Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume V Part 19

We have now to explain the most extraordinary part of this piteous case--and that is, how it was that the poor boy's parents knew nothing of his miserable fate till it was discovered by the inquiry of which we shall shortly speak. In the first place, his father took it for granted that he was at home with his mother, and his mother believed that he was with his father, and thus his absence was known to neither; and, therefore, no unusual interest regarding him was excited. During his confinement, and at all his precognitions, the infatuated boy steadily refused--though for what reason we know not--to give up his name, or to give any account of himself whatever. He would neither tell where he came from, where or to whom he was going, nor what nor who were his parents; and in this resolution he remained to the last; and, as no one knew him, he was thus finally executed, without any single particular being known regarding him, excepting that for which he suffered. Neither could he be prevailed upon to make known his situation to any of his friends. In short, he seemed to have determined to prevent his fate from ever being a.s.sociated with his ident.i.ty.

What his motives were for this extraordinary conduct--whether it arose from a fear of disgracing his family, or from tenderness to the feelings of his parents--we cannot tell, nor will we trouble the reader with conjectures which he can make as well for himself. We content ourselves with relating the facts of the melancholy case, as they actually and truly occurred.

It was by an inquiry at the police-office of Edinburgh, whither he had gone, as a last expedient, to endeavour to find some trace of his son, that M'Lauchlane obtained the intelligence that led to the discovery of his unhappy fate. He had gone to the office, however, without the most remote idea that he should there learn anything of his boy as a violator of the laws, but merely as a repository of general intelligence on such subjects as that in which he was at the moment interested. Having stated his errand to two officers whom he found there, they asked him to describe the boy. This he did; when the men looked significantly at each other. Poor M'Lauchlane observed the look; and he felt his heart failing him, as he imagined, and too truly, that he saw in it something ominous.

"Do you know anything of my boy?" he said, looking piteously at the officers.

They made no reply, but seemed a good deal discomposed. They felt for the unfortunate father--having little or no doubt, from the personal description, and other particulars he gave of the boy, that it was he who had been executed for the robbery on the Stirling road.

"Tell me, for G.o.d's sake, if you know anything of my son," said the poor father, imploringly, after waiting some time in vain for an answer to his first inquiry of a similar kind.

The men would have still evaded a reply, and were, indeed, both edging out of the apartment, to avoid being further pressed on the subject, when M'Lauchlane seized one of them by the arm, and besought him not to leave him, without giving him what information he possessed on the subject of his inquiry. "Has any accident happened him?" said the miserable father. "Is he dead? Tell me, for Heaven's sake, tell me the worst at once. I can bear it. If he is dead, I say, G.o.d's will be done.

Is it so or not, my friend?" again said M'Lauchlane, with a look of wretchedness that the man could not resist.

"I am afraid he is," was the reply.

"Still, I say G.o.d's will be done," said M'Lauchlane, endeavouring to display a composure he was far, very far from feeling. He next inquired into the time and manner of his death. On being informed, the unhappy man instantly sank down on the floor in a state of insensibility. He had little dreamt of such a horrible catastrophe; and, however resigned he might have been to his boy's having met with a natural death, his fort.i.tude was unequal to the dreadful trial it was now called on to sustain. On coming again to himself, the unfortunate man left the office without exchanging a word with any one, and returned to his own house.

When he entered, his wife, as was her usual practice, eagerly inquired if he had yet heard any tidings of their son; but she soon saw that she had no occasion whatever to put the question. The haggard countenance of her husband--a countenance in which the utmost depth of human misery was strongly depicted--a.s.sured her at once that tidings had been heard of the boy, and that these were of the most dismal kind.

"He's dead, then," she screamed out, on looking on the wo-begone, or rather horror-stricken face of her husband--"my boy is gone." And she flung herself on the floor in a paroxysm of grief and despair.

To his wife's exclamations, M'Lauchlane made no reply, but threw himself on a bed, and buried his head beneath the clothes. But this covering did not conceal the dreadful writhings of the crushed spirit beneath. The bedclothes heaved with the violent emotions that shook the powerful frame of the miserable sufferer. From that bed M'Lauchlane never again rose. He never, however, told his wife of the unhappy death her son had died; steadily and even sternly resisting all the importunities on that appalling subject; and whether she ever learned it, we are not aware.

MAJOR WEIR'S COACH.

A LEGEND OF EDINBURGH.[7]

[Footnote 7: A legend, similar to that here given, was current in Glasgow a number of years ago, and for ages before. The hero's name was Bob Dragon, whose income, when alive, was said to have been one guinea a minute. His coachman and horses were said, as those of the major, to want the heads. The most curious trait of the Glasgow goblin horses, was that they went down to the river to drink, although they had no heads.

The superst.i.tions of most European countries have a similar origin: the Germans have their spectre huntsman; the coaches and horses of Major Weir and Bob Dragon are of the same character. The antiquary will find the trial of Major Weir in Pitcairn's "Criminal Trials;" and the lover of such stories may consult "Satan's Invisible World Discovered."--ED.]

The time of our story was September, early in the seventies of the last century, or it might be the end of the sixties--it matters not much as to the year--but it was in the month of September, when parties and politics had set the freemen and burgesses of the royal burghs by the ears--when feasting and caballing formed almost their whole employment.

The exaltation of themselves or party friends to the civic honours engrossed their whole attention, and neither money nor time was grudgingly bestowed to obtain their objects. The embellishment and improvement of the city of Edinburgh were keenly urged and carried on by one party, at the head of which was Provost Drummond. He was keenly opposed by another, which, though fewer in number, and not so well organized, was not to be despised; for it only wanted a leader of nerve and tact to stop or utterly undo all that had been done, and keep the city, as it had been for more than a century, in a position of stately decay. The wild project of building a bridge over the North Loch was keenly contested; and ruin and bankruptcy were foretold to the good town, if the provost and his party were not put out of the council before it was begun to be carried into execution.

The heavens were illuminated by a glorious harvest moon, far in her southings; the High Street was deep in shade, like a long dark avenue; the dim oil lamps, perched high upon their wooden posts, few and far between, gleamed in the darkness like glow-worms--as two portly figures were seen in earnest discourse, walking, not with steady step, up the High Street.

"By my troth, deacon!" said one of them, "I fear Luckie Bell has had too much of our company this night. I had no idea it was so late. There is the eighth chime of St. Giles': what hour will strike?"

"Deil may care for me, Treasurer Kerr!" hiccuped the deacon.

"Preserve me, deacon!" replied the treasurer, "it has struck twelve!

What shall I say to the wife? It's to-morrow, deacon! it's to-morrow!"

"Whisht, man, whisht! and no speak with such a melancholy voice," said the other. "Are you afraid of Kate? What have we to do with to-morrow?

It is a day we shall never see, were we to live as long as Methusalem; for, auld as he was, he never saw 'to-morrow.' It's always to come, with its cares or joy." And the deacon stood and laughed aloud at his conceit. "Let to-morrow care for itself, Tom, say I. What can Kate say to you? What the deil need you care? Have we not had a happy evening?

Have we not been well employed?" And they again moved on towards the Castlehill, where the deacon resided.

Thomas Kerr was treasurer of the incorporation, and hoped at this election to succeed his present companion, whose influence in the incorporation was great, and to secure which he was, for the time, his humble servant, and a.s.siduous in his attentions to him--so much so, that, although his own domicile was in St. Mary's Wynd, at the other extremity of the High Street, his ambition had overcome his fears of his better half, and, still ascending the long street, he resolved to accompany the deacon home; not, however, without some strong misgivings as to what he might encounter at his return. Both were in that happy state of excitement when cares and fears press lightly on the human mind; but the deacon, who had presided at the meeting, and spoken a good deal, was much more overcome than his treasurer; and the liquor had made him loquacious.

"Tom, man," again said the deacon, "you walk by my side as douce as if you were afraid to meet Major Weir in his coach on your way down the wynd to Kate. Be cheerful man, as I am. Tell her she will be deaconess in a fortnight, and that will quiet her clatter, or I know not what will please her; they are all fond of honours. We have done good work this night--secured two votes against Drummond; other three would graze him.

Pluck up your spirit, Tom, and be active; if we fail, the whole town will be turned upside down--confound him, and his wild projects, of what he calls improvements! The deil be in me, if I can help thinking--and it sticks in my gizzard yet--that he was at the bottom of the pulling down of my outside stair, by these drunken fellows of masons; the more by token that, when, after much trouble, I discovered them, and had them all safe in the guardhouse, he took a small bail, and only fined them two shillings a-piece, when it caused me an expense of ten good pounds to repair the mischief they had done; and, more than that, I was forced to erect it inside the walls; for they would not allow me to put it as it was, or grant me a Dean of Guild warrant on any other terms. They said it c.u.mbered the foot-pavement, although, as you know, it had stood for fifty years. From that day to this I have been his firm opponent in and out of the council. Tom, are ye asleep? Where are your eyes? What high new wall is this? See, see, man!"

"This beats all he has done yet!" said the treasurer; "a high white wall across the High Street, and neither slap nor style that I can see!

Wonderful, wonderful! A strange man that provost!"

"He has done it to vex me, since I came down to Luckie Bell's," replied the deacon. "It was not there in the early part of the evening. He must have had a hundred masons at it. But I'll make him repent this frolic to-morrow in the council, or my name is not Deacon d.i.c.kson!"

"What can he mean by it, deacon?" rejoined the other. "I see no purpose it can serve, for my part."

"But it does serve a purpose," hiccuped the deacon; "It will prevent me from getting home. It is done through malice against me, for the efforts I am making to get him and his party out of the council."

During the latter part of this discourse, they had walked, or rather staggered, from side to side of the street. Between the pillars that, before the great fires in Edinburgh, formed the base of the high tenement standing there, and St. Giles' Church, being the entrance into the Parliament Square, and between St. Giles' and the Exchange buildings, the full moon threw a stream of light, filling both the openings, and leaving all above and below involved in deep shade. It was the moon's rays thus thrown upon the ground, and reaching up to the second windows of the houses, that formed the wall which the two officials observed.

"Deil tak me," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the deacon, "but this is a fine trick to play upon the deacon of an incorporation in his own town! Were it not for exposing myself at this untimeous hour, I would raise the town, and pull it down at the head of the people. Faith, Tom, I will do it!" And he was on the point of shouting aloud at the pitch of his voice, when the more prudent treasurer put his hand upon the mouth of the enraged deacon.

"For mercy's sake, be quiet!" said he. "What are you going to be about?

Is this a time of night for a member of council to make a riot, and expose himself in the High Street? To-morrow will be time enough to pull it down by force, if you cannot get a vote of the council to authorise it. No doubt it is a round-about way and a sair climb; but just, like a wise and prudent man, as you always are, put up with it for one night, and come along down the Fishmarket Close, up the Cowgate, and climb the West Bow, to the deaconess, who, I have no doubt, is weary waiting on you."

"Faith, Tom, I am in part persuaded you advise well for once," replied the deacon; "so I will act upon it, although I am your deacon, and all advice ought to come from me."

And away they trudged. Both were corpulent men; but the deacon, having been several times in the council, was by much the heavier of the two.

Down they went by the Fishmarket Close, and up the Cowgate, the deacon, sulky and silent, meditating all the way vengeance against the provost; but, in ascending the steep and winding Bow, his patience entirely left him; he stopped, more than once, to wipe the perspiration from his brow, recover his breath, and mutter curses on the head of the official. At length, they reached the deacon's home, where his patient spouse waited his arrival. Without uttering a word, he threw himself upon a chair, placing his hat and wig upon a table. It was some minutes before he recovered his breath sufficiently to answer the questions of his anxious wife, or give vent to the anger that was consuming him. At length, to the fifty-times put questions of--

"Deacon, what has vexed you so sorely? what has happened to keep you so late?" he broke forth--

"What vexes me? what has kept me so late? You may, with good reason, inquire that, woman. Our pretty provost is the sole cause. You may be thankful that you have seen my face this night." And he commenced and gave an exaggerated account of the immense wall that the provost had caused to be built, from the Crames to the Royal Exchange, reaching as high as the third story of the houses; and the great length of time he had been detained in examining it, to discover a way to get over or through it--all which the simple deaconess believed, and heartily joined her husband in abusing the provost.

"Had a wall been built across the Castlehill," she said, "when the highlandmen were in the town, and the cannon b.a.l.l.s flying down the street, I could have known the use of it; but to build a wall between the Crames and the Royal Exchange, to keep the Lawnmarket and Castlehill people from kirk and market--surely the man's mad!"

The treasurer had been for some time gone ere the worthy couple retired to rest, big with the events that were to be transacted on the morrow, for the downfall of the innovating provost. The morning was still grey, the sun was not above the horizon, when the deaconess, as was her wont, arose to begin her household duties; but, anxious to communicate the strange conduct of the provost, in raising the wall of part.i.tion in the city, she seized her water stoups, and hurried to the public well at the Bowhead, to replenish them, and ease her overcharged mind of the mighty circ.u.mstance. Early as the hour was, many of the wives of the good citizens were already there, seated on their water stoups, and awaiting their turn to be supplied--their shrill voices mixing with those of the more sonorous tones of the highland water-carriers, and rising in violent contention on the stillness of the morning, like the confusion of Babel.

The sensation caused by the relation of the deaconess of her husband's adventure of the preceding evening, was nothing impaired by the story being related at second-hand. Arms were raised in astonishment as she proceeded with her marvellous tale of the high wall built in so short a s.p.a.ce by the provost. After some time spent in fruitless debate, it was agreed that they should go down in a body and examine this bold encroachment upon the citizens--and away they went, with the indignant deaconess at their head.

For some hundred feet down the Lawnmarket, the buildings of the jail and Luckenbooths hid that part of the street from the phalanx of Amazons; but, intent to reconnoitre where the wall of offence was said to stand, they reached the Luckenbooths, and a shout of laughter and derision burst from the band. The deaconess stood petrified, the image of shame and anger. No wall was there--everything stood as it had done for years!

"Lucky d.i.c.kson," cried one, "ye hae gien us a gowk's errand. I trow the deacon has been fu' yestreen. Where is the fearfu wa' ye spak o', that he neither could get through nor owre? Ha! ha! ha!"

"Did ye really believe what he told you, Mrs. d.i.c.kson?" screamed another. "It was a silly excuse for being owre late with his cronies. He surely thinks you a silly woman to believe such tales. Were my husband to serve me so, I would let him hear of it on the deafest side of his head."

"You need not doubt but that he shall hear of it," responded the deaconess; "and that before long. But, dear me, there must have been some witchcraft played off upon him and the treasurer last night; for, as true as death, they baith said they saw it with their een. There's been glamour in it. I fear Major Weir is playing more tricks in the town than riding his coach. There was no cause to tell me a lie as an excuse, for I am always happy to see him come hame safe at ony hour."

By this time they had returned to the well, where they resumed their water vessels and hurried home, some to report the strange adventure the deacon had encountered the night before, and the deaconess to tell her better half of the delusion he had been under. Before breakfast time, the story was in every one's mouth, from the Castle to the Abbey-gate, and as far as the town extended. On a clear moonlight night, for many years afterwards, Deacon d.i.c.kson's dike was pointed out by the inhabitants; and at jovial parties we have heard it said--"Sit still a little longer; we are all sober enough to get over Deacon d.i.c.kson's wall."

The treasurer, who was not so muddled by the effect of the evening's entertainment as the deacon, yet still impressed by the idea of the wall, proceeded homewards by the same route whereby he had reached the deacon's, but now much refreshed by the walk, and night, or rather morning air--for it was nearly one o'clock. As he approached the Bow-foot Well, the sobbing of a female broke the stillness of the night: he paused for a few minutes, and, looking towards the spot from whence the sound came, urged by humanity, he drew more near, till he perceived an aged female almost concealed by the dark shade of the well, against which she leaned to support herself. As soon as he saw her distinctly, with an emotion of grief and surprise he exclaimed--