Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume V Part 10

I spent the evening of that day with Bill, outside the camp, and we ate the dates together, that in the morning had cost him so dear. The report had gone abroad--luckily a false one--that our colonel was dead; and that put an end to all hope, with the poor fellow, of having his case righted. We spoke together for, I am sure, two hours--spoke of Bill's early recollections, and of the hardship of his fate all along. And it was now worse with him, he said, than it had ever been before. He spoke of the strange, unaccountable hostility of Turpic; and I saw his brow grow dark, and the veins of his neck swell almost to bursting. He trusted they might yet meet, he said, where there would be none to note who was the officer and who the private soldier. I did my best, master, to console the poor fellow, and we parted. The first thing I saw as I opened the tent door next morning, was Captain Turpic, brought into the camp by the soldier whose cousin Bill and I had a.s.sisted to bury. The captain was leaning on his shoulder, somewhat less than half alive, as it seemed, with four of his front teeth struck out, and a stream of blood all along his vest and small clothes. He had been met with by Bill, who had attacked him, he said, and, after breaking his sword, would have killed him, had not the soldier come up and interfered. But that, master, was the captain's story. The soldier told me, afterwards, that he saw the captain draw his sword ere Bill lifted hand at all; and that, when the poor fellow did strike, he gave him only one knock-down blow on the mouth, that laid him insensible at his feet; and that, when down, though he might have killed him twenty times over, he didn't so much as crook a finger on him. Nay, more; Bill offered to deliver himself up to the soldier, had not the latter a.s.sured him that he would to a certainty be shot, and advised him to make off. There was a party dispatched in quest of him, master, the moment Turpic had told his story; but he was lucky enough, poor fellow, to elude them; and they returned in the evening, just as they had gone out. And I saw no more of Bill in Egypt, master.

Never had troops less to do than we had, for the six months or so we afterwards remained in the country; and time hung wretchedly on the hands of some of us. Now that Bill was gone, I had no comrade with whom I cared to a.s.sociate; and, as you may think, I often didn't know what to do with myself. After all our fears and regrets, master, our colonel recovered, and, one morning, about four months after the action, came ash.o.r.e to see us. We were sadly pestered with flies, master. I have seen, I am sure, a bushel of them on the top of our tent at once. They buzzed all night by millions round our noses, and many a plan did we think of to get rid of them; but, after destroying hosts on hosts they still seemed as thick as before. I had fallen on a new scheme this morning. I placed some sugar on a board, and surrounded it with gunpowder; and, when the flies had settled by thousands on the sugar, I fired the powder by means of a train, and the whole fell dead on the floor of the tent. I had just got a capital shot, when up came the colonel, and sat down beside me.

'I wish to know,' he said, 'all you can tell me about Bill Whyte; you were his chief friend and companion, I have heard, and are acquainted with his early history. Can you tell me ought of his parentage.'

'Nothing of that, colonel,' I said; 'and yet I have known Bill almost ever since he knew himself.'

And so, master, I told him all that I knew; how Bill had been first taken to us by my mother; of the purse of gold she had brought with her, which had kept us all so merry; and of the n.o.ble spirit he had shown among us when he grew up. I told him, too, of some of Bill's early recollections; of the scarlet dress trimmed with silver, which had been brought to his mind by the sergeant's coat the first day he wore it; of the gentleman and lady, too, whom he remembered to have lived with; and of the supposed resemblance he had found between the former and the colonel. The colonel, as I went on, was strangely agitated, master. He held an open letter in his hand, and seemed, every now and then, to be comparing particulars; and, when I mentioned Bill's supposed recognition of him, he actually started from off his seat.

'Good Heavens!' he exclaimed, 'why was I not brought acquainted with this before!'

I explained the why, master, and told him all about Captain Turpic; and he left me with, you may be sure, no very favourable opinion of the captain. But I must now tell you, master, a part of my story which I had but from hearsay.

The colonel had been getting over the worse effects of his wound, when he received a letter from a friend in England, informing him that his brother-in-law, the father of Captain Turpic, had died suddenly, and that his sister, who, to all appearance was fast following, had been making strange discoveries regarding an only son of the colonel's, who was supposed to have been drowned about seventeen years before. The colonel had lost both his lady and child by a frightful accident. His estate lay near Olney, on the banks of the Ouse; and the lady, one day, during the absence of the colonel, who was in London, was taking an airing in the carriage with her son, a boy of three years or so, when the horses took fright, and, throwing the coachman, who was killed on the spot, rushed into the river. The Ouse is a deep, sluggish stream, dark and muddy in some of the more dangerous pools, and mantled over with weeds. It was into one of these the carriage was overturned; a.s.sistance came too late, and the unfortunate lady was brought out, a corpse; but the body of the child was nowhere to be found. It now came out, however, from the letter, that the child had been picked up, unhurt, by the colonel's brother-in-law, who, after concealing it for nearly a week, during the very frenzy of the colonel's distress, had then given it to a gipsy. The rascal's only motive--he was a lawyer, master--was that his own son, the captain, who was then a boy of twelve years or so, and not wholly ignorant of the circ.u.mstance, might succeed to the colonel's estate. The writer of the letter added that, on coming to the knowledge of the singular confession, he had made instant search after the gipsy to whom the child had been given, and had been fortunate enough to find her, after tracing her over half the kingdom, in a cave, near Fortrose, in the north of Scotland. She had confessed all; stating, however, that the lad, who had borne among the tribe the name of Bill Whyte, and had turned out a fine fellow, had been outlawed, for some smuggling feat, about eighteen months before, and had enlisted, with a young man, her son, into a regiment bound for Egypt. You see, master, there couldn't be a shadow of doubt that my comrade, Bill Whyte, was just Henry Westhope, the colonel's son and heir. But the grand matter was where to find him. Search as we might, all search was in vain; we could trace him no further than outside the camp, to where he had met with Captain Turpic. I should tell you, by the way, that the captain was now sent to Coventry, by every one, and that not an officer in the regiment would return his salute.

Well, master, the months pa.s.sed, and at length the French surrendered; and, having no more to do in Egypt, we all re-embarked, and sailed for England. The short peace had been ratified before our arrival; and I, who had become heartily tired of the life of a soldier, now that I had no one to a.s.sociate with, was fortunate enough to obtain my discharge.

The colonel retired from the service at the same time. He was as kind to me as if he had been my father, and offered to make me his forester, if I would but come and live beside him; but I was too fond of a wandering life for that. He was corresponding, he told me, with every British consul within fifteen hundred miles of the Nile; but he had heard nothing of Bill, master. Well, after seeing the colonel's estate, I parted from him, and came north, to find out my people, which I soon did; and, for a year or so, I lived with them just as I have been doing since. I was led, in the course of my wanderings, to Leith, and was standing, one morning, on the pier among a crowd of people, who had gathered round to see a fine vessel from the Levant, that was coming in at the time, when my eye caught among the sailors a man exceedingly like Bill. He was as tall, and even more robust, and he wrought with all Bill's activity; but, for some time I could not catch a glimpse of his face. At length, however, he turned round, and there, sure enough, was Bill himself. I was afraid to hail him, master, not knowing who among the crowd might also know him, and know him also as a deserter or an outlaw; but you may be sure I wasn't long in leaping aboard and making up to him. And we were soon as happy, master, in one of the cellars of the Coal-hill, as we had been in all our lives before.

Bill told me his history since our parting. He had left the captain lying at his feet, and struck across the sand, in the direction of the Nile, one of the mouths of which he reached next day. He there found some Greek sailors, who were employed in watering; and, a.s.sisting them in their work, he was brought aboard their vessel, and engaged as a seaman by the master, who had lost some of his crew by the plague. As you may think, master, he soon became a prime sailor, and continued with the Greeks, trading among the islands of the Archipelago, for about eighteen months, when, growing tired of the service, and meeting with an English vessel, he had taken a pa.s.sage home. I told him how much ado we had all had about him after he had left us, and how we were to call him Bill Whyte no longer. And so, in short, master, we set out together for Colonel Westhope's.

In our journey, we met with some of our people on a wild moor of c.u.mberland, and were invited to pa.s.s the night with them. They were of the Curlit family; but you will hardly know them as that. Two of them had been with us when Bill swamped the custom-house boat. They were fierce, desperate fellows, and not much to be trusted by their friends even; and I was afraid that they might have somehow come to guess that Bill had brought some clinkers home with him. And so, master, I would fain have dissuaded him from making any stay with them in the night time; for I did not know, you see, in what case we might find our _weasands_ in the morning; but Bill had no fears of any kind, and was, besides, desirous to spend one last night with the gipsies; and so he stayed. The party had taken up their quarters in a waste house on the moor, with no other human dwelling within four miles of it. There was a low, stunted wood on the one side, master, and a rough, sweeping stream on the other: the night, too, was wild and boisterous; and, what between suspicion and discomfort, I felt well nigh as drearily as I did when lying among the dead men in Egypt. We were n.o.bly treated, however, and the whisky flowed like water, but we drank no more than was good for us.

Indeed, Bill was never a great drinker; and I kept on my guard, and refused the liquor, on the plea of a bad head. I should have told you that there were but three of the Curlits--all of them raw-boned fellows, however, and all of them of such stamp that the three have since been hung. I saw they were sounding Bill; but he seemed aware of them.

'Ay, ay,' said he, 'I have made something by my voyaging, lads, though, mayhap, not a great deal. What think you of that there now, for instance?'--drawing, as he spoke, a silver-mounted pistol out of each pocket--'these are pretty pops, and as good as they are pretty; the worst of them sends a bullet through an inch board at twenty yards.'

'Are they loaded, Bill?' asked Tom Curlit.

'To be sure,' said Bill, returning them again, each to its own pouch.

'What is the use of an empty pistol?'

'Ah,' replied Tom, 'I smell a rat, Bill. You have given over making war on the king's account, and have taken the road to make war on your own.

Bold enough, to be sure.'

From the moment, they saw the pistols, the brothers seemed to have changed their plan regarding us--for some plan I am certain they had.

They would now fain have taken us into partnership with them; but their trade was a woundy bad one, master, with a world more of risk than profit.

'Why lads,' said Tom Curlit to Bill and me, 'hadn't you better stay with us altogether? The road won't do in these days at all. No, no, the law is a vast deal over strong for that; and you will be tucked up like dogs for your very first affair. But, if you stay with us, you will get on in a much quieter way on this wild moor here. Plenty of game, Bill; and, sometimes, when the nights are long, we contrive to take a purse with as little trouble as may be. We had an old pedlar, only three weeks ago, that brought us sixty good pounds.--By the way, brothers, we must throw a few more sods over him, for I nosed him this morning as I went by.--And, lads, we have something in hand just now that, with to be sure a little more risk, will pay better still. Two hundred yellow boys in hand, and five hundred more when our work is done. Better that, Bill, than standing to be shot at, for a shilling per day.'

'Two hundred in hand, and five hundred more when you have done your work!' exclaimed Bill. 'Why, that is sure enough princely pay, unless the work be very bad indeed. But, come, tell us what you propose. You can't expect us to make it a leap in the dark matter.'

'The work is certainly a little dangerous,' said Tom, 'and we of ourselves are rather few; but, if you both join with us, there would be a vast deal less of danger indeed. The matter is just this. A young fellow, like ourselves, has a rich old uncle, who has made his will in his favour; but then he threatens to make another will that won't be so favourable to him by half; and you see the drawing across of a knife--so--would keep the first one in force. And that is all we have to do before pocketing the blunt. But, then, the old fellow is as brave as a lion; and there are two servants with him, worn-out soldiers like himself, that would, I am sure, be rough customers. With your help, however, we shall get on primely. The old boy's house stands much alone; and we shall be five to three.'

'Well, well,' said Bill, 'we shall give your proposal a night's thought, and tell you what we think of it in the morning. But, remember, no tricks, Tom! If we engage in the work, we must go share and share alike in the booty.'

'To be sure,' said Tom; and so the conversation closed.

About eight o'clock, or so, master, I stepped out to the door. The night was dark and boisterous as ever, and there had come on a heavy rain. But I could see that, dark and boisterous as it was, some one was approaching the house with a dark lanthern. I lost no time in telling the Curlits so.

'It must be the captain,' said they; 'though it seems strange that he should come here to-night. You must away, Jack and Bill, to the loft, for it mayn't do for the captain to find you here; but you can lend us a hand afterwards, should need require it.'

There was no time for asking explanations, master; and so up we climbed to the loft, and had got snugly concealed among some old hay, when in came the captain. But what captain, think you? Why, just our old acquaintance, Captain Turpic!

'Lads,' he said to the Curlits, 'make yourselves ready; get your pistols. Our old scheme is blown; for the colonel has left his house at Olney, on a journey to Scotland; but he pa.s.ses here to-night, and you must find means to stop him--now or never!'

'What force and what arms has he with him, captain?' asked Tom.

'The coachman, his body servant, and himself,' said the captain; 'but only the servant and himself are armed. The stream outside is high to-night; you must take them just as they are crossing it, and thinking of only the water; and, whatever else you may mind, make sure of the colonel.'

'Sure as I live,' said Bill to me, in a low whisper, "tis a plan to murder Colonel Westhope! And, good Heavens!' he continued, pointing through an opening in the gable, 'yonder is his carriage, not a mile away. You may see the lantherns, like two fiery eyes, coming sweeping along the moor. We have no time to lose; let us slide down through the opening, and meet with it.'

As soon done as said, master; we slid down along the turf gable, crossed the stream, which had risen high on its banks, by a plank bridge for foot pa.s.sengers, and then dashed along the broken road in the direction of the carriage. We came up to it, as it was slowly crossing an open drain.

'Colonel Westhope!' I cried, 'Colonel Westhope!--stop! stop!--turn back!

You are waylaid by a party of ruffians, who will murder you if you go on.'

The door opened and the colonel stepped out, with his sword under his left arm, and a c.o.c.ked pistol in his hand.

'Is not that Jack Whyte?' he asked.

'The same, n.o.ble colonel,' I said; 'and here is Henry, your son.'

It was no place or time, master, for long explanations; there was one hearty congratulation, and one hurried embrace; and the colonel, after learning from Bill the number of the a.s.sailants, and the plan of the attack, ordered the carriage to drive on slowly before, and followed, with us and his servant, on foot, behind.

'The rascals,' he said, 'will be so dazzled with the flare of the lantherns in front, that we will escape notice till they have fired, and then we shall have them for the picking down.'

And so it was, master. Just as the carriage was entering the stream, the coachman was pulled down by Tom Curlit; at the same instant, three bullets went whizzing through the gla.s.ses, and two fellows came leaping out from behind some furze to the carriage door. A third, whom I knew to be the captain, lagged behind. I marked him, however; and when the colonel and Bill were disposing of the other two--and they took them so sadly by surprise, master, that they had but little difficulty in throwing them down, and binding them--I was lucky enough to send a piece of lead through the captain. He ran about twenty yards, and then dropped down, stone dead. Tom escaped us; but he cut a throat some months after, and suffered for it at Carlisle. And his two brothers, after making a clean breast, and confessing all, were transported for life. But they found means to return in a few years after, and were both hung on the gallows on which Tom had suffered before them.

I have not a great deal more to tell you, master. The colonel has been dead for the last twelve years, and his son has succeeded him in his estate. There is not a completer gentleman in England than Henry Westhope, master, nor a finer fellow. I call on him every time I go round, and never miss a hearty welcome; though, by the by, I am quite as sure of a hearty scold. He still keeps a snug little house empty for me, and offers to settle on me fifty pounds a-year, whenever I choose to give up my wandering life, and go and live with him. But what's bred in the bone won't come out of the flesh, master, and I have not yet closed with his offer. And, really, to tell you my mind, I don't think it quite respectable. Here I am, at present, a free, independent tinker--no man more respectable than a tinker, master--all allow that; whereas, if I go and live with Bill, on an unwrought-for fifty pounds a-year, I will be hardly better than a mere master tailor or shoemaker. No, no, that would never do! Nothing like respectability, master, let a man fare as hard as he may.

I thanked the gipsy for his story, and told him I thought it almost worth while putting it in print. He thanked me, in turn, for liking it so well, and a.s.sured me I was quite at liberty to put it in print as soon as I choose. And so I took him at his word.

"But yonder," said he, "is the moon rising, red and huge over the three tops of Belrinnes, and throwing, as it brightens, its long strip of fire across the Frith. Take care of your footing, just as you reach the top of the crag; there is an awkward gap there on the rock edge that reminds me of an Indian trap; but, as for the rest of the path, you will find it quite as safe as by day. Good-by!"

I left him, and made the best of my way home; where, while the facts were fresh in my mind, I committed to paper (for the express purpose of having it inserted among the Border Tales) the gipsy's story.

THE PROFESSOR'S TALES.

THE LAST OF THE PEDLARS.

"Atlas was so exceeding strong, He bore the skies upon his back, Just as a pedlar does his pack."--SWIFT.

The whole framework of society has been so much altered within these last sixty years, that a person who has been born within that period, unless from tradition, must remain entirely ignorant of the manners and habits of his immediate predecessors. _Now_, highroads, carriages by land and water, with all manner of facilities of intercourse, have brought every part of the country, even the most remote corners, into contact, as it were, with every other part. Any great or engrossing fact or feeling flies immediately, on wings of paper, and in characters of ink, from land's-end to land's-end. But, formerly, this was very far from being the case. The press, as a vehicle of public news, was altogether in its infancy. Roads _were_ not, or they were all _but_ impa.s.sable; and the one end of the island might be sunk into the sea, without the other extremity having any immediate perception of the loss.