THE
BROWNIE OF BODSBECK;
AND
OTHER TALES.

BY
JAMES HOGG,
AUTHOR OF “THE QUEEN’S WAKE,” &c. &c.

“What, has this thing appeared again to–night?”

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

EDINBURGH;
PRINTED FOR WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, PRINCE’S–STREET:
AND
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE–STREET, LONDON.

1818.

TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LADY ANNE SCOTT,
OF BUCCLEUCH.

To Her, whose bounty oft hath shed
Joy round the peasant’s lowly bed,
When trouble press’d and friends were few,
And God and Angels only knew—
To Her, who loves the board to cheer,
And hearth of simple Cottager;
Who loves the tale of rural kind,
And wayward visions of his mind,
I dedicate, with high delight,
The themes of many a winter night.

What other name on Yarrow’s vale
Can Shepherd choose to grace his tale?
There other living name is none
Heard with one feeling,—one alone.
Some heavenly charm must name endear
That all men love, and all revere!
Even the rude boy of rustic form,
And robes all fluttering to the storm,
Whose roguish lip and graceless eye
Inclines to mock the passer by,
Walks by the Maid with softer tread,
And lowly bends his burly head,
Following with eye of milder ray
The gentle form that glides away.
The little school–nymph, drawing near,
Says, with a sly and courteous leer,
As plain as eye and manner can,
“Thou lov’st me—bless thee, Lady Anne!”
Even babes catch the beloved theme,
And learn to lisp their Lady’s name.

The orphan’s blessing rests on thee;
Happy thou art, and long shalt be!
’Tis not in sorrow, nor distress,
Nor Fortune’s power, to make thee less.
The heart, unaltered in its mood,
That joys alone in doing good,
And follows in the heavenly road,
And steps where once an Angel trode,—
The joys within such heart that burn,
No loss can quench, nor time o’erturn!
The stars may from their orbits bend,
The mountains rock, the heavens rend,—
The sun’s last ember cool and quiver,
But these shall glow, and glow for ever!

Then thou, who lov’st the shepherd’s home,
And cherishest his lowly dome,
O list the mystic lore sublime,
Of fairy tales of ancient time.
I learned them in the lonely glen,
The last abodes of living men;
Where never stranger came our way
By summer night, or winter day;
Where neighbouring hind or cot was none,
Our converse was with Heaven alone,
With voices through the cloud that sung,
And brooding storms that round us hung.

O Lady, judge, if judge you may,
How stern and ample was the sway
Of themes like these, when darkness fell,
And gray–hair’d sires the tales would tell!
When doors were barr’d, and eldron dame
Plied at her task beside the flame,
That through the smoke and gloom alone
On dim and umber’d faces shone—
The bleat of mountain goat on high,
That from the cliff came quavering by;
The echoing rock, the rushing flood,
The cataract’s swell, the moaning wood,
That undefined and mingled hum—
Voice of the desart, never dumb!—
All these have left within this heart
A feeling tongue can ne’er impart;
A wilder’d and unearthly flame,
A something that’s without a name.

And, Lady, thou wilt never deem
Religious tale offensive theme;
Our creeds may differ in degree,
But small that difference sure can be!
As flowers which vary in their dyes,
We all shall bloom in Paradise.
As sire who loves his children well,
The loveliest face he cannot tell,—
So ’tis with us. We are the same,
One faith, one Father, and one aim.

And had’st thou lived where I was bred,
Amid the scenes where martyrs bled,
Their sufferings all to thee endear’d
By those most honour’d and revered;
And where the wild dark streamlet raves,
Had’st wept above their lonely graves,
Thou would’st have felt, I know it true,
As I have done, and aye must do.
And for the same exalted cause,
For mankind’s right, and nature’s laws,
The cause of liberty divine,
Thy fathers bled as well as mine.

Then be it thine, O noble Maid,
On some still eve these tales to read;
And thou wilt read, I know full well,
For still thou lovest the haunted dell;
To linger by the sainted spring,
And trace the ancient fairy ring
Where moonlight revels long were held
In many a lone sequester’d field,
By Yarrow dens and Ettrick shaw,
And the green mounds of Carterhaugh.

O for one kindred heart that thought
As minstrel must, and lady ought,
That loves like thee the whispering wood,
And range of mountain solitude!
Think how more wild the greenwood scene,
If times were still as they have been;
If fairies, at the fall of even,
Down from the eye–brow of the heaven,
Or some aërial land afar,
Came on the beam of rising star;
Their lightsome gambols to renew,
From the green leaf to quaff the dew,
Or dance with such a graceful tread,
As scarce to bend the gowan’s head!

Think if thou wert, some evening still,
Within thy wood of green Bowhill—
Thy native wood!—the forest’s pride!
Lover or sister by thy side;
In converse sweet the hour to improve
Of things below and things above,
Of an existence scarce begun,
And note the stars rise one by one.
Just then, the moon and daylight blending,
To see the fairy bands descending,
Wheeling and shivering as they came,
Like glimmering shreds of human frame;
Or sailing, ’mid the golden air,
In skiffs of yielding gossamer.

O, I would wander forth alone
Where human eye hath never shone,
Away o’er continents and isles
A thousand and a thousand miles,
For one such eve to sit with thee,
Their strains to hear and forms to see!
Absent the while all fears of harm,
Secure in Heaven’s protecting arm;
To list the songs such beings sung,
And hear them speak in human tongue;
To see in beauty, perfect, pure,
Of human face the miniature,
And smile of being free from sin,
That had not death impress’d within.
Oh, can it ever be forgot
What Scotland had, and now has not!

Such scenes, dear Lady, now no more
Are given, or fitted as before,
To eye or ear of guilty dust;
But when it comes, as come it must,
The time when I, from earth set free,
Shall turn the spark I fain would be;
If there’s a land, as grandsires tell,
Where Brownies, Elves, and Fairies dwell,
There my first visit shall be sped—
Journeyer of earth, go hide thy head!
Of all thy travelling splendour shorn,
Though in thy golden chariot borne!
Yon little cloud of many a hue
That wanders o’er the solar blue,
That curls, and rolls, and fleets away
Beyond the very springs of day,—
That do I challenge and engage
To be my travelling equipage,
Then onward, onward, far to steer,
The breeze of Heaven my charioteer;
The soul’s own energy my guide,
Eternal hope my all beside.
At such a shrine who would not bow!
Traveller of earth, where art thou now?

Then let me for these legends claim,
My young, my honour’d Lady’s name;
That honour is reward complete,
Yet I must crave, if not unmeet,
One little boon—delightful task
For maid to grant, or minstrel ask!

One day, thou may’st remember well,
For short the time since it befel,
When o’er thy forest–bowers of oak,
The eddying storm in darkness broke;
Loud sung the blast adown the dell,
And Yarrow lent her treble swell;
The mountain’s form grew more sublime,
Wrapt in its wreaths of rolling rime;
And Newark Cairn, in hoary shroud,
Appear’d like giant o’er the cloud:
The eve fell dark, and grimly scowl’d,
Loud and more loud the tempest howl’d;
Without was turmoil, waste, and din,
The kelpie’s cry was in the linn,
But all was love and peace within!
And aye, between, the melting strain
Pour’d from thy woodland harp amain,
Which, mixing with the storm around,
Gave a wild cadence to the sound.

That mingled scene, in every part,
Hath so impressed thy shepherd’s heart,
With glowing feelings, kindling bright
Some filial visions of delight,
That almost border upon pain,
And he would hear those strains again.
They brought delusions not to last,
Blending the future with the past;
Dreams of fair stems, in foliage new,
Of flowers that spring where others grew
Of beauty ne’er to be outdone,
And stars that rise when sets the sun;
The patriarchal days of yore,
The mountain music heard no more,
With all the scene before his eyes,
A family’s and a nation’s ties—
Bonds which the Heavens alone can rend,
With Chief, with Father, and with Friend.
No wonder that such scene refin’d
Should dwell on rude enthusiast’s mind!
Strange his reverse!—He little wist—
Poor inmate of the cloud and mist!
That ever he, as friend, should claim
The proudest Caledonian name.

J. H.

Eltrive Lake, April 1st, 1818.

THE BROWNIE OF BODSBECK.

CHAPTER I.

“It will be a bloody night in Gemsop this,” said Walter of Chapelhope, as he sat one evening by the side of his little parlour fire, and wrung the rim of his wet bonnet into the grate. His wife sat by his side, airing a pair of clean hosen for her husband, to replace his wet ones. She looked stedfastly in his face, but uttered not a word;—it was one of those looks that cannot be described, but it bespoke the height of curiosity, mingled with a kind of indefinite terror. She loved and respected her husband, and sometimes was wont to teaze or cajole him from his purpose; but one glance of his eye, or scowl of his eyebrow, was a sufficient admonition to her when she ventured to use such freedom.

The anxious stare that she bent on his face at this time was enquiry enough, what he meant by the short and mysterious sentence he had just uttered; but from the fulness of his heart he had said that which he could not recal, and had no mind to commit himself farther. His eldest son, John, was in the room too, which he had not remarked before he spoke, and therefore he took the first opportunity to change the subject. “Gudewife,” said he, tartly, “what are ye sittin glowrin like a bendit wulcat there for? Gae away and get me something to eat; I’m like to fa’ atwae wi’ sheer hunger.”

“Hunger, father!” said the lad; “I’m sure I saw ye take as much meat to the hill with you as might have served six.”

Walter looked first over the one shoulder at him, and then over the other, but, repressing his wrath, he sat silent about the space of two minutes, as if he had not heard what the youth said. “Callant,” then said he, with the greatest seeming composure, “rin away to the hill, an’ see after the eild nowt; ca’ them up by the Quare Burn, an’ bide wi’ them till they lie down, gin that sudna be till twal o’clock at night—Gae away when I bid ye—What are ye mumgin at?” And saying so, he gave him such a thwack on the neck and shoulders with the wet bonnet as made him make the best of his way to the door. Whether he drove the young cattle as far as the Quare Burn, or whether he looked after them that night or not, Walter made no farther enquiry.

He sat still by his fire wrapt in deep thought, which seemed to increase his uneasy and fretful mood. Maron Linton, (for that was the goodwife of Chapelhope’s name) observing the bad humour of her husband, and knowing for certain that something disagreeable had befallen him, wisely forbore all intermeddling or teazing questions respecting the cause. Long experience had taught her the danger of these. She bustled about, and set him down the best fare that the house afforded; then, taking up her tobacco pipe, she meditated an escape into the kitchen. She judged that a good hearty meal by himself might somewhat abate his chagrin; and, besides, the ominous words were still ringing in her ears—“It will be a bloody night in Gemsop this”—and she longed to sound the shepherds that were assembled around the kitchen fire, in order to find out their import. Walter, however, perceiving her drift, stopped her short with—“Gudewife, whar are ye gaun sae fast—Come back an’ sit down here, I want to speak t’ye.”

Maron trembled at the tone in which these words were spoken, but nevertheless did as she was desired, and sat down again by the fire. “Weel, Watie, what is’t?” said she, in a low and humble tone.

Walter plied his spoon for some time without deigning any reply; then turning full upon her, “Has Kate been in her bed every night this week?” asked he seriously.

“Dear gudeman, whaten a question’s that to speer at me—What can hae put sic a norie i’ your head as that?”

“That’s no answerin my question, Maron, but speerin ither twa instead o’t—I axt ye gin Kate hadna been out o’ her bed for some nights bygane.”

“How sude I ken ony thing about that, gudeman?—ye may gang an’ speer at her—Out o’ her bed, quotha!—Na—there’ll nae young skempy amang them wile her out o’ her bed i’the night–time.—Dear gudeman, what has put it i’your head that our bairn stravaigs i’the night–time?”

“Na, na, Maron, there’s nae mortal soul will ever gar ye answer to the point.”

“Dear gudeman, wha heard ever tell o’ a mortal soul?—the soul’s no mortal at a’—Didna ye hear our ain worthy curate–clerk say”——

“O, Maron! Maron! ye’ll aye be the auld woman, if the warld sude turn upside–down!—Canna ye answer my question simply, ay or no, as far as ye ken, whether our daughter has been out o’ her bed at midnight for some nights bygane or no?—If ye ken that she has, canna ye tell me sae at aince, without ganging about the bush? it’s a thing that deeply concerns us baith.”

“Troth, gudeman, gin she hae been out o’ her bed, mony a honest man’s bairn has been out o’ her bed at midnight afore her, an’ nae ill in her mind nouther—the thing’s as common as the rising o’ the se’en sterns.”

Walter turned round towards his meal, after casting a look of pity and despair upon his yokefellow, who went on at great length defending the equivocal practice of young women who might deem it meet and convenient to leave their beds occasionally by night; for that, without some mode of private wooing, it was well known that no man in the country could possibly procure a wife, for that darkness rendered a promise serious, which passed in open day for a mere joke, or words of course; and at length Maron Linton, with more sagacity than usual, concluded her arguments with the following home remark:—“Ye ken fu’ weel, gudeman, ye courtit me i’the howe o’ the night yoursel; an’ Him that kens the heart kens weel that I hae never had cause to rue our bits o’ trysts i’the dark—Na, na! mony’s the time an’ aft that I hae blest them, an’ thought o’ them wi’ pleasure! We had ae kind o’ happiness then, Watie, we hae another now, an’ we’ll hae another yet.”

There was something in this appeal that it would have been unnatural to have resisted. There is a tenderness in the recollection of early scenes of mutual joy and love, that invariably softens the asperity of our nature, and draws the heart by an invisible bond toward the sharer of these; but when they are at one view connected with the present and the future, the delight receives a tinge of sublimity. In short, the appeal was one of the most happy that ever fell from the lips of a simple and ignorant, though a well–meaning woman. It was not lost upon Walter; who, though of a rough exterior and impatient humour, was a good man. He took his wife’s hand and squeezed it, while the pupil of his eye expanded like that of a huge mountain ram, when he turns it away from the last ray of the setting sun.

“My gude auld wife,” said he, “God bless ye!—Ye hae bits o’ queer gates whiles, but I wadna part wi’ ye, or see ane o’ yer grey hairs wranged, for a’ the ewes on the Hermon Law.”—Maron gave two or three sobs, and put the corner of her check–apron upon the eye that was next Walter.—“Fair fa’ your heart, Maron,” said he, “we’ll say nae mair about it; but, my woman, we maun crack about our bits o’ hame affairs, an’ I had the strongest reasons for coming to the truth o’ yon; however, I’ll try ither means.—But, Maron Linton, there’s anither thing, that in spite o’ my heart is like to breed me muckle grief, an’ trouble, an’ shame.—Maron, has the Brownie o’ Bodsbeck been ony mair seen about the town?”

“Troth, gudeman, ye’re aye sae hard i’ the belief—wi’ a’ your kindness to me and mine, ye hae a dour, stiff, unbowsome kind o’ nature in ye—it’ll hardly souple whan steepit i’ yer ain e’esight—but I can tell ye for news, ye’ll no hae a servant about yer house, man, woman, nor boy, in less than a fortnight, if this wicked and malevolent spirit canna be put away—an’ I may say i’ the language o’ Scripture, ‘My name is Legion, for we are many.’ It’s no ae Brownie, nor twa, nor half–a–score, that’s about the house, but a great hantle—they say they’re ha’f deils ha’f fock—a thing that I dinna weel understand. But how many bannocks think ye I hae baken in our house these eight days, an’ no a crust o’ them to the fore but that wee bit on your trencher?”

“I little wot, gudewife; maybe half–a–dizen o’ dizens.”

“Half–a–dizen o’ dizens, gudeman!—aye sax dizen o’ dizens!—a’ the meal girnels i’ the country wadna stand it, let abee the wee bit meal ark o’ Chapelhope.”

“Gudewife, I’m perfectly stoundit. I dinna ken what to say, or what to think, or what to do; an’ the mair sae o’ what I have heard sin’ I gaed to the hill—Auld John o’ the Muir, our herd, wha I ken wadna tell a lee for the Laird o’ Drumelzier’s estate, saw an unco sight the night afore last.”

“Mercy on us, gudeman! what mair has been seen about the town?”

“I’ll tell ye, gudewife—on Monanday night he cam yont to stop the ewes aff the hogg–fence, the wind being eissel—it was a wee after midnight, an’ the moon wasna just gane down—he was sittin i’ the scug o’ a bit cleuch–brae, when, or ever he wist, his dog Keilder fell a gurrin’ an’ gurrin’, as he had seen something that he was terrified for—John took him aneath his plaid, an’ held him, thinkin it was some sheep–stealers; but or it was lang he saw a white thing an’ a black thing comin’ up the Houm close thegither; they cam by within three catloups o’ him—he grippit his cudgel firm, an’ was aince gaun to gie them strength o’ arm, but his power failed him, an’ a’ his sinnens grew like dockans; there was a kind o’ glamour cam o’er his een too, for a’ the hope an’ the heaven grew as derk as tar an’ pitch—but the settin moon shone even in their faces, and he saw them as weel as it had been fore–day. The tane was a wee bit hurklin crile of an unearthly thing, as shrinkit an’ wan as he had lien seven years i’ the grave; the tither was like a young woman—an’ what d’ye think? he says he’ll gang to death wi’t that it was outher our dochter or her wraith.”

Maron lifted up her eyes and her clasped hands toward the ceiling, and broke out with the utmost vehemence into the following raving ejaculation:—“O mercy, mercy! Watie Laidlaw!—O, may Him that dwalls atween the Sherubeams be wi’ us, and preserve us and guide us, for we are undone creatures!—O, Watie Laidlaw, Watie Laidlaw! there’s the wheel within the wheel, the mystery o’ Babylon, the mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth——”

“Maron Linton!—What are ye sayin?—Haud yer tongue, Maron Linton.”

“O gudeman, I thought it was the young fallows ye jaloosed her wi’—I wish it had. I wad rather hae seen her i’the black stool, in the place where repentance is to be hoped for; but now she’s i’the deil’s ain hands. I jaloosed it, Watie—I kend it—I was sure o’t lang syne—our bairn’s changed—she’s transplanted—she’s no Keaty Laidlaw now, but an unearthly creature—we might weel hae kend that flesh an’ blude cude never be sae bonny—Goodman, I hae an awsome tale to tell ye—Wha think ye was it that killed Clavers’ Highlanders?”

“That, I suppose, will remain a mystery till the day when a’ secrets will be cleared up, an’ a’ the deeds o’ darkness brought to light.”

“Sae may it be, Watie! Sae may it be! But it was neither ane nor other but our ain only dochter Kate.”

“Ye’re ravin, Maron—troth, ye’re gaun daft—a bit sklendry lassie o’ aughteen kill sae mony armed Highlanders?—Hout fye! keep within bounds, Maron.”

“I heard her wi’ thir lugs it’s i’my head—Stannin on that very room floor, I heard her gie the orders to her Brownie. She was greetin whan I cam in—I listened and heard her saying, while her heart was like to loup, ‘Wae’s me! O wae’s me! or mid–day their blood will be rinning like water!—The auld an’ the young, the bonny an’ the gude, the sick an’ the woundit—That blude may cry to Heaven, but the cauld earth will drink it up; days may be better, but waur they canna be! Down wi’ the clans, Brownie, and spare nae ane.’ In less than ten minutes after that, the men were found dead. Now, Watie, this is a plain an’ positive truth.”

Walter’s blood curdled within him at this relation. He was superstitious, but he always affected to disbelieve the existence of the Brownie, though the evidences were so strong as not to admit of any doubt; but this double assurance, that his only daughter, whom he loved above all the world besides, was leagued with evil spirits, utterly confounded him. He charged his wife, in the most solemn manner, never more, during her life, to mention the mysterious circumstance relating to the death of the Highland soldiers. It is not easy to conceive a pair in more consummate astonishment than Walter and his spouse were by the time the conversation had reached this point. The one knew not what to think, to reject, or believe—the other believed all, without comprehending a single iota of that she did believe; her mind endeavoured to grasp a dreadful imaginary form, but the dimensions were too ample for its reasoning powers; they were soon dilated, burst, and were blown about, as it were, in a world of vision and terror.

CHAPTER II.

Before proceeding with the incidents as they occurred, which is the common way of telling a story in the country, it will be necessary to explain some circumstances alluded to in the foregoing chapter.

Walter Laidlaw rented the extensive bounds of Chapelhope from the Laird of Drummelzier. He was a substantial, and even a wealthy man, as times went then, for he had a stock of 3000 sheep, cattle, and horses; and had, besides, saved considerable sums of money, which he had lent out to neighbouring farmers who were not in circumstances so independent as himself.

He had one only daughter, his darling, who was adorned with every accomplishment which the country could then afford, and with every grace and beauty that a country maiden may possess. He had likewise two sons, who were younger than she, and a number of shepherds and female servants.

The time on which the incidents here recorded took place, was, I believe, in the autumn of the year 1685, the most dismal and troublous time that these districts of the south and west of Scotland ever saw, or have since seen. The persecution for religion then raged in its wildest and most unbridled fury: the Covenanters, or the whigs, as they were then called, were proscribed, imprisoned, and at last hunted down like wild beasts. Graham, Viscount of Dundee, better known by the detested name of Clavers, set loose his savage troopers upon those peaceful districts, with peremptory orders to plunder, waste, disperse, and destroy the conventiclers, wherever they might be found.

All the outer parts of the lands of Chapelhope are broken into thousands of deep black ruts, called by the country people moss haggs. Each of the largest of these has a green stripe along its bottom; and in this place in particular they are so numerous, so intersected and complex in their lines, that, as a hiding–place, they are unequalled—men, foxes, and sheep, may all there find cover with equal safety from being discovered, and may hide for days and nights without being aware of one another. The neighbouring farms to the westward abound with inaccessible rocks, caverns, and ravines. To these mountains, therefore, the shattered remains of the fugitives from the field of Bothwell Bridge, as well as the broken and persecuted whigs from all the western and southern counties, fled as to their last refuge. Being unacquainted, however, with the inhabitants of the country in which they had taken shelter—with their religious principles, or the opinions which they held respecting the measures of government—they durst not trust them with the secret of their retreat. They had watches set, sounds for signals, and skulked away from one hiding–place to another at the approach of the armed troop, the careless fowler, or the solitary shepherd; yea, such precautions were they obliged to use, that they often fled from the face of one another.

From the midst of that inhospitable wilderness—from those dark mosses and unfrequented caverns—the prayers of the persecuted race nightly arose to the throne of the Almighty—prayers, as all testified who heard them, fraught with the most simple pathos, as well as the most bold and vehement sublimity. In the solemn gloom of the evening, after the last rays of day had disappeared, and again in the morning before they began to streamer the east, the song of praise was sung to that Being, under whose fatherly chastisement they were patiently suffering. These psalms, always chaunted with ardour and wild melody, and borne on the light breezes of the twilight, were often heard at a great distance. The heart of the peasant grew chill, and his hairs stood all on end, as he hasted home to alarm the cottage circle with a tale of horror. Lights were seen moving by night in wilds and caverns where human thing never resided, and where the foot of man seldom had trode.

The shepherds knew, or thought they knew, that no human being frequented these places; and they believed, as well they might, that whole hordes of spirits had taken possession of their remote and solitary dells. They lived in terror and consternation. Those who had no tie in the country left it, and retreated into the vales, where the habitations of men are numerous, and where the fairy, the brownie, or the walking ghost, is rarely seen. Such as had friends whom they could not leave, or sheep and cattle upon the lands, as the farmers and shepherds had, were obliged to remain, but their astonishment and awe continued to increase. They knew there was but one Being to whom they could apply for protection against these unearthly visitants; family worship was begun both at evening and morning in the farmers’ hall and the most remote hamlet; and that age introduced a spirit of devotion into those regions, which one hundred and thirty years continuance of the utmost laxity and indecision in religious principles has not yet been able wholly to eradicate.

It is likewise necessary to mention here, though perfectly well known, that every corner of that distracted country was furnished with a gownsman, to instruct the inhabitants in the mild and benignant principles of prelacy, but chiefly to act as spies upon the detested whigs. In the fulfilment of this last task they were not remiss; they proved the most inveterate and incorrigible enemies that the poor covenanters had, even though heaven, earth, and hell seemed to have combined against them.

The officiating priest at the kirk of Saint Mary of the Lowes had been particularly active in this part of his commission. The smallest number could not be convened for the purposes of public devotion—two or three stragglers could not be seen crossing the country, but information was instantly sent to Clavers, or some one of his officers; and, at the same time, these devotional meetings were always described to be of the most atrocious and rebellious nature. The whigs became grievously incensed against this ecclesiastic, for, in the bleakest mountain of their native land, they could not enjoy a lair in common with the foxes and the wild–goats in peace, nor worship their God without annoyance in the dens and caves of the earth. Their conventicles, though held in places ever so remote, were broke in upon and dispersed by armed troops, and their ministers and brethren carried away to prisons, to banishment, and to death. They waxed desperate; and what will not desperate men do? They way–laid, and seized upon one of the priest’s emissaries by night, a young female, who was running on a message to Grierson of Lag. Overcome with fear at being in custody of such frightful–looking fellows, with their sallow cheeks and long beards, she confessed the whole, and gave up her dispatches. They were of the most aggravated nature. Forthwith two or three of the most hardy of the whigs, without the concurrence or knowledge of their brethren, posted straight to the Virgin’s chapel that very night, shot the chaplain, and buried him at a small distance from his own little solitary mansion; at the same time giving out to the country, that he was a sorcerer, an adulterer, and a character every way evil. His name has accordingly been handed down to posterity as a most horrid necromancer.

This was a rash and unpremeditated act; and, as might well have been foreseen, the cure proved worse than the disease. It brought the armed troops upon them both from the east and the west. Dundee came to Traquair, and stationed companies of troops in a line across the country. The Laird of Lag placed a body of men in the narrowest pass of Moffatdale, in the only path by which these mountains are accessible. Thus all communication was cut off between the mountain–men and the western counties; for every one who went or came by that way, these soldiers took prisoner, searched, and examined; and one lad, who was coming from Moffat, carrying more bread than they thought he could well account for, they shot dead on the spot just as he had dropt on his knees to pray.

A curate, named Clerk, still remained, to keep an eye upon the whigs and pester them. He had the charge of two chapels in that vicinity; the one at a place now called Kirkhope, which was dedicated to Saint Irene, a saint of whom the narrator of this story could give no account. The other was dedicated to Saint Lawrence; the remains of it are still to be seen at Chapelhope, in a small circular inclosure on the west side of the burn. Clerk was as malevolent to the full against the proscribed party as his late brother, but he wanted the abilities of the deceased; he was ignorant, superstitious, and had assumed a part of the fanaticism in religion of the adverse party, for it was the age and the country of fanaticism, and nothing else would take. By that principally he had gained some influence among his hearers, on whom he tried every stimulant to influence them against the whigs. The goodwife of Chapelhope was particularly attached to him and his tenets; he held her completely in leading–strings; her concience approved of every thing, or disapproved, merely as he directed; he flattered her for her deep knowledge in true and sound divinity and the Holy Scriptures, although of both she was grossly ignorant. But she had learned from her preceptor a kind of cant—a jargon of religious terms and sentences of Scripture mixed, of which she had great pride but little understanding. She was just such a character as would have been a whig, had she ever had an opportunity of hearing or conversing with any of that sect. Nothing earthly could be so truly ludicrous as some of her exhibitions in a religious style. The family and servants were in general swayed by their mistress, who took a decided part with Clerk in all his schemes against the whigs, and constantly dispatched one of her own servants to carry his messages of information to the king’s officers. This circumstance soon became known to the mountain–men, and though they were always obliged to take refuge on the lands of Chapelhope by day, they avoided carefully all communication with the family or shepherds (for several of the shepherds on that farm lived in cottages at a great distance from one another and from the farm–house.)

Walter despised Clerk and his tenets most heartily; he saw that he was a shallow, hypocritical, and selfish being, and that he knew nothing of the principles in which he pretended to instruct them; therefore he sorely regretted the influence that he had gained over his family. Neither did he approve of the rigid and rebellious principles which he believed the Covenanters professed. When he met with any man, or community of men, who believed firmly in any thing and held it sacred, Walter revered that, and held it sacred likewise; but it was rather from a deference to the belief and feelings of his fellow creatures than his own conviction. In short, Walter was an honest, conscientious, good, old–fashioned man, but he made no great fuss about religion, and many supposed that he did not care a pin who was right or who was wrong.

On the 23d of August, Clavers (I think it best to denominate him so, as he is always called by that name in the country,) dispatched nineteen men from Traquair, under the command of one Copland, a gentleman volunteer in his troop, and a very brave young man, to gain intelligence concerning the murder of the curate, and use every means to bring the perpetrators to justice. Copland and his men came to the mansion of the late chaplain, where they remained all the night, and made every enquiry that they could concerning the murderers. Several witnesses were brought in and examined, and among others the very identical girl whom the whigs took prisoner, and robbed of the dispatches. She had heard the letter read by one of the gang who seized her, while the rest stood and listened. It bore, “that great numbers of the broken and rebellious traitors kenneled in the wilds around Loch–Skene, from whence they committed depredations on all the countries about; that they likewise made religious incursions into those districts, where great multitudes attended their inflammatory harangues.” It also stated, “that a noted incendiary was to preach on such a day in Kirkinhope Linn, where the whole group might easily be surrounded and annihilated; that many of them were armed with guns, bludgeons, and broadswords, but that they were the most cowardly, heartless dogs alive; and that he himself, who had private and certain information of all their hiding places, would engage to rid the country of them in a few days, if Lag would allow him but one company of soldiers.”

Copland now began to suspect that his force was too small to accomplish any thing of moment; he determined, however, to make a dash into the wild next morning, and, if possible, to seize some prisoners, and thereby gain more accurate information. On the morning of the 24th, having procured two trusty guides, he proceeded on his expedition. He and nine of his followers went up by a place called Sheilhope, the other nine by Chapelhope—they were to scour the broken ground, take all those prisoners whom they found skulking, fire upon such as refused to stand, and meet on a certain height at noon. Copland and his party reached the appointed place without making any reprisal; they perceived some stragglers on the heights and rocks at a great distance, who always vanished away, like beings not of this world. Three of the other party took one poor lad prisoner, who was so spent and emaciated that he had been unable to fly at the signal–sound; but so intent were they on blood that he was not ever brought before their leader, who never so much as knew of the capture.

The guide was wont to relate the circumstances of this poor man’s trial and execution, for, but for him, no such thing would ever have been known; the death of a whig, or a straggler of any kind, was then a matter of no concern—They were three Brae–mar Highlanders who took him; like the most part of his associates, he answered their questions in a surly manner, and by the most cutting retorts, which particularly enraged a Donald Farquharson, one of the party, against him. “Weel, I’ll pe pitting you to ’e test, and tat fery shun, my coot freen,” said Donald; “and I’ll just pe teeling you, eince for a’, tat ye haif ne meer but tway meenets and a half to leef.”

The poor forlorn wight answered, “that he expected no better at their hands,—that he desired no longer time, and he hoped they would bear patiently with him for that short space.” He then kneeled down and prayed most fervently, while Donald, who wanted only a hair to make a tether of, as the saying is, seemed watching diligently for a word at which to quarrel. At length he spoke words to the following purport. “Father, forgive these poor misled creatures, as I forgive them; they are running blindly upon a wrong path, and without the power of thy grace they shall never gain the right one more.” Donald, who did not well understand the dialect in which the prisoner prayed, looked shrewdly at his companions. “Dugald More,” said he—“Dugald More, fat’s ’e man saying?”

“He is praying,” replied the other, “that we may lose our way, and never find it more.”

“Cot t‑‑n ’e soul o’ ’e tief, is he?” said Donald, and ran him through with his bayonet.

The wounded man groaned, and cried most piteously, and even called out “murder,” but there was none to rescue or regard him. The soldiers, however, cut the matter short, by tossing him into a deep hole in the morass, where he sunk in the mire and was seen no more.

When Copland arrived at the place of rendezvous, five out of his ten associates were no where to be seen, nor did they make their appearance, although he tarried there till two in the afternoon. The guide then conducted him by the path on which those missing should have come, and on arriving at a narrow pass in Chapelhope, he found the bodies of the four soldiers and their guide mangled and defaced in no ordinary way; and judging from this that he had been long enough in that neighbourhood, he hasted back to Traquair with the news of the loss. Clavers is said to have broke out into the most violent rage, and to have sworn that night by the Blessed Virgin and all the Holy Trinity, utterly to extirpate the seed of the d‑‑d whining psalm–singing race from the face of the earth, and that ere Beltein there should not be as much whig blood in Scotland as would make a dish of soup to a dog. He however concealed from the privy council the loss of these five men, nor did they ever know of it to this day.

CHAPTER III.

Things were precisely in this state, when the goodman of Chapelhope, taking his plaid and staff, went out to the heights one misty day in autumn to drive off a neighbour’s flock from his pasture; but, as Walter was wont to relate the story himself, when any stranger came there on a winter evening, as long as he lived, it may haply be acceptable to the curious, and the lovers of rustic simplicity, to read it in his own words, although he drew it out to an inordinate length, and perhaps kept his own personal feelings and prowess too much in view for the fastidious or critical reader to approve.

“It was on a mirk misty day in September,” said Walter, “I mind it weel, that I took my plaid about me, and a bit gay steeve aik stick in my hand, and away I sets to turn aff the Winterhopeburn sheep. The wind had been east–about a’ that harst, I hae some sma’ reason ne’er to forget it, and they had amaist gane wi’ a’ the gairs i’ our North Grain. I weel expected I wad find them a’ in the scaithe that dark day, and I was just amind to tak them hame in a drove to Aidie Andison’s door, and say, ‘Here’s yer sheep for ye, lad; ye maun outher keep them better, or else, gude faith, I’ll keep them for ye.’—I had been crost and put about wi’ them a’ that year, and I was just gaun to bring the screw to the neb o’ the mire–snipe.—Weel, off I sets—I had a special dog at my feet, and a bit gay fine stick in my hand, and I was rather cross–natured that day—‘Auld Wat’s no gaun to be o’er–trampit wi’ nane o’ them, for a’ that’s come and gane yet,’ quo’ I to mysel as I gaed up the burn.—Weel, I slings aye on wi’ a gay lang step; but, by the time that I had won the Forkings, I gat collied amang the mist, sae derk, that fient a spark I could see—Stogs aye on through cleuch and gill, and a’ the gairs that they used to spounge, but, to my great mervel, I can nouther see a hair of a ewe’s tail, nor can I hear the bleat of a lamb, or the bell of a wether—No ane, outher of my ain or ither folks!—‘Ay,’ says I to mysel, ‘what can be the meaning o’ this? od, there has been somebody here afore me the day!’ I was just standin looking about me amang the lang hags that lead out frae the head o’ the North Grain, and considering what could be wort of a’ the sheep, when I noticed my dog, Reaver, gaun coursing away forrit as he had been setting a fox. What’s this, thinks I—On he gangs very angry like, cocking his tail, and setting up his birses, till he wan to the very brink of a deep hag; but when he gat there, my certy, he wasna lang in turning! Back he comes, by me, an’ away as the deil had been chasing him; as terrified a beast I saw never—Od, sir, I fand the very hairs o’ my head begin to creep, and a prinkling through a’ my veins and skin like needles and preens.—‘God guide us!’ thinks I, ‘what can this be?’ The day was derk, derk; for I was in the very stamoch o’ the cludd, as it were; still it was the day time, an’ the e’e o’ Heaven was open. I was as near turned an’ run after my tike as ever I’ll miss, but I just fand a stound o’ manheid gang through my heart, an’ forrit I sets wi’ a’ the vents o’ my head open. ‘If it’s flesh an’ blude,’ thinks I, ‘or it get the owrance o’ auld Wat Laidlaw, od it sal get strength o’ arm for aince.’ It was a deep hag, as deep as the wa’s o’ this house, and a strip o’ green sward alang the bottom o’t; and when I came to the brow, what does I see but twa lang liesh chaps lying sleeping at ither’s sides, baith happit wi’ the same maud. ‘Hallo!’ cries I, wi’ a stern voice, ‘wha hae we here?’ If ye had but seen how they lookit when they stertit up; od, ye wad hae thought they were twa scoundrels wakened frae the dead! I never saw twa mair hemp–looking dogs in my life.

‘What are ye feared for, lads? Whaten twa blades are ye? Or what are ye seeking in sic a place as this?’

‘This is a derk day, gudeman.’

‘This is a derk day, gudeman! That’s sic an answer as I heard never. I wish ye wad tell me something I dinna ken—and that’s wha ye are, and what ye’re seeking here?’

‘We’re seeking nought o’ yours, friend.’

‘I dinna believe a word o’t—ye’re nae folk o’ this country—I doubt ye ken o’er weel what stealing o’ sheep is—But if ye winna tell me plainly and honestly your business here, the deil be my inmate gin I winna knock your twa heads thegither.’

‘There is a gude auld say, honest man, It is best to let sleeping dogs lie, they may rise and bite you.’

‘Bite me, lad!—Rise an’ bite me!—I wad like to see a dog on a’ the heights o’ Chapelhope that wad snarl at me, let be to bite!’

“I had a gay steeve dour aik stick in my hand, an’ wi’ that I begoud to heave’t up, no to strike them, but just to gi’e them a glisk o’ the coming–on that was in’t. By this time they were baith on their feet; and the ane that was neist me he gi’es the tabie of his jockey–coat a fling back, and out he pu’s a braid sword frae aneath it—an’ wi’ the same blink the ither whups a sma’ spear out o’ the heart o’ his aik stick, ‘Here’s for ye then, auld camstary,’ says they; ‘an unlucky fish gets an unlucky bait.’ Od sir, I was rather stoundit; I began to look o’er my shouther, but there was naething there but the swathes o’ mist. What wad I hae gien for twa minutes of auld John o’ the Muchrah! However, there was nae time to lose—it was come fairly to the neb o’ the mire–snipe wi’ me. I never was gude when taken by surprise a’ my life—gie me a wee time, an’ I turn quite foundemental then—sae, to tell the truth, in my hurry I took the flier’s part, flang the plaid frae me, and ran off up the hag as fast as my feet could carry me, an’ a’ the gate the ragamuffian wi’ the sword was amaist close at my heels. The bottom o’ the hag was very narrow, twa could hardly rin abreast. My very bluid began to rise at being chased by twa skebels, and I thought I heard a voice within me, crying, ‘Dinna flee, Wat Laidlaw! dinna flee, auld Wat! ye hae a gude cause by the end!’ I wheeled just round in a moment, sir, and drew a desperate straik at the foremost, an’ sae little kend the haniel about fencing, that instead o’ sweeing aff my downcome wi’ his sword, he held up his sword–arm to save his head—I gart his arm just snap like a pipe–stapple, and down fell his bit whittle to the ground, and he on aboon it. The tither, wi’ his sma’ spear, durstna come on, but ran for it; I followed, and was mettler o’ foot than he, but I durstna grip him, for fear he had run his bit spit through my sma–fairns i’ the struggle, for it was as sharp as a lance, but I keepit a little back till I gat the end o’ my stick just i’ the how o’ his neck, and then I gae him a push that soon gart him plew the flow with his nose. On aboon him I gets, and the first thing I did was to fling away his bit twig of a sword—I gart it shine through the air like a fiery dragon—then I took him by the cuff o’ the neck, and lugged him back to his neighbour, wha was lying graning in the hag. ‘Now, billies,’ says I, ‘ye shall answer face to face, it wad hae been as good soon as syne; tell me directly wha ye are, and what’s your business here, or, d’ye hear me, I’ll tye ye thegither like twa tikes, and tak ye to them that will gar ye speak.’

‘Ah! lack–a–day, lack–a–day!’ said the wounded man, ‘ye’re a rash, foolish, passionate man, whaever ye be.’

‘Ye’re maybe no very far wrang there,’ quo’ I; ‘but for aince, I trow, I had gude reason. Ye thought to kill me wi’ your bits o’ shabbles o’ swords!’

‘In the first place then,’ said he, ‘ken that we wadna hae shed ae drap o’ your blood, nor wranged a hair o’ your head—all that we wanted was to get quit of ye, to keep ye out o’ danger an’ scaith. Ye hae made a bonny day’s wark on’t truly, we had naething in view but your ain safety—but sin’ ye will ken ye maun ken; we belang to a poor proscribed remnant, that hae fled from the face of a bloody persecution. We have left all, and lost all, for the cause of our religion, and are driven into this dismal wilderness, the only miserable retreat left us in our native land.’

‘Od, sir! he hadna weel begun to speak till the light o’ the truth began to dawn within me like the brek o’ the day–sky, an’ I grew as red too, for the devil needna hae envied me my feelings at that time. I couldna help saying to mysel, ‘Whow, whow, Wat Laidlaw! but ye hae made a bonny job o’t this morning!—Here’s twa puir creatures, worn out wi’ famine and watching, come to seek a last refuge amang your hags and mosses, and ye maun fa’ to and be pelting and threshing on them like an incarnate devil as ye are.—Oh, wae’s me! wae’s me!’—Lord, sir, I thought my heart wad burst—There was a kind o’ yuke came into my een that I could hardly bruke; but at length the muckle tears wan out wi’ a sair faught, and down they came down ower my beard, dribble for dribble. The men saw the pliskie that I was in, and there was a kind o’ ruefu’ benevolence i’ their looks, I never saw ony thing like it.’

‘Dinna be wae for us, honest man,’ said they; ‘we hae learned to suffer—we hae kend nought else for this mony a lang and bloody year, an’ we look for nought else for the wee while we hae to sojourn in this weary world—we hae learned to suffer patiently, and to welcome our sufferings as mercies.’

‘Ye’ve won a gude length, man,’ quo’ I; ‘but they’re mercies that I’m never very fond o’—I wish ye had suffered under ony hand but mine, sin’ it be your lot.’

‘Dinna be sorry for us, honest man; there never was an act o’ mair justice than this that ye hae inflicted. Last night there were fifteen o’ us met at evening worship—we hadna tasted meat for days and nights; to preserve our miserable lives, we stole a sheep, dressed, and ate it; and wi’ this very arm that you hae disabled, did I grip and kill that sheep. It was a great sin, nae doubt, but the necessity was also great—I am sae far punished, and I hope the Lord will forgie the rest.’

‘If he dinna,’ quo’ I, ‘he’s no what I think him.’ Then he began a lang serious harangue about the riches o’ free grace, and about the wickedness o’ our nature; and said, that we could do naething o’ oursells but sin. I said it was a hard construction, but I couldna argy the point ava wi’ him—I never was a dab at these lang–winded stories. Then they cam on about prelacy and heresies, and something they ca’d the act of abjuration. I couldna follow him out at nae rate; but I says, I pit nae doubt, callants, but ye’re right, for ye hae proven to a’ the warld that ye think sae; and when a man feels conscious that he’s right, I never believe he can be far wrang in sic matters. But that’s no the point in question; let us consider what can be done for ye e’en now—Poor souls! God kens, my heart’s sair for ye; but this land’s mine, an’ a’ the sheep around ye, an’ ye’re welcome to half–a–dozen o’ the best o’ them in sic a case.’

‘Ah! lack–a–day, lack–a–day! If ye be the gudeman o’ the Chapelhope, ye’ll rue the day that ever ye saw us. If it’s kend that ye countenanced us in word or deed, ye’re a ruined man; for the blood–hounds are near at hand, and they’ll herry ye out and in, but and ben—Lack–a–day! lack–a–day! in a wee while we may gang and come by the Chapelhope, and nouther see a lum reek nor hear a cock craw; for Clavers is on the one hand and Lag on the other, and they’re coming nearer and nearer us every day, and hemming us in sairer and sairer—renounce us and deny us, as ye wish to thrive.’

‘Na, na, lads, let them come—let them come their ways! Gin they should take a’ the ewes and kye on the Chapelhope, I can stock it o’er again. I dinna gie a bawbee about your leagues, and covenants, and associations, for I think aye there’s a good deal o’ faction and dourness in them; but or I’ll desert a fellow–creature that’s oppressed, if he’s an honest man, and lippens to me, od, I’ll gie them the last drap o’ my heart’s bluid.’

“When they heard that, they took me out to the tap of a knowe, and began to whistle like plovers—nae herd alive could hae kend but they were plovers—and or ever I wist, ilka hag, and den, and tod–hole round about, seemed to be fu’ o’ plovers, for they fell a’ to the whistling an’ answering ane another at the same time. I had often been wondering how they staid sae lang on the heights that year, for I heard them aye whewing e’en an’ morn; but little trowed I they were a’ twa–handed plovers that I heard. In half an hour they had sic a squad gathered thegither as e’e never glimed on. There ye might hae seen auld gray–bearded ministers, lairds, weavers, and poor hinds, a’ sharing the same hard fate. They were pale, ragged, and hungry, and several o’ them lame and wounded; and they had athegither sic a haggard severity i’ their demeaner. Lord forgie me, gin I wasna feared to look at them! There was ane o’ them a doctor blade, wha soon set the poor chield’s arm; and he said, that after a’ it wasna broken, but only dislockit and sair brizzed. That doctor was the gabbiest body ever I met wi’; he spake for them a’, and I whiles feared that he sclented a wee. He tried a’ that he could to make me a Cameronian, but I wadna grip; and when I was coming away to leave him, ‘Laidlaw,’ quo’ he, ‘we ken ye to be an honest, honourable man; here you see a remnant of poor, forlorn, misrepresented creatures, who have thrown themselves on your mercy; if ye betray us, it will be the worse for ye both here and hereafter; if you save and protect us, the prayers of the just win their way to Heaven, though fiends should be standing by to oppose them—Ay, there’s naething can stop their journey, Laidlaw!—The winds canna blaw them aside, the clouds canna drown them, and the lights o’ Heaven canna burn them; and your name will stand at that bar where there’s nae cruel and partial judge—What you gie to us, ye gie to your Maker, and he will repay you seven fold.’ Od, the body was like to gar me play the bairn and greet even out. Weel, I canna mind the half that he said, but he endit wi’ this:—‘We have seen our friends all bound, banished, and destroyed; they have died on the field, on the scaffold, and at the stake; but the reek o’ their blood shall drive the cruel Stuarts frae the land they have disgraced, and out of it a church of truth and liberty shall spring. There is still a handfu’ remaining in Israel that have not yet bowed the knee to Baal, nor yet kissed him—That remnant has fled here to escape the cruelty of man; but a worse fate threatens us now—we are all of us perishing with famine—For these three days we have tasted nothing but the green moss, save a few wretched trouts, eels, and adders.’ ‘Ethers, man!’ quo’ I,—‘For the love o’ God take care how ye eat the ethers—ye may as weel cut your throats at aince as eat them. Na, na, lad, that’s meat that will never do.’ I said nae mair, but gae just a wave to my dog. ‘Reaver,’ quo’ I, ‘yon’s away.’—In three minutes he had ten score o’ ewes and wedders at my hand. I grippit twa o’ the best I could wale, and cut aff their heads wi’ my ain knife. ‘Now, doctor,’ quo’ I, ‘take these and roast them, and part them amang ye the best way ye can—ye’ll find them better than the ethers—Lord, man, it will never do to eat ethers.’”

After a hearty laugh, in which his guests generally joined, Walter concluded thus: “That meeting cost me twa or three hunder round bannocks, and mae gude ewes and wedders than I’ll say; but I never missed them, and I never rued what I did. Folk may say as they like, but I think aye the prayers out amang the hags and rash–bushes that year did me nae ill—It is as good to hae a man’s blessing as his curse, let him be what he may.”

Walter never went farther with his story straight onward than this; for it began to involve family concerns, which he did not much like to recount. He had a number of abstract stories about the Covenanters and their persecutors; but as I must now proceed with the narrative as I gathered it from others, these will be interwoven in their due course.

CHAPTER IV.

Walter visited them next day at the time and place appointed, taking with him a dozen of bannocks and a small cheese. These he was obliged to steal out of his own pantry, for he durst not by any means trust his wife and family with the discovery he had made, knowing that he might as well have confided it with the curate himself, the sworn enemy of his motley protegees. They gathered around him with protestations of gratitude and esteem; for the deserted and oppressed generally cling to the first symptoms of friendship and protection with an ardency that too often overshoots its aim. Walter naturally felt an honest pride, not so much in that he had done, as that he intended to do; but before he produced his repast, he began in a most serious way to question them relating to some late incidents already mentioned.

They all with one assent declared, and took God to witness, that they knew nothing at all about the death of the five soldiers; that it was not perpetrated by them, nor any connected with them; nor could they comprehend, in the least degree, how it was effected, if not by some supernatural agency—a judgment sent down from Heaven for their bloody intent. With regard to the murder of the priest, they were sorry that they knew so much. It was perpetrated by a few rash men of their number, but entirely without their concurrent assent, as well as knowledge; that though his death might have been necessary to the saving of a great number of valuable lives, they had, nevertheless, unanimously protested against it; that the perpetrators had retired from their body, they knew not whither; and that at that very time the Rev. Messrs Alexander Shiels and James Renwick were engaged in arranging for publication a general protest against many things alleged against them by their enemies, and that among others.[1]

There was a candour in this to which Walter’s heart assented. He feasted them with his plentiful and homely cheer—promised to visit them every day, and so to employ his shepherds that none of them should come into that quarter to distress them. Walter was as good as his word—He visited them every day—told them all the news that he could gather of the troops that beleagured them—of the executions that were weekly and daily taking place—and of every thing else relating to the state of the country. He came loaden with food to them daily; and when he found it impossible to steal his own bread, butter, and cheese, he supplied their wants from his flock. The numbers of the persecuted increased on his hands incalculably—The gudewife of Chapelhope’s bannocks vanished by scores, and the unconscionable, insatiable Brownie of Bodsbeck was blamed for the whole.

Some time previous to this, a young vagrant, of the name of Kennedy, chanced to be out on these moors shooting grouse, which were extremely plentiful. He tarried until the twilight, for he had the art of calling the heath–fowl around him in great numbers, by imitating the cry of the hen. He took his station for this purpose in one of those moss–hags formerly described; but he had not well begun to call ere his ears were saluted by the whistling of so many plovers that he could not hear his own voice. He was obliged to desist, and lay for some time listening, in expectation that they would soon cease crying. When lying thus, he heard distinctly the sound of something like human voices, that spoke in whispers hard by him; he likewise imagined that he heard the pattering of feet, which he took for those of horses, and, convinced that it was a raid of the fairies, he became mortally afraid; he crept closer to the earth, and in a short time heard a swell of the most mellifluous music that ever rose on the night. He then got up, and fled with precipitation away, as he thought, from the place whence the music seemed to arise; but ere he had proceeded above an hundred paces, he met with one of the strangest accidents that ever happened to man.

That same night, about, or a little before, the hour of midnight, two of Laidlaw’s men, who happened to be awake, imagined that they heard a slight noise without; they arose, and looked cautiously out at a small hole that was in the end of the stable where they slept, and beheld to their dismay the appearance of four men, who came toward them carrying a coffin; on their coming close to the corner of the stable, where the two men stood, the latter heard one of them say distinctly, in a whisper, “Where shall we lay him?”

“We must leave him in the barn,” said another.

“I fear,” said a third, “the door of that will be locked;” and they past on.

The men were petrified; they put on their clothes, but they durst not move, until, in a short time thereafter, a dreadful bellowing and noise burst forth about the door of the farm–house. The family was alarmed, and gathered out to see what was the matter; and behold! there lay poor Kennedy in a most piteous plight, and, in fact, stark staring mad. He continued in a high fever all the night, and the next morning; but a little after noon he became somewhat more calm, and related to them a most marvellous tale indeed.

He said, that by the time he arose to fly from the sound of the music, the moor was become extremely dark, and he could not see with any degree of accuracy where he was running, but that he still continued to hear the sounds, which, as he thought, came still nigher and nigher behind him. He was, however, mistaken in this conjecture; for in a short space he stumbled on a hole in the heath, into which he sunk at once, and fell into a pit which he described as being at least fifty fathom deep; that he there found himself immediately beside a multitude of hideous beings, with green clothes, and blue faces, who sat in a circle round a small golden lamp, gaping and singing with the most eldrich yells. In one instant all became dark, and he felt a weight upon his breast that seemed heavier than a mountain. They then lifted him up, and bore him away through the air for hundreds of miles, amid regions of utter darkness; but on his repeating the name of Jesus three times, they brought him back, and laid him down in an insensible state at the door of Chapelhope.

The feelings depicted in the features of the auditors were widely different on the close of this wonderful relation. The beauteous Katharine appeared full of anxious and woful concern, but no marks of fear appeared in her lovely face. The servants trembled every limb, and declared with one voice, that no man about Chapelhope was now sure of his life for a moment, and that nothing less than double wages should induce them to remain there another day. The goodwife lifted up her eyes to Heaven, and cried, “O the vails! the vails!—the vails are poured, and to pour!”

Walter pretended to laugh at the whole narration; but when he did, it was with an altered countenance, for he observed, what none of them did, that Kennedy had indeed been borne through the air by some means or other; for his shoes were all covered with moss, which, if he had walked, could not have been there, for the grass would have washed it off from whatever quarter he had come.

Kennedy remained several days about Chapelhope in a thoughtful, half delirious frame; but no entreaties could prevail with him at that time to accompany the men of the place to where he supposed the accident had happened, nor yet to give them any account where it was situated, for he averred that he heard a voice say to him in a solemn tone, “If you wish to live long, never tell what you have seen to–night, nor ever come this way again.” Happy had it been for him had he attended all along to this injunction. He slipped away from Chapelhope in a few days, and was no more seen until the time that Copland and his men appeared there. It was he who came as guide to that soldiers that were slain, and he fell with them in the strait linn of the South Grain of Chapelhope.

These mysterious and unaccountable incidents by degrees impressed the minds of the inhabitants with terror that cannot be described; no woman or boy would go out of doors after sunset, on any account whatever, and there was scarcely a man who durst venture forth alone after the fall of evening. If they could have been sure that brownies and fairies had only power to assume the human shape, they would not have been nearly in such peril and perplexity; but there was no form of any thing animate or inanimate, save that of a lamb, that they were sure of; they were of course waylaid at every turn, and kept in continual agitation. An owl was a most dangerous and suspicious–looking fellow—a white glede made them quake, and keep a sharp look–out upon his course in the air—a hare, with her large intelligent eyes and equivocal way of walking, was an object of general distrust—and a cat, squalling after dark, was the devil. Many were the ludicrous scenes that occurred, among which I cannot help mentioning those which follow, as being particularly whimsical.

Jasper, son to old John of the Muchrah, was the swiftest runner of his time; but of all those whose minds were kept in continual agitation on account of the late inundation of spirits into the country, Jasper was the chief. He was beset by them morning and evening; and even at high noon, if the day was dark, he never considered himself as quite safe. He depended entirely upon his speed in running to avoid their hellish intercourse; he essayed no other means—and many wonderful escapes he effected by this species of exertion alone. He was wont to knit stockings while tending his flock on the mountains; and happening to drop some yarn one evening, it trailed after him in a long ravelled coil along the sward. It was a little after the sun had gone down that Jasper was coming whistling and singing over the shoulder of the Hermon Law, when, chancing to cast a casual glance behind him, he espied something in shape of a horrible serpent, with an unequal body, and an enormous length of tail, coming stealing along the bent after him. His heart leapt to his mouth, (as he expressed it,) and his hair bristled so that it thrust the bonnet from his head. He knew that no such monster inhabited these mountains, and it momently occurred to him that it was the Brownie of Bodsbeck come to seize him in that most questionable shape. He betook him to his old means of safety in great haste, never doubting that he was well qualified to run from any object that crawled on the ground with its belly; but, after running a considerable way, he perceived his adversary coming at full stretch along the hill after him. His speed was redoubled; and, as he noted now and then that his inveterate pursuer gained no ground on him, his exertion was beyond that of man. There were two shepherds on an opposite hill who saw Jasper running without the plaid and the bonnet, and with a swiftness which they described as quite inconceivable. The cause set conjecture at defiance; but they remarked, that though he grew more and more spent, whenever he glanced behind he exerted himself anew, and strained a little harder. He continued his perseverance to the last, as any man would do who was running for bare life, until he came to a brook called the Ker Cleuch, in the crossing of which he fell down exhausted; he turned on his back to essay a last defence, and, to his joyful astonishment, perceived that the serpent likewise lay still and did not move. The truth was then discovered; but many suspected that Jasper never overcame that heat and that fright as long as he lived.

Jasper, among many encounters with the fairies and brownies, had another that terminated in a manner not quite so pleasant. The Brownie of Bodsbeck, or the Queen of the Fairies, (he was not sure which of them it was,) came to him one night as he was lying alone, and wide awake, as he conceived, and proffered him many fine things, and wealth and honours in abundance, if he would go along to a very fine country, which Jasper conjectured must have been Fairyland. He resisted all these tempting offers in the most decided manner, until at length the countenance of his visitant changed from the most placid and bewitching beauty to that of a fiend. The horrible form grappled with him, laid hold of both his wrists, and began to drag him off by force; but he struggled with all the energy of a man in despair, and at length, by a violent exertion, he disengaged his right hand. The enemy still continuing, however, to haul him off with the other, he was obliged to have recourse to a desperate expedient. Although quite naked, he reached his clothes with the one hand and drew his knife; but, in endeavouring to cut off those fingers which held his wrist so immovably fast, he fairly severed a piece of the thumb from his own left hand.

This was the very way that Jasper told the story to his dying day, denying stoutly that he was in a dream; and, singular as it may appear, I can vouch for the truth of it. Jasper Hay died at Gattonside at a right old age, in the year 1739; and they are yet alive who have heard him tell those stories, and seen him without the thumb of the left hand.

Things went on in this distracted and doubtful manner until the time when Walter is first introduced. On that day, at the meeting place, he found no fewer than 130 of the poor wanderers, many of them assembled to see him for the last time, and take an affectionate leave of him; for they had previously resolved to part, and scatter themselves again over the west country, even though certain death awaited them, as they could not in conscience longer remain to be the utter ruin of one who was so generous and friendly to them. They saw, that not only would his whole stock be wasted, but he would himself be subjected to confiscation of goods, and imprisonment, if to nothing worse. Walter said, the case seemed hard either way; but he had been thinking, that perhaps, if they remained quiet and inoffensive in that seclusion, the violence of the government might in a little relax, and they might then retire to their respective homes in peace. Walter soon heard with vexation that they made conscience of not living in peace, but of proclaiming aloud to the world the grievous wrongs and oppression that the church of Christ in Scotland laboured under. The doctor chap, as Walter always called him, illustrated at great length the sin that would lie to their charge, should they remain quiet and passive in a time like that, when the church’s all was at stake in these realms. “We are but a remnant,” added he, “a poor despised remnant; but if none stand up for the truth of the reformed religion, how are ever our liberties, civil or ecclesiastical, to be obtained? There are many who think with us, and who feel with us, who yet have not the courage to stand up for the truth; but the time must ere long come, that the kingdoms of the land will join in supporting a reformation, for the iniquity of the Amorite is wearing to the full.”

Walter did not much like disputing about these matters; but in this he felt that his reason acquiesced, and he answered thus: “Ye speak like a true man, and a clever man, Doctor; and if I had a desperate cause by the end, and wanted ane to back me in’t, the deil a step wad I gang ayont this moss hag to find him; but, Doctor, there’s a time for every thing. I wadna hae ye to fling away a gude cause, as I wad do a rotten ewe, that winna haud ony langer. But dinna ye think that a fitter time may come to mak a push? ye’ll maybe sell mae precious lives for nae end, wi’ your declarations; take care that you, and the like o’ you, haena these lives to answer for.—I like nae desperate broostles—od, man, it’s like ane that’s just gaun to turn divour, taking on a’ the debt he can.”

“Dinna fear, gudeman! dinna fear! There’s nae blood shed in sic a cause that can ever be shed in vain. Na, na! that blood will argue better at the bar o’ Heaven for poor distressed Scotland than all the prayers of all the living. We hae done muckle, but we’ll do mair yet—muckle blood has been wantonly and diabolically shed, and our’s may rin wi’ the rest—we’ll no thraw’t wantonly and exultingly away; but, when our day comes, we’ll gie it cheerfully—as cheerfully, gudeman, as ever ye paid your mail to a kind landlord, even though the season had been hard and stormy. We had aince enough of this warld’s wealth, and to spare; but we hae naething now but our blood, and we’ll part wi’ that as cheerfully as the rest. And it will tell some day! and ye may live to see it yet. But enough, gudeman; we have all resolved, that, whatever the consequence may be, to live no more on your bounty—therefore, do not urge it—but give us all your hand—Farewell!—and may God bless you in all your actings and undertakings!—There is little chance that we shall ever meet again—We have no reward to give but our blessing and good wishes; but, whenever a knee here present is bowed at the footstool of grace, you will be remembered.”

Walter could not bear thus to part with them, and to give them up as it were to certain destruction. He argued as well as he could on the imprudence of the step they were going to take—of the impossibility of their finding a retreat so inaccessible in all the bounds of the south of Scotland, and the prospect that there was of the persecution soon relaxing. But when he had said all that he could say, a thin spare old man, with grey dishevelled locks, and looks, Walter said, as stern as the adders that he had lately been eating, rose up to address him. There was that in his manner which commanded the most intense attention.

“Dost thou talk of our rulers relaxing?” said he. “Blind and mistaken man! thou dost not know them. No; they will never relax till their blood shall be mixed with their sacrifices. That insatiate, gloomy, papistical tyrant and usurper, the Duke of York, and his commissioner, have issued laws and regulations more exterminating than ever. But yesterday we received the woeful intelligence, that, within these eight days, one hundred and fifty of our brethren have suffered by death or banishment, and nearly one–half of these have been murdered, even without the sham formality of trial or impeachment, nor had they intimation of the fate that awaited them. York hath said in full assembly, ‘that neither the realm nor the mother–church can ever be safe, until the south of Scotland is again made a hunting forest;’ and his commissioner hath sworn by the living God, ‘that never a whig shall again have time or warning to prepare for Heaven, for that hell is too good for them.’ Can we hope for these men relaxing? No! The detestable and bloody Clavers, that wizard! that eater of toads! that locust of the infernal pit, hems us in closer and closer on one side, and that Muscovite beast on the other! They thirst for our blood; and our death and tortures are to them matter of great sport and amusement. My name is Mackail! I had two brave and beautiful sons, and I had but two; one of these had his brains shot out on the moss of Monyhive without a question, charge, or reply. I gathered up his brains and shattered skull with these hands, tied them in my own napkin, and buried him alone, for no one durst assist me. His murderers stood by and mocked me, cursed me for a dog, and swore if I howled any more that they would send me after him. My eldest son, my beloved Hew, was hung like a dog at the Market–cross of Edinburgh. I conversed with him, I prayed with him in prison, kissed him, and bade him farewell on the scaffold! My brave, my generous, my beautiful son! I tell thee, man, thou who preachest up peace and forbearance with tyrants, should ever the profligate Charles, or his diabolical brother—should ever the murderer Clavers, or any of his hell–hounds of the north, dare set foot in Heaven, one look from the calm benignant face of my martyred son would drive them out howling!”

All this time the old man shed not a tear; his voice was wildly solemn, but his looks were mixed with madness. He had up his hand to swear, to pray, or to prophecy, Walter knew not which, but he was restrained by his associates, and led aside, so that Walter saw no more of him; but he said he could not get him out of his mind for many a day, for sic another desperate auld body he had never seen.

These harangues took up much of the time that they had to spare, but ere they parted Walter persuaded them, probably by his strong homely reasoning, to remain where they were. He said, since they persisted in refusing to take more of his flock, there was an extensive common beyond the height, called Gemsope, which had been a royal forest, where many gentlemen and wealthy farmers had sheep that fed promiscuously; and considering their necessitous circumstances, he thought it no evil, and he advised them to go and take from that glen as many as would serve to support nature for a time;—that for his part he had many a good wedder and dinmont there, and was willing to run his risk, which would then fall equal on a number, and only on such as were rich and could well bear it. In this plan, after some scruples which were overborne by the majority, they at length fully and thankfully acquiesced.

That same day, on his way homeward, Walter heard the wonderful relation of the apparition of his beloved daughter in the Hope at midnight; he learned that Clavers would be there in a few days, and he had sent away above 100 men to steal sheep—all these things made him thoughtful and uneasy after he had reached his home, wet and fatigued.—“It will be a bloody night in Gemsope this,” he said, sighing, not recollecting what he said or to whom he said it. He could trust his wife with any of his family concerns, but as long as she continued to be so much influenced by the curate Clerk, the sworn enemy of his poor persecuted flock, he durst not give her a hint of their retreat.

Walter became still more and more perplexed from all that he heard from his wife, as well as from every one else—he found that, in truth, there was some mysterious thing about his house—the whole family seemed convinced of it—there were many things seen, heard, and done there that he could in nowise account for in a rational way, and though he resisted the general belief for a good while, that the house was haunted, circumstances at length obliged him to yield to the torrent, and he believed as faithfully in the Brownie of Bodsbeck as any of them all.

CHAPTER V.

The house which Walter occupied was on the very spot where the farm–house of Chapelhope now stands, but it was twice as long; indeed, a part of the house that is still standing, or was lately so, is the very one that was built for Laidlaw when he first entered to that large farm. There was likewise an outshot from the back of the house, called the Old Room, which had a door that entered from without, as well as one from the parlour within. The end of this apartment stood close to the bottom of the steep bank behind the house, which was then thickly wooded, as was the whole of the long bank behind, so that, consequently, any one, with a little caution, might easily have gone out or come in there, without being seen by any of the family. It contained a bed, in which any casual vagrant, or itinerant pedlar slept, besides a great deal of lumber; and as few entered there, it had altogether a damp, mouldy, dismal appearance. There was likewise a dark closet in one corner of it, with an old rusty lock, which none of the family had ever seen opened.

The most part of the family soon grew suspicious of this place. Sounds, either real or imaginary, were heard issuing from it, and it was carefully shunned by them all. Walter had always, as I said, mocked at the idea of the Old Room being haunted, until that very night when we began with him, and where, after many round–abouts, we have now found him again.

It will be recollected that the conversation between Walter and his wife, which is narrated in the first chapter of this book, terminated with a charge from him never more to mention the mysterious story relating to their daughter and these five men that were destroyed. After this she retired about some housewife business, and left Walter by himself to muse on that he had seen and heard. He was sitting musing, and that deeply, on the strange apparition of his daughter that old John had seen, when he thought he heard something behind him making a sound as if it growled inwardly. He looked around and saw that it was his dog Reaver, who was always an inmate of every place that his master entered—he was standing in an attitude of rage, but at the same time there was a mixture of wild terror in his appearance—His eyes, that gleamed like red burning coals, were pointed directly to the door that opened from the corner of the parlour into the Old Room—Walter was astonished, for he well knew his acuteness, but he kept his eyes on him and said not a word—The dog went forward with a movement scarce perceptible, until he came close to the door, but on putting his nose and ear to the bottom of it, he burst out with such a bay and howl as were truly frightful, and ran about the apartment as if mad, trying to break through the walls and window boards.—Walter was fairly overcome; there is nothing frightens a shepherd so much as the seeing of his dog frightened. The shepherd’s dog of the true breed will boldly attack any animal on earth in defence of his master, or at his command; and it is no good sign indeed when he appears terrified, for the shepherd well knows that his dog can discover spirits by the savour of the wind, when he is all unconscious that any such beings are near.

Walter fled into the kitchen with precipitation—he found all the family standing in alarm, for they had heard the hideous uproar in the room.

“What’s the matter?” said half–a–dozen at once.

“What’s the matter!” said Walter, churlishly—“nothing at all is the matter—tell me who of you were in the Old Room, and what you were seeking there?”

“No—none of them had been in the Old Room—the whole of the family were present, nor had one of them been away.”

Walter’s countenance changed—he fixed his eyes on the ground for the space of a minute.

“Then I am sure,” said he, emphatically, “something worse is there.”

A breathless silence ensued; save that some groans and muttered prayers issued from the lips of the goodwife, who sat in a posture of deep humility, with her brow leaned on both hands.

“Some of you go and see,” added Walter, “what it is that is in the Old Room.”

Every eye in the house turned on another, but no one spoke or offered to move. At length Katharine, who seemed in great anxiety lest any of them should have had the courage to go, went lightly up to her father, and said, “I will go, sir, if you please.”

“Do, my dear, and let some of the men go with you.”

“No, sir; none of the men shall go with me.”

“Well then, Keatie, make haste; light a candle, and I will go with you myself.”

“No—with your leave, father, if I go, I go alone; no one shall go with me.”

“And why, my love, may not I, your father, accompany you?”

“Because, should you go with me into the Old Room just now, perhaps you might never be yourself again.”

Here the goodwife uttered a smothered scream, and muttered some inarticulate ejaculations, appearing so much affected, that her daughter, dreading she would fall into a fit, flew to support her; but on this she grew ten times worse, screaming aloud, “Avoid thee, Satan! avoid thee, Satan! avoid thee, imp of darkness and despair! avoid thee! avoid thee!” And she laid about her violently with both hands. The servants, taking it for granted that she was bewitched, or possessed, fled aloof; but Walter, who knew better how matters stood with her mind than they, ran across the floor to her in such haste and agitation, that they supposed he was going to give her strength of arm, (his great expedient when hardly controuled,) but in place of that, he lifted her gently in his arms, and carried her to her bed, in the further end of the house.

He then tried to sooth her by every means in his power; but she continued in violent agitation, sighing, weeping, and praying alternately, until she wrought herself into a high nervous fever. Walter, growing alarmed for her reason, which seemed verging to a dangerous precipice, kept close by her bed–side. A little before midnight she grew calm; and he, thinking she had fallen asleep, left her for a short time. Unfortunately, her daughter, drawn toward her by filial regard and affection, softly then entered the room. Maron Linton was not so sound asleep as was supposed; she instantly beheld the approach of that now dreaded sorceress, and sitting up in her bed, she screamed as loud as she was able. Katharine, moved by a natural impulse, hasted forward to the couch to calm her parent; but the frenzied matron sprung from her bed, threw up the window, and endeavoured to escape; Katharine flew after her, and seized her by the waist. When Maron found that she was fairly in her grasp at such an hour, and no help at hand, she deemed all over with her, both body and soul; which certainly was a case extreme enough. She hung by the sash of the window, struggled, and yelled out, “Murder! murder! murder!—O Lord! O Lord!—save! save! save! save!—Murder! murder!” &c. At length Walter rushed in and seized her, ordering his weeping daughter instantly to bed.

Maron thanked Heaven for this wonderful and timely deliverance, and persuaded now that Providence had a special and peculiar charge over her, she became more calm than she had been since the first alarm; but it was a dreadful certainty that she now possessed, that unearthly beings inhabited the mansion along with her, and that her daughter was one of the number, or in conjunction with them. She spent the night in prayer, and so fervent was she in her devotions, that she seemed at length to rest in the hope of their final accomplishment. She did not fail, however, to hint to Walter that something decisive ought to be done to their daughter. She did not actually say that she should be burnt alive at a stake, but she spake of the trial by fire—or that it might be better to throw her into the lake, to make the experiment whether she would drown or not; for she well expected, in her own mind, that when the creature found itself in such circumstances, it would fly off with an eldrich laugh and some unintelligible saying to its own clime; but she was at length persuaded by her husband to intrust the whole matter to her reverend monitor, both as to the driving away the herd of Brownies, and the exorcism of her daughter.

Never was man in such a predicament as Walter now found himself with regard to his family. Katharine had never been a favourite with her mother, who doated on her boys to the detriment of the girl, but to him she was all in all. Her demeanour of late completely puzzled him—The words that she had said to him the preceding evening had no appearance of jocularity; besides, seriousness and truth formed her natural character, and she had of late become more reserved and thoughtful than she had ever been before.

The bed that she slept in faced into the parlour before mentioned; that which Walter and his spouse occupied entered from another apartment—their backs, however, were only separated by a thin wooden partition. Walter kept awake all that night, thoughtful, and listening to every sound. Every thing remained quiet till about the second crowing of the cock; he then heard something that scratched like a rat, but more regularly, and in more distinct time. After the noise had been repeated three times at considerable intervals, he thought he heard his daughter rising from her bed with extraordinary softness and caution—He laid his ear to a seam, and distinctly heard the sound of words uttered in a whisper, but of their import he could make nothing. He then heard his daughter return to her bed with the same caution that she left it, utter some sighs, and fall sound asleep.

After serious deliberation, Walter thought his best expedient was to remove his daughter from home for some time; and next morning he proposed to her to go and spend a week or two with her maternal uncle, Thomas Linton, farmer at Gilmanscleuch. To this she objected on several pretences; but at length, when urged to it, positively refused to leave her father’s house at that time. He never in his life could say a harsh word to her, but that day he appeared chagrined, and bade her, with some asperity, keep away from her mother’s presence, as her malady, which was a nervous complaint, required the utmost quietness. This she promised with her accustomed cheerfulness, and they parted. During the day she was absent for several hours, none knowing whither she went, or by what way she returned.

On the same day, the servants, who had spent a sleepless night, packed up bag and baggage, and went off in a body, all save one elderly woman, who had lately come to the house, and was a stranger to them all. Her name, she said, was Agnes Alexander, but she was better known by the familiar one of Nanny Elshinder; her former history and connections were doubtful, but she was of a cheerful complaisant temper, and always performed what she was ordered to do without any remarks. Walter had hired her at Moffat, in the fair called The Third Friday; and told Maron when he came home, that “he had hired a wastlin auldish quean, wha, he believed, was a wee crackit i’the head, but, poor thing, she wasna like to get a place, and was sic a good soul he coudna think to leave her destitute; and whanever he begoud to parley wi’ her, od, she brought him to the neb o’ the mire–snipe directly.” Saving this good woman, all the house servants, man, woman, and boy, deserted their service, and neither promises nor threats could induce them to stay another night about the town. They said, “they might as weel bide i’ hell; they wad gang afore Gibby Moray, the king’s shirra, whanever he likit about it; or, gin he buid rather hae brawer burlymen, they wad meet him face to face in the Parliment Close.”

Walter was now obliged to bring Jasper, his young shepherd, down from the Muchrah, to assist him in the labour of the farm—the most unfit man in the world for a haunted house. He knew that the Old Room was frequented by his old adversary, the Brownie of Bodsbeck. He likewise knew that his young mistress was a witch, or something worse, for the late servants had told him, so that he had now a dangerous part to act. Nevertheless, he came determined to take the bull by the horns; for as he and his father had stocks of sheep upon the farm, they could not leave their master, and he was never wont to disobey him. He had one sole dependance—his swiftness of foot—that had never yet failed him in eschewing them, save in the solitary instance of the serpent.

On the first day of his noviceship as a labourer, he and his master were putting some ropes on the dwelling–house to keep on the thatch. Jasper wanting something whereon to stand, for that purpose, and being within a few yards of the door of the Old Room, and knowing that the tubs stood there, thoughtlessly dashed into it to bring out one to stand on; but he had not taken two steps within the door till he beheld a human face, and nothing but a face and a head, looking deliberately at him. One would have thought that such a man, seeing such a sight, would have cried out, fled to his master on the other side of the house, or into the kitchen to old Nanny. Jasper did none of them all. He turned round with such velocity that he fell—hasted out at the door on all fours, and took to the Piper–hill like a wild deer, praying fervently all the way. His master saw him from the ladder where he stood, and called aloud after him, but he deigned not to heed or look behind him—the head without the body, and that at an ordinary distance from the ground, was alone impressed on his mind, and refused a share to any other consideration. He came not back to the Chapelhope that night.

Katharine, the young and comely friend of the Brownie, having discovered that Jasper had been introduced to her familiar, and knowing his truth and simplicity of heart, earnestly desired to sound him on the subject. She knew he would return to assist her father and brothers with the farm labour, in their present strait, by a certain hour next morning, and she waited on him by the way. He came accordingly; but he knew her and her connections better than she imagined. He tried to avoid her, first by going down into the meadow, then by climbing the hill; but seeing that she waylaid him both ways, and suspecting her intentions to be of the very worst nature, he betook him to his old expedient—fled with precipitation, and returned to the Muchrah.

Katharine could by no means comprehend this, and was particularly concerned about it at this time, as she had something she wished to reveal to him. Walter appeared gloomy and discontented all that day. The corn was ripe, but not a sheaf of it cut down;—the hay was still standing on the meadow, the lint was to pull, the potatoes to raise, the tar to bring home, and the sheep to smear; and there was no one left to do all this but he and his two boys. The gudewife, who used to bustle about and do much household work, was confined to her room. His daughter’s character, her demeanour, and even her humanity, were become somewhat doubtful. Walter was truly in what he termed a pickled priminary.

Katharine, being still debarred all access to her mother, began to dread that she would be obliged to leave her father’s house; and, in case of a last extremity, she bethought her of sounding the dispositions of old Nanny. She was a character not easily to be comprehended. She spoke much to herself, but little to any other person—worked so hard that she seldom looked up, and all the while sung scraps of old songs and ballads, the import of which it was impossible to understand; but she often chaunted these with a pathos that seemed to flow from the heart, and that never failed to affect the hearer. She wore a russet worsted gown, clouted shoes, and a quoif, or mutch, upon her head, that was crimped and plaited so close around her face that very little of the latter was visible. In this guise was Nanny, toiling hard and singing her mournful ditty, when Katharine came in and placed herself on a seat by her side.

“Nanny, this seems to be more than ordinary a busy day with you; pray, what is all this baking and boiling for?”

“Dear bairn, dear bairn, what do I ken—the like o’ me maun do as we’re bidden—guests are coming, my bairn—O, ay—there’s mony a braw an’ bonny lad coming this way—mony a ane that will gaur a young thing’s e’en stand i’ back water—

“They are coming! they are coming!
Alak! an’ wae’s me!
Though the sword be in the hand,
Yet the tear’s in the e’e.

Is there blood in the moorlands
Where the wild burnies rin?
Or what gars the water
Wind reid down the lin?

O billy, dear billy,
Your boding let be,
For it’s nought but the reid lift
That dazzles your e’e.”

“Prithee go on, Nanny; let me hear what it was that reddened the water?”

“Dear bairn, wha kens; some auld thing an’ out o’ date; but yet it is sae like the days that we hae seen, ane wad think the poeter that made it had the second sight. Mony a water as weel as the Clyde has run reid wi’ blude, an’ that no sae lang sin’ syne!—ay, an’ the wild burnies too! I hae seen them mysel leave a reid strip on the sand an’ the grey stanes—but the hoody craw durstna pick there!—Dear bairn, has the Chapelhope burn itsel never had the hue?”

Here Katharine’s glance and Nanny’s met each other, but were as quickly withdrawn, for they dreaded one another’s converse; but they were soon relieved from that dilemma by Nanny’s melancholy chime—

“In yon green houm there sat a knight,—
An’ the book lay open on his knee,
An’ he laid his hand on his rusty sword.
An’ turned to Heaven his watery e’e.

But in yon houm there is a kirk,
An’ in that kirk there is a pew,
An’ in that pew there sat a king,
Wha signed the deed we maun ever rue.

He wasna king o’ fair Scotland,
Though king o’ Scotland he should hae been,—
And he lookit north to the land he loved,
But aye the green leaves fell atween.

The green leaves fell, an’ the river swell’d.
An’ the brigg was guardit to the key;
O, ever alak! said Hamilton
That sic a day I should ever see!

As ever ye saw the rain down fa’,
Or yet the arrow gae from the bow—

“No, that’s not it—my memory is gane wi’ my last warldly hope—Hech! dear bairn, but it is a sad warld to live in, without hope or love for ony that’s in’t—I had aye some hope till now! but sic a dream as I had last night!—I saw him aince again—Yes, I saw him bodily, or may I never steer aff this bit.”—Here Nanny sobbed hard, and drew her arms across her eyes.—“Come, come,” continued she, “gie me a bit sang, dear bairn, an’ let it be an auld thing—they do ane’s heart gude thae bits o’ auld sangs.”

“Rather tell me, Nanny—for we live in ignorance in this wild place—what you think of all that blude that has been shed in our country since the killing–time began? Do you think it has been lawfully and rightfully shed?”

“Wha doubts it, dear bairn?—Wha doubts that?—But it will soon be ower now—the traitors will soon be a’ strappit and strung—ay, ay—the last o’ them will soon be hackit and hewed, an’ his bloody head stannin ower the Wast Port—an’ there will be braw days than—we’ll be a’ right than.”

Katharine sat silent and thoughtful, eyeing old Nanny with fixed attention; but the muscles of her contracted face and wild unstable eye were unintelligible. She therefore, with a desponding mien, went out, and left the crazy dame to discourse and sing to herself. Nanny ceased her baking, stood upright, and listened to the maid’s departing steps, till judging her out of hearing; she then sung out, in what is now termed the true bravura style,

“Then shall the black gown flap
O’er desk and true man;
Then shall the horny cap
Shine like the new moon;
An’ the kist fu’ o’ whistles
That maks sic a cleary,
Lool away, bool away,
Till we grow weary.
Till we grow weary, &c.

Charlie, the cypher–man,
Drink till ye stew dame;
Jamie, the wafer–man,
Eat till ye spue them;
Lauderdale lick–my–fud,
Binny and Geordie,
Leish away, link away.
Hell is afore ye.
Hell is afore ye, &c.

Græme will gang ower the brink,
Down wi’ a flaughter;
Lagg an’ Drumlandrick
Will soon follow after;
Johnston and Lithgow,
Bruce and Macleary,
Scowder their harigalds,
Deils, wi’ a bleery.
Till ye grow weary,” &c.

In the mean time, Katharine, on hearing the loud notes of the song, had returned within the door to listen, and heard the most part of the lines and names distinctly. She had heard it once before, and the singer reported it to be a new song, and the composition of a young man who had afterwards been executed in the Grass–Market. How Nanny came to sing such a song, with so much seeming zest, after the violent prelatic principles which she had so lately avowed, the maid could not well comprehend, and she began to suspect that there was more in Nanny’s mind than had yet been made manifest. Struck with this thought, and ruminating upon it, she continued standing in the same position, and heard Nanny sometimes crooning, and at other times talking rapidly and fervently to herself. After much incoherent matter, lines of psalms, &c. Katharine heard with astonishment the following questions and answers, in which two distinct voices were imitated:—

“Were you at the meeting of the traitors at Lanark on the 12th of January?”

“I never was amang traitors that I was certain of till this day—Let them take that! bloody fruesome beasts.”

“Were you at Lanark on that day?”

“If you had been there you would have seen.”

“D‑‑n the old b‑‑! Burn her with matches—squeeze her with pincers as long as there’s a whole piece of her together—then throw her into prison, and let her lie till she rot—the old wrinkled hag of h‑‑! Good woman, I pity you; you shall yet go free if you will tell us where you last saw Hamilton and your own goodman.”

“Ye sall hing me up by the tongue first, and cut me a’ in collops while I’m hingin.”

“Burn her in the cheek, cut baith her lugs out, and let her gae to h‑‑ her own way.”

After this strange soliloquy, the speaker sobbed aloud, spoke in a suppressed voice for some time, and then began a strain so sweet and melancholy, that it thrilled the hearer, and made her tremble where she stood. The tune was something like the Broom of Cowdenknows, the sweetest and most plaintive of the ancient Scottish airs; but it was sung so slow, as to bear with it a kind of solemnity.

“The kye are rowting in the lone,
The ewes bleat on the brae,
O, what can ail my auld gudeman,
He bides sae lang away!

An’ aye the Robin sang by the wud,
An’ his note had a waesome fa’;
An’ the corbie croupit in the clud,
But he durstna light ava;

Till out cam the wee grey moudiwort
Frae neath the hollow stane,
An’ it howkit a grave for the auld grey head,
For the head lay a’ its lane!

But I will seek out the Robin’s nest,
An’ the nest of the ouzel shy,
For the siller hair that is beddit there
Maun wave aboon the sky.”

The sentiments of old Nanny appeared now to her young mistress to be more doubtful than ever. Fain would she have interpreted them to be such as she wished, but the path which that young female was now obliged to tread required a circumspection beyond her experience and discernment to preserve, while danger and death awaited the slightest deviation.

CHAPTER VI.

Next morning Clavers, with fifty dragoons, arrived at Chapelhope, where they alighted on the green; and putting their horses to forage, he and Sir Thomas Livingston, Captain Bruce, and Mr Adam Copland, before mentioned, a gentleman of Clavers’ own troop, went straight into the kitchen. Walter was absent at the hill. The goodwife was sitting lonely in the east room, brooding over her trials and woes in this life, and devising means to get rid of her daughter, and with her of all the devouring spirits that haunted Chapelhope; consequently the first and only person whom the gentlemen found in the kitchen was old Nanny. Clavers, who entered first, kept a shy and sullen distance, for he never was familiar with any one; but Bruce, who was a jocular Irish gentleman, and well versed in harassing and inveigling the ignorant country people to their destruction, made two low bows (almost to the ground) to the astonished dame, and accosted her as follows: “How are you to–day, mistress?—I hope you are very well?”

“Thank ye kindly, sir,” said Nanny, curtseying in return; “deed I’m no sae weel as I hae been; I hae e’en seen better days; but I keep aye the heart aboon, although the achings and the stitches hae been sair on me the year.”

“Lack–a–day! I am so very sorry for that!—Where do they seize you? about the heart, I suppose?—Oh, dear soul! to be sure you do not know how sorry I am for your case—it must be so terribly bad! You should have the goodness to consult your physician, and get blood let.”

“Dear bairn, I hae nae blude to spare—an’ as for doctors, I haena muckle to lippen to them. To be sure, they are whiles the means, under Providence”——

“Oho!” said he, putting his finger to his nose, and turning to his associates with a wry face,—“Oho! the means under Providence!—a d‑‑d whig, by ‑‑‑‑. Tell me, my dear and beautiful Mistress Stitchaback, do you really believe in that blessed thing, Providence?”

“Do I believe in Providence!—Did ever ony body hear sic a question as that? Gae away, ye muckle gouk—d’ye think to make a fool of a puir body?”

So saying, she gave him a hearty slap on the cheek; at which his companions laughing, Bruce became somewhat nettled, and, drawing out his sword, he pointed at the recent stains of blood upon it. “Be so good as to look here, my good lady,” said he, “and take very good note of all that I say, and more; for harkee, you must either renounce Providence, and all that I bid you renounce,—and you must, beside that, answer all the questions that I shall ever be after asking,—or, do you see, I am a great doctor—this is my very elegant lance—and I’ll draw the blood that shall soon ease you of all your stitches and pains.”

“I dinna like your fleem ava, man—’tis rather ower grit for an auld body’s veins. But ye’re surely some silly skemp of a fallow, to draw out your sword on a puir auld woman. Dinna think, howanabee, that I care for outher you or it. I’ll let ye see how little I mind ye; for weel I ken your comrades wadna let ye fash me, e’en though ye were sae silly as to offer. Na, na; d’ye ever think that little bonny demure–looking lad there wad suffer ye to hurt a woman?—I wat wad he no! He has mair discreation in his little finger than you hae i’ your hale bouk.—Now try me, master doctor—I’ll nouther renounce ae thing that ye bid me, nor answer ae question that ye speer at me.”

“In the first place, then, my good hearty dame, do you acknowledge or renounce the Covenant?”

“Aha! he’s wise wha wats that, an’ as daft that speers.”

“Ay, or no, in a moment—No juggling with me, old Mrs Skinflint.”

“I’ll tell ye what ye do, master—if ony body speer at ye, gin auld Nanny i’ the Chapelhope renounces the Covenant, shake your head an’ say ye dinna ken.”

“And pray, my very beautiful girl, what do you keep this old tattered book for?”

“For a fancy to gar fools speer, an’ ye’re the first—Come on now, sir, wi’ your catechis—Wally–dye man! gin ye be nae better a fighter than ye’re an examiner, ye may gie up the craft.”

Bruce here bit his lip, and looked so stern that Nanny, with a hysterical laugh, ran away from him, and took shelter behind Clavers.

“You are a d‑‑d fool, Bruce,” said he, “and constantly blundering.—Our business here, mistress, is to discover, if possible, who were the murderers of an honest curate, and some of our own soldiers that were slain in this neighbourhood while discharging their duty; if you can give us any information on that subject, you shall be well rewarded.”

“Ye’ll hear about the curate, sir—ye’ll hear about him—he was found out to be a warlock, and shot dead.—But ah, dear bairn! nane alive can gie you information about the soldiers!—It was nae human hand did that deed, and there was nae e’e out o’ heaven saw it done—There wasna a man that day in a’ the Hope up an’ down—that deed will never be fund out, unless a spirit rise frae the dead an’ tell o’t—Muckle fear, an’ muckle grief it has been the cause o’ here!—But the men war a’ decently buried; what mair could be done?”

“Do you say that my men were all decently buried?”

“Ay, troth, I wat weel, worthy sir, and wi’ the burial–service too.—My master and mistress are strong king’s folk.”

“So you are not the mistress of this house?”

“A bonny like mistress I wad be, forsooth—Na, na, my mistress is sittin be hersel ben the house there.” With that, Nanny fell a working and singing full loud—

“Little wats she wha’s coming,
Little wats she wha’s coming,
Strath and Correy’s ta’en the bent,
An’ Ferriden an’ a’s coming;
Knock and Craigen Sha’s coming,
Keppoch an’ Macraw’s coming,
Clan–Mackinnon’s ower the Kyle,
An’ Donald Gun an’ a’s coming.”

Anxious now to explore the rest of the house, they left Nanny singing her song, and entered the little parlour hastily, where, finding no one, and dreading that some escape might be effected, Clavers and Livingston burst into the Old Room, and Bruce and Copland into the other. In the Old Room they found the beautiful witch Katharine, with the train of her snow–white joup drawn over her head, who looked as if taken in some evil act by surprise, and greatly confounded when she saw two gentlemen enter her sanctuary in splendid uniforms. As they approached, she made a slight curtsey, to which they deigned no return; but going straight up to her, Clavers seized her by both wrists. “And is it, indeed, true,” said he, “my beautiful shepherdess, that we have caught you at your prayers so early this morning?”

“And what if you have, sir?” returned she.

“Why, nothing at all, save that I earnestly desire, and long exceedingly to join with you in your devotional exercises,” laying hold of her in the rudest manner.

Katharine screamed so loud that in an instant old Nanny was at their side, with revenge gleaming from her half–shaded eyes, and heaving over her shoulder a large green–kale gully, with which she would doubtless have silenced the renowned Dundee for ever, had not Livingston sprung forward with the utmost celerity, and caught her arm just as the stroke was descending. But Nanny did not spare her voice; she lifted it up with shouts on high, and never suffered one yell to lose hearing of another.

Walter, having just then returned from the hill, and hearing the hideous uproar in the Old Room, rushed into it forthwith to see what was the matter. Katharine was just sinking, when her father entered, within the grasp of the gentle and virtuous Clavers. The backs of both the knights were towards Walter as he came in, and they were so engaged amid bustle and din that neither of them perceived him, until he was close at their backs. He was at least a foot taller than any of them, and nearly as wide round the chest as them both. In one moment his immense fingers grasped both their slender necks, almost meeting behind each of their windpipes. They were rendered powerless at once—they attempted no more struggling with the women, for so completely had Walter’s gripes unnerved them, that they could scarcely lift their arms from their sides; neither could they articulate a word, or utter any other sound than a kind of choaked gasping for breath. Walter wheeled them about to the light, and looked alternately at each of them, without quitting or even slackening his hold.

“Callants, wha ir ye ava?—or what’s the meanin’ o’ a’ this unmencefu’ rampaging?”

Sir Thomas gave his name in a hoarse and broken voice; but Clavers, whose nape Walter’s right hand embraced, and whose rudeness to his daughter had set his mountain–blood a–boiling, could not answer a word. Walter, slackening his hold somewhat, waited for an answer, but none coming—

“Wha ir ye, I say, ye bit useless weazel–blawn like urf that ye’re?”

The haughty and insolent Clavers was stung with rage; but seeing no immediate redress was to be had, he endeavoured to pronounce his dreaded name, but it was in a whisper scarcely audible, and stuck in his throat—“Jo—o—o Graham,” said he.

“Jock Graham do they ca’ ye?—Ye’re but an unmannerly whalp, man. And ye’re baith king’s officers too!—Weel, I’ll tell ye what it is, my denty clever callants; if it warna for the blood that’s i’ your master’s veins, I wad nite your twa bits o’ pows thegither.”

He then threw them from him; the one the one way, and the other the other, and lifting his huge oak staff, he strode out at the door, saying, as he left them,—“Hech! are free men to be guidit this gate—I’ll step down to the green to your commander, an’ tell him what kind o’ chaps he keeps about him to send into fock’s houses.—Dirty unmensefu’ things!”

Clavers soon recovering his breath, and being ready to burst with rage and indignation, fell a cursing and fuming most violently; but Sir T. Livingston could scarcely refrain from breaking out into a convulsion of laughter. Clavers had already determined upon ample revenge, for the violation of all the tender ties of nature was his delight, and wherever there was wealth to be obtained, or a private pique to be revenged, there never was wanting sufficient pretext in those days for cutting off individuals, or whole families, as it suited. On the very day previous to that, the Earl of Traquair had complained, in company with Clavers and his officers, of a tenant of his, in a place called Bald, who would neither cultivate his farm nor give it up. Captain Bruce asked if he prayed in his family? The Earl answered jocularly, that he believed he did nothing else. Bruce said that was enough; and the matter passed over without any farther notice. But next morning, Bruce went out with four dragoons, and shot the farmer as he was going out to his work. Instances of this kind are numerous, if either history or tradition can be in aught believed; but in all the annals of that age, there is scarcely a single instance recorded of any redress having been granted to the harassed country people for injuries received. At this time, the word of Argyle’s rising had already spread, and Clavers actually traversed the country more like an exterminating angel, than a commander of a civilized army.

Such were the men with whom Walter had to do; and the worst thing of all, he was not aware of it. He had heard of such things, but he did not believe them; for he loved his king and country, and there was nothing that vexed him more than hearing of aught to their disparagement; but unluckily his notions of freedom and justice were far above what the subjects of that reign could count upon.

When Clavers and Livingstone entered the Old Room, it will be remembered that Bruce and Copland penetrated into the other. There they found the goodwife of Chapelhope, neatly dressed in her old–fashioned style, and reading on her Bible, an exercise in which she gloried, and of which she was very proud.

Bruce instantly desired her “to lay that very comely and precious book on the hottest place of all the beautiful fire, that was burning so pleasantly with long crackling peat; and that then he would converse with her about things that were, to be sure, of far greater and mightier importance.”

“Hout, dear sir, ye ken that’s no consistent wi’ natural reason—Can any thing be o’ greater importance than the tidings o’ grace an’ salvation, an’ the joys o’ heaven?”

“Oho!” cried Bruce, and straddled around the room with his face turned to the joists.—“My dear Copland, did you ever hear such a thing in all the days that ever you have to live? Upon my soul, the old woman is talking of grace, and salvation, and the joys of heaven too, by Saint G‑‑! My dearest honey and darling, will you be so kind as stand up upon the soles of your feet, and let me see what kind of a figure you will be in heaven. Now, by the cross of Saint Patrick, I would take a journey there to see you go swimming through Heaven in that same form, with your long waist, and plaitted quoif, and that same charming face of yours. Och! och! me! what a vile she whig we have got in this here corner!—Copland, my dear soul, I foresee that all the ewes and kine of Chapelhope will soon be rouped at the cross of Selkirk, and then what blessed lawings we shall have! Now my dear mistress Grace, you must be after renouncing the joys of heaven immediately; for upon my honour, the very sight of your face would spoil the joys of any place whatever, and the first thing you must do is to lay that delightful old book with the beautiful margin along the side of it, on the coals; but before you do that we shall sing to his praise and glory from the 7th verse of the 149th psalm.”

He then laid aside his helmet and sung the psalm, giving out each line with a whine that was truly ludicrous, after which he put the Bible into the goodwife’s hand, and desired her, in a serious tone, instantly to lay it on the fire. The captain’s speech to his companions about the ewes and kine of Chapelhope was not altogether lost on the conscience of Maron Linton. It was not, as she afterwards said, like water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. “Why, dear sir,” said she, “ye ken, after a’, that the beuk’s naething but paper an’ ink, an’ three shillings an’ aughtpence will buy as gude a ane frae Geordy Dabson, the morn, an’ if there be ony sin in’t, it will lye at your door, an’ no at mine. I’ll ne’er haigel wi’ my king’s officer about three and aughtpence.”

So saying, Maron laid the Bible on the fire, which soon consumed it to ashes.

“Now, may the devil take me,” said Bruce, “if I do not believe that you are a true woman after all, and if so, my purse is lighter by one half than it was; but, my dear honey, you have the very individual and genuine seeds of whiggism in your constitution—You have, I will swear, been at many a harmless and innocent conventicle.”

“Ye ken little about me, sir.—Gude forbid that ever I countenanced sic traitors to the kirk and state!”

“Amen! say I; but I prophecy and say unto thee, that the first field–meeting into which thou goest in the beauty of holiness, thou shalt be established for ever with thy one foot in Dan and the other in Beersheba, and shalt return to thy respective place of abode as rank a whig as ever swung in the Grass–Market.”

A long dialogue next ensued, in which the murder of the priest, Mass John Binram, was discussed at full length, and by which Bruce and Copland discerned, that superstitious as Maron was, she told them what she deemed to be the truth, though in a strange round–about way. Just as they were beginning to talk over the mysterious murder of the soldiers, Claverhouse and Sir Thomas joined them, and Bruce, turning round to them, said, “My lord, this very honest woman assures me, that she believes the two principal murderers of the curate are lying concealed in a linn not far hence, and there seems to be little doubt but that they must likewise have been concerned in the murder of our soldiers.”

Clavers, the horrors of whose execrations are yet fresh in the memory of our peasants, burst out as follows, to the astonishment of Bruce, who was not aware of his chagrin, or of aught having befallen him.

“May the devil confound and d‑‑n them to hell!—May he make a brander of their ribs to roast their souls on!”

Maron Linton, hearing herself called a good woman, and finding that she was approven of, could not refrain from interfering here.

“Dear sir, my lord, ye sudna swear that gate, for it’s unco ill–faur’d ye ken—an’ at ony rate, the deil canna damn naebody—if ye will swear, swear sense.”

The rage of the general, and the simplicity of the goodwife, was such an amusing contrast, that the three attendants laughed aloud. Clavers turned his deep grey eye upon them, which more than the eye of any human being resembled that of a serpent—offence gleamed in it.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “do you consider where you are, and what you are about? Sacre! am I always to be trysted with boys and fools?”

He then began and examined the goodwife with much feigned deference and civility, which so pleased her that she told him every thing with great readiness. She was just beginning to relate the terrible, but unfortunate story of the Brownie of Bodsbeck, and his train of officious spirits; of the meat which they devoured, and in all probability would have ended the relation with the woeful connection between the Brownie and her daughter, and the part that she had taken in the murder of the soldiers, when Walter entered the room with a discomposed mien, and gave a new turn to the conversation. But that eventful scene must be left to the next chapter.

CHAPTER VIII.

Walter, on coming to the troopers and asking for their leader, soon discovered how roughly he had treated Clavers; and it being so much the reverse of the reception he meant to have given him, he was particularly vexed about it. Still he was conscious that he had done nothing that was wrong, nor any thing that it did not behove a parent and a master of a family to have done in the same circumstances; therefore there was nothing farther from his intention than offering any apology. He entered his own room, as he supposed he had a good right to do, bluntly enough. He indeed touched the rim of his bonnet as he came in; but, seeing all the officers covered, he stalked into the midst of them with that immense circle of blue woollen on his head, which moved over their helmets like a black cloud as he advanced. Bruce, who was well used to insult the peasantry with impunity, seeing Walter striding majestically by his general in this guise, with his wonted forwardness and jocularity lifted up his sword, sheathed as it was, and with the point of it kicked off Walter’s bonnet. The latter caught it again as it fell, and with his fist, he made Bruce’s helmet ring against the wall; then again fitting on his bonnet, he gave him such an indignant and reproving look, that Bruce, having no encouragement from the eye of Clavers, resented it no farther than by saying good–humouredly, “‘Pon my body and shoul, but the carle keeps his good–looking head high enough.”

“Copland,” said Clavers, “desire Serjeant Daniel Roy Macpherson, with eleven troopers, to attend.” They were instantly at the door. “Seize and pinion that haughty rebel, together with all his family,” said he, “and then go and search every corner, chest, and closet in the house; for it is apparent that this is the nest and rendezvous of the murdering fanatics who infest this country. Let the rest of the soldiers guard the premises, that none escape to the mountains with tidings of our arrival. This good dame we will first examine privately, and then dispose of her as shall seem most meet.”

The command was promptly obeyed. Walter and all his family were taken into custody, pinioned, and a guard set on them; the house was ransacked; and in the meantime the general and his three associates continued the examination of the goodwife. Clavers observed that, on the entrance of Walter before, she seemed to be laid under some restraint, stopped short in her narration, and said, “But there’s the gudeman; he’ll tell ye it wi’ mair preceesion nor me;” and he had no doubt, if she were left to herself, of worming as much out of her as would condemn her husband, or at least furnish a pretext sufficient for the forfeiture of his wealth. Clavers had caused to be sold, by public roup, the whole stock on the farm of Phillhope, which belonged to Walter’s brother–in–law, merely because it was proven that the farmer’s wife had once been at a conventicle.

In the present instance, however, Clavers was mistaken, and fairly overshot his mark; for poor Maron Linton was so overwhelmed with astonishment when she saw her husband and family taken prisoners and bound, that her speech lost all manner of coherence. She sobbed aloud—complained one while, entreated another; and then muttered over some ill–sorted phrases from the Scripture. When Clavers pressed his questions, she answered him, weeping, “O dear sir, my lord, ye ken I canna do naething, nor think naething, nor answer naething, unless ye let Watie loose again; I find as I war naebody, nor nae soul, nor naething ava wantin’ him, but just like a vacation or a shadow. O my lord, set my twa bits o’ callants an’ my puir auld man loose again, and I’ll say ony thing that ever ye like.”

Threats and proffers proved alike in vain. Maron’s mind, which never was strong, had been of late so much unhinged by the terrors of superstition, that it wavered in its frail tenement like “the baseless fabric of a vision,” threatening to depart, and leave not a wreck behind. Clavers told her that her husband’s life depended on the promptness and sincerity of her answers, he having rendered himself amenable to justice by rescuing his daughter by force, whom they had taken prisoner on their arrival, having found her engaged in a very suspicious employment. This only increased Maron’s agony; and at length Clavers was obliged to give up the point, and ordered her into custody.

The soldiers had by this time taken old John of the Muchrah and another of Laidlaw’s shepherds prisoners, who had come to assist their master with the farm–work that day. All these Clavers examined separately; and their answers, as taken down in short–hand by Mr Adam Copland, are still extant, and at present in my possession. The following are some of them, as decyphered by Mr J. W. Robertson, whose acquaintance with ancient manuscripts is well known.

John Hay, shepherd in Muchrah, aged fifty–six, sworn and examined.

“Do you know such a man as the Rev. James Renwick?”

“Yes. I once heard him pray and preach for about the space of two hours.”

“Was it on your master’s farm that he preached?”

“No, it was in a linn on the Earl Hill, in the march between two lairds’ lands, that he preached that day.”

“How durst you go to an unlawful conventicle?”

“I didna ken there was a law against it till after—it’s a wild place this—we never hear ony o’ the news, unless it be twice a–year frae the Moffat fairs. But as soon as I heard him praying and preaching against the king I cam aff an’ left him, an’ brought a’ my lads an’ lasses wi’ me; but my wife wadna steer her fit—there she sat, shaking her head and glooming at me; but I trow I cowed her for’t after.”

“What did he say of the king?”

“O, I canna mind—he said nae muckle gude o’ him.”

“Did he say that he was a bloody perjured tyrant?”

“Ay, he said muckle waur nor that. He said some gayan ill–farr’d things about him. But I cam away and left him; I thought he was saying mair than gude manners warrantit.”

“Were you in the Hope, as you call it; on that day that the king’s soldiers were slain?”

“Ay, that I was; I was the first wha came on them whan they war just new dead, an’ a’ reeking i’ their warm blude—Gude keep us a’ frae sic sights again!—for my part, I never gat sic a confoundit gliff sin’ I was born o’ my mother.”

“Describe the place where the corpses were lying.”

“It is a deep cleuch, wi’ a sma’ sheep rodding through the linn not a foot wide; and if ye war to stite aff that, ye wad gang to the boddom o’ the linn wi’ a flaip.”

“Were the bodies then lying in the bottom of that linn?”

“Odd help ye, whar could they be lying else?—D’ye think they could lie on the Cleuch–brae? Ye might as weel think to lie on the side o’ that wa’ gin ye war dead.”

“How did it appear to you that they had been slain—were they cut with swords, or pierced with bullets?”

“I canna say, but they war sair hashed.”

“How do you mean when you say they were hashed?”

“Champit like—a’ broozled and jurmummled, as it war.”

“Do you mean that they were cut, or cloven, or minced?”

“Na, na—no that ava—But they had gotten some sair doofs—They had been terribly paikit and daddit wi’ something.”

“I do not in the least conceive what you mean.”

“That’s extrordnar, man—can ye no understand folk’s mother–tongue?—I’ll mak it plain to you. Ye see, whan a thing comes on ye that gate, that’s a dadd—sit still now. Then a paik, that’s a swapp or a skelp like—when a thing comes on ye that way, that’s a paik. But a doof’s warst ava—it’s”——

“Prithee hold; I now understand it all perfectly well.—What, then, is your opinion with regard to these men’s death? How, or what way do you think they were killed?”

“O, sir, there’s naebody can say. It was some extrordnar judgment, that’s out of a’ doubt. There had been an unyerdly raid i’ the Hope that day.”

“What reason have you for supposing such a thing?”

“Because there wasna a leevin soul i’ the hale Hope that day but theirsels—they wadna surely hae felled ane another—It’s, by an’ attour, an awsome bit where they war killed; there hae been things baith seen and heard about it; and I saw an apparition there mysel on the very night before.”

“You saw an apparition at the place the night before, did you? And, pray, what was that apparition like?”

“It was like a man and a woman.”

“Had the figure of the woman no resemblance to any one you had ever seen before? Was it in any degree, for instance, like your master’s daughter?”

“No unlike ava.”