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 haddone, 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 theRev. 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 allthe 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 earswere 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 thatthey 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 nextmorning; 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 forhundreds 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 somemeans 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 themin 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 generaldistrust—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 comingwhistling 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 weretwo 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 Queenof 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 immovablyfast, 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. Theysaw, 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 ofnot living in peace, but of proclaiming aloud to the world the grievous wrongs and oppression that the church of Christ in Scotland laboured under. Thedoctor 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 orecclesiastical, 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 toanswer 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 consequencemay 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, roseup 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 theliving 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, probablyby 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 theHope 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 generalbelief 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.
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 relatingto 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 bottomof 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—tellme 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 itisthat 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 wasbewitched, 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 herstrength 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; sheinstantly 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 morecalm 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 tothe 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 heardsomething 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 appearedchagrined, 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 calledThe 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 Roomwas 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 hadnot 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 themeadow, 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 termeda 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 seemedto 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 moorlandsWhere the wild burnies rin?Or what gars the waterWind reid down the lin?O billy, dear billy,Your boding let be,For it’s nought but the reid liftThat dazzles your e’e.”
“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 moorlandsWhere the wild burnies rin?Or what gars the waterWind reid down the lin?
O billy, dear billy,Your boding let be,For it’s nought but the reid liftThat 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’smet 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 HamiltonThat sic a day I should ever see!As ever ye saw the rain down fa’,Or yet the arrow gae from the bow—
“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 HamiltonThat 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 headstannin 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 truebravurastyle,