Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume III Part 13

Jenny's arms were rudely torn from around his neck, and he was dragged from the house; and his arms, as I have stated, being bound, he was placed behind a horseman, and his body was fastened to that of the trooper. In this manner he was conducted to Edinburgh, where he was cast into prison to await his doom.

Within two days, Janet and her mother were seized also, at the very moment when the former was preparing to set out to implore his pardon--and accused of harbouring and concealing in their house one whom the king had denounced as guilty of treason.

Janet submitted to her fate without a murmur, and only said--"Weel, if Andrew be to suffer upon my account, I am willing to do the same for his. But surely neither you nor the king can be sae cruel as to harm my poor auld mother!"

"Oh, dear! dear!" cried the old woman to those who came to apprehend her--"Was there ever the like o' this seen or heard tell o'! Before I kenned wha the king was, I took him to be a kind lad and a canny lad, and he canna say but I showed him every attention, and even prevented Andrew from striking him again; and what gratification can it be to him to tak awa the life o' a lone widow, and a bit helpless la.s.sie?"

But, notwithstanding her remonstrances, Nancy Hewitt and her beautiful daughter were conducted as prisoners to the metropolis.

On the fourth day of his confinement, Andrew was summoned before King James and his n.o.bles, to receive his sentence and undergo its punishment. The monarch, in the midst of his lords, sat in a large apartment in the castle; armed men, with naked swords in their hands, stood around, and the frown gathered on his face as the prisoner was led into his presence.

Andrew bowed before the monarch, then raised his head and looked around, with an expression on his countenance which showed that, although he expected death, he feared it not.

"How now, ye traitor knave!" said the king, sternly; "do ye deny that ye raised your hand against our royal person?"

"No!" was the brief and bold reply of the dauntless fisherman.

"Ye have heard, kinsmen," continued the monarch, "his confession of his guiltiness from his own lips--what punishment do ye award him?"

"Death! the traitor's doom!" replied the n.o.bles.

"Nay, troth," said James, "we shall be less just than merciful; and because of his brave bearing at Lamberton, his life shall be spared--but, certes, the hand that was raised against our person shall be struck off.--Prepare the block!"

Now, the block was brought into the midst of the floor, and Andrew was made to kneel, and his arm was bared and placed upon it--and the executioner stood by with his drawn sword, waiting the signal from the king to strike off the hand, when the fair young queen, with her attendants, entered the apartment. The king rose to meet her, saying--

"What would my fair queen?"

"A boon! a boon! my liege," playfully replied the blooming princess; "that ye strike not off the hand of this audacious man, but that ye chain it for his life."

"Be it so, my fair one," said the king; and, taking the sword of the executioner in his hand, he touched the kneeling culprit on the shoulder with it, saying--"Rise up SIR ANDREW GUT-THRIE, and thus do we chain your offending hand!"--the young queen at the same moment raised a veil with which she had concealed the features of bonny Janet, and the king taking her hand, placed it in Andrew's.

"My conscience!" exclaimed Andrew, "am I in existence!--do I dream, or what?--O Jenny, woman!--O your Majesty!--what shall I say?"

"Nothing," replied the monarch, "but the king cam' in the cadger's way--and Sir Andrew Gut-thrie and his bonny bride shall be provided for."

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Bamborough.

THE ROYAL RAID.

Among the promoters of the wars and disturbances which so long ravaged the Border counties, authors have been anxious to cla.s.s prominently the tender s.e.x; not, however, in the way in which it was imputed to these fair a.s.suagers of man's misfortunes, that they shed the blood of knights, in the times of Froissart. A whole book has been penned--and another might follow it--on the wars and dissensions produced by beautiful women; and, without mounting upwards to Eve, it has been thought very well to begin with the maiden of Troy, who produced the most spirited piece of knight-errantry that ever was acted on the stage of the world. But, in almost every case on record, it was the beauty of the fair disturbers, that, inflaming the spirit of rivalship, set men a-fighting with so much zeal; and true it seems to be, that, when beauty went into disrepute, and gunpowder came into fashion--both much about the same time--we have never had what may be called a _bona fide_ heroic battle. But the part which the Border fair ones had in the b.l.o.o.d.y scenes of that distracted section of the country, is represented to have been very different. The housewife, in those times, served up to her hungry lord, under an imposing dish, a pair of spurs; and this is represented as having been the gentle mode by which the dame intimated that it was necessary for her lord to supply the larder. The Flower of Yarrow herself did not disdain to stimulate, in this way, the foraying spirit of old Harden. But we have good authority that there were beautiful exceptions from this barbarous practice; and, among these, we may safely place the unfortunate lady of c.o.c.kburn of Henderland, the fair subject of the pathetic ballad of "The Border Widow"--a strain which, so long as poetry shall hold any influence over the heart of man, will continue to draw "soft pity's tear." If every Border chieftain's wife had been like this lady, we would have heard and read less of raids and robberies: the dish of spurs, that sent their lords to the foray, would have been exchanged for the soft embracing arms of affection, applied to keep them at home; and the blessings of domestic peace would have harmonized with and softened the spirits which a love of riot and rapine inflamed into excesses so often ending in death. We have wept over her grave; and who that has seen the old stone in Henderland churchyard--now broken in three pieces, but bearing still that epitaph which Longinus would have p.r.o.nounced sublime, "Here lies Parys of c.o.c.kburn, and his wife Marjory"--and looked on the old ruins of their castle, now scarcely sufficient for a resting place for the grey owl--could resist the rising emotion, or quell the heaving breast of pity? There lie Parys of c.o.c.kburn, and his wife Marjory! How little does that simple chronicle tell! and yet how much. The eloquence of that pregnant negative of ultra-simplicity, is felt by those who know their fate; but how many have trod on the three parts of the broken tombstone, deciphered the divided syllables, and walked on, and never inquired who was Parys of c.o.c.kburn, or Marjory his wife! Their bones have long mouldered into the dust that now feeds a few wild alpine plants; their tombstone is a broken ruin, and will soon pa.s.s away; their castle, at a few paces' distance, is also a ruin of a few black weathered stones; and the land they were proud to call their own, dignifies another name. The sculptor has failed, but the poet has succeeded; and time may flap his dark pinion in vain over the deserted churchyard of Henderland.

The c.o.c.kburns of Henderland were an old family of Selkirkshire. Long before the estate pa.s.sed into the hands of strangers, we find the name and t.i.tle holding a respectable place among the lists of chieftains that held a divided rule on the Borders. Those who have gratified themselves, as we have done, by a view of St. Mary's Loch, and the cla.s.sic streams of the Ettrick and Yarrow, cannot fail to have seen the old property of Henderland, situated on the Megget, a small stream that runs into the loch. That was once the seat of the c.o.c.kburns; but there is a sad change there now. In the time of Lesly the historian, the whole of the country round Henderland, and the property itself, were covered with wood, that afforded shelter to the largest stags in Scotland; and now, there is scarcely a single tree that rears its head for miles around. Not distant from the mansion-house of the present proprietor, the ruins of the old castellated residence of the c.o.c.kburns may be seen; and, in the deserted burying-ground that surrounded the chapel, there is the broken tombstone, recording the deaths of the last members of the family, in the simple terms we have already mentioned. These are the appearances presented now; but, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, Henderland was a close retreat, surrounded by wood and water. The family castle stood in the midst of a dense wood of firs, mixed, in those parts where the soil supported the king of the forest, with large oaks. The Megget, rolling along its brattling stream, to St. Mary's, was, when in its calm moods, made available for the ends of picturesque beauty; and, when swollen by the mountain rills, served as a defence to the grounds and residence. In building their strengths, all the Border chiefs had particular reference to the natural advantages of the situation: the middle of a mora.s.s, the edge of a precipice rising from a mountain torrent, or a small island in the midst of a lake or river, were held to be favoured localities; and Selkirkshire, in curious accordance with the habits of the people, had and has no want of these natural strongholds.

Henderland had, perhaps, less to boast of, in point of natural strength, than Tushielaw, Mangerton, and some other of the Border residences; but, in the beauty of its wooded scenery, and the picturesque effect of sleeping lochs and roaring torrents, it might not be excelled in all the Borders.

In the minority of James V., Henderland Tower was occupied by Parys (supposed to be a corrupted orthography of Paris) c.o.c.kburn. He was then comparatively a young man, and inherited, with the property of a Border chief, all the usual characteristics of that cla.s.s of lairds--a natural, inborn valour being looked upon as the princ.i.p.al of all the qualities of the heart; and yet, unfortunately, applied, by a habit that had a.s.sumed the strength of an instinct, to the strife of contending families, the enterprises of pillage, and the contentions of a circ.u.mscribed ambition.

There was no peculiarity of the Borderers more remarkable than the union of a high valour that would have immortalized many a knight within the palisades, and the habit of overturning the rights of property--descending even to the grade of petty larceny. Now-a-days, theft and cowardice are generally supposed to be nearly allied; but, in those days, the chief of a large clan, inhabiting a stately castle, and famous for a n.o.ble courage throughout the land, could pause, in the progress homewards, with half-a-dozen of his neighbour's kine; look, with a furacious eye, on a bundle of hay, and regret, in his heart, that it had not four legs like a cow, by which he could make it steal itself home to his semi-baronial residence.[3] These apparently inconsistent and opposite qualities were possessed by the laird of Henderland. There was not in all Liddesdale a n.o.bler champion of the rights of war; and few there were that entered more keenly into the spirit of enterprise, to take from his neighbour a fat steer, and then fight, as n.o.bly as ever did King Robert for a lost kingdom, in defence of his horned prey. The riever in c.o.c.kburn was, however, a character of mere habit; for he possessed qualities of heart and mind which raised him far above the Border chiefs with whom he was usually ranked. He could fight to the effusion of blood that came from within an inch of the coronary veins of his heart, for the property of a cow, that, next day, he would divide among the poor; and he was often heard to say, that, if Henderland had been among "the Lowdens," he would have been a gay courtier, a supporter of the throne, and a friend of the poor, if not the king's almoner himself. In addition to these qualities, he carried a n.o.ble figure, and an open, intelligent countenance, that expressed the feelings of a heart as susceptible of the social affections as it was of the emotions that produced his lawless enterprises.

The interior of Henderland Castle, at this time, was graced by the presence of one of the fairest of women, and the most dutiful and affectionate of wives. The lot of Marjory Scott, the wife of c.o.c.kburn, was, indeed, in all respects, save in the possession of a husband she loved devotedly, unfortunately cast; because, in person, mind, and heart, she was formed for gracing the polished drawing-room of refined and civilized life, and imparting to the nursery the charm of a soft, kind, and doting mother, whose love of strict moral discipline was only one phase of her maternal affection. Become the wife of a Border chief from the force of an irresistible early pa.s.sion, she was as much the domesticated lover of in-door enjoyments, the cultivator of the social affections, and the admirer of love and tranquillity, as if she had occupied a retreat in Arcadia. She had brought her husband three children, all as fair as herself, one girl and two boys, whom she, in playful kindness, declared she would rear in the fear of G.o.d, the love of man, and the hearty hatred of Border rieving in all its gradations, from the laird's enforcing of blackmail, to the prowess of the laird's Jock, whose depredations extended to the minutiae of Laverna's sacrifices:--

"Baith hen and c.o.c.k, And reel and rock, The laird's Jock All with him takes."

She had early entertained the expectation that she would cure her husband of his Border practices; and, though she had not as yet succeeded in that hope, she had placed before him such a picture of domestic bliss, in the working influences of all the finer and higher sentiments, seen and heard in the acts and speech of every member of his little family, that he became daily more reconciled to her views of the happiness of life, at the same time that he could not resist the heart-stirring stimulus of a raid, to give him, as he said with a smile, a higher relish for his domestic enjoyments.

A fine family picture, preserved as a legend of the house of Henderland, represents c.o.c.kburn and Marjory sitting beneath an immense elm, the only tree of that kind near the castle, and rendered curious on another account, with their three children beside them, engaged in swinging from its branches, and other gambols of innocent childhood. The anxious wife had, for a time, succeeded in her endeavours to keep her husband at home; but, latterly, some indications, on the part of the chief's retainers, having been caught by her vigilant eye, she dreaded another outbreak of that daring spirit which she had not yet been able effectually to quell.

"It will not conceal, Parys," said she, "that there are yet in this bosom, where your Marjory's head has sought the refuge of love, frightened by war, some embers of your old spirit ready to flame again.

Is it not so? Love hath sharp eyes. It is not for stag hunting that your followers are stringing their bows. The love of your old pastime, like that of an old concealed pa.s.sion, will act in such a manner as defieth all the art of concealment. I noticed, last night, as you spoke to Scott's John, who was booming his bow to show the power of the cord, that the sound went to your heart. Tushielaw oweth you a debt of vengeance. Is it not so? Come, now, confess that it is not for nothing that the old sword points have been risped on the sharping-stone on the ballium?"

"Tush, Marjory!" replied c.o.c.kburn, "you alarm the ear of the watchful Helen, who suspendeth her play to listen to her mother's fears. Such is thy training, that our young Hector will lose Henderland before the sods have grown together over his father's grave, in that small burying ground around our chapel. And you have unmanned me too, Maudge. You have much to answer for to the manes of the old c.o.c.kburns, who lie sleeping in their quiet beds there, after a jolly life of st.u.r.dy stouthrieving from Yarrow to the Esk. What would the laird of Gilnockie say if he heard that c.o.c.kburn's bairns were taught to read--ay, and to play on harpsichords, and teylins, and dulcimers. By my faith, Maudge, but he would laugh a good laugh."

"And yet," answered she, "I have seen the clear drop shining in her father's eye as Helen touched the strings to the soft melodies of Auld Scotland. Come, now, Parys, was not that sweet dream dearer to ye than the fever of the strife of Border foray?"

"Ay, Maudge," responded he, "I confess that you have taught me that there is more in man's heart than he himself dreams of. I once thought that the highest of human enjoyments was a victory lost and won, with a hundred head of cattle driven before the returning host, in triumph, to Henderland; but, in yon withdrawing-room in the west wing, in which your cunning hands have placed the seductive couch, where one may lie and see roses blooming so near that he may smell their odours, and hear witching strains stealing from these musical things of wood and wire, the charm of the foray is broken, and the riever's spirit overcome. I wish I saw old Mangerton twisting his leathern cheeks under these arts of domestic peace. Every tear would have its avenging oath. He would trow old Henderland turret bewitched."

"But you have cunningly led me away from my subject, Parys. Is it not true that you are to cut through my silken bands with the restless sword? Are you not again to turn the fearless eye of the eagle on the cliff where Tushielaw hangs like a beetling crag? Is Helen's song to be changed for the raven war-cry; and the blessings of our peaceful household, for the curses of revengeful war?"

"How high mounteth Hector on my grandfather's elm!" responded c.o.c.kburn, playfully, evading her question. "The fearless rogue will hang himself, and realize the prophecy of Merlin the wild, regarding our house--

'On c.o.c.kburn's elm, on Henderland lee, A c.o.c.kburn laird shall hangit be.'"

"G.o.d forfend!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Marjory. "Hector, undo that cord, and descend.

My ears ring with old Lailoken's prophetic rhyme, when I look on that swing. I shall have it removed."

"Ha ha!" cried c.o.c.kburn, laughing, and glad to get rid of the original topic. "Don't you know, Maudge, that my grandsire was a dabbler in prophetic visions; and, think ye, he would have been fool enough to plant and water, as he is said to have done, his descendant's wuddy? But I have a good mind to cut down the tree, and make Lailoken's prophecy a physical impossibility."

As c.o.c.kburn spoke, he cast his eye wistfully to the sky, as if he felt an anxiety as to the state of the weather, an act which did not escape the observation of his wife, on whom the allusion to Merlin's prophecy, generally current at that time, had produced an effect not remarkable at a period when this species of soothsaying still retained the credit it had acquired by the success of the poet of Ercildoun. At another time, her strong mind would not have acknowledged the power of the rhythmic ravings of a wandering maniac; but she had got some obscure hints of the wrath of the young King James V. against the Border chiefs; and the tender solicitude of a doting wife traced, by a process perhaps unknown to herself, some connection between Merlin's saying and the proof she now had of a concealed intention, on the part of c.o.c.kburn, to disregard all her efforts to reclaim him, by imbuing his mind with a perception of the pleasures of domestic happiness, from his old habits of rieving and fighting with his neighbours.

"It is--it is, Parys," she exclaimed, with a trembling voice--"It is too true that you are bent on the execution of your old threat against Tushielaw. I have an acc.u.mulation of proofs against you, and can read it even in your countenance. Do you love me, Parys?--say if you have any love for your Marjory--say if your affection is changed towards those dear pledges of our happiness, who, enjoying the sports of their age, are unconscious that their father is meditating that which may, ere the morn's sun gild those woods, render them fatherless, and bring sorrow o'er the house of Henderland? There are two dangers awaiting you: Tushielaw's arm, that has incarnadined the waters of Ettrick with the blood of many a proud foe; and the vengeance of King James, whose youthful fire his n.o.bles, they say, cannot quell."

"This is not the cry of 'houghs in the pot,' Marjory," replied he, still laughing--"the hint of the Border chieftains' wives, when they want more beef for the larder. But calm ye, love. Young James will not travel hither to fulfil old Lailoken's rhyme, and Tushielaw's arm hath no power over c.o.c.kburn. Truly, I do intend to weed thy pretty arbours, Maudge; and, peradventure, I may even essay to sing a ba.s.s to thy sweet ballad of "l.u.s.tye May, with Flora Queen;" and such a domesticated creature shall I be that, like Hercules, you may see me, ere long, ply the distaff--a pretty sight for Adam Scott's warlike eye."

c.o.c.kburn's merriment fell with a lurid glare over the heart of his wife, who, seeing him determined to cover his designs by light raillery, replied nothing; but, calling to her her three children, kissed them, and bade them set aside their sports, and return with her to the Castle.

As they pa.s.sed along, c.o.c.kburn still cast a wistful eye to the skies, which wore a threatening aspect--the sun having been surrounded in his setting with large folds of clouds, whose bellying forms came dipping near the mountains; while the pale form of the moon, scarcely distinguishable in the falling gloaming, seemed to be sailing through broken ma.s.ses of vapour, like a labouring bark in a stormy sea; and, now and then, a deep hollow moan among the woods came on the ear, like the far echo of dying thunder. About the Castle, the followers of c.o.c.kburn were observed, by the anxious eye of Marjory, to be all secretly employed in repairing their arms or habiliments--an occupation they threw aside, stealthily, when they saw their mistress; but not until she had observed what they had thus endeavoured to conceal. Their countenances exhibited that mixture of repressed joy and affected seriousness which the expectation of being gratified by a luxury from which the heart has long been debarred by some external power, produces in the presence of one hostile to the gratification. So strong was the desire of marauding and spoliation in that distracted part of the country, that an expedition was then looked upon in nearly the light in which a fair, or maiden-feast, or penny-wedding, would be contemplated by more civilized revellers. These indications Marjory noticed; and, turning up her eyes in the face of her husband, she sighed heavily, and sought her apartment. Soon afterwards she proceeded to put her children to rest, making them offer up to heaven a prayer to avert from the head of their father a danger they did not understand, but enough to them, if they saw it in the face of their mother, whose looks were their laws, and whose smiles were the sunlight of their young hearts.

"This is a prettier sight," muttered she, in soft accents, as she looked upon the faces of the beautiful and innocent supplicants--"this is surely a fairer sight, and better calculated to fill and delight the heart of mortal, than what my Parys is now, I fear, preparing to behold.

How different is the expression of the faces of these innocents, upturned to heaven in supplication and thankfulness, from the torch-flared countenances of blood and revenge which these retainers will turn on the heights of Tushielaw, in the presence of their master!

Nor is my Parys insensible to this difference; but, wo for the force of education and habit over good hearts! Ask, my little Hector, of your Father in heaven that, if you live to be a Border chief, you may be loyal to your king, and a promoter of peace in the castle, and contentedness and happiness in the cottage."

The little embryo chieftain obeyed the words of his mother; and all looked up in her face anxiously, as they saw the tears stealing down her cheeks. Each asked the cause of her grief, and volunteered an a.s.suagement, as if their little swelling hearts contained the power of the instant amelioration of her sorrow. She looked upon them in silence; and in a little time they were consigned to rest and sleep, and utter oblivion of all the cares of this world.

After these maternal cares, Marjory sat and listened to the proceedings in the ballium of the Castle. c.o.c.kburn did not come up, being either occupied in preparations for his expedition against Adam Scott, or unwilling to expose his designs again to the danger of defeat, by the expostulations or entreaties of his anxious wife. Meanwhile, as she listened, every whisper or accidental sound of sword or spear went to her heart, and stirred up, in confused array, the fears of love. One hope remained to her, that the moon would hide her head, and leave the world to the empire of darkness--so unfavourable to the designs of the riever, that the moon's minions would not fight under another power.

There were clear indications in the heavens of a coming storm; for the moon still toiled on through the clouds, and the booming of the low, sullen wind in the woods was getting higher and higher. These sounds she hailed with hope; but, the next moment, the clang of a falling spear consigned her to her fears. At a late hour, c.o.c.kburn came up to his sleeping-room, and silently retired to pretended rest; while she, with her solicitude increased, retired also to her couch, but with no disposition to become oblivious of the fatal operations of her husband, though her tender nature forbade further efforts in a cause that seemed hopeless. Resigning herself to the powers of fear, and the other disquieting influences of the solemn hour of midnight, she lay quiet, and submitted to the current of inauspicious thoughts that flowed through her mind. A disturbed slumber fell over her, sufficient only to make a slight division between the world of dreams and that of reality, and to allow her waking thoughts to pa.s.s in new and changing forms before the eye of the dreaming fancy, which again, in its turn, invested them with attributes suitable to the complexion of her waking sorrows.