chancethan design that guided the sword's point in some of these combats. Still, even so, Death too often claimed his toll from such chancestrokes. 

A duel between opponents equally armed was fair enough, provided thatthe skill and sobriety were not unequally divided, and that one of thefighters did not chance to be unduly handicapped by age. If a man wore asword, he knew that he might be called upon to use it--even the mostpeace-loving of men might not then, without loss of honour, alwayssucceed in avoiding a brawl; the blame was his own if he had neglectedto make himself proficient in the use of his weapon. At that period thetongue of the libeller was not tied by fear of the law; for the maninsulted or libelled there existed no means of redress other than thatof shedding, or trying to shed, his insulter's blood. It was a rough andready mode of obtaining justice; and if it had its manifestdisadvantages, it was at least not wholly unsuited to the rough andready times. 

But cases, unhappily, were not unknown in which one or other of thetipsy combatants--in his sober moments possibly an honourable andkindly-natured man--thrust suddenly and without warning, giving hisopponent small time to draw, or even, perhaps, to rise from his chair, acourse of action which, even under the easy moral code of those days, was accounted as murder. 

Such a case occurred at Jedburgh in the year 1726. Sir Gilbert Eliott ofStobs and Colonel Stewart of Stewartfield (now called Hartrigge) werethe principals in the affair. 

Sir Gilbert (father of the General Eliott afterwards so famed for hisdefence of Gibraltar in the great siege of 1779-83) was a man who hadspent some part of his youth in London, a place then, as ever, littlecalculated to repress leanings towards conviviality in young menpossessing the command of money. Probably the habits there contractedwere emphasized later, when ebbing fortune consigned him for good towhat no doubt then seemed to him the deadly dull life of a dullcountry-side. More than likely, too, he was a little scornful of hisneighbours who knew not the delights of London, a trifle contemptuous oftheir country manners, and possibly he may have been of quarrelsomedisposition, when in his cups quick to take offence and to see slightswhere none existed. In any event, if one may judge from the evidencegiven later at an inquiry held in Jedburgh, throughout the affair withColonel Stewart, Sir Gilbert Eliott was the aggressor. Possibly, afterthe fashion of the day, both were more or less tipsy; certainly, withoutany doubt, Sir Gilbert was greatly the worse of liquor, and did notcarry that liquor as a gentleman was expected to carry it. Hepersistently forced a quarrel on the Colonel. 

It was in the old Black Bull Inn at Jedburgh that the meeting tookplace. There had been a Head Court that forenoon to determine the listof voters for the year, and a large and already somewhat convivialcompany assembled afterwards in the dining-room of the Black Bull. Wineflowed, and as the evening waned, guest after guest prudently tookhimself off, till of the original party there were left but five--SirGilbert, Colonel Stewart, two officers of the Royal Regiment of NorthBritish Dragoons (the Scots Greys), and the proprietor ofTimpendean--the latter described in the evidence as being "very noysie. "

It is easy to imagine the scene. The long, low-ceilinged room, lit bycandles, reeking of dinner and of wine. Eliott, still brooding over hisdefeat in the recent parliamentary election, bent on picking a quarrel;Stewart, amiable and for a time conciliatory, till goaded beyondendurance; the two officers, very red in the face, laughing and treatingthe whole affair as a huge joke; and Timpendean, the while, in amonotonous loud bawl, chanting, very much out of tune, a song, most ofthe verses of which he forgot before he had sung two lines, everstarting afresh _ad nauseam_, after the manner of drunken men. It wasnot a seemly spectacle, but it was the fashion of the day, and but forEliott all might have ended with no worse effect than a bad headachenext morning. But for Eliott--unfortunately. Nothing, apparently, wouldsatisfy that gentleman. Colonel Stewart had let fall words which weretwisted into an affront. The Colonel assured him that no such words hadpassed his lips; but that if he had by chance uttered anything whichcould be construed as an insult, or if anything said by him had hurt SirGilbert's feelings, he was sorry for it, and he willingly apologised. 

Then Sir Gilbert must needs drag in politics. There was the burningquestion of the late election. Why had Colonel Stewart voted againsthim? He would have expected the Colonel's vote sooner than anybody's, and he took it ill that it had not been given to him. Colonel Stewartexplained that as he lay under very great obligations to Sir PatrickScott and his family, he considered that he had no choice but to vote ashe had done; but this did not satisfy Sir Gilbert; the vote _should_have been his by rights, and all the efforts of Captain Ross aspeacemaker could not keep him from harping on this one string--thesupposed slight put upon him in the matter of the vote. Colonel Stewartwas more than willing to drop the subject, and at last Captain Ross, thinking the matter settled, momentarily turned away, in an endeavour tostop the monotony of Timpendean's tuneless, dreary song. 

And then the mischief began. Sir Gilbert used words which, owing toTimpendean's noise, Ross did not catch, but he heard Colonel Stewart'sreply: "Pray, Sir Gilbert, you have said a great deal already to provokeme; don't provoke me further. " Then more hot words from Eliott, andColonel Stewart threw a glass of wine in the baronet's face. With that, Eliott started to his feet, drew his sword, and plunged it intoStewart's stomach before the latter could rise from his chair or defendhimself in any way. 

Thereupon arose a babel of sound--a shout, the scuffle and tramp ofunsteady feet, noise of chairs pushed aside and overturned on the bareboards, servants running to and fro. And Colonel Stewart, with clammybrow and failing limbs, sat silent in his chair, a dying man. 

Captain Ross and his brother officer secured the swords of bothmen--shutting the stable door, indeed, after the steed was stolen; inhot haste doctors were sent for; and 'mid the bustle and "strow" Eliottstumbled from the room and down the stair, "wanting his wig, " as thelandlady, whom he passed on the way, deponed. Sir Gilbert's old andfaithful servant hurried his master out of the inn, and behind a greattombstone in the Abbey churchyard hid him till the cool night air gavehim sense to attempt escape. 

In a thick wood near the head of Rulewater Sir Gilbert Eliott layconcealed, till his friends succeeded in smuggling him aboard a smallcraft off the coast of Berwickshire, and an outlaw, with a warrant outagainst him, he lived an uneasy life in Holland for some years, untilinfluential friends with difficulty got him pardon, and enabled himagain to return to the Border. 

That is the story as it is usually known. But it is fair to add that thetale is differently told in Chambers' _Domestic Annals of Scotland_, where it is stated that Colonel Stewart was "a huffing, hectoringperson, " and that he had given "great provocation, and gentlemenafterwards admitted that Stobbs was called upon by the laws of honour totake notice of the offence. " Evidence given at the inquiry, however, hardly seems to favour this view. Possibly neither side was quite freefrom blame; wine has other effects than to make glad the heart of man. 

AULD RINGAN OLIVER

Amongst the flying, broken rabble that represented all that was left ofthe Covenanting army after the disastrous business of Bothwell Bridge, adismounted Borderer, with one or two other stout hearts by no meansdisposed even now to give up the day, continued still to strike fiercelyat Claverhouse's pursuing troopers. But their efforts to stem the tideof disaster were utterly without avail, and the Borderer, zealouslyprotesting and struggling, was at length swept off the field by a wildpanic rush of the fugitives. Missing his footing on the broken ground asthe flying mob pressed on to him, the Borderer fell, and, hampered bythe bodies of a couple of wounded and exhausted countrymen, ere he couldagain struggle to his feet, the horse of more than one spurring riderhad trampled over him, and he lay disabled and helpless, at the mercy ofany dragoon who might chance to ride that way. 

"'The Lord hath afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger, '" groanedthe Covenanter. "'He hath made my strength to fall; the Lord hathdelivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up. '"

"Aye!" whimpered a wounded man who lay partly across the Borderer'slegs. "'The Lord was as an enemy; He hath swallowed up Israel. ' And I'mthinkin', 'gin He send nae help, and that sune, we're no muckle betterthan deid men. Eh! weary fa' the day I left my ain pleugh stilts, an' myain fireside. "

"Na, na, freend. He that setteth his hand to the plough, let him notlook back, " answered the Borderer. "'Gin I win oot o' this, I trow I'll'hew Agag in pieces before the Lord, ' or a's dune. We will yet smite thePhilistines, destroy utterly the Amalakites! Aye! smite them hip andthigh, even from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof!"

This fiery Borderer, Ringan Oliver by name, a man of gigantic strengthand great courage, a strong pillar of the Covenant, was a native ofJedwater, where he and his fathers before him had for generationsoccupied the small holding of Smailcleuchfoot. From the turmoil of thedisastrous flight after the battle of Bothwell Bridge, and from theclose search of the pursuing soldiers, Ringan Oliver did eventuallyescape, sore battered, and not without much difficulty and danger, andfor many a month thereafter he lay in hiding; caves, holes in the moors, and dripping peat hags, were his shelter, heather and ferns his bed, many a time when the hunt waxed hot. And in 1680, hearing of the returnfrom Holland of the outlawed Hall of Haughhead, he speedily joined thatnoted Covenanter, hiding with him, "lurking as privily as they couldabout Borrowstounness and other places on both sides of the Firth ofForth"; and he was with Hall and "worthy Mr. Cargill" when "these twobloody hounds, the curates of Borrowstounness and Carriden, smelled outMr. Cargill and his companion, " and sent to the Governor ofBorrowstounness that information which led to the death of one of thethree Covenanters. Mr. Cargill and Ringan Oliver got clear away from thehouse at Queensferry where Colonel Middleton, single-handed, tried toarrest them, but Hall, severely wounded in the head, was taken, and diedbefore he could be carried even so far as Edinburgh. 

For some years after this we have no record of Ringan's doings; possiblypart of the time he spent on his farm at Smailcleuchfoot. In 1689, however, he was with General Mackay at Killiecrankie. And again, as atBothwell Bridge, sorely against his inclination he experienced thehorrors of headlong flight in company of a broken rabble. ReachingDunkeld in an exhausted condition early in the following morning, he anda few comrades found shelter in the house of a friend. But as they sat, about to fall to on a much needed meal, down the little street came the"rat-tat-tat" of a drum, and past the window swaggered an unkemptHighland drummer, halting at intervals to hurl defiance at all Whigs, and a challenge to them to fight the famous Highland champion, Rory DhuMhor. And this is something after the fashion of what Ringan and hisweary comrades heard drawled out with fine nasal whine:

"This will pe to pe kiving notice to aal it may pe concerning, tat RoryDhu Mhor of ta Clan Donachy will pe keeping ta crown of ta causeway inta toun of Tunkel for wan hour and mhore. And he iss civilly tesiring itto pe known tat if there will pe any canting, poo-hooing, psalm-singingwhig repellioner in ta toun, and he will pe so pould as to pe comingforth his hiding holes, and looking ta said Rory Dhu Mhor in ta face, tasaid Rory Dhu Mhor herepy kifs promise to pe so ferry condescending asto pe cutting ta same filthy Whig loon shorter by ta legs, for ta honourof King Tchames. Ochilow! Cot save King Tchames!"

A few paces behind this tattered herald strutted the champion, Rory DhuMhor, swinging his kilt, and like the wild stag of his native mountains, haughtily sniffing the breeze. 

At this sight, all the fierce old Border blood began to surge throughRingan Oliver's veins. The contemptuous challenge goaded him to fury;for the Christianity of our Covenanting ancestors was seldom of thatcast which prompts the turning of the other cheek to the smiter, andRingan was one of the most militant of a militant sect. 

"God do so to me, and more also, " shouted he, springing to his feet, "'gin I humble not this blethering boaster, and stop his craw, or hemaun stop mine. "

"Na, na, Ringan, " cried his friends, "haud sae, man, haud sae. Ye'll beclean dung-ower; ye're ower sair spent to fecht thenow. "

But this only goaded Ringan the more. 

"As the Lord liveth, he shall lick the dust. Hinder me not, friends, withstand me not; I maun do battle with this Philistine. "

And with that, he rushed into the street, broadsword in hand. 

"Diaoul! Fwhat will this creatur pe tat will pe approaching in such waysand manners pefore a Hieland shentleman?" cried the Highlander with asnort, giving an extra cock to his bonnet. 

"I am an unworthy follower of Christ, our spiritual Redeemer, and asoldier of King William, our temporal deliverer; and I stand here to bidyou make good your profane boasting. "

"Fhery goot inteet! Fhery goot inteet! you haf peen suppering atKilliecrankie, and now you would pe after breakfasting at Tunkeld? ByCot, you shall haf it!"

And Rory drew his claymore. They were not ill-matched. Both were bigmen, both of gigantic strength, both skilled swordsmen. But theHighlander had by far the greater experience of duelling; it was, infact, the pride of his life to pick a quarrel and to slay hisantagonist. Moreover, he had his target, which was of immense assistancein warding off blows; and Ringan had no guard other than his sword, which fact, in itself, made the combat unequal. And, to crown all, theHighlander was infinitely the fresher. But the dour, fiery, old Borderblood had brought Ringan to this pass, when he was in no way fit tofight, and, whatever the cost, he must now go through with it. 

So to it they fell. Long they fought, and fiercely, till the breath camehard-drawn and short, and the red blood ran fast from both combatants. Only, the Highlander was less distressed than Ringan, his wounds fewerand less serious. Still, they kept on without pause, till to the fiercejoy of the Highland onlookers, and the dull misery of others, it becamequite plain that Ringan's time had come. Human nature could do no more;he was beaten, and was being driven slowly back and back, his defenceeach minute getting less vigorous and confident, his attack less to bedreaded. Loud rang the exulting Gaelic yells to Rory to finish him, to"give his flesh to the eagles. "

And now Ringan, blood flowing from a dozen gashes, was down on one knee, but still almost mechanically guarding head and body from the whirlwindfinal attack of the Highlander. Sick at heart, the Lowland onlookersturned their looks aside; they hated to see such an end of a bravecomrade, and they were too few to avenge him. Suddenly, and with bentheads, they turned away from looking at the figure of the weariedBorderer, beaten down on to his knee, away from sight of the flashingclaymore that was now so near to tasting their friend's life-blood. Andthen to their ears came a roar, as of the routing of some mighty bull ofBashan. Glancing back quickly, their astonished eyes saw Rory Dhu Mhorstanding rigidly erect and stiff, an expression of blank wonder on hishairy face, and the point of Ringan's broadsword appearing out betweenthe Highlander's shoulders. Then, with another mighty roar, as the swordwas withdrawn, he sprang convulsively off the ground, and with a clatterfell heavily on his target, dead. It was a spent man that he was dealingwith, he had rashly thought. Too well he knew the game; he had played itsuccessfully so often before. It needed but to go in now and slay. Inhis over confidence the Highlander neglected for one moment to becunning of fence, and during that moment he exposed his body. It wasenough for a swordsman so skilled as Ringan Oliver. Exhausted as he was, like a flash his weapon leapt forward, and the great Highland championhad fought his last fight. 

It was near to being a dearly bought victory. Murder was in the heartsof the Highlanders, as for the moment they stood in savage silence, hungering for the life of their champion's overthrower. And Ringan wasfainting from loss of blood, unable to raise himself from the trampled, muddy ground on which he had fallen. Things indeed looked ill for himand for his friends. And ill, no doubt, it would have fared with them, if just then it had not chanced that the certain news reached theHighlanders in Dunkeld of the death of him they called "Ian Dhu nanCath" (Black John of the Battles), John Graham of Claverhouse, ViscountDundee, slain the previous day in Killiecrankie fight. Thus it happenedthat, instead of falling sword in hand on the little party ofLowlanders, the dismayed clansmen began to slip away, and Ringan'sfriends succeeded in getting their sorely wounded comrade into safety. 

It was some time after this, when life had become less stormy, thatRingan again took up his residence at Smailcleuchfoot. Here he continuedto live till he was quite an old man. It was here, too, that theincident befell which gave rise to the ballad written by Mr. JamesTelfer early in last century. 

Ringan had ever been known as well for his rigid ideas of faith andhonour as for his great strength and undaunted courage, and thesequalities had brought him greatly into the esteem and friendship of hislandlord, one of the earliest of the Marquesses of Lothian. It is saidthat when the Marquess, towards the end of his life, found it necessaryto take what was then the tedious and toilsome journey to London, hesent for Ringan, and giving him the key of a room in Ferniehurst inwhich were kept important and valuable deeds and family papers, chargedhim on no account to allow anyone to enter the room or to interfere withthe papers until he (the Marquess) should return. It happened, however, shortly after Lord Lothian's departure that his heir had occasion towish to enter this locked room, and he sent to demand the key fromRingan. The old man, naturally and rightly, refused to depart from theinstructions he had received when the key was delivered to him, and thereply he sent to the young lord may probably have been somewhat bluntand uncompromising. In any case, hot words passed between him and theindignant heir, who considered, perhaps not unnaturally, thatprohibition to enter the locked room, to whomsoever else it might apply, certainly could not under any circumstances apply to him. Perhaps had hegone in the first instance himself to Ringan and explained matters theaffair might without much difficulty have been arranged. But he hadtaken the other course, and had demanded the key as a matter of right. Hence came hot words between the two, and the upshot was that theyounger man left boiling with resentment at the "old Cameronian devil, Ringan Oliver, " and threatening to pay him out. 

No very long time after this the old Marquess died, and Ringan's enemyreigned in his stead. Nor was it long ere he began to show that noportion of the wrath conceived by him against the old man had beenallowed to die for want of nursing. One September day, when Ringan'scrop was all but ready to cut, there came across the water fromFerniehurst the new Marquess accompanied by several mounted men, servants, and others, with dogs. Soon the party began riding over thefarm, ostensibly looking for hares; finally, they all went into thestanding crop, trampling it down wantonly, hallooing their dogs here, there, and everywhere, and galloping furiously about wherever the cornstood thickest. Ringan had been rapidly becoming more and more angry ashe found that the damage done was so manifestly wilful damage; and atlast, finding remonstrance to be so much waste of breath, he snatched upan old musket, which possibly had not seen the light sinceKilliecrankie, and shot one of the dogs. 

That was enough for the Marquess; he had got the old man in the wrongnow. Off he went at once and lodged with the Sheriff of Roxburghshire acomplaint against Ringan, and a summons was issued. Ringan refused toappear in court. 

"Na!" he said. "I've done nae wrong. I daur them to lay a hand on me. "

But the Law was not to be thus flouted. If he wouldn't come freely, thenhe must be made to come, said the sheriff. Here a difficulty arose. Ringan's reputation for gigantic strength and utter fearlessness stillsurvived, and no one dared even attempt to apprehend the old man. Insuch circumstances the sheriff pressed into his service the Marquessand his men, and this party set off for Smailcleuchfoot. Friends warnedRingan of their coming and counselled him to fly. But the dour oldCameronian's spirit refused to let him do aught that might even remotelysuggest a doubt as to his being absolutely in the right. He only retiredinto his house, and resolutely set about barring doors and windows; andwhen that was done--

"Let them touch me that daur, " he cried, taking up and carefully loadingthe same old musket with which he had shot the dog. 

Soon came the sheriff's summons, to which Ringan paid no heed, beyondletting the party know that he was at home, and had no intention ofsurrendering. There was in the house with him at this time a young girl(whether an adopted daughter or merely a maid who cooked and lookedafter the old man's house, one does not know), but she had refused toleave when he began to barricade the place, and Ringan's sole anxietywas now apparently for her. Of his own safety or that of his house, heseemed to think not at all; the grim old dourness and determination thathad distinguished him at Bothwell Bridge and elsewhere were againsmouldering, ready to burst into flame. 

"Keep oot o' the licht, lass, and rin nae risk; gang in ahint yon pressdoor, " he said to the girl, when the men outside began firing at thewindows. 

Then he, too, began to fire back at his enemies, and for a time he wastoo much absorbed in his practice to pay attention to what the girlmight be doing. Thus, he had just fired a shot which clipped away one ofthe curls from the Sheriff's wig, when a gasp, and the sound of a heavyfall on the floor behind him, caused the old man hastily to look round. Curiosity had overcome her caution; the girl had ventured from hershelter, and, standing behind Ringan, had been trying to see, past theedge of the window, how things were going outside. Perhaps she had alover in the attacking party, and feared for his safety. Anyhow, as shelent forward, forgetting her own danger, a bullet meant for the old manfound its billet in her throat. For a moment Ringan stood aghast, thenknelt by the dying girl, striving in vain to staunch the blood thatgushed from her wound. And as he realised that such a hurt was farbeyond his simple skill, the lust to kill was born again in the oldman's breast. He forgot that he was old, forgot how the treacherousyears had stolen from him the vigour and spring that had been his, forgot everything but the half-crazy desire for vengeance. 

With the roar of a wounded tiger he tore down the barricades fixed byhimself not an hour before, snatched from its place over the fire thetrusty old broad-sword that had served him so well in former days, flungwide the door, and charged blindly out on his enemies. Alas for RinganOliver! Even as he crossed the threshold, a rope, or some part of hisdiscarded barricade, caught his foot, and like the Philistines' mightygod Dagon lang syne before the Ark of the Lord, he fell prone on hisface, and the enemy was on him in an instant. 

Even then, disarmed and smothered by numbers as he was, the struggle fora time was by no means unequal, and more than once, with giganticeffort, he had all but flung off his captors. Perhaps, in the end, thetask might even have been too much for the sheriff's party had it notbeen that a treacherous tinker, named Allan, with a hammer struck theold man a heavy blow on the face, fracturing the jaw and partiallystunning him. Then, bound hand and foot, Auld Ringan was carried toEdinburgh. There, in the Tolbooth, he lay for eight long years, suffering tortures, first from his broken jaw, and later from old woundsthat now broke out afresh. He that had lived so long a life in the purefresh air of the Border, who had loved more to hear the lark sing thanthe mouse cheep, now languished in a foul, insanitary prison, and it wasbut the ghost of his former self that at the end of his long confinementcrept away to pass the brief remainder of his days in a house in theCrosscauseway, Edinburgh. 

Auld Ringan Oliver died in 1736. He sleeps among the martyrs inGreyfriars Churchyard. 

A LEGEND OF NORHAM

In the days, now happily remote, when folks, provided as for a picnic, laboriously travelled great distances in order to be present at theexecution of some unhappy wretch; in the days when harmless old women, whose chief fault may probably have been that they were poor andfriendless, and perhaps by age and privation rendered little better thanhalf-witted, were baited, and dragged by an ignorant and credulouspopulace to a fiery or to a watery death, there survived in Scotland yetanother barbarous custom not unworthy to take rank with witch-burning. It was a custom so pitiless and revolting that the mind shrinks from itscontemplation, for if its victims were not necessarily frail old women, they were yet human beings guilty of no crime, innocent perhaps of allbut misfortune. 

The study of medicine in those days was in its infancy, and many werethe strange virtues attributed to certain herbs, vast the powers claimedfor certain things in nature. Aconitum (or wolf's-bane) for example, wasreputed to "prevail mightily against the bitings of Scorpions, and is ofsuch force that if the Scorpion pass by where it groweth, and touch thesame, presently he becometh dull, heavy, and senseless, and if the sameScorpion by chance touch the White Hellebore, he is presently deliveredfrom his drowiness. " A certain root, too, was of sovereign efficacy inthe prevention of rabies in human beings who had been bitten by a maddog. In Gerard's _Herbal_, a medical work published in 1596--"Gatheredby John Gerarde of London, Master in Chirurgerie"--it is laid down that"the root of the Briar-bush is a singular remedy found out by oracleagainst the biting of a mad dog. " Then, as now, rabies was regarded witha sickening dread, but in that remote day there had arisen no Pasteur, and dread too frequently degenerated into panic, and panic, as it everdoes, revealed itself in brutality. 

In olden days the remedies generally administered to patients sufferingfrom the bite of a dog were many and curious, and probably by theaverage patient they were regarded in reality rather as something in thenature of a charm than as medicines. Doubtless they gave confidence tothe person who had been bitten, and, so far, were good. But in very manycases they got the credit of being infallible remedies solely because inmost instances the dog which had given the bite was no more afflictedwith rabies than was the person whom it bit; probably it was some poor, hunted, frightened beast which had lost its master, and against whichsome panic-stricken individual had raised the senseless cry of "maddog. "

One remedy prescribed by a famous physician who lived so late asmid-eighteenth century, was "ash-coloured ground liver-wort ahalf-ounce, black pepper a quarter-ounce, " to be taken, fasting, in fourdoses, the patient having been bled prior to beginning the cure. Thereafter for a month, each morning he must plunge into a cold springor river, in which he must be dipped all over, but must stay no longerthan half a minute. Finally, to complete the cure, he must for afortnight longer enter the river or spring three times a week. It is alleminently simple, and tends at least to show that our ancestors afterall were not wholly ignorant of the virtues of cold water. Amongst otherremedies, also, was a medicine composed of cinnabar and musk, an EastIndian specific, and one of powdered Virginian snake-root, gumasafoetida, and gum camphire, mixed and taken as a bolus. So far, atleast, if the various treatments did little good, they did no greatharm. Brutality began where a person had been bitten by a dog thatreally was mad, and when undoubted symptoms of hydrophobia had shownthemselves. Then it was no uncommon practice to deliberately bleed theunhappy patient to death, or, worse still, to smother him betweenmattresses or feather beds. Necessarily, a custom so monstrous openedwide the door to crimes of violence, and doubtless many a person whosepresence was found to be inconvenient to relatives, or whose permanentabsence would further certain desires or plans of those relatives, wasopportunely found to be suffering from an attack of hydrophobia, andcame to his end miserably in some such fashion as has been indicated. The popular mind was credulous to an extent inconceivable at the presentday, and the mere accusation of madness was seized on and swallowed withan avidity that discouraged investigation of individual cases. 

In the Border, if all tales are true, at least one crime of this naturewas perpetrated. 

Not far from Norham Castle, it is said that there stood till well on inthe eighteenth century a large mansion, of which no trace now remains. As the story goes, the place once belonged to an old Border family, butthe folly and extravagance of more than one generation had brought intheir train what these failings ever must bring, and evil times fell onthat house. Piece by piece, one after the other, the ancient possessionspassed away from their former owners, sacrificed to gratify some passingwhim or to pay some foolishly contracted debt, till, finally, the houseitself and what land remained had also been flung into the melting-pot, and the last male heir of the old line, with his only child, a daughter, sat homeless in their old home, awaiting the hour which should bringwith it the new owner, and to them the sorrow of for ever quittingscenes dear to them from infancy. 

By the dying embers of a wood fire they two lingered one December night, wrapped in no pleasant thoughts, and idly listening to the shrillpiping of a wind that dismally foretold the coming of snow. The fatherwas a man well advanced in life, on whose good-looking, weak facedissipation had set its seal; the daughter, a woman of six or seven andtwenty, who preserved more than all her father's good looks, but--as isso often the case in the females of a decadent family--who, in herexpression, showed no trace of weakness. Indeed, if a fault could befound in face or figure, it was that the former for a woman told of toomuch firmness and resolution, qualities which circumstances might veryreadily develop into obstinacy, and even into cruelty. Her mother haddied when Helen was but an infant, and thus it chanced that, as a child, her upbringing had been left pretty well to nature, aided (or perhapshampered) only by the foolish indulgence of an ignorant and not veryhigh-principled nurse, in whom fidelity was perhaps the only virtue, andwho now, in her old age, almost alone of a once large staff of servants, still clung to "her bairn, " and to the fallen fortunes of her master. Ofeducation the child received but what little she chose to receive, andof discipline she knew nothing, for to the hopelessly weak father herwill had too soon become law. 

Naturally, Helen grew up headstrong and self-indulgent, recognising norule but that of her own inclinations, and before her eighteenthbirthday she had, without the knowledge of her father, engaged herselfto a penniless youth of good family, the younger son of a neighbour. Anentire lack of funds, however, seemed--at least to the lad--sufficientcause for delaying the marriage, and "to mak' the croon a pound, " hewent, not "to sea, " but (as was then not uncommon with young Scotsmen)to the wars in High Germanie. 

Since that date, no direct word had come from the young man, only therumour grew that in the storming of some town he had fallen. Years hadpassed since then; years that came and went and brought neitherconfirmation nor denial of the rumour. In Helen's heart hope at last waskilled, and with the death of hope seemed to die all that had ever beenwomanly or soft in her character. The one tender spot left was a kind ofpitying affection for her weak old father. 

Now, as they two sat here together this bitter winter evening, the oldman grumbling, as ever, half to himself, half to his daughter, of theill-luck that had steadily dogged him all his days, there came suddenlyto them the sound of horses' feet on the stones of the courtyardoutside, and presently one of the few remaining servants entered theroom to say that a stranger was outside begging shelter for himself andfor his groom. Nor did the stranger wait to be invited, for, brushingpast the servant, and carelessly, as he entered, dusting from hisriding-coat the light snow with which it was grimed, taking stock thewhile with pinched-up little grey eyes of the room and its occupants, hepulled in a chair towards the fire and coolly seated himself. He was aman considerably over fifty--probably nearer sixty than fifty--with aframe burly and coarse, and a face seared by tropical suns anddisfigured by the ravages of small-pox; obviously a man of low originwhose mind probably lacked refinement or consideration for others asmuch as his body lacked grace. 

Father and daughter for a minute gazed mutely at their uninvited guest, the girl at least in no very amiable mood. But whatever her father'sfaults might be, want of hospitality was not one of them, and what thehouse could supply of meat and drink was speedily set before thestranger. He was, as he made haste to inform them, the new owner of theproperty, come down to take possession. "And egad! sir, " said hebrusquely, "it strikes me it's not before it was time. There's a bit o'money wanted here, anybody can see with half an eye. " And with choicecriticisms of a similar nature he lightened the time in the intervals ofshovelling food into his heavy-lipped mouth. 

"Yes, I've bought it--and paid for it, too--lock, stock, and barrel, " heresumed; "and we'll put things to rights in a brace of shakes. Forwhat's the use o' having money, says I, if a man don't spend it on hiswhim! Ay! whether it's a fine lass, or what not, plank it down, andenjoy yourself while ye can. That's what _I_ say. What's the sense o'waiting till a man's too old? And I'm not so young as I was, thinksMissie, eh? But let me tell you, there's many a fine lass, yet, thatwould snap me up if she had the chance, if it was only for the sake ofthe ducats. Now, when I was in the Spanish Main--hey! _that_ was theplace!--I mind. .. . "

But what he "minded" Helen had no wish to hear, and she retired, leavingher father and the stranger, both rapidly becoming somewhat over-looseof speech under the influence of brandy. 

"A likely wench!" cried the stranger as the door closed. "A likelywench, sir. He'll be a lucky dog that get's her. Now . .. Ah!. .. Hum!. .. Here's you, an old man, leaving this place--and not likely to getanother, says you; and here's me, a bachelor, or anyways a widower, withplenty of cash and wanting a wife. Come I what's against our making abargain? You give me your daughter, and I'll see that you don't want ahome. Eh? What do you say to that, now?"

It was not very delicately put, but neither were the times verydelicate, and the upshot was that Helen's father, weak and selfish, agreed to use his influence towards bringing the marriage about. Thestranger did not tell--and perhaps it would have made little differenceif he had told--his full history; how as a boy in London, the son of apetty tradesman, he had been kidnapped and sold to the Plantations (acommon enough fate in those days); how in the West Indies, after avaried and not over reputable career, in which buccaneering played nosmall part, he had at length persuaded the wealthy old widow of aplanter to marry him; and how, when she had suddenly ended her days, ina way which gave rise to more than a little talk in the island, he hadsold the estate and the slaves without haggling much over the price, andhad abruptly left for England, where--the talk ran--he meant to settledown and found a family. 

Helen's scornful rejection of the proposal at first was scathing, andlittle less her scorn of a parent who could urge it. "It's to save mefrom want, and from worse than want, " he whimpered. Finally, ere manydays had passed, wearied by her father's importunity, she gave herconsent. 

A pair more ill-matched could not have been found; the man by naturecoarse, brutal, and cowardly; the woman, insolent, fearless, and ofungoverned temper. From the first things went badly, and when, within aweek of the wedding, Helen's father was drowned in attempting to fordthe Tweed on horseback, she chose to consider that her part of thebargain was ended. Henceforward she was a wife only in name. Bluster andstorm as he might, she was more than the master of her husband, andafter one wild outburst he cringed before her. And as, before hermarriage, the wife had insisted on reinstating the greater number of theold servants, who to fidelity to the old line added hostility to amaster whom they looked on as an interloper, the husband soon found itto his advantage to conciliate the household by giving way to the whimsof his wife. Thereafter, the two met, if at all, only at meals. 

For something over a year things continued on this unpleasant footing. Then there came a day in spring, when Tweedside was tender with thebursting of buds and the lush green of young grass, when birds sanggaily from every thicket, and the hurrying brown water was dimpled intocountless rings by the rising trout. To Helen, listless and indifferenteven to Tweed's charm in springtime, came one of the younger servantssaying that a gentleman, desiring to speak to her, waited below. Agentleman to see _her_? Nay, there must certainly be some mistake, thought Helen. It must assuredly be one of the useless hangers-on of herhusband come to ask her to plead for him in regard to some trumperyloan. Well! anything for a novelty, and to take her thoughts away fromherself. In this frame of mind she entered the lower room, where thevisitor stood with his back to the door, gazing from the window, besidehim a large deerhound. 

"Well, sir, " she exclaimed sharply, "what is there that I . .. My God!You!. .. Back from the dead! Back from the dead!" she wailed. 

"Nay. Back from sickness and wounds; back from captivity. Many a messagehave I sent you, Helen, during the long years; little did I think tofind you thus. "

Apathy and listlessness no longer held her in bondage; the full horrorof the irrevocable gripped her. Tied for ever to a brute whom shedespised and hated, sacrificed to no purpose; whilst here, alive andwell, stood the man to whom in ardent youth she had plighted herundisciplined heart. The thought maddened her. And as she struggled tochoke back this overwhelming rush of feeling, her husband's unwelcomeentrance broke the tension of a scene the strain of which was pastbearing. 

Surely it was in an evil moment for himself that her husband enteredthat room. In a clumsy effort to propitiate his wife's guest, theunfortunate man laid his hand on the head of the visitor's dog, and withvicious side-snap the animal bit his hand to the bone. 

No consideration had the wife for her husband's sufferings, no trace ofsympathy did she show, as, with an oath, he hurried from the room tobind up the ugly wound--her whole being was centred in the man beforeher. And her very heart stood still when her stunned ears realised thatthat man was now saying farewell. Lamentations and entreaties were of noavail. "There remained nothing else for a man of honour to do, " he said. All these years he had been faithful to her; all these years no otherwoman had entered his thoughts. Had she been as true to him as he hadever been to her, the dearest wish of his heart would have beenfulfilled. Nay, had he come home to find her a widow, even so all mightyet perhaps have been well. But now, when, with his own eyes, he hadseen what, manner of man she had preferred to him, the old love waskilled--killed by her act. 

The clatter of his departing horse's feet rang loud in her ears; andnow, great as of old had been her detestation of the man to whom she wastied, it was but a feeble flame in comparison with the furnace of hatethat began to rage in her heart. Daily and hourly the anguish of the"might have been" tormented her. Incessantly the words her lover hadspoken seethed in her brain: "If even you had been a widow, " he hadsaid. "A widow?" . .. Ever to the same word her thoughts returned--"awidow. " What if he were to die now? If only. .. ! Then she thought of thebitten hand. Was it not more than likely that the dog was mad when, unprovoked, it bit a man? And if it _were_ mad . .. But assuredly it wasmad! She would ask old Elspeth. Who so wise as Elspeth, who so skilledas she in the treatment of wounds? And if she could _cure_ wounds, why. .. Perhaps. .. ! Did not wounds sometimes refuse to heal, and did notthe patient sometimes gradually sink and die without anybody being toblame?

But no comfort was found in Elspeth--no help. Surely the woman was inher dotage. Fool! Why did the feckless old idiot not know that the dog_must_ have been mad? The man was drinking heavily now, goaded by grimterror of that very thing, and sodden with drink. Body and soul the oldnurse was hers, she believed. Then, what so easy to make as a mistake inher treatment of the wound--to dress it with an irritating salve insteadof with a healing one? what so easy as to inflame a mind alreadystricken by fear and maddened by drink? _Must_ she speak more plainlythe thing that had arisen in her mind?

 * * * * *

Day followed day, and soon rumour spread and grew to certainty that of asurety the dog was mad that had bitten the master. From his room, theysaid, came the sound of ravings and of shouts. Folk spoke below theirbreath of how it was said he foamed at the mouth, and few dared venturenear. 

At last there came a night when Elspeth's son crept stealthily by theback stairs to aid his mother in holding down the sick man in theparoxysms of his madness; and the guilty wife, cowering alone in herroom, stopped her ears lest awful sounds should reach them. 

 * * * * *

Summer was spent, and Tweed murmured seaward between banks ruddy andgolden with autumn's foliage. 

In a house in Edinburgh, not far removed from Holyrood, clad in deepblack, there lingered restlessly a Border woman, for whom the months haddragged with halting foot since a certain spring night near Norham. 

"Will he come?" to herself she whispered for the hundredth time. "Surelyhe must come. "

And as she waited, a flush leapt to her cheek at the sound of a stepnearing her door. A man entered, grave, almost stern, of face, and shesprang to her feet with a cry, and with outstretched arms, that sankslowly to her side, as her eyes questioned those of her visitor. 

"You have come, " she said unsteadily; "you have come. And you know . .. My husband . .. Is dead?"

"Rumours had reached me, " he answered coldly. "When did he die?"

"It was in the spring, five months since. He was bitten by a dog, and hedied . .. Raving mad. "

"Bitten by a dog?" he queried. 

"Do you not remember? The dog you brought with you bit him. He neverrecovered. And . .. And he died mad. "

"It was my dog that bit him? And he died mad in consequence of thatbite? I do not understand. My dog is alive and well; he was never mad. "

Her eyes fell. What need to plead further! She knew now too well thathis love for her was indeed dead and buried. Had a spark of it yetlived in his heart, suspicion could have found no place. Gone now wasall pride, all control; at his feet she threw herself, clasping herknees. 

"Have you no pity--no pity? He is dead, I tell you. I always cared onlyfor you. "

"Good God!" he cried hoarsely, and pushed her from him; and the horrorin his eyes smote her as his bitterest words could not have done. 

Alone once more in the room, she lay face downwards on the floor, andthe echo of his footfall on the stair beat into her brain like thestroke of doom. Alone till the end of her days she lived a friendless, wretched woman, eating out her heart with the canker of "the might havebeen. "

THE GHOST OF PERCIVAL REED

When we look back on the past history of the Border, we might almostthink that St. Andrew and St. George, who are supposed to keep watch andward over North and South Britain, had overlooked that hilly stretch ofcountry that lies between the Solway and the Tyne, leaving the heathengod Mars to work his turbulent will with it. From the days of the RomanWall it was always a tourney-ground, and in the long years when Englishand Scots warred against each other, scarcely one day in any year wentpast without the spilling of blood on one or other of its hills ormoors. Not only did the Borderers fight against those of other nations. Constantly they fought amongst themselves. A quick-tempered, revengefullot were the men of those Border clans. On the Northumberland side thequarrels were as frequent as they were amongst those hot-headedScots--Kers and Scotts, Elliots and Turnbulls and Croziers. 

In the sixteenth century one of the most powerful of the clans in thewild Northumbrian country was that of the Reeds of Redesdale. Even nowit is a lonely part of the south land, that silent valley down which, from its source up amongst the Cheviots, the Rede flows eastward. Bogand heather and bracken still occupy the ground to right and to left ofit, and there are few sounds besides the bleat of sheep or the cries ofwild birds to break the silence of the hills and moors. But when theReeds held power the hills often echoed to the lowing of driven cattle, to the hoof-beat of galloping horses, and to the sounds of a fight beingfought to the death. A foray into England brought many a sturdy Scottishreiver riding over the Carter Bar; and Reeds, and Halls, and Ridleyswere never averse from a night ride across the English Border when aMichaelmas moon smiled on the enterprise. The Reeds were a strong clan, but in power and in reputation they took only a second place, for thefamily of the Halls was stronger still. The head of the Hall clan livedat Girsonfield, a little to the north of Otterburn, a farmhouse whichhad belonged to the proprietors of Otterburn Castle since the time ofQueen Elizabeth. Only a few stones of it now remain, and the new housestands on a much more exposed situation; but when Hall was its occupant, Girsonfield stood on a plot of rich green sward on the east side of theOtter. 

Now it must have seemed to Hall of Girsonfield, the head of the chief ofthe northern clans, a very clear error in judgment for any of the powersthat existed to pass him over and appoint as keeper of Redesdale hisfriend and neighbour, Percival Reed. To have to bow to Reed's authority, to obey his summons when called on to help to intercept a party ofreiving Scots or to pursue them, hot trod, into Scotland, to hear thepraises of Percival Reed in all mouths--these were bitter things to beswallowed by him who has come down to us as "the false-hearted Ha'. " Andso, having opened the door of his heart for the messengers of Satan tocome in, Hall of Girsonfield had not long to wait for his tenants. 

Clearly Percival Reed had no right to be keeper, but as he did hisduties bravely and well, there was no chance of his being deposed, saveby death. Never a day or a night was there when Hall and his friend Reedcantered together to meet some of the Scott or Elliot clan, or to rescuea drove of cattle or sheep from them, or from some of the Croziers orTurnbulls, but what Hall rode with murder in his heart. Reed was utterlyunconscious. There was no scheme that he did not confide to him whom hetook for his loyal friend, no success for which he did not jubilantlyclaim Hall's sympathy and congratulations. He laid bare the whole of hisinnocent heart, and Hall hated him all the more bitterly because of it. "If he were not so handy with his Ferrara, " brooded Hall. .. . "If only hehad been a little slower that time in getting out his dag when Nixon hadcovered him. " . .. "If only his mare had not only stumbled, but hadfallen there by the peat hag when Sandy's Jock so near had him. .. . "

To Hall of Girsonfield Providence seemed to take special care ofPercival Reed, for no other reason than to goad him to extremity. Thedevils who possessed him were skilfully nursing their prey. 

There came at last a day, when no raids were afoot, when Hall met someof the Crozier clan, and opinions were frankly expressed with regard tothe keeper of Redesdale. Things had been going badly with the Croziers. Their beef-tubs were empty. The Borders were evidently going to thedogs. It was no longer possible for any hard-working reiver to make aliving on them. Percival Reed would have to get his leave, or it was allup with reiving in Redesdale. To all of these complaints Hall lent awilling ear; nay, more, to their surprise, a sympathetic one. Apparentlyhe, too, had some little schemes afoot, with which the keeper'sover-vigilance had seriously interfered. What a merry jest it would be, next time the Croziers crossed the Border by moonlight, if the keeper'splans for that night were known to them, and if, instead of finding inthe clan Hall enemies, they found them allies. The Croziers might haveall the spoil, but the Halls would share the joke, and Percival Reedwould crow less crouse for the future. 

It was a quite simply arranged affair. The Halls entered with zest intothe plot. Second place was not good enough for them, and the Reeds hadboasted long enough. 

And Percival Reed, in all innocence, soon heard rumour of a foray bythe Croziers, and confided in his friend Girsonfield exactly how hemeant to meet it. This information speedily found its way to theScottish side of the Border, and in Hall of Girsonfield Reed found amore than usually willing supporter. The appointed night came, and erethey started in the uncertain light of a misty moon the keeper ofRedesdale supped at Girsonfield. "Ye're loaded, are ye, Parcy?" askedthe genial host in the burring Northumbrian voice we know so well evento-day. "I'll give a look to our primings while ye drink a stirrup-cup. "More than a look he gave. Strong spirit from the Low Countries might begood jumping powder for the Keeper of Redesdale, but it was a dampingpotion for the keeper's musket when gently poured on its priming. AtBatenshope, on the Whitelee ground, Reeds and Halls and Croziers met, and a joyous crew were the Croziers that night as they homewards rode upthe Rede valley. For at the first fire of Percival Reed's musket itburst, and he dropped from his horse a murdered man. The Reeds knew itfor treason, and the subsequent conduct of the Halls left them no roomfor doubt. It was, indeed, a fine foundation for a family feud, and forgeneration after generation the feud went on. 

What was the end of Hall of Girsonfield no one has chronicled; it is nothard to imagine the purgatory of his latter years. 

But it is not of him but of his innocent victim that tales are stilltold in the Rede valley. 

From the night when his spirit was by treachery and violence reft fromhis body, there was no rest for Percival Reed. 

In the gloaming, when trees stand out in the semblance of highwayrobbers, and a Liddesdale drow meets a North Sea haar, his sorrowfulspirit was wont to be seen by the lonely traveller, making moan, seekingrest. Far and near, through all that part of the Border that he had sofaithfully "kept, " the spirit wandered. A moan or sigh from it on thesafe side of the Carter Bar would scatter a party of Scottish reiversacross the moorland as no English army could have done. Any belatedhorseman riding out of the dark would take the heart out of the mostvaliant of Northumbrians because they feared that they saw "Parcy Reed. "Not always in the same form did the Keeper appear. That was the terrorof it. At times he would come gallantly cantering across the moorland ashe had done when blood ran warm in his veins. At other times he would beonly a sough in the night wind. A feeling of dread, an undefinablesomething that froze the marrow and made the blood run cold. And yet, again, he would come as a fluttering, homeless soul, whimpering andformless, with a moaning cry for Justice--Justice--Judgment on him whohad by black treachery hurried him unprepared to his end. The folk ofRedesdale bore it until they could bear it no longer. The blood of manya Hall was spilt by the men of Percival Reed's clan without giving anyease to that clamouring ghost. At last they sought the help of a"skeely" man. He was only a thatcher, but whilst he plied his trade ofcovering mortal dwellings with sufficient to withstand the blasts ofheaven, he had also studied deeply matters belonging to another sphere. "Gifted, " says his chronicler, "with words to lay it at rest, " hesummoned the ghost to his presence, and "offered it the place and formit might wish to have. "

Five miles of land did that disembodied spirit of the Keeper ofRedesdale choose for his own. As might be guessed, he fixed on the banksof the Rede, and he chose that part of it that lies between Todlawhaughand Pringlehaugh. The fox that barks from the bracken on the hillside atearly morning, the grouse that crows from the heather, the owl thathoots from the fir woods at night, to those did the ghost of PercivalReed act as keeper. By day he roosted, like a bat or a night bird, onsome tree in a lonely wood. By night he kept his special part of themarches. Still the Keeper of Redesdale was Percival Reed. Todlaw Mill, in ruins long ago, was his favourite haunt, and there, as the decentfolk of the valley went on the Sabbath to the meeting-house at BirdhopeCragg, they often saw him, a dreary sight for human eyes, patientlyawaiting his freedom. The men would uncover their heads and bow as theypassed, and the Keeper of Redesdale, courteous in the spirit as in thebody, would punctiliously return their salutations. 

Thus did the years wear on until the appointed days were fulfilled, andthe Rede Valley knew its Keeper no more. On the last day of the timefixed by him, the skeely man was thatching a cottage at the Woollaw. Suddenly he felt something touch him, as though the wing of a bird hadbrushed by. He came down the ladder on which he stood, and it seemed asthough the bird's feathers had brushed against his heart, and had comefrom a place where the cold and ice are not cold and ice as mortals knowthem, for "he was seized, " says the chronicler, "with a cold trembling. "Some power, too strong for his own skill to combat, had laid hold onhim, and shivering, still shivering, he fell into the hands of Death. 

Such was the passing of Percival Reed, Keeper of Redesdale, who tookwith him, when at length he relinquished his charge, a humble henchman, a hind of the Rede Valley. 

DANDY JIM THE PACKMAN

It was the back end of the year. The crops were all in, and but littlewas left of the harvest moon that had seen the Kirn safely won on thefarms up "Ousenam" Water. A disjaskit creature she looked as the winddrove a scud of dark cloud across her pale face, or when she peered overthe black bank below her, only to be hidden once more by an angry driftof rain. It was no night for lonely wayfarers. Oxnam and Teviot wereboth in spate, and their moan could be heard when the wind rested for alittle and allowed the fir trees to be still. Only for very shortintervals, however, did the tireless wind cease, and always, after ashort respite, the trees were attacked again, and made to beck and bowtheir dark heads like the nodding plumes of a hearse. The road fromCrailing was in places dour with mud, heavy-rutted by harvest carts, with ever and anon a great puddle that stretched across from ditch toditch. But dismal or not dismal, the night had apparently no evil effecton the spirits of the one man who was trudging his homeward way fromCrailing to Eckford. 

Dandy Jim, the packman, was a young fellow who wanted more than evilweather and a dreich, black night to depress him. A fine, upstanding ladhe was, with a glib English tongue that readily sold his wares, andwhich, along with a handsome, merry face, helped him with ease into thegood graces of those whom he familiarly knew as "the lasses. " Dandy Jimhad had many a flirtation, but now he felt that his roving days werenearly past. He was seriously thinking of matrimony. 

"She's a bonny lass, " thought he contemplatively, dwelling on the charmsof the young cook at the farmhouse he had left just past midnight, "bonny and thrifty, and as fond o' a laugh as I am mysel. That bit shopas ye come out o' Hexham, with red roses growing up the front o't, andfine-scented laylock bushes at the back, that would do us fine. .. . "

And so, safely wrapped up in happy plans and in thoughts of hisapple-cheeked lady-love, Jim manfully splashed through puddles andtramped through mud, conscience free, and fearful of nothing in earth orout of it. The graveyard at Eckford possessed no horrors for him. "Bogles, " quoth he, "what's a bogle? I threw muckle Sandy, the wrestler, at Lammas Fair, an' pity the bogle that meddles wi' me. "

But, nevertheless, Jim, glancing towards the old church with itssurrounding tombstones as he went by, saw something he did not expect, and quickly checked the defiant whistle that is, somehow, an infallibleaid to the courage of even the bravest. There was a light over thereamong the graves, a flickering light that the wind lightly tossed, andthat, somehow, did not suggest likeable things, even to Dandy Jim. Stock-still he stood for a couple of minutes watching the yellow glimmeramong the tombstones, and then, with grim suspicion in his mind, hewalked up to the churchyard gate. Nowadays we have only an occasional"watch-tower" in an old kirkyard, or a rusted iron cage over agrass-grown grave to remind us of times when human hyænas prowled abroadafter nightfall, and carried off their white, cold prey to be chafferedfor by surgeons for the dissecting-rooms. But Dandy Jim's day was theday of Burke and Hare, of Dr. Knox, and of many another murderous andscientific ghoul, and a lantern's gleam in a churchyard in the smallhours usually meant but one thing. As he expected, a gig stood at thechurchyard gate; a bony, strong-shouldered, chestnut mare tethered tothe gate-post, munching, mouth in nose-bag. In the gig was a sack, standing upright--a remarkably tall sack, five foot ten high at least, stiffly balanced against the seat. 

"Aye, aye, " said Jim to himself, "it was a six-foot coffin when theyplanted Jock the day. Him an' me was much of an age and of a height, poor lad; and here he is now, off to Edinburgh to be made mincemeatof. "

But even as he thought, he acted. The mare threw up an inquiring head asshe felt a light step in the gig, and a sudden lightening of her load. But the wind wailed round the church and the rain beat down, dimming theglass in the flickering lantern, and every now and then Jim could hear apick striking against a stone or a heavy thud as of a spadeful of dampearth being beaten down. Out of the gig came the sack, and out of thesack speedily came the packman's erstwhile acquaintance, Jock. A gap inthe hedge across the road conveniently accommodated Jock's unresistingbody, over he went into the next field, and once again the mare startedas Dandy Jim sprang into the gig with one bound and quickly struggledinto the empty sack. He was only just in time. A parting clatter ofpickaxe and thud of spade, a swing of the lantern, that sent a yellowlight athwart some grey old headstones, rough voices and hasty steps, and two men appeared, pushed their implements into the back of the gig, released the mare from her nose-bag, clambered in, one on either side ofthe upright sack, and drove off at a quick trot. 

For some time they proceeded in silence. 

"A good haul, " at last one man remarked; "a young chap--in finecondition. "

"A heavy load for the little mare, " said he who held the reins;"fifteen stone if he's a pound. Not an easy one to tackle afore he diedfor want o' breath. "

Packman Jim lurched against the speaker ere the words were well out ofhis mouth. With an oath the man shoved him back, and Jim stiffly leanedagainst the seat in as nearly the attitude of the corpse, to whom he wasacting as understudy, as he was able to assume. They had got a littlebeyond Kalefoot, and the flooded river was sending its moaning voiceabove the sough of the wind and the drip of the rain when one of the menspoke again to his companion. His voice was husky, and he spoke in a lowtone as though he feared some eavesdropper. 

"Before God, man, " he said, "I can feel the body moving. " The other, inhis voice all the horror of a dread he had been trying to hide, answeredin a shrill scream, "It's _warm_, I tell ye!--the corpse is _warm!_"

Then came Dandy Jim's opportunity. His face was white enough in theuncertain glimmer of the gig's lamps when he thrust his head out of thesack and looked first at one and then at another of his companions. In adeep and hollow voice he spoke:

"If you had been where I hae been, your body would burn too, " said he. 

A screech and a roar were, according to Dandy Jim, the result of hisremark, and on either side of the gig a man cast himself out into thedarkness, the rain, and the mud, and ran--ran--in heedless terror for anunknown sanctuary. What happened to the pair no subsequent historian hasrecorded, but when Dandy Jim shortly afterwards wed an apple-cheekedcook and took up his abode in a rose-covered cottage near Hexham, he nolonger trudged the Border roads with a pack on his back, but drove auseful gig, drawn by a very willing, strong-shouldered, chestnut mare. 

THE VAMPIRES OF BERWICK AND MELROSE

At Berwick-on-Tweed a man had died. In life he was a man of much weight, one of the wealthiest of the freemen. He did his good deeds with pomp. The devoutness of his religion was visible for every man to see, and hislook of sanctity as he went to pray was surely an example and a reproachto every rough mariner whose boat was moored in the harbour beneath thewalls. 

But when death came to him, an evil thing befell the reputation of thatholy man of means. 

Those tongues that had been tied in his lifetime began to wag. The darkpassages of his history, of the doors to which he had held the keys, were thrown open. And a horrified town discovered that their respectedfellow-citizen had been a man of foul life, guilty of many a fraud andof many a crime, and that a dog's death had been too good a death forhim. What wonder that every decent person in the town spoke of him withhorror? But the horror they had of him who had so deceived them was buta little thing when compared with the hideous dread that the impostorinspired ere he had lain for a week in his grave in Berwick. Men wholived in those days had many an evil thing to dread, for wolves, ghouls, and vampires were as terribly real to them as in our day are themicrobes of cancer, of fever, or of tuberculosis. And when a man who wasnotoriously a sinner came to his end, there was in the grave no rest forhim, nor was there peace for his fellow-men. Night after night he wassure to rise from his tomb and go a-hunting for a human prey. He suckedblood, and so drained the life of the innocent clean away. He devouredhuman flesh. He chased his victims as though he were a mad dog, sendingthem crazed by his bite, or worrying and mangling them to a dreadfuldeath. 

This citizen, then, was not likely to rest in peace, and but a night ortwo after the earth had been heaped over his grave, he was up and outand rushing through the dark streets where his decorous footsteps had sooften fallen solidly by day, so often slunk stealthily by night. 

By Satan's agency he was set free, all men averred, yet the master thathe had faithfully served did but little to pleasure him. For all thenight through, as long as darkness lasted, the dead sinner was huntedthrough the deserted streets by a pack of baying hell-hounds. Round thewalls, down by the quay, up Hyde Hill, through the Scots Gate, downlanes and byeways and back again round the walls--a weariful hunt itwas. Thankfully must the quarry have welcomed the first streaks oflight on the grey sea line, when the chase was ended and he waspermitted to rest in his coffin once more. 

Only the bravest durst venture out of doors after dusk, and the goodpeople of Berwick lay a-trembling in their beds as the hunt swept pasttheir very doors, and the blood-curdling howls of the hounds turnedtheir hearts to water within them. 

But always, in such a case, there are to be found one or two boldspirits, or one or two so heedless of what is passing around them thatthey rush into danger unawares. Such there were at Berwick-on-Tweed, andto them the hunted soul spoke as he fled past, the hell-hounds slaveringat his heels. "Until my body is burnt, " he cried, "you folk of Berwickshall have no peace!" And as they rushed for sanctuary into the nearestdwelling they fancied they could still hear the tormented wretch'sshriek, shrill above the baying of the dogs--"Burn! burn! Peace! peace!"

So the people of the town took counsel together, and having solemnlyconcluded that "were a remedy further delayed, the atmosphere, infectedand corrupted by the constant whirlings through it of the pestiferouscorpse, would engender disease and death to a great extent, " theyresolved to follow the vampire's own suggestion. Ten young men, "renowned for boldness, " were appointed to lay the Horror. They went tothe grave, dug up the corpse, cut it limb from limb, then burned ituntil a little heap of white ash was all that remained of the man ofevil life, whose shade had brought dread to all the citizens of Berwick. But their wise action must, unfortunately, have been taken too late. Very soon afterwards a great pestilence arose, and decimated the town'spopulation. "Never did it so furiously rage elsewhere, " says William, Canon of Newburgh, the learned churchman, who has chronicled for us thetale, "though it was at that time general throughout all the borders ofEngland. " According to him, the vampire had done his evil work. And asman, woman, and child were carried by night to the graves prepared forthe plague-stricken, there were those who vowed they could still hearthe distant sound of baying hounds, and above them the shrill scream ofthe man who in life had seemingly walked so godly a walk, and who hadgiven example to the rough mariners down at the quay as he daily went topray. 

Such is the story of the vampire at Berwick, and of the way in whichvaliant men laid him. But the old Canon of the Austin Friars has yetanother tale to tell of a vampire on the Border. Destruction by fire wasnot the only means of laying the unholy spirit that "walked" to the hurtof its fellow-creatures. When a suicide was buried, or when one who wasa reputed witch, warlock, or were-wolf, or who had been cursed by hisparents or by the church, was laid in the grave, it was always well totake the precaution of driving a stake through the body. Such a stake(in Russia an aspen) driven at one blow bereft the evil thing of all itspower. Only in the reign of George IV was the custom in the case ofsuicides abolished. If the precaution had not been taken at burial, inall probability when the vampire had already done some harm, the corpsewas exhumed and the ghastly ceremony gone through. And always, so it wasdeclared, the body of the vampire was found with fresh cheeks and open, staring eyes, well nourished by the blood of his victims. In suchcondition was found the vampire of Melrose, whose tale is also told byWilliam of Newburgh. 

Many a holy man has chanted the Psalms under the arches of MelroseAbbey, but the vampire priest had never lived aught but a worldly, carnal life. He held a post that suited him well, as chaplain to acertain illustrious lady whose property lay near the Eildons, and who, so long as her Mess John performed his duties as family priest, paid noheed to his mode of occupying his time when these were performed. 

The chaplain was of the type of the sporting parson of later days. Heloved the hunt. He loved a good bottle, a good horse, a good dog. "_TheHundeprest"_ was the name he went by. Other things he also loved thatmade not for sanctity, and when, at last, he died, his death was no moreholy than his selfish, sensual life had been. No protecting aspen stakehad been driven through his body, and so when he was laid to rest underthe shadow of the monastery, for him rest there was none. The holybrothers inside the walls protected themselves from him, when he camea-wandering, by vigils and by prayers. The lady whose chaplain he hadbeen was less well protected, and when, night after night, her sleep wasbroken by horrible groans and murmurings from a thing that always seemedjust without her room, and almost about to enter, she became nearlyfrantic. She came to Melrose, and with tears besought the holy fathers, who owed much to her bounty, to wrestle for her in prayer and drive thisevil thing away. The monks of Melrose did for her what they could. Notonly did they pray, but two stout-hearted friars and two powerful younglaymen all well armed were appointed to guard the grave of the lady'slate chaplain, and to go on duty that very night. 

It was chill autumn, and as they paced the damp grass of the graveyardthere was a smell of dead leaves in the air, and a grey mist crept upfrom the Tweed that moaned as it bore its flooded waters to the sea. When midnight came they expected to see the Hundeprest, but midnightpassed in safety, and in "the wee, sma' hours" the two laymen and one ofthe monks went into the nearest cottage to warm their icy feet. Now camethe chance of the vampire. With "a terrible noise" the Hundeprestsuddenly appeared, a thing of horror, and rushed at the monk who wasslowly pacing towards the grave. The holy man bravely stood the charge, and, as the monster was almost touching him, he swung the axe which hecarried, and drove it with all his might into the body of his diabolicadversary. With a groan, the vampire turned and fled away, and thefriar, the tables turned, ran in pursuit until the grave of theHundeprest was reached, and the horror vanished. 

Nothing of the encounter was to be seen when the other three watchersreturned, but grey dawn was near, and at the first sign of light thefour men, with pick-axe and spade, opened up the grave. Even as they dugtheir spades turned up mingled blood and clay, and when they came to thecorpse of the Hundeprest, they found it fresh as on the day he died, butwith a terrible wound in the body, from which the blood still oozedaway. 

With horror they bore it out of sight of the monastery of which he hadbeen so unworthy a brother. A cleansing fire burned it to ashes, and ashrewd, clean wind that blew from over the Lammermoors swept away alltrace of the accursed thing. No pestilence came to Melrose. Perchance inthe twelfth century it was by prayer and fasting that the holy men wonthe day. 

A BORDER MIDDY

One blustering February evening towards the close of the eighteenthcentury there sat in a back room in a little inn at Portsmouth threemidshipmen, forlorn-looking and depressed to a degree quite at variancewith the commonly accepted idea of the normal mental condition ofmidshipmen. It was a room, not in the famous "Blue Posts"--that hostelrybeloved by lads of their rank in the service--but in a smaller, meaner, less frequented house in a very different quarter of the town, a quarternone too savoury, if the truth were told. 

Why they had betaken themselves to this particular tavern in preferenceto that generally used by them, who can say. Perhaps--as Peter Simple'scoachman remarked on that occasion when Peter first made acquaintancewith Portsmouth--perhaps it was because they had too often "forgotten topay for their breakfastesses" at the "Blue Posts, " and had not thewherewithal to pay up arrears. In any case, here they were, and, midshipman-like, during their stay they had recklessly run up a largerbill than they had means to settle. There was no possibility offollowing the course recommended by the drunken sailor, namely, to "cutand run, " for the landlady of the inn was much too astute a personage tomake that a possibility, and she had too little faith in human naturegenerally, and in that of midshipmen in particular, to let her consentto wait for her money till time and the end of their cruise againbrought their frigate back to Portsmouth. Pay they _must_, by some meansor other, for already the Blue Peter was flying at the fore and the_Sirius_ would sail at daylight. If she sailed without them it was veryplain that there was an end of their career in the Navy--they would be"broke. " Small wonder that the three middies were in the last stage ofgloom. Their entire possessions, money and clothes, could not cover onehalf of what they owed, and every compromise had been rejected by theobdurate landlady. Appeal to their friends was useless, for time did notadmit of an answer being received before the ship sailed. And escape washopeless, for the one window that the room possessed was heavily barred, the door carefully locked, and the key kept in the capacious pocket ofthe landlady. 

It was the very deuce of a situation--the devil to pay and no pitch hot. Again and again as the evening wore on they discussed possibilities;again and again the same conclusion was arrived at. Hope was dead. Nodoubt in the end their friends might pay up, but they groaned as thecertainty forced itself on them that their career at sea was as good asover. If only they had been entitled to any prize-money! Butprize-money there was none, and the few guineas each had had from homehad long been idly squandered. 

"We're done, my boys; we're done! Oh, Lord, what swabs we have been!"cried the senior of the three with a groan, laying his head on thetable. 

"Oh, never say die!" said another, a cheery-faced, ruddy lad with anoticeable Scottish accent. "I've been in as tight a hole before and gotout of it all right. We've a few hours yet to come and go on. Something's pretty sure to turn up. "

As he spoke the key was put in the door, and in came the landlady. 

"Well! wot's it goin' to be? Am I to get that there money you owes me, or am I not? You ain't got much time for shilly-shallyin', I can tellyou, young gentlemen. An' paid I'm agoin' to be, one way or other. "

She was a big-boned, florid, dark-eyed woman, well over thirty, somewhatinclined to be down-at-heel and slatternly, though not yet quitedestitute of some small share of good looks; a woman solid of step andunattractive to the eye of youth; moreover, as they knew from recentexperience, possessed of a rasping tongue. 

"None o' ye got anything to say? Well, then, I'll tell you what I'mready to do and let you go. One of you shall marry me! I don't care twostraws which of you it is. But if you three're to get aboard your shipafore she sails, one of you's got to come with me to the parson thisnight an' be spliced. Take it or leave it; them's my terms. For the goodo' my business I must 'ave a 'usband, now my old dad's gone aloft. Whether he's on the spot or not I don't care not the value of a reefer'sbutton, so long as I can show my 'lines. ' I'll give you 'alf an hour tomake up your minds an' settle atween you who's goin' to be the luckyone. "

And with that she left the room, again carefully locking the door andtaking away the key. 

Truly were they now between the devil and the deep sea. And no amount ofdiscussion improved the prospect. 

"We _can't_ do it, you know, " piteously cried one. "I'll see her shotfirst. "

"Blest if I see any other way out of it, " said another. 

"And she's pretty old. She _might_ perhaps die before we came back, mightn't she?" hopefully ventured the third. 

"Oh, stow that! She's not more than forty, and she's likely to live aslong as any of us. "

"Well, if you won't allow that _she's_ likely to oblige us by leavingthis world, at anyrate you'll admit that there's always a goodish chancethat the husband-elect may run up against a French cannonball and getout of the scrape _that_ way. Anyhow, we've come to the end of ourtether. The alternative's ruin. It's pretty black to windward, whicheverway you look at it, but one way spells ruin for the lot of us; theother, at the worst, means disaster for only one. I vote we draw lots, and the man who draws the shortest lot wins--er . .. At least he marriesthe lady, " said the cheery-faced boy, with rather a rueful laugh. 

"You'll laugh perhaps on the wrong side of your face before all's done. But, all right. If we must, we must. You make ready the lots, Watty, andI'll take first draw. Only, I think if the bad luck's mine, I'll slipover the side some middle watch, " said the senior middy miserably. 

With haggard young faces two drew, leaving the third lot to the Scottishboy. 

"Thank Heaven!" cried the first, wiping his brow as he saw that his, atleast, was not a short lot. "It's yours, Watty, old boy, " he said to themiddy from north of the Tweed. 

"My God! what will my dear old mother say?" groaned the poor boy, withface grey as his own Border hills in a November drizzle. "Promise me, onyour honour, both of you, to keep this miserable business a dead secretfor ever. .. . Well, I've got to face it. Bring the woman in, and let'shave it over and get aboard. "

Watty Scott was a scion of a good Scottish Border family, a youthcareless and harum-scarum as the most typical of middies, but agentleman, and popular alike with officers and men. He was abouteighteen, had already distinguished himself in more than one brush withthe enemy, and was looked on as a most promising officer. But now. .. !

 "Oh, little did my mother ken, The day she cradled me, "

(might he have wailed), in what dire scrape the recklessness inherent inher boy would land him. 

"I _thought_ you'd take my terms, " said the landlady, when she came intothe room. "Faith! an' I've got the pick o' the basket! Well, come along, my joker; we'll be off to the parson. But you'll take my arm all theway, d'ye see!--as is right an' nat'ral for bride and bridegroom. Youain't agoin' to give _me_ the slip afore the knot's tied, I can tellyou. Not if _I_ knows it, young man. "

Broken clergymen, broken by drink or what not, ready to go throughanything for a consideration, were never hard to find in those days in atown such as Portsmouth, and all too soon the ceremony, binding enough, so far as Watty could see, was over. Then the new-made wife insisted, before the three lads left her, that she should stand them a gooddinner, and as much wine as they cared to drink to the health of brideand bridegroom. 

"An' now, " she said to her husband ere the youngsters departed, "I aintagoin' to send my man to sea with empty pockets. Put _that_ in yourpurse!"

But Watty would have none of the five guineas she tried to force on him. 

"Well, I think none the worse of you for that, " she cried. "Come, giveus a kiss, at anyrate. " And with a shudder Watty Scott saluted hisbride. 

Never did the grey waters of the English Channel look more cheerlessthan they appeared to one unhappy midshipman of H. M. S. _Sirius_ nextmorning, as the frigate beat down channel in the teeth of a strongwesterly breeze; never before had life seemed to him a thing purposelessand void of hope. "To have and to hold from this day forward, for betterfor worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love andto cherish, till death us do part. " The words rang in his ears still, with a solemnity that even the red-nosed, snuffy, broken-down parson whohiccuped through the service had not been able to kill. But, God! theirony of the thing--the ghastly mockery! _To love and to cherish tilldeath us do part_! Verily, the iron entered into his soul; day and nightthe hideous burden crushed him. The castles in the air that, boylike, hehad builded were crumbled into dust. Was _this_ the end of all hisdreams? Well, at least there was that friendly cannon-ball to be prayedfor, or a French cutlass or pike in some boat expedition, if the Fateswere kind. 

The frigate's orders were--Halifax with despatches; thereafter, theWest India Station for an indefinite time. Six or eight weeks atHalifax, varied by some knocking about off the Nova Scotia coast, didnot tend to relax Watty's depression, but rather the contrary. For justbefore the frigate took her departure from those latitudes a latelyreceived Portsmouth journal which reached the midshipmen's berth hadrecorded the arrest on a serious charge of, amongst others, a womangiving her name as "Mrs. Walter Scott, licensee of the Goat's HeadTavern, Portsmouth. " Now the Goat's Head Tavern was that little innwhere in an evil moment the three lads had taken up their abode beforethe sailing of the _Sirius_, and to Watty it appeared as if his disgracemust now be spread abroad by the four winds of heaven. 

It was mental relief to get away out to sea, and to feel that now atleast there was again some probability of the excitement of an action. To Bermuda, thence to Jamaica, were the orders; and surely in no part ofthe world was a ship of war more certain of active employment. Thosewere days removed by no great number of years from Rodney's famousvictory over de Grasse, and not yet had we completed the reduction ofthe French West India Islands; the greatest glutton of fighting couldscarce fail to have his fill. 

One night, after the frigate had left Bermuda, it had come on to blowdesperately hard from the north-west, and with every hour the galeincreased, till at length--when sail after sail, thundering andthreshing, had come in--the ship lay almost under bare poles, strainingin every timber and nosing her weather bow into the mountainous seasthat swept by at intervals, ere they roared away into the murk toleeward. 

It was the middle watch, and Watty had been standing for some timeholding on by the lee mizzen rigging, peering eagerly into the darkness. 

"I've thought two or three times, sir, that I can see something toleeward of us, " he reported to the officer of the watch. 

And presently the "something"--a mere patch of denser black in adarkness emphasized more than relieved by the grey-white crests ofbreaking seas--resolved itself into a large vessel, which as day brokewas seen to be a frigate, like themselves under the shortest of canvas, and with all possible top-hamper down on deck. Pitching and rollingheavily, she lay; sometimes, as a sea struck her, half buried in agrey-green mountain of foam and flying spray that left her spoutingcascades of water from her scuppers; one moment, as she rose, heavingher fore-foot clean out of the water, showing the glint of the copper onher bottom; the next, plunging wildly down, till some mighty billow, roaring aloft between the vessels, hid each from the other's ken aseffectually as if the ocean had swallowed them. 

The stranger had hoisted French colours, and the _Sirius_ beat toquarters. But as far as possibility of engaging was concerned, the shipsmight have been a hundred leagues apart: the sea ran far too high. Andso there all day they lay, impotent to harm each other. 

When grey dawn came on the second morning, bringing with it weather moremoderate, the French frigate was seen under easy sail far to leeward, evidently repairing damage aloft, and, in spite of every effort on thepart of the _Sirius_, it was late afternoon ere the first shot wasfired. 

Darkness had begun to fall as the French ship struck her colours after abloody action in which her losses mounted to over one hundred men, including her captain and several officers. In less degree the _Sirius_suffered; and of those who fell, Watty was one. Early in the engagementhe was carried below, badly torn by a severe and dangerous splinterwound in the head. 

"There goes poor Watty--out of his trouble, anyhow, " cried one of thethree friends. 

Thereafter, the life in him hovered long 'twixt this world and the next, and weeks passed ere, in the house of a friend at Kingston, Jamaica, hecame once more to his full senses. Even then his progress was butdilatory. 

"I can't make the boy out, " said his doctor. "He _ought_ to get wellnow. Yet he doesn't. Doesn't seem to make an effort, somehow. If he wasa bit older you'd think he didn't _want_ to live. It's not natural. Ifhe were to get any little complication now, he'd go. "

And so the listless weeks dragged on, and it was but a ghost of the oncemerry boy that each morning crept wearily and with infinite labour fromhis room to the wide, pleasant verandah. And there he would pass hisdays, vacantly listening with dull ears to the cool sea-breezewhispering through the trees, or brooding over his misery. Sometimes, inhis weak state, tears of self-pity would roll unheeded down his cheeks;he pined for the heather of his native hills, for the murmur of Tweedand Teviot, and for the faces of his own people. Never again could thehappiness be his to live once more in the dearly loved Border land; forhow could he face home when that terrible fate awaited his landing atPortsmouth. "Oh! _why_ had he been guilty of folly so great? Why had hethus made a shipwreck of life's voyage almost at its very outset?"

Yet at last there came a morning when the cloud of depression began tolift from his mind. An English packet had arrived, bearing despatchesfor the Admiral, and, as Watty languidly turned the pages of a lateSteel's List, ambition once more awoke on finding his name amongst thepromotions. Braced in mind, and roused from his apathy by thisunlooked-for good fortune, he turned to other papers brought out by thepacket, and waded steadily through the news sheets. There was little atfirst that interested him. But presently, as he picked up a littlePortsmouth journal, a paragraph that caught his eye fetched from him ashout that roused the house and brought his host flying to the verandah. 

"What the deuce ails you? Confound it, the boy's off his head again!" hecried. 

"Heaven be thanked! My wife's hanged!" shouted Watty. 

"Oh! mad as a March hare!" fussed his host, running into the house. "Mad, sure enough. Must send off a boy for the doctor. "

But Watty's news was true. The paragraph which had caught his eye as hepicked up the Portsmouth paper was, in effect, the continuation andconclusion of that other announcement which he had seen at Halifax, andwas indeed an account of the execution for robbery and murder of certainpersons, amongst whom, as "accessory before the fact, " was the landladyof the "Goat's Head" Tavern. 

It is uncertain if Lieutenant Walter Scott ever returned to settle inthe Border; but he was a cousin of Sir Walter, who gave to Captain BasilHall, R. N. , some outline of such a story as is here told. 

SHEEP-STEALING IN TWEEDDALE

 "The cattle thereof shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves. " (Josh. Viii. 2. )

 "The men are shepherds, for their trade hath been to feed cattle. " (Gen. Xlvi. 32. )

In days even earlier than those of the early Israelites, to a certainclass of persons the flocks and herds of a neighbour have been anirresistible temptation. The inhabitants of few, if indeed of any, landshave been quite free from the tendency to "lift" their neighbour'slive-stock (though probably it has not been given to many, in timeseither ancient or modern, to emulate the record in "cattle duffing" ofAustralia and Western America). In the Scottish Border in the days ofour not very remote forefathers, to take toll of the Southron's herdswas esteemed almost more a virtue than a vice, and though times hadchanged, even so recently as a couple of centuries back it may haveseemed to some no very great crime to misappropriate a neighbour'ssheep. March dykes or boundary fences were then things unknown; the"sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill. "What, therefore, so natural as that the flocks should in time drawtogether and blend; what so easy for a man, dishonestly inclined, as toalter his neighbour's brand and ear-mark, hurry off to some distantmarket, and there sell a score or two of sheep to which he had no title?The penalty on conviction, no doubt, was heavy--at the least, inScotland, flogging at the hands of the common hangman, or banishment tothe Plantations; but more commonly death. The fear of punishment, however, has never yet put an end to any particular form of crime, andhere detection was improbable if the thief were but clever. He might beaided, too, by a clever dog, for "some will hund their dowg whar theydarna gang themsel', " and a really clever dog may be taught almostanything short of speaking. 

In the year 1762 men's minds, in the upper reaches of the Tweed, beganto be sore perplexed by an unaccountable leakage in the numbers of theirsheep. Normal losses did not greatly disturb them; to a certainpercentage of loss from the "loupin' ill, " from snowstorm, from chillywet weather during lambing, they were resigned. But the losses that nowdisquieted them were quite abnormal. It was not as if the sheep wereperishing on the hillside; then at least their skins would have beenbrought in, and the element of mystery would not have agitated the mindsof owners. But here were sheep constantly vanishing in large numberswithout leaving even a trace of themselves. Something must be very farwrong somewhere. They were angry men, the Peeblesshire hill farmers, that summer of 1762, angry and sore puzzled, for up Manor Water and theLeithen, by Glensax Burn and the Quair, and over the hills intoSelkirkshire, the tale was ever the same, sheep gone, and never a traceof them to be found. 

In Newby was a tenant, William Gibson, whose losses had beenparticularly severe, and, not unnaturally, Gibson was in a veryirritable frame of mind; so upset, indeed, was he that, before the facesof the men, he blurted out on one occasion the statement that in hisopinion these continued losses were due chiefly to carelessness orignorance of their work, if not to something even worse, on the part ofthe shepherds. Now, to throw doubt on their knowledge or skill was badenough, but any insinuation as to their honesty was like rubbing salt onopen wounds. It touched them on the raw, even though no directaccusation had been made, for a finer, more capable, careful, and honestclass of men than the Border shepherd has never existed anywhere. Deep, therefore, was their anger, wrathful the mutterings that accompaniedthem in their long tramps over the windy hills; it would have gone illwith any one detected in possession of so much as a lamb's tail to whichhe might fail to establish his legal right. 

Eyes sharpened by resentment were continually on the watch, yet thelosses continued, now less, now more, but always a steady percentage, and it seemed beyond mortal power to guess how and when these lossesoccurred. But at last it chanced one day that Gibson, for some purpose, had mustered his ewes and lambs, and as the men went about their work, one of the older shepherds, Hyslop by name, halted abruptly as a lambran up to a certain ewe, and suckled. 

"Dod!" cried Hyslop, "thon's auld Maggie an' her lamb!"

Now "Maggie" was a black-faced ewe, so peculiarly speckled about theface that no one, least of all a Border shepherd, could possibly makeany mistake as to her identity. She had been missing for some days, andwas given up as lost for good and all. Yet here she was suckling herlamb as if she had never been away. 

Something prompted Hyslop to catch the ewe. Then he whistled long andlow, and swore beneath his breath. 

"Hey!" he cried to Gibson. "What d'ye think o' that?"

"God! It canna be, " muttered Gibson. 

And:

"Aye! _That's_ gey queer like!" chorused the other shepherds. 

What had caught the quick eye of old Hyslop was a fresh brand, or"buist, " on the ewe's nose; the letter "O" was newly burned there, nearly obliterating an old letter "T. " The latter was Mr. Gibson'sfire-brand; "O" that of his not distant neighbour, Murdison, tenant inOrmiston. Gibson and Murdison were on friendly terms, and both werehighly respectable and respected farmers. Necessarily, this discoveryanent the brands was most disturbing, and could not fail to be difficultof satisfactory explanation. Gibson did not wish to act hastily, but allhis private investigations pointed only to the one conclusion, and therewas no room for doubt that the ewe had been seen by shepherds on otherfarms making her way across the lofty hills that lie between Newby andWormiston, as the latter place was locally called. Still, he hesitatedto act in so ugly looking an affair, and it was only after long andpainful consultation with a neighbour, himself of late a heavy loser, that Gibson went to Peebles in order to get the authority necessary toenable him to inspect the flocks on Ormiston. 

With heavy heart, Gibson, accompanied by Telfer, a well-known Peeblesofficer of the law, trudged out to Ormiston. As they neared thefarm-house a shepherd, leaning against an outbuilding, turned with astart at sight of them, slipped suddenly round a corner of the outhouse, and presently was seen, bent nearly double, in hot haste running for afield of standing corn. 

"Aye! yon's John Millar awa'. I'm feared things looks bad, " mutteredGibson to his companion as they approached the door of the farm-house. "You keep ahint in the onstead, John Telfer, and I'll get Murdison tocome oot. We'll never can tell him afore his wife. "

"Wulliam Gibson! Hoo are ye? Man, this is a sicht for sair een, " criedMurdison heartily to his visitor. "Come awa' in ben, and hae a glass. "

A greeting so friendly brought a lump into Gibson's throat that he foundit hard to swallow. 

"Na, I canna come in, " he answered in a low voice; "John Telfer's ahintthe onstead, wantin' to speak to ye. "

"John Telfer! what can _he_ want wi' me?" cried Murdison, going grey inthe face. "Oh, aye! In one minute, " he said, hastily stepping back intothe kitchen and whispering a few words to his wife. Gibson did not hearthe words, but his heart sank like lead as he noticed Mrs. Murdisonfling herself into a chair, bury her face in her hands, and wail, "OhGod! my heart will break. "

"Alexander Murdison, I hae a warrant here, and I maun hae a bit look ata wheen o' your sheep, " said the officer of the law when Murdison camewith Gibson into the Steading. 

Quite enough was soon seen to make it necessary for Murdison and Millar, his shepherd, to be taken to Peebles, where bail was refused. The casecame on a few months later, in Edinburgh, before Lord Braxfield, and itcreated intense interest, not only throughout the Border but amongst theentire legal faculty. It was proved that thirty-three score of sheepwere found on Ormiston bearing Murdison's buist branded over, and, asfar as possible, obliterating, the known buists of other farms. None ofthese sheep had been sold to the prisoners. Many of the animals wereknown, and were sworn to, by the shepherds on sundry farms, in spite ofbrands and ear-marks having been altered with some skill. It was provedalso that Murdison had sold to farmers at a distance many scores ofsheep on which the brands and ear-marks had been "faked. " Evidence inthe case closed at 5 P. M. On a Saturday, the second day of the trial;speeches of the counsel and the judge's summing up occupied until 11P. M. Of that day; and the jury sat till 5 o'clock on Sunday morning, when they brought in a verdict, by a majority, against Murdison, and anunanimous verdict against Millar, his shepherd. Both prisoners weresentenced to death, and though an appeal was made on various grounds, the sentences were eventually carried out. 

Whilst he lay in prison under sentence Millar confessed the whole affairto a friend, and the story, as told by the shepherd, possessed some verycurious features. He and his master, Murdison, had jointly conceived ascheme by means of which it seemed possible to defraud their neighboursalmost with impunity. And, indeed, but for some mischance against whichno one could guard, such as happened here when the ewe made back to herold home and her lamb, they might have gone undetected and unsuspectedfor an indefinite time. The shepherd owned an extraordinarily cleverdog, without whose help the scheme could not possibly have been worked, and operations were carried out in the following manner. 

Murdison knew very well what sheep his neighbours possessed, and whereon the hills they were likely to be running. Millar, with his dog"Yarrow, " was sent by night to collect the sheep which master and manhad determined to steal, and to one so familiar with the hills this wasno difficult task. The chief danger was that in the short nights of aScottish summer he might be seen going or returning. Therefore, whendaylight began to appear, if the sheep had already been got well ontheir way towards Ormiston, Millar would leave "Yarrow" to finish thedrive single-handed, a task which the dog always carried out mostsuccessfully if it could be done reasonably early, before people beganto move abroad out of their houses. But as soon as the dog caught sightof strangers he would at once leave the sheep and run home by acircuitous route. One such instance Millar particularly mentioned. 

He had collected a lot of old ewes one night, but had utterly failed, even with "Yarrow's" help, to get them down a steep hill and acrossTweed in the dark. Accordingly, as usual when day broke, he left theewes in charge of the dog, and by low-lying ways, where he would belittle likely to attract attention, he betook himself home. From a spotat some distance Millar looked back and for a time watched "Yarrow, " indead silence, but with marvellous energy, trying to bustle the ewes intothe river. Time and again he would get them to the edge of the pool andattempt to "rush" them in; time and again he failed, and the ewes brokeback--for of all created creatures no breathing thing is so obstinate asan old ewe. Finally, the dog succeeded in forcing two into the water, but no power on earth could drive the others farther than the brink, andthe only result was that by their presence they effectually preventedthose already in the water from leaving it, and in the end the two weredrowned. At last "Yarrow" seemed to realise that he was beaten, and thatto persevere farther would be dangerous, and he left the ewes andstarted for home. The sheep were seen later that day making their wayhome, all raddled with new keel with which Millar had marked them in asmall "stell" which he had passed when the ewes were first collected. 

"Faking" the brands, Millar confessed, used to be done by him and hismaster on a Sunday, in the vault of a neighbouring old peel tower, andat a time when everyone else was at church. It was easy enough, withoutexciting suspicion, to run the sheep into the yards on a Saturday night, and thence to the vaults, and no one would ever see the work ofaltering the buists going on, for "Yarrow" sat outside, and always, bybarking, gave timely notice of the approach of any undesirable person. 

The report was current in the country after the executions that the dogwas hanged at the same time as his master, a rumour probably originatedby the hawking about Edinburgh streets of a broadside, entitled the"Last Dying Speech and Confession of the Dog Yarrow. " In reality"Yarrow" was sold to a farmer in the neighbourhood of Peebles, but, strange to say, though as a thief he had been so supernaturally clever, as a dog employed in honest pursuits his intelligence was much below theaverage. Perhaps he was clever enough to be wilfully stupid; or maybe hehad become so used to following crooked paths that the straight roadseemed to him a place full of suspicion and dread. 

In his _Shepherd's Calendar_ Hogg tells several tales of dogs owned bysheep-stealers, to which he says he cannot attach credit "withoutbelieving the animals to have been devils incarnate, come to the earthfor the destruction of both the souls and bodies of men. " And certainlythere was something uncanny, something almost devilish and malevolent, in the persistency with which they lured their masters on to crime. Oneyoung shepherd, for instance, after long strivings succumbed to thetemptation to steal sheep from a far-distant farm, where at one time hehad been employed. Mounted on a pony, and accompanied by a dog, theyoung man arrived at the far-off hill one moon-lit night, mustered thesheep he meant to steal, and started to drive them towards Edinburgh. Then, before even he had got them off the farm, conscience awoke--or wasit fear of the consequences?--and he called off his dog, letting thesheep return to the hill. Congratulating himself on being well out of anugly business, he had ridden on his homeward way a matter of three mileswhen again and again there came over him an eerie feeling that he wasbeing followed, though when he looked back nothing was to be seen butdim moor and hill sleeping in the moonlight. Yet again and again itreturned, that strange feeling, and with it now something like thewhispering of innumerable little feet brushing through bent and heather. Then came a distant rushing sound and the panting as of an animal sorespent, and hard on the shepherd's tracks there appeared over a knoll anoverdriven mob of sheep flying before the silent, demoniacal, tirelessenergy of his own dog. He had never noticed that the animal had lefthim, but now, having once more turned the sheep towards their home, andseverely chid his dog, he resolved that it should not again have thechance to play him such a trick. For a mile all went well, then suddenlythe beast was gone. Dawn was breaking; he dared not stop where he was, nor dared to return to meet the dog. All that he could do was to take aroute he was certain his dog did not know, and so would be sure not tofollow, and thus he might abandon the animal to its own devices, hopingthat he himself might not be compromised. For in his own mind he wasvery sure that the dog had once more gone back to collect the sheep. Bya circuitous route which he had never followed before, going in at leastone instance through a gate, which he securely fastened behind him, theshepherd at length reached a farm-house, where, as it chanced, both hissister and his sweetheart were in service. Here he breakfasted, andremained some time, and still there was no sign of the dog. All was nodoubt well; after all, the beast must have somehow missed him in thenight and had gone home; after the punishment he had received he wouldnever have gone back again for the sheep. So, comparatively light ofheart, the shepherd was just about to start on his journey, when upthere came to him a man:

"Ye'll hae missed your dowg, I'm thinking? But ye needna' fash; he'swaitin' for ye doon by the Crooked Yett, wi' a' your yowes safe enough. "

It was useless after this. The wretched man gave in; he struggled nomore, but actually went off with the sheep and sold them. And thegallows ended his career. But how the dog followed him is a mystery, andwhy he waited for him at the "Crooked Yett. " For miles he must havetracked him by the scent of the feet of the pony the shepherd rode. Buthe never came within sight of the farm-house, and how did he know towait at the gate?

Instances of depravity amongst animals are not altogether unknown, though they are rare. A case is mentioned in _Blackwood's Magazine_ ofOctober 1817, where a lady walking along a London street had her bagsnatched from her by a drover's dog. The animal, apparently without anymaster, was noticed lying, seemingly asleep, by the pavement-side, buton the approach of the lady it sprang suddenly up, snatched from herhand what is described as her "ridicule, " and made off at full gallop. On inquiry it was ascertained that the dog was well known as a thief, and that his habit was to lie in the street, apparently taking no noticeof passers-by until a lady with a bag, or some poor woman carrying abundle, came by, when he would jump up, snatch the bag or bundle fromits bearer's hand, and make off, no doubt to join a master who waited insecurity whilst his dog stole for him. On the special occasion herementioned the lady lost with her bag one sovereign, eighteen shillingsin silver, a pair of spectacles, and various papers and small articles. 

There is also on record the case of a good-looking spaniel which wasbought in London from a dog-fancier by a wealthy young man. The newowner soon observed that, when out with the dog, if he entered a shopthe animal invariably remained outside for a time, and that, when atlast he did follow his master, the presence of the latter waspersistently ignored, nor would the spaniel take any notice when hismaster left the shop, but continued unconcernedly to sniff about; orelse he would lie down and seem to fall asleep. Invariably after thisthe animal would turn up at home, carrying in his mouth a pair ofgloves, or some other article which his master had happened to handlewhilst in the shop. By going to establishments where he was known, andgiving notice of what he expected to happen, the owner of the dog wasenabled to try a series of experiments, and he found that the spanielwould sometimes remain quietly in a shop for hours until the doorchanced to be left open, when, if no one appeared to be watching him, hewould jump up on the counter, seize some article, bolt with it down thestreet, and make his way home. 

There was also known to the writer, some years ago, a big, honest-looking, clever mongrel, which was taken by his master to India. "Sandy" became quite a regimental pet, but, though friendly with thewhole regiment, he clung throughout faithfully to his master. He was abig, heavy dog, with a good deal of the bull in him, and more than asuspicion of collie. The combination of these two breeds made him anexceptionally formidable fighter. Nothing could flurry him, and hisgreat weight and powerful jaw gained him an easy victory over anythinghe ever met, even when tackled one dark night by a young panther. Unfortunately he developed a passion for killing everything that walkedon four legs--short of a horse or an elephant--and of domestic pets andof poultry he took heavy toll. Nothing could break him of thispropensity; he would take any punishment quite placidly, and thenstraightway repeat the offence at the first opportunity. And hedeveloped also a curious habit of tracking his master when he dined out. No matter how "Sandy" was fastened up in barracks, before the meal washalf over in the bungalow where his master happened to be dining, inwould march the dog, quite calm and apparently at home, and would makewilling friends with everyone at table, except with his master, whom hewould steadily ignore throughout the evening. Though "Sandy" was veryfar from being a lady's dog, and though at ordinary times he would takesmall notice of ladies, yet now he would most gently and affectionatelysubmit to be caressed and fondled by all the ladies at table, and wouldapparently in reality be the "sweet, " good-natured "pet" they styledhim; yet too well his master knew from bitter experience that alreadythat evening had Death, in the shape of "Sandy, " stalked heavy-footedamongst the domestic pets and poultry of that bungalow. And morningalways revealed a formidable list of dead. "Sandy's" bite was sure; heleft no wounded on the field of his labours. 

A PRIVATE OF THE KING'S OWN SCOTTISH BORDERERS

As the evening closed in, the heavy south-westerly gale that had ragedthroughout the long-drawn summer's day gradually dropped, and blew nowonly in fitful gusts. Instead of the sullen, unending roar of artillery, which till past mid-day had stunned the ear, there was now to be heardonly the muttering of distant thunder; the flash of guns was replaced bythe glare of lightning flickering against the dark background of heavycloud that hung low on the horizon; and, except for an irregularsplutter of musketry, or an occasional dropping shot from direction ofthe town, the ominous, sustained rattle of small-arms had now entirelyceased. 

The night of the 31st July 1759 had seen the French army march outbeyond the ramparts of Minden, to take up position against the AlliedForces under Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick. So fiercely blew the gale thenthat it drowned the sound of the town clocks striking midnight; sofuriously raged the storm with the coming of day that, to windward, eventhe roar of cannon could not be heard, and it was only the dense cloudsof smoke that told they were engaged. 

As day broke on the 1st of August the French, under a heavy artilleryfire, had attacked with fury, but now, repulsed and broken at everypoint, they were driven back to their old position behind the townramparts, where for a few hours longer they staved off surrender. 

On the Allied right, where fighting had been hottest and most stubborn, the chief brunt of the action fell on six regiments of British infantry, supported by three battalions of Hanoverians. Never have troops of anynation reaped greater glory, nor earned more lasting fame, than that dayfell to the lot of those battalions. 

In the first line were the 12th, 37th, and 23rd Regiments; in the secondline, the 20th, 51st, and 25th, the latter that famous regiment raisedin Scotland in the year 1688 by the Earl of Leven, and then called"Leven's" or the Edinburgh Regiment. At Minden it fought as Sempil'sRegiment, later it was known as the King's Own Borderers, and now it isfamiliar to all as the King's Own Scottish Borderers. Entirelyunsupported, these two lines of scarlet-clad men marched steadilyagainst a mass of cavalry, the flower of the French army. Without haste, without even a sign of hesitation or of wavering, over ground swept bythe fire of more than sixty cannon, they moved--a fire that ploughedthrough their ranks and mowed down men as the hurricane blast smites tothe earth trees in a forest of pines. Not till the threateningsquadrons of horse began to get into motion did these British regimentshalt, and then, pausing coolly till the galloping ranks were all butwithin striking distance, they fired a volley so withering that men andhorses fell in swathes, while the survivors reeled in confusion back ontheir supports. Never before had volley so crushing been fired byBritish troops. Up to that day, musketry had seldom been blasting ineffect; firelocks then in use were singularly clumsy weapons, noted foranything but accuracy, and, to add to their inefficiency, it was not thepractice to bring the cumbersome piece to the shoulder, and thus to takeaim, but rather, the method was to raise the firelock breast high andtrust to chance that an enemy might be in the line of fire. Now all waschanged. During the Peace troops had been taught to aim from theshoulder, and Minden showed the effect. 

In spite of their losses, however, the French horse rallied and cameagain to the attack, this time supported by four brigades of infantryand thirty-two guns. "For a moment the lines of scarlet seemed to waverunder the triple attack; but, recovering themselves, they closed uptheir ranks and met the charging squadrons with a storm of musketrywhich blasted them off the field, then turning with equal fiercenessupon the French infantry, they beat them back with terrible loss. "[2]

[2: Fortescue, _History of the Army_. ]

Yet again the enemy came on; squadrons that up to now had notencountered those terrible islanders, thundered down upon them, undaunted. Through the first line this time the horsemen burst theirway, and surely now they must carry all before them. But no farther wentthe measure of their success; the second line shattered them tofragments, and all was over. Back behind the ramparts fell the French, crushed and dispirited, for nothing now remained to them but surrender. And for this great victory Prince Ferdinand's thanks were chieflybestowed on those British regiments whose magnificent valour andsteadiness had alone made it possible. 

But the British cavalry, under Lord George Sackville, did not come infor equal commendation. Lord George and the Prince had long been atdaggers drawn. Hence, probably, it may have been, that when the Frenchwere broken and in full flight, and Prince Ferdinand's repeated ordersto bring up his cavalry reached Lord George, that officer ignored orwilfully disobeyed them. The Marquis of Granby, Lord George's second incommand, had already begun to move forward with the Blues, and behindwere the Scots Greys and other famous regiments, thirsting to be at thethroats of the French. But Lord George Sackville's peremptory ordersbrought them to a grudging and reluctant halt. Thus, throughout anengagement which brought honour so great to their countrymen, theBritish cavalry stood idle in the rear, chafing at their inaction andopenly murmuring. 

And now that all chance of further fighting was over for the day, parties of the men, irritated and bent on picking a quarrel, had strayedfrom their own lines, and made their way over to the bivouacs of theBritish infantry regiments, where already camp fires were twinkling, andthe men around them slaking with wine throats parched by long hours ofmarching and fighting. 

Those were days when, after a victory, discipline went to the wall andwas practically non-existent; they were days when the bodies of thosewho were killed in action were robbed, almost as they fell--nay, wheneven the wounded, as they lay helpless, were stripped naked by their owncomrades and left to perish on the field (though _that_, indeed, wascommon enough amongst our troops even in the Peninsular War half acentury later). And now, here at Minden, as ever after a greatengagement, when villages or towns are sacked, much plunder had falleninto the hands of the victorious army; wine and brandy from thewine-houses of the wrecked villages was being poured recklessly down theever-thirsty throats of the men, and soldiers, already half drunk, wereto be seen knocking out the heads of up-ended wine-casks the quicker toget at their contents, whilst others, shouting and singing, reeledabout, many of them perhaps with a couple of loaves, or a ham, or whatnot, stuck on their bayonets. Such scenes, and scenes worse by far, were but too common in those days, and even the authority of officerswas of small avail at such a time. 

Into the midst of such a pandemonium as this came small parties of thecavalry, most of them already excited with drink and ready for anydevilry. Among the noisiest and most quarrelsome of the dragoons weretwo non-commissioned officers--brutal-looking ruffians both of them--whomade their way from group to group, drinking wherever the chanceoffered, shouting obscene songs, and making themselves insufferablyoffensive whenever a man more quietly disposed than his comradeshappened to be met. Boastful and quarrelsome, these two, with a fewdragoons of different regiments, at length attached themselves toSempil's Regiment, amongst whom it chanced that a group of men, morequiet and well-behaved than the general run, sat around a fire, cleaningtheir arms or cooking rations, and discussing the battle and the heavylosses of the regiment. It was not difficult to guess that the majorityof the group were men bred among the great, sweeping, round-backed hillsof the Scottish Border--from "up the watters" in Selkirk orPeeblesshires, some of them, others again perhaps from Liddesdale, Eskdale, or Annandale, or one of the many dales famous in Borderhistory; you could hear it in their tongue. But also there was in thosequiet, strongly-built men something that spoke of the old, dour, unconquerable, fighting Border stock that for so many centuries livedat feud with English neighbours. Many of them had joined the regimentfour years earlier, when it had passed through the Border on its marchfrom Fort William to Buckinghamshire. 

But if they had seen much service since then, never had they seenanything to approach this famous day of Minden, and as the long casualtylist was discussed, many were the good Border names mentioned thatbelonged to men now lying stiff and cold in death, who that morning whenthe sun rose were hale and well. 

"Rob Scott's gane, " said one. 

"Ay, and Tam Elliot, " said a grizzled veteran. "I kenned, and _he_kenned, he wad never win through this day. He telled me that his deidfaither, him that was killed at Prestonpans, had twice appeared tae him. And we a' ken what _that_ aye means. Some o' you dragoon lads maybe sawas muckle as ye cared for o' auld Scotland that day o' Prestonpans?"

"And if we did, Scottie, we made up for it later, " bawled one of the twodragoon non-commissioned officers. 

"Ay? And whan was that, lad? At Falkirk, belike!"

"No, it wasn't at Falkirk, Scottie. But fine sport we had when we wenthuntin' down them rebels about your Border country, after Culloden hadsettled their business. By G----! I mind once I starved an old Scotchwitch that lived up there among your cursed hills. She was preaching, and psalm-singing, and bragging about how the Lord would provide for thewidowed and fatherless, or some cant of that sort. But _I_ soon put herto the test. "

"Ay?" said a stern-faced, youngish man, dressed in the uniform of aprivate of Sempil's Regiment, jumping up hurriedly in front of thedragoon, "ay? And what did ye do?"

"Do?" replied the cavalryman; "why, I just sliced the throat of the oldwitch's cow, and I cut all her garden stuff and threw it into the burn. I'm thinking it would take a deal o' prayer to get the better o' that!But, oh! no doubt the Lord would provide, as she said, " sneered the man. 

"And was that in Nithsdale?" asked the young Borderer. 

"It was, " said the dragoon. 

"An' ye did that, an' ye hae nae thocht o' repentance?"

"Repentance! What's there to repent? D---- you, I tell you she was awitch, and I gave her no more than a witch deserves, " roared thehalf-tipsy dragoon. 

"Then, by God! I tell _you_ it was my mother that you mishandled thatday. Draw! you bloody dog! Draw!" shouted the now thoroughly rousedBorderer, snatching from its scabbard the sabre of a dragoon who stoodclose at hand. 

It was no great fight. The cavalryman had doubtless by far the greaterskill with the sabre; but drink muddled his brain and hampered hismovements, and the whirlwind attack of the younger man gave no rest tohis opponent nor opportunity to steady himself. In little more than aminute the dragoon lay gasping out his life. 

"Had ye rued what ye did, ye should hae been dealt wi' only by yourMaker, " muttered the Borderer as the dead man's comrades bore away thebody. "Little did I look to see _you_ this day after a' they years, orto have _your_ bluid on my hands. It was an ill chance that brought usthegither again, and an ill day for me an' mine that lang syne broughtyou into our quiet glen. "

But the incident did not end here. The private soldier had slain hissuperior in rank, and but for the strenuous representations of hiscompany commander and sure friend, a native of his own part of theBorder, it had gone hard with Private Maxwell. 

The story, as told to his captain, was this. Maxwell, then a half-grownboy, lived with his mother in a lonely cottage in a quiet Dumfriesshireglen. They came of decent folk, but were very poor, sometimes in thewinter being even hard put to it to find sufficient food. The father, and all the family but this one boy, were dead; the former had perishedon the hill during a great snowstorm, and the sons, long after, had alldied, swept off by an outbreak of smallpox. Thus the widow and her oneremaining boy were left almost in destitution; but by the exercise ofsevere economy and by hard work, they managed to cling to their littlecottage. 

One morning--it was a day in the summer of 1746; the heather wasbursting into bloom, shadows of great fleecy clouds trailed sleepilyover the quiet hillsides, larks sang high in the heavens, blue-bellsswung their heads lazily in the gentle breeze, and all things spoke ofpeace--there came the tramp of horses down the glen, past the rockswhere the rowan-trees grew, and so up to the cottage door. 

"Hi, old lady!" shouted the sergeant in charge of a half-dozen dragoons, "we must ha' some'at to eat and drink. We've been scouring them infernalhills since break o' day, and it's time we picked a bit. "

"Weel, sirs, " said the poor widow, "it's but little I hae gotten, butthat little ye shall freely hae. " And she brought them "lang kale" andbutter, and for drink offered them new milk, saying, as she handed it tothe man, that this was her whole stock. 

"Whole stock!" growled one who did not relish such food, "whole stock! Alikely story! I daresay, if the truth was known, the old hag's feeding arebel she's got hidden away in some snug hole hereaway. "

"'Deed, sirs, there's no rebels here. An' that's a' my son an' me has tolive on. "

"How do you live in this outlandish spot all the year round, then, mistress?"

"Indeed, sir, " said the woman, "the cow and the kailyaird, and whiles apickle oat meal, wi' God's blessing, is a' my _mailen_. The Lord hasprovided for the widow and the faitherless, and He'll aye provide. "

"We'll soon see about that, " said the ruffian. With his sabre, andpaying no heed to the helpless woman's lamentations or to thehalf-hearted remonstrances of his comrades, he killed the poor widow'scow; then going to the little patch of garden, he tore up and threw intothe burn all the stock of kail. 

"There, you old rebel witch, " said he, with a heartless laugh, as theparty set forward again, "you may live on God's blessing now. "

It broke the poor toil-worn widow's heart, and she died ere the summerwas ended. Lost to the ken of his few friends, her boy wanderedsorrowfully to another part of the country, and winter storms soon leftbut the crumbling walls and broken roof of what had been his home. 

Thirteen years, almost to a day, passed ere fate brought together againthe man who committed that foul wrong and his surviving victim. Ifretribution came with halting foot, it came none the less surely, for"though the mills of God grind slowly, they grind exceeding small. "

HIGHWAYMEN IN THE BORDER

It can scarcely be said that the Border, either north or south of Tweed, has ever as a field of operations been favoured by highwaymen. Fatpurses were few in those parts, and if he attempted to rob a farmerhomeward bound from fair or tryst--one who, perhaps, like Dandie Dinmonton such an occasion, temporarily carried rather more sail than he hadballast for--a knight of the road would have been quite as likely totake a broken head as a full purse. 

There has occasionally been some disposition to claim as a north countryasset, Nevison, the notorious highwayman, who is said to have been thetrue hero of the celebrated ride to York, which, in his novel, _Rookwood_, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth assigns to Dick Turpin. Nevison, however, was a north countryman only in the sense that he was born inYorkshire, and he never did frequent any part of the north country, butconfined his operations chiefly to districts adjacent to London, wherehe flew at higher game than in those days was generally to be foundtravelling Border roads. Nor in reality was it he who took that greatride to York. The feat was accomplished in the year 1676 by a man namedNicks, if Defoe's account is to be relied on. Nicks committed a robberyat Gadshill, near Chatham, at about four o'clock one summer's morning. Knowing that, in spite of his crape mask, his victim had recognised him, Nicks galloped to Gravesend, where, together with his mare, he crossedthe Thames by boat, then swung smartly across country to Chelmsford, andthence on, with only necessary halts to bait his horse, by way ofCambridge, through Huntingdon, and so on to the Great North Road. Without ever changing his mount, he reached York early that evening, having taken only fifteen hours for a journey of two hundred miles. Ifthe time is correct, she must have been a great mare, and he aconsummate horse-master. At his subsequent trial, as it was provedbeyond question that in the evening of the day on which the robbery tookplace he had played bowls in York with well-known citizens, the jury, holding it to be impossible that any person could have been on the sameday in two places so far apart as Gadshill and York, on that groundacquitted the prisoner. 

But if Nevison, nor Nicks, nor Turpin, ever crossed into Scotland, therewere others, less known to fame, who occasionally tried their fortune inthat country. In the early part of the year 1664, robberies, highway andotherwise, were of extraordinary frequency in Scotland, and this wasattributed to the great poverty then prevalent amongst the people, owing to "the haill money of the kingdom being spent by the frequentresort of our Scotsmen at the Court of England. "

In 1692-3 there seems to have been what one might almost call anepidemic of highway robbery over the southern part of Scotland, and hewas quite a picturesque ruffian who robbed William M'Fadyen nearDumfries on 10th December 1692. Or, rather, there were two ruffiansengaged in the affair. M'Fadyen was a drover who had been paid atDumfries a sum of £150 for cattle sold. Sleeping overnight in the town, the drover started for home next morning before daylight. Possibly hehad seen at the inn the previous evening some one whose appearance ormanner made him uneasy, and being a cautious man, with a good deal ofmoney in his possession, he had hoped by an early start to give thissuspected person the slip. 

A clear, cold December morning, stars winking frostily in a cloudlesssky, and a waning moon casting sharp black shadows over the whitenedground, saw him out of Dumfries, and well on his homeward road. And, ashe blew on his fingers, and beat his unoccupied hand briskly against histhigh, to warm himself withal, M'Fadyen chuckled to think how cleverlyand quietly he had slipped unnoticed from the inn and through the town. They must be up early indeed who would weather on _him_! And so, ruminating somewhat vain-gloriously, he pushed on over the ringingground, his horse snorting frosty breaths on the chill air, and inclinedto hump his back and squeal on the smallest excuse. Mile after mileslipped easily behind him, and the sun began to show a blood-red faceover the hill; a "hare limped trembling through the frozen grass, " andcrows cawed hungrily as they flew past on sluggish, blue-black wing, questing for food. The world was awake now, and M'Fadyen reckoned thatby a couple of hours after noon he should be safe home with his money. Only--who was that on the road ahead of him? A soldier by his coat, surely, with his servant riding behind. Well, so much the better; thatwould be company for him over the loneliest part of his ride, across themoor which bore an evil name. So M'Fadyen pressed on, and soon he caughtup the two riders, first the servant, "mounted upon ane dark grey horse"and armed with a "long gun"; then the master, also riding a dark greyhorse, and dressed in a scarlet coat with gold-thread buttons. A tallman, the latter--a striking-looking man, quite a personage, with thinrefined face and high Roman nose; instead of a wig he wore his own brownhair tied in a cue behind, and over one eye he had a notablepeculiarity, "a wrat (wart) as big as ane nut. " In his holsters thisgentleman carried a brace of pistols. 

Surely here was good fortune for M'Fadyen! A party so well armed couldafford to look with contempt on any highwayman that ever cried "Standand deliver" over all broad Scotland. And it was not long before thehonest drover, in the joy of his heart at finding himself in such goodlycompany, had expressed to the red-coated stranger the pleasure it wouldgive him if he might be granted the escort across the moor of agentleman so well armed and mounted; "for, " said he, "in sic ill timesit was maist mischancey wark to ride far ane's lane. " Little objectionhad the tall gentleman in red to make to such a proposition, and on theyrode, amicably enough, with just such dryness of manner on thestranger's part as the humble drover might expect from an army officer, yet nothing to keep his tongue from wagging. "It was a gey kittle bitthey were comin' to, where the firs stude, and he wad hae liked ill tobe rubbit. Muckle? O--oo, no; just a wee pickle siller, but nae manlikit to lose onything. And folk said they highwayman wad skin thebreeks aff a Hielandman. No that he was a Hielandman, though his namedid begin wi' a "Mac. "

And so chattering, they had already won half-way across that lonelystretch of moor regarding which the drover had had misgivings. And evenas they came abreast of that thick clump of stunted firs, up to M'Fadyenrode the servant, pointing towards the trees, and saying: "This is ourway. Come ye wi' me. "

There were few roads--such as they were--in the south of Scotland withwhich M'Fadyen's business as a drover had not made him familiar, andnaturally he refused now to leave a track which he knew to be the rightone. Whereupon the servant up with his "long-gun" and struck him heavilyover the head with the butt; and as M'Fadyen strove to defend himselfand to retaliate, up rode the master, clapped a pistol to his breast, and forced him to go with them behind the clump of trees. The lastM'Fadyen saw of his pleasant escort was the two knaves cantering overthe heath, bearing with them his cloak-bag containing his £150. 

A great fuss was made over this robbery, and the Privy Council took thematter up. The chief robber was undoubtedly an officer, said M'Fadyen, and besides the large wart over his eye, there were other marks whichmade him noticeable--for example, "the little finger of his left handbowed towards his loof. " Notwithstanding these tell-tale marks, neitherrobber was ever found; M'Fadyen and his hard-earned £150 had partedcompany for ever. And though the Privy Council went so far as to"recommend Sir James Leslie, commander-in-chief for the time being oftheir Majesties' forces within this kingdom, to cause make trial ifthere be any such person, either officer or soldier, amongst theirMajesties' forces, as the persons described, " no one was ever broughtto book, either amongst the troops in Scotland, or amongst "the officerswhich are come over from Flanders to levy recruits. "

Not so fortunate as this scarlet-coated gentleman was Mr. Hudson, _alias_ Hazlitt, who in 1770 stopped a post-chaise on Gateshead Fell, near Newcastle, and robbed the occupant, a lady who was returning toNewcastle from Durham. A poor-spirited creature was this Hudson, alittle London clerk gone wrong, and he trembled so excessively whenrobbing the lady that she plucked up spirit, and, protesting that half aguinea was all she had, got off with the loss of that modest sum, noteven having her watch taken. Despite his pistol, one cannot but feelthat of the two the lady was the better man, and that, had it occurredto her, she might very readily have bundled the highwayman neck and cropinto her chaise, and handed him over to the authorities. 

His career, however, was almost as brief as if she had done so. Thatsame evening he robbed a mounted postman of his mail-bags--having firstascertained that the postman was unarmed. And here Hudson came to theend of his tether. The postman gave the alarm, and the robber wasarrested in Newcastle the following day, some of the property lost fromthe mail-bags still in his possession. At his trial the following weekat Durham Assizes he did not attempt to make any defence, but afterconviction, by confessing where the booty was hid, he made whatreparation lay in his power. Poor wretch! He had not even the posthumoussatisfaction of going down to posterity as a bold, bad man, a hero ofthe road. Not for him was it to emulate Jack Shepherd or Dick Turpin; hewas of feebler clay, unfitted to excel in evil-doing. 

After the barbarous fashion of the day, they hanged his body in chainson the scene of his poor, feebly-executed crimes; and there, onGateshead Fell, through many a dreary winter's night, fringed withloathly icicles, lashed by rains, battered by hail, dangled thatpitiful, shrunken figure, creaking dolefully, as it swung to and fro inthe bitter blasts that come howling in from a storm-tossed North Sea. And far from acting as the warning intended to others, so little wasthis gruesome thing a "terror to evil-doers, " that the vicinity of thegibbet actually became a place noted for the frequency of crimes ofviolence. 

There have been others, of course, who might perhaps be recognised asBorder highwaymen, though not many of them could claim to have achievedeven moderate notoriety. Drummond, who was hanged at Tyburn in 1730, certainly began his infamous career in the north, but that was quite apetty beginning, and--at least after his return from transportation tothe Virginian Plantations--his chief haunts were Hounslow or BagshotHeaths, or other places in the neighbourhood of London. 

But at least there was one Border highwayman--or is "footpad" here themore correct term?--who, if the story is true, may surely claim to havebeen the most picturesque and romantic of criminals. In this instancethe malefactor was a woman, not a man, and her name was Grizel Cochrane, member of (or at least sprung from) a noble family, which later producedone of the most famous seamen in the annals of naval history. Her storyis very well known, and it may therefore be sufficient to say here thather father, having been concerned in one of the many politicalconspiracies which in those days were judged to merit death, lay inprison under sentence, and that, to save his life, the brave lady, disguised as a man, on two separate occasions, on Tweedmouth moor, robbed the mail by which her father's death warrant was being conveyedfrom London to Edinburgh. Thus she twice prevented the sentence frombeing carried out, and eventually the prisoner was pardoned. 

The greater number of highway robberies in the Border, however, wereaccomplished without the aid of a horse or the disguise of a crape mask. The Border highwayman, as a rule, was no picturesque Claude Duval, nochivalrous villain of romance who would tread a measure in the moonlightwith the lady whose coach he had plundered, thereafter returning herjewels in recompense for the favour of the dance. He was much more oftenof the squalid type--in a word, a footpad--frequently a member of somewandering gipsy gang, who, attending country fair or tryst, had littledifficulty in ascertaining which one of the many farmers present itwould be easiest and most profitable to rob as he steered his more orless devious course homeward in the evening across the waste. What thefarmer had that day been paid for his cattle or sheep he usually carriedwith him, probably in the form of gold; for in those days there were ofcourse no country agencies of banks in which the money might be safelydeposited. Not unusually, too, the farmer had swallowed enough liquor tomake him reckless of consequences; and the loneliness of thecountry-side, and the absence of decent roads, too often combined withthe condition of the farmer to make him an easy prey to some little bandof miscreants who had dogged him from the fair. 

Frequently, too, these robbers were in league with the keepers of lowroadside public-houses, where passengers on their homeward way wereencouraged--nothing loth, as a rule--to halt and refresh steed andrider, and possibly whilst they drank their pistols were tampered with. Who does not remember the meeting of Harry Bertram and Dandie Dinmont insuch a place? And who has not read in the author's notes to _GuyMannering_, Sir Walter's account of the visit to Mump's Ha' of FightingCharlie of Liddesdale, and what befell him thereafter? In spite of ahead that the potations pressed on him by an over-kind landlady hadcaused to hum like an angry hive of bees, Charlie had sense enough, after he had travelled a few miles on his homeward way, to examine hispistols. Finding that the charges had been drawn and tow substituted, Charlie, now considerably sobered, carefully reloaded them, a precautionwhich certainly saved his money, and possibly his life as well, for hewas presently attacked by a party of armed men, who, however, fled onfinding that "the tow was out. "

Mump's Ha' was in Cumberland, near Gilsland. In olden days it was aplace of most evil repute, but one may question if in ill name it couldtake precedence of a similar establishment which in the days of ourgreat-grandfathers stood on Soutra Hill, on the Lauder road. Travellershad need to give this place a wide berth, for it was a veritableden--indeed "Lowrie's Den" was the name by which it was known, andfeared, by every respectable person. Many a bloody, drunken fight tookplace there, many were the evil deeds done and the robberies committed;not even was murder unknown in its immediate vicinity. 

Well for us that in our day we know of such places only by ancientrepute. When we talk regretfully of "the good old days, " we are apt toleave out of the reckoning those Mump's Ha's and Lowrie's Dens of ourforefathers' times; we forget to add to the burden of a journey suchitems as indifferent roads and highway robbers, and the possibility ofreaching one's destination minus purse, watch, or rings. From anencounter with highwaymen, few passengers emerged with flying colours, having had the best of the deal. Not to many persons was such fortunegiven as fell to the lot of a country lass near Kelso one winter'sevening. She had little enough to lose in the way of money or valuables, and it was "bogles, " more than the fear of footpads that disturbed hermind as she stumped along that muddy road in the gathering gloom. Consequently, after one terrified shriek, it was almost a relief to herto find that the two figures which bounced out on her from theblackness, demanding her money, were flesh and blood like herself, andnot denizens of another world. Five or six shillings was all that thepoor lass possessed, but they took that paltry sum. Only, when she pledhard that they should leave her at least a trifle to take to her mother, who was very poor, one of the footpads relented, and with a gruff, "Hey, then!" thrust three coins back into her not unwilling hand. With amixture of joy and fear the girl fled into the darkness, but as she ran, she thought she heard a shout, and soon, to her consternation, she madecertain that hurrying footsteps were coming up behind her. In direterror now, she left the road, and crept into some bushes in an adjacenthollow. There, with thumping heart, she cowered whilst two men ranpast, and presently, whilst she still lay hid, they returned, vowingloud vengeance on some person who had "done" them. It was long ere thepoor girl dared leave her shelter, late ere she got home to tell hertale to an anxious mother. But when the three rescued shillings wereproduced, the cause of the robbers' anger was not far to seek; they werenot shillings that came this time from the depths of a capacious pocket, but three golden guineas. 

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

When the skipper of some small coastal trading craft is able to retirefrom leading a sea-faring life, it is usually within close range of thebriny, tarry whiffs that with every breeze come puffing from the harbourof some little port out of which he has formerly traded that he sets uphis shore-going abode. There, when he has paid off for the last time, and everything, so to speak, is coiled down and made ship-shape, hesettles within easy hail of old cronies like himself; and if he shouldchance to be one of those who have lived all their days with only theirship for wife, then he not unnaturally falls easily into the habit ofdropping, of an evening, into the snug, well-lit bar-parlour of the"Goat and Compasses" or the "Mariner's Friend, " or some such house ofentertainment, with its glowing fire and warm, seductive, tobacco-andgrog-scented atmosphere, there to wile away the time swopping yarns withold friends. Sometimes, if opportunity offer, he is not averse from amild game of cards for moderate points; and usually he takes, or atleast in old days he used to take, his liquor hot--and strong. 

Captain Alexander Craes was one of those retired merchant skippers; buthe had not, like the majority of his fellows, settled near thesea-coast. It was Kelso that had drawn him like a loadstone. Aninland-bred man, in his boyhood he had run away to sea, and the sea, that had irresistibly woed his youthful fancy, had no whit fulfilled hisboyish dreams. It was not always blue, he found; the ship was not alwaysrunning before a spanking breeze; more kicks than ha'pence, morerope's-endings than blessings, came his way during the first few yearsof his sailor life. Perhaps it was because he had been ashamed to goback and own himself beaten, or perhaps it was his native Borderdourness that had caused him to stick to it; but at any rate he didstick to it--though, like most sailors, he growled, and even sworesometimes, that he hated the life. And now, in the winter of 1784-5, here he was in Kelso, stout, weather-beaten, grey-headed, over fifty, living within earshot of the deep voice of flooded Tweed roaring andfretting over the barrier with which the devil, at bidding of MichaelScott the Wizard, long syne dammed its course. Many a time when thecaptain's little vessel, close hauled, had been threshing throughleaden-grey seas under hurrying, leaden-grey skies and bitter snowsqualls, with a foul wind persistently pounding at her day after day, hehad thought, as some more than ordinarily angry puff whitened the waterto windward and broke him off his course, with the weather leech of hisclose-reefed topsail shivering, how pleasant it must be to be alandsman, to go where he pleased in spite of wind or weather. Ah! theywere the happy ones, those lucky landsmen, who could always do as theychose, blow high, blow low. 

Well, here he was at last, drinking in all a landsman's pleasures, enjoying his privileges--and not too old yet, he told himself withself-conscious chuckle, to raise a pleasant flutter of expectation inthe hearts of Kelso's widows and maidens. Not that he was a marryingman, he would sometimes protest; far from it, indeed. Yet they did saythat the landlord of a rival inn was heard to remark that "the cauptaingaed ower aften to Lucky G----'s howf. It wasna hardlys decent, an' herman no deid a twalmonth. " Maybe, however, the good widow's brand ofwhisky was more grateful to the captain's palate, or the companyassembled in her snug parlour lightsomer, or at least less dour, thanwas to be found at the rival inn, where the landlord was an elder of thekirk and most stern opponent of all lightness and frivolity. Whateverthe cause, however, it is certain that the captain did acquire the habitof dropping in very frequently at the widow's, where he was always awelcome guest. And it was from a merry evening there that, with a"tumbler" or two inside his ample waistcoat, he set out for home oneblack February night when a gusty wind drove thin sleety rain rattlingagainst the window panes of the quiet little town, and emptied thesilent, moss-grown streets very effectively. 

An hour or two later, it might be, two men, Adam Hislop and WilliamWallace, were noisily steering a somewhat devious and uncertain coursehomeward, when one of them tripped over a bulky object huddled on theground, and with an astonished curse fell heavily. 

"What the de'il's that? Guide us, it's a man! Some puir body the waur o'his drink, ah'm thinkin'. Haud up, maister! Losh! it's the cauptain, " hecried, as with the not very efficient aid of his friend he tried toraise the prostrate man. But there was more than drink the matter here. 

"There's bluid on him!" cried one who had been vainly essaying to clap abattered hat on to the head of the form that lay unconscious in the mud. A hard task it was presently, when his senses began to return, to getthe wounded sailor unsteadily on his legs; a harder to get him home. Thecaptain could give but a poor account of how he came to be lying there;thickly and indistinctly he tried to explain that he had laid a coursefor his own moorings, and had been keeping a bright look-out, whensuddenly he had been brought up all standing, and he thought he musthave run bows on into some other craft, for he remembered no more thangetting a crack over his figurehead. Morning was treading on the heelsof night before Hislop and Wallace had got the damaged man home and hadleft him safely stowed in bed, and themselves were peacefully snoring, unconscious of coming trouble. 

A day or two passed quietly, and the damaged man already was little theworse of his adventure. Then, however, the rumour quickly spread thatnot only had the Captain been assaulted, but that he had been robbed. Gossip flew from tongue to tongue, and folk began to look askance onWallace and Hislop, muttering that "they aye kenned what was to be theoutcome"; for who, thought they, but Wallace and Hislop could have beenthe robbers? They had found him lying, the worse of liquor, havingdamaged his head in falling, and they had robbed him, either then orwhen they undressed him in his room, believing that he would have norecollection of what money he had carried that night, nor, indeed, muchof the events of the entire evening. It was all quite plain, said thoseamateur detectives. They wondered what the fiscal was thinking of thathe had not clapped the two in jail lang syne. So it fell out that, almost before they realised their danger, the two men were at Jedburgh, being tried on a capital charge. 

The evidence brought against them was for the most part of no greataccount, and the old sea captain was unable to say that either man hadassaulted him, or, indeed, that he had any clear recollection ofanything that had happened after he left the inn. They might have gotoff--indeed they _would_ have got off--but for one unfortunatecircumstance, which in the eyes of the jury completely damned them. Inpossession of one of them was found a guinea, which the captain had nohesitation in identifying as a peculiarly-marked coin which he hadcarried about with him for many years. That was enough for the jury. They and counsel for the prosecution would credit no explanation. 

The story told by Hislop and Wallace was that on the night of theassault they had been drinking and playing cards in a public-house inKelso; that late in the evening a soldier had come in and had joined inthe game, losing a considerable sum; that in consequence of his losseshe had produced a guinea, and had asked if any of the company couldchange it. Hislop had given change, and the guinea found in hispossession was that which he had got from the soldier. "A story thatwould not for a moment hold water, " said counsel, when the unfortunatemen failed to produce evidence in support of their story; and the judge, in his summing up, agreeing with the opinion of counsel for theprosecution, the jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and both men werecondemned to be hanged. 

On May 17, 1785, this sentence was carried out. But here arosecircumstances which caused the credulous--and in those days most peoplewere credulous--first to doubt, and finally to believe implicitly in theinnocence of the convicted men. From first to last Wallace and Hislophad both most strongly protested that they were entirely guiltless. That, of course, went for nothing. But when, on the day of execution, the ropes which were used to hang the poor creatures both broke; whenthe man who ran to fetch sounder hemp fell as he hurried, and broke hisleg, then the credulous and fickle public began to imagine thatProvidence was intervening to save men falsely convicted. Then, too, thetale spread abroad among a simple-minded people how a girl, sick untodeath, had said to her mother that when Hislop's time came she would bein heaven with him; and it was told that as Hislop's body, afterexecution, was carried into that same tenement, in a room of which thesick girl lay, her spirit fled. Judgment, also, was said to have fallenon a woman who occupied a room in that house, and who had violently andexcitedly objected to the body of a hanged man being brought to defileany abode which sheltered her. That same evening the body of her ownson, found drowned in Tweed, was carried over that threshold acrosswhich she had tried to prevent them from bringing the corpse of Hislop. All these events tended to swing round public opinion, and those whoformerly had been most satisfied of their guilt, now most strenuouslyprotested their entire belief in the innocence of the hanged men. Theyears slipped away, however, and there had arisen nothing either toconfirm or to dissipate this belief; only the story remained fresh inthe minds of Border folk, and the horror of the last scene grew ratherthan lessened with repeated telling. 

But there is a belief--not always borne out by facts--that "murder willout"; a faith that, "though the mills of God grind slowly, yet theygrind exceeding small. " Ten years had passed, and the spring of 1795 wasat hand, when it chanced one day that a citizen of Newcastle, homewardbound from Morpeth, had reached a point on the road near Gosforth; here, without word or challenge, a footpad, springing on to the road, fired apistol at the postillion of the postchaise, knocking off the man's capand injuring his face. The frightened horses plunged, and dashed offmadly with the vehicle, leaving in the footpad's possession no booty ofgreater value, however, than the postillion's cap. 

Later in the same day the same footpad fired, without effect, on twomounted men, who galloped off and gave the alarm, and a well-armed bandsetting out from Gosforth soon captured the robber, still with theincriminating postillion's cap in his possession. He was a man namedHall, a soldier belonging to the 6th Regiment of Foot, of which adetachment was then stationed in the district. And he was in uniform, though, as a measure of precaution, and not to make himself tooconspicuous, he wore his tunic turned inside out--a disguise that onewould pronounce to be something of the simplest. 

There was, of course, no possible defence--indeed, he owned up, and atthe next assizes was condemned to death. And here the link with the fateof Wallace and Hislop came in. As he lay awaiting execution, Hallconfessed that it was he, that February night in 1785, who had stunnedand robbed Captain Craes. He had seen the old sailor making his not verysteady way homewards, and had followed him, and at the loneliest part ofthe street, where no house showed a light, he came up behind and trippedhim; and as the captain essayed to get again on his feet, Hall hadstruck him a violent blow on the head with a cudgel, stunning him. Theman told, too, how a little later he had gone into a public-house to geta drink, and that there he found some men playing at cards; he hadjoined them, and had lost money, and one of the men (Hislop, as heafterwards understood) had changed for him a guinea which he had alittle time before taken from the pocket of the man he had stunned. 

Thus were Wallace and Hislop added to the long list of the victims ofcircumstantial evidence. 

ILLICIT DISTILLING AND SMUGGLING

From about the close of the seventeenth until well on in the nineteenthcentury, smuggling was carried on to a large extent in the Bordercounties of England and Scotland, not only as regards the evasion ofcustoms duties on imported articles, but as well in the form of illicitdistillation. 

In the good old times, better than half-way through the eighteenthcentury, cargoes consisting of ankers of French brandy, bales of lace, cases of tobacco, boxes of tea, and what not, were "run" almost nightlyon certain parts of the coasts of Berwick, Northumberland, and Galloway, borne inland by long strings of pack-horses, and securely hid away insome snug retreat, perhaps far up among the Border hills. Few of theinhabitants but looked with lenient eye on the doings of the"free-traders"; few, very few, deemed it any crime to take advantage oftheir opportunities for getting liquor, tea, and tobacco at a cheaperrate than they could buy the same articles after they had paid toll tothe King. Smuggled goods, too, were thought to possess quality andflavour better than any belonging to those that had come ashore inlegitimate fashion; the smuggler's touch, perhaps, in this respect was--

 ". .. Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath";

it imparted to the brandy, apparently, a vague, unnameable somethingthat tickled the palate of the drinker, to the tobacco an extra aromathat was grateful to the nostrils of those who smoked it. Nay, the veryterm "smuggled" raised the standard of those goods in the estimation ofsome very honest folk, and caused them to smack their lips inanticipation. Perhaps this superstition as to the supreme quality ofthings smuggled is not even yet wholly dead. Who has not met the hoarywaterside ruffian, who, whispering low, --or at least as low as a throatrendered husky by much gin _can_ whisper, --intimates that he can put the"Captain" (he'd promote you to be "Admiral" on the spot if he thoughtthat thereby he might flatter you into buying) on to the "lay" of somecigars--"smuggled, " he breathes from behind a black and horny paw, whosecondition alone would taint the finest Havanna that ever graced the lipsof king or duke--the like of which may be found in no tobacconist'sestablishment in the United Kingdom. There have been young men, greatlydaring, who have been known to traffic with this hoary ruffian, and whohave lived to be sadder and wiser men. Of the flavour of those weeds thewriter cannot speak, but the reek is as the reek which belches from thePit of Tophet. However, in the eighteenth century our forefathers, for avariety of reasons, greatly preferred the smuggled goods, and many asquire or wealthy landowner, many a magistrate even, found it by nomeans to his disadvantage if on occasion he should be a little blind; astill tongue might not unlikely be rewarded by the mysterious arrival ofan anker of good French brandy, or by something in the silk, or lace, ortea line for the ladies of his household. People saw no harm in suchdoings in those good old days; defrauding the revenue was fair game. Andif a "gauger" lost his life in some one or other of the bloodyencounters that frequently took place between the smugglers and therevenue officers, why, so much the worse for the "gauger. " He was anunnecessarily officious sort of a person, who had better have kept outof the way. In fact, popular sentiment was entirely with the smugglers, who by the bulk of the population were regarded with the greatestadmiration. Smuggling, indeed, was so much a recognised trade orprofession that there was actually a fixed rate at which smuggled goodswere conveyed from place to place; for instance, for tea or tobacco fromthe Solway to Edinburgh the tariff was fifteen shillings per box orbale. A man, therefore, owning three or four horses could, with luck, make a very tidy profit on the carriage, for each horse would carry twopackages, and the distances were not great. There was certainly a goodsporting chance of the convoy being captured in transit, but thesmugglers were daring, determined men, and the possibility of a brushwith the preventive officers merely added zest to the affair. 

Of the other, the distilling branch of the smugglers' business, a greatdeal was no doubt done in those lonely hills of Northumberland andRoxburgh and the other Border counties. There they had wealth of fuel, abundance of water, and a plentiful choice of solitary places admirablyadapted to their purpose; it was easy to rig up a bothy, or hut of turfthatched with heather, in some secluded spot far from the haunts ofinconvenient revenue officers, and a Still that would turn out excellentspirit was not difficult to construct. With reasonable care the thingmight be done almost with impunity--though there was never wanting, ofcourse, the not entirely unpleasurable excitement of knowing that youwere breaking the law, that somebody _might_ have turned informer, andthat at any moment a raid might be made. Every unknown face necessarilymeant danger, each stranger was a person to be looked on with suspiciontill proved harmless. Even the friends and well-wishers of the illicitdistiller did not always act in the way most conducive to his comfortand well-being, for if his still turned out a whisky that was extraseductive, he speedily became so popular, so run after, and the list ofhis acquaintances so extended, that sooner or later tidings of hiswhereabouts leaked round to the ears of the gaugers, and arrest, or ahasty midnight flitting, was the outcome. Besides, such popularitybecame a severe tax on the pocket of the distiller, for the better thewhisky the greater the number of those who desired to sample it, and theoftener they sampled it, the more they yearned to repeat the process. Nor was it safe to make a charge for the liquor thus consumed, lest itmight chance that some one of those who partook of it might, out ofrevenge for being charged, lay an information. 

About the end of the eighteenth century there lived in a remote glen onCheviot a Highlander, one Donald M'Donald, who was famous for thesoftness and flavour of the spirit he distilled. Whether it was apeculiar quality imparted to his whisky by some secret process knownonly to Donald himself, a knowledge and skill perhaps handed down fromfather to son from generation to generation, like the secret of thebrewing of heather ale that died with the last of the Picts, one cannotsay. Only the fact remains that, like the heather ale of old, Donald'swhisky was held in high esteem, its effects on the visitors who began innumbers to seek the seclusion of his bothy, as "blessed" as were everthose of that earlier mysterious beverage beloved of our Pictishancestors:

 "From the bonny bells of heather They brewed a drink long-syne, Was sweeter far than honey, Was stronger far than wine. They brewed it, and they drank it, And lay in a blessed swound For days and days together In their dwellings underground. "

Donald M'Donald had formerly been a smuggler, but he had wearied of thattoo active life, and he had longed for an occupation more sedentary andless strenuous. Distilling suited his temperament to a nicety. It waswhat he had been used to see as a boy when his parents were alive, forhis father before him had been a "skeely" man in that line. So Donaldbuilt to himself a kind of hut in a wild, unfrequented glen. A littleburn, clear and brown, ran chattering past his door; on the knollsamongst the heather grouse cocks crowed merrily in the sunny Augustmornings, and the wail of curlews smote sadly on the ear through thelong-drawn summer twilights. Seldom did human foot tread the heather ofthat glen in the days before Donald took up his abode there; to theraven and the mountain-fox, the muir-fowl and the whaup, alone belongedthat kingdom. 

From afar you might perhaps smell the peat reek as he worked hisprimitive Still, but unless the smoke of his fire betrayed him, or youknew the secret of his whereabouts, it had been hard to detect theexistence of Donald's hut, so skilfully was it constructed, so gentlydid it blend into the surrounding landscape. Even if it wereaccidentally come upon, there was nothing immediately visible whichcould excite suspicion. At a bend in the stream, where the banks weresteep, and the burn tumbled noisily over a little linn, dashing past therowan trees that clung there amongst its rocks, and plunging headlonginto a deep black pool, stood Donald's hut. Little better than a"lean-to" against a huge rock, it seemed; at one end a rude doorway, filled by a crazy door that stood ajar, walls of turf, windowless andheather-thatched, innocent of chimney, but with an opening that allowedthe smoke of his fires to steal up the face of the rock before itdispersed into the air. That was all that might be seen at firstglance--that and a stack of peat near the door. Inside, there were acouple of rough tables, made of boards, one or two even rougher seats, aquantity of heather in a corner, tops upper-most, to serve as a bed;farther "ben, " some bulky things more than half hidden in the deep gloomof that part of the hut that was farthest from the door and from thelight of the fire. And over and through everything an all-pervading reekof peat that brought water to the eyes of those not inured to such anatmosphere, and caused them to cough grievously. To the Highlander itwas nothing; he had been born in such an atmosphere, and had lived init most of his days. But to visitors it was trying, till Donald's Dew ofCheviot rendered them indifferent to the minor ills of life. 

One day, as Donald was busily engaged with his Still, a charge for whichhe was just about starting, there came to the door of his hut a manleading a horse from which he had just dismounted. This man did not waitfor an invitation to enter, but, having made fast his reins to thebranch of a neighbouring rowan tree, walked in and sat down, with a mere"Good day. "

"A ferry goot tay, " politely replied Donald. But he was not altogetherhappy over the advent of this stranger; there was a something in themanner of the man that roused suspicion. However, there he was. Itremained only to make the best of it, and to be careful not to show thathe suspected anything. Perhaps the man was harmless after all; and, inany case, it might be just as well to pretend that he was not possessedof any great knowledge of English. There was nothing to be gained bytalking. 

"Have ye not such a thing as a drop of spirits in the house?" inquiredthe stranger. "I'm tired with my ride. "

Donald "wasna aaltogether sure. Mebbes perhaps there micht pe a weedrappie left in ta bottle. " But there was no dearth of fluid in thebottle that, with Highland hospitality, he set before the strange man, along with cheese and oatcake. Donald took a liberal "sup" himself, andsat down, purposely near the door, just in case of any possible comingtrouble, and out of the corner of his eye he kept a wary gaze on hisuninvited guest, who had also helped himself liberally to the whisky, and was already making a great onslaught on the cheese and oatcake. 

"Aye, capital whisky; cap-i-tal whisky, " said the stranger graciously. "And I daresay there's more where that came from, if the truth werekenned. "

But that was a suggestion which Donald found it convenient to ignore. Hehad "ferry little English, " he said. 

"And I daresay, now, " pursued the stranger, in tones if anything perhapsa trifle over-hearty, "I daresay, now, the devil a drop of it will everhave helped to line the King's pocket? Eh?"

But here, again, Donald's knowledge of English was at fault; he "wad nope kennin' fhat his honour's sel' wad pe sayin'. "

"And what might your name be?" presently inquired this over-inquisitiveguest. 

"Ach, it micht joost pe Tonal, " said the Highlander. 

"Donald? Aye, and what more than Donald?"

"Ooh, there wull pe no muckle mair. They will joost be calling me TonalM'Tonal. "

"Donald M'Donald? Aye, aye. I thought so. Well, Donald, I'm an exciseofficer, and you've been distilling whisky contrary to the law. I'lljust overhaul your premises, and then you'll be coming with me as aprisoner. And you'd best come quietly. "

"Preesoner?--_Preesoner_? Her honour will no be thinkin' o' sic a thing. There micht aiblins pe a thing or twa in ta hoose tat his honour wad pelikin' to tak' away, but it iss no possible tat he can do onything wi'her nainsel'. "

"It's no use talking, my mannie. Duty's duty. You must come wi' me. "

"Ochon! Ochon! Tuty wull pe a pad thing when it's a wee pit pisness sicas this. Yer honour wull joost be takin' the pits o' things in ta bothy, an' her nainsel' wull gang awa' an' no say naething aboot it at aal. "

"I'm not here to argue with you, " cried the exciseman, gettingimpatient. "You're my prisoner. I confiscate everything here. If there'sany resistance, I can summon help whenever I please. You'd best comequietly. "

"Oh, 'teed tat's ferry hard; surely to cootness very hard indeet. Butshe wull no pe thinkin' aaltogether tat she wull pe driven joost like amuckle prute beast either. Her nainsel' wull mebbes hef a wheen freendstat could gie her help if she was wantin't. Could ye told me if therewud pe ony o' them tat wad pe seem' yer honour comin' in here?"

"Not one of _your_ friends, my mannie. Nor nobody else. "

"Then, by Gott, there wull pe nopody tat wull pe seem' ye go oot, "shouted Donald in an excited, high-pitched scream, as he snatched aheavy horse-pistol from behind the door, and cocked it. "If ye fingereither your swort or your pistol, your plood wull pe on your ain head. She wull pe plowin' your prains oot. "

A very different man this from the submissive, almost cringing, creatureof a few minutes back! Now, there stood a man with set mouth and eyesthat blazed evilly; the pistol that covered the gauger was steady as arock, and a dirk in the Highlander's left hand gleamed ominously as itreflected the glow from the fire in the middle of the room. 

The exciseman had jumped to his feet at Donald's first outburst. But hehad underrated his man, and now it was too late. To attempt to draw apistol now would be fatal--that was a movement with which he should haveopened the affair. The exciseman was disposed to try bluster; butbluster does not always win a trick in the game, more especially whenthe ace of trumps, in the shape of a pistol, is held by the adversary. In this instance, after a long glance at the Highlander, the gauger'seyes wavered and fell; he swallowed hard in his throat once or twice, and lost colour; and finally he sat down in the seat from which aminute ago he had sprung full of fight. Then slowly, and almost as itseemed, against his own volition, his hand went out and closed on thewhisky bottle. He helped himself largely, drank copiously, withoutdiluting too much with water, but still said never a word. Now hiscolour came back a little, and he nibbled at the oatcake and cheese. Then more whisky. Gradually the man became talkative--even laughed nowand then a trifle unsteadily. And all the time Donald kept on him awatchful eye, and had him covered, giving him no opportunity to turn thetables. For here the Highlander saw his chance. He had no wish to murderthe gauger, but, at any price, he was not going to be taken. If, however, he kept the man a little longer in his present frame of mind, it was very evident that presently the exciseman would be too tipsy todo anything but go to sleep. And so it proved. From being merelymerry--in a fashion somewhat tempered by the ugly, threatening muzzle ofa pistol, he became almost friendly; from friendly he became aggrieved, moaning over the insult that a breekless Highlander had put on him; thenthe sentimental mood seized him, and he wept maudlin tears over theingratitude and neglect shown to him by his superior officers; finally, in the attempt to sing a most dolorous song, he rolled off his seat andlay on his back, snorting. 

As soon as he had satisfied himself that the enemy was genuinelyhelpless and not shamming, Donald promptly set about saving his ownproperty. The exciseman's horse still stood where his master had lefthim, hitched to a rowan tree a few yards from the door. Him Donaldimpressed into his service, and long before morning everything in thehut had been removed to a safe hiding-place, and scarcely a trace wasleft to show that the law had ever been broken here, or that illicitwhisky had been distilled. 

Before daylight came, however, the exciseman had awakened in torment--aracking headache, deadly thirst, a mouth suggestive of a bird-cage, all, in fact, that a man might expect who had partaken too freely of raw andfiery whisky. He felt, indeed, extremely and overpoweringly unwell, as, with an infinity of trouble, he groped his devious way to the open air, and to the burn that went singing by. Here, after drinking copiously, helay till grey dawn, groaning, the thundering of the linn incessantlyjarring his splitting head. Then, when there was light enough, theunhappy man rose on unsteady feet, and started looking for his horse. Afruitless search; no sign of a horse could be seen, beyond the trampledspace where he had stood the previous night, and a few hoof-prints inthe soft, peaty soil elsewhere. There was no help for it; he must tramp;and with throbbing temples he pursued a tottering and uncertain coursehomewards. Next day he returned, full of schemes of revenge, and withhelp sufficient to overcome any resistance that Donald and his friendscould possibly make, even if they thought it wise to attempt anyresistance whatever, which was unlikely. 

It was a crestfallen gauger that reached Donald's bothy on this secondvisit. He found his horse, it is true, pinched and miserable, and withstaring coat, and without saddle or bridle. But of Donald or of theStill, or the products of that Still, not a sign--only a few taunting, ill-spelled words traced in chalk, with evident care and much painfultoil, on the knocked-out head of an old cask. 

In another part of this volume mention has already been made of FrankStokoe, who, after being "out" in the '15 with Lord Derwentwater, diedin great poverty. His family never again rose to anything likeaffluence, nor even to a status much above that of the ordinarylabouring classes, but his descendants were always big, powerful men, perhaps slow of brain, but ready with their hands, and there was atleast one of them who was afterwards well known in Northumberland. Thiswas Jack Stokoe, a noted and very daring smuggler. 

Jack lived in a curious kind of a den of a house far up one of the wildglens that are to be found in that moorland country which lies betweenthe North and the South Tyne. It could scarcely be claimed that he was afarmer--indeed, in those days there was nothing to farm away up amongthose desolate hills--and therefore Stokoe made no attempt to pose asanything in the bucolic line; it was a pretty open secret that his realoccupation was neither more nor less than smuggling. But he had neveryet been caught while engaged in running a contraband cargo, and, whatever reason there may have been for suspicion, no revenue officerhad ever had courage to make a raid on his house. There came, however, to that district a new officer, one plagued with an abnormally strongsense of duty, a "new broom, " in fact, an altogether too energeticenthusiast who could by no means let well alone, but must ever be pokinginto other people's affairs in a way that began at length to createextreme annoyance in the minds of those honest gentlemen, the smugglers. 

Now it chanced that this officious person had lately received sureinformation of the safe landing of an unusually valuable cargo, largepart of which was reported to be stowed somewhere on Stokoe's premises, and he resolved to pay Jack a surprise visit. Accordingly, thePreventive man went to the nearest magistrate, demanding a warrant tosearch. The magistrate hummed and hawed. "Did the officer think itnecessary to disturb Stokoe, who was really a very honest, douce lad?Well, well, if he must, he must, and there was an end of it! He shouldhave the warrant. But Jack Stokoe was a man, he'd heard say, who had noliking to have his private affairs too closely inquired into, and ifill came of it--well, the officer must not forget that he had beencautioned. A nod was as good as a wink. "

Notwithstanding these well-meant hints, the gauger made his way acrossthe hills to Stokoe's house. He was alone, but then he was a powerfulman, well armed and brave enough, and never in all his experience had abold front, backed by the majesty of the law, failed to effect its end. If he found anything contraband there was no doubt in his mind as to theresult. Stokoe should accompany him back as a prisoner. 

There was no one at Stokoe's when the officer arrived, except Jackhimself and a little girl, and when the gauger showed his warrant andbegan his search, Stokoe made no remark whatever, merely sat where hewas, smoking. The gauger's search was very thorough; everything wastopsy-turvy before many minutes had passed, but nothing could he find. There remained the loft, to which access was given by a ladder somewhatfrail and dilapidated. Up went the gauger, and began tossing down intothe room below the hay with which the place was filled. Quite a goodplace in which to hide contraband articles, thought he. And still Stokoesaid never a word. Then, when all the hay was on the floor below and theloft bare, and still nothing compromising had been found, down came thegauger, preparing to depart. 

"Hey! lassie, " at length then came the deep voice of Stokoe; "gie meBroon Janet. "

The little girl slipped behind the big box-bed, and handed out a veryformidable black-thorn stick. Up then jumped Stokoe. 

"Ye d----d scoundrel, ye've turned an honest man's hoose upside doon. Setto, and leave it as ye fand it. Stow that hay where it was when ye cam'here; and be quick aboot it, or I'll break every bane in your d----dbody. "

The gauger backed towards the door, and drew a pistol. But he was just afraction of a second too late; "crack" came Stokoe's cudgel and thepistol flew out of his hand, exploding harmlessly as it fell, and beforehe could draw another he was at Stokoe's mercy. There was no choice forthe man; Stokoe took away all his arms, and then compelled him to set toand put back everything as he had found it. There was nothing to begained by obstinately refusing. Stokoe was a man of sixteen or seventeenstone, a giant in every way, and as brave as he was big--a combinationthat is not always found. He could, literally, have broken every bone inthe gauger's body, and the chances in this case were strongly in favourof his doing it if his adversary chose to turn rusty. Truly "the de'ilwas awa' wi' the exciseman. "

So for hours the unhappy Preventive officer toiled up and down thatrickety ladder, carrying to the loft again all the hay he had so latelythrown down, and putting the whole house as far as possible again inthe state in which it had been when he began his search. And all thewhile Stokoe sat comfortably smoking in his big chair by the fire, saying never a word. 

At length the task was ended, and the gauger stood dripping withperspiration and weary to the sole of his foot and the foot of his soul, for all this unwonted work came on top of an already long day's duty. Then:

"Sit doon!" commanded Stokoe, an order that the poor man obeyed withalacrity and thankfulness. Stokoe slipped behind the box-bed, was absenta few minutes, and then returned, bringing with him a keg of brandy. Setting that upon the table, he was not long in drawing from it in a"rummer" a quantity of spirit that four fingers would never halfconceal. "Now, drink that, " he said, handing the raw spirit to hisinvoluntary guest. Then when the liquor had all disappeared, said he:"You are the first that has ever searched my house. See you be the last!Ye're a stranger i' thae parts, so we'll say nae mair aboot it thisnicht. But mind you this--if ever ye come again, see that ye be measuredfor your coffin before ye start. "

Tradition has no record of Jack Stokoe having ever again beendisturbed. 

SALMON AND SALMON-POACHERS IN THE BORDER

What is it that causes a salmon to be so irresistible a temptation tothe average Borderer? He knows that it is illegal to take "a fish" fromthe water at certain seasons, and at other times except under certaincircumstances. Yet at any season and under any circumstances the sightof a fish in river or burn draws him like a magnet, and take it he must, if by any means it may be done outside the ken of the TweedCommissioners and their minions. Even if he be a rigid observer of thelaw, a disciplinarian of Puritan fervour, in his heart he takes thatsalmon, and his pulse goes many beats faster as, standing on the bank, he watches the "bow wave" made by a moving fish in thin water, or seesit struggle up a cauld. 

One can remember the case of a middle-aged gentleman, the most strict ofPresbyterians, a church-goer almost fanatical in his attendance, one whowould have suffered martyrdom rather than be compelled to forego longfamily prayers morning and evening; a man ordinarily rigid in hisobservance of the law to its last letter, unforgiving of those who evenin the mildest manner stepped an inch beyond the line. Yet that oldman, returning after long years to the scenes of his boyhood from a farland, where like Jacob of old he had "increased exceedingly, and hadmuch cattle, " when in remote Border waters one day he was tempted by theEvil One with a salmon, fell almost without a struggle. To secure thatsalmon the old gentleman must needs get exceeding wet; moreover, it wasclose time. There was no shadow of excuse. But he was a boy again; fiftyyears had slipped off his shoulders. And I know not what came of thesalmon, but it left the water; nor do I know what the watcher said whocame over the hill inopportunely. Maybe the trouser-pocket where the oldgentleman kept his silver was a good deal lighter, and that of thewatcher a good deal heavier, when the twain parted. And therein the oldgentleman sinned doubly; for himself he broke the law, and he puttemptation in the way of the watcher, and caused him also to sin and tobe guilty of grave dereliction of duty. Yet there it was! The most rigidof his kind in pursuit of virtue and in observance of the law, saw "afish"--and straightway, irresistibly the old Adam moved within him. Nay!Under certain circumstances hardly would one trust even a black-coatedBorder minister if a salmon provoked him too sorely. 

In former days, many were the ways whereby a fish might be induced toquit his native element. Now, it is different; though even now possiblyhis end might not in every case endure too close scrutiny. But in thedays when our grandsires and great-grandsires were young, salmon wereregarded as of small value; they sold possibly at _2d. _ the pound, andservants in Tweedside homes were wont to bargain that they should not beforced to eat salmon every day of the week. Then, practically no methodof capture was illegal; you might take him almost when, where, and howyou pleased. Indeed, one reads that at St. Boswells in 1794 theneighbourhood was "seldom at a loss for a small salmon, which proves agreat conveniency to families. " It was not as if such a thing as a closeseason had never been known. Five hundred years before the date abovementioned there were laws in existence regulating the capture of salmon, and in the reign of James I of Scotland the law was most stringent. In1424 it was enacted that "Quha sa ever be convict of Slauchter ofSalmonde in tyme forbidden be the Law, he shall pay fourtie shillingsfor the unlaw, and at the third tyme gif he be convict of sik Trespassehe shall tyne his life. " But the law had fallen into disuse--was, infact, a dead letter; practically there was no "tyme forbidden, " or atleast the close season was as much honoured in the breach as in theobservance, and, especially in the upper waters of Tweed and hertributaries, countless numbers of spawning fish were annuallydestroyed. 

But as the salmon fisheries of Great Britain grew in value, so werevarious destructive methods of capturing the fish declared to beillegal, and many a practice that in earlier days was regarded as"sport" may now be indulged in not at all. Some of those practices werepicturesque enough in themselves, and brimmed over with excitement andincident; indeed, as portrayed in the pages of _Guy Mannering_, theywere, to use Sir Walter's own words, "inexpressibly animating. " Such, for instance, were "burning the water" and "sunning. " Others, such asrake-hooking, cross-lining, and decking salmon out of shallow water, were mere poaching devices with little redeeming virtue, commendingthemselves to nobody, except as a means of filling the pot. 

Then there was the taking of salmon from the "redds" as they spawned, ofall methods of capture the least allied to "sport, " for the fish thenwere soft and flabby, and almost useless as food. Nevertheless, therewas in that, too, a strong element of excitement, for the weapon used, the clodding or throwing leister, required no mean skill in the using. This throwing leister was a heavy spear, or rather a heavy "graip, "having five single-barbed prongs of unequal length but regularlygraduated. To the bar above the shortest prong was lashed a goats'-hairrope, which was also made fast to the thrower's arm, carefully coiled, as in a whaling-boat the line is coiled, so that it may run free whenthe fish is struck. This leister (or waster) was cast by hand at fishlying in not too deep water--generally, in fact, when they were on thespawning beds. It was with this weapon, as one may read in Scrope's_Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing_, that Tam Purdie--Sir Walter'sPurdie--when a young man captured that "muckle kipper" that seemed tohim to be the "verra de'il himsel', " so big was he. One Sunday forenoon, as he daundered by the waterside (instead of being, as he should havebeen, at church) Tam saw him slide slowly off the redd across thestream. 

"Odd! my verra heart lap to my mouth whan I gat the glisk o' somethingmair like a red stirk than ought else muve off the redd. I fand my haircreep on my heid. I minded it was the Sabbath, and I sudna hae beenthere. It micht be a delusion o' the Enemy, if it wasna the de'ilhimsel'. "

All that peaceful Sabbath day Tam's meditations were disturbed byvisions of great salmon. And as at family worship that night his masterread aloud from "the Word, " Tam quaked to realise that no syllable hadpenetrated his dulled ears, but that, with the concluding solemn "Amen, "had come to his mind the resolution to clip the wings of the Sabbath, and at all costs to capture that fish before anyone could forestall him. According, as soon as his too ardent mind judged that the hands of theclock must be drawing near to midnight, Tam arose, and, rousing a farmboy to bear the light for him as he struck, with "clodding waster" inhand set off for the river. Now this clodding waster (or leister) was apossession of which Tam was inordinately proud; amongst his friends itstemper and penetrating power were proverbial. It had been made for himby the Runcimans of Yarrowford, smiths celebrated far and wide for themarvellous qualities they imparted to all weapons made by them. AsPurdie said: "I could hae thrawn mine off the head o' a scaur, and ifshe had strucken a whinstane rock she wad hae been nae mair blunted thanif I had thrawn her on a haystalk. " Yet when anon he came to cast thisleister at the muckle kipper, "the 14 lb. Waster stottit off his back asif he had been a bag o' wool. " That was proof enough, if any wereneeded, that a fish so awesome big must be something uncanny and beyondnature. In a cold sweat, Tam and the boy fled from the waterside andcast themselves shivering into their beds over the byre at home. But ashe lay awake, unable to close an eye, Purdie's courage crept back tohim, and again he resolved that have that fish he would, muckle blackde'il or no. So again he roused his now reluctant torch-bearer, andhaving with difficulty convinced him that the fish was actually a fish, and not the devil let loose on them for their sin in having broken theSabbath--"Irr ye _sure_, Tam, it wasna the de'il?" the boyquavered--before daylight they again found the spot where the greatkipper lay. And whether it was that this time, knowing that it reallywas Monday morning, Purdie threw with easier conscience and consequentlywith surer aim, or to what other cause who may say, but certain it isthat the man and the boy, soaked to the skin and chilled to the marrow, triumphantly bore home that morning to the mill, where Purdie's fatherthen lived, a most monstrous heavy fish. 

The leister used in "sunning" or in "burning the water" differedsomewhat in shape from the weapon with which Tam Purdie secured his bigkipper. It, too, had five single-barbed prongs, but these were all ofequal length, and the wooden handle of this implement was straight, andvery much longer than that of the throwing leister; sixteen feet was nounusual length for the handle of the former weapon. 

Burning the water, as its name implies, was a sport indulged in at nightby torchlight. Sunning, on the other hand, was the daylight form of"burning, " but it could be practised only when the river was dead low, and then not unless the weather were very calm and bright. The salmon, as they lay in the clear, sun-lit water, were speared from a boat, andvast numbers were so killed; indeed, the frightened fish had smallchance of escape, for spearing began at the pool's foot, and men withleisters blocked the way of escape up stream. No doubt into this, asinto its kindred sport "burning, " excitement in plenty, and boisterousfun, entered largely; many a man, miscalculating the depth of water inwhich a fish lay, to the unfeigned delight of his comrades, took arapid and involuntary header into the icy stream. But both sportspartook too much of the nature of butchery--carts used to be needed tocarry home the spoil--and they are "weel awa' if they bide. " "Bide" theymust, though in times not remote one has heard faint whisperings of theburning of the waters in some far-off district of the Border. Nor arethere wanting those who yet openly defend the practice, deeming itindeed no sin, but rather a benefit to the water, to take from it someof the superfluous fish, which, say they, would otherwise almostcertainly die of disease and contaminate the stream. 

Yet, if in our day the water has been burned, it cannot have beenoftener than once in a way, and probably no great harm has resulted. Norcan the game be worth the candle, one could imagine, for watchers noware many and alert, in the execution of their duties much moreconscientious than was common in days gone by. There are none now, wemay hope, like the bailiff of Selkirk in the early part of last century, who constantly find salmon in close time mysteriously appearing on theirdinner-table. Yet this early nineteenth-century bailiff could trulyswear that such a thing as salmon on his table he never had seen. For itappears that his wife, canny woman, having first brought in a platter ofpotatoes, was wont to tie round his eyes a towel before she brought inthe boiled fish; and before she again took away the towel, every vestigeor trace of salmon had been carefully removed from the room. Obviouslythat bailiff, honest man, could not report a breach of the law which hadnever come under his observation!

Of various forms of netting which in olden days were legal, but now, happily, are forbidden, there was that by means of the Cairn net, a mostdestructive form, and that by the Stell net, which was worse; but todescribe these obsolete instruments is unnecessary, and might betedious. There was also the Pout net, an implement somewhat like a verylarge landing-net, wherewith a man might readily whip many a fish out offlooded water. That, however, need not be considered as in these days aserious form of poaching. 

Of all poachers of salmon, perhaps that one with whom one is least outof sympathy was the man--is he now extinct, one wonders?--who, fishingwith trout-rod and fly, and bearing on his back the most modest of troutcreels, instantly, when he came to a likely cast for a fish, was wont tochange his trout fly for a salmon one. If he hooked a salmon and awatcher appeared on the scene, invariably the fish "broke" him. If nowatcher put in an appearance, generally the angler found that he hadsudden and pressing business at home, and that fish left the riversidesnugly smuggled inside the lining of a coat, or in a great circularpocket made for the purpose. It was such an one that, nigh on a hundredyears ago, Mr. Scrope caught red-handed one day on his rented salmonwater near Melrose. The man was a guileless creature from Selkirk, tooinnocent, it appeared, to be able to account for the salmon flies in theinside of his dilapidated hat, or for the 10 lb. Salmon reposing in hispocket. 

"Dodd! I jalouse it's mebbes luppen in whan I was wadin' the watter, " hesaid with artless smile. "They're gey queer beasts, fish. "

Still to this day there may perhaps be found instances where they have"luppen in" to a too capacious pocket; for the nature of the salmon hasnot changed, and they are still "gey queer, " and are found occasionallyin "gey queer" places. There was, one remembers, not so long ago, acertain boy from Eton, or from some other of the great public schools, who, with a sister, wandered one lowering autumn evening by the brownwaters of a Border stream. And how it happened there is none to say, save those who dimly saw it, but there came a vision of a water-bailiff, scant of breath, pounding heavily across the fields, whilst a maiden, fleet of foot, sped away through the gloom, sore handicapped by theantics of a half-dead and wholly slippery fish that nothing would induceto stay inside her jacket. And whether she won free, I know not. But itis said there was salmon steak for breakfast next morning in thatmaiden's home. 

Surely the devil played but an amateur part when he essayed to breakdown the stern virtue of St. Anthony with temptations no stronger thanthose over which the good Saint so easily triumphed. Had he clapped theholy man down by the banks of a Border stream when fish were running inthe autumn, there might have been another tale to tell--that is, if aclose season had existed in mediæval times. I trow we should have seenSt. Anthony nipping hot-foot over the hill, with the bosom of his monk'sgown protruding in a way at which no honest water-bailiff could possiblyhave winked. Things as strange have happened in our own day; but maybethey were due to that drop of reiver blood which courses more or lessswiftly through the veins of most Border folk, and which, now that thereare no cattle to "lift" from the English side, impels them for want ofbetter to lift from the water a salmon whenever opportunity may offer. 

There was lately, it is said, a lady of ancient Border lineage, who satone day with a grown-up daughter in the library of her ancestral home. It was the hunting season, and at intervals the two glanced anxiouslyfrom the windows in full expectation of seeing the hounds sweep in fullcry over the fields of which the library commanded a view. 

"They must be coming, " cried the daughter, starting up. "There's one ofthe stable-boys running over the lawn. "

And, indeed, past the old trees a youth was to be seen skirting thelawn, flying down terraces, making towards a burn which ran through thegrounds before joining a small tributary of Tweed. At best speed motherand daughter followed the boy, who had halted excitedly by the burnside. But what the cause of his agitation might be they could not forthe moment conjecture; certainly the burn had no apparent connectionwith hunting, nor indeed was there sign of horse or hound. What theyfound was something very different. A mile or so up the rivulet therewas a farm-steading, and in that steading was the usual water-driventhreshing-mill. It happened that this particular day had been selectedby the farmer as one on which he might advantageously thrash part of hiscrop. Consequently, the water from his mill pond was now making atemporary spate in the little stream, which, in the course of nature, had caused many salmon to run their noses into the burn's unexploredmeanderings. When the two ladies reached the stream's bank, they foundthe stable-lad up to his knees in the water, and a fish, not oversilvery, already floundering high and dry, far from its native element;in shallow, broken water, two or three others vainly struggled to gainhigher latitudes. 

"Oh-h! _mother!_" cried the daughter excitedly. 

And said the elder lady with little hesitation:

"Get them out, Jim; get them out. We'll kipper them. " Then, after athoughtful pause: "I think I'd like to catch one myself. "

So into the water she plunged, and the three--the lady and her daughterand the stable-boy--were so busily and excitedly plowtering in the burn, engaged in this most nefarious and illegal capture of fish, that theyfailed to hear or to see that hounds and a full field had swept over thehill in front, and had checked, in full view of them, at a small stripof wood in their immediate neighbourhood; in fact, there was littledoubt these poachers must, a few minutes before, have headed the fox. Most embarrassing of all, however, was the fact that amongst the riderswas one in immaculate pink, whose face flushed a deeper shade than hiscoat as he pulled up not a hundred yards distant. For what must be thefeelings of a Justice of the Peace, of strictest principles, who, without warning, lights upon the wife of his bosom, his innocentdaughter, and one of his servants, all engaged in the most barefacedpoaching?

"Good _Gedd!_" he was heard to say--if indeed the words were nostronger--as, mercifully, the hounds picked up the scent again at thatmoment, and the chase swept on. 

There are none so blind as those who will not see, however, and nothingmore was ever heard of this episode. But report has it that the lord ofthat manor has no great partiality for kippered salmon. 

But salmon-poaching is perhaps not entirely confined to the humanspecies. There have been instances known where dogs have been the mostaccomplished of poachers--generally, it must be said, in conjunctionwith a two-legged companion. The lurching, vagabond hound that one seesnot infrequently in certain parts of the country, followingsuspicious-looking characters clad in coats with suspiciously roomypockets, might, no doubt, be easily trained to take salmon from burns, or from the shallow water into which, in the autumn, the fish often run. And, to the present writer's mind, a black curly-coated retrieverrecalls himself as a poacher of extreme ability. A most lovable dog was"Nero, " but--at least as regards salmon--he was a most immoral breakerof the law. It was well, perhaps, that he lived in days whenwater-bailiffs were neither so numerous, nor so strict in the executionof their duties, as they now are, for nothing could cure him of thehabit, when he saw a fish struggling up a shallow stream, of dashing in, seizing that salmon in his teeth, and laying it at the feet of hisembarrassed master, who, far from being connected with the poachingfraternity, was, indeed, a magistrate, to whom the gift of a salmon insuch circumstances brought only confusion. 

After all, is there not generally a something lovable in the man whopoaches purely for _sport's_ sake? Who can fail to mourn the end ofpoor, harmless, gallant, drucken Jocky B----, who gave his life for hislove of what he conceived to be sport? "Here's daith or glory forJocky, " he cried, when the watchers surrounded him, leaving but the onepossibility of escape. And in that swollen, wintry torrent into which heplunged, the Bailiff Death laid hands on Jocky. Perhaps even now in theshades below, his "ghost may land the ghosts of fish"; mayhap, with acleek such as that to which his cold fingers yet stiffly clung when theyfound him in the deep pool, he may still, now and again, be permittedwith joyous heart to lift from the waters that ripple through Hadesspectral fish of fabulous dimensions. 

Salmon do not now appear to be so numerous in Tweed as apparently theywere eighty or a hundred years ago; it is said that in 1824, when thenets had been off the lower reaches of the river for the Sunday, sometimes as many as five hundred salmon and grilse would be taken atKelso of a Monday morning by the net and coble. It is a prodigious haulof fish. One's mouth, too, waters as one reads of the numbers that werein those days taken in most stretches of the river by rod andline--though probably a goodly number of them were kelts. 

Yet, even now, if in the month of November, when waters are red andswollen, one stands by Selkirk cauld, the fish may be seen in numbersalmost incredible. By scores at a time you may see them, great andsmall, hurl themselves into the air over the great wave which boils atthe cauld-foot. And the bigger fish, landing--if one may use theterm--far beyond the first upheaval of the wave, will rush stoutly upthe swirling, foaming rapid, perhaps half-way to the smooth water abovethe cauld, ere they are swept back, still valiantly struggling, into theseething pool below. The smaller fish less frequently succeed inclearing the wave, but generally pitch nose foremost into the waterwhere it begins to rise, and are hurled back head over tail in impotentconfusion. Some of the heavier fish, too, after their jump may be seento come down with portentous skelp on top of the retaining wall of thesalmon-run in mid-stream, thence--apparently with "wind bagged"--to beignominiously hurried back into the deep pool from which they have butthe moment before hurled themselves. The general effect of the spectacleis as if one watched an endless kind of finny Grand NationalSteeplechase; one grows dizzy with the constant rise and fall ofinnumerable fish over the big jump, and it is almost a relief to turnand watch the bailiffs with their landing-nets lift from the shallow, rushing water at the cauld-side fish after fish, which they carry up andcarefully put in the smooth water at top of the cauld. How many hundredsof salmon one may thus see in the course of a couple of hours, on a daywhen the river is in spate too heavy for the fish to succeed inascending the cauld, it is impossible to estimate. 

Big fish do not seem to have been so common in olden days as they arenow. Mr. Scrope mentions that in all his twenty years' experience henever caught one above 30 lbs. Weight, and very few above 20 lbs. Fishof that size are common now almost as sparrows in a London street, moreespecially in the lower stretches of Tweed. Thirty pounds hardly excitesremark, and salmon up to 40 lbs. Or over are caught with fly nearlyevery autumn. Much larger fish, too, have been taken of recent years;one of 57 lbs. Was landed in 1873, one of 57-1/2 lbs. In 1886, andvarious fish of over 50 lbs. Weight at later dates, whilst in December1907 a dead fish of 60 lbs. Was found in Mertoun Water. 

Then there was that giant fish lost near Dryburgh by Colonel Haig ofBemersyde, "perhaps the greatest salmon ever hooked in Tweed, " as SirHerbert Maxwell remarks in his _Story of the Tweed_. Lost fish areproverbially the largest fish, but in this instance it was not thefisher who boasted of the weight. Late one evening, fishing in the HalyWeil, the Colonel got fast in something heavy which, resistless as fate, bored steadily down the river a full half mile to the Tod Holes inDryburgh Water. Here, heavy and sullen, and never showing himself, heploughed slowly about, and Colonel Haig, already overdue at home, becameimpatient, believing that he must have foul-hooked a moderate-sizedfish. Darkness was fast coming on, and at last the Colonel told hisattendant to wade in and try to net the fish. 

"He's that muckle I cannot get him in, sir, " cried the lad after a time. 

But the Colonel could not wait. 

"Nonsense, " he said. "Get his head in. I can't stop here all night. "

Then came the not uncommon result of trying to net a big fish in anuncertain light; the rim of the net fouled the gut cast, and away wentthe fish. It would spoil the story not to tell the rest of it in SirHerbert Maxwell's own words. 

"The Colonel did not realise the magnitude of his disaster until two orthree weeks later, when he happened to be waiting for a train at St. Boswells Station. The porter came to him and said:

"'Hae ye ony mind, Colonel, o' yon big fush ye slippit in the Tod Holesyon nicht?'

"'Oh, I mind him well, ' replied the Colonel; 'a good lump of a fish hewas, I believe, but I never saw him rightly. '

"'Ay, ' said the other dryly; 'yon wad be the biggest sawmon that evercam oot o' the water o' Tweed, I'm thinking. '

"'Why, what do you know about him?' asked the Colonel. 

"'Oh, I ken fine aboot the ae half o' him, ony way, ' replied the porter. 'Ye see, there was twa lads clappit amang the trees below the Wallacestatue forenenst ye, waiting till it was dark to set a cairn net, yeken. Weel, didna they see you coming doun the water taigled wi' a fish?And when ye cam to the Tod Holes, they saw ye loss him, and they got avisee o' the water he made coming into the east bank, ye ken. There's awee bit cairn there, ye ken, wi' a piece lound water ahint it, wherethey jaloused the fish wad rest himsel a wee. Weel, they waited till itwas mirk night, and then they jist whuppit the net round him, and theysune had him oot. He was that big he wadna gang into the bag they hadwi' them; so they cuttit him in twa halves; and the tae half they brochtto the station here to gang by rail to Embro'. Weel, if the tither halfwas as big, yon fish bud to be seeventy pund weight; for the half o' himI weighed mysel, and it was better nor thirty-five pund. Ay, a gran'kipper!'"

Yet occasionally, in olden days, a salmon big as Tam Purdie's mucklekipper was got by rod and line. In 1815 Rob Kerss, the famous "Rob o'the Trows, " hooked a leviathan in Makerstoun Water--the biggest fish, hesaid, that ever he saw; so big that it took even so great a master asRob hours to land, and left him "clean dune oot. " At last the fish lay, a magnificent monster, stretched on the shingle. With aching arms butthankful heart, Rob moved away a trifle to lift a stone wherewith tosmite his captive over the head. And with that, Rob's back being partlyturned, from the tail of his eye he saw the salmon give a wammle. Innovels, it is usually "but the work of a moment" for the hero to turnand perform some noted feat. Here, alas! it was different. It was butthe work of a moment, certainly, for Rob to turn, and to jump on thehuge salmon. But there all resemblance to the typical hero ceased, forthe line fouled his foot, and broke as it tripped him up; and before thefisherman knew where he was, he and the salmon were struggling togetherin deep water. It was only Rob that came out. _Sic transit_. Trust not afish till the bag closes on him. 

THE GHOST THAT DANCED AT JETHART

Six centuries before Edward the Peacemaker reigned over Britain, thepeople of Scotland knew the blessing of having for a King one who wasknown as "The King of Peace. "

Alexander the Third was a child of eight when he inherited the Scottishcrown, and was only two years older when he married the PrincessMargaret, eldest daughter of Henry the Third of England. Even in hisearly boyhood the young King displayed a wisdom, an energy, and aforcefulness in his management of affairs that marked him for a greatruler, and made his royal father-in-law's fond vision of graduallygaining such an ascendancy over Scotland, that he might in time be ableto claim that kingdom as an appanage of England, fade altogether away. Alexander had only recently come of age when he had to defend hiscountry against her old enemies, the Norsemen, and his complete victorywas a triumph for him and for his people. Nineteen years later, his onlydaughter, Margaret, married Eric, King of Norway, and the Scots sawpeace for them and for their children smiling on them from every side. But if prosperity as a monarch was his, misfortune overshadowed KingAlexander's private life. His wife died; his children died. His eldestson, born at Jedburgh, and married, as a lad, to a daughter of the Countof Flanders, died childless. His daughter, the young Queen of Norway, died the year after her marriage, leaving behind her the baby who hascome down to us, even through chilly history, as a pitiful littlefigure, known as "The Maid of Norway. "

In 1285 King Alexander was wifeless and childless, and the heir to theScottish crown was his two-year-old grandchild in "Norroway ower thefaem. "

In the eyes of all his people the King's duty was plain. He was onlyforty-four, a brilliant _parti_ for the daughter of any royal or noblehouse, and the Scots wished a man, not a maid, to rule over them. Hemust, obviously, marry again. Joleta, also called Yolande, daughter ofthe Count de Dreux, and a descendant of the Kings of France, was hischosen bride. She was of surpassing fairness, and even most of those whohad harboured scruples with regard to the match, because the maid hadbeen destined for a nunnery, forgot such scruples when they looked uponher beauty. 

On All Saints' Day, 1285, the wedding--a more brilliant function thananything that had ever before been held in Scotland--was celebrated inJedburgh Abbey. The little grey town on the Jed was packed with Scottishand French nobles and their retinues. Few were the noble houses thatwere not there represented, and the monks of Beauvais--the black-cloakedAugustinian friars from St. Quentin's Abbey--who held rule at the Abbeyof Jedburgh in those days, must have had their ears gladdened by theconstant sound of the French tongue coming from seigneur, squire, andpage-boy who passed them on the causeway. 

There was nothing awanting in pomp or in splendour at the royal wedding. The trees were shedding their leaves, the bracken and the heather on themoors were brown, and winds that swept across the Carter Bar and downfrom the Cheviots had a winter nip in them; but indoors there was warmthenough, and all the gorgeousness and feasting and merrymaking that themost exacting of guests could desire for the marriage of a great king. The banquet after the wedding was followed by a masque. Musiciansushered into the banqueting hall of the castle a gorgeously attiredprocession of dancers, many of them armed men. It was a radiant scenefor the bright eyes of Queen Yolande. Lights flashed on swords and onarmour, and on the sumptuous trappings and brilliant-coloured attire oflords and of ladies, for courts in those days looked like hedges ofsweet-peas in the summer sun. The musicians played their best, theguests mingled gaily with the dancing mummers, and then, suddenly, aboveall the sounds of music and of revel, there arose a cry, a woman's cry, shrill and full of fear. What was that grisly figure that appearedamongst the dancers?--a grinning skeleton--a dancing Death. No masquerthis, but a grim messenger from the Shades, bringing dire warning toone, at least, of that gay company. As it had come, so it vanished, butall the gaiety had gone from the merry throng. The ill-omened dancer hadlaid a chilly hand on the heart of many a wedding guest. 

There were some who said it was a monkish trick, contrived for his ownends by one of the brethren from Beauvais, but, less than six monthslater, all Scotland believed that the skeleton masquer at Jedburgh had, indeed, come to warn an unfortunate land of its approaching doom. 

On a dark March night of 1286, King Alexander rode along the rough cliffpath between Burntisland and Kinghorn on a horse that stumbled in thedarkness, and in the morning, on the rocks far down below, the greywaves lapped against the ashen dead face of a mighty king. 

Not only was the fair Queen Yolande a widow. Scotland was widowedindeed. For long years thereafter she was to be a battlefield forfiercely contending nations, and if the ghost that danced at Jethart wastruly a portent of the death of the King of Peace, it also was a portentof the death of many a gallant warrior and of much grievous spilling ofinnocent blood in the woeful years to come. 

A MAN HUNT IN 1813

It was a clear, crisp, sunny day, early in March 1813, that the laird ofWauchope was riding into Hawick. A little snow still lay on the crest ofCheviot and on some of the foot-hills, and a smirr of hoar-frostsilvered the turf by the roadside; but the sun was bright--strong toovercome frost and snow--and in it the leaves that still clung to thebeech hedges shone like burnished copper. 

Walter Scott of Wauchope was one of the most popular men in Liddesdale. He it was who had, by his own exertions, raised the Light Company ofRoxburghshire Volunteers, a band of nearly a hundred men of finephysique and first-rate horsemanship, whose bearing was the admirationof everyone when the laird marched them into Hawick on that momentousnight in 1804 when "Boney" was supposed to have landed on Scottishshores. Mr. Scott's services had not been forgotten. A captain'scommission in the 1st Regiment of Roxburgh Local Militia now belonged tohim, and he squared his shoulders with an air and gave the militarysalute to those on the road with whom he exchanged greetings. 

It was a morning for only peace and goodwill to be abroad, and thelaird rode on in cheerful frame, and put his horse to a canter along theturf. But as he cantered, the good steed's ears suddenly went back, heplunged, swerved, and answered his master's voice and heels by standingstock-still, staring affrightedly at what at first, to his rider, seemeda mere limp, inanimate bundle of old clothing lying half in, half out ofthe ditch. In a moment the laird was standing beside the mysteriousheap, and found an old, white-haired man, grievously mishandled, withblood on his face, blood dabbling the dead leaves in the ditch, blood onthe turf where the pure hoar-frost had lain. There was but little lifeleft in him, and it was not easy for him to explain his sorry plightwhen the words came only with hard-fought breathing, hoarse and low. 

"She will pe a pedlar, " he said, "an' she will haf peen robbed andmurdered. .. . Och, so little she will pe hafing, and now all gone. .. . Ochone, ochone!" Gently the laird put his questions to the dying man. The robbery had been committed only a short time before. The assailantwas a big man--"a fery big man"--an Irishman, and he could not have gonefar. Up again on his wondering steed sprang the laird, and atsteeplechase pace rode on. Near Birney-knowe he came in sight of hisquarry, a powerful six-footer, but carrying too much flesh to do morethan a good sprint without failing. In a neighbouring field a ploughmanwith his pair of horses was turning up the rich brown loam. "_Hup_, Jess! Woa-_hi_, Chairlie!" sounded his cheerful voice from over thedyke, above the jingle of his horses' harness as they turned at thehead-rig with their greedy following of screaming, white-winged gulls. 

"_Hi!_ Will Little!" shouted the laird. "Leave the plough, lad! There'smurder afoot the day! Come and help catch the murderer!"

William Little, a handsome fellow of six feet, clean built and athletic, required but little explanation. In two minutes his pair was unyoked andtied to the beam of the plough, his coat off and cast at the back of thedyke, and as sturdy a pair of legs as any in Liddesdale had joined inthe chase. The robber had not failed to hear the laird's shouts, and asLittle unyoked his horses, he ran on, adding still more to the distancethat already separated him from his pursuers. Clearly his best chancewas to leave the high-road and get on to ground where it was impossible, or, at least, most unlikely, that a mounted man could follow him. Through hedges he clambered, vaulted dry stone dykes, leapt ditches, made somewhat heavy weather over the plough, but got away on rough turfup the hillside. The morning wore on, and both hunters and hunted wishedthat the sun had shone less warmly on that March day. On a steep part ofHigh Tofts Hill, however, the chase at last came to an end. The steepface of the hill was more than the laird's good steed could manage, though nobly, in response to his call, did it do its best. He had toturn back and come round by a part where the ascent was less steep, while Little, hot but undaunted, went on with the chase alone. Therobber's extra weight was telling on him, and he was not in the hardtraining of the young Border farmer. The hill pumped him, he stumbled ashe ran, and, as Little gained on him yard by yard, he saw that he couldrun no longer, but must come to bay. He turned round and faced hispursuer, breathing hard, and with all his might tugging at a bigbutcher's knife in his pocket. Ordinarily the knife came easily to hishand, but he had forgotten that the pocket was stuffed with articlesstolen from the old pedlar. The knife was hopelessly jammed, and Littlewas almost upon him. A large, sharp-pointed stone stuck out of theground at his feet. "_Keep off!_" he yelled to the ploughman. "Handsoff! or I'll scatter your brains!" And as he threatened, he stooped toseize the stone and make good his threat. But the Fates that day hadsigned the Irish villain's death-warrant. The good Border earth clung tothe stone, refusing to let it go. With all his force he tugged andtugged, but ere the earth could give way, Little had thrown himself uponhim, and when Mr. Scott appeared over the brow of the hill, the sturdyfarmer was still holding his own with a kicking, biting, struggling, cursing ruffian who would have had no compunction in adding another tohis list of victims that day. Between them, Little and the laird tiedtheir captive's hands behind his back with part of the bridle reins, andwalked him back to Kirkton. There help was sent to the old Highlander, but no doctor could undo the ill that had been wrought him, and he dieda few days later. In one of the Kirkton farm-carts the old man'smurderer was conveyed to Hawick, and from thence to Jedburgh jail. Itwas too much a case of "hot trod" for him to do anything but pleadguilty, and he hung on a gallows at Jedburgh, as many a worthier man haddone in earlier days. The laird lived for more than twenty years afterhis man hunt on that March day in 1813, and his worthy fellow-huntsmanhad no cause to forget his morning's work, for he was presented with abaton and relieved from paying taxes for the rest of his natural life. 

LADY STAIR'S DAUGHTER

The story of the Bride of Lammermoor is one that all the world knows, but how many are there who realise that the tragedy which Sir WalterScott's genius has given to the world is in truth one of the annals of anoble Scottish family? Possibly among all the "old, unhappy, far-offthings" there is none more pitiful than the tale of the Earl of Stair'sdaughter and her luckless lover, Lord Rutherfurd. 

They were never laggards either in love or in war, those BorderRutherfurds. "A stout champion, " according to contemporary history, wasColonel Andrew Rutherfurd, Governor of Dunkirk, and afterwards ofTangier, ennobled for his doughty deeds in foreign lands under the titleof Earl of Teviot, and when, in 1664, he was slain by the Moors, hisdistant relative, Lord Rutherfurd, inherited most of his fortune. Presumably the fortune was not great, and even in the old reiving daysno Rutherfurd ever rolled in wealth. Moreover, Lord Stair was a staunchWhig, and Rutherfurd an ardent Jacobite, and so it was that when theyoung lord became a suitor for the hand of Janet Dalrymple, daughter ofthat famous lawyer, James Dalrymple, first Lord Stair, neither herfather nor her mother smiled on his suit. 

Sir James Dalrymple was made a baronet in the same year that AndrewRutherfurd got his title, and both he and his wife, Dame Margaret, adaughter of Ross of Balniel, were ambitious folk. The worldly success inlife of her husband and of all her family was what Lady Stair constantlyschemed and planned and worked for. A clever, hard, worldly woman, witha witty and unsparing tongue, was Lady Stair, but obviously she was nota popular member of the society in which she lived, and when her planssucceeded in spite of all obstacles, there were many who were ready tosay that she belonged to the blackest sisterhood of her day, and that tobe "worried at the stake" and burned would only be the fate that shedeserved. 

Lady Stair's daughter was singularly unlike the mother who bore her, forthe beautiful Janet Dalrymple was a gentle, shrinking, highly strunggirl, who was like wax in the hands of one who ruled her household witha rod of iron. As a child her will had always had to bend to hermother's. Scarcely had she dared to hold an opinion on anything saveunder her mother's direction, and so when it came about that the tricksygod of love made her give her heart passionately and utterly to a man ofwhom her parents disapproved, poor Janet Dalrymple must have felt asthough she were the victim of a sort of moral earthquake. Naturally shecould see no reason why the man who in her eyes was peerless was notapproved by her parents. Surely his politics did not matter. He hadmoney enough for all their needs, and he would make her the LadyRutherfurd; and, besides, what more could they want than just this--thathe loved her and she loved him, and they would love each other untildeath--and after it. 

These reasons given to a woman of Lady Stair's type were scarcely likelyto be listened to with much patience, and Janet Dalrymple and LordRutherfurd soon saw that all their love-making must be done under therose, and that they must wait as best they could for the obdurateparents to change their minds. Together they broke a gold coin, of whicheach wore a half, and solemnly called upon God to witness them plightingtheir troth, and together imprecated dreadful evils upon the one whoshould prove faithless. Doubtless Lady Stair was too clever a woman notto have a shrewd suspicion that her daughter's attachment to LordRutherfurd was something more than a mere piece of girlish sentiment;but if she did know, the knowledge did not overburden her. Obviouslyanother suitor must be provided without loss of time. The expulsivepower of a new affection must promptly be tried on the love-sick girl, whose pale face was in itself enough to betray the condition of herheart. 

To Lord Stair belonged the credit of finding one who was approved of byLady Stair as an entirely suitable match. David Dunbar, younger, ofBaldoon in Wigtonshire, a solid young man with a good, solid fortune, was the son-in-law of their choice; and Lady Stair found no difficultyin getting him to see that her beautiful daughter was undoubtedly theright wife for him. 

Contemporary history furnishes us with no description of Andrew, LordRutherfurd, but we learn from the Edinburgh printer who furnished theDunbar family with an enthusiastic elegy on the death of David Dunbar ofBaldoon that apparently he was a little red-faced man, ardently keenabout agricultural pursuits, and deeply interested in the breeding ofcattle and horses. Moreover, he was a student, well versed in modernhistory and in architecture, and with a good head for arithmetic (did headd up the figures of the fortune of Janet Dalrymple entirely to his ownsatisfaction?), and he had the additional amazing distinction chronicledby his eulogising biographer--

 "He learned the French, be't spoken to his praise, In very little more than forty days. "

It is impossible to tell how much of the love story of the girl whom heproposed to make his wife was known to young Baldoon. Possibly he hadhad it lightly sketched to him by Lady Stair's skilled hand, as a meregirlish fancy, likely to be very soon past and already entirely on thewane. In any case, Baldoon evidently saw no more difficulties in the wayof his nuptials than did Lord and Lady Stair. The fact that the bride"canna thole the man" must ever be a purely secondary consideration insuch matrimonial arrangements. Meantime the unhappy bride-elect had thescheme laid before her, and in spite of her sobbing protests, wascommanded to conform to the wishes of her parents. 

The news of Lady Stair's triumph was not long in coming to LordRutherfurd's ears, and he at once wrote to Janet Dalrymple to remind herthat she was pledged to him by everything that they both consideredholy. No reply came from the unhappy girl, but a letter from Lady Stairinformed the distracted lover that her daughter was fully sensible ofthe grave fault of which she had been guilty in entering into anengagement without the sanction of her parents, and that she nowretracted her vows, and was about to give her hand to Mr. David Dunbarof Baldoon. Such an answer, written by the mother of his betrothed, andnot by the girl herself, was scarcely likely to be received withmeekness by one of the Rutherfurds of that ilk. Lord Rutherfurd demandedan interview with Janet Dalrymple, and absolutely declined to accept anyreply that did not come to him from her own lips. It was a strugglebetween a high-spirited, determined man, deeply in love with her that hestrove for, and a woman whose heart was as hard as her brain was keen, and who did not scruple to use any means, fair or foul, by which to gainher own ends. The lion and the snake are unequal combatants, and in thiscase the lion was worsted indeed. Lady Stair granted the interview, buttook care that not for one moment was her daughter permitted to be alonewith her lover. Lord Rutherfurd had many arguments that he had deemedunanswerable, but the lady's nimble wits and ready tongue found ananswer for each one. 

It must have been a strange scene that took place that day in the oldmansion of Carsecreugh. The girl herself was present, but, had the talesof Lady Stair's dealings with the Evil One been true, she could not havesubstituted for her beautiful, happy daughter any witch-made thing thatlooked more lifeless than the poor, white-faced creature that sat withsilent lips and down-cast eyes, terror-ridden, broken-hearted. 

With every impassioned word he spoke Rutherfurd hoped to bring some signof life to her, to glean a look from her eyes that showed that her lovewas still his, but he pled in vain. As for his arguments, Lady Staircould quote Scripture with any minister in the land, and the texts shehurled at him were fearful missiles for one who had not the book ofNumbers at his fingers' ends. 

"If a woman vow unto the Lord, and bind herself by a bond, being in herfather's house in her youth; and her father hear her vow, and her bondwherewith she hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peaceat her: then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hathbound her soul shall stand. But if her father disallow her in the daythat he heareth; not any of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hathbound her soul, shall stand: and the Lord shall forgive her, because herfather disallowed her. "

So quoted the pitiless voice. Even the devil, they say, can quoteScripture for his own ends. Finally, the mother, again tellingRutherfurd that her daughter acknowledged the wrongness of her conductand desired to hold no further intercourse with him, turned to thewhite, marble creature, who seemed to hear nothing, to understandnothing, and commanded her to restore the broken half of the golden cointo him who had bestowed it. For the fraction of a second her icy fingerstouched Lord Rutherfurd's, and yet she spoke no word. 

To the fiery Borderer it was an insupportable situation. His temperwent. The broken coin was cast to the ground, and with furious words hepoured out on Lady Stair all his long pent-up anger. Then, turning toher who, so short a time before, had been all the world to him, he caston her the curse, "For you, madam, you will be a world's wonder, " andstrode from the room, his face ablaze with wrath, black murder in hisheart. Scotland was no longer a friendly home for Andrew, LordRutherfurd. He went abroad, and died there sixteen years later. 

Meantime the preparations for the marriage of young Baldoon with LordStair's daughter went on apace. The bride showed no active dislike tothe bridegroom her parents had provided, but behaved as a mere layfigure on which wedding garments were fitted, and which received withcold unresponsiveness all the attentions of the man who was to be herhusband. When the wedding day--August 24th, 1669--arrived, a largeassemblage of relations and friends of both bride and bridegroommustered at Carsecreugh. And still the white-faced lay figuremechanically went through all that was required of her, received thecompliments and jests of the company with chill politeness, but withnever a smile--a bride of marble, with a heart that had turned to stone. She rode pillion to church behind a young brother who afterwards saidthat the hand which lay on his as she held her arm round his waist was"cold and damp as marble. " "Full of his new dress and the part he actedin the procession, the circumstance, which he long afterwards rememberedwith bitter sorrow and compunction, made no impression on him at thetime. "

Great were the festivities that Lord and Lady Stair had prepared for thewedding of their daughter with so eligible a suitor as the young lairdof Baldoon, and when the ceremony in the church was over, there weregreat doings at Carsecreugh. Baldoon must either have been a very stupidman or a wilfully blind one, for his bride of snow seemed to look oneverything that took place with vacant, unseeing, unsmiling eyes, andspoke and acted as one in a dream. 

In the evening there was a dance. One can see the bright lights, thegaily-coloured wedding garments of the festive company, hear the soundof clarionet and of fiddle gaily jigging out country dances, and theloud hum of talk and laughter of the many guests. Baldoon, a proudhusband, tricked out in all the finery of a bridegroom of that day, leads out his bride, the beautiful Janet, in her white bridal robe. Canhe not feel the clammy chill of the little hand he takes in his? Whydoes he not understand the piteous look in the eyes of the girl whosefeet are treading so gay a measure? No trapped bird with broken wing wasever more pitiful. 

While the guests still were making merry, the bride and her bridesmaidswent up to the bridal chamber. The virgins who prepared Iphigenia forher sacrifice had a task no less terrible. Then, amidst the animaljocularities that were looked on as wit in that day, the bridegroomfollowed, and the best man locked the door on the married pair and putthe key in his pocket. 

The dance went gaily on, but not for long. High above the sound of theviolins, the laughter that grew more unlicensed as the night wore on, the sound of voices, the thud of feet, the tap of heels and rustle ofbrocades on a polished floor, came terrible shrieks and groans that madethe heart of each wedding guest stand still. There could be no doubtfrom which room they came, and the panic-struck company dashed upstairslike a breakaway mob of cattle. The best man, livid-faced and with ashaking hand, unlocked the door, and on the threshold stumbled over thebody of the bridegroom, terribly wounded and streaming with blood. Atfirst they could see no bride, and then, in the corner of the widechimney, they found her crouching, with no covering but her shift, andthat dabbled with gore. 

"She sat there grinning at them, mopping and mowing, " so says Sir WalterScott--"in a word, absolutely insane. "

"Tak' up your bonny bridegroom!" she screamed, with hysterical laughter, and pointed mockingly at what seemed to be the corpse of young Baldoon. 

Sick in body she was, as well as sick in mind, and on September 12th, 1669, a little over a fortnight from the day she was married, the Brideof Baldoon died. 

David Dunbar of Baldoon recovered from his wounds, but during thethirteen years that remained for him to live, he declined to help thecurious to elucidate the mystery of his attempted murder. In the wordsof Sir Walter Scott: "If a lady, he said, asked him any question uponthe subject, he would neither answer her nor speak to her again while helived; if a gentleman, he would consider it as a mortal affront, anddemand satisfaction as having received such. "

Many, of course, were the explanations given by the general public as tothe real happenings on that tragic wedding-night. The majority inclinedto think that the bride herself, crazed by grief at the loss of herlover, tried to kill her husband rather than be his wife in anythingsave legal formality. Others swore that the assailant was none otherthan the discarded lover, and that Lord Rutherfurd, having left Baldoonfor dead, had escaped by the chimney where the unfortunate bride wascrouching. But in those days there was bound to be yet another factorbrought into the tale. Witches were held responsible for many a crime inScotland in the seventeenth century, and of course Lord Stair's "auldwitch wife" was adjudged guilty of the whole tragedy. In a sense, doubtless, so she was, but the description given by the credulous ofhow, on her marriage night, Janet Dalrymple was "harled" through thehouse by evil spirits in such a way as to cause her death shortlyafterwards, is slightly at variance with the actual facts. Yet othersthere were who said that she who had sworn solemnly by all that was holyto keep her plighted troth with Andrew Rutherfurd, had obviously handedherself over, body and soul, to Satan when the troth was broken, andthat he who would have slain David Dunbar was the Evil One himself. 

 "He threw the bridegroom from the nuptial bed, Into the chimney did so his rival maul, His bruised bones ne'er were cured but by the fall. "

The "fall" referred to by this scurrilous lampoon, written by SirWilliam Hamilton, a bitter enemy of Lord Stair, was the accident bywhich Dunbar of Baldoon met his death. While riding from Leith toHolyrood on March 27, 1682, his horse fell with him. His injuries provedfatal, and he died next day, and was buried in Holyrood Chapel. 

Of the other actors in the tragedy there is little to tell. That greatand able lawyer, Viscount Stair, has left behind him permanent record ofthe ability that brought him his title. For fifty years his wife and helived together, and history tells us that "they were tenderly attachedto the last. " A witty, brilliant, worldly woman, she had the power ofkeeping the love of her husband fresh and living to the very end. She itwas who is reported by a local historian, whose standard possibly maynot have been of the very highest, to have made "one of the best punsextant. " "Bluidy Clavers" was Sheriff of Wigtown in her day, and in herpresence he dared to inveigh against one who was still the idol ofPresbyterian Whigs, John Knox. 

"Why are you so severe on the character of John Knox?" asked the LadyStair. "You are both reformers: he gained his point by clavers; youattempt to gain yours by knocks. "

When the lady died, in the year 1692, she left an order regarding thedisposal of her body which entirely confirmed the popular belief that, early in life, she had bargained with the Evil One for the worldlysuccess of herself and her descendants, and had paid her soul as price. 

She asked that her body might not be buried underground, but that thecoffin containing her should be stood upright in the family vault ofKirkliston. While she remained so placed, she said, the Dalrymplesshould flourish. But woe betide the line when that coffin should bemoved and laid on common earth as those of common people. Her orderswere carried out. Does she, a dismal sentry, keep guard there still? Andwhat sort of a Purgatory has her poor soul had to pass through to atonefor the cruel murder of the child she bore?