Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume I Part 3

"Proud, pitiless fool," resumed Elspeth, more bitterly than before, "repress your scorn. Whom, think ye, ye treat wi' contempt? Ken ye not that the humble adder which ye tread upon can destroy ye--that the very wasp can sting ye, and there is poison in its sting? Ye laugh, but for your want of humanity this night, sorrow shall turn your head grey, lang before age sit down upon your brow."

"Off! off! ye wretches!" added the laird; "vent your threats on the wind, if it will hear ye, for I regard them as little as it will. But keep out o' my way for the future, as ye would escape the honours o' a hempen cravat, and the hereditary exaltation o' your race."

Willie Faa made a sign to his followers, and without speaking they instantly rose and departed; but, as he himself reached the door, he turned round, and significantly striking the hilt of his dagger, exclaimed--

"Clennel! ye shall rue it!"

And the hoa.r.s.e voice of Elspeth without, as the sound was borne away on the storm, was heard crying--"He shall rue it!" and repeating her imprecations.

Until now, poor Andrew Smith had lain groaning upon the floor more dead than alive, though not exactly "stone dead" as he expressed it; and ever, as he heard his master's angry voice, he groaned the more, until in his agony he doubted his existence. When, therefore, on the departure of the Faas, the laird dragged him to his feet, and feeling some pity for his terror, spoke to him more mildly, Andrew gazed vacantly around him, his teeth chattering together, and he first placed his hands upon his sides, to feel whether he was still indeed the identical flesh, blood, and bones of Andrew Smith, or his disembodied spirit; and being a.s.sured that he was still a man, he put down his hand to feel for his chronometer, and again he groaned bitterly--and although he now knew he was not dead, he almost wished he were so. The other servants thought also of their money and their trinkets, which, as well as poor Andrew's chronometer, Elspeth, in the hurry in which she was rudely driven from the house, had, by a slip of memory, neglected to return to their lawful owners.

It is unnecessary to dwell upon the laird's anger at his domestics, or farther to describe Andrew's agitation; but I may say that the laird was not wroth against the Faa gang without reason. They had committed ravages on his flocks--they had carried off the choicest of his oxen--they destroyed his deer--they plundered him of his poultry--and they even made free with the grain that he reared, and which he could spare least of all. But Willie Faa considered every landed proprietor as his enemy, and thought it his duty to quarter on them. Moreover, it was his boisterous laugh, as he pushed round the tankard, which aroused the laird from his slumbers, and broke Elspeth's spell. And the destruction of the charm, by the appearance of their master, before she had washed her hands in Darden Lough, caused those who had parted with their money and trinkets to grieve for them the more, and to doubt the promises of the prophetess, or to

"Take all for gospel that the spaefolk say."

Many weeks, however, had not pa.s.sed until the laird of Clennel found that Elspeth the gipsy's threat, that he should "_rue it_," meant more than idle words. His cattle sickened and died in their stalls, or the choicest of them disappeared; his favourite horses were found maimed in the mornings, wounded and bleeding in the fields; and, notwithstanding the vigilance of his shepherds, the depredations on his flocks augmented tenfold. He doubted not but that Willie Faa and his tribe were the authors of all the evils which were besetting him: but he knew also their power and their matchless craft, which rendered it almost impossible either to detect or punish them. He had a favourite steed, which had borne him in boyhood, and in battle when he served in foreign wars, and one morning when he went into his park, he found it lying bleeding upon the ground. Grief and indignation strove together in arousing revenge within his bosom. He ordered his s.l.u.thhound to be brought, and his dependants to be summoned together, and to bring arms with them. He had previously observed foot-prints on the ground, and he exclaimed--

"Now the fiend take the Faas, they shall find whose turn it is to rue before the sun gae down."

The gong was pealed on the turrets of Clennel Hall, and the kempers with their poles bounded in every direction, with the fleetness of mountain stags, to summon all capable of bearing arms to the presence of the laird. The mandate was readily obeyed; and within two hours thirty armed men appeared in the park. The s.l.u.thhound was led to the footprint; and after following it for many a weary mile over moss, moor, and mountain, it stood and howled, and lashed its lips with its tongue, and again ran as though its prey were at hand, as it approached what might be called a gap in the wilderness between Keyheugh and Clovencrag.

Now, in the s.p.a.ce between these desolate crags stood some score of peels, or rather half hovels, half encampments--and this primitive city in the wilderness was the capital of the Faa king's people.

"Now for vengeance!" exclaimed Clennel; and his desire of revenge was excited the more from perceiving several of the choicest of his cattle, which had disappeared, grazing before the doors or holes of the gipsy village.

"Bring whins and heather," he continued--"pile them around it, and burn the den of thieves to the ground."

His order was speedily obeyed, and when he commanded the trumpet to be sounded, that the inmates might defend themselves if they dared, only two or three men and women of extreme age, and some half-dozen children, crawled upon their hands and knees from the huts--for it was impossible to stand upright in them.

The aged men and women howled when they beheld the work of destruction that was in preparation, and the children screamed when they heard them howl. But the laird of Clennel had been injured, and he turned a deaf ear to their misery. A light was struck, and a dozen torches applied at once. The whins crackled, the heather blazed, and the flames overtopped the hovels which they surrounded, and which within an hour became a heap of smouldering ashes.

Clennel and his dependants returned home, driving the cattle which had been stolen from him before them, and rejoicing in what they had done.

On the following day, Willie Faa and a part of his tribe returned to the place of rendezvous--their city and home in the mountains--and they found it a heap of smoking ruins, and the old men and the old women of the tribe--their fathers and their mothers--sitting wailing upon the ruins, and warming over them their shivering limbs, while the children wept around them for food.

"Whose work is this?" inquired Willie, while anxiety and anger flashed in his eyes.

"The Laird o' Clennel!--the Laird o' Clennel!" answered every voice at the same instant.

"By this I swear!" exclaimed the king of the Faas, drawing his dagger from beneath his coat, "from this night henceforth he is laird nor man nae langer." And he turned hastily from the ruins, as if to put his threat in execution.

"Stay, ye madcap!" cried Elspeth, following him, "would ye fling away revenge for half a minute's satisfaction?"

"No, wife," cried he, "nae mair than I would sacrifice living a free and a fu' life for half an hour's hangin'."

"Stop, then," returned she, "and let our vengeance fa' upon him, so that it may wring his life away, drap by drap, until his heart be dry; and grief, shame, and sorrow burn him up, as he has here burned house and home o' Elspeth Faa and her kindred."

"What mean ye, woman?" said Willie, hastily; "if I thought ye would come between me and my revenge, I would drive this bit steel through you wi'

as goodwill as I shall drive it through him."

"And ye shall be welcome," said Elspeth. She drew him aside, and whispered a few minutes in his ear. He listened attentively. At times he seemed to start, and at length, sheathing his dagger and grasping her hand, he exclaimed--"Excellent, Elspeth!--ye have it!--ye have it!"

At this period, the laird of Clennel was about thirty years of age, and two years before he had been married to Eleanor de Vere, a lady alike distinguished for her beauty and accomplishments. They had an infant son, who was the delight of his mother, and his father's pride. Now, for two years after the conflagration of their little town, Clennel heard nothing of his old enemies the Faas, neither did they molest him, nor had they been seen in the neighbourhood, and he rejoiced in having cleared his estate of such dangerous visitors. But the Faa king, listening to the advice of his wife, only "nursed his wrath to keep it warm," and retired from the neighbourhood, that he might accomplish, in its proper season, his design of vengeance more effectually, and with greater cruelty.

The infant heir of the house of Clennel had been named Henry, and he was about completing his third year--an age at which children are, perhaps, most interesting, and when their fondling and their prattling sink deepest into a parent's heart--for all is then beheld on childhood's sunny side, and all is innocence and love. Now, it was in a lovely day in April, when every bird had begun its annual song, and flowers were bursting into beauty, buds into leaves, and the earth resuming its green mantle, when Lady Clennel and her infant son, who then, as I have said, was about three years of age, went forth to enjoy the loveliness and the luxuries of nature, in the woods which surrounded their mansion, and Andrew Smith accompanied them as their guide and protector. They had proceeded somewhat more than a mile from the house, and the child, at intervals breaking away from them, sometimes ran before his mother, and at others sauntered behind her, pulling the wild flowers that strewed their path, when a man, springing from a dark thicket, seized the child in his arms, and again darted into the wood. Lady Clennel screamed aloud, and rushed after him. Andrew, who was coming dreaming behind, got but a glance of the ruffian stranger--but that glance was enough to reveal to him the tall, terrible figure of Willie Faa, the Gipsy king.

There are moments when, and circ.u.mstances under which even cowards become courageous, and this was one of those moments and circ.u.mstances which suddenly inspired Andrew (who was naturally no hero) with courage.

He, indeed, loved the child as though he had been his own; and following the example of Lady Clennel, he drew his sword and rushed into the wood.

He possessed considerable speed of foot, and he soon pa.s.sed the wretched mother, and came in sight of the pursued. The unhappy lady, who ran panting and screaming as she rushed along, unable to keep pace with them, lost all trace of where the robber of her child had fled, and her cries of agony and bereavement rang through the woods.

Andrew, however, though he did not gain ground upon the gipsy, still kept within sight of him, and shouted to him as he ran, saying that all the dependants of Clennel would soon be on horseback at his heels, and trusting that every moment he would drop the child upon the ground.

Still Faa flew forward, bearing the boy in his arm, and disregarding the cries and threats of his pursuer. He knew that Andrew's was not what could be called a heart of steel, but he was aware that he had a powerful arm, and could use a sword as well as a better man; and he knew also that cowards will fight as desperately, when their life is at stake, as the brave.

The desperate chase continued for four hours, and till after the sun had set, and the gloaming was falling thick on the hills. Andrew, being younger and unenc.u.mbered, had at length gained ground upon the gipsy, and was within ten yards of him when he reached the Coquet side, about a mile below this town, at the hideous Thrumb, where the deep river, for many yards, rushes through a mere chasm in the rock. The Faa, with the child beneath his arm, leaped across the fearful gulf, and the dark flood gushed between him and his pursuer. He turned round, and, with a horrid laugh, looked towards Andrew and unsheathed his dagger. But even at this moment the unwonted courage of the chief servant of Clennel did not fail him, and as he rushed up and down upon one side of the gulf, that he might spring across and avoid the dagger of the gipsy, the other ran in like manner on the other side; and when Andrew stood as if ready to leap, the Faa king, pointing with his dagger to the dark flood that rolled between them, cried--

"See, fool! eternity divides us!"

"And for that bairn's sake, ye wretch, I'll brave it!" exclaimed Andrew, while his teeth gnashed together; and he stepped back, in order that he might spring across with the greater force and safety.

"Hold man!" cried the Faa; "attempt to cross to me, and I will plunge this bonny heir o' Clennel into the flood below."

"Oh, gracious! gracious!" cried Andrew, and his resolution and courage forsook him; "ye monster!--ye barbarian!--oh, what shall I do now!"

"Go back whence you came," said the gipsy, "or follow me another step and the child dies."

"Oh, ye butcher!--ye murderer!" continued the other--and he tore his hair in agony--"hae ye nae mercy?"

"Sic mercy as your maister had," returned the Faa, "when he burned our dwellings about the ears o' the aged and infirm, and o' my helpless bairns! Ye shall find in me the mercy o' the fasting wolf, o' the tiger when it laps blood!"

Andrew perceived that to rescue the child was now impossible, and with a heavy heart he returned to his master's house, in which there was no sound save that of lamentation.

For many weeks, yea months, the laird of Clennel, his friends and his servants, sought anxiously throughout every part of the country to obtain tidings of his child, but their search was vain. It was long ere his lady was expected to recover the shock, and the affliction sat heavy on his soul, while in his misery he vowed revenge upon all of the gipsy race. But neither Willie Faa nor any of his tribe were again seen upon his estates, or heard of in their neighbourhood.

Four years were pa.s.sed from the time that their son was stolen from them, and an infant daughter smiled upon the knee of Lady Clennel; and oft as it smiled in her face, and stretched its little hands towards her, she would burst into tears, as the smile and the infantine fondness of her little daughter reminded her of her lost Henry. They had had other children, but they had died while but a few weeks old.

For two years there had been a maiden in the household named Susan, and to her care, when the child was not in her own arms, Lady Clennel intrusted her infant daughter; for every one loved Susan, because of her affectionate nature and docile manners--she was, moreover, an orphan, and they pitied while they loved her. But one evening, when Lady Clennel desired that her daughter might be brought her in order that she might present her to a company who had come to visit them (an excusable, though not always a pleasant vanity in mothers), neither Susan nor the child were to be found. Wild fears seized the bosom of the already bereaved mother, and her husband felt his heart throb within him. They sought the woods, the hills, the cottages around; they wandered by the sides of the rivers and the mountain burns, but no one had seen, no trace could be discovered of either the girl or the child.

I will not, because I cannot, describe the overwhelming misery of the afflicted parents. Lady Clennel spent her days in tears and her nights in dreams of her children, and her husband sank into a settled melancholy, while his hatred of the Faa race became more implacable, and he burst into frequent exclamations of vengeance against them.

More than fifteen years had pa.s.sed, and though the poignancy of their grief had abated, yet their sadness was not removed, for they had been able to hear nothing that could throw light upon the fate of their children. About this period, sheep were again missed from the flocks, and, in one night, the hen-roosts were emptied. There needed no other proof that a Faa gang was again in the neighbourhood. Now, Northumberland at that period was still thickly covered with wood, and abounded with places where thieves might conceal themselves in security.

Partly from a desire of vengeance, and partly from the hope of being able to extort from some of the tribe information respecting his children, Clennel armed his servants, and taking his hounds with him, set out in quest of the plunderers.

For two days their search was unsuccessful, but on the third the dogs raised their savage cry, and rushed into a thicket in a deep glen amongst the mountains. Clennel and his followers hurried forward, and in a few minutes perceived the fires of the Faa encampment. The hounds had already alarmed the vagrant colony, they had sprung upon many of them and torn their flesh with their tusks; but the Faas defended themselves against them with their poniards, and, before Clennel's approach, more than half his hounds lay dead upon the ground, and his enemies fled.

Yet there was one poor girl amongst them, who had been attacked by a fierce hound, and whom no one attempted to rescue, as she strove to defend herself against it with her bare hands. Her screams for a.s.sistance rose louder and more loud; and as Clennel and his followers drew near, and her companions fled, they turned round, and, with a fiendish laugh, cried--

"Rue it now!"

Maddened more keenly by the words, he was following on in pursuit, without rescuing the screaming girl from the teeth of the hound, or seeming to perceive her, when a woman, suddenly turning round from amongst the flying gypsies, exclaimed--