Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XV Part 8

The summons that called Sir John into the presence of the marriage-folks was immediately obeyed. In an instant that gentleman entered the apartment, with a smile upon his face, all the party standing up and receiving him with the most marked reverence and respect.

"You'll excuse the liberty I have taken in sending for you, Sir John,"

said the person who had called him, on the former's entrance; "and I certainly would not have taken that liberty, had I not known how much pleasure it gives you when an opportunity is afforded you of doing a generous thing. Here, Sir John, is a young woman about to be sacrificed at the altar of Mammon. Now, I know that you would not permit this if you could help it. Neither will I; and, to prevent it, I have promised to the intended bride's father here, that I will give one hundred merks and one hundred acres of land to the husband of Meenie's choice, Davy Linn of Partick--a very deserving young man, I believe--on the day after she is married to him. Now, Sir John, will you become my security to Clayslaps for the fulfilment of this promise?"

"Most a.s.suredly," said Sir John, smiling; "let me have pen, ink, and paper, and I will give him my written obligation to that effect."

The materials were brought, and the obligation drawn out; Clayslaps and all the others being too much confounded by what was pa.s.sing to offer any interruption or make any remark. When the paper was written, it was handed to Meenie's father, who, almost unconsciously--for he did not seem to know very well what he was doing--read it over. On concluding the perusal,

"A'richt aneugh," he said--"a'richt aneugh. Od, this _is_ a queer business. But it's a' owre late, guid sirs. We canna be aff wi'

Goupinsfou at this stage o' the affair, and in this sort o' way. It wadna be fair nor honest, and wad look unco strange like. Besides, ye canna expeck that he would submit to't himsel."

This was certainly a reasonable enough supposition, but it happened to be an unfounded one; for Goupinsfou was not only an a.s.s, but a most abominably mean and selfish one; and Sir John, aware of this, thought he knew a way to reconcile him to the loss of Meenie.

Going up to Goupinsfou, he took him aside, and whispered in his ear, "I say, laird, you've long had an eye, I know, to the bit holm on the Kelvin, below the Gorroch Mills."

"It's a bonny spot," interrupted Goupinsfou, c.o.c.king his ears.

"It is," replied Sir John. "Well, then, it shall be yours, if you give up all claim to the hand of Meenie Ritchie, and give me in writing an entire quittance on that score."

"Dune!" exclaimed Goupinsfou, instantly, wisely calculating that he could readily find another wife, but might not so readily get another offer of the piece of land he so much coveted. "Dune, Sir John!" he exclaimed, grasping that gentleman by the hand with the selfish eagerness that belonged to his character; but, desirous of glossing over the meanness of the transaction, he placed his acquiescence on another footing than that of bribery, by adding, "I wadna like, I'm sure, to force the la.s.sie to marry me against her will. I gie her up wi'

a' my heart."

Having obtained the brute's consent to resign the hand of Meenie, Sir John turned to the party, and informed them that their worthy friend, the Laird of Goupinsfou, out of consideration for the feelings of Meenie Ritchie, which he feared were not favourable to him, resigned all claim to her hand, and left her at full liberty to marry whom she pleased.

"Weel, that's certainly sae far guid," said Clayslaps; "but still I'm no athegither reconciled to this business. It looks----"

"Toots, guidman," here interposed his wife, "the thing's a'richt aneugh.

Havena ye Sir John's haun o' vrit for the promise made by this--this"--and she looked at the person she meant, and would have said _gentleman_, but another glimpse of the patched shoes directed her to the words--"_honest man_, to gie Davie the land and siller spoken o'; and what mair wad ye hae? Davie's a discreet, decent, well-doin lad, everybody kens, that will mak, I'm sure, a guid husband to Meenie; sae, just let them e'en gang thegither."

She would scarcely have said so much for Davie an hour before; but she said it now, and it was all well enough.

"Weel, weel, guidwife," said Clayslaps, "since it is sae, we'll see aboot it. There can be nae harm, however, in delayin a day or twa, at ony rate, till we think owre't."

"No, no--no delay," exclaimed the meddling stranger; "delays are dangerous, guidman. Nothing like the present moment. Let us strike while the iron's hot. Landlord," he said, turning round to Ringan, "send Davie Linn here."

In a second after, Davie Linn rushed into the apartment, flew to Meenie, and caught her in his arms. "Mine yet! mine yet, Meenie!" he exclaimed, rapturously. It was all he could say; and, little as it was, it was more than she he addressed was able to express. During the whole night, indeed, she had not opened her lips, and seemed to have been scarcely conscious of what was pa.s.sing around her. This was the effect of deep misery; and the result was now nearly the same from an excess of joy.

"No delay now, curate," said the intermeddler. "Set to work as fast as you can, and buckle these two together. No objection, I fancy?"

"Oh, none in the world," said the curate; "I'll fix them in a trice. But I say, freend," he added, laughing, "I'm thinkin what a fule I was to pay your reckonin the nicht--ane wha maks the merks flee like drift snaw on a windy day, and gies awa lumps o' land wi' as little thocht as--as--as I settled your lawin. Feth, but it was fulish aneugh o' me, and ye're a queer ane, be ye wha ye like."

"Not so very foolish, perhaps, as you think, curate," said the person thus addressed, "and that it's possible ye may find. At any rate, it's no lost what a friend gets, you know, curate; but, in the meantime, will you proceed with the ceremony, if you please. And, guidman," he added, turning to Clayslaps, "will ye allow me to give away the bride?"

"I ken nane here that has a better richt," replied the latter, now thoroughly reconciled to the sudden and most unexpected change in his daughter's destiny which had taken place. "Ye may either gie her awa or tak her yersel, just as ye like; for, by my faith, ye seem to be a guid honest chiel, be ye wha ye like, as the curate says."

"Well, then, since you place her at my disposal, I here give her to Davie Linn o' Partick--and may he always continue to deserve her!"

This conveyance of the fair Meenie, the curate lost no time in legalising and confirming. When the ceremony was completed, "Now," said the stranger, "if there be a fiddler or piper in all Govan who will play to us for love or money, let him be brought here instantly, and we'll finish as well as we've begun. By St Bride, we'll have a night of it! What say you, Sir John?" And he turned to that gentleman with a smile. "Will you condescend to honour us with your presence, and with as much good-humour as you can conveniently spare?"

"Oh, most certainly," replied the latter, laughing, "with all my heart."

The desired musician was procured, and made his appearance. The room was cleared, creature comforts were ordered in, in unsparing abundance, and such a night of mirth and fun ensued as, we believe, has not been seen since in the little village of Govan, and perhaps not often anywhere else. The curate danced and frisked about like a three-year-old; Sir John conducted himself with no less animation; but neither of them had the smallest chance with the gentleman in the darned hose. He kept the floor almost the whole night, whooping and hallooing in a most spirited manner, and dancing fully half the time with the bride, and the rest with her mother, the guidwife of Clayslaps, relieved occasionally by a turn-out with some young girls of the neighbourhood, whom the landlord of the Grilse and Gridiron had hurriedly brought together, on the principle of "the more the merrier." But time and tide wait on no man.

Morning came, and the revellers prepared to depart to their several homes. The marriage party, including the bride and bridegroom, and Sir John Elphingstone, proceeded to the ferry, to which they were accompanied by him who had performed the princ.i.p.al character of the night. Having seen them all embarked, and having wished the young married couple every happiness, he stood on the sh.o.r.e for an instant, waved them a final adieu, retired by the way of the village, and was seen no more.

Within a week after the occurrence of the events just related, the worthy curate of Govan was surprised one day by receiving a letter from the Archbishop of Glasgow.

"What's wrang now?" said the curate to himself, as he opened it. "My dismissal, I suppose, for the irregularity o' my conduct at Ringan Scouler's the ither nicht."

It was not exactly so, as the reader will perceive. The letter ran thus:--

"At the recommendation of a high personage, I intend appointing you to the vacant rectorship of Govan. You will therefore repair immediately to me, either at my palace at Glasgow or my castle at Partick, that I may confer with you farther on the subject.

"DUNBAR, A. B. OF G."

"Whe-e-e-ou!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the curate, with a long-drawn expiration, when he had read this very pleasant doc.u.ment--"I smell a rat. 'Od, but it was stupid o' me no to think o't afore. I'm sure I micht hae kent him; for I've seen him twa or three times; but then he was in a green frock-coat o' the finest claith; a velvet bonnet, wi' ruby and feathers, was on his head; a chain o' gowd, worth five hundred merks, if it was worth a bodle, round his neck, and a gaucy sword by his side. Still I ought to hae kent him, for a' his clouted shoon and darned hose. But the cat's oot o' the pock; and, my word, a bonny beast it is!"

What does the good curate's hints and allegorical allusions mean?

inquires the reader. Why, it means that the worthy man suspected--and we have no doubt his suspicion was perfectly correct--that the person in the darned hose was no other than James V., King of Scotland.

GLEANINGS OF THE COVENANT.

I.--THE GRANDMOTHER'S NARRATIVE.

Notwithstanding the researches of Woodrow, and the more recent enlargement and excellent annotations of Dr Burns, we are quite conscious that a volume somewhat interesting might still be collected of additional and traditional atrocities, of which no written record remains, nor other, save the recollections _of recollections_--in other words, the remembrance which we and a few others possess of the narratives of our grandmothers whilst we were yet children. Our own maternal grandmother died at ninety-six--we ourselves are now in our sixtieth year; so that, deducting eight or nine years for our age previous to our taking an interest in such concerns, we have our grandmother existing before (say) 1695, which, deducting eight years of infancy, brings us to 1703, which is only twenty-five years posterior to the conclusion, and fifty-three to the commencement, of the atrocious twenty-eight years' persecution. It is then manifest, from this arithmetical computation, that our own grandmother, on whose truthful intentions we can rely with confidence, came into contact and conversation with those who were contemporaneous with the events and persons she referred to. This surely is no very violent or unsafe stretch of tradition; but, even though it were much more so, we would be disposed to yield to it somewhat more consideration than is generally done. Now-a-days, the pen and the press are almost the only recorders of pa.s.sing and past events and circ.u.mstances; but, in the age to which we refer, this was not the case. The children of Israel were bound by a holy and inviolate law to record _verbally_ to their children, and those again to theirs, what the Lord had done for their forefathers. And on the same principle, and under the same comparative absence of written records, did our grandmothers receive from their immediate predecessors the revolting disclosures which they have handed down to us. There are here but two links in the chain--those, namely, which connect our grandmothers with their parents, and with us; but, had there been twenty--nay, fifty or a hundred links--we should not, on account of the high antiquity of such a tradition, have been disposed to dismiss it as altogether groundless, and not implying even the slightest authority. In ill.u.s.tration of this, we may adduce the facts, sufficiently well known and authenticated, which were disclosed about thirty years ago at Burgh-head, the ultimate extent of Roman conquest in Scotland. In that promontory, now inhabited by a scattered population, there remained, from age to age, a tradition that a Roman well had existed on the particular spot. There being a lack of water in the place, the inhabitants combined to have the locality opened, with the view of disclosing so useful and essential an element. They dug twenty and even thirty feet downwards, but made no disclosures; and were on the point of giving up the search, when the father of the late Duke of Gordon happening to pa.s.s, and to ascertain their object and their want of success, very generously supplied them with the means of making a further excavation. At last, to their no small surprise and delight, they came to a nicely built and rounded well-mouth, with a stair downwards to the bottom, and the bronze statues of Mercury and other heathen G.o.ds stuck into niches. This well remains to this hour, and may be visited by the traveller along the Moray Frith, as an indisputable and indelible evidence of the value of traditions in ages when almost no other means of record existed. True, such traditions are deeply coloured and tinged by the prejudices of the age in which they originated--allowance as to exaggeration must be made for excited feelings and outraged opinions; but still the groundwork may in general be depended on. The old, and perhaps vulgar, proverb, "There is aye SOME water where the stirkie drowns!" applies in this case with a conclusive force; and we may rely upon it, even from the collateral and written evidence of parties and partisans on all sides, that nothing which mere tradition has hinted at can exceed, in characters of genuine cruelty and downright bloodshed and murder, those historical statements which have reached us.

True, a writer lately deceased, whose memory is immortal, and whose writings will survive whilst national feelings and the vitality of high talent remain, has given us a somewhat chivalrous and attractive character of the most distinguished actor in the atrocities of the fearful time; and it is to be more than lamented--to be deplored--that an early and habitual, and ultimately const.i.tutional, leaning to aristocratic and chivalrous views should have induced such a writer as Sir Walter Scott to draw such an interesting picture of the really infamous "Clavers"--of him who, for a piece of morning pastime, could, with his own pistol, blow out a husband's brains, without law or trial, and that in the presence of his wife and infant family! But the great body of historians are on the side of truth and tradition; and the recently-published, and still publishing, Life by Lockhart has unfolded, and will yet unfold, those leanings of the great novelist which have occasioned so lamentable a deviation from real history.

Under the shelter, then, of these preliminary observations, we proceed with such notices and statements as we have heard repeated, or seen in ma.n.u.scripts which have (as we believe) never been printed. And we shall give these notices and statements as they were given to us--surrounded by a halo of superst.i.tion, and involving much belief which is now, happily or unhappily--we do not say which--completely exploded.

Oh, my bairn! these were fearful times!--(Grandmother _loquitur_)--ay, and atweel war _they_. My own mother has again and again made my hair stand on end, and my heart-blood run cold at her relations.

Ye ken Auchincairn, my bairn; and maybe, whan ye were seeking for hawks'

nests, ye hae searched the Whitestane Cleughs. Aweel, ye maybe hae seen, or maybe no--for young hearts and een like yours (O sirs! mine are now dim and sair!) tak little tent o' sic-like things; but, my bonny bairn, though tent it ye didna, true it is, and of verity, that, at the very bottom o' that steep and fearfu linn, there is a rock, a stane like a blue whunstane; and owre that stane the water has run for years and years, and the winds and the rains of heaven hae dashed and plashed against it; but still that stane remains (dear me, I'm amaist greeting!)--it remains stained and spotted _wi' bluid_. And that bluid, my dear bairn, is o' the bluid that rins in yer ain veins--it is the bluid o' William Harkness, my own faither's brother. Weel, and ye shall hear; for my mother used to tell me the langsyne stories sae aft, that I can just repeat them in her ain words. Weel, it was the month of October, and the nights were beginning to lengthen; and the puir persecuted saints, that had taen to the _outside_ a' simmer, and were seldom, if ever, to be seen in the _inside_, were beginning to pop in again nows and thans, when they thought Dalyel, and Johnston, and Clavers, and Douglas, and the rest o' the murdering gang, war elsewhere.

Aweel, as I am telling ye, yer granduncle cam hame to his ain brother's house; it might be about the dawn o' the morning, whan a' the house, except his brother, were sleeping, and he had got a cog o' c.r.a.p whey on his knee, wi' a barley scone--for glad, glad was he to get it; and he had just finished saying the grace, and was conversing quietly like, and in whisper, wi' his ain brother, when what should he hear, but a rap at the kitchen-door, and a voice pouring in through the keyhole--

"Willie Harkness! Willie Harkness! the Philistines are upon ye! They are just now crossing the Pothouseburn."

I trow when he heard that, he wasna lang in clearing the closs, and takin doun the shank, straight for the foot of the Whiteside Linn, where the cave was in which he had for weeks and months been concealed. It was now, ye see, the grey o' the morning, and things could be seen moving at some distance. Just as my uncle was about to enter the bramble-bushes at the foot o' the linn, he was met by a trooper on horseback.

"Stand!" said a voice, in accents of Satan; "stand, this moment, and surrender; or your life is not worth three snuffs of a Covenanter's mull."