Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume VI Part 2

"And my mother kens," Janet was proceeding to say, when her mother's voice was heard, crying from the house--

"Come in, Janet--what are ye doing oot there in the cauld?--ye hae been lang enough wi' Florence the nicht--but the morn's nicht ye may speak to him as lang as ye like. Sae come in, la.s.sie."

As the reader may suppose, Madge was not one whose commands required to be uttered twice; and, with a troubled heart, Janet bade Florence "good-night," and returned to the cottage.

It was a little after sunrise on the following day, when a body of more than a hundred peasantry, agreeably to the command of the governor, appeared before the castle, laden with provisions. Some of them had the stores which they had brought upon the backs of horses, but which they placed upon their own shoulders as they approached the bridge. Amongst them were fishermen from Eyemouth and Coldingham, shepherds from the hills with slaughtered sheep, millers, and the cultivators of the patches of arable ground beyond the moor. With them, also, were a few women carrying eggs, b.u.t.ter, cheese, and poultry; and at the head of the procession (for the narrowness of the drawbridge over the frightful chasm, beyond which the castle stood, caused the company to a.s.sume the form of a procession as they entered the walls) was Madge Gordon, and her intended son-in-law, Florence Wilson.

The drawbridge had been let down to them; the last of the burden-bearers had crossed it; and Madge had reached the farthest sentinel, when suddenly dropping her basket, out from beneath her grey cloak gleamed the sword of her dead husband!

"Now, lads!--now for Scotland and our Queen!" she exclaimed, and as she spoke, the sword in her hand pierced the body of the sentinel. At the same instant every man cast his burden to the ground, a hundred hidden swords were revealed, and every sentinel was overpowered.

"Forward, lads! forward!" shouted Madge.

"Forward!" cried Florence Wilson, with his sword in his hand, leading the way. They rushed into the interior of the castle; they divided into bands. Some placed themselves before the a.r.s.enal where arms were kept, while others rushed from room to room, making prisoners of those of the garrison who yielded willingly, and showing no quarter to those who resisted. Many sought safety in flight, some flying half-naked, aroused from morning dreams after a night's carouse, and almost all fled without weapons of defence. The effect upon the garrison was as if a thunderbolt had burst in the midst of them. Within half an hour, Fast Castle was in the hands of the peasantry, and the entire soldiery who had defended it had either fled, were slain, or made prisoners.

Besides striking the first blow, Madge had not permitted the sword of her late husband to remain idle in her hands during the conflict. And, as the conquerors gathered round Florence Wilson, to acknowledge to him that to his counsel, presence of mind, and courage, as their leader, in the midst of the confusion that prevailed, they owed their victory, and the deliverance of the east of Berwickshire from its invaders, Madge pressed forward, and, presenting him her husband's sword, said--

"Tak this, my son, and keep it--it was the sword o' a brave man, and to a brave man I gie it--and this night shall ye be my son indeed."

"Thank ye, mother--mother!" said Florence. And as he spoke a faint smile crossed his features.

But scarce had he taken the sword in his hand, ere a voice was heard, crying--

"Where is he?--where shall I find him?--does he live?--where is my mother?"

"Here, love!--here! It is my Janet!" cried Florence; but his voice seemed to fail him as he spoke.

"Come here, my bairn," cried her mother, "and in the presence of these witnesses receive a hand that ye may be proud o'."

As part of the garrison fled through Coldingham, Janet had heard of the surprise by which the castle had been taken, and ran towards it to gather tidings of her mother and affianced husband; for she now knew the secret which they would not reveal to her.

As she rushed forward, the crowd that surrounded Florence gave way, and, as he moved forward to meet her, it was observed that he shook or staggered as he went; but it was thought no more of; and when she fell upon his bosom, and her mother took their hands and pressed them together, the mult.i.tude burst into a shout and blessed them. He strove to speak--he muttered the word "Janet!" but his arms fell from her neck, and he sank as lifeless on the ground.

"Florence! my Florence!--he is wounded--murdered!" cried the maiden, and she flung herself beside him on the ground.

Madge and the spectators endeavoured to raise him; but his eyes were closed; and, as he gasped, they with difficulty could understand the words he strove to utter--"Water--water!"

He had, indeed, been wounded--mortally wounded--but he spoke not of it.

They raised him in their arms and carried him to an apartment in the castle; but, ere they reached it, the spirit of Florence Wilson had fled.

Poor Janet clung to his lifeless body. She now cried--"Florence!--Florence!--we shall be married to-night?--yes!--yes!--I have everything ready!" And again she spoke bitter words to her mother, and said that she had murdered her Florence.

The spectators lifted her from his body, and Madge stood as one on whom affliction, in the midst of her triumph, had fallen as a palsy, depriving her of speech and action.

"My poor bereaved bairn!" she at length exclaimed; and she took her daughter in her arms and kissed her--"ye hae indeed cause to mourn, for Florence was a n.o.ble lad!--but, oh, dinna say it was my doing, hinny!--dinna wyte yer mother!--will ye no, Janet? It is a great comfort that Florence has died like a hero."

But Janet never was herself again. She became, as their neighbours said, a poor, melancholy, maundering creature, going about talking of her Florence and the surprise of Fast Castle, and ever ending her story--"But I maun awa hame and get ready, for Florence and I are to be married the nicht."

Madge followed her, mourning, wheresoever she went, bearing with and soothing all her humours. But she had not long to bear them; for, within two years, Janet was laid by the side of Florence Wilson, in Coldingham kirkyard; and, before another winter howled over their peaceful graves, Madge lay at rest beside them.

THE SURGEON'S TALES.

THE SOMNAMBULIST OF REDCLEUGH.

It is now many years since I visited a patient, at the distance of some sixty miles from the proper circuit of my practice. On one occasion, when with him, I received a letter from a gentleman, who subscribed himself as one of the trustees of Mr. Bernard[B] of Redcleugh, requesting me to visit, on my return home, the widow of that gentleman, who still resided in the old mansion, and whose mind had received a shock from some domestic affliction, any allusion to which was, for some reason, very specially reserved. I may remark, that I believe I owed this application to some opinions I was known to entertain on the subject of that species of insanity produced by moral causes, and which is to be carefully distinguished from the diathetic mania, so often accompanied by pathological changes in the brain. It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader, that we have always a better chance for a cure in the one case than in the other, insomuch indeed as, in the first, we have merely functional derangement; in the second, organic change. I always maintain there is no interest about insane people, except to the man of science; and even he very soon gets to that "a.s.s's bridge," on the other side of which Nature, as the genius of occult things, stands with a satirical smile on her face, as she sees the proud savans toppling over into the Lethe of sheer ignorance, and getting drowned for their insane curiosity. In the asylum in France, mentioned by De Vayer, the inmates enjoyed exceedingly the imputed madness of the visiting physician. The same play is acted in the world all throughout.

Our insanity has only a little more method in it--and while I avoid any description of the madness of Mrs. Bernard, I will have to set forth a story, which, leading to that madness, has in it apparently as much of insanity as may be found in the ravings of a maniac.

[B] I find it more convenient, in this tale, to give names to my personages, in place of initials.

I obeyed the call to Redcleugh, where I found the _res domi_ in a peculiar position. There were few inmates in the large old house.

Besides the invalid herself, there was an old cook and a butler, by name Francis, who had been in the family for many years, and whose garrulity was supplied from an inexhaustible fountain--the fate and fortunes of the Bernards. My patient was a lovely woman in body--a maniac in mind.

Her affliction had suddenly shot up into her brain, and left untouched the lineaments of her beauty, excepting the expression of the eye, which had become nervous and furtive, oscillating between the extreme of softness and the intensity of ferocity. Having been cautioned by Francis to make no allusion to her husband or to certain children, whom he named, or to the word "book," and many other things, I contented myself, in the first instance, with a general examination of her symptoms; and, as it was late before I arrived, I resolved upon remaining all night, which would enable me to see her again in the morning. I had supper served up to me by Francis, who brought me some wine which had been in the house for fifty years, and told me stories of the family, extending back twice that period. Sometimes these old legends would be interrupted for a moment by a shrill cry, coming from a source which we both knew.

All else in this house was under the spell of Angerana, the genius of silence. There is something peculiar in the sound of a common voice in a large house, filled with memorials of those who had lived in it, and yet with no living sounds to break the dull heavy air, which seems to thicken by not being moved. It appeared as if I had been suddenly thrown into a region of romance, but my experiences were not pleasant. I wished to escape to my own professional thoughts again, and desired to go to bed.

I was accordingly, not without some efforts on the part of my entertainer to prolong his stories, ushered into my bed-room--a large apartment, hung with pictures, some very old, and some very new. Francis put the candle down, and left me. It was not long before I was undressed and under the bed-clothes; but not being sure about sleeping, I left the candle burning, intending to rise and extinguish it when I found myself more inclined to fall over into the rest I required. The old legends began to pa.s.s through my mind, and I was engrossed with the spirit of the past. Time makes poetry out of very common things, and then we are to remember, what we do not often think of, that the most ordinary life cannot be pa.s.sed without encountering some incidents which smack of the romantic. Nay, every man's life, as a bright gleam thrown on the dark abyss which separates him from eternity, is all through a romance, in the midst of that greater one, seen by us only as shadows--the negatives of some positives, perhaps, witnessed by eyes on the other side. I have always been tinged by something of the spirit of old Bruno, that dreamer, whose most real realities were no other than umbery forms--flakes of shadow--cast off by a central light from the real objects, of which we are the mere shadowy representatives. All the breathing, throbbing, active beings, who for two hundred years had run along these narrow pa.s.sages of the old house, and peered into half-open doors, or out of the small skew-topped windows--danced, sang, laughed and wept--died, and been carried out--were to each other as such umbery things; and I, the present subsisting shadow, received them all into my living microcosm, where, as in a mirror, they existed again, scarcely less shadowy than before.

Somehow or another I could not get to sleep; not that I had any fears: these were out of the question with me. My vigils were attributable to a fancy, wrought upon by the recitals of the old butler, ill.u.s.trated by the very concrete things which had been used by the personages he described. There were the chairs they sat on, the beds they slept on, the piano they played on, all as they had been left. It was impossible for me to conceive that there was yet no connection between these things and the old family. The pictures, too, were still there, in the various rooms, some of them in my bed-room. The light of my eyes seemed to have disenchanted these silent staring personages. They came forth and occupied themselves as they had been wont before they became pictures.

The chair of the first of the late Mr. Bernard's two wives--that "angel whose look was an eternal smile," as Francis poetically described her--appeared to have the power of drawing her down into it; but then the attraction was not less for the second wife, "whose fate was a terrible mystery;" and thus would I get confused. Then, to which of these did the little dark fellow on the south wall belong--he who seemed to have been scorched by too strong a sun--and the girl beside them, who looked as if she had been blanched by too bright a moon--which of the two was her mother?

At last I got out of bed, and rummaged for some stray volume to disenchant me out of the imaginary world of these Bernards. I drew out one or two drawers, which had been so long shut that they had lost their allegiance to the hand. I peered into an escritoire, and another old cabinet, which creaked and groaned at being disturbed by a hand not a Bernard's. All was empty. There was one drawer which refused to come out to the full extent. Something seemed to be jammed between it and the back of the escritoire. Man is an enterprising animal; a little resistance sets his energies a-spring. I would not be baulked. I would know what the impediment was and work out the solution of the difficulty. By pulling hard the obstacle gave way. The drawer followed my hand, while my body fell back on the floor. Psha! some stray leaves of an old pamphlet fluttered about. I had dismembered the obstacle, and would now collect the fragments. I had got for my pains an old brochure, embellished by dreadful woodcuts, of the old Newgate calender style, and ent.i.tled, "The true and genuine history of the murderer, Jane Grierson, who poisoned her mistress, and thereby became the wife of her master, Josiah Temple;" the date 1742. I was no fancier of awful histories of murderers, yet I would read myself asleep amidst horrors rather than lie with my imagination in wakeful subjugation to the images of these eternal Bernards. Bernard still! on the top of the t.i.tle page was written "Amelia Bernard." The charm was here too. Which of these fair creatures on the wall was the proprietor of this brochure? She had read it surely with care. She must have cherished it, or why identify it as her own? Perhaps she was a lover of old books; it could not be that she was a lover of cruel stories. Those eyes were made for throwing forth the lambent light of affection and love; how unlike to the staring blood-shot orbs of that Jane Grierson on that terrific woodcut! Yet, true to the nature of my species, at least my s.e.x, I found in the grim pamphlet that inexpressible something which recommends coa.r.s.e recitals of human depravity even to cultivated minds, and which consists probably in the conformity between the thing itself and the description of it; the rugged words, semblances of the rugged implements, and the savage actions of cruelty, address themselves to the latent barbarism which lies as the lowest stratum of our many piled nature, and receive the savage response at the moment we blush for humanity. These dire images of the murderer's story were stronger than those of the Bernards--even of those lovely faces on the wall--and as the candle burned down, and the red wick grew up, I read and read on, how the cruel fiend did destroy while she fawned upon her victim; how that victim, overcome by the kindness of her enemy, praised her to her husband, who loved his wife to distraction; and how she, even in her devoted grat.i.tude, recommended her murderer as her successor to the bed she lay on, and to those arms where she so often had enjoyed the pressure of his love. Nor was the recommendation ineffectual, for the said wicked Jane did become the wife of her victim's husband. The old horrid savagery of our criminal literature!--not yet abated--never to be abated--only glossed with tropes and figures more hideous than the plain narrative of blood.

It was a vain thought that I should read myself asleep among the terrible images suggested by my brochure. I was even more vigilant than before. Then, that Francis seemed never at rest; I heard him clambering up stairs, tramping along pa.s.sages, shutting doors, speaking to himself, just as if all the actions of his prior life were being gone over again.

I would have another visit, and another long narrative of some Bernard, whose picture was somewhere in a red or blue room, and who had been, as usual, with all those bearded individuals who hung on walls, either at the crusades under Peter the hermit, or at Flodden under James, or at Culloden under Charles. The clock struck, with a sound of grating rust, two; and--tramp, tramp--he trudged along the pa.s.sage. The door opened, and in came my chronicler.

"Doctor, I saw your light," said he, "and you know it was always my duty, when the family were in their old home here, to see that all the lights were out o' nights; aye ever after the east wing was burned down, through aunt Marjory's love of reading old romances. I hope I did not disturb you."

"No," replied I; "pray, Francis, I need not ask which of these two pictured beauties is Amelia, my patient? The likeness is good."

"Yes, there she is," said he, with a return of his old enthusiasm. "See her light locks and her blue eyes. She was the mother of that fair child. Don't you see the daughter in the mother and the mother in the daughter? But I cannot look long on these pictures. My heart fails and my head runs round. Look at the dark one. It was a terrible night that when she came to Redcleugh. My wife, who now lies in Deathscroft, down among the elms yonder, could not sleep for the screeching of the owls, as if every horned devil of them shouted woe! woe!--to the house of Redcleugh."

"Nonsense, Francis, omens--all nonsense," I said, interrupting him.

"So said I to Christy, just as you say, doctor. So say we all, every one of us, here and everywhere, always, just until we are pulled up at a jerk by some one of G.o.d's acts, when we see His finger pointed to the sign. You are not so old as I am, and have something to learn. Signs are made only when there are to be judgments, and judgments are not according to the common ways of heaven."

"What did Mr. Bernard do," asked I, "to bring upon him this judgment which appears to you to have been so fearful?"

"I am not in the secrets of G.o.d's ways with erring man," replied he.

"But who can tell how my master got Lillah--that's her there with these dark eyes--his first wife? He had been away for years in the eastern countries, and he never wrote to any one that he was to bring a wife with him. He brought her, amidst the storm of that fearful night, as if she had been a bird which he had rescued from the blast, so cowering and timid did she appear, always clinging to the laird, and looking at him with such beseeching eyes, and so unlike the women of our land--aye, for it was no northern sun lighted up these eyes; and as for a heathen faith imparting such gentleness, we could understand it no way. 'Twas all a hurry in Redcleugh as well as a sort of fright among us in the hall, every one whispering and wondering and questioning all to no end; for from that night we never knew more of her home or kindred, save that it was suspected she was a Circa.s.sian, and had left a n.o.ble home for the love she bore to master. Nor was she ever inquired after by her friends, except once, when a great eastern lord, as they said, came in a strange equipage to see her; but her change to a Christian shocked and angered him, so that high words rose and even reached our ears. He spoke of the faith she had forsworn, of Allah, and Mahomet, and the Koran, and she with tears responded Christ, the Saviour of all mankind, and his holy mother, and the cross of Calvary, so that he was made more angry; and then he spoke of Euphrosyne, her mother, as we thought, and again the tears rolled down these cheeks, as she clung to master and lay upon his neck, sobbing as if her heart would burst in the battle between the daughter and the wife. The stranger departed in anger, nor did he break his fast at Redcleugh, and many a day afterwards my young lady was in tears. 'Twas not long till she had that boy, whom she bore after many days of labour, with such pain that there was not a servant in the household did not look as if her own salvation depended upon the issue of that protracted struggle, so beloved was she, sir; so respected, so adored, so pitied; and as for Mr. Bernard, he was not himself--scarcely a man--and little wonder either, for his face was ever the attraction of her eyes, and every look seemed to be watched by her as if all her happiness hung upon one of his smiles. Such doings were the wonder of us all in these parts; for you know we are rougher lovers in our cold land, and neither Christy, nor I, nor any of us, could understand how, on the face of this earth, there could be such affection--not a single drop of bitterness, not a ruffle on the smooth surface. Why, sir! did we not all, to satisfy our self-love, and our country's custom, call it very idolatry; but it was only a little envy which we, as it were, stole to ourselves, as a sweet unction to our sores, and when these were mended we loved her the more--nay, we could do nothing less; for even the devil's spleen couldn't detect an unevenness to hang upon it a suspicion against her."

"You are even more partial, Francis, than the painter," said I, "whom I have been charging with the fault of drawing upon his fancy to enable him to draw upon our credulity. She looks scarcely earthly."

"It's no use my description, sir. There are certain perfections we cannot attribute to G.o.d's creatures, because we suffer by the comparison. They say if there's not now and then a little anger there's a want. Oh! they will say G.o.d's image is not perfect if it have not a dash of our own evil in it. But experience is the mother of wonders as well as wisdom. Aye, sir, years of intercourse, even at a servant's distance, are worth more than your theories in these days."

"I suspect you have been in the library, Francis," said I; "you have opened books as well as bottles."