The Three Perils of Man Volume Ii Part 17

"Aih-hay-hay!" shouted Will Laidlaw, as loud as he could yell: "Hilloa, hilloa, hilloa!"--and he sprang first on the back of his own horse with his feet, and from that he darted upon one of those that carried the packs. When I rode up he was sitting on the rumple o' the beast, hugging the child, that he had deemed lost, in his bosom, kissing him, and exclaiming,--"Aih, my man! my dear man, are ye safe? are ye safe? G.o.d bless auld Will Nicol! G.o.d bless auld Will Nicol!"

It was impossible for two down-cast and broken-hearted warriors to be more uplifted at any incident than Will Laidlaw and I were, at discovering that the boy was safe; and even auld Will Nicol began to recover some confidence.--"I heard you giving a chap some charges about him, that I kend weel caredna if his head were off,--od, he was ane o'

the hard-headed Olivers. What cares an Oliver for a man's life, or a bairn's either?--Sae I thinks, sin my young master has ta'en a liking for the bairn, I's e'en gang and look after him. It is a good sign of a young warrior to like to save women and bairns. Sae I gangs, and sae I thinks sin I is bringing away this wee chap out o' danger, I may as weel bring something wi' me as naething; sae I brings aught o' the best horses, and the best laden anes that I could wale, and bound for the Border. A fashous job I hae had wi' them a' night."

It is needless to tell how frankly auld Will was forgiven.

The Cowd-Peel being a rallying point on all Border raides, we stayed there a whole day and a night, in hopes that some part of our men wad come up; but out of all my fifty men there were none appeared but three of the Potts. The hard-headed Olivers had been slain to a man, and all the Laidlaws save my brave companion. Out of ninety valiant Elliots there were only twelve remaining, and some of these were of the drivers.

There were fifty-seven Scots, and nearly as many English, with b.l.o.o.d.y-Sark at their head, buried in one cairn; and, for the sake of the Bishop, the English raised a heap of stones above them as huge as an abbey church, which will be seen on the height above the ford of Keilder for ever.

Laidlaw slept that night in a good bed with the boy in his arms, for we had no lack of the finest blankets and sheets; and that night the white lady appeared to him again, claiming her child, yet still declining to accept of him, and promising Will protection on earth and a reward in heaven if he continued to guard and protect that boy. Whether this was in a dream or not, Laidlaw could not be positive; but he rather inclined to think he was wide awake, for he remembered of speaking to her audibly. Among other things, she asked him if he knew it was the child that had slept by him on the waste the night before the battle. Will said he was sure. She asked him how. He answered, that "unless the fairies had changed him it could nae be ony other."

"But the fairies or some one else may change him," said she. "You may be separated amid the confusion and uproar now on the Border; and when you meet again, you may not be able to prove the ident.i.ty of my child. I bade you the other night examine his bosom, but you neglected to do so.

If you had, you would there have found the spur of Ravensworth, testifying his lineage and descent to all the world."

Will came to me in a great ferment the next day, and told me of all this. I had heard the same words the night before the battle, but had quite forgot them among other matters, and wist as little what they meant as Will did.

"I hae lookit a' his bits o' claes, and graepit them a'," said he; "but I can find nae spur. How could there be a spur about a nakit bairn? It is may be in amang the blankets."

"It is perhaps some private mark," said I. "Let us examine the child's body very narrowly."

On doing so we found a slight mark on his breast, that seemed to have been made by applying a hot iron at some time previous, and it was exactly in the form of a V with the wrang end uppermost. So we both concluded that this was a private mark of some family, that neither fairies nor men kend o', and that it was perhaps a stamp that keepit them a' away.

"It is the stamp of the heirs lineal of the house of Neville," said the friar; "I have impressed it with my own hand, after many ma.s.ses and Ave Marias said. What became of that child? or whither is he gone? I pray thee to inform us in the words of truth not lengthened out."

Alas, I cannot tell! He was visited by the white lady of Ravensworth every night, and when the gloaming came she would be seen hovering on the skirts of the wood near to him. I grew that I durstna sleep a night within ten miles o' him, and Will Laidlaw turned clean b.u.mbazed about the thing; sae we were obliged to send him to board wi' auld Lady Lawder, her that was put out o' the convent for witchery and the ill arts. She cared nought about spirits, and conversed wi' the white lady as she had been her door neighbour; and it was said there were strange mysterious sayings past between them. She book-learned the boy, pen-learned the boy, and learned him mony other things foreby that were thought to be nae better than they should hae been. She chaunt.i.t sangs til him, and tauld him tales, and, there was little doubt, meant to breed him up to be a terrible enchanter; but afore that could be eff.e.c.kit, the white lady came and took him away a' thegither.

From that day he has never been seen or heard of in this world, neither as boy nor man. And now, sirs, I find that my story's worn to a head hair, and that I maun cut it short. So it is done, and that's an end til't.

CHAPTER VIII.

I have been a skipper in my time, And something more. Anon, I'll tell it you.

OGILVIE.

"It is nae worth the name of a story that," said Tam Craik; "for, in the first place, it is a lang story; in the second place, it is a confused story; and, in the third place, it ends ower abruptly, and rather looks like half a dozen o' stories linkit to ane anither's tails."

The poet was by this time on his feet, and, coming forward to Charlie, he looked him sublimely in the face, stretched out his hand, and spoke as follows: "There is some being, wheresoe'er he dwells, that watches o'er the fates of mortal men: now do I know it. Yea, and that same being has spirits of all casts at his command, that run, and fly, and trim, and trim, and trim about this world. And it is even true that I have seen of these, yet knew them not. Look here, brave hero, man of heart and hand! and see if thou canst note thy mark once seen? Thy spur; thy A without the crossing stroke; thy V with the wrong end upmost,--is it here?"

The poet bowed his breast, and exposed it to Charlie's eye, which, at the first scrutinizing look, discerned the mark he had formerly seen,--the mark of the spur of Ravensworth. Charlie's visage altered into lengthened amazement. It could scarcely have been more strongly marked when he was visited by the white lady on Tersit moor, even when he was glad to hide his face in the moss, and hold by the heather with both his hands.

"And are you really the chap that I threw out at the window in the castle of Ravensworth," said he, "and boarded wi' auld lady Lawder? The creature that had a ghaist for its guardian, and a witch for its nurse?

But what need I spier? My ain een convinces me. Gude faith but we are a queer set that are p.r.i.c.kit up on the top o' this tower thegither! I am amaist terrified to enquire where you have been since the white lady took you away; for ye must have been in the fairy land, or the country o' the gruesome ghaists, or perhaps in a waur place than either."

"We are a queerer set than you are thinking of," said Tam; "for here am I standing, Tam Craik, liege man and true to the brave Scottish Warden, and I carena wha kens it now; but I am neither less nor mair a man than just Marion's Jock o' the Dod-Shiel, that sliced the fat bacon, ate the pet lamb, and killed the auld miser, Goodman Niddery. Here's the same whittle yet, and ready at the service of ony ane that requires it for the same end. Od, we seem to ken mair about ane anither than ony ane o'

us kens about ourselves."

"The day wears on apace," said the Master; "and I foresee that there is relief approaching from more quarters than one." (This made all the party spring to the windows to look.)--"It is not yet visible to your eyes, but it will come time enough. In the meanwhile, it would be as well to get through with the stories, that we may know and fix on our victim, for, perhaps, we may need a mart this night. And, it being now your turn, liegeman Thomas, or John, by right of seniority, if you know of nothing better I should like much to hear the adventures of such a promising youth, from the day that you made away with the farmer to this present time."

"Better, Master Michael Scott?" said Tam. "Better, does your honour say?

Nay, by my sooth I ken o' naething half sae good. I hae been an ill-guided chap a' my life; but, as you will hear, I hae guided others at times but in a middling way."

Tam Craik's Tale.

My friend, the laird, has given you my early history, perhaps better than I could hae done myself, but that is to judge of. He hath added and diminished,--but yet he told his story wi' some life, and a' the better that he didna ken wha heard him. In one thing he was wrong informed, for I was not seen on Kirtle-common that night I fled from the slaughter of the old inveterate wretch. I ran in a contrary direction, and slept that night in a moss-hagg, at the head of a water called Lanshaw Burn. Many a hard night I have had, but that was one of the bitterest of them all.

I did not rue having killed the goodman, for I rejoiced at having let out his dirty miserable life and saved my own,--but then I was sure to be taken up and hanged for a murderer; and I was chased away from my mother and my country, and durst not face a human being. I saw some goats and some sheep, and would gladly have killed one to have eaten, for I saw hunger staring me in the face; but they would not let me come near them. I likewise saw a shepherd's or forester's house, but kept aloof; and going up into a wild bushy glen, I cried myself asleep, half naked as I was, and slept till about the break of day. When I awakened, starving with hunger and cold, I had no shift but to pull rashes and eat the white ends of them, which I continued to do all that day whenever I came to a rash bush. The next night I came to a solitary house, where I ventured to go in, and there I first gave myself the name of Tam Craik, telling abundance of lies as to my origin. The master of the house was a wealthy va.s.sal, and had great numbers of fat oxen, with cows and calves, besides a few sheep, and he kept me to help him to herd these, promising me a grey coat if I attended to his satisfaction. He was a most extraordinary man, and none of the best,--for his words and actions were at variance: Though he conversed with me, or any one, with the utmost familiarity, I never found out that he had told me one word of truth. The first friend that came to visit him after my arrival, he overloaded so with kindness, professions of friendship, and respect, that I believed he loved him as his own soul; and, after he was gone, as my master and I went out to the fields, I observed what a treasure it was to have so good and so valued a friend as he had in that neighbour of his. What was my astonishment to hear from the same tongue that had lauded him to the skies, that he was a cheat, a liar, and a scoundrel;--a greedy sordid wretch that robbed his own hinds, and such wandering pedlars as came by that road, not daring to venture on higher game; one who seduced men's wives and daughters indiscriminately; and was, in short, a perfect demon, and a pest to the whole neighbourhood.

"But, master, why did you caress and commend him so much to his face?"

"O! that is all very well; that goes all for nothing. He is to be sure a vile scoundrel!" "There are queer people in this world," thought I: "There is nothing for it, I see, but, _Tam, mind yoursel_."

The farmer continued very kind to me in his own deceitful way; but the meat that we got was very bad. It consisted of lean beef, and venison as black as soot, with plenty of milk; but as for bread we had none of any description. So, from the day that I entered to his service, I determined to kill a lamb, or a sheep of any sort, the first time I could get one; but I never could get the least chance, and might as well have tried to get hold of a deer. I could not help thinking of the delicious feasting that I had in my little shieling, dear as it had like to have cost me; and every day my appet.i.te for fat flesh became more insufferable, till at last, by a grand expedient, I got satisfaction of it. I had thirty fat stots in my herd, and I observed that, in hurrying them through a bog, they sunk, and stuck quite fast: so, having no other resource, I drove a few of them one day, when I was very hungry, into a mire in a wood, and rushing forward on them while they were struggling, I sticked the fattest among them to the heart, so that he floundered and bled to death in the slough. "Well done again, Marion's Jock!" said I to myself. "Here is feasting for you now! Here is a feast that will last you a twelve month at odd times, if you can but preserve it." I declare when I began to cut up that huge animal, I almost trembled at my atrocity; but these kind of feelings soon wear off. I was obliged to eat some collops that day without any cooking, and never relished ought better; I wish we saw such a meal again! My thin yellow beard was a little discoloured to be sure, but that was nothing; I washed it, and went home as boldly among the rest as if nothing wrong had been done.

When I returned to my prey, I found to my great grief that the foxes, dogs, ravens, and every savage beast and hind on these mountains, were determined to share with me; they had actually eaten more in that one night than would have served me a week;--so the next day I employed myself in cutting off all the good, fat, and savoury pieces, and secreted them in well-springs, covering them up with stones; this I did to preserve them from the beasts and from putrefaction; and that day I am sure I had at least ten stones weight of excellent beef,--the white and red were so beautifully mixed, it did one's heart good to look at it.

Pleasures are of short date, and the greatest pleasures have the shortest! My master went over the lake next day to look at my herd, and I knew the ox would be missed. Had it not been for my beloved beef I would have made my escape forthwith; but my heart was knit to it, and for my life I could not leave it. I went home at night in great terror, but to my joy I never saw my master half so kind. He told me I had suffered one of my stots to be stolen, but what could the like of me help it: he had a rough guess who had taken him, and would perhaps make him repent it. I was perfectly overjoyed at this construction, and resolved to revel in feasting and gladness; but next day when I went back to my ox, the hide was neatly taken off him, so also was the head, and both were taken away. This was perfectly unaccountable to me; and I saw the marks of men's feet in the mire, confirming the fact that some body had been there stealing the head and the skin of my ox, which were in my eyes not worth half the labour of taking them off. I knew not what to make of this, but it was evident that my prey had been discovered by some one; and all that I could calculate farther on was, that the hide had been stolen by some body who stood in need of it for shoes, and the head by one who wanted bugle-horns. It was all one to me, as I grew more and more a favourite with my master, who now began to caress me more than his own sons. No young lad in the land could be more thrifty about meat than I was. Being anxious to have the remainder of my bullock out of sight, I stole salt and a small barrel, and salted my stuff in a hole below ground; then, when no very good meat was going by day at my master's house, I often fasted the greater part of it, and then taking a coal by night, I stole away into the wood, and roasted, and boiled, and feasted the whole night. The beef was delicious, and it was amazing what great quanties I sometimes snapped up at once; for even after I thought I could eat no more, there was a part of white marrowy substance about the joints, and the sides of the bones, that I could not give over--no man could give it over. Marry, how delicious it was! I account that fine meat mixed with white, that lies wedged in along the doublings and shelves of the bones, as the most glorious species of man's food;--round the broad shoulder-bone, for instance, the spool-bone,--that through which we look for the storms. Think but of the layers of the red and the white that lie bedded around that. Peatstacknowe, let me feel your shoulder. I suppose a man has no spool-bone,--ah no!--none! Blessed Virgin! when shall I again shire the long crooked slices of the red meat, mixed with white, from the flats and the hollows of a broad spool-bone!

"He is hungering and yearning to pick my bones, the cannibal dog," said Gibby. "But it brings me in mind of a good saying and a true: The swine that is most eager to feed itself is the first slaughtered to feed others."

"The horse-leach hath drawn thee aside from thy onward relation, thou froward and voracious one," said the friar: "Verily, it is better for thee that thou return to thy tale, before thy strength be consumed within thee."

The loss of this st.u.r.dy ox of my master's gave rise to strange matters; matters which quite confounded my judgment, and which to this day I do not comprehend. My master went away to the sheriff, and the lord of the manor, and made a complaint that his neighbour before-mentioned had stolen one of his cattle, the best that he had on his farm. This was the man that he caressed so much, yet knew to be a scoundrel. The complaint was attended to, and the injury deeply resented. My master returned with a strong body of men, and orders to seize Glendairg, and search all his premises; and if evidence appeared against him, he was to be carried before Lord William, called the Severe, and there imprisoned in the dungeon till time should be given him to clear himself, which, if he failed to do in a certain period, he was to be swung. All my master's servants, men and women, were ordered to proceed with the party; I went among the rest, and certainly never witnessed so curious a scene.

Glendairg came out and met the party with all the consciousness of innocence; and even when he was seized and bound, he still appeared to doubt of the sincerity of the men, espepecially when they told him it was at the instance of my master.

"If that is all, it is well," said he; "I am sure my kind friend and neighbour can mean me no ill by it."

My master took him aside, and said to him in the kindest and most soothing manner, "Do not be the least disheartened, my dear friend: You know how far I would be from injuring you. I would not do it for all the cows in my byre. I ken weel wha has the ox. There is little doubt but he is in our neighbour Bauldy's beef stand. I have long suspected him, and many is the good beast I have lost. You little know how many good beasts I have lost, and was still so loth to make it public. But I can suffer it no longer. Let the skaith fall upon the skaither. In the mean time I know you are quite innocent, but I inst.i.tuted this search as a blind to him: You must just submit and never mind it."

"O, very well, neighbour, very well," said Glendairg; "I knew you could not intend me any ill,--search all out and in, and welcome."

They did so; they searched all out and in, and at last, when about to give up, they found the individual ox's hide that I slew in the bog, lying hid deep below some hay and corn in the corner of a barn. In another place still more unfeasible, they found the ox's head. They were both laid upon the green, and my master and all his servants, myself included, swore to their ident.i.ty, as we could not do otherwise.

Glendairg looked like one bewildered, and said there was a plot laid against his life, which he neither understood, suspected, nor merited.

The shrieve's officers laughed him to scorn, and proposed to hang him up on the nearest tree; and I believed they would have done it, had it not been for the kindness of my master, who came forward with tears in his eyes, and addressed them somewhat thus:

"Alas, my masters, this is a heavy and a sorrowful sight for me! This is the bitterest day of my life! I have lost many and many good cattle, and yet I would not,--I could not, let myself suspect my intimate friend.

Think how I am grieved to see these proofs. Yet perhaps he may be innocent, and this may be some vile plot laid against his life. I beg, therefore, that he may be set at liberty, and the whole business hushed up."

"You are a good man and a kind," said the men; "but this thing must not be. With our lord and master, justice must have sway; but we will report your goodness and generosity to him, and be sure it will not go unrewarded. We can a.s.sure you, that this man has not only forfeited his life, but all his farms, as well as his stock of cattle and sheep to yourself."