Old Mortality Part 19

"This is stark madness," said Claverhouse; "I must do my duty to church and state. Here are a thousand villains hard by in open rebellion, and you ask me to pardon a young fanatic who is enough of himself to set a whole kingdom in a blaze! It cannot be--Remove him, Bothwell."

She who was most interested in this dreadful decision, had twice strove to speak, but her voice had totally failed her; her mind refused to suggest words, and her tongue to utter them. She now sprung up and attempted to rush forward, but her strength gave way, and she would have fallen flat upon the pavement had she not been caught by her attendant.

"Help!" cried Jenny,--"Help, for G.o.d's sake! my young lady is dying."

At this exclamation, Evandale, who, during the preceding part of the scene, had stood motionless, leaning upon his sword, now stepped forward, and said to his commanding-officer, "Colonel Grahame, before proceeding in this matter, will you speak a word with me in private?"

Claverhouse looked surprised, but instantly rose and withdrew with the young n.o.bleman into a recess, where the following brief dialogue pa.s.sed between them:

"I think I need not remind you, Colonel, that when our family interest was of service to you last year in that affair in the privy-council, you considered yourself as laid under some obligation to us?"

"Certainly, my dear Evandale," answered Claverhouse, "I am not a man who forgets such debts; you will delight me by showing how I can evince my grat.i.tude."

"I will hold the debt cancelled," said Lord Evandale, "if you will spare this young man's life."

"Evandale," replied Grahame, in great surprise, "you are mad--absolutely mad--what interest can you have in this young sp.a.w.n of an old roundhead?--His father was positively the most dangerous man in all Scotland, cool, resolute, soliderly, and inflexible in his cursed principles. His son seems his very model; you cannot conceive the mischief he may do. I know mankind, Evandale--were he an insignificant, fanatical, country b.o.o.by, do you think I would have refused such a trifle as his life to Lady Margaret and this family? But this is a lad of fire, zeal, and education--and these knaves want but such a leader to direct their blind enthusiastic hardiness. I mention this, not as refusing your request, but to make you fully aware of the possible consequences--I will never evade a promise, or refuse to return an obligation--if you ask his life, he shall have it."

"Keep him close prisoner," answered Evandale, "but do not be surprised if I persist in requesting you will not put him to death. I have most urgent reasons for what I ask."

"Be it so then," replied Grahame;--"but, young man, should you wish in your future life to rise to eminence in the service of your king and country, let it be your first task to subject to the public interest, and to the discharge of your duty, your private pa.s.sions, affections, and feelings. These are not times to sacrifice to the dotage of greybeards, or the tears of silly women, the measures of salutary severity which the dangers around compel us to adopt. And remember, that if I now yield this point, in compliance with your urgency, my present concession must exempt me from future solicitations of the same nature."

He then stepped forward to the table, and bent his eyes keenly on Morton, as if to observe what effect the pause of awful suspense between death and life, which seemed to freeze the bystanders with horror, would produce upon the prisoner himself. Morton maintained a degree of firmness, which nothing but a mind that had nothing left upon earth to love or to hope, could have supported at such a crisis.

"You see him?" said Claverhouse, in a half whisper to Lord Evandale; "he is tottering on the verge between time and eternity, a situation more appalling than the most hideous certainty; yet his is the only cheek unblenched, the only eye that is calm, the only heart that keeps its usual time, the only nerves that are not quivering. Look at him well, Evandale--If that man shall ever come to head an army of rebels, you will have much to answer for on account of this morning's work." He then said aloud, "Young man, your life is for the present safe, through the intercession of your friends--Remove him, Bothwell, and let him be properly guarded, and brought along with the other prisoners."

"If my life," said Morton, stung with the idea that he owed his respite to the intercession of a favoured rival, "if my life be granted at Lord Evandale's request"--

"Take the prisoner away, Bothwell," said Colonel Grahame, interrupting him; "I have neither time to make nor to hear fine speeches."

Bothwell forced off Morton, saying, as he conducted him into the court-yard, "Have you three lives in your pocket, besides the one in your body, my lad, that you can afford to let your tongue run away with them at this rate? Come, come, I'll take care to keep you out of the Colonel's way; for, egad, you will not be five minutes with him before the next tree or the next ditch will be the word. So, come along to your companions in bondage."

Thus speaking, the sergeant, who, in his rude manner, did not altogether want sympathy for a gallant young man, hurried Morton down to the courtyard, where three other prisoners, (two men and a woman,) who had been taken by Lord Evandale, remained under an escort of dragoons.

Meantime, Claverhouse took his leave of Lady Margaret. But it was difficult for the good lady to forgive his neglect of her intercession.

"I have thought till now," she said, "that the Tower of Tillietudlem might have been a place of succour to those that are ready to perish, even if they werena sae deserving as they should have been--but I see auld fruit has little savour--our suffering and our services have been of an ancient date."

"They are never to be forgotten by me, let me a.s.sure your ladyship," said Claverhouse. "Nothing but what seemed my sacred duty could make me hesitate to grant a favour requested by you and the Major. Come, my good lady, let me hear you say you have forgiven me, and, as I return to-night, I will bring a drove of two hundred whigs with me, and pardon fifty head of them for your sake."

"I shall be happy to hear of your success, Colonel," said Major b.e.l.l.e.n.den; "but take an old soldier's advice, and spare blood when battle's over,--and once more let me request to enter bail for young Morton."

"We will settle that when I return," said Claverhouse. "Meanwhile, be a.s.sured his life shall be safe."

During this conversation, Evandale looked anxiously around for Edith; but the precaution of Jenny Dennison had occasioned her mistress being transported to her own apartment.

Slowly and heavily he obeyed the impatient summons of Claverhouse, who, after taking a courteous leave of Lady Margaret and the Major, had hastened to the court-yard. The prisoners with their guard were already on their march, and the officers with their escort mounted and followed.

All pressed forward to overtake the main body, as it was supposed they would come in sight of the enemy in little more than two hours.

CHAPTER XIV.

My hounds may a' rin masterless, My hawks may fly frae tree to tree, My lord may grip my va.s.sal lands, For there again maun I never be!

Old Ballad.

We left Morton, along with three companions in captivity, travelling in the custody of a small body of soldiers, who formed the rear-guard of the column under the command of Claverhouse, and were immediately under the charge of Sergeant Bothwell. Their route lay towards the hills in which the insurgent presbyterians were reported to be in arms. They had not prosecuted their march a quarter of a mile ere Claverhouse and Evandale galloped past them, followed by their orderly-men, in order to take their proper places in the column which preceded them. No sooner were they past than Bothwell halted the body which he commanded, and disenc.u.mbered Morton of his irons.

"King's blood must keep word," said the dragoon. "I promised you should be civilly treated as far as rested with me.--Here, Corporal Inglis, let this gentleman ride alongside of the other young fellow who is prisoner; and you may permit them to converse together at their pleasure, under their breath, but take care they are guarded by two files with loaded carabines. If they attempt an escape, blow their brains out.--You cannot call that using you uncivilly," he continued, addressing himself to Morton, "it's the rules of war, you know.--And, Inglis, couple up the parson and the old woman, they are fittest company for each other, d--n me; a single file may guard them well enough. If they speak a word of cant or fanatical nonsense, let them have a strapping with a shoulder-belt. There's some hope of choking a silenced parson; if he is not allowed to hold forth, his own treason will burst him."

Having made this arrangement, Bothwell placed himself at the head of the party, and Inglis, with six dragoons, brought up the rear. The whole then set forward at a trot, with the purpose of overtaking the main body of the regiment.

Morton, overwhelmed with a complication of feelings, was totally indifferent to the various arrangements made for his secure custody, and even to the relief afforded him by his release from the fetters. He experienced that blank and waste of the heart which follows the hurricane of pa.s.sion, and, no longer supported by the pride and conscious rect.i.tude which dictated his answers to Claverhouse, he surveyed with deep dejection the glades through which he travelled, each turning of which had something to remind him of past happiness and disappointed love. The eminence which they now ascended was that from which he used first and last to behold the ancient tower when approaching or retiring from it; and, it is needless to add, that there he was wont to pause, and gaze with a lover's delight on the battlements, which, rising at a distance out of the lofty wood, indicated the dwelling of her, whom he either hoped soon to meet or had recently parted from. Instinctively he turned his head back to take a last look of a scene formerly so dear to him, and no less instinctively he heaved a deep sigh. It was echoed by a loud groan from his companion in misfortune, whose eyes, moved, perchance, by similar reflections, had taken the same direction. This indication of sympathy, on the part of the captive, was uttered in a tone more coa.r.s.e than sentimental; it was, however, the expression of a grieved spirit, and so far corresponded with the sigh of Morton. In turning their heads their eyes met, and Morton recognised the stolid countenance of Cuddie Headrigg, bearing a rueful expression, in which sorrow for his own lot was mixed with sympathy for the situation of his companion.

"Hegh, sirs!" was the expression of the ci-devant ploughman of the mains of Tillietudlem; "it's an unco thing that decent folk should be harled through the country this gate, as if they were a warld's wonder."

"I am sorry to see you here, Cuddie," said Morton, who, even in his own distress, did not lose feeling for that of others.

"And sae am I, Mr Henry," answered Cuddie, "baith for mysell and you; but neither of our sorrows will do muckle gude that I can see. To be sure, for me," continued the captive agriculturist, relieving his heart by talking, though he well knew it was to little purpose,--"to be sure, for my part, I hae nae right to be here ava', for I never did nor said a word against either king or curate; but my mither, puir body, couldna haud the auld tongue o' her, and we maun baith pay for't, it's like."

"Your mother is their prisoner likewise?" said Morton, hardly knowing what he said.

"In troth is she, riding ahint ye there like a bride, wi' that auld carle o' a minister that they ca' Gabriel Kettledrummle--Deil that he had been in the inside of a drum or a kettle either, for my share o' him! Ye see, we were nae sooner chased out o' the doors o' Milnwood, and your uncle and the housekeeper banging them to and barring them ahint us, as if we had had the plague on our bodies, that I says to my mother, What are we to do neist? for every hole and bore in the country will be steekit against us, now that ye hae affronted my auld leddy, and gar't the troopers tak up young Milnwood. Sae she says to me, Binna cast doun, but gird yoursell up to the great task o' the day, and gie your testimony like a man upon the mount o' the Covenant."

"And so I suppose you went to a conventicle?" said Morton.

"Ye sall hear," continued Cuddie.--"Aweel, I kendna muckle better what to do, sae I e'en gaed wi' her to an auld daft carline like hersell, and we got some water-broo and bannocks; and mony a weary grace they said, and mony a psalm they sang, or they wad let me win to, for I was amaist famished wi' vexation. Aweel, they had me up in the grey o' the morning, and I behoved to whig awa wi' them, reason or nane, to a great gathering o' their folk at the Miry-sikes; and there this chield, Gabriel Kettledrummle, was blasting awa to them on the hill-side, about lifting up their testimony, nae doubt, and ganging down to the battle of Roman Gilead, or some sic place. Eh, Mr Henry! but the carle gae them a screed o' doctrine! Ye might hae heard him a mile down the wind--He routed like a cow in a fremd loaning.--Weel, thinks I, there's nae place in this country they ca' Roman Gilead--it will be some gate in the west muirlands; and or we win there I'll see to slip awa wi' this mither o'

mine, for I winna rin my neck into a tether for ony Kettledrummle in the country side--Aweel," continued Cuddie, relieving himself by detailing his misfortunes, without being scrupulous concerning the degree of attention which his companion bestowed on his narrative, "just as I was wearying for the tail of the preaching, cam word that the dragoons were upon us.--Some ran, and some cried, Stand! and some cried, Down wi' the Philistines!--I was at my mither to get her awa sting and ling or the red-coats cam up, but I might as weel hae tried to drive our auld fore-a-hand ox without the goad--deil a step wad she budge.--Weel, after a', the cleugh we were in was strait, and the mist cam thick, and there was good hope the dragoons wad hae missed us if we could hae held our tongues; but, as if auld Kettledrummle himsell hadna made din eneugh to waken the very dead, they behoved a' to skirl up a psalm that ye wad hae heard as far as Lanrick!--Aweel, to mak a lang tale short, up cam my young Lord Evandale, skelping as fast as his horse could trot, and twenty red-coats at his back. Twa or three chields wad needs fight, wi' the pistol and the whinger in the tae hand, and the Bible in the tother, and they got their crouns weel cloured; but there wasna muckle skaith dune, for Evandale aye cried to scatter us, but to spare life."

"And did you not resist?" said Morton, who probably felt, that, at that moment, he himself would have encountered Lord Evandale on much slighter grounds.

"Na, truly," answered Cuddie, "I keepit aye before the auld woman, and cried for mercy to life and limb; but twa o' the red-coats cam up, and ane o' them was gaun to strike my mither wi' the side o' his broadsword--So I got up my kebbie at them, and said I wad gie them as gude. Weel, they turned on me, and clinked at me wi' their swords, and I garr'd my hand keep my head as weel as I could till Lord Evandale came up, and then I cried out I was a servant at Tillietudlem--ye ken yoursell he was aye judged to hae a look after the young leddy--and he bade me fling down my kent, and sae me and my mither yielded oursells prisoners. I'm thinking we wad hae been letten slip awa, but Kettledrummle was taen near us--for Andrew Wilson's naig that he was riding on had been a dragooner lang syne, and the sairer Kettledrummle spurred to win awa, the readier the dour beast ran to the dragoons when he saw them draw up.--Aweel, when my mother and him forgathered, they set till the sodgers, and I think they gae them their kale through the reek! b.a.s.t.a.r.ds o' the hure o' Babylon was the best words in their wame.

Sae then the kiln was in a bleeze again, and they brought us a' three on wi' them to mak us an example, as they ca't."

"It is most infamous and intolerable oppression!" said Morton, half speaking to himself; "here is a poor peaceable fellow, whose only motive for joining the conventicle was a sense of filial piety, and he is chained up like a thief or murderer, and likely to die the death of one, but without the privilege of a formal trial, which our laws indulge to the worst malefactor! Even to witness such tyranny, and still more to suffer under it, is enough to make the blood of the tamest slave boil within him."

"To be sure," said Cuddie, hearing, and partly understanding, what had broken from Morton in resentment of his injuries, "it is no right to speak evil o' dignities--my auld leddy aye said that, as nae doubt she had a gude right to do, being in a place o' dignity hersell; and troth I listened to her very patiently, for she aye ordered a dram, or a sowp kale, or something to us, after she had gien us a hearing on our duties.

But deil a dram, or kale, or ony thing else--no sae muckle as a cup o'

cauld water--do thae lords at Edinburgh gie us; and yet they are heading and hanging amang us, and trailing us after thae blackguard troopers, and taking our goods and gear as if we were outlaws. I canna say I tak it kind at their hands."

"It would be very strange if you did," answered Morton, with suppressed emotion.

"And what I like warst o' a'," continued poor Cuddie, "is thae ranting red-coats coming amang the la.s.ses, and taking awa our joes. I had a sair heart o' my ain when I pa.s.sed the Mains down at Tillietudlem this morning about parritch-time, and saw the reek comin' out at my ain lum-head, and kend there was some ither body than my auld mither sitting by the ingle-side. But I think my heart was e'en sairer, when I saw that h.e.l.licat trooper, Tam Halliday, kissing Jenny Dennison afore my face. I wonder women can hae the impudence to do sic things; but they are a' for the red-coats. Whiles I hae thought o' being a trooper mysell, when I thought naething else wad gae down wi' Jenny--and yet I'll no blame her ower muckle neither, for maybe it was a' for my sake that she loot Tam touzle her tap-knots that gate."

"For your sake?" said Morton, unable to refrain from taking some interest in a story which seemed to bear a singular coincidence with his own.

"E'en sae, Milnwood," replied Cuddie; "for the puir quean gat leave to come near me wi' speaking the loun fair, (d--n him, that I suld say sae!) and sae she bade me G.o.d speed, and she wanted to stap siller into my hand;--I'se warrant it was the tae half o' her fee and bount.i.th, for she wared the ither half on pinners and pearlings to gang to see us shoot yon day at the popinjay."