Stories of the Border Marches Part 13

But always, in such a case, there are to be found one or two bold spirits, or one or two so heedless of what is pa.s.sing around them that they rush into danger unawares. Such there were at Berwick-on-Tweed, and to them the hunted soul spoke as he fled past, the h.e.l.l-hounds slavering at his heels. "Until my body is burnt," he cried, "you folk of Berwick shall have no peace!" And as they rushed for sanctuary into the nearest dwelling they fancied they could still hear the tormented wretch's shriek, shrill above the baying of the dogs--"Burn! burn! Peace! peace!"

So the people of the town took counsel together, and having solemnly concluded that "were a remedy further delayed, the atmosphere, infected and corrupted by the constant whirlings through it of the pestiferous corpse, would engender disease and death to a great extent," they resolved to follow the vampire's own suggestion. Ten young men, "renowned for boldness," were appointed to lay the Horror. They went to the grave, dug up the corpse, cut it limb from limb, then burned it until a little heap of white ash was all that remained of the man of evil life, whose shade had brought dread to all the citizens of Berwick.

But their wise action must, unfortunately, have been taken too late.

Very soon afterwards a great pestilence arose, and decimated the town's population. "Never did it so furiously rage elsewhere," says William, Canon of Newburgh, the learned churchman, who has chronicled for us the tale, "though it was at that time general throughout all the borders of England." According to him, the vampire had done his evil work. And as man, woman, and child were carried by night to the graves prepared for the plague-stricken, there were those who vowed they could still hear the distant sound of baying hounds, and above them the shrill scream of the man who in life had seemingly walked so G.o.dly a walk, and who had given example to the rough mariners down at the quay as he daily went to pray.

Such is the story of the vampire at Berwick, and of the way in which valiant men laid him. But the old Canon of the Austin Friars has yet another tale to tell of a vampire on the Border. Destruction by fire was not the only means of laying the unholy spirit that "walked" to the hurt of its fellow-creatures. When a suicide was buried, or when one who was a reputed witch, warlock, or were-wolf, or who had been cursed by his parents or by the church, was laid in the grave, it was always well to take the precaution of driving a stake through the body. Such a stake (in Russia an aspen) driven at one blow bereft the evil thing of all its power. Only in the reign of George IV was the custom in the case of suicides abolished. If the precaution had not been taken at burial, in all probability when the vampire had already done some harm, the corpse was exhumed and the ghastly ceremony gone through. And always, so it was declared, the body of the vampire was found with fresh cheeks and open, staring eyes, well nourished by the blood of his victims. In such condition was found the vampire of Melrose, whose tale is also told by William of Newburgh.

Many a holy man has chanted the Psalms under the arches of Melrose Abbey, but the vampire priest had never lived aught but a worldly, carnal life. He held a post that suited him well, as chaplain to a certain ill.u.s.trious lady whose property lay near the Eildons, and who, so long as her Mess John performed his duties as family priest, paid no heed to his mode of occupying his time when these were performed.

The chaplain was of the type of the sporting parson of later days. He loved the hunt. He loved a good bottle, a good horse, a good dog. "_The Hundeprest"_ was the name he went by. Other things he also loved that made not for sanct.i.ty, and when, at last, he died, his death was no more holy than his selfish, sensual life had been. No protecting aspen stake had been driven through his body, and so when he was laid to rest under the shadow of the monastery, for him rest there was none. The holy brothers inside the walls protected themselves from him, when he came a-wandering, by vigils and by prayers. The lady whose chaplain he had been was less well protected, and when, night after night, her sleep was broken by horrible groans and murmurings from a thing that always seemed just without her room, and almost about to enter, she became nearly frantic. She came to Melrose, and with tears besought the holy fathers, who owed much to her bounty, to wrestle for her in prayer and drive this evil thing away. The monks of Melrose did for her what they could. Not only did they pray, but two stout-hearted friars and two powerful young laymen all well armed were appointed to guard the grave of the lady's late chaplain, and to go on duty that very night.

It was chill autumn, and as they paced the damp gra.s.s of the graveyard there was a smell of dead leaves in the air, and a grey mist crept up from the Tweed that moaned as it bore its flooded waters to the sea.

When midnight came they expected to see the Hundeprest, but midnight pa.s.sed in safety, and in "the wee, sma' hours" the two laymen and one of the monks went into the nearest cottage to warm their icy feet. Now came the chance of the vampire. With "a terrible noise" the Hundeprest suddenly appeared, a thing of horror, and rushed at the monk who was slowly pacing towards the grave. The holy man bravely stood the charge, and, as the monster was almost touching him, he swung the axe which he carried, and drove it with all his might into the body of his diabolic adversary. With a groan, the vampire turned and fled away, and the friar, the tables turned, ran in pursuit until the grave of the Hundeprest was reached, and the horror vanished.

Nothing of the encounter was to be seen when the other three watchers returned, but grey dawn was near, and at the first sign of light the four men, with pick-axe and spade, opened up the grave. Even as they dug their spades turned up mingled blood and clay, and when they came to the corpse of the Hundeprest, they found it fresh as on the day he died, but with a terrible wound in the body, from which the blood still oozed away.

With horror they bore it out of sight of the monastery of which he had been so unworthy a brother. A cleansing fire burned it to ashes, and a shrewd, clean wind that blew from over the Lammermoors swept away all trace of the accursed thing. No pestilence came to Melrose. Perchance in the twelfth century it was by prayer and fasting that the holy men won the day.

A BORDER MIDDY

One bl.u.s.tering February evening towards the close of the eighteenth century there sat in a back room in a little inn at Portsmouth three midshipmen, forlorn-looking and depressed to a degree quite at variance with the commonly accepted idea of the normal mental condition of midshipmen. It was a room, not in the famous "Blue Posts"--that hostelry beloved by lads of their rank in the service--but in a smaller, meaner, less frequented house in a very different quarter of the town, a quarter none too savoury, if the truth were told.

Why they had betaken themselves to this particular tavern in preference to that generally used by them, who can say. Perhaps--as Peter Simple's coachman remarked on that occasion when Peter first made acquaintance with Portsmouth--perhaps it was because they had too often "forgotten to pay for their breakfastesses" at the "Blue Posts," and had not the wherewithal to pay up arrears. In any case, here they were, and, midshipman-like, during their stay they had recklessly run up a larger bill than they had means to settle. There was no possibility of following the course recommended by the drunken sailor, namely, to "cut and run," for the landlady of the inn was much too astute a personage to make that a possibility, and she had too little faith in human nature generally, and in that of midshipmen in particular, to let her consent to wait for her money till time and the end of their cruise again brought their frigate back to Portsmouth. Pay they _must_, by some means or other, for already the Blue Peter was flying at the fore and the _Sirius_ would sail at daylight. If she sailed without them it was very plain that there was an end of their career in the Navy--they would be "broke." Small wonder that the three middies were in the last stage of gloom. Their entire possessions, money and clothes, could not cover one half of what they owed, and every compromise had been rejected by the obdurate landlady. Appeal to their friends was useless, for time did not admit of an answer being received before the ship sailed. And escape was hopeless, for the one window that the room possessed was heavily barred, the door carefully locked, and the key kept in the capacious pocket of the landlady.

It was the very deuce of a situation--the devil to pay and no pitch hot.

Again and again as the evening wore on they discussed possibilities; again and again the same conclusion was arrived at. Hope was dead. No doubt in the end their friends might pay up, but they groaned as the certainty forced itself on them that their career at sea was as good as over. If only they had been ent.i.tled to any prize-money! But prize-money there was none, and the few guineas each had had from home had long been idly squandered.

"We're done, my boys; we're done! Oh, Lord, what swabs we have been!"

cried the senior of the three with a groan, laying his head on the table.

"Oh, never say die!" said another, a cheery-faced, ruddy lad with a noticeable Scottish accent. "I've been in as tight a hole before and got out of it all right. We've a few hours yet to come and go on.

Something's pretty sure to turn up."

As he spoke the key was put in the door, and in came the landlady.

"Well! wot's it goin' to be? Am I to get that there money you owes me, or am I not? You ain't got much time for shilly-shallyin', I can tell you, young gentlemen. An' paid I'm agoin' to be, one way or other."

She was a big-boned, florid, dark-eyed woman, well over thirty, somewhat inclined to be down-at-heel and slatternly, though not yet quite dest.i.tute of some small share of good looks; a woman solid of step and unattractive to the eye of youth; moreover, as they knew from recent experience, possessed of a rasping tongue.

"None o' ye got anything to say? Well, then, I'll tell you what I'm ready to do and let you go. One of you shall marry me! I don't care two straws which of you it is. But if you three're to get aboard your ship afore she sails, one of you's got to come with me to the parson this night an' be spliced. Take it or leave it; them's my terms. For the good o' my business I must 'ave a 'usband, now my old dad's gone aloft.

Whether he's on the spot or not I don't care not the value of a reefer's b.u.t.ton, so long as I can show my 'lines.' I'll give you 'alf an hour to make up your minds an' settle atween you who's goin' to be the lucky one."

And with that she left the room, again carefully locking the door and taking away the key.

Truly were they now between the devil and the deep sea. And no amount of discussion improved the prospect.

"We _can't_ do it, you know," piteously cried one. "I'll see her shot first."

"Blest if I see any other way out of it," said another.

"And she's pretty old. She _might_ perhaps die before we came back, mightn't she?" hopefully ventured the third.

"Oh, stow that! She's not more than forty, and she's likely to live as long as any of us."

"Well, if you won't allow that _she's_ likely to oblige us by leaving this world, at anyrate you'll admit that there's always a goodish chance that the husband-elect may run up against a French cannonball and get out of the sc.r.a.pe _that_ way. Anyhow, we've come to the end of our tether. The alternative's ruin. It's pretty black to windward, whichever way you look at it, but one way spells ruin for the lot of us; the other, at the worst, means disaster for only one. I vote we draw lots, and the man who draws the shortest lot wins--er ... at least he marries the lady," said the cheery-faced boy, with rather a rueful laugh.

"You'll laugh perhaps on the wrong side of your face before all's done.

But, all right. If we must, we must. You make ready the lots, Watty, and I'll take first draw. Only, I think if the bad luck's mine, I'll slip over the side some middle watch," said the senior middy miserably.

With haggard young faces two drew, leaving the third lot to the Scottish boy.

"Thank Heaven!" cried the first, wiping his brow as he saw that his, at least, was not a short lot. "It's yours, Watty, old boy," he said to the middy from north of the Tweed.

"My G.o.d! what will my dear old mother say?" groaned the poor boy, with face grey as his own Border hills in a November drizzle. "Promise me, on your honour, both of you, to keep this miserable business a dead secret for ever.... Well, I've got to face it. Bring the woman in, and let's have it over and get aboard."

Watty Scott was a scion of a good Scottish Border family, a youth careless and harum-scarum as the most typical of middies, but a gentleman, and popular alike with officers and men. He was about eighteen, had already distinguished himself in more than one brush with the enemy, and was looked on as a most promising officer. But now...!

"Oh, little did my mother ken, The day she cradled me,"

(might he have wailed), in what dire sc.r.a.pe the recklessness inherent in her boy would land him.

"I _thought_ you'd take my terms," said the landlady, when she came into the room. "Faith! an' I've got the pick o' the basket! Well, come along, my joker; we'll be off to the parson. But you'll take my arm all the way, d'ye see!--as is right an' nat'ral for bride and bridegroom. You ain't agoin' to give _me_ the slip afore the knot's tied, I can tell you. Not if _I_ knows it, young man."

Broken clergymen, broken by drink or what not, ready to go through anything for a consideration, were never hard to find in those days in a town such as Portsmouth, and all too soon the ceremony, binding enough, so far as Watty could see, was over. Then the new-made wife insisted, before the three lads left her, that she should stand them a good dinner, and as much wine as they cared to drink to the health of bride and bridegroom.

"An' now," she said to her husband ere the youngsters departed, "I aint agoin' to send my man to sea with empty pockets. Put _that_ in your purse!"

But Watty would have none of the five guineas she tried to force on him.

"Well, I think none the worse of you for that," she cried. "Come, give us a kiss, at anyrate." And with a shudder Watty Scott saluted his bride.

Never did the grey waters of the English Channel look more cheerless than they appeared to one unhappy midshipman of H.M.S. _Sirius_ next morning, as the frigate beat down channel in the teeth of a strong westerly breeze; never before had life seemed to him a thing purposeless and void of hope. "To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part." The words rang in his ears still, with a solemnity that even the red-nosed, snuffy, broken-down parson who hiccuped through the service had not been able to kill. But, G.o.d! the irony of the thing--the ghastly mockery! _To love and to cherish till death us do part_! Verily, the iron entered into his soul; day and night the hideous burden crushed him. The castles in the air that, boylike, he had builded were crumbled into dust. Was _this_ the end of all his dreams? Well, at least there was that friendly cannon-ball to be prayed for, or a French cutla.s.s or pike in some boat expedition, if the Fates were kind.

The frigate's orders were--Halifax with despatches; thereafter, the West India Station for an indefinite time. Six or eight weeks at Halifax, varied by some knocking about off the Nova Scotia coast, did not tend to relax Watty's depression, but rather the contrary. For just before the frigate took her departure from those lat.i.tudes a lately received Portsmouth journal which reached the midshipmen's berth had recorded the arrest on a serious charge of, amongst others, a woman giving her name as "Mrs. Walter Scott, licensee of the Goat's Head Tavern, Portsmouth." Now the Goat's Head Tavern was that little inn where in an evil moment the three lads had taken up their abode before the sailing of the _Sirius_, and to Watty it appeared as if his disgrace must now be spread abroad by the four winds of heaven.

It was mental relief to get away out to sea, and to feel that now at least there was again some probability of the excitement of an action.

To Bermuda, thence to Jamaica, were the orders; and surely in no part of the world was a ship of war more certain of active employment. Those were days removed by no great number of years from Rodney's famous victory over de Gra.s.se, and not yet had we completed the reduction of the French West India Islands; the greatest glutton of fighting could scarce fail to have his fill.

One night, after the frigate had left Bermuda, it had come on to blow desperately hard from the north-west, and with every hour the gale increased, till at length--when sail after sail, thundering and threshing, had come in--the ship lay almost under bare poles, straining in every timber and nosing her weather bow into the mountainous seas that swept by at intervals, ere they roared away into the murk to leeward.

It was the middle watch, and Watty had been standing for some time holding on by the lee mizzen rigging, peering eagerly into the darkness.

"I've thought two or three times, sir, that I can see something to leeward of us," he reported to the officer of the watch.