Guy Mannering Part 5

These things did not pa.s.s without notice and censure. We are not made of wood or stone, and the things which connect themselves with our hearts and habits cannot, like bark or lichen, be rent away without our missing them. The farmer's dame lacked her usual share of intelligence, perhaps also the self-applause which she had felt while distributing the awmous (alms), in shape of a gowpen (handful) of oatmeal, to the mendicant who brought the news. The cottage felt inconvenience from interruption of the petty trade carried on by the itinerant dealers. The children lacked their supply of sugar-plums and toys; the young women wanted pins, ribbons, combs, and ballads; and the old could no longer barter their eggs for salt, snuff, and tobacco. All these circ.u.mstances brought the busy Laird of Ellangowan into discredit, which was the more general on account of his former popularity. Even his lineage was brought up in judgment against him. They thought "naething of what the like of Greenside, or Burnville, or Viewforth, might do, that were strangers in the country; but Ellangowan! that had been a name amang them since the mirk Monanday, and lang before--him to be grinding the puir at that rate!--They ca'd his grandfather the Wicked Laird; but, though he was whiles fractious aneuch, when he got into roving company" and had ta'en the drap drink, he would have scorned to gang on at this gate. Na, na, the muckle chumlay in the Auld Place reeked like a killogie [*Lime-kiln] in his time, and there were as mony puir folk riving at the banes in the court, and about the door, as there were gentles in the ha'. And the leddy, on ilka Christmas night as it came round, gae twelve siller pennies to ilka puir body about, in honour of the twelve apostles like. They were fond to ca' it papistrie; but I think our great folk might take a lesson frae the papists whiles. They gie another sort o' help to puir folk than just dinging down a saxpence in the brod [*Collection-plate] on the Sabbath, and kilting, and scourging, and drumming them a' the sax days o' the week besides."

Such was the gossip over the good twopenny in every alehouse within three or four miles of Ellangowan, that being about the diameter of the orbit in which our friend G.o.dfrey Bertram, Esq., J.P., must be considered as the princ.i.p.al luminary. Still greater scope was given to evil tongues by the removal of a colony of gipsies, with one of whom our reader is somewhat acquainted, and who had for a great many years enjoyed their chief settlement upon the estate of Ellangowan.

CHAPTER VII.

Come, princes of the ragged regiment, You of the blood!

Prigg, my most upright lord, And these, what name or t.i.tle e'er they bear, Jarkman, or Patrico, Cranke or Clapper-dudgeon, Frater or Abram-man--I speak of all.--

Beggar's Bush.

ALTHOUGH the character of those gipsy tribes which formerly inundated most of the nations of Europe, and which in some degree still subsist among them as a distinct people, is generally understood, the reader will pardon my saying a few words respecting their situation in Scotland.

It is well known that the gipsies were, at an early period, acknowledged as a separate and independent race by one of the Scottish monarchs, and that they were less favourably distinguished by a subsequent law, which rendered the character of gipsy equal, in the judicial balance, to that of common and habitual thief, and prescribed his punishment accordingly. Notwithstanding the severity of this and other statutes, the fraternity prospered amid the distresses of the country, and received large accessions from among those whom famine, oppression, or the sword of war, had deprived of the ordinary means of subsistence. They lost, in a great measure, by this intermixture, the national character of Egyptians, and became a mingled race, having all the idleness and predatory habits of their Eastern ancestors, with a ferocity which they probably borrowed from the men of the north who joined their society. They travelled in different bands, and had rules among themselves, by which each tribe was confined to its own district.

The slightest invasion of the precincts which had been a.s.signed to another tribe produced desperate skirmishes, in which there was often much blood shed.

The patriotic Fletcher of Saltoun drew a picture of these banditti about a century ago, which my readers will peruse with astonishment.

"There are at this day in Scotland (besides a great many poor families very meanly provided for by the church boxes, with others, who, by living on bad food, fall into various diseases) two hundred thousand people begging from door to door. These are not only no way advantageous, but a very grievous burden to so poor a country.

And though the number of them be perhaps double to what it was formerly, by reason of this present great distress, yet in all times there have been about one hundred thousand of those vagabonds, who have lived without any regard or subjection either to the laws of the land, or even those of G.o.d and nature; ...

No magistrate could ever discover or be informed, which way one in a hundred of these wretches died, or that ever they were baptized.

Many murders have been discovered among them; and they are not only a most unspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who, if they give not bread, or some kind of provision to perhaps forty such villains in one day, are sure to be insulted. by them), but they rob many poor people who live in houses distant from any neighbourhood. In years of plenty many thousands of them meet together in the mountains, where they feast and riot for many days; and at country weddings, markets, burials, and other the like public occasions, they are to be seen, both man and woman, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together."

Notwithstanding the deplorable picture presented in this extract, and which Fletcher himself, though the energetic and eloquent friend of freedom, saw no better mode of correcting than by introducing a system of domestic slavery, the progress of time, and increase both of the means of life and of the power of the laws, gradually reduced this dreadful evil within more narrow bounds. The tribes of gipsies, jockies, or cairds,--for by all these denominations such banditti were known,--became few in number, and many were entirely rooted out. Still, however, a sufficient number remained to give occasional alarm and constant vexation. Some rude handicrafts were entirely resigned to these itinerants, particularly the art of trencher-making, of manufacturing horn-spoons, and the whole mystery of the tinker. To these they added a petty trade in the coa.r.s.e sorts of earthenware. Such were their ostensible means of livelihood. Each tribe had usually some fixed place of rendezvous, which they occasionally occupied. and considered as their standing camp, and in the vicinity of which they generally abstained from depredation. They had even talents and accomplishments, which made them occasionally useful and entertaining. Many cultivated music with success; and the favourite fiddler or piper of a district was often to be found in a gipsy town. They understood all out-of-door sports, especially otter-hunting, fishing, or finding game. They bred the best and boldest terriers, and sometimes had good pointers for sale. In winter, the women told fortunes, the men showed tricks of legerdemain; and these accomplishments often helped to while away a weary or stormy evening in the circle of the "farmer's ha'." The wildness of their character, and the indomitable pride with which they despised all regular labour, commanded a certain awe, which was not diminished by the consideration, that these strollers were a vindictive race, and were restrained by no check, either of fear or conscience, from taking desperate vengeance upon those who had offended them. These tribes were, in short, the Parias of Scotland, living like wild Indians among European settlers, and, like them, judged of rather by their own customs, habits, and opinions, than as if they had been members of the civilised part of the community. Some hordes of them yet remain, chiefly in such situations as afford a ready escape either into a waste country, or into another jurisdiction. Nor are the features of their character much softened. Their numbers, however, are so greatly diminished, that, instead of one hundred thousand, as calculated by Fletcher, it would now perhaps be impossible to collect above five hundred throughout all Scotland.

A tribe of these itinerants, to whom Meg Merrilies appertained, had long been as stationary as their habits permitted, in a glen upon the estate of Ellangowan. They had there erected a few huts, which they denominated their "city of refuge," and where, when not absent on excursions, they harboured unmolested, as the crows that roosted in the old ash-trees around them. They had been such long occupants, that they were considered in some degree as proprietors of the wretched shealings which they inhabited. This protection they were said anciently to have repaid, by service to the laird in war, or, more frequently, by infesting or plundering the lands of those neighbouring barons with whom he chanced to be at feud.

Latterly, their services were of a more pacific nature. The women spun mittens for the lady, and knitted boot-hose for the laird, which were annually presented at Christmas with great form. The aged sibyls blessed the bridal bed of the laird when he married, and the cradle of the heir when born. The men repaired her ladyship's cracked china, and a.s.sisted the laird in his sporting parties, wormed his dogs, and cut the ears of his terrier puppies.

The children gathered nuts in the woods, and cranberries in the moss, and mushrooms on the pastures, for tribute to the Place.

These acts of voluntary service, and acknowledgments of dependence, were rewarded by protection on some occasions, connivance on others, and broken victuals, ale, and brandy, when circ.u.mstances called for a display of generosity; and this mutual intercourse of good offices, which had been carried on for at least two centuries, rendered the inhabitants of Derncleugh a kind of privileged retainers upon the estate of Ellangowan. "The knaves" were the Laird's "exceeding good friends"; and he would have deemed himself very ill used, if his countenance could not now and then have borne them out against the law of the country and the local magistrate.

But this friendly union was soon to be dissolved.

The community of Derncleugh, who cared for no rogues but their own, were wholly without alarm at the severity of the justice's proceedings towards other itinerants. They had no doubt that he determined to suffer no mendicants or strollers in the country, but what resided on his own property, and practised their trade by his immediate permission, implied or expressed. Nor was Mr. Bertram in a hurry to exert his newly-acquired authority at the expense of these old settlers. But he was driven on by circ.u.mstances.

At the quarter-sessions, our new justice was publicly upbraided by a gentleman of the opposite party in county politics, that, while he affected a great zeal for the public police, and seemed ambitious of the fame of an active magistrate, he fostered a tribe of the greatest rogues in the country, and permitted them to harbour within a mile of the house of Ellangowan. To this there was no reply, for the fact was too evident and well known. The Laird digested the taunt as he best could, and in his way home amused himself with speculations on the easiest method of ridding himself of these vagrants, who brought a stain upon his fair fame as a magistrate. Just as he had resolved to take the first opportunity of quarrelling with the Parias of Derncleugh, a cause of provocation presented itself.

Since our friend's advancement to be a conservator of the peace, he had caused the gate at the head of his avenue, which formerly, having only one hinge remained at all times hospitably open--he had caused this gate, I say, to be newly hung and handsomely painted.

He had also shut up with paling, curiously twisted with furze, certain holes in tie fences adjoining, through which the gipsy boys used to scramble into the plantations to gather birds' nests, the seniors of the village to make a short cut from one point to another, and the lads and la.s.ses for evening rendezvous--all without offence taken, or leave asked. But these halcyon days were now to have an end, and a minatory inscription on one side of the gate intimated "prosecution according to law" (the painter had spelt it persecution--l'un vaut bien l'autre) to all who should be found trespa.s.sing on these enclosures. On the other side, for uniformity's sake, was a precautionary annunciation of spring-guns and man-traps of such formidable powers, that, said the rubrick, with an emphatic nota bene--"if a man goes in, they will break a horse's leg."

In defiance of these threats, six well-grown gipsy boys and girls were riding c.o.c.k-horse upon the new gate, and plaiting May-flowers, which it was but too evident had been gathered within the forbidden precincts. With as much anger as he was capable of feeling, or perhaps of a.s.suming, the Laird commanded them to descend;--they paid no attention to his mandate: he then began to pull them down one after another;--they resisted, pa.s.sively at least, each st.u.r.dy bronzed varlet making himself as heavy as he could, or climbing up as fast as he was dismounted.

The Laird then called in the a.s.sistance of his servant, a surly fellow, who had immediate recourse to his horse-whip. A few lashes sent the party a-scampering; and thus commenced the first breach of the peace between the house of Ellangowan and the Gipsies of Derncleugh.

The latter could not for some time imagine that the war was real; until they found that their children were horse-whipped by the grieve when found trespa.s.sing; that their a.s.ses were poinded by the ground-officer when left in the plantations, or even when turned to graze by the roadside, against the provision of the turnpike acts; that the constable began to make curious inquiries into their made of gaining a livelihood, and expressed his surprise that the men should sleep in the hovels all day, and be abroad the greater part of the night.

When matters came to this point, the gipsies, without scruple, entered upon measures of retaliation. Ellangowan's hen-roosts were plundered, his linen stolen from the lines or bleaching ground, his fishings poached, his dogs kidnapped, his growing trees cut or barked. Much petty mischief was done, and some evidently for the mischief's sake. On the other hand, warrants went forth, without mercy, to pursue, search for, take, and apprehend; and, notwithstanding their dexterity, one or two of the depredators were unable to avoid conviction. One, a stout young fellow, who sometimes had gone to sea a-fishing, was handed over to the Captain of the impress service at D--; two children were soundly flogged, and one Egyptian matron sent to the house of correction.

Still, however, the gipsies made no motion to leave the spot which they had so long inhabited, and Mr. Bertram felt an unwillingness to deprive them of their ancient "city of refuge"; so that the petty warfare we have noticed continued for several months, without increase or abatement of hostilities on either side.

CHAPTER VIII.

So the red Indian, by Ontario's side, Nursed hardy on the brindled panther's hide, As fades his swarthy race, with anguish sees The white man's cottage rise beneath the trees He leaves the shelter of his native wood, He leaves the murmur of Ohio's flood, And forward rushing in indignant grief, Where never foot has trod the fallen leaf, He bends his course where twilight reigns sublime, O'er forests silent since the birth of time, Scenes of Infancy.

In tracing the rise and progress of the Scottish Maroon war, we must not omit to mention that years had rolled on, and that little Harry Bertram, one of the hardiest and most lively children that ever made a sword and grenadier's cap of rushes, now approached his fifth revolving birthday. A hardihood of disposition, which early developed itself, made him already a little wanderer; he was well acquainted with every patch of lea ground and dingle around Ellangowan, and could tell in his broken language upon what baulks [* Uncultivated places] grew the bonniest flowers, and what copse had the ripest nuts. He repeatedly terrified his attendants by clambering about the ruins of the old castle, and had more than once made a stolen excursion as far as the gipsy hamlet.

On these occasions he was generally brought back by Meg Merrilies, who, though she could not be prevailed upon to enter the Place of Ellangowan after her nephew had been given up to the pressgang, did not apparently extend her resentment to the child. On the contrary, she often contrived to waylay him in his walks, sing him a gipsy song, give him a ride upon her jacka.s.s, and thrust into his pocket a piece of gingerbread or red-cheeked apple. This woman's ancient attachment to the family, repelled and checked in every other direction, seemed to rejoice in having some object on which it could yet repose and expand itself. She prophesied a hundred times, "that young Mr. Harry would be the pride o' the family, and there hadna been sic a sprout frae the auld aik since the death of Arthur Mac-Dingawaie, that was killed in the battle o' the b.l.o.o.d.y Bay; as for the present stick, it was good for naething but firewood." On one occasion, when the child was ill, she lay all night below the window, chanting a rhyme which she believed sovereign as a febrifuge, and could neither be prevailed upon to enter the house, nor to leave the station she had chosen, till she was informed that the crisis was over.

The affection of this woman became matter of suspicion, not indeed to the Laird, who was never hasty in suspecting evil, but to his wife, who had indifferent health and poor spirits. She was now far advanced in a second pregnancy, and, as she could not walk abroad herself, and the woman who attended upon Harry was young and thoughtless, she prayed Dominie Sampson to undertake the task of watching the boy in his rambles, when he should not be otherwise accompanied. The Dominie loved his young charge, and was enraptured with his own success, in having already brought him so far in his learning as to spell words of three syllables. The idea of this early prodigy of erudition being carried off by the gipsies, like a second Adam Smith, [* The father of Economical Philosophy was, when a child, carried off by gipsies, and remained some hours in their possession.] was not to be tolerated; and accordingly, though the charge was contrary to all his habits of life, he readily undertook it, and might be seen stalling about with a mathematical problem in his head, and his eye upon a child of five years old, whose rambles led him into a hundred awkward situations. Twice was the Dominie chased by a cross-grained cow, once he fell into the brook crossing at the stepping-stones, and another time was bogged up to the middle in the slough of Lochend, in attempting to gather a water-lily for the young Laird. It was the opinion of the village matrons who relieved Sampson on the latter occasion, "that the Laird might as weel trust the care o' his bairn to a potato bogle"; but the good Dominie bore all his disasters with gravity and serenity equally imperturbable. "Pro-di-gi-ous!" was the only e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n they ever extorted from the much-enduring man.

The Laird had, by this time, determined to make root-and-branch work with the Maroons of Derncleugh. The old servants shook their heads at his proposal, and even Dominie Sampson ventured upon an indirect remonstrance. As, however, it was couched in the oracular phrase, "Ne moveas Camerinam," neither the allusion, nor the language in which it was expressed, were calculated for Mr.

Bertram's edification, and matters proceeded against the gipsies in form of law. Every door in the hamlet was chalked by the ground-officer, in token of a formal warning to remove at next term. Still, however, they showed no symptoms either of submission or of compliance. At length the term-day, the fatal Martinmas, arrived, and violent measures of' ejection were resorted to. A strong posse of peace-officers, sufficient to render all resistance vain, charged the inhabitants to depart by noon; and, as they did not obey, the officers, in terms of the warrant, proceeded to unroof the cottages, and pull down the wretched doors and windows, --a summary and effectual mode of ejection still practised in some remote parts of Scotland, when a tenant proves refractory. The gipsies, for a time, beheld the work of destruction in sullen silence and inactivity; then set about saddling and loading their a.s.ses, and making preparations for their departure. These were soon accomplished, where all had the habits of wandering Tartars; and they set forth on their journey to seek new settlements, where their patrons should neither be of the quorum, nor custos rotulorum.

Certain qualms of feeling had deterred Ellangowan from attending in person to see his tenants expelled. He left the executive part of the business to the officers of the law, under the immediate direction of Frank Kennedy, a supervisor, or riding-officer, belonging to the excise, who had of late become intimate at the Place, and of whom we shall have more to say in the next chapter.

Mr. Bertram himself chose that day to make a visit to a friend at some distance. But it so happened, notwithstanding his precautions, that he could not avoid meeting his late tenants during their retreat from his property.

It was in a hollow way, near the top of a steep ascent, upon the verge of the Ellangowan estate, that Mr. Bertram met the gipsy procession. Four or five men formed the advanced guard, wrapped in long loose greatcoats that hid their tall slender figures, as the large slouched hats, drawn over their brows, concealed their wild features, dark eyes, and swarthy faces. Two of them carried long fowling-pieces, one wore a broadsword without a sheath, and all had the Highland dirk, though they did not wear that weapon openly or ostentatiously. Behind them followed the train of laden a.s.ses, and small carts or tumblers, as they were called in that country, on which were laid the decrepit and the helpless, the aged and infant part of the exiled community. The women in their red cloaks and straw hats, the elder children with bare heads and bare feet, and almost naked bodies, had the immediate care of the little caravan.

The road was narrow, running between two broken banks of sand, and Mr. Bertram's servant rode forward, smacking his whip with an air of authority, and motioning to the drivers to allow free pa.s.sage to their betters. His signal was unattended to. He then called to the men who lounged idly on before, "Stand to your beasts' beads, and make room for the Laird to pa.s.s."

"He shall have his share of the road," answered a male gipsy from under his slouched and large-brimmed hat, and without raising his face, "and he shall have nae mair; the highway is as free to our cuddies as to his gelding."

The tone of the man being sulky, and even menacing, Mr. Bertram thought it best to put his dignity in his pocket, and pa.s.s by the procession quietly, on such s.p.a.ce as they chose to leave for his accommodation, which was narrow enough. To cover with an appearance of indifference his feeling of the want of respect with which he was treated, he addressed one of the men, as he pa.s.sed him without any show of greeting, salute, or recognition,--"Giles Baillie," he said, "have you heard that your son Gabriel is well?"

(The question respected the young man who had been pressed.)

"If I had heard otherwise," said the old man, looking up with a stern and menacing countenance, "you should have heard of it too."

And he plodded on his way, tarrying no further question. [*This anecdote is a literal fact.] When the Laird had pressed on with difficulty among a crowd of familiar faces, which had on all former occasions marked his approach with the reverence due to that of a superior being, but in which he now only read hatred and contempt, and had got clear of the throng, he could not help turning his horse, and looking back to mark the progress of their march. The group would have been an excellent subject for the pencil of Calotte. The van had already reached a small and stunted thicket, which was at the bottom of the hill, and which gradually hid the line of march until the last stragglers disappeared.

His sensations were bitter enough. The race, it is true, which he had thus summarily dismissed from their ancient place of refuge, was idle and vicious; but had he endeavoured to render them otherwise? They were not more irregular characters now, than they had been while they were admitted to consider themselves as a sort of subordinate dependants of his family; and ought the mere circ.u.mstance of his becoming a magistrate to have made at once such a change in his conduct towards them? Some means of reformation ought at least to have been tried, before sending seven families at once upon the wide world, and depriving them of a degree of countenance, which withheld them at least from atrocious guilt.

There was also a natural yearning of heart on parting with so many known and familiar faces; and to this feeling G.o.dfrey Bertram was peculiarly accessible, from the limited qualities of his mind, which sought its princ.i.p.al amus.e.m.e.nts among the petty objects around him. As he was about to turn his horse's head to pursue his journey, Meg Merrilies, who lagged behind the troop, unexpectedly presented herself.

She was standing upon one of those high precipitous banks, which, as we before noticed, overhung the road; so that she was placed considerably higher than Ellangowan, even though he was on horseback; and her tall figure, relieved against the clear blue sky, seemed almost of supernatural stature. We have noticed, that there was in her general attire, or rather in her mode of adjusting it, somewhat of a foreign costume, artfully, adopted perhaps for the purpose of adding to the effect of her spells and predictions, or perhaps from some traditional notions respecting the dress of her ancestors. On this occasion, she had a large piece of red cotton cloth rolled about her head in the form of a turban, from beneath which her dark eyes flashed with uncommon l.u.s.tre. Her long and tangled black hair fell in elf-locks from the folds of this singular head-gear. Her att.i.tude was that of a sibyl in frenzy, and she stretched out, in her right hand, a sapling bough which seemed just pulled.

"I'll be d-d," said the groom, "if she has not been cutting the young ashes in the Dukit park!"--The Laird made no answer, but continued to look at the figure which was thus perched above his path.

"Ride your ways," said the gipsy, "ride your ways, Laird of Ellangowan--ride your ways, G.o.dfrey Bertram!--This day have ye quenched seven smoking hearths--see if the fire in your ain parlour burn the blyther for that. Ye have riven the back off seven cottar houses--look if your ain roof-tree stand the faster. Ye may stable your stirks in the shealings at Derncleugh--see that the hare does not couch on the hearth-stone at Ellangowan.--Ride your ways, G.o.dfrey Bertram--what do ye glower after our folk for?--There's thirty hearts there, that wad hae wanted bread ere ye had wanted sunkets, [*Delicacies] and spent their lifeblood ere ye had scratched your finger. Yes--there's thirty yonder, from the auld wife of a hundred to the babe that was born last week, that ye have turned out o' their bits o' bields, to sleep with the tod and the black-c.o.c.k in the muirs!--Ride your ways, Ellangowan.--Our bairns are hinging at our weary backs--look that your braw cradle at hame be the fairer spread up--not that I am wishing ill to little Harry, or to the babe that's yet to be born--G.o.d forbid--and make them kind to the poor, and better folk than their father! And now, ride e'en your ways; for these are the last words ye'll ever hear Meg Merrilies speak, and this is the last reise that I'll ever cut in the bonnie woods of Ellangowan."

So saying, she broke the sapling she held in her hand, and flung it into the road Margaret of Anjou, bestowing on her triumphant foes her keen-edged malediction, could not have turned from them with a gesture more proudly contemptuous. The Laird was clearing his voice to speak, and thrusting his hand in his pocket to find a half-crown; the gipsy waited neither for his reply nor his donation, but strode down the hill to overtake the caravan.

Ellangowan rode pensively home; and it was remarkable that he did not mention this interview to any of his family. The groom was not so reserved. He told the story at great length to a full audience in the kitchen, and concluded by swearing, that if ever the devil spoke by the mouth of a woman, he had spoken by that of Meg Merrilies that blessed day.

CHAPTER IX.

Paint Scotland greeting ower her thrissle, Her mutchkin stoup as toom's a whistle, And d-n'd excis.e.m.e.n in a bustle, Seizing a stell; Triumphant crushin't like a mussell, Or lampit sh.e.l.l.

Burns.

During the period of Mr. Bertram's active magistracy, he did not forget the affairs of the revenue. Smuggling, for which the Isle of Man then afforded peculiar facilities, was general, or rather universal, all along the south-western coast of Scotland. Almost all the common people were engaged in these practices; the gentry connived at them, and the officers of the revenue were frequently discountenanced in the exercise of their duty, by those who should have protected them.