Red Cap Tales Part 13

Then the farmer, who knew their ways, bade Brown mount behind him on his horse Dumple, for he warned him that in five minutes "the whole clanjamphrey" would be down upon them. And even as he spoke five or six men made their appearance, running toward them over the moss. But Dumple was staunch, and by dint of following the safest roads, and being left to pick his own way in the difficult places, Dandie's pony soon left the villains behind him. Then, following the old Roman road, they reached Dinmont's farm of Charlies-hope, across the border, not long after nightfall.

A furious barking from innumerable terriers and dogs of all breeds was their welcome. And soon Brown found himself within four hospitable walls, where not only were his own wants satisfied, but the wounds of the master of the house were bound up by his buxom wife.

At kindly Charlies-hope, Brown remained several days, while Dandie Dinmont showed him the best sport to be had upon the border. Together they hunted the fox after the manner of the country--that is, treating Reynard as a thief and a robber, with whom no conditions are to be observed. Together they went to the night fishing, where Brown heard the leisters or steel tridents ringing on the stones at the bottom of the water, as the fishers struck at the salmon in the light of the blazing torches kindled to attract the fish. Otter-hunting and badger-baiting filled in the time, so that Brown had never been so well amused in his life. But he begged from his host that the badger, which had made so gallant a defence, should be allowed henceforth to go scot-free. Dandie promised with willingness, happy to oblige his guest, though quite unable to understand why any one should "care about a brock." When Brown told this hearty family that he must leave them, he was compelled to promise, over and over again, that he would soon return. The chorus of Dandie's tow-headed youngsters burst into one unanimous howl.

"Come back again, Captain," cried one st.u.r.dy little chap, "and Jennie shall be your wife."

Jennie, a girl of eleven, promptly ran and hid herself behind her mother.

"Captain, come back," said a little fat roll-about girl of six, holding up her mouth to be kissed; "come back and I'll be your wife my ainsel'!"

It was hard to leave so hospitable a home to go where, to say the least of it, one was not wanted. Especially was it so when the st.u.r.dy farmer, grasping Brown's hand, said with a certain shamefacedness, "There's a pickle siller that I do not ken what to do wi', after Ailie has gotten her new goon and the bairns their winter duds. But I was thinking, that whiles you army gentlemen can buy yoursel's up a step. If ye wad tak the siller, a bit sc.r.a.pe o' a pen wad be as guid to me. Ye could take your ain time about paying it back. And--and it would be a great convenience to me."

Brown was much moved, but he could only thank his kind host heartily and promise that in case of need he would not forget to draw upon his purse.

So they parted, Brown leaving his little terrier Wasp to share bed and board with the eldest of the Dinmont boys, who right willingly undertook the task as a kind of security for his master's return.

Dinmont conveyed his guest some distance, and afterward, from the first Dumfries-shire town which they entered, Brown took a carriage to carry him part of the way in the direction of Woodbourne, where Julia Mannering was at present residing.

III. IN THE LION'S MOUTH

Night and mist stopped him after many miles of journeying. The postboy had lost his way, and could offer no suggestions. Brown descended to see if by chance, in this wild place, they were near any farm-house at which he could ask the way. Standing tiptoe upon a bank, it seemed as if he could see in the distance a light feebly glimmering.

Brown proceeded toward it, but soon found himself stumbling among ruins of cottages, the side walls of which were lying in shapeless heaps, half covered with snow, while the gables still stood up gaunt and black against the sky. He ascended a bank, steep and difficult, and found himself in front of a small square tower, from the c.h.i.n.ks of which a light showed dimly. Listening cautiously, he heard a noise as of stifled groaning.

Brown approached softly, and looked through a long arrow-slit upon a dismal scene. Smoke filled a wretched apartment. On a couch a man lay, apparently dying, while beside him, wrapped in a long cloak, a woman sat with bent head, crooning to herself and occasionally moistening the sufferer's lips with some liquid.

"It will not do," Brown heard her say at last "he cannot pa.s.s away with the crime on his soul. It tethers him here. I must open the door."

As she did so she saw Brown standing without. He, on his part, recognised in the woman the gipsy wife whom he had seen on the Waste of c.u.mberland, when he and Dandie Dinmont had had their fight with the robbers.

"Did I not tell you neither to mix nor mingle?" said the woman; "but come in. Here is your only safety!"

Even as she spoke, the head of the wounded man fell back. He was dead, and, before Brown could think of seeking safety in flight, they heard in the distance the sound of voices approaching.

"They are coming!" whispered the gipsy; "if they find you here, you are a dead man. Quick--you cannot escape. Lie down, and, whatever you see or hear, do not stir, as you value your life."

Brown had no alternative but to obey. So the old gipsy wife covered him over with old sacks as he lay in the corner upon a couch of straw.

Then Meg went about the dismal offices of preparing the dead man for burial, but Brown could see that she was constantly pausing to listen to the sounds which every moment grew louder without. At last a gang of fierce-looking desperadoes poured tumultuously in, their leader abusing the old woman for leaving the door open.

But Meg Merrilies had her answer ready.

"Did you ever hear of a door being barred when a man was in the death-agony?" she cried. "Think ye the spirit could win away through all these bolts and bars?"

"Is he dead, then?" asked one of the ruffians, glancing in the direction of the bed.

"Ay, dead enough," growled another; "but here is the wherewithal to give him a rousing lykewake!" And going to the corner he drew out a large jar of brandy, while Meg busied herself in preparing pipes and tobacco.

Brown in his corner found his mind a little eased when he saw how eagerly she went about her task.

"She does not mean to betray me, then!" he said to himself. Though for all that, he could see no gleam of womanly tenderness on her face, nor imagine any reason she should not give him up to her a.s.sociates.

That they were a gang of murderers was soon evident from their talk. The man, now wrapped in the dark sea-cloak, whose dead face looked down on their revels, was referred to as one who had often gloried in the murder of Frank Kennedy. But some of the others held that the deed was not wisely done, because after that the people of the country would not do business with the smugglers.

"It did up the trade for one while!" said one; "the people turned rusty!"

Then there were evident threats uttered against some one whose name Brown did not hear.

"I think," said the leader of the ruffians, "that we will have to be down upon the fellow one of these nights, and let him have it well!"

After a while the carousing bandits called for what they called "Black Peter." It was time (they said) "to flick it open."

To Brown's surprise and indignation, Black Peter proved to be nothing else than his own portmanteau, which gave him reasons for some very dark thoughts as to the fate of his postboy. He watched the rascals force his bag open and coolly divide all that was in it among them. Yet he dared not utter a word, well aware that had he done so, the next moment a knife would have been at his throat.

At last, to his great relief, Brown saw them make their preparations for departure. He was left alone with the dead man and the old woman.

Meg Merrilies waited till the first sun of the winter's morn had come, lest one of the revellers of the night should take it into his head to turn back. Then she led Brown by a difficult and precipitous path, till she could point out to him, on the other side of some dense plantations, the road to Kippletringan.

"And here," said she, mysteriously putting a large leathern purse into his hand, "is what will in some degree repay the many alms your house has given me and mine!"

She was gone before he could reply, and when Brown opened the purse, he was astonished to find in it gold to the amount of nearly one hundred pounds, besides many valuable jewels. The gipsy had endowed him with a fortune.

INTERLUDE OF LOCALITY

"And all this happened here?" repeated Sweetheart, incredulously, pointing up at the dark purple mountains of Screel and Ben Gairn.

"Well," I answered, "Scott's Solway is the Dumfries Solway, not the Galloway Solway. Portanferry exists not far from Glencaple on the eastern bank of Nith, and the castle of Ellangowan is as like as possible to Caerlaverock."

"But he _says_ Galloway!" objected Sweetheart, who has a pretty persistence of her own. "And I wanted Ellangowan to be in Galloway. What with Carlyle having been born there, the Dumfries folk have quite enough to be proud of!"

"Yes, Scott _says_ Ellangowan is in Galloway," said I, "but nevertheless to any one who knows the country, it remains obstinately in Dumfries-shire.

His swamps and mora.s.ses are those of Lochar. The frith is the Dumfries-shire Solway, the castle a Dumfries-shire castle, and what Scott put in of Galloway tradition was sent him by his friend the Castle Douglas exciseman."

"Oh!" said Sweetheart, a little ruefully, "but are you sure?"

"Certain," I answered, "if you consider time and distance from the border--say from Charlies-hope, you will see that Brown could not possibly have reached the heart of Galloway. Besides, Scott was far too wise a man to write about what he did not know. So he wove in Train's Galloway legends, but he put the people into his own well-kenned dresses, and set them to act their parts under familiar skies. Hence it is, that though the taste of Scott was never stronger than in _Guy Mannering_, the flavour of Galloway is somehow not in the mouth!"

"What does it matter where it all happened?" cried Hugh John; "it is a rattling good tale, anyway, and if the Man-who-Wrote-It imagined that it all happened in Galloway, surely _we_ can!"

This being both sensible and unanswerable, the party scattered to improvise old castles of Ellangowan, and to squabble for what was to them the only wholly desirable part, that of Dirk Hatteraick. The combat between the smuggler and the exciseman was executed with particular zeal and spirit, Sir Toady Lion prancing and curvetting, as Frank Kennedy, on an invisible steed, with Maid Margaret before him on the saddle. So active was the fight indeed, that the bold bad smuggler, Dirk, a.s.sailed as to the upper part of his body by Sir Toady, and with the Heir tugging at his legs, found himself presently worsted and precipitated over the cliff in place of Frank Kennedy. This ending considerably disarranged the story, so that it was with no little trouble that the pair of strutting victors were induced to "play by the book," and to accept (severally) death and captivity in the hold of the smuggling lugger.

On the other hand, after I had read the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Chapters of _Guy Mannering_ to them in the original, it was remarkable with what accuracy of detail Sweetheart wrapped a plaid about her and played the witch, Meg Merrilies, singing wild dirges over an imaginary dead body, while Hugh John hid among the straw till Sir Toady and Maid Margaret rushed in with incredible hubbub and sat down to carouse like a real gang of the most desperate characters.

Seated on a barrel of gunpowder, Sir Toady declared that he smelt traitors in the camp, whereupon he held a (paper) knife aloft in the air, and cried, "If any deceive us or betray the gang, we will destroy them--_thus!_"

"Yes," chimed in the rosebud mouth of Maid Margaret, "and us will chop them into teeny-weeny little bits wif a sausage minchine, and feed them to our b-r-r-lood-hounds!"