Читать книгу The Mosstrooper: A Legend of the Scottish Border - Robert Scott Fittis - Страница 4

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O mirk, mirk is this midnight hour,

And loud the tempest’s roar;

A waefu’ wanderer seeks thy tower,

Lord Gregory, ope thy door.

—Burns.

IT was an early Spring eve in a year long before King James III. of Scotland perished in his flight from the lost field of Sauchieburn, and was succeeded on the throne by his son, Prince James, who headed the rebellion which resulted in the hapless monarch’s assassination at Beaton’s Mill.

On that Spring eve the setting sun, breaking through heavy cloud-masses, poured his red radiance athwart the snow-flecked summits of the hilly chain known as the Cheviots, the scene of Chevy Chase and of many another Border fight, and the boundary for a considerable distance between Scotland and the sister kingdom. The day had been dull and bleak, scarce enlivened by a transient glint of sunshine; nevertheless, the aspect of Nature somewhat indicated that the reign of “surly Winter” was over. As far as the eye could reach, the snow and ice had almost wholly melted from the face of the low country on either side of the hills; and the drooping snowdrop, emblem of purity, and harbinger of genial skies, decked the Frost-king’s grave.

The red sun went down, leaving a trail of fire at the “gates of the west”; and a dreary quietude brooded on the hills—scant sign or sound of life being apparent save what the homeward-bound rooks made as they sailed, weary of wing, this way and that. But as the gloaming fell, a solitary pedestrian emerged from one of the passes on the Scottish side of the marches—a tall and stoutly-built but youthful man. A short cloak of untanned deerskin hung from his shoulders, being secured at the throat by a knot of thongs, and it partly hid a doublet, called, in Border phrase, a jack, of boiled leather, fitting close to the body, and strengthened on the breast (if not also all over the shoulders and sleeves) by small circular plates of hammered iron sewed on in overlapping fashion like the scales of a fish. A broad buff belt around his waist, held by a polished brass buckle, sustained an iron-hiked sword and a long knife or dagger, termed a whinger, hafted with buck-horn, curiously carved. His right hand—the other being studiously concealed under his mantle, and apparently carrying something rather bulky—was encased in a leathern gauntlet, the back of which was defended by little plates of mail like those on the jack. On his head he wore an iron bascinet cap, rusty and much dinted, and from under its rim straggled locks of dark brown hair inclining to curl. He had a thin, sallow, unprepossessing physiognomy, which expressed a combination of cunning and effrontery: two keen, grey eyes sparkled under heavy brows; and a slender moustache, lighter in colour than his locks, sparsely covered his upper lip; but the livid scar of a cicatrized wound, evidently from a sword-cut, adown his left cheek, gave, on close observation, a peculiar grimness to his otherwise sinister mien. Altogether, he might be considered as a typical Borderer of the time, rough-living, law-defying, rarely ever out of “sturt and strife.”

On quitting the defile, he struck across a stretch of open moorland, over which the rising night-wind fitfully sighed among the furze. Now and then he paused and gazed eagerly behind, seeming to listen, as if dreading pursuit; but pursuers there seemed none, save the cloud-billows that rolled in endless succession over the dim hills and darkened above his head. The waste soon became both rugged and marshy, and a shallow rivulet, fed from the moss-hags, ran in a serpentine and perplexing course, necessitating its being repeatedly waded, but the water never came much above the traveller’s ankles, and he wore a pair of strong buskins reaching to the calf of his leg. When he had finally left the sinuosities of the sluggish stream in his rear, he made a dead halt, as if come to the end of his journey, and scowled all around him in the gloom. Throwing back the left side of his cloak, he disclosed a young child, well wrapped up, and fast asleep, whom he was carrying, and whom he immediately laid down on the heath at his feet. The infant awoke, and began to whimper and wail. The man stood bending his moody gaze upon it till his eyeballs glowed with dusky fire.

“This nicht,” he said, in a low tone, savouring of fierce exultation, “this nicht will the proud Southron grieve, and the bonnie lady greet in her bower, for the loss o’ the young heir that was the hope o’ their hearts. The retainers may scour hill and dale, and the pathless wilds echo the bay o’ their sleuth-hound. Let them speed far and wide wi’ horse and ban-dog. In my hand rests the young heir’s fate. By the Black Rood o’ Melrose! this is the revenge o’ gentle Edie Johnston!”

He stamped on the ground, and could have crushed the infant under his heel; but he started back a pace, as if, indeed, the fiend of revenge had prompted such a thought in his troubled brain, and he revolted at it—but he revolted only for a moment, as the savage suggestion seemed to be followed by another equally remorseless. What did he now meditate? Was he one

Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world

Had so incens’d, that he was reckless what

He did, to spite the world?

Nervously his fingers clutched the hilt of his whinger, and he unsheathed it and waved it in the air, and then, stepping forward and stooping over the child, pointed the steel as if to deal a mortal stab. The weapon trembled in his grasp. Again the powers of compunction and shame overcame the murderous impulse. He raised himself erect, with an impatient ejaculation, and his armed hand fell slowly, and as if reluctantly, by his side.

“Frae sunset to sunset has this hand been feckless as a withered rush,” he said. “In darkness as in licht I ha’e been weak as water. I micht ha’e flung the brat, like a stane, frae the brow o’ a fathomless precipice, never mair to be seen but by the ravens: or he micht ha’e been thrown into a rushing stream that would ha’e swirled him awa’ to the sea; and nae mortal could ha’e fyled me wi’ the deed; and yet he is spared, as if his life were charmed by a spell o’ power. Maun I, a gentle Johnstone, forget my wrangs? My faither fell in an inroad o’ the Southrons: my mither was twice harried out o’ her cot-house in the cleugh: and I—” He paused, and stroking his scarred cheek, glanced alternately around him and at the sobbing boy on the cold turf: then sheathed his whinger, lifted the babe, and strode hurriedly on his way.

Soon he came to a spring-well, a round, brimful well-e’e, fringed with furze. There he stopped, mused some space, and muttering a curse, suspended the child over the water, as if intending to let it drop and drown. But as he gazed fixedly on the limpid element, which shimmered under the dim sky, a lustrous planet shone out through the clouds and glittered in the natural mirror, the golden similitude sparkling up like the eye of an accusing spirit. It was what guilt could not withstand. The mystic gleam of the shadowy star smote the gentle Johnston to the soul. Drawing a harsh breath, he succumbed once more to a power that shamed his fierce nature. Huddling the infant under his rude mantle, he hurried from a spot where temptation had pressed him so strongly.

Straight northwards he held his route, with the shades of night deepening on what seemed a desert, where no living things seemed near save the heath-birds that started at his approach, and sped away with shrill screams. Some heavy drops of rain, “like the first of a thunder-shower,” pattered on his head-piece and deerskin garment, and louder grew the sough of the gale, which prognostications of an inclement night caused him to quicken his pace. The child had now wept itself to sleep, and its bearer showed every care to screen it from the rough weather. Happily, the threatened storm blew by. But although the night settled down, the Borderer still travelled comparatively fast, with long, unwearied stride, as being well inured to exertion and well acquainted with the country which he was traversing. Indeed, we may not err in supposing that in the latter respect he could rival “stout Deloraine,” of whom the Last Minstrel tells us that—

Through Solway sands, through Tarras moss,

Blindfold he knew the paths to cross;

*****

In Eske, or Liddel, fords were none,

But he would ride them, one by one;

Alike to him was time or tide,

December’s snow, or July’s pride;

Alike to him was tide or time,

Moonless midnight, or matin prime.

Sometimes the traveller changed his course to a certain extent, inclining now to the right, now to the left, probably to avoid the neighbourhood of hamlets: his darkling journey was one of hours; but eventually the blustering blast swept away the clouds, and a frosty starlight shone down, enabling him to perceive that he was nearing the spurs of a range of low hills. On he went towards a wide ravine, and entering it, was soon plodding sturdily along a well-beaten but winding path, whilst the gale whistled shrilly through the underwood that clad both sides of the glen. As he progressed, his eye caught the feeble glimmer of a light in the distance, which he knew was not the twinkle of a star, and which was inconstantly seen and lost according to the turnings of the road.

“The auld keep o’ Hawksglen at last!” he muttered. “An’ gude fortune speed me, the seeds o’ a double revenge will be sawn.”

The glen debouched on what dimly appeared to be a spacious amphitheatre among the low hills, and in the foreground loomed the dark and turreted mass of a Border keep or castle, in a high casement of which burned the light that had been attracting the wayfarer’s attention. He trudged forward to the strength, and speedily reached the outer wall surrounding it, which was machicolated or embrasured along the top for the discharge of all sorts of missiles on the heads of assailants attempting escalade: and now the angry, deep-mouthed bark of a dog within the wall broke the silence. The Borderer halted in front of an arched and strong portal, which was closed by a gate which he felt was faced with iron. He gave a peculiar whistle and then a halloo, which the dog answered vigorously, rousing others of its kind in their kennel in the rear of the place. But next the gruff voice of an elderly man responded to the Borderer’s call from over the gateway—“Who goes there?”

The keen starlight could enable only the mere outline of the stranger’s figure to be discerned. “A friend to Hawksglen,” he answered.

“From whence, and on what errand?”

“From Rowanstane, and on matter o’ life and death. I bring a letter to the worthy Elliot. Open the vizzy, and I will wait his pleasure.”

“So, so: and bring you also the Rowanstane password?” demanded the scrupulous warder.

“Hand and glove.”

Prompt was the result of this response—almost like the effect of the “Open, Sesame” of the Forty Thieves. The warder, confident that the knowledge of the password was confined to friends (and it was changed at intervals), descended from his coign of vantage; and after some preliminary clank of chains, an aperture, measuring scarcely a foot square, opened in the side of the portal, without the iron-sheeted gate, and about breast-high from the ground, whilst the dog was heard sniffing and growling along the bottom of the gate.

“Hand in your letter,” said the warder.

The gentle Johnston deftly thrust the sleeping infant through the opening, and feeling that it was grasped by the other, turned without a word, took to his heels, and was lost in the gloom.

Judge of the amazement which seized upon the guardian of the portal when he found that instead of a letter he had received a bundle containing a young child, who being roughly awakened began to cry. For a moment was the warder struck speechless, but then, recovering his voice, he shouted through the aperture—“Hillo! man—what is this? Where’s the letter? A bairn! what does this mean? Curse the knave! and he had the password too. A vile trickster! Down, Ranger! down, lad!”—for the dog was climbing upon him, and smelling at the child in his arms. “By our lady! a rare gift at midnight! What will Sir James say to it? or his mother, either? I was a dolt to open the vizzy-hole; but the false-tongued knave swore it was a matter of life and death. The foul-fiend rive him! What ho! within there! Robin, Robin—up, man!”

A young serving-man rushed out to the gateway, with a spear in one hand, and a round buckler on his arm, and ejaculated—“What’s the steer, Allan? I was dovering ower the ha’ fire, after dipping ower deep in the ale-jack, and I thocht I heard the dogs bark.”

“Bring a torch,” cried Allan, “mayhap the wean is but a fairy changeling, and I must see to that ere it comes under our roof.”

“The wean? whatna wean?” inquired Robin, rubbing his sleepy eyes with the knuckles of the hand that held the spear.

“You hear the wean yaumering: and fairy weans are ever girning—devil take them!”

“Allan, Allan, dinna speak o’ them in sic a way, and at sic an hour. Ha’e you forgotten the auld rhyme?

“Gin you ca’ me Imp or Elf,

I rede you look weel to yourself.

Gin you ca’ me Fairy,

I’ll work you muckle tarrie.

“I beseech you, Allan, bethink yoursel’ that this is just the time when the gude neighbours are busiest for gude and ill.”

“Pshaw!” exclaimed the warder. “I think a bad neighbour has been here. Fetch a torch, in Mahound’s name!”

Robin hurried back to the hall, and, transferring his spear to his left hand that the right might be free, kindled a flambeau at the fire, and returned with it to the courtyard. The infant, on seeing the light, ceased crying, and stretched out his little hands towards the bickering flame.

“By the mass! a bonnie babe, and no fairy changeling, I’ll be sworn,” said Allan, and he shut the espial opening. “Let us now within doors.”

They accordingly withdrew into the hall, where Allan sat down on a buffet stool at the side of the hearth, with the young stranger on his knee, while the watch-dog stretched itself at his feet, and the clamour of its companions in the kennel died away. Robin fixed his torch into an iron sconce projecting half a foot from the wall, stirred the faggots on the andirons to a blaze, and was then told the story of the adventure.

Seemingly nobody else in the place had been aroused, all remaining quiet; but Allan now directed his subordinate to call up one of the female domestics, to whose care the foundling should be committed till morning. The woman, when she came, being dubious as to whether the boy was not a fairy changeling after all, suggested the test usually applied to such supernatural impostors, namely, by “putting it on the fire to see if it wadna flee up the lum wi’ an eldritch lauch!” But Allan was opposed to the experiment. The child’s clothes were of fine materials, and around its neck was a slender gold chain of curious links suspending an antique golden reliquary; but there was no inscription on the trinket, or mark about the dress, to afford a clue to the little wearer’s parentage.

The foundling being provided for, old Allan pulled his deerskin mantle closer around him, and went out to satisfy himself that the fastening of the aperture in the portal was secure.

“By our lady,” he muttered, “I’ll not open that vizzy again until daylight, although a score of stories of life and death should be told me. A small family might be foisted upon me ere morning.”