Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume VIII Part 25

"The season is backward; I have some," replied he, "but they are a little high-priced."

"So much the better--send half-a-crown's worth with the duck, for me and my friends."

"Well, Kay, you always do the thing genteelly; but who is this friend of yours?" said a fat little man, in very rusty black, of a clerical cut.

"An old messmate of mine, I met by chance to-day--a real good un."

"As Mr Kay's friend, I drink your health, and our better acquaintance."

"Thank you, doctor," said Kay; and I did the same.

After every one had satisfied his appet.i.te, and got his liquor before him, the noise of voices, joined to the boisterous laughter, was absolutely deafening--all were in committees of twos and threes, talking. I began to despair of getting my curiosity gratified by Betsy on the spot; for the noise was so great that to whisper was impossible.

Never in my life had I witnessed such unbounded apparent happiness and glee--all was enjoyment. At length a little hunch-backed caricature of a man leaped upon the head of the table, and, seated like a Turk, crosslegged, struck the table with a wooden mallet, and, in a hoa.r.s.e, croaking voice, commanded silence and attention to their president for the night. In a minute all was still. Without rising to his feet, he croaked forth--

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are met here to forget the cares and toils of the day. You have all (or you have your purse to blame) had your pleasure of the eatables--of the drinkables you shall have the same provided. I add no more, save a word for our worthy landlord. He says, if we do not be less noisy, and give him less trouble than the last time we met, he must either cease to enjoy our company, or be on more intimate terms with the magistrates--an honour he does not covet. He has been a man to be sought after by the authorities already. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I call on Rhyming Bob for his last new song--ruff him in.

Up rose a tall, gaunt, shabby-genteel, pale-looking figure, bowed to the company, and began, in a cracked voice, affectedly to chant some doggerel verses against the Ministers of State. I looked inquiringly at Betsy.

"Oh, that is the poet," said she; "a gentle beggar by nature and profession, he has no shift but his verses, and a poor shift it makes for him. He bothers the gentry with his rhymes; sometimes gets kicked out, sometimes a six-pence. Hand him, when done, a gla.s.s Bill; he has been more fortunate than usual, if he has one of his own. He had better attended to teaching his scholars than song-writing. Our friend the doctor here is also a gentle beggar--he gets nothing on the streets and highways--he writes a good letter as a distressed clergyman or reduced man of education, and lives well, as you see. A great number, almost all the maimed, are jolly beggars, like Bill, and what you are to be. They have numerous ways of earning a subsistence, and spend it as freely.

They never take anything save money in charity, for, poor souls, they are too feeble to carry heavy gifts."

The noisy applause of the poet's song put a stop to our whispering. When order was restored, Mrs Kay was called upon for a song. Betsy immediately stood up in her old woman's attire, and astonished me, little as I know of music, by the sweetness of her voice, and the effect with which she sang, "An old woman clothed in grey." Twice was she obliged to sing it to the company, which she did with the utmost good nature. When the deafening applause had abated, or, I may rather say, the storm of noises had ceased, a stout, red-haired, broad-shouldered, rather shortish man was called upon to sing. He gave a Welsh song, the air of which was pretty, but the words uncouth to my ear.

"That is one of the st.u.r.dy beggars," said Betsy; "he refuses nothing that is given him, carries all upon his person, and often, before he reaches the proper place to dispose of his gatherings, they amount to the weight of many stones. He always tells the charitable, when asked what is his complaint that prevents him from working--I can't speak the Welsh word, but it means 'sheer laziness.' The people are confounded at the, to them, unintelligible and strange name of the disease, and are ready to relieve the afflicted man. Once or twice, they say, he has been detected by countrymen of his own, who laughed at his impudence, and gave the true meaning of the words. The st.u.r.dies are a numerous cla.s.s.

The randies are nearly, if not, of the same cla.s.s; they abuse and threaten until they are supplied, when they dare with impunity. The humble, poor creatures are old or real cripples--take what they get, and are thankful; there is not one of them here this night that I see."

We had now sat in the pandemonium for nearly three hours. The potency of the liquor had for some time began to preponderate--angry words were exchanging, and some were sleeping, with their heads leaning upon the table. Bill himself was more than half-seas over, and began to bawl out a sea-song. Betsy and I endeavoured to keep him in order, and wished him to retire. We had succeeded, and were rising to leave the company--Bill only half-inclined--when a stranger entered the hall of confusion and drunkenness. We were on our feet. I saw Betsy turn pale as death, and turn her head aside. A number of voices called out, "Hurrah! hurrah!

here is Long Ned." A young female, whose eye I had noticed was seldom turned from where we sat, cried out--

"Betsy, you are not going away because your old sweetheart, Long Ned, has come in?"

"Shiver my timbers if we are!" cried Bill; and in a moment sat down and called for more liquor. I, as well as Betsy, saw that the envious female was bent on mischief; but how to prevent it I knew not. Long Ned had seated himself at the other side of the table, gloomy as Satan. I felt her tremble, as she sat by my side, I believe more through rage at the female than fear. Long Ned was evidently bent on some mischief or other, and he was quite sober. Bill and he eyed each other for some time. Betsy was coaxing him, to get him away, as well as myself.

"No, I will not leave the room," he said, "while that scoundrel is in it; I will face him, or fight him out, if he says an uncivil word to you or myself."

The same female sat only one seat from him; I saw them whispering together. Betsy's dark eyes glanced fire. She unbuckled his timber leg, and took it off. Scarce was this done, when Ned said aloud--

"Tell me, Kay, how much you have sold the jilt Bessy for. I see she is very gracious with your ac----" He had only got thus far, when the wooden leg was launched across the table, and felled him to the ground.

A scene of uproar and confusion no words can express ensued; the lights were extinguished; blows were dealt furiously around; and the sleepers awoke and joined in the strife. Bitterly did I regret my curiosity, as well as the bondage my arm was in from its long confinement; it was benumbed and painful. As I had no immediate interest in the strife, I retired to one corner of the room, where I found several as anxious as myself to escape. Shouts of murder and groans were mixed with vengeful cries. At length the door was burst open, and a body of constables entered. The moment I saw this I slipped along the side of the room and darted past them, receiving in my flight several severe blows, and leaving the skirts and b.r.e.a.s.t.s of my jacket in the hands of those in the way who attempted to stop my career. I turned down the first opening I came to, and ceased to run, as no one appeared to follow me.

Fortunately, I had the old canva.s.s trousers and vest above my own, in which was secured my guineas and silver. With some difficulty I freed myself from the jacket, then I with ease got off the others, and had the mortification to find myself, pretty late in the evening, without a lodging, jacket, or hat.

As I began to cool, and find myself secure from pursuit, the contusions I had received from the staves of the constables pained me very much, particularly one I had received upon the head; I put up my hand, and found it bleeding pretty fresh. Thus was I in a fine mess to seek for a decent lodging, or account for my present plight. As I turned over in my mind for a plausible story, I perceived a respectable-looking inn still open, and made straight for it. There were several seafaring men, like captains of coasters, sitting in the tap. When I entered, all eyes were turned upon me. The landlord insisted upon turning me out, without allowing me to speak. The company took my part, and insisted that I should be heard. I had now my story ready as near the truth as I dared--I told them I was a stranger from Scotland, on my way to London, in quest of a vessel, and had only arrived in the town that evening, when I had had a quarrel and fight, having been insulted, and some one had carried off my hat, jacket, and bundle; but that I had plenty of money to pay my way. As soon as I had finished, the landlord became all civility; I got my head bound up, and a good lodging, and got intimate with one or two of the captains before I retired to bed.

Next morning my head ached, but nothing to speak of. I arose, sent for a dealer in clothes, and purchased a jacket and hat, had breakfast, and took a walk through the town. As I did not intend to leave it until I had heard the issue of the brawl, nothing else was talked of. The fight between them and the constables had been long and severe, for they made a desperate resistance; and it was not until several of the inhabitants had reinforced the civil power, that the beggars were secured, and lodged in jail, male and female. I wished only to know the fate of Bill and Betsy, and then started upon my journey--I wished to have no further intercourse with them. My bundle, and necessaries in it, I had given up for lost, unless they were liberated, at least Betsy, through the course of the day. I could not have found my way to their room without inquiry; and this it was neither prudent nor of any use to make, until they were liberated. Well, the magistrates were busy examining them, I was told, the whole forenoon, and the issue was, that all the able-bodied rascals--Bill amongst the rest--were sent to man His Majesty's navy, and the females were to be confined, and then banished the town for ever.

I returned to my inn, and, by appointment, met my new acquaintances, the captains;--one of them, the captain of a brig, was loading grain for London. I was weary of walking on foot, and agreed with him for a pa.s.sage, leaving my conductors to the beggars' ball in durance; the males expecting to be sent off in a day or two, and the females making out their solitary confinement, preparatory to their banishment.

LEEIN JAMIE MURDIESTON.

With the exception of one unhappy failing, delicately hinted at in the t.i.tle of this sketch, there was nothing really bad in the character of Mr. James Murdieston. He was an honest, civil, inoffensive, and obliging man; but--we neither can nor will conceal the fact--a most determined inventor. Yet his lies had no malevolence in them. They were all of the vainglorious kind, and never bore reference to any man or woman's character or affairs. On the whole, as defensible as lies can be, they were also as harmless. To profession, an enlightener of the world, not as a philosopher or teacher of science, but simply as a candle-maker, he was so far a benefactor of mankind, but on a very humble scale--having only the wants of a very small village to supply with the produce of his manufacture.

With this preamble, we proceed to say, that it happened once upon a time that Jamie Murdieston had to go to Glasgow, on some particular business--we believe it was to make a purchase of tallow. On this occasion, as on all others when his presence was necessary in the western metropolis, Jamie took the coach--an opportunity which he always prized highly, as affording him admirable scope for the exercise of his talent for romancing. At home, where his propensity was well known, he could get few listeners and still fewer believers; but, on the top of a coach, where he was not known, he was always sure of finding both; and he never failed to make an excellent use of his advantage. It was a great comfort and satisfaction to Jamie, when he stumbled on an unwincing believer. It was a perfect treat to him, since it was one which he rarely enjoyed. On the occasion of which we are speaking--namely, Jamie's visit to Glasgow--he found himself, on ascending the coach, seated beside a very engaging young lady, who had preferred the outside to the inside, on account of the extreme warmth of the weather, and also for the purpose, as she herself informed Jamie, of more fully enjoying the scenery through which they might pa.s.s.

"Quite richt, mem," replied Jamie, on his fair and frank fellow-traveller informing him of this last particular, as they rolled along. "Quite right, mem; for the kintra hereawa is just uncommon beautifu--just uncommon. Do ye see, mem, that bit glisk o' the Clyde, there?--that's a spot I should mind weel, and I will mind it till the day o' my death."

"Indeed, sir!" said the young lady to whom these remarks were addressed.

"Pray, what circ.u.mstance is it, may I ask, which so solemnly binds your recollections to that particular locality?"

"A melancholy aneugh are, I a.s.sure ye mem; that's to say, it micht hae been melancholy, an it warna that Providence had sent me just in time to save the life o' a fellow-cratur."

On this communication being made to her, the young lady for whose edification it was intended discovered a degree of agitation and surprise, for which the circ.u.mstance itself would hardly account. As it escaped Jamie's notice, however, and she was aware that it did so, she merely said--"Dear me, sir, what was the occurrence you allude to, and when did it happen?" But there was an eagerness and an anxiety in her manner, when putting these queries, which she could not altogether conceal. Jamie observed it with inward satisfaction, hailing it as an a.s.surance that whatever he might communicate would be at once taken for gospel. Feeling thus encouraged, Jamie replied--

"I'll tell ye a' aboot it, mem. Ye see it was just aboot this time twelmonth, I think--yes, just exactly aboot this time--that, as I was ae day fishin in the Clyde, at the spot I pointed oot to ye, I was suddenly startled by hearin an awful scream, and, immediately after, a tremendous splash in the water. 'Somebody fa'en in!' says I; and I instantly flang doon my rod, on which I had, at the moment, a saumont fifty pun wecht, if he was an unce--and ran roun the bit projectin bank that had keepit me frae actually seein what had happened. A weel, on doin this, doesna I see a woman's bonnet floatin on the water--it was a' I could see--and gann fast doun wi' the stream, which was geyley swelled at the time.

Soon becomin aware that the bonnet was on the head o' some unfortunate person, and that she maun perish in a few seconds, if no attempt was made to rescue her, I, without a moment's thocht, threw aff my coat and shoon, and jumped in after her; and, as gude luck wad hae't, was the means o' savin her life; but it was a teuch job, for, by the time I reached her, she had sunk, and it wasna till I had dived three times that I got haud o' her. But I _did_ get a grup o' her; and I a.s.sure ye I held it, and never let it go till I had her safely on the bank, puir thing, and a bit bonny cratur she was."

Thus far had Jamie got in his interesting story, and much further he would have gone, had he not been suddenly interrupted by his fair auditor, who, seizing him by the hand, in a transport of joy and surprise, exclaimed--

"O my deliverer, my deliverer!--_I_ was the person whom you saved; and delighted will my father, who's inside the coach, be, when he learns we have found you at last. But why, why," continued the grateful girl, looking all the grat.i.tude she felt in Jamie's face--"why did you so abruptly and suddenly withdraw yourself, after having done such a generous and n.o.ble deed? We could never find you out, nor obtain the smallest trace of you, although hardly a day has pa.s.sed since then that we have not made some attempt to accomplish either the one or the other.

It was cruel of you not to afford us an opportunity of evincing the deep and everlasting grat.i.tude we felt towards you."

We leave the reader to conjecture what was Jamie's amazement on finding himself thus addressed by his fair companion; for we suppose we need hardly say that every word of his story about rescuing a young lady from drowning was a lie--an unmitigated, and, so far as he knew certainly, an utterly foundationless lie. Well may we then, we think, call on the reader to conceive, if he can, Jamie's surprise, when he found his narrative thus strangely converted into truth. He by no means liked it, for it threatened to lead to some awkward discoveries; and, under this impression, he endeavoured to back out, and to separate the two cases by some additional remarks.

"That's odd," he said, on the young lady's imposing on him the character of her deliverer--"verra odd," he repeated, but with considerable embarra.s.sment in his manner; "but I dinna think ye're the young leddy I saved that day; she was a hantle stouter than you, and a guid deal aulder."

"The very same, the very same, I a.s.sure you, sir," rejoined his fair companion, laughingly. "There was no accident of the kind you mentioned, at the place you pointed out, during all last summer, but my own. This I know, from our having lived there from the month of March to October. So you must not attempt to balk me of the happiness of believing I have found my deliverer."

Here, then, was a poser for Jamie. The young lady, it seems, was familiar with the place, and knew that no accident, except the one which, by so odd and unhappy a coincidence for Jamie's veracity, had befallen herself, had occurred there at the period he stated. He must, therefore, either confess to a lie, or quietly pocket the compliments that were thrust on him. On the latter he naturally enough determined; but he wanted no more acknowledgments, as he found them sit on him rather awkwardly. In truth, he now began to show as great a reluctance to advert to the subject as he had before shown forwardness, and was most evidently desirous of waiving it altogether; but this his fair companion would by no means allow. She was by far too full of the extraordinary chance, and extraordinary good fortune, as she reckoned it, of having thus so strangely met with her deliverer, to allow the matter to drop.

Before going further, we may as well advert to a circ.u.mstance which may have a little startled the reader. This is, how it should have happened that Jamie's story of a rescue should have had a counterpart in fact. As to this matter, we can only vouch for its being perfectly true. It was a coincidence--certainly an odd one, but not more odd than many that have happened, and are daily occurring. The facts of the case, as we may say, were these:--The young lady's father, who was a wealthy Glasgow merchant, possessed a very pretty little cottage, which he and his family occasionally occupied during the summer months, at a short distance from the banks of the Clyde, and near to the very spot which Jamie had so unfortunately chosen as the scene of his exploit; and, still more unluckly for Jamie, it happened that the young lady in question had actually met with such an accident as that which formed the groundwork of his romance. Moreover, she had, in the case alluded to, been rescued from a watery grave by a person who chanced to be angling near the spot at the time; but this person had no sooner brought her on sh.o.r.e, being a.s.sured that her recovery was certain, although she appeared at the time insensible, and seen her safely in the charge of some people who had hurried to the scene of the accident, than he had suddenly and abruptly withdrawn, and was no more seen or heard of.

These, then, were the facts of that case which so strangely tallied with Jamie's fiction. It is true that, had the fact and the fiction been carefully collated, a good many small discrepancies would have appeared, that would have at once stripped Jamie of his self-a.s.sumed honours; but this not having been done, and the leading incident being the same in both, no such result took place.

To resume our story. On the arrival of the coach at Glasgow--an event to which Jamie had been looking forward with great impatience, as the only occurrence that could relieve him from his present awkward predicament--he bade his fair companion a hurried good-by, and, heedless of her remonstrances and entreaties, was hastening down the side of the coach, to make his escape, when the father of the young lady, to whom the latter had hastily communicated the discovery of her deliverer, by leaning over the top of the coach, and speaking through the upper part of the doorway, suddenly intercepted him.

"Too bad, sir, too bad," said the old gentleman, smilingly, "to try and escape us again. But we have you this time, and will take care that you do not." Saying this, Mr. Alston held out his hand to Jamie, and, on grasping the latter's, shook it with the most cordial warmth, expressing, at the same time, the deepest sense of the mighty obligation under which he lay to him, for having so n.o.bly saved his daughter from an untimely death--"An obligation," said the good old gentleman, "which I can never repay."

"Dinna speak o't, sir, dinna speak o't," said Jamie, in the greatest embarra.s.sment, and wishing, the while, that his tongue had been blistered when he first opened his mouth on the ill-starred subject of the rescuing. "Dinna speak o't," he said, "it't just what ae fellow-cratur should do for anither." And, having said this, Jamie was about to make a sudden bolt, when the old gentleman, perceiving his intention, dexterously hooked his arm within Jamie's right; while his daughter, who had by this time joined them, did the same by his left, and thus secured him.

"Away from us you shall not get," said Mr. Alston.

"Indeed you shall not," interposed his daughter.

"You must go home with us," resumed the former, "and receive the thanks of my dear wife, who will be delighted to see you, and those of Ellen's brothers and sisters. They are all, I a.s.sure you, as grateful to you as either I or Ellen herself can possibly be."