Will none but Hearne the Hunter serve your turn?—MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
In one of the most remote districts of the south of Scotland, where an ideal line, drawn along the tops of lofty and bleak mountains, separates that land from her sister kingdom, a young man, called Halbert, or Hobbie Elliot, a substantial farmer, who boasted his descent from old Martin Elliot of the Preakin-tower, noted in Border story and song, was on his return from deer-stalking. The deer, once so numerous among these solitary wastes, were now reduced to a very few herds, which, sheltering themselves in the most remote and inaccessible recesses, rendered the task of pursuing them equally toilsome and precarious. There were, however, found many youth of the country ardently attached to this sport, with all its dangers and fatigues. The sword had been sheathed upon the Borders for more than a hundred years, by the peaceful union of the crowns in the reign of James the First of Great Britain. Still the country retained traces of what it had been in former days; the inhabitants, their more peaceful avocations having been repeatedly interrupted by the civil wars of the preceding century, were scarce yet broken in to the habits of regular industry, sheep-farming had not been introduced upon any considerable scale, and the feeding of black cattle was the chief purpose to which the hills and valleys were applied. Near to the farmer’s house, the tenant usually contrived to raise such a crop of oats or barley, as afforded meal for his family; and the whole of this slovenly and imperfect mode of cultivation left much time upon his own hands, and those of his domestics. This was usually employed by the young men in hunting and fishing; and the spirit of adventure, which formerly led to raids and forays in the same districts, was still to be discovered in the eagerness with which they pursued those rural sports.
The more high-spirited among the youth were, about the time that our narrative begins, expecting, rather with hope than apprehension, an opportunity of emulating their fathers in their military achievements, the recital of which formed the chief part of their amusement within doors. The passing of the Scottish act of security had given the alarm of England, as it seemed to point at a separation of the two British kingdoms, after the decease of Queen Anne, the reigning sovereign. Godolphin, then at the head of the English administration, foresaw that there was no other mode of avoiding the probable extremity of a civil war, but by carrying through an incorporating union. How that treaty was managed, and how little it seemed for some time to promise the beneficial results which have since taken place to such extent, may be learned from the history of the period. It is enough for our purpose to say, that all Scotland was indignant at the terms on which their legislature had surrendered their national independence. The general resentment led to the strangest leagues and to the wildest plans. The Cameronians were about to take arms for the restoration of the house of Stewart, whom they regarded, with justice, as their oppressors; and the intrigues of the period presented the strange picture of papists, prelatists, and presbyterians, caballing among themselves against the English government, out of a common feeling that their country had been treated with injustice. The fermentation was universal; and, as the population of Scotland had been generally trained to arms, under the act of security, they were not indifferently prepared for war, and waited but the declaration of some of the nobility to break out into open hostility. It was at this period of public confusion that our story opens.
The cleugh, or wild ravine, into which Hobbie Elliot had followed the game, was already far behind him, and he was considerably advanced on his return homeward, when the night began to close upon him. This would have been a circumstance of great indifference to the experienced sportsman, who could have walked blindfold over every inch of his native heaths, had it not happened near a spot, which, according to the traditions of the country, was in extremely bad fame, as haunted by supernatural appearances. To tales of this kind Hobbie had, from his childhood, lent an attentive ear; and as no part of the country afforded such a variety of legends, so no man was more deeply read in their fearful lore than Hobbie of the Heugh-foot; for so our gallant was called, to distinguish him from a round dozen of Elliots who bore the same Christian name. It cost him no efforts, therefore, to call to memory the terrific incidents connected with the extensive waste upon which he was now entering. In fact, they presented themselves with a readiness which he felt to be somewhat dismaying.
This dreary common was called Mucklestane-Moor, from a huge column of unhewn granite, which raised its massy head on a knell near the centre of the heath, perhaps to tell of the mighty dead who slept beneath, or to preserve the memory of some bloody skirmish. The real cause of its existence had, however, passed away; and tradition, which is as frequently an inventor of fiction as a preserver of truth, had supplied its place with a supplementary legend of her own, which now came full upon Hobbie’s memory. The ground about the pillar was strewed, or rather encumbered, with many large fragments of stone of the same consistence with the column, which, from their appearance as they lay scattered on the waste, were popularly called the Grey Geese of Mucklestane-Moor. The legend accounted for this name and appearance by the catastrophe of a noted and most formidable witch who frequented these hills in former days, causing the ewes to KEB, and the kine to cast their calves, and performing all the feats of mischief ascribed to these evil beings. On this moor she used to hold her revels with her sister hags; and rings were still pointed out on which no grass nor heath ever grew, the turf being, as it were, calcined by the scorching hoofs of their diabolical partners.
Once upon a time this old hag is said to have crossed the moor, driving before her a flock of geese, which she proposed to sell to advantage at a neighbouring fair;—for it is well known that the fiend, however liberal in imparting his powers of doing mischief, ungenerously leaves his allies under the necessity of performing the meanest rustic labours for subsistence. The day was far advanced, and her chance of obtaining a good price depended on her being first at the market. But the geese, which had hitherto preceded her in a pretty orderly manner, when they came to this wide common, interspersed with marshes and pools of water, scattered in every direction, to plunge into the element in which they delighted. Incensed at the obstinacy with which they defied all her efforts to collect them, and not remembering the precise terms of the contract by which the fiend was bound to obey her commands for a certain space, the sorceress exclaimed, “Deevil, that neither I nor they ever stir from this spot more!” The words were hardly uttered, when, by a metamorphosis as sudden as any in Ovid, the hag and her refractory flock were converted into stone, the angel whom she served, being a strict formalist, grasping eagerly at an opportunity of completing the ruin of her body and soul by a literal obedience to her orders. It is said, that when she perceived and felt the transformation which was about to take place, she exclaimed to the treacherous fiend, “Ah, thou false thief! lang hast thou promised me a grey gown, and now I am getting ane that will last for ever.” The dimensions of the pillar, and of the stones, were often appealed to, as a proof of the superior stature and size of old women and geese in the days of other years, by those praisers of the past who held the comfortable opinion of the gradual degeneracy of mankind.
All particulars of this legend Hobbie called to mind as he passed along the moor. He also remembered, that, since the catastrophe had taken place, the scene of it had been avoided, at least after night-fall, by all human beings, as being the ordinary resort of kelpies, spunkies, and other demons, once the companions of the witch’s diabolical revels, and now continuing to rendezvous upon the same spot, as if still in attendance on their transformed mistress. Hobbie’s natural hardihood, however, manfully combated with these intrusive sensations of awe. He summoned to his side the brace of large greyhounds, who were the companions of his sports, and who were wont, in his own phrase, to fear neither dog nor devil; he looked at the priming of his piece, and, like the clown in Hallowe’en, whistled up the warlike ditty of Jock of the Side, as a general causes his drums be beat to inspirit the doubtful courage of his soldiers.
In this state of mind, he was very glad to hear a friendly voice shout in his rear, and propose to him a partner on the road. He slackened his pace, and was quickly joined by a youth well known to him, a gentleman of some fortune in that remote country, and who had been abroad on the same errand with himself. Young Earnscliff, “of that ilk,” had lately come of age, and succeeded to a moderate fortune, a good deal dilapidated, from the share his family had taken in the disturbances of the period. They were much and generally respected in the country; a reputation which this young gentleman seemed likely to sustain, as he was well educated, and of excellent dispositions.
“Now, Earnscliff;” exclaimed Hobbie, “I am glad to meet your honour ony gate, and company’s blithe on a bare moor like this—it’s an unco bogilly bit—Where hae ye been sporting?”
“Up the Carla Cleugh, Hobbie,” answered Earnscliff, returning his greeting. “But will our dogs keep the peace, think you?”
“Deil a fear o’ mine,” said Hobbie, “they hae scarce a leg to stand on.—Odd! the deer’s fled the country, I think! I have been as far as Inger-fell-foot, and deil a horn has Hobbie seen, excepting three red-wud raes, that never let me within shot of them, though I gaed a mile round to get up the wind to them, an’ a’. Deil o’ me wad care muckle, only I wanted some venison to our auld gude-dame. The carline, she sits in the neuk yonder, upbye, and cracks about the grand shooters and hunters lang syne—Odd, I think they hae killed a’ the deer in the country, for my part.”
“Well, Hobbie, I have shot a fat buck, and sent him to Earnscliff this morning—you shall have half of him for your grandmother.”
“Mony thanks to ye, Mr. Patrick, ye’re kend to a’ the country for a kind heart. It will do the auld wife’s heart gude—mair by token, when she kens it comes frae you—and maist of a’ gin ye’ll come up and take your share, for I reckon ye are lonesome now in the auld tower, and a’ your folk at that weary Edinburgh. I wonder what they can find to do amang a wheen ranks o’ stane-houses wi’ slate on the tap o’ them, that might live on their ain bonny green hills.”
“My education and my sisters’ has kept my mother much in Edinburgh for several years,” said Earnscliff; “but I promise you I propose to make up for lost time.”
“And ye’ll rig out the auld tower a bit,” said Hobbie, “and live hearty and neighbour-like wi’ the auld family friends, as the Laird o’ Earnscliff should? I can tell ye, my mother—my grandmother I mean—but, since we lost our ain mother, we ca’ her sometimes the tane, and sometimes the tother—but, ony gate, she conceits hersell no that distant connected wi’ you.”
“Very true, Hobbie, and I will come to the Heugh-foot to dinner to-morrow with all my heart.”
“Weel, that’s kindly said! We are auld neighbours, an we were nae kin—and my gude-dame’s fain to see you—she clavers about your father that was killed lang syne.”
“Hush, hush, Hobbie—not a word about that—it’s a story better forgotten.”
“I dinna ken—if it had chanced amang our folk, we wad hae keepit it in mind mony a day till we got some mends for’t—but ye ken your ain ways best, you lairds—I have heard say that Ellieslaw’s friend stickit your sire after the laird himsell had mastered his sword.”
“Fie, fie, Hobbie; it was a foolish brawl, occasioned by wine and politics—many swords were drawn—it is impossible to say who struck the blow.”
“At ony rate, auld Ellieslaw was aiding and abetting; and I am sure if ye were sae disposed as to take amends on him, naebody could say it was wrang, for your father’s blood is beneath his nails—and besides there’s naebody else left that was concerned to take amends upon, and he’s a prelatist and a jacobite into the bargain—I can tell ye the country folk look for something atween ye.”
“O for shame, Hobbie!” replied the young Laird; “you, that profess religion, to stir your friend up to break the law, and take vengeance at his own hand, and in such a bogilly bit too, where we know not what beings may be listening to us!”
“Hush, hush!” said Hobbie, drawing nearer to his companion, “I was nae thinking o’ the like o’ them—But I can guess a wee bit what keeps your hand up, Mr. Patrick; we a’ ken it’s no lack o’ courage, but the twa grey een of a bonny lass, Miss Isabel Vere, that keeps you sae sober.”
“I assure you, Hobbie,” said his companion, rather angrily, “I assure you you are mistaken; and it is extremely wrong of you, either to think of, or to utter, such an idea; I have no idea of permitting freedoms to be carried so far as to connect my name with that of any young lady.”
“Why, there now—there now!” retorted Elliot; “did I not say it was nae want o’ spunk that made ye sae mim?—Weel, weel, I meant nae offence; but there’s just ae thing ye may notice frae a friend. The auld Laird of Ellieslaw has the auld riding blood far hetter at his heart than ye hae—troth, he kens naething about thae newfangled notions o’ peace and quietness—he’s a’ for the auld-warld doings o’ lifting and laying on, and he has a wheen stout lads at his back too, and keeps them weel up in heart, and as fu’ o’ mischief as young colts. Where he gets the gear to do’t nane can say; he lives high, and far abune his rents here; however, he pays his way—Sae, if there’s ony out-break in the country, he’s likely to break out wi’ the first—and weel does he mind the auld quarrels between ye, I’m surmizing he’ll be for a touch at the auld tower at Earnscliff.”
“Well, Hobbie,” answered the young gentleman, “if he should be so ill advised, I shall try to make the old tower good against him, as it has been made good by my betters against his betters many a day ago.”
“Very right—very right—that’s speaking like a man now,” said the stout yeoman; “and, if sae should be that this be sae, if ye’ll just gar your servant jow out the great bell in the tower, there’s me, and my twa brothers, and little Davie of the Stenhouse, will be wi’ you, wi’ a’ the power we can make, in the snapping of a flint.”
“Many thanks, Hobbie,” answered Earnscliff; “but I hope we shall have no war of so unnatural and unchristian a kind in our time.”
“Hout, sir, hout,” replied Elliot; “it wad be but a wee bit neighbour war, and Heaven and earth would make allowances for it in this uncultivated place—it’s just the nature o’ the folk and the land—we canna live quiet like Loudon folk—we haena sae muckle to do. It’s impossible.”
“Well, Hobbie,” said the Laird, “for one who believes so deeply as you do in supernatural appearances, I must own you take Heaven in your own hand rather audaciously, considering where we are walking.”
“What needs I care for the Mucklestane-Moor ony mair than ye do yoursell, Earnscliff?” said Hobbie, something offended; “to be sure, they do say there’s a sort o’ worricows and lang-nebbit things about the land, but what need I care for them? I hae a good conscience, and little to answer for, unless it be about a rant amang the lasses, or a splore at a fair, and that’s no muckle to speak of. Though I say it mysell, I am as quiet a lad and as peaceable—”
“And Dick Turnbull’s head that you broke, and Willie of Winton whom you shot at?” said his travelling companion.
“Hout, Earnscliff, ye keep a record of a’ men’s misdoings—Dick’s head’s healed again, and we’re to fight out the quarrel at Jeddart, on the Rood-day, so that’s like a thing settled in a peaceable way; and then I am friends wi’ Willie again, puir chield—it was but twa or three hail draps after a’. I wad let onybody do the like o’t to me for a pint o’ brandy. But Willie’s lowland bred, poor fallow, and soon frighted for himsell—And, for the worricows, were we to meet ane on this very bit—”
“As is not unlikely,” said young Earnscliff, “for there stands your old witch, Hobbie.”
“I say,” continued Elliot, as if indignant at this hint—“I say, if the auld carline hersell was to get up out o’ the grund just before us here, I would think nae mair—But, gude preserve us, Earnscliff; what can yon, be!”
Brown Dwarf, that o’er the moorland strays,Thy name to Keeldar tell!“The Brown Man of the Moor, that staysBeneath the heather-bell.”—JOHN LEYDEN
The object which alarmed the young farmer in the middle of his valorous protestations, startled for a moment even his less prejudiced companion. The moon, which had arisen during their conversation, was, in the phrase of that country, wading or struggling with clouds, and shed only a doubtful and occasional light. By one of her beams, which streamed upon the great granite column to which they now approached, they discovered a form, apparently human, but of a size much less than ordinary, which moved slowly among the large grey stones, not like a person intending to journey onward, but with the slow, irregular, flitting movement of a being who hovers around some spot of melancholy recollection, uttering also, from time to time, a sort of indistinct muttering sound. This so much resembled his idea of the motions of an apparition, that Hobbie Elliot, making a dead pause, while his hair erected itself upon his scalp, whispered to his companion, “It’s Auld Ailie hersell! Shall I gie her a shot, in the name of God?”
“For Heaven’s sake, no,” said his companion, holding down the weapon which he was about to raise to the aim—“for Heaven’s sake, no; it’s some poor distracted creature.”
“Ye’re distracted yoursell, for thinking of going so near to her,” said Elliot, holding his companion in his turn, as he prepared to advance. “We’ll aye hae time to pit ower a bit prayer (an I could but mind ane) afore she comes this length—God! she’s in nae hurry,” continued he, growing bolder from his companion’s confidence, and the little notice the apparition seemed to take of them. “She hirples like a hen on a het girdle. I redd ye, Earnscliff” (this he added in a gentle whisper), “let us take a cast about, as if to draw the wind on a buck—the bog is no abune knee-deep, and better a saft road as bad company.” [The Scots use the epithet soft, IN MALAM PARTEM, in two cases, at least. A SOFT road is a road through quagmire and bogs; and SOFT weather signifies that which is very rainy.]
Earnscliff, however, in spite of his companion’s resistance and remonstrances, continued to advance on the path they had originally pursued, and soon confronted the object of their investigation.
The height of the figure, which appeared even to decrease as they approached it, seemed to be under four feet, and its form, as far as the imperfect light afforded them the means of discerning, was very nearly as broad as long, or rather of a spherical shape, which could only be occasioned by some strange personal deformity. The young sportsman hailed this extraordinary appearance twice, without receiving any answer, or attending to the pinches by which his companion endeavoured to intimate that their best course was to walk on, without giving farther disturbance to a being of such singular and preternatural exterior. To the third repeated demand of “Who are you? What do you here at this hour of night?”—a voice replied, whose shrill, uncouth, and dissonant tones made Elliot step two paces back, and startled even his companion, “Pass on your way, and ask nought at them that ask nought at you.”
“What do you do here so far from shelter? Are you benighted on your journey? Will you follow us home (‘God forbid!’ ejaculated Hobbie Elliot, involuntarily), and I will give you a lodging?”
“I would sooner lodge by mysell in the deepest of the Tarras-flow,” again whispered Hobbie.
“Pass on your way,” rejoined the figure, the harsh tones of his voice still more exalted by passion. “I want not your guidance—I want not your lodging—it is five years since my head was under a human roof, and I trust it was for the last time.”
“He is mad,” said Earnscliff.
“He has a look of auld Humphrey Ettercap, the tinkler, that perished in this very moss about five years syne,” answered his superstitious companion; “but Humphrey wasna that awfu’ big in the bouk.”
“Pass on your way,” reiterated the object of their curiosity, “the breath of your human bodies poisons the air around me—the sound of pour human voices goes through my ears like sharp bodkins.”
“Lord safe us!” whispered Hobbie, “that the dead should bear sie fearfu’ ill-will to the living!—his saul maun be in a puir way, I’m jealous.”
“Come, my friend,” said Earnscliff, “you seem to suffer under some strong affliction; common humanity will not allow us to leave you here.”
“Common humanity!” exclaimed the being, with a scornful laugh that sounded like a shriek, “where got ye that catch-word—that noose for woodcocks—that common disguise for man-traps—that bait which the wretched idiot who swallows, will soon find covers a hook with barbs ten times sharper than those you lay for the animals which you murder for your luxury!”
“I tell you, my friend,” again replied Earnscliff, “you are incapable of judging of your own situation—you will perish in this wilderness, and we must, in compassion, force you along with us.”
“I’ll hae neither hand nor foot in’t,” said Hobbie; “let the ghaist take his ain way, for God’s sake!”
“My blood be on my own head, if I perish here,” said the figure; and, observing Earnscliff meditating to lay hold on him, he added, “And your blood be upon yours, if you touch but the skirt of my garments, to infect me with the taint of mortality!”
The moon shone more brightly as he spoke thus, and Earnscliff observed that he held out his right hand armed with some weapon of offence, which glittered in the cold ray like the blade of a long knife, or the barrel of a pistol. It would have been madness to persevere in his attempt upon a being thus armed, and holding such desperate language, especially as it was plain he would have little aid from his companion, who had fairly left him to settle matters with the apparition as he could, and had proceeded a few paces on his way homeward. Earnscliff, however, turned and followed Hobbie, after looking back towards the supposed maniac, who, as if raised to frenzy by the interview, roamed wildly around the great stone, exhausting his voice in shrieks and imprecations, that thrilled wildly along the waste heath.
The two sportsmen moved on some time in silence, until they were out of hearing of these uncouth sounds, which was not ere they had gained a considerable distance from the pillar that gave name to the moor. Each made his private comments on the scene they had witnessed, until Hobbie Elliot suddenly exclaimed, “Weel, I’ll uphaud that yon ghaist, if it be a ghaist, has baith done and suffered muckle evil in the flesh, that gars him rampauge in that way after he is dead and gane.”
“It seems to me the very madness of misanthropy,” said Earnscliff; following his own current of thought.
“And ye didna think it was a spiritual creature, then?” asked Hobbie at his companion.
“Who, I?—No, surely.”
“Weel, I am partly of the mind mysell that it may be a live thing—and yet I dinna ken, I wadna wish to see ony thing look liker a bogle.”
“At any rate,” said Earnscliff, “I will ride over to-morrow and see what has become of the unhappy being.”
“In fair daylight?” queried the yeoman; “then, grace o’ God, I’se be wi’ ye. But here we are nearer to Heugh-foot than to your house by twa mile,—hadna ye better e’en gae hame wi’ me, and we’ll send the callant on the powny to tell them that you are wi’ us, though I believe there’s naebody at hame to wait for you but the servants and the cat.”
“Have with you then, friend Hobbie,” said the young hunter; “and as I would not willingly have either the servants be anxious, or puss forfeit her supper, in my absence, I’ll be obliged to you to send the boy as you propose.”
“Aweel, that IS kind, I must say. And ye’ll gae hame to Heugh-foot? They’ll be right blithe to see you, that will they.”
This affair settled, they walked briskly on a little farther, when, coming to the ridge of a pretty steep hill, Hobbie Elliot exclaimed, “Now, Earnscliff, I am aye glad when I come to this very bit—Ye see the light below, that’s in the ha’ window, where grannie, the gash auld carline, is sitting birling at her wheel—and ye see yon other light that’s gaun whiddin’ back and forrit through amang the windows? that’s my cousin, Grace Armstrong,—she’s twice as clever about the house as my sisters, and sae they say themsells, for they’re good-natured lasses as ever trode on heather; but they confess themsells, and sae does grannie, that she has far maist action, and is the best goer about the toun, now that grannie is off the foot hersell.—My brothers, ane o’ them’s away to wait upon the chamberlain, and ane’s at Moss-phadraig, that’s our led farm—he can see after the stock just as weel as I can do.”
“You are lucky, my good friend, in having so many valuable relations.”
“Troth am I—Grace make me thankful, I’se never deny it.—But will ye tell me now, Earnscliff, you that have been at college, and the high-school of Edinburgh, and got a’ sort o’ lair where it was to be best gotten—will ye tell me—no that it’s ony concern of mine in particular,—but I heard the priest of St. John’s, and our minister, bargaining about it at the Winter fair, and troth they baith spak very weel—Now, the priest says it’s unlawful to marry ane’s cousin; but I cannot say I thought he brought out the Gospel authorities half sae weel as our minister—our minister is thought the best divine and the best preacher atween this and Edinburgh—Dinna ye think he was likely to be right?”
“Certainly marriage, by all protestant Christians, is held to be as free as God made it by the Levitical law; so, Hobbie, there can be no bar, legal or religious, betwixt you and Miss Armstrong.”
“Hout awa’ wi’ your joking, Earnscliff,” replied his companion,—“ye are angry aneugh yoursell if ane touches you a bit, man, on the sooth side of the jest—No that I was asking the question about Grace, for ye maun ken she’s no my cousin-germain out and out, but the daughter of my uncle’s wife by her first marriage, so she’s nae kith nor kin to me—only a connexion like. But now we’re at the Sheeling-hill—I’ll fire off my gun, to let them ken I’m coming, that’s aye my way; and if I hae a deer I gie them twa shots, ane for the deer and ane for mysell.”
He fired off his piece accordingly, and the number of lights were seen to traverse the house, and even to gleam before it. Hobbie Elliot pointed out one of these to Earnscliff, which seemed to glide from the house towards some of the outhouses-“That’s Grace hersell,” said Hobbie. “She’ll no meet me at the door, I’se warrant her—but she’ll be awa’, for a’ that, to see if my hounds’ supper be ready, poor beasts.”
“Love me, love my dog,” answered Earnscliff. “Ah, Hobbie, you are a lucky young fellow!”
This observation was uttered with something like a sigh, which apparently did not escape the ear of his companion.
“Hout, other folk may be as lucky as I am—O how I have seen Miss Isabel Vere’s head turn after somebody when they passed ane another at the Carlisle races! Wha kens but things may come round in this world?”
Earnscliff muttered something like an answer; but whether in assent of the proposition, or rebuking the application of it, could not easily be discovered; and it seems probable that the speaker himself was willing his meaning should rest in doubt and obscurity. They had now descended the broad loaning, which, winding round the foot of the steep bank, or heugh, brought them in front of the thatched, but comfortable, farm-house, which was the dwelling of Hobbie Elliot and his family.
The doorway was thronged with joyful faces; but the appearance of a stranger blunted many a gibe which had been prepared on Hobbie’s lack of success in the deer-stalking. There was a little bustle among three handsome young women, each endeavouring to devolve upon another the task of ushering the stranger into the apartment, while probably all were anxious to escape for the purpose of making some little personal arrangements, before presenting themselves to a young gentleman in a dishabille only intended for their brother.
Hobbie, in the meanwhile, bestowing some hearty and general abuse upon them all (for Grace was not of the party), snatched the candle from the hand of one of the rustic coquettes, as she stood playing pretty with it in her hand, and ushered his guest into the family parlour, or rather hall; for the place having been a house of defence in former times, the sitting apartment was a vaulted and paved room, damp and dismal enough compared with the lodgings of the yeomanry of our days, but which, when well lighted up with a large sparkling fire of turf and bog-wood, seemed to Earnscliff a most comfortable exchange for the darkness and bleak blast of the hill. Kindly and repeatedly was he welcomed by the venerable old dame, the mistress of the family, who, dressed in her coif and pinners, her close and decent gown of homespun wool, but with a large gold necklace and ear-rings, looked, what she really was, the lady as well as the farmer’s wife, while, seated in her chair of wicker, by the corner of the great chimney, she directed the evening occupations of the young women, and of two or three stout serving wenches, who sate plying their distaffs behind the backs of their young mistresses.
As soon as Earnscliff had been duly welcomed, and hasty orders issued for some addition to the evening meal, his grand-dame and sisters opened their battery upon Hobbie Elliot for his lack of success against the deer.
“Jenny needna have kept up her kitchen-fire for a’ that Hobbie has brought hame,” said one sister.
“Troth no, lass,” said another; “the gathering peat, if it was weel blawn, wad dress a’ our Hobbie’s venison.” [The gathering peat is the piece of turf left to treasure up the secret seeds of fire, without any generous consumption of fuel; in a word, to keep the fire alive.]
“Ay, or the low of the candle, if the wind wad let it hide steady,” said a third; “if I were him, I would bring hame a black craw, rather than come back three times without a buck’s horn to blaw on.”
Hobbie turned from the one to the other, regarding them alternately with a frown on his brow, the augury of which was confuted by the good-humoured laugh on the lower part of his countenance. He then strove to propitiate them, by mentioning the intended present of his companion.
“In my young days,” said the old lady, “a man wad hae been ashamed to come back frae the hill without a buck hanging on each side o’ his horse, like a cadger carrying calves.”
“I wish they had left some for us then, grannie,” retorted Hobbie; “they’ve cleared the country o’ them, thae auld friends o’ yours, I’m thinking.”
“We see other folk can find game, though you cannot, Hobbie,” said the eldest sister, glancing a look at young Earnscliff.
“Weel, weel, woman, hasna every dog his day, begging Earnscliff’s pardon for the auld saying—Mayna I hae his luck, and he mine, another time?—It’s a braw thing for a man to be out a’ day, and frighted—na, I winna say that neither but mistrysted wi’ bogles in the hame-coming, an’ then to hae to flyte wi’ a wheen women that hae been doing naething a’ the live-lang day, but whirling a bit stick, wi’ a thread trailing at it, or boring at a clout.”
“Frighted wi’ bogles!” exclaimed the females, one and all,—for great was the regard then paid, and perhaps still paid, in these glens, to all such fantasies.
“I did not say frighted, now—I only said mis-set wi’ the thing—And there was but ae bogle, neither—Earnscliff, ye saw it; as weel as I did?”
And he proceeded, without very much exaggeration, to detail, in his own way, the meeting they had with the mysterious being at Mucklestane-Moor, concluding, he could not conjecture what on earth it could be, unless it was either the Enemy himsell, or some of the auld Peghts that held the country lang syne.
“Auld Peght!” exclaimed the grand-dame; “na, na—bless thee frae scathe, my bairn, it’s been nae Peght that—it’s been the Brown Man of the Moors! O weary fa’ thae evil days!—what can evil beings be coming for to distract a poor country, now it’s peacefully settled, and living in love and law—O weary on him! he ne’er brought gude to these lands or the indwellers. My father aften tauld me he was seen in the year o’ the bloody fight at Marston-Moor, and then again in Montrose’s troubles, and again before the rout o’ Dunbar, and, in my ain time, he was seen about the time o’ Bothwell-Brigg, and they said the second-sighted Laird of Benarbuck had a communing wi’ him some time afore Argyle’s landing, but that I cannot speak to sae preceesely—it was far in the west.—O, bairns, he’s never permitted but in an ill time, sae mind ilka ane o’ ye to draw to Him that can help in the day of trouble.”
Earnscliff now interposed, and expressed his firm conviction that the person they had seen was some poor maniac, and had no commission from the invisible world to announce either war or evil. But his opinion found a very cold audience, and all joined to deprecate his purpose of returning to the spot the next day.
“O, my bonny bairn,” said the old dame (for, in the kindness of her heart, she extended her parental style to all in whom she was interested)—-“You should beware mair than other folk—there’s been a heavy breach made in your house wi’ your father’s bloodshed, and wi’ law-pleas, and losses sinsyne;—and you are the flower of the flock, and the lad that will build up the auld bigging again (if it be His will) to be an honour to the country, and a safeguard to those that dwell in it—you, before others, are called upon to put yoursell in no rash adventures—for yours was aye ower venturesome a race, and muckle harm they have got by it.”
“But I am sure, my good friend, you would not have me be afraid of going to an open moor in broad daylight?”
“I dinna ken,” said the good old dame; “I wad never bid son or friend o’ mine haud their hand back in a gude cause, whether it were a friend’s or their ain—that should be by nae bidding of mine, or of ony body that’s come of a gentle kindred—But it winna gang out of a grey head like mine, that to gang to seek for evil that’s no fashing wi’ you, is clean against law and Scripture.”
Earnscliff resigned an argument which he saw no prospect of maintaining with good effect, and the entrance of supper broke off the conversation. Miss Grace had by this time made her appearance, and Hobbie, not without a conscious glance at Earnscliff, placed himself by her side. Mirth and lively conversation, in which the old lady of the house took the good-humoured share which so well becomes old age, restored to the cheeks of the damsels the roses which their brother’s tale of the apparition had chased away, and they danced and sung for an hour after supper as if there were no such things as goblins in the world.
I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind;For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,That I might love thee something.—TIMON OF ATHENS
On the following morning, after breakfast, Earnscliff took leave of his hospitable friends, promising to return in time to partake of the venison, which had arrived from his house. Hobbie, who apparently took leave of him at the door of his habitation, slunk out, however, and joined him at the top of the hill.
“Ye’ll be gaun yonder, Mr. Patrick; feind o’ me will mistryst you for a’ my mother says. I thought it best to slip out quietly though, in case she should mislippen something of what we’re gaun to do—we maunna vex her at nae rate—it was amaist the last word my father said to me on his deathbed.”
“By no means, Hobbie,” said Earnscliff; “she well merits all your attention.”
“Troth, for that matter, she would be as sair vexed amaist for you as for me. But d’ye really think there’s nae presumption in venturing back yonder?—We hae nae special commission, ye ken.”
“If I thought as you do, Hobbie,” said the young gentleman, “I would not perhaps enquire farther into this business; but as I am of opinion that preternatural visitations are either ceased altogether, or become very rare in our days, I am unwilling to leave a matter uninvestigated which may concern the life of a poor distracted being.”
“Aweel, aweel, if ye really think that,” answered Hobbie doubtfully—“And it’s for certain the very fairies—I mean the very good neighbours themsells (for they say folk suldna ca’ them fairies) that used to be seen on every green knowe at e’en, are no half sae often visible in our days. I canna depone to having ever seen ane mysell, but, I ance heard ane whistle ahint me in the moss, as like a whaup [Curlew] as ae thing could be like anither. And mony ane my father saw when he used to come hame frae the fairs at e’en, wi’ a drap drink in his head, honest man.”
Earnscliff was somewhat entertained with the gradual declension of superstition from one generation to another which was inferred In this last observation; and they continued to reason on such subjects, until they came in sight of the upright stone which gave name to the moor.
“As I shall answer,” says Hobbie, “yonder’s the creature creeping about yet!—But it’s daylight, and you have your gun, and I brought out my bit whinger—I think we may venture on him.”
“By all manner of means,” said Earnscliff; “but, in the name of wonder, what can he be doing there?”
“Biggin a dry-stane dyke, I think, wi’ the grey geese, as they ca’ thae great loose stanes—Odd, that passes a’ thing I e’er heard tell of!”
As they approached nearer, Earnscliff could not help agreeing with his companion. The figure they had seen the night before seemed slowly and toilsomely labouring to pile the large stones one upon another, as if to form a small enclosure. Materials lay around him in great plenty, but the labour of carrying on the work was immense, from the size of most of the stones; and it seemed astonishing that he should have succeeded in moving several which he had already arranged for the foundation of his edifice. He was struggling to move a fragment of great size when the two young men came up, and was so intent upon executing his purpose, that he did not perceive them till they were close upon him. In straining and heaving at the stone, in order to place it according to his wish, he displayed a degree of strength which seemed utterly inconsistent with his size and apparent deformity. Indeed, to judge from the difficulties he had already surmounted, he must have been of Herculean powers; for some of the stones he had succeeded in raising apparently required two men’s strength to have moved them. Hobbie’s suspicions began to revive, on seeing the preternatural strength he exerted.
“I am amaist persuaded it’s the ghaist of a stane-mason—see siccan band-statnes as he’s laid i—An it be a man, after a’, I wonder what he wad take by the rood to build a march dyke. There’s ane sair wanted between Cringlehope and the Shaws.—Honest man” (raising his voice), “ye make good firm wark there?”
The being whom he addressed raised his eyes with a ghastly stare, and, getting up from his stooping posture, stood before them in all his native and hideous deformity. His head was of uncommon size, covered with a fell of shaggy hair, partly grizzled with age; his eyebrows, shaggy and prominent, overhung a pair of small dark, piercing eyes, set far back in their sockets, that rolled with a portentous wildness, indicative of a partial insanity. The rest of his features were of the coarse, rough-hewn stamp, with which a painter would equip a giant in romance; to which was added the wild, irregular, and peculiar expression, so often seen in the countenances of those whose persons are deformed. His body, thick and square, like that of a man of middle size, was mounted upon two large feet; but nature seemed to have forgotten the legs and the thighs, or they were so very short as to be hidden by the dress which he wore. His arms were long and brawny, furnished with two muscular hands, and, where uncovered in the eagerness of his labour, were shagged with coarse black hair. It seemed as if nature had originally intended the separate parts of his body to be the members of a giant, but had afterwards capriciously assigned them to the person of a dwarf, so ill did the length of his arms and the iron strength of his frame correspond with the shortness of his stature. His clothing was a sort of coarse brown tunic, like a monk’s frock, girt round him with a belt of seal-skin. On his head he had a cap made of badger’s skin, or some other rough fur, which added considerably to the grotesque effect of his whole appearance, and overshadowed features, whose habitual expression seemed that of sullen malignant misanthropy.
This remarkable Dwarf gazed on the two youths in silence, with a dogged and irritated look, until Earnscliff, willing to soothe him into better temper, observed, “You are hard tasked, my friend; allow us to assist you.”
Elliot and he accordingly placed the stone, by their joint efforts, upon the rising wall. The Dwarf watched them with the eye of a taskmaster, and testified, by peevish gestures, his impatience at the time which they took in adjusting the stone. He pointed to another—they raised it also—to a third, to a fourth—they continued to humour him, though with some trouble, for he assigned them, as if intentionally, the heaviest fragments which lay near.
“And now, friend,” said Elliot, as the unreasonable Dwarf indicated another stone larger than any they had moved, “Earnscliff may do as he likes; but be ye man or be ye waur, deil be in my fingers if I break my back wi’ heaving thae stanes ony langer like a barrow-man, without getting sae muckle as thanks for my pains.”
“Thanks!” exclaimed the Dwarf, with a motion expressive of the utmost contempt—“There—take them, and fatten upon them! Take them, and may they thrive with you as they have done with me—as they have done with every mortal worm that ever heard the word spoken by his fellow reptile! Hence—either labour or begone!”
“This is a fine reward we have, Earnscliff, for building a tabernacle for the devil, and prejudicing our ain souls into the bargain, for what we ken.”
“Our presence,” answered Earnscliff, “seems only to irritate his frenzy; we had better leave him, and send some one to provide him with food and necessaries.”
They did so. The servant dispatched for this purpose found the Dwarf still labouring at his wall, but could not extract a word from him. The lad, infected with the superstitions of the country, did not long persist in an attempt to intrude questions or advice on so singular a figure, but having placed the articles which he had brought for his use on a stone at some distance, he left them at the misanthrope’s disposal.
The Dwarf proceeded in his labours, day after day, with an assiduity so incredible as to appear almost supernatural. In one day he often seemed to have done the work of two men, and his building soon assumed the appearance of the walls of a hut, which, though very small, and constructed only of stones and turf, without any mortar, exhibited, from the unusual size of the stones employed, an appearance of solidity very uncommon for a cottage of such narrow dimensions and rude construction. Earnscliff; attentive to his motions, no sooner perceived to what they tended, than he sent down a number of spars of wood suitable for forming the roof, which he caused to be left in the neighbourhood of the spot, resolving next day to send workmen to put them up. But his purpose was anticipated, for in the evening, during the night, and early in the morning, the Dwarf had laboured so hard, and with such ingenuity, that he had nearly completed the adjustment of the rafters. His next labour was to cut rushes and thatch his dwelling, a task which he performed with singular dexterity.
As he seemed averse to receive any aid beyond the occasional assistance of a passenger, materials suitable to his purpose, and tools, were supplied to him, in the use of which he proved to be skilful. He constructed the door and window of his cot, he adjusted a rude bedstead, and a few shelves, and appeared to become somewhat soothed in his temper as his accommodations increased.
His next task was to form a strong enclosure, and to cultivate the land within it to the best of his power; until, by transporting mould, and working up what was upon the spot, he formed a patch of garden-ground. It must be naturally supposed, that, as above hinted, this solitary being received assistance occasionally from such travellers as crossed the moor by chance, as well as from several who went from curiosity to visit his works. It was, indeed, impossible to see a human creature, so unfitted, at first sight, for hard labour, toiling with such unremitting assiduity, without stopping a few minutes to aid him in his task; and, as no one of his occasional assistants was acquainted with the degree of help which the Dwarf had received from others, the celerity of his progress lost none of its marvels in their eyes. The strong and compact appearance of the cottage, formed in so very short a space, and by such a being, and the superior skill which he displayed in mechanics, and in other arts, gave suspicion to the surrounding neighbours. They insisted, that, if he was not a phantom,—an opinion which was now abandoned, since he plainly appeared a being of blood and bone with themselves,—yet he must be in close league with the invisible world, and have chosen that sequestered spot to carry on his communication with them undisturbed. They insisted, though in a different sense from the philosopher’s application of the phrase, that he was never less alone than when alone; and that from the heights which commanded the moor at a distance, passengers often discovered a person at work along with this dweller of the desert, who regularly disappeared as soon as they approached closer to the cottage. Such a figure was also occasionally seen sitting beside him at the door, walking with him in the moor, or assisting him in fetching water from his fountain. Earnscliff explained this phenomenon by supposing it to be the Dwarf’s shadow.
“Deil a shadow has he,” replied Hobbie Elliot, who was a strenuous defender of the general opinion; “he’s ower far in wi’ the Auld Ane to have a shadow. Besides,” he argued more logically, “wha ever heard of a shadow that cam between a body and the sun? and this thing, be it what it will, is thinner and taller than the body himsell, and has been seen to come between him and the sun mair than anes or twice either.”
These suspicions, which, in any other part of the country, might have been attended with investigations a little inconvenient to the supposed wizard, were here only productive of respect and awe. The recluse being seemed somewhat gratified by the marks of timid veneration with which an occasional passenger approached his dwelling, the look of startled surprise with which he surveyed his person and his premises, and the hurried step with which he pressed his retreat as he passed the awful spot. The boldest only stopped to gratify their curiosity by a hasty glance at the walls of his cottage and garden, and to apologize for it by a courteous salutation, which the inmate sometimes deigned to return by a word or a nod. Earnscliff often passed that way, and seldom without enquiring after the solitary inmate, who seemed now to have arranged his establishment for life.
It was impossible to engage him in any conversation on his own personal affairs; nor was he communicative or accessible in talking on any other subject whatever, although he seemed to have considerably relented in the extreme ferocity of his misanthropy, or rather to be less frequently visited with the fits of derangement of which this was a symptom. No argument could prevail upon him to accept anything beyond the simplest necessaries, although much more was offered by Earnscliff out of charity, and by his more superstitious neighbours from other motives. The benefits of these last he repaid by advice, when consulted (as at length he slowly was) on their diseases, or those of their cattle. He often furnished them with medicines also, and seemed possessed, not only of such as were the produce of the country, but of foreign drugs. He gave these persons to understand, that his name was Elshender the Recluse; but his popular epithet soon came to be Canny Elshie, or the Wise Wight of Mucklestane-Moor. Some extended their queries beyond their bodily complaints, and requested advice upon other matters, which he delivered with an oracular shrewdness that greatly confirmed the opinion of his possessing preternatural skill. The querists usually left some offering upon a stone, at a distance from his dwelling; if it was money, or any article which did not suit him to accept, he either threw it away, or suffered it to remain where it was without making use of it. On all occasions his manners were rude and unsocial; and his words, in number, just sufficient to express his meaning as briefly as possible, and he shunned all communication that went a syllable beyond the matter in hand. When winter had passed away, and his garden began to afford him herbs and vegetables, he confined himself almost entirely to those articles of food. He accepted, notwithstanding, a pair of she-goats from Earnscliff, which fed on the moor, and supplied him with milk.
When Earnscliff found his gift had been received, he soon afterwards paid the hermit a visit. The old man was seated an a broad flat stone near his garden door, which was the seat of science he usually occupied when disposed to receive his patients or clients. The inside of his hut, and that of his garden, he kept as sacred from human intrusion as the natives of Otaheite do their Morai;—apparently he would have deemed it polluted by the step of any human being. When he shut himself up in his habitation, no entreaty could prevail upon him to make himself visible, or to give audience to any one whomsoever.
Earnscliff had been fishing in a small river at some distance. He had his rod in his hand, and his basket, filled with trout, at his shoulder. He sate down upon a stone nearly opposite to the Dwarf who, familiarized with his presence, took no farther notice of him than by elevating his huge mis-shapen head for the purpose of staring at him, and then again sinking it upon his bosom, as if in profound meditation. Earnscliff looked around him, and observed that the hermit had increased his accommodations by the construction of a shed for the reception of his goats.
“You labour hard, Elshie,” he said, willing to lead this singular being into conversation.
“Labour,” re-echoed the Dwarf, “is the mildest evil of a lot so miserable as that of mankind; better to labour like me, than sport like you.”
“I cannot defend the humanity of our ordinary rural sports, Elshie, and yet—”
“And yet,” interrupted the Dwarf, “they are better than your ordinary business; better to exercise idle and wanton cruelty on mute fishes than on your fellow-creatures. Yet why should I say so? Why should not the whole human herd butt, gore, and gorge upon each other, till all are extirpated but one huge and over-fed Behemoth, and he, when he had throttled and gnawed the bones of all his fellows—he, when his prey failed him, to be roaring whole days for lack of food, and, finally, to die, inch by inch, of famine—it were a consummation worthy of the race!”
“Your deeds are better, Elshie, than your words,” answered Earnscliff; “you labour to preserve the race whom your misanthropy slanders.”
“I do; but why?—Hearken. You are one on whom I look with the least loathing, and I care not, if, contrary to my wont, I waste a few words in compassion to your infatuated blindness. If I cannot send disease into families, and murrain among the herds, can I attain the same end so well as by prolonging the lives of those who can serve the purpose of destruction as effectually?—If Alice of Bower had died in winter, would young Ruthwin have been slain for her love the last spring?—Who thought of penning their cattle beneath the tower when the Red Reiver of Westburnflat was deemed to be on his death-bed?—My draughts, my skill, recovered him. And, now, who dare leave his herd upon the lea without a watch, or go to bed without unchaining the sleuth-hound?”
“I own,” answered Earnscliff; “you did little good to society by the last of these cures. But, to balance the evil, there is my friend Hobbie, honest Hobbie of the Heugh-foot, your skill relieved him last winter in a fever that might have cost him his life.”
“Thus think the children of clay in their ignorance,” said: the Dwarf, smiling maliciously, “and thus they speak in their folly. Have you marked the young cub of a wild cat that has been domesticated, how sportive, how playful, how gentle,—but trust him with your game, your lambs, your poultry, his inbred ferocity breaks forth; he gripes, tears, ravages, and devours.”
“Such is the animal’s instinct,” answered Earnscliff; “but what has that to do with Hobbie?”
“It is his emblem—it is his picture,” retorted the Recluse. “He is at present tame, quiet, and domesticated, for lack of opportunity to exercise his inborn propensities; but let the trumpet of war sound—let the young blood-hound snuff blood, he will be as ferocious as the wildest of his Border ancestors that ever fired a helpless peasant’s abode. Can you deny, that even at present he often urges you to take bloody revenge for an injury received when you were a boy?”—Earnscliff started; the Recluse appeared not to observe his surprise, and proceeded—“The trumpet WILL blow, the young blood-hound WILL lap blood, and I will laugh and say, For this I have preserved thee!” He paused, and continued,—“Such are my cures;—their object, their purpose, perpetuating the mass of misery, and playing even in this desert my part in the general tragedy. Were YOU on your sick bed, I might, in compassion, send you a cup of poison.”
“I am much obliged to you, Elshie, and certainly shall not fail to consult you, with so comfortable a hope from your assistance.”
“Do not flatter yourself too far,” replied the Hermit, “with the hope that I will positively yield to the frailty of pity. Why should I snatch a dupe, so well fitted to endure the miseries of life as you are, from the wretchedness which his own visions, and the villainy of the world, are preparing for him? Why should I play the compassionate Indian, and, knocking out the brains of the captive with my tomahawk, at once spoil the three days’ amusement of my kindred tribe, at the very moment when the brands were lighted, the pincers heated, the cauldrons boiling, the knives sharpened, to tear, scorch, seethe, and scarify the intended victim?”
“A dreadful picture you present to me of life, Elshie; but I am not daunted by it,” returned Earnscliff. “We are sent here, in one sense, to bear and to suffer; but, in another, to do and to enjoy. The active day has its evening of repose; even patient sufferance has its alleviations, where there is a consolatory sense of duty discharged.”
“I spurn at the slavish and bestial doctrine,” said the Dwarf, his eyes kindling with insane fury,—“I spurn at it, as worthy only of the beasts that perish; but I will waste no more words with you.”
He rose hastily; but, ere he withdrew into the hut, he added, with great vehemence, “Yet, lest you still think my apparent benefits to mankind flow from the stupid and servile source, called love of our fellow-creatures, know, that were there a man who had annihilated my soul’s dearest hope—who had torn my heart to mammocks, and seared my brain till it glowed like a volcano, and were that man’s fortune and life in my power as completely as this frail potsherd” (he snatched up an earthen cup which stood beside him), “I would not dash him into atoms thus”—(he flung the vessel with fury against the wall),—“No!” (he spoke more composedly, but with the utmost bitterness), “I would pamper him with wealth and power to inflame his evil passions, and to fulfil his evil designs; he should lack no means of vice and villainy; he should be the centre of a whirlpool that itself should know neither rest nor peace, but boil with unceasing fury, while it wrecked every goodly ship that approached its limits! he should be an earthquake capable of shaking the very land in which he dwelt, and rendering all its inhabitants friendless, outcast, and miserable—as I am!”
The wretched being rushed into his hut as he uttered these last words, shutting the door with furious violence, and rapidly drawing two bolts, one after another, as if to exclude the intrusion of any one of that hated race, who had thus lashed his soul to frenzy. Earnscliff left the moor with mingled sensations of pity and horror, pondering what strange and melancholy cause could have reduced to so miserable a state of mind, a man whose language argued him to be of rank and education much superior to the vulgar. He was also surprised to see how much particular information a person who had lived in that country so short a time, and in so recluse a manner, had been able to collect respecting the dispositions and private affairs of the inhabitants.
“It is no wonder,” he said to himself, “that with such extent of information, such a mode of life, so uncouth a figure, and sentiments so virulently misanthropic, this unfortunate should be regarded by the vulgar as in league with the Enemy of Mankind.”