Summers & Winter's
at 'BaJmawhapple
ftjythe North Sea
Among the Summed Isles
Alpine "Resting Places
Home Again !
Summers and Winters at
Balmawhapple
" sD
MARY STUART.
From the Sketch by Janet in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
The Second Series of "Table -Talk
Summers and Winters
at Balmawhappl_e_ a
Second Series of The
Table -Talk of Shirley
by John Skelton C.B.
LL.D. ^ ^
With Illustrations
Volume One
Second Edition
William Blackwood & Sons
Edinburgh and London 1897
All Rights rcstrotd
To
A. A. S.
1867-1897.
Fides, nudaqtte Veritas.
THE PRELUDE.
hundred years ago (or thereby) a Yorkshire Shirley
crossed the Border, and settled on the banks of Loch
Leven. There his sons and grandsons continued to reside
till the other day : famous anglers when living, they now
sleep peacefully on its shores, dreaming, it may be, of the
big trout they landed or of the bigger that they lost. A
grandson or a great-grandson, more adventurous than the
others, migrated from the inland water to the sea, and it
VI THE PRELUDE.
was thus that in due season I came to know Balmawhapple. 1
Here we have no continuing city ; but in Balmawhapple I
have been content to abide. My constancy is somewhat
singular, I admit. Our royal and ancient burgh may be
compared to the hive which sends off swarm after swarm.
Among sea-bred people the sea-bird's instinct is strong.
There are Balmawhapple men to be found in every corner
of the globe. The boys who were with me at school have
wandered away to Canada and the States, to Central Africa
and Pacific islands. One of them is an engineer on the
line that is crossing the Andes. Another is shooting ibex
in Thibet. Another has a fruit-farm in California. They
write to me at times, letters arrive with strange stamps and
outlandish post-marks, that bring a sense of romance and
adventure into our uneventful life. But Fate, though not
unkind to me on the whole, why should I fret, who have
been spared through it all, while so many strong men have
gone down down even unto Hades ? has ordained that I
1 TTie Shirley s (/ may venture to add in the modest obscurity of a foot-
note} remained persistently "English" until, marrying into a great Scottish
house {Mary Stuart was niece of Thomas and Methuen, the last Earls of
Kellie of the family of Cambo), they were able to trace their descent back
to Celtic Mormaers and the Victor of Bannockburn, and so became entirely
acclimatised, and indeed more "Scotch" than the Scots, The "Shirra"
(who married Mary Stuart sometime in the 'nineties) was the most expert
fly-fisher of his day, and came to be known far and wide as " The Shirra
of the Loch." " Will the Shirra of the Loch take a glass of wine with the
Shirra of the Forest ? " was Sir Walter's greeting when they met each year
at Blair Adam.
THE PRELUDE. vii
should stay at home. Unlike so many of our people, I have
not been permitted to walk "by the long wash of Austral-
asian seas," nor " breathe in converse seasons." I have
not been a rover.
Do not mistake me. I do not complain. For even in
Balmawhapple the sluggish current is sometimes interrupted,
is sometimes accelerated. During the fifty years on which
I can look back, the pulse of the community has sometimes
beat faster than is common with, or probably good for, that
somewhat feeble organ. When young Dr Diamond was
found dead in his bed, with an empty bottle on the table
which smelt of bitter almonds ; when pretty Nellie Barton
ran away with the groom ; when lawyer Jenkins, who was
also the local banker, took an autumn holiday with the mid-
summer rents of half the county gentlemen of the district in
his pocket and forgot to return, the usual afternoon crowd
on the High Street became positively animated. A nd when
Mark Holdfast came back from the south, where his
" strong and simple words,
Keen to wound as sharpened swords"
had won him fame and fortune; and But Mark
must have the opening chapter to himself.
S.
CONTENTS.
BOOK ONE.
BY THE NORTH SEA.
PAGE
I. MARK'S RETURN . . . . . . 3
ii. QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST . . 25
III. THE DEVIL TO PAY . . . . .69
IV. OUT OF THE DARK . . . QO
V. IN THE YEAR ONE : THE STORY OF THE CROOKIT MEG I IO
VI. LISETTE'S DREAM . . . . .215
VII. AFTER CULLODEN . . . . .242
BOOK ONE
BY THE NORTH SEA
BY THE NORTH SEA.
I.
MARK'S RETURN.
MARK HOLDFAST was one of my early friends.
He was not exactly a Balmawhapple boy ; but
his father's house was only a few miles round the
bay, and so we came to know each other. The Cleuch
was rather a lonely place, a gaunt old - fashioned
house, built in the time of Anne or the first George,
which overlooked the sea, and where morning and
night one heard the curlews piping, and round which
the sea-mews wheeled as though it had been one of
their own skerries. The moorland closed round it, and
on a moist autumn day the air was sweet and aromatic
with the scent of the moorland, the scent of bog-
myrtle and heather. There was the breezy upland on
one side, the breezy sea on the other, and such solitude
4 MARK'S RETURN.
as boys and poets love. I could not go with him to
the great peat-hags on the hill where the grey goose
and the dun duck lodged ; but I used to wait for him
at the smithy Jock Tamson's smithy just below the
lochan famous for teal, and we would saunter home
together through the autumn gloaming. Even as a
boy he was a fine shot ; but it was on the water that
he was most in his element. He could swim like a
fish. He would take his boat out to sea when even
John Dun John Dun, who once saved him from
drowning preferred to smoke his pipe on shore. I
was often his only companion ; there was a fascination
about these foolhardy doings which I could not resist.
It was the one manly excitement for which my in-
firmity did not unfit me : when the Daisy, close hauled
to the wind, with a double reef on her sail and the
water at her gunwale, was rushing across the bay, I
forgot that I was a cripple.
It was a hardy and independent life for a lad, a
life that could scarcely fail to leave its mark behind.
His family, though one of the oldest in the county, had
by ill luck or ill guidance lost much of the land that
once belonged to them, and Mark was early taught to
practise thrift. They had few neighbours, as I have
said, and these were of a rank somewhat lower than
their own. They did not associate easily with country
doctors and country lawyers. My own father was
the Duke's factor, a man with plenty of rough sense
and humour, and who was much trusted by rich and
poor. There was a long-standing acquaintance be-
MARK'S RETURN. 5
tween him and the Holdfasts ; and what business
they needed to be done was done by him. But even
from him they held aloof, and the friendship, such
as it was, never ripened into cordial intimacy. Each
respected the other, and there an end. The boyish
friendship between Mark and myself was accidental ;
it came about without any seeking or set purpose on
either side ; it would hardly have lived had it not
been that then, as always, I was a hero-worshipper,
and that my unreasoning devotion touched him. He
was very proud, and he was very shy ; his instinctive
and inherited reserve was forbidding. I think the only
people who really knew him at that time save myself
were the " Buckie boys," a truculent and somewhat
disreputable race of fishermen. With them he was
popular. With them (and he often passed the night
far from land in one or other of their yawls) he un-
bent wholly ; his reserve melted away, his moodiness
vanished; the picture of the nut-brown lad, tanned
up to the temples, his cheeks flushed, the wind in
his hair, the sunlight in his eyes, steering the great
herring-boat into harbour, while the rough tars looked
on, is one on which, after all these years, I like to
dwell. Young Irvine, who went to London, and is
now a R.A., painted him in his " sou' -wester" and
sailor -jacket, and it hangs to this day in the smoking-
room at the Cleuch.
When long afterwards (and yet it was not so long,
for he rose with uncommon rapidity) he came to be a
Q.C. and a leader at the Bar, his coolness was pro-
6 MARK'S RETURN.
verbial. So people said ; but I knew better. He kept
himself well in hand, it is true ; but no discipline how-
ever severe, no effort however sustained, could change
his nature. A shy, nervous, sensitive, highly strung
temperament like his does not harden into immobility.
His self-control was certainly very complete ; but, all
the same, the inner recoil the tremor of the racer
before the start could not always be disguised. And
the meanness, baseness, vulgarity, from which no pro-
fession is free, hurt him as a blow hurts a woman.
That sensitive shiver of disgust at the squalid effrontery
of the men who paid him would have ruined a less
capable lawyer.
When he was eighteen he went to the university.
Up to that time I had been, I fancy, almost his only
confidant. He had had as private tutor the minister
of the parish, a fine scholar and a competent teacher,
a man, moreover, of immense energy and variously
gifted, whose services to the Church have not been
forgotten, or, to speak more correctly, are now begin-
ning to be recognised. But Dr Evergreen was even
then well up in years; and though he and Mark
became afterwards close friends, the brilliant and
trenchant thinker, the great ecclesiastical reformer,
failed to recognise in his shy and diffident pupil a
spirit as ardent and fearless as his own. So that the
dreams and visions of what the future had in store for
him were reserved for his diary or for my private ear.
That future he had mapped out with uncommon and
almost startling lucidity.
MARK'S RETURN. 7
We were sitting one afternoon in the late summer
on the beach beneath the Cleuch. He had shot a
brace of ducks, and his gun and the birds were lying
beside him. I was occupied on a bit of crabbed Latin
in an old charter ; his eye wandered vaguely over sea
and sky. We had been silent for some time. It was
our last day together; next morning he was to leave
for college.
" It has been a pleasant time," he began, speaking
at first more to himself than to his companion. " I
shall never quite forget it, I fancy, in all the years that
are to come nor you, Dick," he added, with a kindly
nod. " Dick, my boy, why don't you go into the
Church ? When I'm Lord Chancellor I'll give you a
living. But, perhaps, you don't fancy the white tie or
the silk apron. Well, then, try your pen, and when I
am editor of the Times you shall have the place of
honour. I wonder which is best, to be a great lawyer
or a great writer ? I mean to be both. Please don't
laugh at me, Dick. I'm quite serious, as you will see
by-and-by. I would hate to be a mere lawyer," he
went on, "but I would hate still more to be a mere
scribbler. Which do you think the more despicable
the glib pen or the glib tongue? But it is better
to make history than to write it ; and a man from a
Temple garret may be Prime Minister before the game
is played out."
So he went away to the university, to the great
world beyond the moorland. He began by using his
pen, and he wrote deftly and brilliantly. He would
8 MARK'S RETURN.
send me articles now and again ; and I fancied that
besides being deft and dexterous I could discern some-
thing better that gave them their charm to me a
ground - swell of passion, of emotion, which was
stronger and deeper than the easy cynicism of the
lawyer. Then almost without warning he became a
power at the Bar. He woke one morning to find him-
self famous. For ten or twelve years thereafter he had
the most lucrative practice among the younger men.
He was reading briefs all night; he was speaking all
day. Some great client coming straight from the great
city told us once that if he went on as he was doing he
would be on the woolsack before he was fifty. Then
there were rumours that he was to stand for the
county ; " Pam " wanted to find a seat for the Solicitor
that was to be; and Mark Holdfast with his easily
won guineas had already contrived to buy back a
goodly slice of the land which in the bad times had
been parted with by his grandfather, the Admiral. It
was likely enough that he would win; a stronger
candidate could not be found. So we all said.
But it was ordered otherwise.
It was a dull day in early autumn. The wind was in
the south, and there was rain in the sky. I had been
limping along the shore, thinking of many things, but
chiefly of my old friend. I had come to the very spot
where we had parted thirty years before, when, turning
inland to cross the links to the highroad, I met him
face to face.
He was sorely changed. He had grown an old man
MARK'S RETURN. 9
an old man before his time a man prematurely worn.
He had come back to his birthplace, could it be that
he had come back only to die ?
We shook hands ; we looked hard at each other ; in
less time than it takes to write this sentence we were
on the old friendly footing.
" Yes," he said, " Pam sent for me last Sunday. The
great office would be vacant directly ; a seat would be
found for me : they would be pleased to have me in the
House. It was all very flattering; no man can be more
cordial or appreciative than the Chief. Then I thought
I would look up Clarkson. I had felt rather queer for
a week or two, a slight difficulty in breathing, a nasty
worrying pain down the left arm. Clarkson is our
family doctor, you know a very good fellow, and sharp
as a needle. I told him with a jest that it was a mere
matter of form just idle curiosity nothing more. He
took out his stethoscope, listened for a few seconds,
and then turned away to the window. Dick, I knew
my doom before a word was spoken. ' Tell me the
truth right out,' I said, as calmly as I could, though
my voice sounded strangely in my ears ; ' I see that
you have bad news.' ' You are hurt,' he answered
frankly, looking me in the face with his honest eyes ;
' it is not a mortal hurt as yet, but without absolute
rest you are a dead man.' It was the knock-down blow,
Dick, one gets once in a lifetime. If I wanted to live
six weeks why, good-bye to the Bar. Thrust out of
Paradise, banished, outlawed, where was the good of
living ? I took the night to consider : next morning I
io MARK'S RETURN.
wrote Pam that I was going to sell my house in town
and live at Balmawhapple ! Could he give me some-
thing in the Customs? He must have thought me
mad. And here we are."
This was the beginning of the close friendship which
has brightened my later life. These after-years indeed
have been my Indian summer. Our early intimacy was
renewed. He did not come alone ; his wife came with
him his wife and three bright-eyed curly-headed girls.
He had married Sybil Keppel for love a year or two
after he was called ; Sybil had been the object of his
shy boyish devotion ; and the slight delicate slip of a
girl that I dimly remembered (the Keppels were a
family of old standing and crippled means, who owned
a tumble-down barrack at the other end of the parish),
though she had grown meanwhile into a brilliant woman
of the world, had lost none of her girlish charm. They
became my dearest friends ; but I cannot say that they
were popular. Husband and wife were wrapt up in
each other. The knowledge that he might be taken
from her at any moment gave to her wifely regard a
tender solicitude. The tacit apprehension that any
moment he might look his last upon the sweetest face
he cared to see either in this world or the next was
never entirely banished. The outside public, however
(ignorant of its cause), resented this unconscious and
quite innocent exclusiveness. Nor can it be denied
that the scorn for his fellow-mortals which he had
always felt, I daresay, and which grew upon him in his
retirement, was sometimes too keenly expressed. He
MARK'S RETURN. u
had fallen out of the race ; he had, by no fault of his
own, been forced to stand aside while others pressed
on to the goal such as it was ; and failure had made
him caustic, possibly bitter. So Balmawhapple, when
its cordial, if somewhat florid, convivialities were per-
sistently declined, began to look askance at the new-
comers. The Holdfasts were cold, proud, taciturn, and
I know not what besides. I did what I could to remove
the misunderstanding with little success. Mark's
abrupt retreat from public life and a great position had
from the first been regarded as an unaccountable eccen-
tricity ; no one except myself knew the exact state of
matters ; it was given out that he had been overworked
and was taking a prolonged holiday ; and though the
provost and bailies continued to touch their hats to him
when they met on the street, there was only one house
in town (save my own and the editorial sanctum of the
Tomahawk] where he was quite at his ease, where he
was cordially welcome and an honoured guest, and that
was the grey old house overlooking the harbour where
Miss Christian and Miss Anne everybody knew Miss
Christian and Miss Anne had lived since they were
girls.
And there were other elements of discord.
The Bay of Balmawhapple is protected from the
fierce easterly gales by two rocky headlands which run
far out into the sea. The Cleuch, as we have seen, is
12 MARK'S RETURN.
built at the extreme point of the one, and is a con-
spicuous landmark for the ships that pass along the
coast ; Keppel Court, which faces it from the other side
of the bay here a mile across is less conspicuous.
The old tower is a ruin; and the modern mansion
where the Keppel girls were all born might be taken
from the outside for a mere farm-steading. Inside it
is better ; the Keppels had been soldiers and travellers ;
the tables were crowded with oriental bric-a-brac, the
walls with portraits of men and women, not undis-
tinguished for valour and beauty in their day.
The " Keppel girls " were the toast of the country-
side when I was a lad. Their mother had died before
the eldest of the six daughters was in her teens ; and
the breezy and beery old captain their father had left
them thereafter very much to their own devices. It
was not to be wondered at, therefore, that they should
have grown up strong, independent, and self-willed.
But wilfulness and obstinacy were their worst faults ;
for, each and all, as their rustic admirers declared,
were proud as the devil, and quite able to take care
of themselves. Sybil, indeed, it was admitted but
Sybil after all was only a cousin had little in common
with the others : she had been delicate as a child,
and unable to take part in their rough scrambles and
rather masculine pastimes ; and though she outgrew
her childish ailments, her cheek had never the plump-
ness, nor her voice the vigour, of the true " Keppel
girls."
Death, marriage, domestic strife, and family feuds
MARK'S RETURN. 13
(for they were never so happy as when at war) had
thinned their ranks. At the time of which I am
writing, indeed, only two remained, the eldest and
the youngest, Martha and Barbara ; and the old house
which had once been clamorous with boisterous girl-
hood had grown strangely silent. The two sisters,
with a couple of rheumatic retainers, occupied the
wing which looked out upon the dreary and ill-kept
garden, while the wind whistled through the broken
panes of the main building, and the rats ran riot.
As the years passed the characteristics of the family
became in each more marked. They had few neigh-
bours, few friends; the Court, upon its bare pro-
montory, was very solitary except for the sea-gulls.
So, for society they were thrown mainly upon them-
selves. Their tempers were intrinsically alike; both
were exacting ; but while the one was actively, the
other was passively, domineering. Martha was the
shriller and more vehemently feminine of the two;
but Barbara's indolent obstinacy was invincible.
Martha, as she advanced in life, had taken to
religion ; and while the one sister devoted herself
altogether to the ailments of the body, the other
occupied herself mainly with the maladies of the soul.
Martha was evangelical and ritualistic, High Church
and Low Church, meagrely Presbyterian and floridly
Episcopalian by turns ; and Barbara oscillated between
a famous London physician and an old woman in the
village who cured by conjurations and the laying on
of hands.
14 MARK'S RETURN.
These were the only families of any standing in the
rural part of the parish of Balmawhapple the Hold-
fasts and the Keppels; for Kirkstone, though it was
hardly a mile from the Court, belonged to the next
parish the parish of Cuddiestone. Our county
society was thus very limited, or, as we preferred to
say, select : if you were asked to Pittendreich, you
might meet an Earl or an Ambassador ; but Pitten-
dreich was fifteen miles away as the crow flies, and
the Pittendreich people knew little of the Balma-
whapple people, and cared less. In the burgh of
Balmawhapple itself we were more fortunate : we had
not only the inevitable lawyers and doctors and
merchants and ministers, but more than one elderly
lady who had been brought up in a big country house,
and could call the best in the county "cousin." We
were particularly prbud of Miss Christian and Miss
Anne, two inexhaustibly delightful old gentlewomen
who lived in an old house standing in its own court-
yard above the harbour, who had been famous beauties
in their youth, but who had clung to each other all
their lives with the purest sisterly devotion, and had
grown by degrees into the sweetest, daintiest, spright-
liest, nattiest old maids that one could wish to meet.
The ancient ladies were my dear friends ; and their
cheery drawing-room of a summer evening, with the
murmur of voices on the pier -head and of the sea
beyond coming in through the open window, with the
bright, brisk, prosperous, pugnacious Doctor (Doctor
Jackson had brought most of us into this rather bare
MARK'S RETURN. 15
and bleak world) ventilating a paradox or airing an
epigram, the cheery drawing-room, where the modest
"tray" appeared punctually at 9.30, was the salon of
our very best society, and entirely charming and en-
joyable to those of us who had the password. There
was a vast deal of individuality in that society ;
the language was idiomatic, the characters strongly
marked ; it was good-natured upon the whole, but it
spoke its mind pretty plainly ; and it hated cant and
dulness as it hated a Radical or a cad. They were
perfect ladies and gentlemen who composed it ; but I
am afraid the prudes of the present day would have
dubbed them " Bohemians," and resented a certain
freedom of definition which does not find favour now.
It was for this reason, I daresay, that certain of the
most eminently respectable citizens of Balmawhapple
were not precisely popular with Miss Christian and
Miss Anne and the inner circle of friends who had
gathered round them. If they called us " Bohemians "
we called them " Philistines " (or its popular equivalent
for the time being) ; and as from the bleak hills of
Judea the chosen people looked down upon the sin-
ful Cities of the Plain, so did we regard the faction
which was led by "Pike," " G. G." the butter-
merchant, and other secular and ecclesiastical lumin-
aries of the royal and ancient burgh. 1
1 There has been much controversy, I observe, as to the true site of Bal-
mawhapple a controversy which it would be a pity to close prematurely.
The impression, however, that there are at least two Balmawhapples appears
to be gaining ground.
16 MARK'S RETURN.
Jacob Corbie (commonly called " Pike ") was the
pet aversion of my boyhood. He came of a family
of local lawyers who had since the year One been
well known in these parts for their rather unscrupu-
lous keenness of scent and sharpness of speech ; and
his resemblance to a weasel or ferret a weasel, I
think, but at any rate to a class of animals where the
eyes, brought into unpleasant proximity, regard each
other with ill -disguised hostility was unmistakable.
Moreover, the brow was low, narrow, and sensual,
and the lip-deep smile was furtive, all which were
quite in keeping with a certain unclean and slimy
animalism which characterised the man. " Pike "
was never at his ease ; the affectation of jocose
frankness which he commonly assumed was mani-
festly a pretence, and the impression that he had
something to hide (not silver spoons exactly) was
one that he never failed to leave. At the same time,
it was quite clear that the man knew on which side
his bread was buttered ; and that his thoughts even
when in the pulpit, even when addressing a glib
prayer to the Almighty, or dropping a sticky tear
over a lost sheep were steadily fixed upon the main
chance. But he was a good actor, a good second-
rate actor in his way; he could feign a cordiality
which he did not feel, and simulate a passion which
had no true warmth; and though he was generally
detected in the long - run by the quicker - witted of
his persuasion, he continued to enjoy with the un-
observant masses a certain equivocal popularity.
MARK'S RETURN. 17
I have spoken of Corbie as if he were an ordained
clergyman ; but he was only one of the lay products of
an evangelical revival that had swept over the district
when he was keeping the books in his uncle's office.
He had a share in the business, which had something
to do with blubber ; but he was now a sleeping partner,
and merely drew (with praiseworthy punctuality) his
half-yearly dividend. The rest of his time was devoted
to " saving souls " ; and his loose logic and flabby
rhetoric were always in considerable request during
the periodical fits of religious hysteria to which his
countrymen are subject.
George Gilbert Gannet (or " G. G." as our busy
mercantile community called him for brevity) sinned
against our Bohemian code in quite another fashion.
He was not only oppressively respectable, but he was
dull offensively and criminally dull. His wife was
dull ; his children were dull ; the house was dull ; the
servants in the house were dull ; the very dogs and cats
were dull. Though the Gannets really belonged to the
mercantile class the money had been made in trade :
pickled herrings and the like both husband and wife
maintained with implicit confidence that they belonged
to the " county." This was the rock on which they
were anchored ; had it been taken away from them,
they would have suffered irreparable shipwreck. So
besides employing on occasion a solemn butler and a
lugubrious " buttons," they drove the only carriage
(except the doctor's old gig) that was kept in Balma-
whapple, a four-wheeler, lined with purple and fine
VOL. i. B
i8 MARK'S RETURN.
linen like the Lord Mayor's, and emblazoned all over
with griffins and unicorns, and other legendary animals.
Otherwise, the whole family father, mother, and
daughters were the visible incarnation of the Com-
monplace. No fire of passion, no gleam of imaginative
light, could penetrate the thick fog in which they spent
a grey, sombre, and monotonous life. Our little Bohe-
mian doctor regarded this dismal household with a
peculiar energy of dislike. They were, he declared,
dull as ditchwater, dry as sticks, dreary as ghosts.
Even in their diseases they were incapable of invention
or originality. " Why, sir," the little man would con-
clude, as he trotted off on his rounds, "why, sir, they
cannot rise above mumps ! "
Corbie and " G. G." belonged to the rank and file :
the leader of the Philistines was a man of a very differ-
ent calibre. David Dewar of Kirkstone, who during
the winter months became a citizen of Balmawhapple
by occupying one of the ugly aristocratic old mansions
overlooking the harbour, was as much a fanatic as
David Deans of St Leonards or John Balfour of Bur-
ley ; and, like all fanatics, he had the most perfect con-
fidence in his own wisdom and his own integrity. His
very tricks of manner, his idiosnycrasies of gait and
gesture, proclaimed that in their owner's estimation he
was infallible as any pope. He held his chin in the air
high in the air and looked down on his adversary
with the superior scorn of a Westbury or a Mill. His
cold and distant condescension, his visibly contemptu-
ous effort to adapt himself to the meanest capacity,
MARK'S RETURN. 19
would have irritated the meekest of men. God Al-
mighty to a black beetle ! Yet, though his manner was
cold and impassive, fire burnt beneath. His arguments,
it is true, were worthless; for he was a fantastical
visionary ; but they were urged with a red-hot intensity
of conviction that at times was not unimpressive. He
was vindictively virtuous. That steely ire, when once
kindled, was not quickly quenched. Fanaticism is in-
trinsically cruel, for it disregards the decent and charit-
able conventions which obtain among gentlemen, and
which make life tolerable. Even experience, which
teaches most of us to be humble, could not mellow the
laird of Kirkstone. If a client did not follow his advice,
if a friend was not convinced by his logic, he took it as
a personal insult an insult to his own immunity from
error. And a personal insult needed to be avenged.
For the miserable dissenter from the decrees of infal-
lible wisdom there was little peace thereafter. The
Grand Inquisitor was never satisfied until the victim
had expiated his unreasonableness at the stake. This
Radical of the Radicals was the foe of all noncon-
formity. People said that if Kirkstone was hard and
impracticable, he was honest honest at least. He
may have been so. At any rate, we had the satisfaction
of knowing that whatever he did, however unpleasant,
was done from " the highest motives." He was bitter,
sarcastic, pitiless, cruel, supercilious from " the highest
motives." It was not perhaps altogether surprising
that this inquisitorial integrity should not have been
appreciated by the Gallios of an easy-going society ;
20 MARK'S RETURN.
and in spite of fair abilities David Dewar had been from
the first a persistent failure. He could only indeed
have been an eminent success in a world from which
common-sense and prudence and sound judgment had
been banished. Mark, who had known him pretty in-
timately at one time, did not hesitate to declare that he
was one of those dangerous lunatics whose orbits are
incalculable. Kirkstone was certainly more or less
crazy at irregular intervals ; but there was method in
his madness, and, happily or unhappily, he was too
sane to be shut up.
David Dewar had spent the best part of his life in
the United States, and he had returned on the death of
an uncle who had left him the old Dewar Mansion-
house that overlooked the harbour, and a few acres in
the parish of Cuddiestone. He had brought little or
nothing back with him from New England except the
nasal twang of the Yankee, a bitter contempt for mon-
archical institutions all over the world, and a profound
belief in David Dewar.
There was thus plenty of explosive materials about.
" Mark was standing on the brink of a volcano ; he was
sitting on the roof of a powder magazine ; he might be
drawn in, he might be blown up, at any moment."
These were the doctor's similes when one day he spoke
to me of the matter rather urgently : for the doctor, like
myself, though he belonged ostensibly to neither of our
factions, was a bit of a hero-worshipper, and Mark had
been his hero, as he had in a more personal and inti-
mate way been mine. The similes were perhaps a little
MARK'S RETURN. 21
mixed, but they represented a substantial truth ; for the
foes of our own household are the most bitter and un-
scrupulous, and Corbies, Keppels, and Dewars were
either by birth or marriage closely allied with the Hold-
fasts. " Mark hasn't the remotest idea that they hate
him," the doctor added. " I must get Dr Evergreen
to speak to him. But why don't you warn him your-
self? There's that clever cat, Martha Keppel, hates
him like poison ; Mrs G. G.'s malicious tittle-tattle is
all over the place ; Corbie knows that Holdfast wouldn't
touch him with a pair of tongs ; and what daft Davie
Dewar, who is as mad as a March hare, will or will not
do under any conceivable circumstances, God only
knows ! " And the worthy doctor, perspiring profusely,
started on the daily round which he so immensely en-
joyed. I saw him moping the bald pate the bald pate
that rose like a dome over the inquisitive eyes and the
solid gold spectacles all down the High Street.
I had almost omitted to mention that Dr Evergreen,
Mark's old tutor, the senior minister of our collegiate
church, was still alive. The earthly tabernacle indeed
had wasted away, had become perilously delicate and
transparent, as if its owner were already clothed with
that spiritual body of which the apostle speaks; but
the unclouded intellect was alert and luminous as ever.
He resided at what was called " the Old Manse," a
quaint, pleasant, old-fashioned house upon the outskirts
of the town, sheltered from the wild winds of winter by
the high walls and the thick hedges (often white in
storm-time with driven spray) of the cosy garden in
22 MARK'S RETURN.
which, like Topsy, it had " growed." All Balma-
whapple loved Dr Evergreen. He had by this time
indeed almost entirely withdrawn from public life ;
but the noble and venerable figure was familiar to
all of us. In these later years he had grown very
lonely ; the children he idolised had one by one been
taken from him to a distant heaven (a heaven, alas !
in which he did not entirely believe) ; yet the sunset
light on the worn face the after-glow was full of
sweetness ; and he had emerged from the waves of
controversy and strife with the heart of a child, and
a spirit that had been tempered as by fire.
The battle was already won it had been a stiff fight,
though the ultimate issue was never doubtful but he
had not doffed his armour, nor would he while he was
able to bear it ; for he was one of those who hold, with
a great poet of our time (as the editor of the Tomahawk
remarked in his obituary notice), that the energy of life
may be kept on after the grave, but not begun
" And he who flagged not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing only he,
His soul well knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life."
Nor must I forget the Tomahawk, for the Tomahawk
was a power in Balmawhapple, and the Tomahawk did
not love the Philistines. The Tomahawk cost a penny,
and was published on Saturday, on Saturday as a
rule, though, if the editor happened to be " other-
wise engaged," it sometimes failed to appear till the
middle of the following week.
MARK'S RETURN. 23
Pat Salamander, the editor of Balmawhapple's sole
literary organ, had seen a good deal of Mark in the
early years when the young barrister was still writing
leading articles for the daily papers, and Mark always
retained a kindly remembrance of the frank and friendly
intercourse of that rather skittish Bohemia. Pat had
drifted about the world a good deal, and it was probably
owing to Mark's good offices that he had finally settled
down in the editorial sanctum of the Balmawhapple
Tomahawk, and become our censor morum. Except Pat,
the Tomahawk had no regular staff, and it trusted for
its occasional diversions De omnibus rebus et quibusdam
aliis mainly to amateurs. It was in the Poet's Corner
of the Tomahawk that Dobbs Dante Gabriel Dobbs,
of whom we shall hear anon first wooed his modest
muse.
Thus though the forces of the Philistines were
formidable, the chosen people in Balmawhapple were
able to hold their own, especially when reinforced by
their allies from St Abb's. Of the Homeric battle
which was waged by the contending factions over
Hector's body we shall hear anon. But, as becomes
an orderly and veracious chronicler, I am going to
begin at the beginning, and the stories that in the
meantime I purpose to relate will take us a long
way back to primitive Balmawhapple and Holdfasts
of historic record. By easy gradations stepping
nimbly but cautiously from century to century, and
leaving behind us as we move the evil figures of an
ugly past,
24 MARK'S RETURN.
" Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord ! "
we shall by-and-by return to the men and women who
meet us in the street, and whose lives are bound up
with our own.
I choose instinctively a humble arena. History
transacts itself on the grand scale in Courts and
Camps ; but in every nook and corner of the land,
age after age, men and women were living their own
more or less uneventful lives, while they listened to
the echoes from the great world outside. Mark and
I tried hard to live that old Balmawhapple life over
again ; it was our favourite occupation for many years
(the audience growing as the years wore on) the
Table-Talk of many a Winter Night. In this book
that TABLE -TALK is reproduced in forms for which
I am solely responsible. But in each case behind
the literary presentation there is a solid basis of fact ;
I have taken the narrative from records which are
still accessible, and easily to be deciphered by experts.
If in the earlier pages I have mainly followed the
fortunes of a single house, it is because in the Hold-
fast charter - chest the documents from which I
borrow, "convey, the wise it call," are for the
most part lodged.
II.
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
'THHE Holdfast charter-chest is one of the institu-
*- tions of Balmawhapple. When it was sent in
to our office on the occasion of a famous lawsuit,
the whole community turned out to inspect this
masterpiece of a medieval artist. The fineness and
intricacy of the decorative ironwork on lock and hinge
and handle are only rivalled by the dexterous adjust-
ment of the crowd of figures on the panels of carven
oak. The incidents represented on the worm-eaten
panels are taken from the old miracle - plays and
moralities which served to amuse and edify the
people in what Charles Kingsley has called "the
milky youth of this great English land," Joseph
of Arimathea, and the long -bearded Eastern sages,
and the devil himself with horns and tail and cloven
hoof. Rude snatches of verse in archaic characters
are deftly inserted here and there, to aid the unlearned
spectator in following the action of the play. A
compendious history of the world from the time when
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden " stabunt nudi,
26 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
et non verecundabuntur " ! To Mark and myself,
when boys, the exterior of the Holdfast charter-chest
was as good as a story-book, and later on we found
that when the lid was unlocked the contents were
by no means so dry and musty as they looked. Even
in the mere title-deeds the name of some long-
forgotten Muriel, or Eufame, or Alyne, or Agatha,
or Alicia, or Veronica, or Clare, or Ursula, came
like a flash of light out of the past. There were,
moreover, records of the fifteenth and sixteenth
century Holdfasts, written by themselves in quaint
little note-books of the time, which in spite of a certain
grandiose gravity and stately deliberation were eagerly
perused by us. We knew that the Holdfasts could
wield their swords ; it now appeared that more than
one of the house had been as clever with the pen.
But the story we liked best was the story of a girl
who had lived as maiden and wife and mother through
the wild times that followed the flight of Mary, who
had been taken as a child to hear Knox preach in
the great church in the High Street, and who in
extreme old age heard in her northern home of that
tragedy on the scaffold at Whitehall which revived
the memory of the still more cruel tragedy at Fother-
inghay. I had a copy made once, and Mark says that
I may use it if I like. This is the story of Lilias
Maitland and Gilbert Holdfast, as written out by
Amias his brother, with some such slight modern-
ising of archaic phrases and obsolete modes of speech
as will make it intelligible to the reader of to-day.
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 27
WE were twins Gilbert and I born in the year of our Lord
1560. We had lived together in the old house that our
grandfather had built about the time of Flodden ever since
we could remember. Ravenscleuch it was called (more
commonly " The Cleuch " for brevity), a simple square tower,
with narrow slits which served for windows in the upper flats,
and a strong oaken door below. Such towers are common
all over Scotland ; they are the homes of the gentry and
lesser barons ; and though not to be compared with Lething-
ton or Craigmillar, or the vast castle that the Chancellor
is building beside the Water of Lauder, they are fairly com-
fortable ; ours is at least, especially in the summer-time, when
we take the air on the flat roof, and look across the estuary
of the Whapple to the hunting-lodge which belongs to the
king himself, and the rough moorland park where, as the
twilight falls, the bittern booms and the stags bellow.
Ravenscleuch stands high, and the view from the leads
embraces all the country round about. Far away to the
east there is the sea itself; then the white line of breakers
along the bar ; then the landlocked bay, noisy with screaming
terns and black with water-fowl ; then the sandhills clothed
with yellow bent on either side of the estuary, which gradu-
ally narrows until it reaches the reef of rock on which the
Cleuch is built; then the great park on the farther shore,
golden in spring with the broom, purple in autumn with the
heather, the turrets of the lodge half hidden by the group of
giant firs which shelter it from the sea ; then, on our side of
the stream, dotted over the level carse, some half-dozen
weather-beaten keeps, with battlements and pepper-boxes
like our own ; then right under our feet the huts of a few
poverty-stricken fishermen clustered round the ruins of the
abbey, which had been swept by " the fiery besom " a month
or two before we were born. The abbey of Balmawhapple
had been famous in its day ; but it was among the first that
the iconoclasts wrecked ; and the community which it had
28 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
sheltered for five hundred years had been broken up, and
driven into a world with which they were unfamiliar. The
kirk of the Reformation was a low barn-like building, which,
with the manse, stood in what had once been the orchard of
the monastery. But the fertile fields which the monks had
industriously tilled had been allowed to run to waste, and the
whole monastic domain was in the meantime little better than
a wilderness. This vast pile of ruin was our favourite play-
ground when boys. It had a fascination for us which we did
not try to explain, though we rather avoided it after dusk,
when the owls began to hoot, and the shadows cast by the
moon took bodily shape, and moved in ghostly procession
along the ruined aisle. It was here that the old lords of
the district had been buried Holdfasts, Maitlands, and
Grays ; but the carven slabs, on which knight and lady
rested, had been cracked and blackened by the action of
the fire, and epitaphs in stately Latin were no longer
decipherable.
Our nearest neighbours (with the exception of the Reverend
Peter Gibson, who occupied the manse) were the Maitlands
of that Ilk, who lived at Balmain, a mile or so up the river.
Still farther inland, at the Cadger's Pot, where the salt water
ceases to mingle with the fresh, there is Greystone a seat
of the Master of Gray, as the eldest son of the peer of that
name is called among us, according to our Scottish usage.
There was a bridge across the Whapple within a few hundred
yards of Greystone, a venerable bridge, which had been
built by the first James, when one of his train, crossing at the
ford to Earlshall the royal hunting-lodge had been carried
away by the flooded water and drowned.
There were only the two of us, Gilbert and Amias Hold-
fast. Our mother died when we were infants ; she had been
the close friend of the Dowager-Queen, Marie of Lorraine,
who had been loath to part with her favourite maid to Sir
Martin Holdfast ; for our father, she knew, had been infected
with the heresies of his namesake, and it seemed probable,
should civil war break out, that he would cast in his lot with
" the congregation of Jesus Christ," as the followers of Knox
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 29
and the Lord James were pleased to call themselves. But
his wife, as Knox sorrowfully complained, was more dear to
him than his religion ; and when the fierce band of icono-
clasts swept down upon Edinburgh, he retired to the Cleuch,
and declined to take any active part in the conflict with the
dying queen. Marie of Lorraine breathed her last on the
day that we were born ; and from the double shock our
mother never recovered. There was a vein of fanatical
intemperance in our father's character; so long as he was
allied with Knox he was persuaded that he belonged to the
elect ; and the deep gloom that settled upon him when his
young wife had bidden him a tender, tearful farewell, was due
in no small measure to the conviction that, for mere carnal
gratification, he had forfeited his spiritual birthright. He
lived for eight or ten years; but the shadows never lifted.
Prayer and penance were in vain ; night and day he was
assailed by visionary fiends who would not relent ; and even
when Knox solemnly assured him that his sin had been
blotted out, and that his name was registered in the book of
life, he refused to be comforted. I cannot tell how he had
come to persuade himself that he was guilty of the sin against
the Holy Ghost ; but the vision of a jealous God, who hated
the creatures He had made with more than mortal bitterness,
haunted him to the end.
The gloom that had settled upon the Cleuch during my
father's widowhood was not dispelled by his death. The
two bewildered little fellows who crept noiselessly about the
darkened rooms until the neighbours came and bore the
black coffin to the niche in the abbey vault, which had been
hastily prepared for its reception, could hardly have been left
more lonely and friendless had they been gipsy-born. There
was the clergyman, to be sure the Reverend Peter Gibson
who paid us an occasional visit ; but he was tedious and
pedantic, and his clumsy efforts at cheerfulness rather added
to our depression. Gilbert, who was my senior by an hour,
and consequently entitled to all the privileges of primogeni-
ture, would abruptly disappear whenever he heard the strident
voice on the stair ; and but for an uneasy conviction on my
30 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
part that the good man really wished us well, I would have
followed the example that was set me. An hour afterwards
I would find Gilbert on the roof, gazing wistfully and dreamily
into space.
For Gilbert was a dreamer, and in these visionary hours,
when he escaped from the harsh environment of our ordinary
life into an ideal kingdom, he was comparatively content. I
was too matter-of-fact to follow him ; and left behind, could
only sit down by the dusty roadside and cry myself to sleep.
There were compensations, however. Meg our ancient nurse,
and Mathy our pompous major-domo, never thought of troub-
ling Gilbert with the financial anxieties of the household ; I
was their confidant, and I was flattered by the preference.
We were taught to ride and fish and shoot by the keeper ;
and our education otherwise was not entirely neglected. A
lean and lanky divinity student from the College of St Mary's
was engaged by Mr Gibson to introduce us to the Etymologic
of Lilius and Hunter's Nomenclatura ; and though he was shy
and nervous, and hardly capable of controlling a couple of
able-bodied lads, who were growing out of their jackets, we
made fair progress in the " humanities." Then there was a
store of curious old poems and romances on a shelf in the
great hall; Lancilot de Laik, printed at Rouen in 1488, as
well as the Morte <f Arthur of Sir Thomas Mallory, printed
by Mr William Caxton in 1485, and the strange story of
Ogier, King of Denmark, who, going to the Court of Charle-
magne, was enslaved by the fairy Morgana in her palace at
Avallon, where, while the shades of King Arthur and the
Knights of the Round Table passed before him as in a
dream, the magic ring she had placed on his finger kept him
from growing old, and Le Livre de la Diablerie and the
Garden of Pleasance, and the poems of Ronsard and Clement
Marot, and Mr George Buchanan's translation of the Psalms,
with the elegant dedication to the Northern Nymph he had
not yet begun to revile, in all of which, but mainly in the
romances, we read diligently. The life was sombre enough,
but healthy, as an open-air life must be, and, as the years went
by, not altogether unhappy.
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 31
It was Lilias Maitland, however, who first shot a streak of
radiant light through the more or less murky clouds that clung
persistently to the Cleuch.
We had been out in our light skiff after wild-fowl on the
half-frozen mere. The winter sun had set, but the western
sky was still ablaze with light; a pale pure light such as
comes before a bitter frost. There was the pallid ghost of a
moon overhead ; it had taken the place of the ruddy orb that
had left us, and seemed indeed altogether more in keeping
with the chaste serenity and solemnity of an ice-bound world.
We were waiting on the other side of the water, just below
Earlshall, for the evening flight of the ducks as they came
down from the inland swamps to the sea. Save for the
occasional croak of a water-rail among the reeds, or the
pensive plaint of a plover, the silence round us was abso-
lute. Only high up in the frosty ether we could hear the
beat of wings.
There is a low belt of wood along the margin of the water,
hazel, birch, seedling oaks. Lying on our oars, we were sud-
denly startled by the sound of voices within a few yards of
where we lay. "John, what are we to do?" were the only
words we could clearly distinguish before, through a break in
the wood, the speaker appeared.
She was a girl of six or seven. She wore a rough dark-
blue riding-coat, and a cap of the same colour with a black-
cock's feather. The rough rustic dress heightened by contrast
the dainty, high-bred, delicate beauty of the face. There was
the faintest glow of colour on the cheeks, and a streak of gold
through the auburn hair. There might be a suggestion of
mockery about the mouth ; but the brow was broad and ample,
and the tranquil brown eyes were honest as the day. The
general effect was of extreme purity ; the dainty child might
have been one of Dian's pages. The blackcock -feather,
indeed, was fastened to her cap by a silver buckle represent-
ing the crescent moon ; it was only the crest of the house,
but it might have been taken, might have been assumed, as
the symbol of vestal consecration. I do not mean to say that
all this was visible to us then ; we found it out later ; at least
32 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
Gilbert did; for Gilbert was a poet, and could pay pretty
compliments that somehow never occurred to me.
She was leading a pony that had fallen dead lame, and she
was accompanied by a portly Jehu who was riding a spare
and long-legged Rosinante. He had a pair of heavy pistols,
such as servants carry, stuck in his belt ; and coming unex-
pectedly upon us in the fading light, he mechanically laid his
hand upon them. The twilight had no doubt magnified us
into bandits or " broken men " (as they say) from the neigh-
bouring highlands into poachers at least who had ventured,
or were about to venture, into the royal preserves. The
alarm was confined to John ; for the little lady, observing
the movement, said deliberately, "Don't you see they are
boys ? mere boys ? " she added after a pause, with a touch
of scorn in her voice. And then she hailed us. It appeared
that Donald, her moorland pony, had quite unnecessarily put
his foot into a rabbit-scrape. He had not exactly broken
his leg (as he deserved), but he had strained it so severely
that he could only hirple along at the rate of a mile an hour.
They had come for a canter in the royal park over the smooth
turf that had never been turned by the plough ; and though
Balmain was less than a mile as the crow flies from where we
were, the distance by road (which went round by the bridge
above Greystone) was at least six or eight times as far. It
would be dark long before they could get home, "and
mother," she said, " will think I am lost." What was to be
done?
Our skiff was a mere cockleshell ; but Gilbert, with a low
bow that might have become a finished courtier, it came to
him by nature, suggested that she might do us the honour
to accompany us. We would take her across in half an
hour ; the groom could lead the horses round by the bridge ;
and so no harm would be done.
She thanked us as a queen might have thanked a loyal
subject, and graciously accepted the offer. Handing Donald
over to Jehu, she stepped, or rather essayed to step, into the
boat. But the tide was ebbing, and the stones were slippery
with sea-weed ; and, after a demure and dignified rebuke,
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 33
she was pleased to allow Gilbert to take her in his arms and
lift her over the gunwale. She settled herself in the stern,
and, before we had reached the other side, had melted into
friendly sociability. " I am Lady Lilias Maitland," she said,
drawing herself up, after we had explained about the Cleuch,
" and I don't know that mother will let me know you boys ;
but if she does, you may call me Lil. We only came home
last week mother and I ; and now we are going to stay.
So it will be rather nice to have you about if mother does
not mind."
It was thus that our acquaintance began.
Mary Stuart had been to Lady Maitland what Marie of
Lorraine had been to our mother, "the dearest queen in
all the world," to use the words of poor Francis Throck-
morton after he had been on the rack. (" Now have I dis-
closed the secrets of her who was the dearest queen to me
in the world.") The pathetic intensity of the devotion which
the imprisoned queen inspired would have dignified any
cause ; and it may be said, quite truly, that there were few
men or women who had known her in close intimacy who
would not have laid down their lives for her. Lady Mait-
land was no exception to the rule; she had given up her
brilliant husband, her brave boys, they had fallen in that
devil's dance, led by Morton, which is known as the " Doug-
las wars " ; her own life she would have resigned without a
murmur ; and even Lilias even Lilias in the last extremity
would have been silently sacrificed. The craze, the hysterica
passio, which seized whole families when Mary Stuart's for-
tunes were in the balance, is even yet when many years have
passed incapable of rational explanation. It need hardly
surprise us, then, that grim zealots like Knox should have
attributed " the enchantment whereby men are bewitched "
to the direct interposition of an Evil Power.
It was no wonder that Gilbert the dreamer should have
been fascinated by our charming neighbours. Lady Mait-
land was the ideal gentlewoman ; and Lilias, with a more
intangible and delicate beauty, was as high-bred and high-
spirited as her mother. Mater pulchra^ filia pulchriorl
VOL. I. C
34- QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
Hardly so. For my own part, I used at times to think the
mother even fairer than the child. Something of the blue,
no doubt, had faded out of eyes which had survived so
much ; but what they had lost in brilliancy they had gained
in sweetness and seriousness. Her carriage was regal ; and
a passion of enthusiasm, a passion of pity, kept her young.
She had known our mother when they were girls; and
during the years that followed our little adventure on the
river, she made herself what shall I say ? a second mother,
yea, more than a second mother, to the friendless and solitary
lads. Balmain became to us another home ; Lilias a dearer
sister. We were much together; angling, riding, boating,
" Lil," at least, never failed us. We seldom ventured indeed
beyond the circle of hills that enclosed the level carse. We
had been warned to be cautious. Morton was Regent ; and
Morton, who did not love the Maitlands, was as cruel as he
was unscrupulous. Had he known that Lady Maitland con-
tinued to correspond with Mary in her English jail that
many of Mary's secrets were in her keeping it might have
gone hard with the woman he had helped to make a widow.
Once indeed we caught a glimpse of him on the river a
powerful, slovenly, blear-eyed, red-bearded man. He had
brought the little king to Earlshall that spring ; the child had
been ailing, and it was thought that our sea-breezes might
suit him better than doctor's drugs. To do the Regent
justice, it must be admitted that he cast his line deftly ; the
flies fell lightly upon the water ; even Gilbert was forced to
admit that there was no more skilful angler in the Carse.
We were lying among the bracken as he passed up the river
alone, and he did not notice us. One might have fancied,
seeing him then, that he was a simple fisherman and nothing
more, so absorbed was he in the sport. I believe the " dark
and dangerous Douglas " was bad to the core, detestable from
almost every point of view ; yet the man who could stroll up
the river-side where deadly foes might lurk in every bush,
with only a trout-rod in his hand, and forget his ambition
and his evil deeds in the passion of the chase, must have had
some redeeming traits.
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 35
But Gilbert would listen to no plea on his behalf. Morton
had been the deadliest enemy of Mary Stuart ; that was now
enough for Gilbert. For Gilbert had been entirely won over
to the Queen's side. Lady Maitland had enlisted a new
recruit for her mistress ; and Gilbert's devotion to the cause
was hardly inferior to her own. Even Lil could be satirical
at times ; when the spirit of mischief moved her (as it did on
occasion), she would ventilate the most outrageous heresies
about John Knox and the Lord James. Lil's was a character
not easily read. Her irony, I believe, was only skin-deep ; at
heart she was a fierce partisan. But she hid her passion
under a mask of mockery; or it might possibly be more
correct to say that a vein of mockery lay alongside a vein of
visionary exaltation. Gilbert, on the other hand, made no
pretence of concealment ; his grave absorption, his almost
ascetic devotion to the idea that had taken possession of him,
was visible to all the world. The Catholic does not pay a
more devout homage to the Virgin-Mother than Gilbert paid
to his tutelary saint.
None of us, indeed, even the most prosaic, were able to
resist the fair enchantress of Lady Maitland's reminiscences.
The talk at Balmain was of Mary Stuart, and of Mary Stuart
only. O dea certe ! It was a topic of which we never wearied.
We came to know the brilliant girl who had suffered such foul
wrong as if we had seen her face to face. On high days and
holidays Lady Maitland would bring down the locket which
Mary Stuart had given her when they parted at Dunbar.
Within was a miniature (painted by Janet, if I am not mis-
taken, while Mary was living with her grandmother at Join-
ville), the miniature of a young girl in a heavy conventual
garb, such as Antoinette de Bourbon may have worn during
her thirty years of widowhood. The sombre dress of the
cloister emphasised the gay and delicate beauty of the face,
the peach-like bloom on the velvet cheeks, the covert smile
that lurked in eye and lip. It was one of those faces about
which grown men go crazy ; if a lad lost his head over it, one
cannot wonder much.
Lady Maitland, you may be sure, would listen to no word
36 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
against her queen. She treated the charges that Morton had
manufactured, and that Elizabeth had circulated, with absolute
incredulity. Mary was honest as the day. She was at once
the queenliest and the homeliest of women who have worn a
crown. The trappings of state, the gewgaws of royalty, were
gladly laid aside by her. She had no patrician exclusiveness.
She had the true eye which sees the true metal. If a man
were brave and honest, a woman modest and sincere, she took
them to her heart. She was supremely faithful. But her nice
sense of the becoming was quickly offended by boorish inde-
corum or mean servility. Half the nobles at Court were boors
who could not write their names ; the rest were rotten to the
core. These were the men who had conspired against her,
these, and Knox, to whom the saintliest of Catholic women
would have been no better than a Jesebel. Knox, though
ferociously intolerant, was frankly sincere ; the others were
profoundly corrupt, and in Elizabeth's pay. Every day a new
calumny was invented. The innocent girl of eighteen was a
mature Machiavelli. Her harmless merry-makings were the
orgies of a Messalina. Her craft was devilish, and she revelled
in abominable wickedness. The nation did not believe them ;
and more than once the conspiracy was foiled. But Knox and
Cecil were persistently hostile ; and, with Morton's aid, they
robbed her of her crown, and tried to rob her of her good
name. " It was base, base. They had themselves consented
to Darnley's murder; they had themselves thrust her into
Bothwell's arms Bothwell whom she loathed ! A Jesebel
indeed ! A wicked woman ! Do not believe them. She
was, she is, pure as the snow. But alas ! " Lady Maitland
would conclude, " our Mary is a Stuart ; and her father, who
died of a broken heart, is the only Stuart who died in his
bed ! "
"But, mother dear," Lil would say Lil was sixteen now,
only sixteen, but a cruelly accomplished coquette " don't tell
us, please, that our dear queen is a saint. It would take away
half the charm if she wasn't just the least morsel wicked like
ourselves. I wouldn't want her to do anything very bad ; but
just confess now that she would have dearly liked to box
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 37
Knox's ears when he prayed for her as what was it he said ?
as a thrall and bondwoman of Satan, because she didn't go
to bed at ten ! And then the uncomely skipping at your in-
nocent merry-makings did he mean that she danced badly ?
only I daresay he wasn't much of a judge except of a Scotch
jig what do you say to that, my lady ? "
Lilias was only a girl ; but she was as mortally ashamed of
her tears as if she had been a man. The grave Gilbert was
partly distressed and partly fascinated by her mocking sallies ;
had he been able to watch her critically, he would have dis-
covered (as I did) that laughter is not seldom akin to tears.
But he could not criticise her coldly. That Gilbert loved her
from the first day he took her, as a child, in his arms, I never
doubted ; but neither man nor woman could tell what she felt
for Gilbert especially when the Master of Gray was with us.
I have said little about the Master as yet ; I suppose the
serpent was bound to get into Eden ; but the innocent beasts
would no doubt have been well pleased could he have been
kept out.
Paddy, as they called him, had been occasionally at Grey-
stone when a child with a French nurse, who had taught
him many dainty French oaths, and broken snatches of French
ditties that were not particularly edifying. The old lord his
father and his lady mother had been an ill-matched pair ; they
had led a cat-and-dog life for a year or two, and then she had
been cast off like an old coat. Lady Maitland took pity upon
the neglected boy, and did what she could to make his life a
little less hopelessly forlorn. She was a good woman ; I have
never known a better. But, in spite of his brave looks, none
of us cared for the Master; only for Lil he had a curious
attraction the sort of attraction which the rattlesnake has for
the bird. To do him justice, he was a superb boy a tiger
cub such as Veronese would have delighted to paint. I have
never indeed seen a child more insolently handsome. As he
grew up, people said that he should have been a girl, the
beauty was too feminine for a man. Yet he was not timid as
a girl might have been. I remember as if it were yesterday
a herd of our wild cattle charging down the moor upon Lilias
38 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
and her mother. The Master had only a light riding-switch
in his hand, but he stood his ground, and hit the foremost
bull a smarting blow over the eyes. The brute bellowed and
pawed the turf, but turned, and the rest followed him. Not
timid certainly, but cruel and crafty. So Gilbert maintained.
But Gilbert, who loathed him as he loathed a viper, was pos-
sibly unreasonable. Gilbert had found him one day taking
young birds from the nest, and deliberately putting their eyes
out with a red-hot piece of wire ; and when he had cuffed his
ears, the Master, with the snarl of a baby wolf, had flown
upon him, and bitten him to the bone. This, however, might
have been accidental ; for those who saw only the candid blue
eyes and a smile as honeyed as Delilah's, declared that a cruel
and crafty cherub was as impossible as a centaur or a griffin.
He went to France while still a lad, and we did not see him
again for several years. But at intervals a bright, clever, dex-
terous letter came from him it was to Lady Maitland he
wrote in which he played adroitly upon her devotion to the
captive queen. The Duke of Guise had made him his con-
fidant ; his dear and noble friend Philip Sidney had been won
over; letters grateful letters had come to him from Mary
herself; if all went well she would be a free woman before the
year was out. There were mysterious hints of a great Catholic
crusade, led by the Duke and officered by the veterans of
Spain. Tears of thankfulness came into Lady Maitland's eyes
as she read ; Lilias, with a mocking glance at Gilbert, would
declare that there was no accounting for the prejudices of
home-bred squires ; but Gilbert was not moved. He remained
incredulous ; his gloomy suspicions grew in force ; the boy
was the father of the man, the boy had been cruel and crafty
and corrupt, the man would be capable of any mischief, of
any treachery. Of that conviction neither the tears of the
mother, nor the gibes of the daughter, could disabuse him.
But even Gilbert was disarmed when the Master returned.
He was so frank, so friendly, so confidential. He had de-
voted himself to Mary's service. He had been selected to
organise the Scottish loyalists, and to bring James round to
his mother. He had been at Stirling, and the king was
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 39
already plastic in his hands. It might be well, however, that
Lady Maitland should see him ; James was passionately fond
of the chase, and was coming to Earlshall to try the new dogs
that the French king had sent him from Fontainebleau ; Lady
Maitland's recollections of Holyrood would be welcome, and
her fidelity to the mother might fire the rather sluggish sense
of filial duty in the son.
The brow was open ; the eye was candid ; and, as I have
said, even Gilbert was disarmed. I fancied, however, that the
curiously contradictory Lilias was not satisfied. Some false
note jarred upon her finer sense. She made no palpable show
of her distrust (if distrust him she did) ; but I could see that
she was on her guard, and that she watched him with a vigil-
ance that did not tire. She was a curious girl ; and I do not
pretend to have fathomed her moods.
I think it was owing to Lilias that Lady Maitland was more
reserved with the Master than she would otherwise have been.
A good deal, however, had been said during the first days of
frank and cordial intimacy after his return, which perhaps had
better have been left unsaid (for scraps of paper carefully
hidden away in the lining of a cloak or the scabbard of a
sword, on which microscopical symbols in invisible ink had
been carefully engrossed, still came to Our Lady from Tut-
bury or Chartley) ; and we could only hope that nothing had
escaped which, if a traitor was among us, would be fatally
compromising.
Meantime there was much stir at Earlshall, for the young
king had come. Morton had been in his bloody grave for
five years, though his head from the prick on the gable of the
Tolbooth still grinned at the passers-by (yet some have said
that it had been taken down by the Lord Angus after a dinner
he gave the king) ; poor Esme* Stuart, who, I have heard, was
more sinned against than sinning, had gone back to France
to die ; and the men who were now the most powerful at the
Court of Holyrood had little to recommend them (saving their
good looks and their soldierly bearing) to prince or people.
The Ochiltree Stuarts James, who had been made Earl of
Arran, and his brother the Colonel in spite of a thin veneer
4O QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
of Parisian polish, were sordid ruffians at heart ; mercenaries
to whom the slums of Europe were better known than its
colleges or churches. The aged John Knox had married
their fifteen-year-old sister, a scandalous marriage which the
brothers had made the theme of many a ribald jest. They
feared neither God nor man ; their cynical disregard of the
decencies of life had everywhere excited a keen recoil; and
James himself, who was inordinately vain, was growing weary
of favourites who treated him with scant respect. It was at
this moment that Patrick Gray, lovely as a Hebe, audacious
as a Phaethon, unscrupulous as a Machiavel, came to the
front. He rose, mushroom-like, in a night ; it was thought
that he would sink as suddenly. The preachers denounced
him as a " young, insolent, scornful boy," and freely criticised
from the pulpit what our Mr Gibson called " his impudencie,
and custom to lee." Arran, who had helped him to rise, now
turned against him, and Arran's enmity was as the blight of
pestilence ; even the violent attachment of the young king, to
whom he had become indispensable, would hardly have pre-
vented him from going the gait that Cochrane and Rizzio had
gone. But this was a boy who was craftier than the oldest
courtier, and who never lost his head or his temper.
II.
OUR quiet neighbourhood was rather scandalised by the life
that the Court led at Earlshall. I am afraid that the privilege
of being occasionally accosted by the king himself did not fan
our loyalty into a clearer flame ; royalty indeed never assumed
a more grotesque disguise than in the person of James ; his
stutter, his goggle-eyes, his loose sprawling limbs, his ungainly
gait, his flushed and bloodshot face, were apter to breed
laughter than to win reverence. He had, however, the most
unlimited and unqualified belief in himself. He was a master
of logic, and a dungeon of learning. There was no mystery,
divine or human, which he could not solve. He was the head
of the Church as well as the head of the State. The ministers,
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 41
who held that in spiritual matters they were supreme and sub-
ject to no temporal jurisdiction, were summoned to Holyrood
or Falkland, and soundly scolded by this egregious school-
boy, who was employing his leisure in a commentary on the
Apocalypse. If they were obstinate they were sent to jail,
where they were herded in noisome cells with Highland
caterans and Border thieves.
It was indirectly through the conflict between the preachers
and the Court, which was at this time at its height, that I
came to see something of the interior of the royal hunting-
lodge. Our old friend, Mr James Gibson, had taken no active
part in the struggle; he was sheltered by his obscurity; and
the good man had been, moreover, too much occupied in
getting his stipend modified, and in repairing the dilapidations
of manse and glebe, to have much time for doctrinal discus-
sions on the enormity of tulchan bishops or the limits of
spiritual independence. But his spirit though peaceful was
stout, and when thoroughly roused the little man was as com-
bative as Mr Andrew Melville or Mr James Lawson. Reports
of the evil life led at the Lodge, and the bad example set to
his parishioners, had come to his ears ; and I daresay Arran,
and the Colonel, and the new Earl of Bothwell (to say nothing
of the Master, who had been a thorn in his side all along),
were not a whit better than they were represented in Lek-
pravik's broadsheets. Mr Gibson went home in a fit of
righteous indignation, and composed a discourse upon the
profane mockers of God's Word, under fifteen heads, which
he preached in the parish kirk on the following Sunday. The
Master of Gray was the sole tenant of the Earlshall pew ; he
had become of late a very "frank Protestant," and sang the
new metrical version of the Psalms by David Wedderburn
with as much fervour as if they had been "gude and godly
ballates " ; and he listened with respectful gravity to the de-
nunciations of "Jesebel" and her lord. "Jesebel" was my
Lady Arran (who had been my Lady March, and had got a
divorce from her first husband on a shameful plea), and if
any Scottish woman deserved the name, she did. But the
preacher went on to arraign the courtiers one and all, they
42 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
were goats of the flock and not true sheep, false professors and
not true Christians, perjured men and not faithful people,
promise-breakers, merciless tyrants, and false backsliders ; and
the king himself and his issue, if he continued in that crooked
course, would be rooted out like Jeroboam. This was the
exordium ; and then, under one or other of the fifteen heads,
the preacher proceeded to show how they were goats and not
true sheep, perjured men and not faithful people, and so on.
The Master's face was impassive, but I could not help
thinking, as I looked at him, of the tiger-cat about to spring.
The beauty was unmistakable ; but there was a stealthiness in
its lithe grace, and the claws, though hidden, were not far
under the fur.
I walked home with Mr Gibson, who was in a state of
nervous exaltation. He had done his duty ; but now that
the excitement of composition and delivery had been followed
by the languor of accomplishment, he had begun to doubt
whether he had been well advised. I certainly shared his
doubts ; and, before we parted, casually suggested that he might
find it convenient to be called away by urgent business to the
other side of the Tweed.
My warning did not come too soon ; for early next morning
a messenger arrived with a missive from the Chancellor requir-
ing Gilbert and Amias Holdfast to bring the Reverend Peter
Gibson before his Majesty's Council.
The message was by no means welcome to me, for I thought
it not unlikely that inconvenient inquiries as to the cause of
Gilbert's absence from home (of which more presently) might
be put to me. When I went down to the manse I found con-
siderable difficulty in gaining admittance, for the minister had
gathered some of his flock around him burly fishermen from
the village and had made up his mind to stand a siege,
resisting the minions of the Court, as he said, even unto the
death. After some hesitation he agreed to accompany me to
Earlshall ; and we were quickly afloat, with four of his body-
guard at the oars.
It was a lovely day of early summer, the late oaks and ashes
were just bursting into leaf, and the birds were piping merrily,
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 43
while a soft west wind rustled the leaves and moved along the
water. As we crossed the river, we met the Balmain boat
anchored in mid-channel ; Lilias was on board dressed in the
loose fishing-garb which became her so well, and she beckoned
to us. She had apparently guessed our errand, for leaning
over the side to disengage her line (as it seemed) she whispered
in my ear, " Beware of the Master. We are being watched ; "
and then aloud to Mr Gibson with significant emphasis, " The
breeze is fair, Mr Gibson why, you might be in Berwick by
sundown." Then we ran the boat ashore, walked up to the
Lodge, and were at once ushered into the great hall where the
Council were sitting. My companion had pretty well recovered
himself by this time ; and he informed me that he had resolved
to speak as the Spirit of God would move him. I knew pretty
well what this meant. He had obviously arrived at the con-
clusion that it was as well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb ;
or as the English say, in for a penny in for a pound.
It was a curious scene. Three or four men in the prime of
life, handsome and stalwart, sat at the end of a long table.
They had finished breakfast ; but the table was still heaped
with the debris a flagon of claret, an earthenware jug of beer,
bowls of oatmeal porridge, a round of beef, dainty French
rolls, a sea-trout fresh from the salt water. There had been,
one could guess, a late sitting the night before, and the
revellers were only recovering from their debauch. And these
I said to myself these were the men who governed
Scotland !
Engaged in noisy and even boisterous talk, they formed an
animated group. But there was to my ear something sinister
in their merriment. Their laughter, it seemed to me, was
furtive and menacing a sombre mirth void of any true gaiety.
The hangman when he relaxes after an " engagement " may
take his pleasure in this fashion.
One member of the group, who seemed from native irrita-
bility unable to sit still, was on his feet. He moved restlessly
about his loose ungainly limbs jerking spasmodically as he
moved. The St Vitus' dance from which he obviously suffered
was unpleasant to witness. His dress was slovenly; his
44 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
speech was confused, the language, from the rush of words
to the mouth, being frequently unintelligible ; the goggle-eyes,
as he turned to stare at us, seemed starting from his head.
" And as for you, Francie," he was saying, addressing the Earl
of Bothwell, who was lolling indolently in a huge oaken chair,
"you are an unmitigated reprobate. I wonder sometimes
why I made you an earl ; the Bothwells have aye been a sair
trouble to the Royal family. Do you mean to tell me to my
face, you leein' knave, that I complained to Cuddy Armorar
with tears in my eyes that they were saying that I was Davie's
son ? " (" Solomon, the son of David," said the Master under
his breath, while the Colonel, who, according to his enemies,
had been originally " a cloutter of old shoes," gave a hoarse
chuckle.) "And wha in the deevil's name may this be?", he
stuttered, turning suddenly upon the usher who was waiting to
introduce us.
"The Reverend James Gibson and Master Amias Hold-
fast," he continued, when the man had mentioned our names ;
"and what may Mr Gibson and Master Holdfast want wi'
me?"
The Master of Gray interposed, " Mr Gilbert Holdfast and
his brother were instructed to bring the Reverend Mr Gibson
before your Majesty's Council this morning."
" Of course they were ; and what has come of Mr Gilbert
that he does not comply with the command of his sovereign ? "
he asked testily.
I had been prepared for the question, and I answered that
my brother had been suddenly called to Edinburgh before the
summons arrived.
" Edinburgh," quoth the king, " is not the place for a young
lad who has not been weel grounded in the philosophies of
Aristotle, and he had best return with all convenient speed.
I have heard somewhat of this Gilbert Holdfast, though I do
not at present precisely remember the particular occasion, and
I would advise him as a friend to walk warily." Then, turn-
ing to Mr Gibson, " And this is the smaicke who discourses
on Jesebel and Jeroboam ! " And snapping his fingers in his
reverence's face (" clanking with his finger and his thowme,"
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 45
as his habit is), he resumed his uneasy walk. " Let him sit
down, and I will confer with him presently."
" Will your Majesty examine him at once ? " Arran inquired.
" Mr Randolphe writes that he is to be with us this afternoon,
and will bring the huntsmen that have been sent from England
with Sir Henry Wotton."
" What says he ? what says he ? " exclaimed the mercurial
king ; and when the letter was handed to him, he ran his eyes
over it till he came to the passage to which the Chancellor
had alluded, and read it aloud : " I have sent the king two
hunting men, verie good and skilful, with one footman that
can hoop, hollow, and cry, that all the trees in Falkland will
quake for fear. Pray the King's Majesty to be merciful to
the poor bucks ; but let him spare and look well to himself."
"'Tis very considerate of Mr Randolphe, to be sure, and
we shall not forget his civility, though how with a toom
purse, Mr Chancellor, we are to reward our friends and well-
wishers, passes all understanding. But what means he by
warning us to look well to ourselves?"
" I heard a bruit this morning that the ill-disposed preachers
had been stirring up the rascally multitude against your High-
ness," Gray remarked. " Possibly Mr Gibson may be better
informed."
" Bring him up, bring him up, and we will ourselves show
him wherein he hath been ill advised. So, Mr Gibson, they
tell me that you and your brethren in Christ are miscontent
with our rule. Of what complain you ? "
Mr Gibson. " Persecution, sir."
The King. " Persecution ! persecution ! what call ye perse-
cution ? Can ye define it ? "
Mr Gibson. " Shortly, sir, it is a troubling of the saints of
God for professing a good cause; and mainly, for Christ's
sake."
The King (sharply). " Say ye that ye were persecuted for
Christ's sake? Who was your persecutor?"
Mr Gibson. " Captain James Stuart."
The King. " The man you unmannerly call so is as good
in religion as yourself; for if he were as good in all other
46 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
things as in religion, he had not been evil. And if ye had
called him so before the Parliament, being one of my earls, I
had said ye were a leein' knave."
Mr Gibson. " Your Majesty may call me what you please ;
but he was never other to me and to all good men but an
enemy to God and His truth, and one in whom there is no
goodness."
The King (to the Chancellor). " Haud your peace, my lord ;
we will manage him ourselves. (To Mr Gibson.} What was
your text when ye named these names, Captain James,
Colonel William, and Lady Jesabell?"
Mr Gibson. " Out of the twenty-seventh psalm, ' The Lord
is my light. ' '
The King. " What moved ye to take that text ? "
Mr Gibson. "The Spirit of God, sir."
The King (ironically). " The Spirit of God ! The Spirit
of God ! The Spirit of God ! "
Mr Gibson. " Yes, sir ; the Spirit of God, that teacheth all
men, chiefly at extraordinary times, putteth the text in the
heart which serveth best."
The King. "What doctrine gathered ye there, and how
brought ye in their names ? "
Mr Gibson. " After this manner : David, speaking there in
the person of Christ, compareth the Kirk of God to an im-
movable stone, that whosoever did rise against the same in
any age, to the dust they fell. This I proved by Scripture,
by history, and by experience without the country and within
the country ; and so came to the last that had fallen before
this stone ; and, having occasion to speak of our present Kirk,
I said I thought it had been Captain James, Colonel William,
and Lady Jesabell that had alone persecuted the same ; but I
now saw it was the king himself because he pressed forward
in that cursed course they had begun."
The King (in great anger). " What ! call ye me a perse-
cutor ? "
Mr Gibson. " Yes, sir ; so long as ye maintain their wicked
acts against God and the liberty of His Kirk, ye are a
persecutor."
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 47
The King. " Call ye me Jeroboam ? "
Mr Gibson. "Having occasion to speak of Jeroboam, I
said that as Jeroboam, for leading the people of Israel from
the laws of the house of Judah, and from the true worship of
God, to follow idolatry, was rooted out, he and all his posterity,
so should the King, if he continued in that cursed course, be
rooted out and conclude his race."
The King. Said ye that ? "
Mr Gibson. " Yes, sir."
The King. " There is no king in Christendom would have
suffered the things I have suffered."
Mr Gibson. " I would not have ye like any other king in
Europe. What are they but murderers of the saints of
God?"
The King. " I am Catholic King of Scotland, and may choose
any that I like best to be in company with me ; and I like
them best that are with me for the present. If I cannot
choose my company, Mr Barebones, I should not wear the
lion in my arms but rather a sheep."
Mr Gibson. " I say again, for we maun damn sin in what-
soever person it has place, that ye are surrounded by evil
company, and that ye are in greater danger now than when ye
were rocked in your cradle. If ye love not them that hate
the Lord, as the prophet said to Jehosephat, it may yet be
well with your grace; but if ye company with harlots and
murderers "
But this was more than the king could stomach. " Away
with the loon, the smaicke, the seditious knave," he shouted,
as the blood mounted to his head and his breath failed him
for anger. " Let him cool his heels in the Tolbooth. See
that a warrant is made out, Francie, and we will sign it with
our own royal hand."
The Master met us as, once clear of the Council chamber,
we hurried down to the shore. " Get the babbling old fool
out of the way," he said, in a low voice, " or it will go hard
with him." The boat was waiting ; our men were ready ; in
half an hour we had landed below the manse. "Wait, my
lads," I said, turning to the crew, and then to the minister,
48 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
" Miss Maitland was right. There is a fair wind for Berwick.
You have not a moment to lose."
An hour afterwards the officers of the law arrived ; but by
that time the boat was outside the bar, and rapidly rounding
the farthest headland. The Master had accompanied the
messengers. " So our brother in Christ," he said, " has found
discretion the better part of valour. Good. Possibly he has
gone to join Gilbert at at shall we say Tutbury ? "
I looked him in the face. " Patrick Gray," I said, " you
are playing a double part. I pity the woman queen or no
queen who puts her trust in you."
"Truly," he answered, with a sneer. "Why, man, I am
constancy itself. Don't you know the motto of our house
' Anchor, fast Anchor ' ? Good day I am going to
Balmain."
And with a mocking salute he had turned his horse and
was gone to try his luck with Lilias, might it be ?
III.
IT was quite true that Gilbert had gone, and gone secretly.
A travelling pedlar had arrived at Balmain, and while he was
disposing of his wares he had, unobserved by the rest, slipped
a note into Lady Maitland's hand. It came from the captive
queen. A plot to rescue her had been formed. The arrange-
ments for a convoy and relays of horses as far as Northumber-
land had been completed ; but the Scottish part of the enter-
prise had been confided to the Master of Gray, and within the
past few days grave doubts of his fidelity had arisen. A letter
from him to Elizabeth, in which he seemed anxious to enter
her service, had been intercepted by Mary's friends on the
Border. Burleigh had been heard to commend the Master's
ability to discover le pot aux roses if he listed to speak plain
language. Knowing that he was suspected, Gray had written
an insolent letter to Mary, complaining that he had been
libelled by a prattling knave who had received a thousand
rose nobles from the Queen of England, and vowing that
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 49
while he lived, and could discern the shadow from the verity,
he would never again lift his hand on her behalf. It was
feared that this truculent letter had only been written to cover
his treachery. In these circumstances it had become impera-
tive that some one on whom absolute reliance could be reposed
should take the Master's place, and, if at all practicable, obtain
by hook or by crook a secret interview with the queen. Lady
Maitland had told her mistress of Gilbert's passionate devo-
tion, would Gilbert come?
This was the subject which, during the evening preceding
Mr Gibson's memorable discourse, had been eagerly discussed
at Balmain. Lilias, with appealing eyes, had urged him to go ;
her mother, now that the crisis had arrived, was rather dis-
posed to hold back. It had been a fatal service to so many ;
must another young life be spent, another victim sacrificed ?
Gilbert himself was resolute to go. To him no Crusade against
the Turk, or for the Sepulchre, could be holier. He said little;
Gilbert was never demonstrative ; but his grave enthusiasm
did not need the aid of words. At length, when he would
hear of no delay, Lilias rose hurriedly, crossed the room to
where he sat in the twilight, took his head between her hands,
and kissed him on the forehead. None of us were surprised :
none of us felt that there was any immodesty in the act. It
was a kiss of consecration. Then with eyes on fire she fled
from the room.
After this, and in the end, Lady Maitland could not but
acquiesce. " Go, then," she said, as she gave him a parting
blessing. " The service is full of peril ; but it is true that our
bitterest enemies are gone to their account. Of the assassins
of David all are dead, save the Laird of Faudin, and that
brutal lord of whom our dear lady was wont to say that she
felt his cold dagger pass by her cheeks. That worst outrage
at least has not remained unavenged."
We started at midnight. I walked with him across the
moonlight moors that rise steeply behind the Cleuch. The
track crosses the Lammerlaw, and when we reached the water-
shed where the cairn stands, we parted. Ere I got home I
saw a streak of light on the eastern heaven, and as I entered
VOL. I. D
So QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
the house the sea was trembling in the dawn with that shiver
of awakening life which an Italian poet, whose verse is loved
by Lilias, has truly called the "tremolo, della marina."
For some time thereafter it was mainly through Gilbert's
letters to Lilias that we learnt what was doing in the great
world beyond our hills.
But long before any word came from Gilbert, we had been
duly assured of Mr Gibson's safety. His letter it had been
written at Berwick was rather apologetic in its tone ; in his
dreams, it might be, he had looked forward to being not only
a witness but a martyr for the truth ; but he had meanly, as he
felt, preferred a whole skin to the glory of testifying at the
Luckenbooths ; and he was driven to Holy Writ for a rather
lame vindication.
" The moving cause," he wrote, " was the express command-
ment of our Master, Christ, saying, ' When they persecute you
in one city, flee into another ; ' the practice of which com-
mandment we find in the most dear servants of God ; as in
Jacob, from the face of his brother Esau; in David, Elias,
Paul, yea, and in Christ Himself. But one might say to me,
Call ye the execution of justice persecution ? Ye were sum-
moned to underlie the law, according to justice, which cannot
be called persecution. I answer, I call not the due execution
of justice (which all godly men ought to entertain) persecution ;
but I call the pursuit of an innocent man under the form of
execution of justice (when nothing less than justice is meant
to him) a most crafty and mighty kind of persecution. And
this kind of persecution was not invented of late years by
Satan against the servants of God. For Daniel, that faithful
man of God, as we may read, was cast in the lions' den
because he had transgressed the act and council made by
the king ; Elias was put to flight because he was thought a
troubler of Israel ; Christ, our Master, was condemned to
death as a seditious mover of the subjects against Caesar.
And though it doth not become me to boast as one who
putteth off his armour, yet I say assuredly that the devil and
his angels shall not prevail, but with all the workers of
iniquity shall be cast into hell.
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 51
" You will have heard, perchance, that an Erastian assembly
of bloody tulchans and mewches of the archbishop hath con-
demned my sermon and suspended me from the office and
function of the ministry. The true servants of God who are
banished by the wicked action of the king assure me that the
sentence is of none effect. A good friend writes me from
Edinburgh that worthy Mr Robert Bruce, my old bed-fellow
at the college of St Salvator, was admonished in his dream
the night before, not to be present at the pronouncing of the
sentence. He thought he heard these words following : ' Ne
intersis condemnationi servi Dei.'
"It is spoken here that Captain James and the Colonel
were fain to have made a breach in the amity betwixt the
Crowns. At the least, it is commonly reported that a com-
mon scold, called Kate the Witch, was hired with a new plaid
and six pounds in money, not only to rail against the ministry,
but also set in the entry of the king's palace to revile her
Majesty's ambassador, Sir Francis Walsingham a deed more
worthy of punishment to the hirer than to the hireling and
she herself confessed, when liberally entertained in prison,
that the Colonel, who, they say, was a clouter of old shoes,
gave the money and Captain James the plaid. Profane
mockers of all religion, more fit to be the executioners of
a Nero, they shall reap what they have sown."
From the bundle of old letters religiously preserved by
Lilias, I am permitted to extract such of those that came to
us during that unhappy year (when our dearest queen was
cruelly slain by wicked men) as will serve to interest and
inform the reader who may hereafter have access to this
brief and unpretending record. They were for the most part
written in England by Gilbert Holdfast to Lilias Maitland ;
they have been yellowed by age and wet with many tears.
* *
*
" Lilias, I have seen her. She is very worn, very sad, but
the high spirit has not been broken by years of suffering, and
even to-day she is every inch a queen. I understand now
52 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
what poor Francis Throckmorton meant when he said of his
dearest queen that though her voice is soft as running water
at night, there "is no shadow of fear in her eyes. I was dis-
guised as a mendicant when she came out closely guarded ;
the crowd of sturdy beggars who were waiting at the gate
clamoured for alms there were tears on her cheek when,
turning to them, she said with a great sob in her voice, ' All
has been taken from me ; I am a beggar as well as you.'
Then I caught her eye, and as she bent down to straighten
her habit, I managed somehow to whisper in her ear that the
rescue had been fixed for Friday at midnight. She looked
me full in the face, paused a moment as if to revolve what I
had said, and then smiled at me through her tears, a watery
wintery smile, as of one who had long since bidden farewell to
joy. Then I got back to the inn on the great North road,
where Hamilton and Ferniehurst were waiting."
"We have had a grievous fright. The inn was full when
we arrived, and the landlord (who is understood to be well
affected to the queen) could only give me a bedcloset that
opens into the public room. The inner door between the
rooms is locked, and is concealed besides by a piece of old
tapestry representing the people of Israel as they passed
through the Red Sea. I had noticed a mean-looking fellow,
with a squint in his keen, ferret-like eyes, and an ugly sneer
on his thin bloodless lips, hanging about the house. When-
ever I saw him he was poring over papers, which he used
hastily to thrust into his doublet when interrupted. There
was clearly some mystery about the man ; but till lately I
paid little heed to his shuffling ways. Last night, however,
after I had gone to bed (being worn out by the long tramp),
the great bell in the courtyard clanged (which intimates that a
party of travellers have arrived) ; and in a few minutes I heard
voices in earnest speech in the next room. I was drowsy, and
did not at first catch the sense of the words ; but as the silence
in the house deepened they became more clearly defined.
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 53
" ' Yes, my lord, her health is better. She drove in the
park yesterday. I was near her : she gave me a sharp sus-
picious look. I had a smiling countenance, but I said to
myself (your worship knows the line),
" Cum tibi dicit Ave. Sicut ab hoste cave." '
" ' Never mind your learning, man,' the other speaker in-
terposed, ' but tell me what you have found to make you look
so devilishly attractive. You were to attend her very heart
in her next, you said ; have you done so ? Has she given us
the chance for which we have waited so long ? '
" ' I had hoped she would have spoken more plainly ; but
the cipher is complicated and deceptive ; and there may be
more in it than meets the eye. I daresay, however with a
little judicious manipulation we may manage.'
" ' Take care, Philipps, for God's sake, take care. I am
willing to run some risk ; but mind that your decipher will be
scanned by some of the keenest eyes in England not over
friendly to ourselves.'
" ' Oh, your worship, I am not afraid. They cannot pro-
duce the originals, and I will answer for the copy. And
besides, a dozen words will serve. She approves of the
rescue ; she approves of the landing ; if she doesn't exactly say
that Elizabeth should go ad Patres, she certainly means it"
" ' Philipps, you are a cunning dog, and yes tell me
what makes you hate her so ? '
" I could not hear the reply ; the other speaker resumed
" ' I had expected to meet the Master of Gray to-night ; but
it seems that he is detained at Court. He warns us of one
Gilbert Holdfast of the Cleuch, who, with Ferniehurst and
Claud Hamilton, have been despatched by the Scottish rebels
to bring their queen to the Border. Keep your eyes open ;
you may come across him. Yet stay ; it may be wiser to
leave the young fool at large ; Gray knows all ; he has been as
frank as we could wish ; the Lady of the Castle will get to
heaven before she gets to Scotland. Ah, Philipps, that blow
between the head and the shoulders it hath sovereign virtue !
And now, adieu I must be in London to-morrow. When
54 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
Mary Stuart is in a better world, you will not be forgotten by
your grateful mistress.'
"When I saw the landlord next morning, I said to him
casually that he had had late guests last night. ' Late guests ? '
he replied, looking round. ' Hardly guests, they only stopped
one hour to bait their horses, the Secretary was in haste to
reach the Court.' ' It was Walsingham, then,' I exclaimed.
1 Hush, sir, hush ! ' he answered again, lowering his voice ;
' least said, soonest mended.' And then addressing Philipps,
who had stealthily descended the stair : ' A fine morning, your
honour going for a stroll ? ' "
" Of course the rescue miscarried ; a double-dyed scoundrel
had deceived us all. Our small troop of horse was hidden in
the Aston woods ; I went on alone. The night was pitch-
dark ; there was thunder in the air ; at intervals for a second
a glare of lightning dispelled the darkness. More than once
I fancied that I heard footsteps ; the tramp of horse, it might
be ; but I had waited fully an hour it was close on midnight
before any one appeared. Then it was only a boy a mere
child (I knew him by sight it was the keeper's son), with a
scrap of paper in his hand, wet with the rain. ' I was bidden
give you this,' he said ; ' father would have brought it, but the
soldiers are round the Lodge.' Then came a long, bright,
wavering flash, by which I read the words they were written
in French ' All is lost : save yourselves ' ; and then, giving
the boy a silver piece, I felt my way back along the road.
The rain came down in torrents ; the lightning seemed to
search the woods. You may fancy how we felt men who
knew that a foul trick had been played and how we cursed
the traitor."
* *
" They have tried and condemned her Lilias, they have
ventured to condemn an anointed queen. The curs who
have yelped at her, have dared to bite. She bore herself like
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 55
a queen even her enemies admit as much. What tears she
shed were for her friends, not for herself. ' Alas ! ' she said
once very pitifully, ' how much has the noble house of Howard
suffered for my sake ! ' It is nowhere believed that she is
guilty : she is the victim of a miserable trick, contrived by
Walsingham himself so they report, and I can partly testify.
And now, Lilias, your mother must go to the king ; his
mother's life is in his hands ; they will not venture to execute
her if he summon every Scotsman to arms. She must tell
him the truth ; tell him that if in this supreme, this awful
moment, he fails to save her, fails to move earth and heaven
on her behalf, he will be shamed for ever. But she must go
at once, else it will be too late."
It is almost impossible to realise at this day the thrill of
anger, of indignation, of horror which passed over Scotland
when it was known that the Scottish queen had been con-
demned by an English court. The wave of passion carried all
before it all except James himself and the Master of Gray.
Had the king refused to act, as he seemed at first inclined to
do, I believe that his crown would have been in peril. When
the news was received, the Court was at Earlshall, so that our
dear lady was saved the long and arduous journey to the
capital. Her request for a private interview with the king was
at once granted with almost flattering readiness. James, how-
ever, was in his most testy and querulous mood, by no means
inclined to listen to any remonstrance that did not suit his
whim. He was at the moment, indeed, the victim of a
ridiculous monomania, which possibly accounted for his irrita-
bility. He was determined not to be outdone by a subject ;
and as the Laird of Dun had been at work for two nights
running, James had not gone to bed for three. He was
writing a sonnet, dictating a speech, reading a despatch, dis-
cussing the points of another couple of buckhounds that had
lately come from Elizabeth, putting a finishing touch to his
commentary on the Apocalypse, when Lady Maitland entered.
56 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
" My dear lady," he said, " I am very busy, as you may
observe, but you are not interrupting me. Most people can
only attend to one thing at a time ; I am able to overtake four
or five with comfort, and when hard pressed can manage a
round dozen. There is not another king in Christendom can
do the like. This is sad news, my lady," he went on, as his
face flushed and his stammer sensibly increased with his em-
barrassment ; " our dearest mother has been ill advised ; her
rascally servants are much to blame ; a good hanging would
mend their manners. I cannot say that she has used us well ;
if it be true that she has renounced her title to the succession
to the Spanish king in respect of our firm attachment to the
true Evangel, she hath not shown that confidence in us which
we had a right to expect. I have advised our cousin of
England, indeed, that it might not be amiss to keep her in
seclusion for a season, a joint government, you see, is a
Utopian imagination, and our dearest mother cannot be bur-
dened at her age with the cares of State ; but to take her life
that is another matter, as the Master says. Don't you think
so, my lady ? "
It was with difficulty that Lady Maitland controlled her
indignation. " Oh, my liege," she exclaimed between her sobs,
" it is shameful, infamous, incredible. All Europe will protest
against an intolerable outrage. For you, sir, there is only one
honourable road. Send round the fiery cross. Call your
subjects to arms. Appeal to the God in whose name kings
are anointed, and by whose authority they rule. Be sure that
if the Queen of England will not listen to reason she will yield
to force."
" My dear lady," the king replied, visibly embarrassed, " we
must try reason first. Our good cousin is a wise and Protes-
tant princess, although her views on the Apocalypse are by no
means to be commended. We may rest assured that she will
not permit our dearest mother to suffer an inconvenience, I
may say an indignity, that will reflect discredit on ourselves.
But our Council have already resolved to despatch a solemn
embassy to the English Court, and the Master of Gray is now
preparing to set out."
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 57
" The Master of Gray ! " Lady Maitland exclaimed, in a
tone of genuine horror. "Oh, my liege, any one but the
Master. He is her bitter enemy ; he is working for her
death ; send the Master, and you send her to the scaffold."
" Madam," the king, now gravely displeased, replied, " we
are aware that certain calumnies, which have been traced to a
neighbour of your own now in England, have been circulated
against a noble gentleman who has ever been faithful to us.
You will do well to discredit them and their author. Pardon
me, madam, our Council is about to meet."
He had been stumping back and forward while he talked,
and now, touching his hat (much the worse for wear) to Lady
Maitland, who had not recovered from her consternation, he
abruptly disappeared.
It was the evening of the same day. Lilias was sitting by
the shore, gazing dreamily at the incoming tide. Then shiver-
ing slightly, as if the wind had grown suddenly chill, she looked
round ; the Master stood beside her.
" I leave for England to-night," he began ; " but I hear that
you and your mother regard my mission with disfavour. The
Master of Gray is a black sheep ! Believe me, it was not of
my seeking ; whatever happens, I shall be blamed ; but the
king insists, and go I must."
" I would give much to believe that what we have been told
of you you who were once a dear friend is false," she re-
plied. " But can you deny that you have deserted the queen,
who has been good to you since you were a boy ? "
" Desertion, my fair cousin, is a foul word. It may be true
that I have been forced to recognise that it is for the good of
our country that Mary Stuart should not be permitted to re-
turn. What then ? Am I to be deterred from doing what is
for the public welfare by private and personal scruples ? "
" Do not mock me, Mr Gray. The time has come for plain
speaking, and speak I must. You say that desertion is an
ugly word ; but there are worse behind. It is openly alleged
that you have not only deserted but betrayed the queen ; that
you have revealed her most secret thoughts to her deadliest
enemy ; that but for you she would now be free. O Patrick
58 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
Gray," she cried, clasping her hands, " tell me that you have
not been so base ! "
" Lilias, you are unreasonable. You speak as a schoolgirl
speaks, ignorant of the larger and graver interests which appeal
to the statesman and the patriot. Mary Stuart is impossible.
Mary Stuart means civil war, the Pope, the Inquisition. There
is no safety for those whom Mary Stuart hates if she escape
from her English prison "
"That is what it comes to at the last. Patrick, I see it
now. You have betrayed her, and you are in mortal dread of
the punishment that will follow ! But our mistress is generous
she forgets and forgives. Had she been less ready to for-
give, indeed, she might yet be queen. Even my mother, how-
ever, has wellnigh ceased to hope that she will be restored.
Guarded as she is, escape is impossible. She is ill. She is
dying. Will nothing but her violent and shameful death
satisfy your rancour and your ambition ? O Patrick, I im-
plore you on my knees, think of your honour, think of your
duty, think of what posterity will say when it learns, as learn
it will, that you have sold your fair repute, your eternal salva-
tion, for thirty pieces of silver."
She fell on her knees before him, sobbing as if her heart
would break.
" Lilias," he answered, coldly as it seemed, but there was
subdued passion in his voice, "this is summer madness.
What care I for posterity? Posthumous fame is but the
shadow of a shade. The rewards of the Hereafter are the
dreams of fools. When I am dead, let them speak of me as
they will. When life is gone, all is gone to me. I seek a less
visionary recompense." Here he paused ; she had turned her
head away ; she was drying her eyes. Then he went on, but
the mockery had died out of his voice. "Lilias, it may be
that you are right. I am what I am ; what I shall be in the
years that are coming, God knows. You are formed of nobler
stuff; the man who wins you may well be proud ; there is no
station, however high, which you would not grace. Lilias, I
have loved you all along." Her tears were dry, and she looked
him in the face. " It has been a duel between us; why should
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 59
we not agree to a truce, or rather, to lifelong amity ? Say that
you will be my wife ; and, Lilias Lilias, on my honour the
queen's life is safe. Elizabeth will not dare to refuse; our
appeal will be backed by arguments which even the Queen of
England cannot refute. Lilias, is it to be ? "
" It would be a shameful bargain," she replied slowly, after
a pause, drawing herself up to her full height, and turning
away. "Only yesterday I heard that you were betrothed.
Would you betray this Marie Stuart as you have betrayed the
other ? Life itself may be too dearly bought. Think you our
gracious mistress would accept the sacrifice you have been
good enough to propose ? Sir, she would spurn the mercenary
and recreant knight who will not do for honour what he will
do for pay, as as I spurn him. Do your worst, sir ; to your
victim, to your blameless victim, it will prove, it may be, the
truest service you can render. She wears the martyr's crown,
while Judas yes," she added, as she turned away for the last
time, " Judas will go to his own place."
His face was bloodless with rage ; his eyes blazed, as the
tiger's blazes ere it springs. But he only said in the softest,
sweetest, and most dulcet purr, " My fair virago, you have
signed her death-warrant."
IV.
THE letters that came from Gilbert during, the months that
followed were not calculated to allay our anxiety.
*
* *
" Since the rescue failed, I have thought it fittest to abide
mainly in London, where, as the houses are many, and the
people swarm in the streets, it is easier for me to remain un-
known. Francis Howard, a cousin of his Grace of Norfolk,
is of the royal household, and well affected to our queen.
He opines that Elizabeth will not venture to put her publicly
to death, but will either secretly practise against her, or else
60 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
by severity in prison make an end of her life. Our queen is
very feeble, but beareth herself bravely. It is rumoured that
if she will ask pardon of Elizabeth her life will be spared ;
but this I believe not. She will ask no pardon of man or
woman, but will commit her soul to the mercy of the Almighty.
Her keepers are unmannerly churls ; Amias Paulet sits covered
in her presence (even in the case of a simple gentlewoman
no true gentleman would be guilty of like discourtesy), and
hath violently removed her cloth of state. She hath put in its
place the pictures of our Lord's Passion, which hath increased
his choler. Her chaplain has been taken from her, and Paulet,
who is a bitter sectary and a precise Puritan, hath told her
insolently that he himself will act as her priest. The Secretary
Walsingham, her great enemy, is stirring the people against
her, the hue and cry in all the ports and country places is,
that the Papists have landed, and that London is on fire.
Since I wrote the above, Francis Howard hath told me that
his mistress is minded to spare our queen's life, and will do
so without fail if the King of Scotland declares plainly that
her execution will break the amity."
*
*
"There is an evil change at the palace. Howard hath
been secretly informed that it is the Scottish ambassadors (a
shameful fact if it be true) who have stirred up his mistress
against the queen our sovereign. Patrick Gray has come,
and, they say, hath resolved the Secretary that James would
have his mother 'put off,' and is not willing that any mildness
should be shown unto her. Lilias, he is a villain, and if we
chance to meet it will go hard with one of us. His perfidy
is known unto many, and should he pass on his return through
the parts of Yorkshire which are Catholic, he is like to be
recompensed for his evil dealing."
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 61
" Howard hath told me all. Gray hath had a secret con-
ference with the English queen. The king, his master, he
said, in very truth desired that the execution should go for-
ward ; seeing that so long as his mother lived his own place
was insecure; and that neither England, nor Scotland, nor
the amity were safe unless she was removed. It was the dead
only who did not bite Mortui non mordent. Howard him-
self being in attendance, heard the Master's words Mortui
non mordent. The English queen now goeth about with a
Latin apothegm in her mouth, which is to the effect that if
you would not be stricken you must strike. Aut fer, autferi;
ne feriare, feri. The ambassadors, Howard adds, had there-
after a formal audience of his mistress. The Secretary and
the Lord Leicester were present. Much earnest persuasion
(as it appeared) was used by the Master ; but the English
queen, having previously been advised in private by him,
would not listen to their memorial. Gray would have had
her believe that if our mistress renounced her state and title
to the succession to her son, she would cease to be a danger
the son coming in the mother's place. The queen declared
that that would put herself in more evil case than before, using
these despiteful words, ' Is it so ? then, by God's passion,
that were to cut my own throat ; because, my Lord of Gray,
for a duchy or earldom to yourself, you or such as you would
cause some of your desperate knaves kill me. No, my God,'
she added, ' he will never be in that place ! ' Sir Robert then
craved that our queen's life might be spared for eight days,
so that the king might be advised; but she answered with
another great oath ' Not for an hour ' ; and so stormed and
left them."
"Lilias, dearest Lilias, I know not what I write. The
queen is dead : I have seen her die. I was present at Fother-
inghay when the axe fell, and a gloomy fanatic, with her
bleeding body at his feet, said ' Amen.' I saw it with these
eyes, and yet I cannot believe that it is true. That the proud
62 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
and beautiful woman, who was yesterday without a peer, should
be now a headless corpse, covered with a bloody cloth, seems
entirely incredible. Lilias, your mother has loved her since
they were girls ; but all that went before is mean in com-
parison with the end. No martyr ever went to heaven with
a more willing mind. When she came out of her chamber
with the radiance of death upon her joyful face, there was not
a man in the crowd who did not feel that he was everlastingly
shamed. In a happier age a thousand swords would have
leapt from their scabbards ere that gracious head had been
profaned. Lilias, I cannot write more ; the scene haunts me,
will haunt me while I live. But I thank God that her high
spirit did not fail her, and that, confident in the justice of God
and of a future age, she died as a queen should die. Of the
miserable hound who has been, directly or indirectly, the
cause of her death, I dare not speak ; among the noble army
of martyrs which our dear mistress has joined, his presence
would be profanation. But the time will come "
* *
*
There had been a wild burst of anger when it was known
that our queen had been condemned ; when it was known
that she had been put to death, the nation was aghast. Had
there been a great soldier among us, every man capable of
bearing arms would have been across the Border in a week ;
and the nation, whether it won or lost, would have slaked the
thirst for blood which at times it cannot control. Fortunately,
as we can see now, we had no captain who could lead us to
victory or to defeat ; and in the stony despair of righting the
wrong which follows a tragedy which cannot be repaired on
this side the grave, we sat still until the moment for action
had passed.
Elizabeth's noisy protestations of innocence were received
with grim derision, and James's simulated sorrow deceived no
one but himself. Neither Elizabeth nor James could well be
brought to book ; but it was necessary, to allay the public
passion, that a victim should be found.
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 63
It was at this moment that the Master of Gray, who had
hitherto been the coolest of players, lost his head. He quailed
before the universal detestation which, rightly or wrongly, met
him on his return.
The fate of Arran could be traced directly, so his friends
averred, to the intrigues of the Master with the banished lords.
Ordinary prudence would have suggested to a far shallower
brain than his that the unscrupulous brother of the fallen
Chancellor was the last man to whom dangerous secrets could
be safely intrusted. But it would seem that when a man of
profound craft loses his balance he goes further astray than
the most blundering fool. Mortification and resentment were
probably at work passions which for the moment escaped all
politic restraint ; and though the web which he spun was a
wide one, and though many flies were to be caught in its
meshes, yet I think the moving motive of the whole conspiracy
was his bitter animosity to the Secretary of State John Mait-
land who had often thwarted him, who was now all-powerful
at Court, and who was the head of the family from whom, as
he fancied, he had received a deadly insult. It is only in this
way that I can account for the fantastic scheme of revenge
which he meditated, and which with fatuous frankness he
communicated to the Colonel, that "cloutter of old shoes"
against whom Mr Gibson (who, by the way, had been permitted
to return to his flock when the Chancellor was dismissed) had
so vigorously declaimed. The change in the Master's manner
was plainly visible to the least observant ; even the English
ambassador had occasion to deplore the "hasty wrath and
passionate dealing " of one whose temper had been hitherto
imperturbable. There were, in short, all the signs of the dis-
ordered mind with which the gods afflict the man whose per-
dition is assured.
It was in the great room at Earlshall, where I had first seen
the king, that the mine exploded. James had been very good
to us of late (it was probably the reaction from his unreason-
able resentment) ; and more than once, on returning from the
hunt, he had called at Balmain and the Cleuch. He had
offered me indeed a small place in connection with the
64 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
Council which I had not yet definitely refused ; and it was in
virtue of this provisional appointment that I happened to be
present at the meeting which I am about to describe.
The Council had disposed of its ordinary business, and was
ready to adjourn. The king had presided, and Bothwell,
Secretary Maitland, and the Master of Gray were among the
members present. The Master had been more than usually
irritable and cynical, and his polished shafts had been dis-
charged all round : even the vain and good-natured monarch
had not been permitted to escape. " The Master must have
got out of bed on his wrong side," Bothwell whispered to
Maitland. To which the Secretary had blandly replied, " It
is the spleen, my lord, the east wind bites shrewdly to-day."
At this moment the Colonel, who had sent to request an
audience, was ushered in.
"This is an unlooked-for pleasure, Colonel Stuart," the
king observed, with marked coldness. "We thought that you
were at a distance from our Court. May I ask what your
errand may be ? Our horses are at the gate, and we ourselves
are nearly as impatient as the dogs, who seem inclined to
take part in our Council."
" My liege lord," Stuart answered coolly, " I shall detain you
a moment only. But reports have reached me which I feel
bound to communicate without delay to your Highness
reports of a treasonable conspiracy against the Secretary of
State and other members of this Honourable Council. I trust
in God, sir, that it is not directed against your Highness's own
person. But of that I have no certain knowledge."
" What, sir ! a treasonable conspiracy possibly directed
against ourselves ! " James, palpably discomposed, exclaimed.
"Are Cuddy Armorar and our men-at-arms at hand?" he
added hastily, looking to the door.
" Had we not better learn some further particulars ? " the
Secretary interposed. "The people are still in a rash and un-
reasonable mood, and many injurious reports are afloat. They
venture to say that our resident at the English Court has now
slain the mother, as pardon me, your Highness he slew the
father. Daily libels indeed are set up in the open street.
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 6$
Only yesterday I saw on the door of the Tolbooth a scurrilous
lampoon upon her Majesty of England, whom they ventured
to call a 'murdering Jesebel.'"
" And to whom they have insolently offered a Scottish chain,
as they call it," Bothwell added, "that is, a cord of hemp
tied halterwise."
" We must discover the authors of libels that may disturb
the amity," James said, resuming the seat from which he had
risen. Then turning to the Colonel, "Speak out, man.
What ails you? If there is treason in contemplation, there
must be traitors abroad. It is your part as a leal subject to
hide nothing from your prince. Whom do you accuse ? "
The Colonel paused a moment, and then answered with the
studied and technical elaboration of a legal indictment,
" Patrick commonly called the Master of Gray."
There was again a painful pause, while James looked with
keen scrutiny at his favourite.
The Master sprang to his feet. " This is your plot," he said,
turning fiercely upon the Secretary. " A bully can only repeat
what he is taught ; it is in your school, Mr Secretary, that the
Sticker has learnt his lesson. This is not the first time by
many that you have slandered me, and by God "
The truculent "cloutter of old shoes" did not approve,
apparently, of being called " the Sticker " (the nickname by
which he was known among the common people), and laid his
hand on his sword, which he partly drew. " Hoots, my lords,
hoots ! " cried the king, who hated the sight of cold steel.
" Colonel, if you touch your sword, you are guilty of the treason
you impute. Can it be true, Patrick ? " he continued, turning
to Gray, " that you have plotted against us and our Council ? "
" Never against my most generous master," Gray exclaimed.
" But that I have good cause to reckon with the Lord of Thirl-
stane, he will himself admit."
" You hear what he says, Sir John ? What cause of offence
have you given him ? "
The Earl of Bothwell interposed. " May it please you, sir,
there is a little trifle of an epigram which you may not have
seen, though it has flown like wildfire through the Court. If
VOL. I. E
66 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
the Master has a sharp tongue, the Secretary has a sharper
pen. I can give your Highness the copy, if it has not been
mislaid." Opening his pocket-book, he took from it a slip of
paper on which some Latin lines were written, and handed it
to the king.
These were the lines :
" Sis Paris an Graius dubito ; pulchelle, videris
Esse, Paris, forma, marte et amore pari.
Fax etiam patrise, nee fato, aut omine differs ;
Grseca tamen Graium te docet esse fides."
As he ran his eyes over the lines, James broke into a fit of
hoarse laughter.
" Hoots, Sir John, this is too bitter, too bitter by far ; we
ourselves could have given it a nicer edge, and the scholarly
turn of the true epigram of antiquity. Our Secretary wants
the suaviter in modo whereof we are masters ; and yet, Patrick,
the Paris and the Pulchelle are not altogether amiss ; nor yet
the Graca tamen Graium, though there be over-much of the
verbal play than altogether suits the severer taste of the pupil
of Buchanan God rest his soul ! who hath been nourished
upon the masterpieces of our Augustan age. Now, my lords,
we will put a happy ending to this untoward comedy of errors,
and, as you say yourself, Patrick, let byganes be byganes, and
fair-play in time to come."
Gray had begun with an affectation of courtly deference,
" Whatever your Highness is pleased to propose " when he
was again interrupted.
It was Gilbert my brother who entered. His face was
pale as death ; his eyes were sunk and hollow ; he looked like
the messenger of Fate. It was obvious that he had been fear-
fully ill, and that he had risen from a sick-bed to discharge the
solemn trust that had been committed to him.
The Master started. Had the sword of the Avenging Angel
been suddenly unsheathed before his eyes he could hardly have
been more unmanned.
The apparition, for such it seemed, stalked up to the head
of the table where James sat.
QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST. 67
"Mortui non mordent" it said, in a ghostly whisper. There
was no need for more ; each one of us knew too well to what
the ominous words referred, and against whom they were
directed. "Mortui non mordent."
But, as he spoke, Gilbert's strength failed, and he fell
prostrate on the floor.
Every Scotsman, however little acquainted with the secret
history of the time, has heard the sequel. Gray was tried and
condemned. It has been said by contemporary writers that
he was not executed in respect of the intercession of the Lord
Hamilton. I fear the true explanation must be looked for
elsewhere than in the public records. I have good reason to
believe that the Master had a letter in his possession (addressed
to him when on his English embassy) which was fatally com-
promising for others than himself. It would be found from it
(so it was reported) that Gray had acted in strict conformity
with the secret instructions which he had received from the
king. This letter he had prudently deposited with a friend in
England ; it was enclosed in a sealed cover which was only to
be opened if Gray was executed. 1
His life was spared ; but what at one time promised to be a
great career was brought to an unlamented close. His ambi-
tion was nipped in the bud. His sin had found him out. He
wandered across Europe a soured and sullen man ; until
years afterwards, in a spirit of contemptuous toleration, the
Scottish Government permitted him to return. "To what
base uses may we come, Horatio," one William Shakespeare,
an English play-actor, has lately written ; and the baleful career
of the Master furnished a theme that the rich and animated
invective of the Calvinistic pulpit has turned to good account.
Mr Gibson in particular has used his old enemy as the text of
1 Mr Froude, writing me in February 1893, remarks : " You have filled
out the figure of the Master of Gray I daresay correctly. I could never
make him out very clearly." Though the Master strongly impressed his
contemporaries, he is, it must be admitted, an enigmatical and ambiguous
figure.
68 QUEEN MARY'S HOLDFAST.
many a discourse (protracted into a twentieth or thirtieth head ;
for the good man's sermons grew long as he grew old), in which
it was conclusively shown that Erastian prelates and tulchan
bishops, to whom conscience was an idle word, and God a
nursery bogle, would go where Gray had gone.
How Gilbert was brought back to life by the tender ministra-
tions of a ministering angel, is a story of which his grandchildren
do not readily tire. I cannot truly say that the shadow which
had fallen upon them was ever entirely lifted ; but such happi-
ness as was possible to a great Scottish landowner and his
lady in a troubled age, when men had ceased to believe as
their fathers believed, and to worship as their fathers wor-
shipped, was known to "Gilbert Holdfast and Lilias his
wife."
Note by the Transcriber. Of that later and sunnier life, we
gain 1 through this musty pile of papers only a partial and
transient glimpse. In a letter from Gilbert to Lady Maitland,
written some six or eight years after the execution of Mary,
this passage occurs :
" Little Will is very well, I thank God : he drinketh every
day to Lady Grandmother ; rideth to her often and yet within
the Court ; and if he have any spice cake I tell him Lady
Grandmother is come and will see him, which he then will
either quickly hide or quickly eat, and then asks where Lady
Danmode is ? "
6 9
III.
THE DEVIL TO PAY.
TJALMAWH APPLE was still in its civic infancy
-D when the seventeenth century was young.
These were hard years for Scotland. The king
had gone south; the nobles had followed suit; and
in the remoter districts the moral and spiritual
supremacy of the successors of Knox had become
a grinding tyranny. One superstition had made way
for another. Any show of religious independence, of
intellectual curiosity, was sourly repressed. The
ministers, indeed, were everywhere omnipotent. The
kirk - session was more powerful than the secular
tribunals ; and from the excommunication of Pres-
bytery and Synod there was no appeal. The clown
who had used profane language, the girl whose frailty
had been exposed, the urchin who gathered " grosers "
in time of sermon, had to do penance in face of the
congregation often for hours, sometimes for days.
Great county families like the Holdfasts resented the
dictatorial inquisition of the Church Courts ; but they
7O THE DEVIL TO PAY.
were comparatively powerless, and even when holding
the office of Judge-Ordinary were unable to save their
dependants from the vengeance of ecclesiastical fanati-
cism. It was often as much as they could do to save
themselves ; and the high-born dame that Will Hold-
fast married she was one of the great Catholic house
of Huntly was forced to ask pardon on her knees.
It is to be feared that too many of the ministers of
religion really enjoyed the power to bind and to loose
that had been vested in them by law or usage ; they
inflicted pains and penalties with a light heart ; they
were cruel as well as ignorant and bigoted. Will
Holdfast can hardly be regarded as a witness whose
testimony is unimpeachable ; and it may be that the
opinions which he formed were coloured by the pre-
judices of his order, and by his close connection with
more than one of the culprits against whom the
clerical anathema maranatha had been recorded; but
after every allowance is made, his notes of certain
incidents which occurred at Balmawhapple in the
year of grace 1620 may be taken as substantially
accurate. Mark assures me that I may print them
without any fear of reprisals; and as judge, jury,
and victim have been dust for two hundred years,
there is little risk at least of an action for defama-
tion. So here are Will's notes, Will Holdfast, the
eldest son of the Gilbert, who, as you may remember,
saw Mary Stuart die.
THE DEVIL TO PAY.
I.
NOBODY knew how old Lisbeth was. She had been in the
Maitland family long before any of us were born ; she had
been our mother's nurse as well as our own. We loved her ;
yet she was never exactly a lovable woman ; and our love was
mingled with fear. Until we were able, indeed, to shift for
ourselves, her fidelity was absolute, her devotion unremitting;
and she would, I have no doubt, have laid down her life for
us gladly. But as one after the other we grew up, her attitude
changed. Imperceptibly but surely a wall of separation rose
between us. Even her solicitude had been austere ; when-
ever she permitted her thoughts to wander away from the
work in hand, a frown would settle upon her face. Possibly
there were bitter memories in the background ; her only son,
we knew, had been drowned at sea ; and the catastrophe,
which had been brought about by the recklessness of his
mate, had been neither forgotten nor forgiven. It was curi-
ous, however, how her tenderness waned or appeared to wane
(if it did wane) whenever we came to man's or woman's
estate. We used to tease her at times, no doubt, and pos-
sibly the frivolities of youth hurt her more than we knew
or cared. Her Calvinism had been learnt in a gloomy
school : for every idle word God would bring us into judg-
ment. Then, though our mother was a Maitland, our father
was a Holdfast; and among the godly the Holdfasts were
"suspect." The conviction that we did not belong to the
elect, that we were outside the pale of those who had washed
their robes in the blood of the Lamb, did not become actively-
aggressive while we were in the cradle or at her knee. The
tricks of infants were as the tricks of kittens, to which no
moral code applied. But with responsible beings it was other-
wise ; and whenever we arrived at years of discretion, as the
saying is, it seemed to be borne in upon her, with a force
that she could not resist, that we were numbered with the
reprobate.
72 THE DEVIL TO PAY.
My brother Angus, who went to Paris to study at the famous
medical school of the university, used to tell us that Lisbeth
was mad. There was madness in her eye ; and her theology,
he said, was the concrete form it assumed. But there was
something more, he added a bodily as well as a mental
taint ; and he recommended that she should be closely
watched. A convulsive fit, of the nature of epilepsy, might
attack her at any moment ; and, if alone, she would die before
assistance could be obtained.
This was the view of science, however; and science, as it
is called, has as yet made small way in Balmawhapple. Angus
treated the popular judgment with characteristic contempt;
but few of us, or of our neighbours, had risen to his standing-
point ; and by the popular judgment not at first, nor for
long, but with redoubled energy at the end it was definitively
settled that Lisbeth More was a witch.
For a good many years now she had led a solitary life. We
had built a cottage for her among the sandhills of the Whapple,
where the rabbits burrow and the sheldrakes breed. The plaint
of the whaup is almost the only sound that disturbs the summer
silence : of a winter night, however, the moonlight water up
to the cottage door is alive with wild-fowl the wild-fowl that
are shy of men. So she had no friends or neighbours ; and
till her niece Betty came to stay with her, when her strength
failed, she had lived absolutely alone. In these circumstances
it was little wonder that her hold on the life round about her
had slackened, and that she should have seen visions and
dreamt dreams. The fishers returning from the Dogger Bank
in the early twilight (while the stars grew faint before the
dawn) had heard as they glided past screams of demoniac
mirth or (it might be) of demoniac despair had seen a
woman, or the figure of a woman, with clasped hands and
bowed head, wrestling with invisible enemies as she paced
restlessly along the beach. The reek of burning brimstone
which is known to attend the visits of the Prince of Darkness
had been distinctly perceived by more than one of them.
Little Betty was very loyal to her aunt; when Angus was
away Betty was the one freethinker in the parish ; and Betty
THE DEVIL TO PAY. 73
treated the ugly and malevolent* rumours with supreme scorn ;
but in spite of Betty's protests, the fact that Lisbeth was a
witch, who held illicit interviews with the Evil One, could no
longer be concealed. The general feeling was that the time
had come when minister and session must take prompt
action.
My brother Angus, indeed, continued to ridicule the whole
affair. " Well done, Betty ! " he said to me one day. " That
trim little lass has all the sense of the parish in her head. She
is constantly with Lisbeth, and she knows that the poor old
doited body is clean crazy. Why, in the name of all that's
rational, are Master Knox and his brothers in Christ so keen
against witches ? There was the Witch of Endor, to be sure ;
but she was quite out of date long before their blessed Refor-
mation. The fairies no doubt were in vogue under the old
regime ; but I would a deal rather have to do with the Queen
of Elfame than with a parcel of dirty half-witted old wives ;
and whatever else they might be, if we are to believe the
Bishop, the good people were at least good Catholics." And
he went away to see a patient, humming to himself some
rhymes which had been made by a witty prelate :
" When Tom came home from labour,
And Ciss to milking rose,
Then merrily went the labour,
And nimbly went their toes.
By which we note the fairies
Were of the old profession ;
Their songs were Ave Maries ;
Their dances were procession."
And indeed I am partly inclined to agree with Angus ; at
least I fancy sometimes that it is because the preachers are
persuaded that the charms and invocations used by the witches
had a Catholic parentage that they are so bitter against them.
And rightly so, most of us will add, no doubt.
Yet I am not certain that the tide of popular feeling would
have risen as it did had it not been for the Reverend David
74 THE DEVIL TO PAY.
Dickson. The Reverend David Dickson was the assistant and
successor of the Reverend Peter Gibson (whom we had known
as children), and he was much esteemed as a powerful preacher
of the Gospel throughout the Merkland. But there was much
godly jealousy between him and the minister of Cuddiestane,
the Reverend Ebenezer Macfulzie, who was cousin in the tenth
degree to John Knox himself, and esteemed accordingly by the
more precise Protestants. The rivalry had latterly grown
somewhat keener than was seemly. There were rumours
indeed (which had been traced as far as Cuddiestane) that the
incumbent of Balmawhapple was not sound in the essentials,
but addicted to pagan and papistical literature. So it behoved
him to silence the evil reports of the ungodly ; and when he
was given to understand on credible testimony that at the
Inquisition of Witches which was about to be held, Cuddie-
stane would provide no fewer than three, he perceived that the
honour of Balmawhapple and his own repute for piety and
penetration were at stake. I really believe that he would
have preferred to leave Lisbeth to die in her bed, or by her
fireside (for he was naturally a kindly man) ; but the preten-
sions of Cuddiestane (where witches had been hitherto sus-
piciously rare) were not to be tolerated ; and it was decided,
with only one dissenting voice, that Lisbeth should be cited
to appear and answer before the session, quain primum, as
the clerk added. Cuddiestane would thus be driven to admit
that Balmawhapple was still a fruitful field in the vineyard, and
that it could yield as goodly a harvest as in its best days.
It was Betty who brought the citation to Angus. Her in-
dignation had been succeeded by alarm ; and she had, as it
appeared, real cause for anxiety "Granny," as she called
Lisbeth, having of late laboured under the delusion that she
was demoniacally " possessed."
The event which had finally persuaded the old woman that
she was in league with the Evil One had occurred not long
before. Rab the Ranter was one of the vagabond people who
call themselves ^Egyptians, and had gone about the country
with minstrels, sangsters, tale-tellers, and other idle and
masterful beggars, practising jugalarie, fast-and-lous, and other
THE DEVIL TO PAY. 75
unlawful games. Even in the wild community to which he
belonged, Rab was regarded as insanely vindictive and feroci-
ous, and he had been convicted more than once of monstrous
and abominable crimes. But he was a polished ruffian ; and
had it not been for the cruel sneer on his lips and the wicked
cast in his eye, he might have passed, as he sometimes did
indeed, for one gently born. He had been banished again
and again. He had been scourged. He had been branded
with red-hot irons. His ears had been nailed to the Tron and
then cut off. But he had never been hanged, and indeed he
seemed to bear a charmed life. The Devil had been good to
his own, it was said.
Possibly a popular superstition had contributed to the im-
punity he enjoyed. The common people believed then, as
they still do, that the body of a man who is guilty of unspeak-
able wickedness is inhabited by a devil. They hold that if
the devil is driven out he will seek elsewhere another lodging ;
and that the surest way to drive him out is to hang the man
in whom he lodges. But if the effect of hanging is simply to
give another (man or woman) into the keeping of an evil
spirit, and if it is quite uncertain into whom the evil spirit may
prefer to enter, is it not more prudent to leave him in the
abode which he presently occupies ? This mode of reasoning
may be faulty, but it was not without force, and Rab had
profited by it.
But he had come to the end of his tether, and a week or
two before the day when Lisbeth was cited, he had mounted
for the last time the ladder on the Gallows hill. By an un-
happy fatality the old woman had been passing at the time ;
and, dazed though she was, the unusual assemblage had
attracted her attention. Rab had fixed his evil eye upon her
as she paused, and with a villainous sneer had addressed some
mocking words to her, which were understood to imply that
he left her his interest in the fiend as a bequest or legacy
which she was to use to the best advantage.
The shock was too much for Lisbeth's shattered nerves,
and she fell down in one of those fits to which she had latterly
become subject. It need not surprise us if, as she writhed
76 THE DEVIL TO PAY.
convulsively upon the ground, the ignorant spectators should
have fancied that they actually observed the foul fiend enter
into her.
I am afraid that Angus's advocacy (that Lisbeth should
have shared in the delusion, as her niece sorrowfully admitted,
only proved, he declared, that her insanity had taken an acute
turn) did the old woman no good. The scorn which he could
not conceal was not calculated to conciliate ; and our interview
with Mr Dickson we asked him to dinner, and drank his
health in a bumper of claret that had been brought from
France in The Gift of God, the year of the king's marriage
was far from satisfactory. Though his heart was not in the
business, he would not listen to our remonstrances, and words
ran high (between him and Angus) before we parted.
The quczstio vexata was gradually approached, and we found
him at first not unreasonable.
"The law," he said, "punishes with severity the strolling
vagabonds who feign to have knowledge of charming, pro-
phecy, and similar abused sciences. The fantastical imagina-
tions of those addicted to witchcraft are of like evil effect, and
must be not less strictly repressed."
" Then you do not think," I said, " that they have veritable
communication with the enemy of mankind ? "
" Many of them have confessed that they have "
" But only after their memories have been refreshed by the
pilniewinkies, the caschilaws, and the boots," Angus interposed.
" Pardon me, I have known many cases in which the ad-
mission was voluntary. They gloried in their shame."
" Vanity, diseased vanity, assumes many disguises," the man
of science replied. " Nor can it be alleged that what they do
is invariably hurtful. Most of them, on the contrary, from
their knowledge of herbs and simples are skilful in the cure of
disease."
" But they pretend to cure by charms and conjurations, and
the silly people who haunt them are misled by what they are-
told."
" Faith, we know, can move mountains. Even in the
schools we require the faith of the patient as well as the skill
THE DEVIL TO PAY. 77
of the leech. Miracles of healing," he added, after a pause,
" have before now been ascribed to Beelzebub."
This was too much for our reverend friend. " I hold no
communion with scoffers and blasphemers who are prepared
to ridicule the mysteries of our holy religion," he exclaimed,
as he rose hurriedly from his seat. " The session will hear of
this," he went on, turning to Angus. " The spirit of unbelief
is abroad. Sir, I do not believe that you believe in the
Devil ! "
"My good sir," Angus answered, with provoking suavity,
" do not leave us under a false impression. I should be loath
indeed to surrender my belief in One who is so eminently ser-
viceable to your cloth. And yet," he added, with a shrug, " I
am whiles inclined to agree with a vernacular writer of high
authority who maintains that there is sma' need for a deevil in
a warld where there are deceitfu' hearts and leein' tongues."
After this any hope of truce had to be abandoned. It must
thenceforth, we knew, be war to the knife.
II.
THE session-house was a low wooden shed on the north side
of the church ; and it was inconveniently crowded when we
arrived. The minister sat at the head of the long table which
occupied the centre of the room ; his elders, the men who
composed the session, were placed on either side. They were
for the most part farmers quiet, shrewd, douce, as the Bal-
mawhappians mainly are ; but they had come straight from the
plough, and they brought with them the fresh smell of the
newly turned earth. The local schoolmaster acted as clerk of
session, and he was reading the minutes of the immediately
preceding meeting when we entered, room having been made
for us near the end of the table where Lisbeth and her niece
were seated. There was a lamp beside the minister which
threw a dim light upon the strong grave faces at the other
end ; the rest of the room was in darkness. The sense of
gloom was oppressive, and the raven-like croak of the clerk's
78 THE DEVIL TO PAY.
harsh monotonous voice seemed exactly to suit the surround-
ings.
This (or words to this effect) was what he read :
" The said day it is ordainit that a new pair of stocks be
made for the punishment of stubborn and unruly delinquents.
It is also ordainit that those who harbour papists or witches,
who are present at fights, who do not communicate, who drink
during divine service, who let on of bonfires, who do not at-
tend the examinations on Sabbath afternoon, be excommuni-
cate or required to satisfy as adulterers.
" The said day it is ordainit that Patrick Wilson for drink-
ing after cockcrow stand in sackcloth two Sabbaths at the
kirk-door, and be fined four merks ; and that George Thomson
and Elspit Gray be fined four merks of penalty, and sit on the
stool of repentance two Sabbaths, for drinking during divine
service.
" The said day George Gordon is cited to appear for pro-
faning the Sabbath day by gathering grosers in time of sermon.
"The said day Grizzel Murrison is ordainit to mak her
public repentance barefooted, twenty-six Sabbaths at the kirk-
door, first betwixt the second and third bells, and thereafter
upon the stool of repentance.
" The said day it is ordered that intimation be made from
the pulpit that none of the parishioners receive Margaret
Charles, who was lately parted with child in the parish of
Cuddiestane.
" The said day Archibald Russell, presenting himself to be
contractit, and being ignorant of the Ten Commandments, is
ordainit to pay forty shillings to the poor, and to learn them
before he is married.
" The said day Alexander Cairnie, in Tilliochie, was delaitit
for brak of Sabbath in bearing ane sheep upon his back from
the pasture to his own house. The said Alexander compeirit
and declairit that it was of necessity for saving the beast's life
in time of storm. Was rebukit for the same, and admonished
not to do the like."
Tilliochie's case was the last, and while the minute was
being attested as correct, Angus whispered to me that there
THE DEVIL TO PAY. 79
was an earlier decision, which had obviously ceased to be re-
garded as a precedent in the ecclesiastical courts : " And He
took him, and healed him, and let him go : and answered them,
saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a
pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath-day?"
The minutes having been duly approved, the Moderator (as
the chairman is called) rose and stated that the first business
of the present meeting was to inquire into a/ama clamosa. It
was alleged that a parishioner, well known to them all, had
been guilty of the mortal sin of witchcraft, and they had met
to obtain, if possible, a free confession from the culprit, accord-
ing to the practice of the ecclesiastical courts. Then, looking
steadily at Lisbeth, he asked her if she was prepared to confess
that she had had dealings with the Devil ? The old woman,
roused for a moment from her stupor, mumbled (and yet the
answer was distinctly heard through the room), " It's ower
true, it's ower true."
That was all ; but Betty, who half supported her aunt in
her arms, looked at Angus. "Will you no' speak for her
and for me?" she said, with an air of pitiful entreaty.
Angus rose, and observing that surely more was needed than
the avowal of an aged woman, who was labouring under a
deadly disease, and whose wits were gone, insisted that some
evidence at least should be led. The request was too reason-
able to be entirely disregarded, and two or three of the
audience were invited to relate what they had witnessed.
Jock Tamson, the smith, had been present at Rab's hanging,
and had seen Lisbeth's convulsive struggle when the fiend
took possession of her. Mrs Tamson and her neighbours
had applied to her on various occasions for advice, and she
had given them potions that had cured them with miraculous
and unprofessional rapidity. One of them had seen her in
the dawing gathering the herbs of which they were com-
pounded. Another had found her sitting in a field of green
corn before sunrising, and on being asked what she was
doing, she had replied, " I have been peeling the blades of
the corn ; I find it will be a dear year for us a', the blade
of the corn grows withershins (that is, against the course of
80 THE DEVIL TO PAY.
the sun) ; when it grows sungates (that is, with the sun), it
will be a cheap year." Another on the Eve of St John had
helped her to gather the deadly fern-seed, which on that
night only is visible to mortal eye. The evidence, to say the
least, was not very conclusive.
It was in vain, however, that Angus ridiculed the conten-
tion that these nocturnal rambles clearly indicated that she
was in pursuit of unlawful knowledge, and assured them, as
a physician, that a convulsive seizure of an epileptic nature
was quite consistent with innocence. Mr Dickson, in a few
weighty words, reminded the session that the unfortunate
woman had openly confessed that she had entered the service
of Satan, and advised them to disregard the atheistical plea
that all the symptoms which had hitherto been associated
with demoniacal possession could be ascribed to natural
causes. So on her own confession Lisbeth, as a witch, was
remitted to the Commission.
Lisbeth, in the same dazed, half-conscious state, was re-
moved from the session-house, and lifted into the cart which
we had sent with her, by Angus and Betty. None of the
neighbours would assist ; was she not, on her own confession,
a woman accurst? Angus led the moorland pony; Betty
walked beside her aunt. There is a road all the way to the
links (the others being mere tracks) ; that, at least, we owe
to the old monks. The motion and the fresh air seemed to
revive the old woman, and ere they reached the cottage she
was talking eagerly to herself in strong trenchant words, such
as she was wont to use before her mind went.
" Ye ken, sirs, that my mither was burnt for a witch (by
the gude Lord James in his last progress through Fife), and
her mither afore her. It's a sair burden for an auld wife like
me. The feythers have eaten sour grapes, and the bairns'
teeth are set on edge. Yet the Lord Himsel' hath declared
that we wull not be judged for the evil done in the auld time.
1 As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion
any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are
mine ; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is
mine : the soul that sinneth, it shall die.' But I wudna
THE DEVIL TO PAY. 8 1
lippen ; I was ay prood ; I was uplifted by the conceit that
I belanged to the elect. But indeed, cummers, we maun
stan' or fa' on our ain feet at the last. ' The soul that sinneth,
it shall die.' And so for my sins I was made over to the
power of evil, and delivered into his hand.
" ' Like to ane bird tane in a net,
The whilk the fowler for her set,
Sa is our life weel win awaV
He cam' at me like a roarin' lion, like a roarin' lion seeking
his prey. And I cud not resist, though I bethought me of
the gude and godly and comfortable promises of David's
psalm in James Wedderburn's version ; " and then she sang
in a weak quavering voice the well-known verse,
" The net is broken in pieces small,
And we are savit fra their shame,
Our hope was ay and ever sail
Be in the Lord, and in His name,
The whilk hes creat hevin so hie,
And made the eird so marveilouslie,
And all the ferlies of the same. "
Betty walked silently beside her aunt, looking neither to
right nor left ; the tears had dried on her cheeks, and her
face was set and hard. " Let them wirry us baith," she said
under her breath ; " it's a cruel warld."
Poor Betty !
III.
THE exploits of the Commission that sat at Aberugie that
year have not yet been forgotten. They burnt more than
one hundred witches not counting the wizards and warlocks.
Their industry was indefatigable, and was attended with re-
markable success. But the field was so wide that they were
unable to overtake it, and sub-commissioners were despatched
to the outlying districts. These got through a very creditable
amount of work ; all along the coast, from the Moray Firth
VOL. I. F
82 THE DEVIL TO PAY.
to Berwick, the reek of tar-barrels and fagots darkened the
air. Passing mariners from France and Flanders had seen
no such sight before, except possibly during the season of
" muirburn."
It was rather difficult to understand why so many foolish
and evil-disposed old women should have been indicted to-
gether. One can understand a nervous panic pervading a
whole community ; men and women, in unreasoning and un-
controllable alarm, frightened out of their wits. But, except
in one or two instances, there was no sign of any personal
animosity ; on the contrary, in most cases there appeared to
be a friendly understanding between the witch and her neigh-
bours ; and " Old Lucky " or " Mother Bunkle " was not un-
frequently a not unpopular functionary in the parish, hold-
ing her own against the parson and the laird. And I believe,
as I have said before, that, but for the preachers (who felt
possibly that the tussle with Satan was a matter of life and
death for themselves), there would have been few prosecutions.
The sub-commission that sat at Balmawhapple (in the big
room of the old Holdfast Arms) consisted of three clerical and
three lay members, and was presided over by the sheriff of the
shire. An advocate from the county town had been sent to
see that convictions were duly obtained ; but, indeed, his
services might have been dispensed with, for the zeal of the
commissioners did not require encouragement, and most of
the old women there were ten in all had been prompt to
confess their misdeeds.
I was a spectator only ; my name might have been included
in the Commission had I desired ; but Angus had persuaded
me to abstain from taking any active part in the proceedings.
" The ministers will vote to convict," he urged, " and Bog-
hall and Tap-a-tourie will go with them ; so that you could do
no good even if the shirra were friendly."
I don't think I shall ever forget live as long as I may
the miserable row of wretched creatures who faced us. But
with the exception of Angus and myself, and an English
gentleman who was our guest, every one in the room appeared
to regard the terrible ceremony with the most callous and
THE DEVIL TO PAY. 83
stolid indifference. How was that cruel lust for innocent
blood to be explained ? The question puzzles me now as it
puzzled me then.
A prayer by the Reverend Ebenezer Macfulzie, in which the
Lord was implored to ratify in heaven the sentences that His
ministers on earth were about to pronounce, having come to
a close, the assize was opened, and the first case was called
by the macer, who, having ascertained that the accused was
present, proceeded to read the indictment or " dittay."
The first case was that of Alison Dick, who was accused (as
indeed they all were) of contravening the eighteenth chapter
of Deuteronomy, as well as the seventy-second Act of the
ninth Parliament of Queen Mary. Alison had been thrown
into the Loch of Lindores with her thumbs tied, and had
floated, which was prima fade evidence at least that she was
in league with Satan. She was accused, moreover, of taking
off and laying on diseases the consent of the dog or cat on
whom they were laid not having been obtained ; and she had
told Agnes Finnic that she would " gar the Devill tak' a bite
of her." Though it was clear that Alison Dick did not
deserve to live, yet, as she had made a free confession, the
court, it was intimated by the sheriff, would deal mercifully
with her she should be wirried (or strangled) first, and then
burnt. Alison, when she heard the sentence, contentedly
bobbed her head, which was her equivalent for a curtsey.
Old Lucky Wishart did not fare so well. She had, it
appeared, made a wax figure of the king, and it had been
seen melting away like ane burning candle, fortunately with-
out any evil effects to him of whom even the Devil himself
was forced to confess, // est un homme de Dieu. She had
gone at midnight to the thiePs gallows to cut some choice
morsels for the brew she was compounding, and she had been
seen with other witches at the Cross of Muirstone above Kin-
nell, where they had danced reels and jigs while the Devil
played the pipes. A pricker of witches declared that Lucky
bore the Devil's mark ; that he had driven a pin into it, and
that she did not bleed. Her fingers had been in the pilnie-
winks, her legs had been crushed to pulp, a rope had been
84 THE DEVIL TO PAY.
twisted round her head, heavy weights had been laid on her
stomach, and yet she would not confess. For her malignant
contumacy she was allowed no grace. Her sentence was
that she be taken straight to the stake, and there burnt
incontinently.
Most of the witches who undertook to cure disease had, it
came out, apart from the freemasonry of the craft, charms or
conjurations of their own. Bessie Boyd's curt formula was
(the patient in the meantime having partaken of her hellish
liquor), " Gif thou wilt live, live ; gif thou wilt die, die ; " but
at other times she would repeat the lines which betrayed their
Catholic origin :
" All kinds of ills that ever may be,
In Christ's name I conjure ye ;
I conjure ye, baith mair and less,
With all the virtues of the Mess ;
Furth of the flesh and of the bane,
And in the erd and in the stane,
I conjure ye in God's name. "
Isobel Gowdie cured, or pretended to cure, the "heart-
fever " ; her patients, kneeling before her, repeated after her
the invocation to " the nine maidens that died in the boor-
tree in the Ladywell Bank," and then were appointed on nine
successive mornings to eat the wayburn leaf; while Gielie
Duncan, who was a sort of horse-doctor, employed the charm
which, from time immemorial, has been noted for its singular
efficacy in curing sprains and bruises :
' ' Our Lord forth raide,
His foal's foot slaide ;
Our Lord down-lighted,
His foal's foot righted,
Saying : Flesh to flesh, blood to blood, and bane to bane,
In our Lord His name. "
It appeared from Gielie's examination that the Devil had
come to her as a gentleman in black, and asked her whether
she was a poor woman, to which she had replied that she was ;
THE DEVIL TO PAY. 8$
and that thereupon the Devil, in the shape of a gentleman,
had said that if she would grant him one request, she should
never want for meat, drink, nor clothes; whereupon she
exclaimed, " In the name of God, what is it that I shall do ? "
upon which the gentleman in black (or rather, the Devil)
vanished clean away from her. The sheriff was not satisfied
with her explanation, and proceeded to cross-examine her.
The Sheriff. " In what shape or colour was the Devil ? "
Gielie. " In black, like a bullock."
The Sheriff. " Did you never see the Devil but this time ? "
Gielie. " Ay, once before. I was gathering sticks, and he
came to me and said, ' This poor woman hath a great burden,'
and would help to ease me of it ; and I said, ' The Lord has
enabled me to carry it so far, and I hope I shall be able to
carry it further.' "
The Sheriff. " Did the Devil never promise you anything ? "
Gielie. "No, never."
The Sheriff. "Then you served a very bad master, who
gave you nothing. But maybe you will see him again shortly,
when he will be better disposed," he concluded with grim irony,
as he signed the order for her execution.
Angus had said once that he preferred the old Catholic
fairies to the new Protestant witches ; but there was one case
that of Grissel Jaffrey which seemed to show that the
stories of Elfame were still current among the vulgar. Grissel's
familiar was not the Devil, but Tam Reid, who fell at Pinkie
on the Black Saturday. Tam had promised her, she said,
baith household gear and kye gif she wad deny her Christen-
dom and the faith she took at the font-stane. Tam, it ap-
peared, had been all these years in Elfame, where many others
made their abode the king that died at Flodden and Thomas
Rhymer among the rest. More than once the good wights
from Elfame who accompanied Tam had desired her com-
pany, and when she refused they would vanish incontinent,
an hideous ugly sough of wind following them as they partit.
The elves or female fays would ride upon white palfreys, with
the queen at their head, and they bore candles and swords,
which, more closely examined in the daylight, proved to be
86 THE DEVIL TO PAY.
nothing except dead grass and straes. Gangin' once afield,
she added, to tether her horse at Restalrig Loch, there came
a company of riders by that made such a din as if heaven and
card had gone together; and incontinent with a hideous
rumble they rade straight into the loch and vanished. Tarn
told her it was the gude wights that were riding in middle
card.
Grissel was found guilty of sorcery and other evil arts, and
the Commission ordered that she should be tortured with hot
irons first and then burnt. The severity of the sentence was
no doubt intended to deter others from listening to the fables
of fairyland which had been everywhere popular before the
May-day sports had been interdicted by the Reformed clergy :
so Angus at least suggested.
Of all the witches who were examined during the day, Bar-
bara Napier was the most communicative. She had been
very intimate with Satan for many years, and had discovered
him under various disguises. She had attended many witch-
dances, sometimes riding over the sea on a corn-sieve, some-
times on a corn-straw. To put her steed in motion she had
merely to cry, " Horse and hattock in the Devil's name ! "
when it would fly away as thistle-down flies before the wind.
The Devil, who would often take the likeness of a black dog
that yowled at those who passed, would appoint the place of
meeting, and then vanish. The kirk of North Berwick was a
favourite rendezvous, and many a time twenty or thirty witches
might be seen, by those who ventured abroad, riding on their
corn-straws across the Forth. There, in the likeness of a man
with a red cap and a rump to his tail, they found the Devil,
and the wicked orgies would begin. But before they danced
he would make a discourse to them in manner of a sermon,
his favourite text being, "Manie goe to the mercat, but all
buy not." He found fault with those who had been indolent
in ill-doing ; those who had been busy he called his beloved,
and promised they should want for nothing. Then playing
upon a trump he watched them dance, and those whose devil-
ish antics had pleased him most were allowed to kiss his toe.
The dance would last till long past midnight ; but before the
THE DEVIL TO PAY. 87
first cock crew they had mounted their corn-stalks and were
sailing home.
Barbara's narrative was listened to with breathless interest ;
and when she had finished there was a deep sigh of relief.
Even Angus was impressed ; if we should ever have another
Dunbar among us, he said to me, what a play he might make
of the half-mad, half-clad hussies dancing with might and main
to the skirl of the pipes !
The afternoon had worn away, and the appetite for horrors
had been wellnigh sated, when Lisbeth More was called. She
had had another fit, and was now obviously moribund. Betty,
who essayed to say a word for her aunt, was peremptorily
silenced. Where there had been a formal confession formally
recorded, there was no need for further argument. So she
was told, when, white with indignation, she had burst out
against the travesty of justice. Besides, the short winter day-
light was on the wane, and the judges had become impatient
of delay. A foregone conclusion had no need to wait on
argument. They had been latterly sentencing the culprits in
batches ; and they were not going to spend the few minutes
that remained on one old woman who was already at death's
door. A rather amusing incident, however (at least to those
behind the scenes), occurred while the clerk was writing out
the judgment of the court. The minister of Cuddiestane in-
terposed. This was a case, he said, in which the culprit had
no title to be burnt alive. She was not a first-class witch, and
could not be treated as such. She must be luirried first. Our
friend Mr Dickson was on the horns of a dilemma. He was
not a cruel man, and death by strangulation, he knew, was
speedier and more merciful than death by burning ; but, if he
gave way, Cuddiestane, with its three first-class witches, would
entirely eclipse Balmawhapple. It is undoubtedly to his credit,
as Angus admitted, that, in spite of the provocation, he held
his tongue.
Next morning the sun rose upon a fine, clear, cold winter
day. The snow lay thick upon the ground ; every object was
a dazzling white, except the sea and the black line of stakes,
88 THE DEVIL TO PAY.
with their tar-barrels and piles of fagots, that had been erected
along the beach during the night.
But the baron-bailie was wroth. It had been ordered by the
court that the executions should take place within the burgh
where the assize was held. Thus the whole cost had to be
defrayed by the civic and ecclesiastical authorities of the
parish ; and the cost of burning ten old women would be
heavy; for even the bodies of the two who were to be strangled
had afterwards to be reduced to ashes, the belief that to save
the soul it was necessary to burn the body not being confined
to Spanish inquisitors.
" The expense is just terrible," the bailie confided to the
junior magistrate. " What authority has the court to saddle
Balmawhapple with the cost of towes and tar-barrels for Cud-
diestane ? Cuddiestane should burn its ain witches."
" But think o' the honour and glory, bailie ! "
" Think on an assessment o' saxpence in the pund ! It'll
come to that and mair. Here's the account o' the broch's
disbursements when Chirsty Bell was brunt. Imprimis, for
ten loads of coals, three punds sax and eightpence Scots ;
item, for a tar-barrel, fourteen shillings; item, for towes, sax
shillings, forby the charges of the executioner : four-and-thirty
punds Scots in sutnma, of whilk one-half, nae doobt, was re-
covered from the session."
" Aweel ! aweel ! " responded his colleague. " It'll be a
fine ploy for the bairns ! "
The condemned met their doom with astonishing placidity.
The children romped noisily around while the irons were being
heated ; the girls from the burgh stood and gossiped with the
country hinds : it was bitter cold, and more than one of the
old women, it was noticed, sat with stolid composure, warming
her hands at the fire that was about to consume her. Then
the executioner came round with the " towes," and tied them
up, one by one ; the barrels were lighted ; the flames curled
round the bodies of the helpless victims, as the smoke drifted
out to sea ; some of them, through the crackling of the fagots,
could be heard praying (or cursing? it was reported after-
wards that they repeated the Lord's Prayer backwards) ; while
THE DEVIL TO PAY. 89
a devilish chuckle, that made the blood of the spectators
curdle, was the only response. The Devil had been paid his
dues, and he was possibly well pleased.
Lisbeth was the only one of the actors who failed to attend,
and she was not much missed. She and Betty had been
placed for the night, through Angus's interposition, in a barn
belonging to one of our tenants. When the door was opened
in the morning it was found to be empty. The explanation
commonly accepted was, that the Devil had carried off the
witch soul and body during the night. What became of
Betty they did not care to inquire (when last seen she had
been supporting her aunt's head upon her lap) : many years
afterwards I met her in London (where they do not burn the
witches, though there are many), in the service of a great noble
related to ourselves. Her hair was grey, but she held herself
as erect as in the old days, though the shrewd brown eyes
were softer and less watchfully defiant than of yore. In the
Holdfast burial-ground, within the ruins of the venerable
Abbey, there is a plain slab on which is written, "Here lies
Elizabeth More." By-and-by it came to be surmised (not
merely surmised, but openly asserted) that she had died
during the night, and that one or more of the family she
had served so well (according to her lights) had given her
Christian burial. Possibly Angus and Betty could have
told.
IV.
OUT OF THE DARK.
I HAVE diligently perused the records of the Hold-
fasts during the century that followed the famous
Inquisition of 1620 ; and Mark has occupied a wet
afternoon now and again in putting them in order;
but it cannot be said that they rise at any time into
the dignity of history or romance. The Holdfasts had
been austerely loyal for more than one generation ;
but as the Court faction became more arbitrary they
began to incline to the Covenanting side. Will's
eldest son (he was a Hugh) married a daughter of
Forbes of Waterton, who brought the scriptural
phraseology of that family into her husband's house,
and who left behind her a vast mass of clandestine
correspondence, which she held with those of her
own persuasion during the hard years after the
Restoration ; letters with disguised addresses, " For
the Lady Park," with earnest entreaties to "read and
burn," with initialed signature only as " L. D.,"
" L. D." representing, Mark tells me, a certain Lilias
OUT OF THE DARK. 91
Dunbar; a charming devotee, it would appear, who
no doubt found, as other fair saints have found more
recently, a pleasant outlet for her warm feelings in
a little pretty fanaticism, rendered then all the more
piquant and exciting by the danger, mystery, and
intrigue it involved.
The second Gilbert, son of the aforesaid Hugh,
lived well into the eighteenth century, and married
Miss Betsy Peterkin, whose brother, the Doctor, was
a man of science and letters, and an active member
of the Royal Society. Gilbert's mother had been all
her life delicate and sickly; and her accounts with
the village apothecary for "tussilago flowers, maiden-
hair, mouse-ear, horse-tail, John's wort, penny-royal,
Althea-root, white lily-root," and other obsolete sim-
ples, are still extant. His father combined the bon-
vivant and the litterateur. He added in one year
four hundred volumes to the library; his household
accounts are scribbled over with scraps from the
Odyssey; he had a great respect for Mr Addison's
opinions ; and he corresponded with Professor Black-
well of Aberdeen, who wrote him in reply hearty,
lively, sagacious epistles, bristling with French, Latin,
and Greek inscriptions. On the other hand, he was
rebuked by the Synod for sitting over his wine at a
county convivial meeting until two o'clock on Sunday
morning ; and he and his brother the Colonel, during
a two days' carouse in the little tavern at the mouth
of the Whapple, drank " 2 gills of brandy, 8 pints of
ale, and 57 bottles of claret." Clever Lord Lovat,
92 OUT OF THE DARK.
writing a letter of condolence to the son, pronounces
the father " an honour to mankind " ; and to Mark
and myself, much meditating over the latter exploit,
he loomed large and portentous, a son of Anak, a
giant before the Flood. Of Hanoverian politics, the
old laird continued to stand well with both parties.
Prince Charles dined with him shortly before the
battle of Culloden. "You have had my cousin with
you," said Cumberland, who came next day.
Gilbert, during whose reign the Cleuch was re-
built, inherited his father's literary tastes, if not his
convivial. He was a good Graecian, and corresponded
with Dr Moir about the great Scottish edition of
Homer. When Dr Peterkin is at the Cleuch, the
itinerant postman, who arrives pretty regularly now,
carries letters thitherward from all parts of the king-
dom. From caustic Lord Kames, from the self-
taught astronomer, Ferguson of Glasgow, from David
Hume, Harry Erskine, Gilbert Eliot letters dis-
coursing of love, war, literature, philosophy, the
' Review,' the Royal Society, and Johnson's Dic-
tionary. Gilbert Eliot, who writes in an amusing
tone of mock solemnity, relates how the author of
Douglas has descended from the dignity of the drama
to the polemics of the General Assembly; and how
David Hume wanders disconsolately about a huge
library, and is resolved to let the world come to its
senses before he honours it with another volume. For
the rest, the laird encloses, builds, gardens, shoots,
and fishes during the day ; dines out at two or three ;
OUT OF THE DARK. 93
and of an evening in the drawing-room the drawing-
room has been in use for a good many years now
there are his books, his music, his wife sewing and
knitting, and writing letters (she writes like a sensible
woman, but spells abominably), his boys' lessons, and
his little daughter Betsy, who plays on the spinet,
though her uncle, the Doctor, prefers "the gutarre,
or mandoline, as it is called by the London ladies,"
and is addicted to "cutting paper," a mysterious
female occupation of the past, which he considers
innocent but trifling, and is especially fond of sliding
with her brothers on the ice, but gives it up when
he suggests that it may bring her into "unlucky falls
and situations."
This little Betsy ultimately (her brothers dying
without issue) becomes Lady of the Cleuch, and grows
quite grand and demure. She is a prime favourite
with the Duke and his famous Duchess Jean, who
is still well remembered among us for her plain-
speaking, her eccentric habits, and her kind heart.
Mistress Betsy, like the rest of her family, is addicted
to literature. Old Lord Kames, gallant and bewigged,
fantastic, and yet sparkling with fine sense, vivacity,
and bonhomie, visits her ladyship sometimes on his way
to the Northern Circuit, and brings her the latest in-
telligence from Edinburgh about the literary men who
live there, and the popular new burletta Serva Padrona,
in which the celebrated Italian singer, whom they ask
to supper after the play and talk to in Latin, has
made such a sensation. She reads Mr Harvey's
94 OUT OF THE DARK.
Contemplations on Night, The Whole Duty of Man,
Walpole's Memoirs, Dr Johnson's Poems, Spence's
Sermons, and raves about The Man of Feeling, which
Henry Mackenzie sends her in sheets as it goes
through the press. Henry is her cousin and earliest
correspondent, and his letters are the letters of the
superbly polite gentleman of the old school, who bends
benignly over his fair correspondent and kisses the tips
of her rosy fingers. When he comes down to visit her
at the Cleuch, they dedicate walks to " melancholy,"
and write fantastic inscriptions, whereof Henry can-
didly owns that " they are little more than mere poetry
after all." Besides this, her ladyship, being a literary
lady, keeps a private Diary of her own, in which she
discourses to herself as if she were walking on stilts.
One wonders if in these charming morocco-bound and
silver -clasped volumes of our own time, into which
it is "death for any male thing but to peep," the
owners talk much about "the best of parents," "the
responses of an agreeable conversation," and " the
little circumstances which are of import to the bosom
of tenderness," as Mistress Betsy was in the habit
of doing about the year of grace 1770?
There is little or nothing in all this, I fear, that will
interest the rapid reader of to-day. But one sketch
left by our friend Dobbs (of whom more anon) has not
been hitherto published ; it is a narrative of certain
events which took place in Balmawhapple and its
neighbourhood while Culloden was still a living
memory. The story had been used, I take it, to
OUT OF THE DARK. 95
illustrate the old conflict between good and evil,
between day and night ; and to do Dobbs justice,
the little frivolities of style, the little eccentricities
of sentiment in which he indulged, did not extend
into the domain of ethics. Out of the Dark was acci-
dentally discovered in the office of the Tomahawk when
the editor's sanctum was being scrubbed during his ab-
sence on " urgent business " at Tibbie Shiel's ; and as
it is the only document in my possession that throws
any light upon the Balmawhapple of last century, the
reader, I make no doubt, will be glad to have it. The
fame of Lala's gold pieces still lingers in the burgh,
and the truth of the main incidents is attested by a
parcel of papers in the Holdfast charter-chest which I
have seen.
I.
Sx ABBS is, or was, the rival of Balmawhapple. Balma-
whapple indeed regards the pretensions of St Abbs as the
ox in the fable regarded the frog's. The population of
Balmawhapple is twice as great ; it sends thirty big ships
to the Greenland seas, whereas St Abbs has only one ; the
herring-boats that fish from Balmawhapple are numbered by
hundreds, those from St Abbs by tens. But then St Abbs
has a real live Earl ; and St Abbs is so close to the Earl's
seat that a day seldom passes without some of the family or
domestics from Cardono being seen at the Erskine Arms or
elsewhere in town.
The best consolation that we have is that his lordship is
not only Earl of St Abbs but Viscount Balmawhapple ; and
Viscount Balmawhapple is the courtesy title assumed by the
eldest son when there is a son. So that St Abbs cannot be
96 OUT OF THE DARK.
held to have an exclusive or vested interest in the Earl ; some
part, at least, of his lordship belongs to us.
At present (that is, be it understood, at the time of which I
am writing 1775, let us say) there is no elder son only a
daughter, in fact ; and this is a constant source of discomfort
to lord and lady alike, for the title is limited to heirs-male,
and on the Earl's death goes to a distant Mar or Marshal or
Menteith, who does not care to add to a dignity which was in
existence before Robert Bruce was born, the more modern
honours of St Abbs. It was a younger member of the great
house who stood by James VI. in the Gowrie House at Perth
who was the first Viscount ; for they were Viscounts of Bal-
mawhapple before they were Earls of St Abbs, which, in-
deed, is another feather in our cap.
Yet another feather we had ; for all Balmawhapple knew
that the Earl's only sister, Penelope Erskine (long before her
brother was like to be a peer ; for there had been at one time
a dozen good lives at least between him and the title), had
married Adam Holdfast, the laird of Ballallan, who had been
bred to the Bar, and who now held the dignified office of
Sheriff of the county. The " Shirra " continued to live at the
old house of Ballallan it is now a mere ruin overgrown by
ivy which was just outside the burgh boundary of Balma-
whapple, and a couple of miles from the Cleuch, where Adam,
a younger son, had been born. It was a hospitable house
none more so in all the country-side; the front door stood
open from morning till night, as if inviting all who passed to
enter ; and, on the weekly market-day, gentle and simple from
far and near were proud to be numbered among the guests.
The lands of Ballallan were not extensive, and the official
salary was the merest pittance; but "Aunt Penelope" was a
famous manager, and ^100 a-year in those days went further
than ;iooo goes now.
Cardono is built upon the rocks, and overlooks the sea.
The view from the bay-window of my lady's boudoir where
husband and wife are sitting this winter afternoon is almost too
vast for domestic comfort : that boundless plain of waters, that
illimitable heaven, overpower the imagination. Once in a
OUT OF THE DARK. 97
way it were well ; but day and night to listen to the sob of
the waves and the moaning of the wind from this aerial perch
is a fearful joy a joy that is near akin to pain. The per-
petual strain, indeed, is too severe for sober bliss. A man
may live up to a flower-pot or a teapot if he tries very hard ;
but too much is required of him when he is invited to live up
to the sea.
They were pleasant and simple people, and (in spite of the
close vicinity of their awe-inspiring neighbour to whom, in-
deed, they had become used) they led a pleasant and simple
life. They had been brought together originally in the
strangest fashion, and they used often to speculate what
would have happened if a certain East Indiaman had not
foundered one stormy night off the coast of Moray, a hundred
miles to the north of where they were sitting.
" But for that we would never have met," said the Earl.
" Marriages are made in heaven, my dear," was the lady's
reply, as a bright smile lightened up her handsome face;
"and Providence, we may hope, would have found some
other way to bring ours about."
At this moment the door opened, and a rather pretty girl
of eight or ten, with fair unconfined ringlets drifting behind
her, burst into the room. The rain was lashing the window-
panes by this time, and the shadows of the winter twilight
were falling upon the sea.
" I have been telling nurse the story, mother, but she says
I have got it wrong," the girl exclaimed, breathlessly, as the
ruddy firelight fell upon her chubby cheeks. "Please,
mother, tell me it again."
" Your father knows it by heart, child, and he is the best
of story-tellers," said my lady, glancing rather mischievously
at her husband.
" Such a story-teller ! " said the little woman, with a slight
lisp, that rather added to the insinuating sweetness of the
address. It was one of those voices in which we seem to
feel the caress. Men like to be coaxed into doing what they
wish to do by just such a voice. " Oh, such a story-teller!" she
said, with an arch little laugh, as she climbed on to his knee.
VOL. I. G
98 OUT OF THE DARK.
"Well, it's the very night for the story," said the good-
natured Earl, as the windows rattled in the rising gale. " It
was just on such a night that the East Indiaman went down."
So he began the story, the coincidences of which are well-
nigh past belief. Yet it is attested by credible witnesses,
some of whom I have spoken to as a boy.
" It was soon after the '45," the Earl began. " Our people
had been mostly ' out,' and some of them never came back.
My grandfather, the Black Earl, as they called him, was
abroad at the time of the rising which was lucky as it
happened, for he was a fierce Jacobite, and would doubtless
have been one of the first to join the Prince. He was wild
when he heard afterwards that the Prince, on his way north,
had lodged for a night or two with the then laird of Troup
Simon Gordon. The bairn has never been at the Tor, Anne,
we must take her there some day. The rocks at Tor of
Troup, Nell, are higher than ours, and the house itself is built
like a hawk's nest on a shelf that overhangs the sea. If you
have a steady head and can look over the parapet, you will
see a straggling village of fishers' huts, and a church that they
say is older than lona. Then the sharp saw-like teeth of the
reefs run right out to sea, and the ship that scrapes them
when the wind is inshore goes straight to the bottom. They
rip her up like the tusks of a wild boar. Well, Nell, one
night not long after Culloden such a gale got up, and the
laird was wakened he slept in the tower where they kept
a light burning from dusk to dawn by the minute-guns of a
vessel obviously in sore distress, which he heard now and
again through the fury of the storm. Of course no ship in
that sea could live through the night, and before the laird and
his people reached the shore the guns had ceased, and the
vessel was in fragments. Not a soul escaped except one little
girl whose crib was miraculously washed far up the bay, and
stranded upon the beach. The baby was sleeping the sleep
that babies sleep, and when they woke her up she had no
consciousness that anything was amiss, but laughed and
babbled as if on her mother's knee. The word ' Kit ' was
worked in blue-silk thread on her night-dress, but there was
OUT OF THE DARK. 99
nothing else to show to whom she belonged, and the laird
took her into his house and heart, and brought her up
with his own little girls, who were called what do you
think?"
" I know," said Nell, gravely ; " Anne and Joanna."
" Two very plain girls," continued the Earl, " with red hair
and freckled cheeks."
Nell put her hand upon his mouth and stopped him.
" Mother is just bee-u-ti-ful," she said, carefully accenting
each syllable.
" Well, Nell, if you won't believe me, mother must tell you
the rest."
The Countess put her spinning-wheel aside, and took up
the running, Nell standing at her knee.
"Indeed, Nell, nobody would believe a word of it who
didn't know it was true. Kit grew and flourished till she was
quite a big girl bigger than your little mother, bigger than
your aunt Joanna but such a dear sweet girl that everybody
loved her. Father, indeed, made so much of her that we
grew quite jealous at times."
"You hear, Nell," said the Earl, pulling her curls. "Wasn't
that naughty?"
"No," said the little hero-worshipper; "mother couldn't
be naughty if she tried. It was only in fun," she added to
explain the situation.
"Then when Kit was eighteen, what do you think hap-
pened ? " This was Nell's opportunity.
" Another great storm got up, and another ship was wrecked
below the house, and when grandpapa went down again he
found the poor people on the rocks, and he took them up to
the Tor, and gave them tea and brandy and bread-and-butter ;
and next morning one of them said What did he say,
mother?" Here Nell paused, out of breath.
" He was as fine a gentleman as any of us ever saw ; and
though he spoke with a slightly foreign accent, no one could
doubt that he was English. We girls came running into the
breakfast-room a little late."
"Mind that, Nelly that's the point." Nelly shook her
IOO OUT OF THE DARK.
curls, but did not deign to reply to the interruption. " Go
on, mother."
" And no sooner had he cast eyes on Kit, who had grown
a great girl as I told you, than he said as if to himself, but so
that we all could hear, ' Why, that's our little Kit.' And who
do you think the fine gentleman was ? "
"Kit's own uncle, of course," Nell replied, as if such a
meeting were to be looked for any day.
" It was indeed her own uncle ; though we all thought it
more wonderful than you do, Nell, that they should have been
brought together after so many years in this strange fashion.
His sister, he told us, and her only child, had left Madras
on her husband's death in the summer of the year that the
Indiaman went down at the Tor, and they had never been
heard of since. They never thought of coming to us to
inquire : the vessel was bound for London, and it had been
driven five hundred miles out of its course. Kit, though she
came in time to love her uncle right well, had of course quite
forgotten him, and could not bear to part from us. So we
promised Joanna and I to go with them to Gottenburg,
where he had settled after his brother's death, and was now
one of the leading merchants. And when we got to Gotten-
burg, Nell, whom should we meet but two young Scotch lads,
who were either already partners or about to be partners in
the business. Tom was the elder brother, Methuen the
younger. They were saucy boys, and at last they teased us
so that would you believe it, Nell ? I married the one and
Joanna the other."
Nell gave a great sigh of satisfaction. " And that was the
end," she said, as the nurse entered to take her to bed,
II.
PENELOPE ERSKINE had married our " Shirra " Mr Holdfast
of Ballallan long before her niece Nell was born ; and their
eldest son Ralph had gone away to India when the child
was yet in the cradle. India was then on the other side of
OUT OF THE DARK. IOI
the world ; unwieldy Indiamen, commanded by the cadets of
great Scotch houses, came and went by the Cape : if the
winds were unfavourable the voyage might last for a year ;
when they came back they brought with them gems of
unknown value, strings of pearls, priceless shawls, blue bowls
of Nankin china, and much else that was rare and wonderful
to fathers and mothers and sisters who had never crossed the
Tweed. India was still a land of romance; still governed
by its native princes, except where the merchant-princes of
England had begun to build up an empire greater than the
Mogul's ; a land through which men made their way at peril
of their lives, and from whose obscure and malign enchant-
ments they rarely escaped quite unharmed in body or soul.
Within that enchanted mist the veil that Central India
drew around her Ralph Holdfast had disappeared as utterly
as if he had been swallowed up by the sea. Not a scrap
came from him for years. To the peaceful household at
Ballallan he was as one long dead. Even the rumours that
he held high office at a native court, where he had discarded
the creed of Christ for the creed of Islam, and where, in his
crowded seraglio, he held worse than heathen carnival, had
died out too.
But one spring morning a letter bearing the Calcutta stamp
was delivered at Ballallan. It was read aloud by the Sheriff,
who was now a widower, before he went to court. It came
from the head of a well-known East India house which traded
among the sacred towns on the Upper Ganges, towns at
that time as remote and unsubstantial as those in ancient
fable. Their agent had been met at Agra, or Benares, or
Delhi, or Oudh by an envoy from a state that preserved a
jealous isolation, and which for many years no foreigner had
been permitted to enter, who had delivered to him an ebony
chest or cabinet securely corded and sealed, and scrawled
all over with hieroglyphics in an unknown tongue, and a
dark -eyed tawny girl-child (with her native nurse), who wore
round her neck a filigree chain of gold, delicate and fragile
seemingly (but a strong man could not break it), to which
was attached the seal which had been used to secure the
IO2 OUT OF THE DARK.
cabinet, and a scrap of parchment on which was written, " I
bequeath all to my daughter Lala. Ralph Holdfast, the
younger of Ballallan."
The letter went on to say that the little girl had been
brought down to Calcutta, where the chest had been opened,
and its contents lodged in the firm's secret safe; for there
could be no doubt that their value was immense ^5 0,000
at the least, according to the rough estimate of the expert
they had employed. The child and the chest itself would be
sent on to Scotland by the next ship that sailed for Leith.
The child, though very dark, seemed strong and healthy ; but
the writer regretted to add that the native nurse had died
on the voyage from Benares. They had consequently been
unable to obtain any information as to Ralph Holdfast or his
surroundings : the fact, however, that he had sent his daughter
and the treasure he had amassed out of the State appeared
to indicate that he considered his position, and possibly his
life, insecure.
I may say here that what became of Ralph in that outer
(or inner) darkness was never known : the scrap of writing
attached to Lala's chain was the last that was received from
him. He may have been strangled by the Rajah or poisoned
by one of his many wives, or he may have died in the odour
of sanctity as a dancing dervish or priest of Brahma at a good
old age. When the State was annexed by the English fifty
years afterwards inquiries were made ; but no one, it appeared,
had ever heard of Ralph Holdfast. He had probably been
known to the natives by another name.
So out of that Cimmerian darkness Lala arrived at Balma-
whapple one summer morning when the "Shirra" and his
daughter Mailie were still at breakfast a small, scraggy,
olive-skinned, black-eyed girl (her round black eyes turning
slowly from one to the other, like a doll's, shall I say ? or a
heathen idol's?), with a mysterious ebony chest as big as a
herring-barrel, filled to the brim with gold pieces which had
been coined in the mints of the East any time during the
last thousand years. They took her in ; they tried to make
her one of themselves ; the chest was deposited in the strong-
OUT OF THE DARK. IO3
room of the National Bank ; but it cannot be said that the
suspicions these worthy, if somewhat primitive, people enter-
tained when she first came among them were ever entirely
allayed. Was she indeed what she pretended to be ? or was
she not rather an imp, a goblin, the offspring of some horrid
Indian jugglery or devilry, who had assumed a human shape,
but in whose wake evil would surely follow ? And the gold
pieces which had served so many masters, which had passed
through so many dusky hands, which had been used, doubtless,
in so many infamous bargains, and which had been the curse
of numberless generations, would they remain solid in the
bank's safe, or would they not rather turn into worthless rags,
and waste away like withered leaves ?
"It's a bad business altogether," the old laird muttered
many times when he was left alone with this inscrutable
heathen baby, and the great round doll's eyes would slowly
revolve until with sinister deliberation they settled upon his
own.
These fancies, as the baby grew up to girlhood, as the girl
grew up to womanhood, gradually lost their force. The
people round about, who had rather avoided the child whose
fierce temper was, as it seemed, ungovernable, and who was yet
so imperturbably mischievous and malicious, forgot their first
impressions. The gaunt little Indian baby was developing
into a really splendid woman, and the chest of gold pieces
was still intact. The chest itself, that is ; for its contents had
been gradually disposed of to the great traders in London,
where the coins of immemorial dynasties fetched fancy prices ;
and more than the estimated .50,000 had been safely in-
vested in Lala Holdfast's name. The cabinet itself had been
removed to her bedroom, and in it she kept, besides her chain
and her seal (on which an Arabic charm was engraved), a
string of precious stones which had been found underneath
the gold, hidden away in a drawer of which she only had
divined the secret. Lala thus became a personage of vast
importance as she approached a marriageable age. A match
like this was not to be met with every day within a hundred
miles of Balmawhapple.
104 OUT OF THE DARK.
III.
RALPH HOLDFAST'S younger brother Jim (for there was one
other son, and a daughter " Mailie," who, by-and-by, married
another Holdfast one of the south country Holdfasts of
whom we have heard elsewhere) had, after he left the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh, lived mainly with his uncle, the Earl, at
Cardono. Although an ardent sportsman, a dashing rider, a
keen golfer, a dead shot, an angler who could wile the trout
from pool or shallow when no one else could, he was an
excellent man of business, and had the almost exclusive
management of the Earl's extensive estates in three counties.
He and Nell Erskine had been thrown constantly together,
and, in the close association of cousinship and mutual tastes,
love had been born. Both in mind and body the resemblance
between them was close. Blue-eyed and fair-haired, their
souls were as candid and limpid as their eyes. The healthy
outdoor life suited them both ; for both, the simple songs of
their own people, as well as the more intricate melodies of
the old English poets, had a perennial fascination. Nell had
a pure voice, dulcet as a flute, everything about her, indeed,
was pure; that was the first and last impression. She was
simple as a lark, fresh as a new-blown daisy. One had to
seek in woodland and meadow-land for appropriate similes,
in woodland and meadow-land while the dew is yet on
the grass.
It was not surprising, perhaps, that between Nell and Lala
a tacit antipathy should have grown up. This pale flower of
the North might to some eyes have seemed insipid beside the
tropical splendour of the other. But there must have been
something more than rivalry something impish and uncanny
in Lala herself to account for the mortal aversion with which
Nell regarded her. When her dusky, dark-eyed, black-haired
cousin came into the room, it made her actually shiver, as we
shiver in the Pontine marshes before an attack of malaria.
"That woman blights me," she had said once, half in jest, to
her lover.
OUT OF THE DARK. IO5
The mischief of it was that, when Lala was present, a mist
of misunderstanding seemed unaccountably to rise up between
her and Jim. How it happened no one could exactly tell.
Jim did not love Lala any more than Nell did ; but Lala had
a curious faculty of making people see as she liked. The
mesmeric force had not then been fairly recognised by
science : had it been, Lala's influence might possibly have
been attributed to the baneful attraction of a purely physical
agency. It was impossible to idealise any one when this
merciless realist was present : somehow she made the finer
virtues look mean, as the east wind takes the colour out of
the landscape. This oriental enigma was to Nell as bitter
and biting as the east wind itself and not to Nell only. It
seemed as if, born without conscience herself, Lala had
resolved to reduce every one with whom she was brought
into contact to her own level.
Nell as she grew up had parted with not a few of her
childish attractions. Her cheeks had ceased to be as rosy as
golden pippins ; the plump little maiden, as round and solid
as a dumpling, had shot up into a tall and graceful, but rather
spare and statuesque, girl. There was an exquisite but
perilous fragility about her figure which might have excited
alarm had it not been for her ready laugh, her constant
activity, her unwearied interest in high and low, in story and
song, in beast and bird. It was hard to believe that in one
so full of buoyant life the seeds of death had been sown.
Her daughter, indeed, was close upon twenty before the
Countess began to get seriously alarmed. The girl was
feverish, could not sleep at nights, was apt to take cold
on the slightest provocation ; her cheeks, except when pain-
fully flushed, were perfectly colourless ; her hands had grown
delicate and transparent as alabaster. Jim her mainstay in
the old time was often away now ; when they met he was
silent and embarrassed and so was she. He had no idea,
indeed, how ill she was ; the hectic flush which his coming
provoked blinded him to the truth.
But one day one of the softest days of the dying summer
his eyes were opened. They were paddling about the bay
106 OUT OF THE DARK.
below the castle. It was a windless calm ; not a ripple broke
upon the rock. The towers of the castle were half hidden
in the warm mist that rose from the water ; the flag on the
old keep, that was as old as the Comyns, did not stir. All at
once, as if by magic, the wall of separation which had risen
up between the lovers was broken down. I do not profess to
explain how this came about : no word was spoken, but both
were simultaneously aware that any estrangement there had
been was over and done with. He was lying on his oars ;
Nell came close up and nestled beside him where he sat,
the action was wistful and pathetic. He put his arm about
her ; she had grown painfully thin and emaciated, and tears
were slowly trickling down her cheeks ; a great wave of pity
and tenderness and remorse and hopelessness passed over
him.
" Jim, dear Jim, I am dying ! Neither mother nor the
doctor will listen to what I say; but I know better."
" Dying ? O Nell ! " he said, drawing her closer to his
side. She lay in his arm like a tired but contented child.
"It is good, very good, Jim, to know that you love me
dearly, that even the evil eye cannot hurt our love. For,
Jim, that woman has the evil eye : I am wasting away because
she has poisoned my life."
He tried to disabuse her mind of the delusion, as he
deemed it ; but his reassuring words were of no avail. " No,
Jim, she is one of those deadly blights that God sends to
punish us for our sins. But so long as I have you with me,
the pain does not hurt much."
What could he say ? " The sense of tears in mortal things "
is poignant when the young die. But when it is the girl on
whom we have lavished all the love in our hearts who is
summoned away, what can we do but, with bowed head, pray
God to be pitiful ?
Meanwhile the black- eyed Lala had other fish to fry.
Many fresh-run salmon were in her net. You do not like
the metaphor ? let me vary it, then, and say that her web was
full of flies, who were first sucked dry and then hoisted over-
board. But the biggest and noisiest blue-bottle, the finest
OUT OF THE DARK.
gallant of them all, was the young laird of Ardlaw. He
was by nature lavish and ostentatious; but he was one of
the wealthiest commoners in the county; and people said
that he could afford to pay for his follies. He was mad
about Lala. She dazed and dazzled him, and for her part
she found the young fellow an eligible wooer. His reckless
audacity suited her mood ; his fresh laugh, his comely person,
his animal courage and powerful physique, appealed for the
moment with an irresistible attraction to the sensuous in-
stincts of this oriental sultana. So, in an evil day for the
vain and foolish but honest lad, she consented to become
his wife.
It was the most splendid wedding that had ever been seen
in Balmawhapple. The bride blazed with jewels ; her neck-
lace of precious stones alone was worth a king's ransom.
The "Shirra" gave her away; the Catholic and Apostolic
Church consecrated the union ; the ships in harbour, back
from Greenland seas, hoisted their colours ; the post-boys, in
pink jackets and top-boots, cracked their whips ; amid the
cheers of the populace they took the highroad to the
south.
But there are certain unions that even the prayers of
an ordained priest cannot purify ; and some of those present
had an uneasy consciousness that they had been assisting at
such a witch's carnival as Faust attended.
While Balmawhapple rejoiced, gloom settled upon St Abbs.
Poor Nell's prevision had been too true. The doctor, indeed,
would not listen to any suggestion of evil eye or occult
oriental jugglery; the girl's lungs had been always more or
less affected, he declared; the hectic fever of disease had
manifested itself to his professional experience from her
childhood in sparkling eye and chubby cheek. But that
somehow she had been blighted in the bloom of her youth
was all that those who loved her cared to know ; nor did
they inquire too curiously, then or afterwards, from whence
the blight had come. For my own part, in these obscure
affections of the brain, I sometimes fancy that credulity is
true wisdom ; and that the evil eye, inherited from ancestors
IO8 OUT OF THE DARK.
who had tried every form of devilry, is often more deadly
than henbane.
A pure bride lying on her maiden bed with eyes closed
and hands folded ; a father and mother sorely stricken, but
still humbly hoping that Death has been good to her ; the
lover with tearless eyes taking a last farewell, it is a pic-
ture from which we do not shrink, because, though beyond
measure pitiful, there is in it nothing tawdry or vile or wicked.
They will lay her gently in kindred dust ; the sea will make
its moan as of old ; one by one they will come to her where
she lies father, mother, lover. For this lover was one of
the constant sort who keep steadily at work till they are old
men, but do not forget.
There was a scared look in young Ardlaw's eyes, when he
came back from his triumphal honeymoon, which his friends
did not like. He was not one of the cowards who try to
drive a spectre away by drink, and so end in delirium tre-
mens. But he became still more recklessly lavish; his ex-
travagance knew no bounds ; he drove his four-in-hand about
the county with his splendid sultana at his side ; he spurned
all restraint ; the broad acres of Ardlaw, and Lala's gold pieces
and precious stones, melted rapidly away, the latter so rap-
idly, indeed, that the original conviction that they were mere
elusive counterfeits seemed to have come true.
They lived on till they were old and penniless, maintained
on a pittance that Lord St Abbs had left them, and the meagre
profits of a squalid lodging-house in Balmawhapple. The hus-
band died before I was born ; but I still remember her vaguely
a skinny and peevish old woman, in whom all that remained
of her once splendid beauty were the doll's eyes and the black
blood. Outsiders declared that her temper was simply fiendish ;
but the grey, stern, and emaciated woman who nursed her
the one daughter who had survived maintained a dogged and
absolute silence. Explain it how we may, however, this malign
incarnation of an evil past had in point of fact infected every-
thing she touched, and even her own children could not escape
the blight.
At the same time, it must be frankly admitted that the most
OUT OF THE DARK. IO9
industrious gossip in Balmawhapple never ventured to allege
that this woman had broken any express commandment of
God or man. She had scrupulously observed the decencies
of society ; had listened to scores of sermons ; had subscribed
to hosts of charities ; and her " good works " was a theme of
which, had any local newspaper existed, much would have
been made by the judicious penny-a-liner. Yet her track
had been marked, like Attila's, by devastation. Lovers es-
tranged ; household peace destroyed ; a duel fought for an
idle word ; a soldier false to his colours ; a moon-struck boy
with an ugly gash in his throat, of her as of another sor-
ceress it might have been written
" The children born of thee are sword and fire,
Red ruin and the breaking up of laws."
Since she lost the Earl, St Abbs has gone down in the
world, and even her own people confess that any allusion
to the historic rivalry with Balmawhapple is now ill-timed.
Where the carcass is, there the carrion-crows gather together ;
and the growing prosperity of Balmawhapple is attested by the
pervading odour of herrings in every stage of nastiness, and
the intolerable stench of boiling blubber. Whereas the air
of St Abbs since its harbour has silted up, and its one
whaler was lost in the ice-pack, is not a whiff better than
mere country air.
no
V.
IN THE YEAR ONE:
THE STORY OF THE CROOKIT MEG.
THERE are Holdfasts outside the parish of Balma-
whapple; and those who have read a certain
volume of essays in romance may remember Martin
and Stephen, Martin who loved May Marvel, and
Stephen who was cast out of the Church of Christ by
Brass and Butterwell for heresy. Both Martin and
Stephen have been gathered to their fathers, and the
place that knew them knows them no more. R. I. P.
But I am told that the reminiscences of another
branch of the Holdfasts, which originally appeared in
the Tomahawk, is no longer to be had for love or
money, and I have been entreated to tell the story
again for the benefit of the generation which has
grown up since it was written. I am loath to part
with the homely friends of fifty years ago, and if I
could only succeed in making them visible to younger
eyes, I should feel that I had not wholly failed. We
have nothing like them now ; and yet they did not
IN THE YEAR ONE. Ill
seem strange to us at the time. Balmawhapple was
very cheery in those days; I don't think there were
quite so many " fads " going, and men and women
were less serious than they are now. It is perhaps as
well that they are gone ; the Temperance people would
have been scandalised by the Provost's punch-bowl,
which, if I am not mistaken, was known far and wide
as the Bullers-of-Buchan (and indeed it was wellnigh
as deep) ; and I am afraid a free-thinking and whist-
loving Doctor of Divinity would have run a grievous
risk of being deposed by the ecclesiastical courts for
habits unbefitting a minister of the Kirk.
This then is my Balmawhapple story of the year
One severely abridged.
I.
IT was the year One the first year of a century which has
passed the Psalmist's threescore-and-ten. Seventy and odd
years have played sad havoc with most of us ; the new-born
babes who were then sleeping quietly in their cradles are now
mainly under the turf, sleeping a sounder sleep if it be a
sleep that rounds our little life. Oblivion scattereth her pop-
pies. These monotonously returning springs and summers
and autumns are frozen into a winter from which there is
no recovery. Their harvests are all gathered in, and death
has reaped the reapers.
Throughout that district of Scotland which (according to
the Gaelic derivation of the name) lies in the bend of the
ocean, and more particularly in the seaport of Balmawhapple
the " Broch " being then, as now, the capital of a remote
and secluded community there was manifested on the first
day of October, in the year One, a certain measure of re-
strained excitement, an excitement as keen, indeed, as these
112 IN THE YEAR ONE.
reticent people ever permit themselves to manifest. There
were wars and rumours of war. The Deluge was rising over
Europe. It had come to be felt on all sides that the an-
tagonism between the rival forces was too vital to admit of
any compromise. That wild flood of hate and fury and re-
venge needed to spend itself before any thought of peace
could be entertained. The triflers and critics were brushed
out of the way. The clever young gentlemen of the ' Anti-
Jacobin' laid their pens aside. Pitt alone Pitt, who had
divined from the first that the contest, the merciless contest
between the old ideas and the new, must be fought out to
the bitter end Pitt among the statesmen of Europe was left
almost by himself, and Pitt's heart was breaking.
But the excitement at the Broch was not due to any of the
misadventures which at that moment were vexing the soul of
the Great Minister. They were seafaring people. The roads
to the south were barely passable. The official who carried
the post-bags came twice or thrice a-week, and the news he
brought was about a fortnight old. They were practically
cut off from the outer world. A French privateer, indeed,
had once entered the bay; but the guns of the battery on
the Ronheads had been quickly manned, and a few round-
shot had induced her to seek a safer anchorage. The people
had waited up all night, with clumsy old muskets under their
arms, on the chance of the return of her boats; but when
the morning broke only a white cloud of canvas was visible
on the horizon. The stout, ruddy, weather-beaten farmers
and fishermen returned to their usual work, and had not
again been disturbed. So that the echoes of the fierce con-
flict outside were barely heard by them. The stories of great
victories, which were carried week after week over the land
a year or two later, when the lion (or the devil) was at
length fairly roused, had not yet begun to arrive. It was, in
short, the news that the Jan Mayen was in the offing that had
brought the whole seafaring population of the district to the
pier at Port Henry on the ist of October 1801.
The Jan Mayen, a schooner of a hundred tons, was then
the only whaler hailing from a seaport which now sends thirty
IN THE YEAR ONE. 113
great ships to the Arctic seas. Some far-sighted merchant-
citizen of the day had taken it into his head that a vast mine
of wealth lay away to the nor'ard, beyond the Man of Hoy
and the Stones of Stennis. The Dutch had a fleet in these
seas among the seals and whales and icebergs, which year
after year came back to the Scheldt loaded with ample store
of blubber and whalebone and sealskins. The Dutch had
grown rich in this adventurous industry : were not the Bal-
mawhapple seamen as plucky, and the Balmawhapple traders
as keen at a bargain, as any Dutchman ? So the Jan Mayen
had been built and fitted out; the shares had been taken
up eagerly by all sorts and conditions of men in the burgh
and the surrounding districts ; there had been a series of sur-
prisingly successful years ; and this morning, for the fifth time,
the Jan Mayen was again in the offing.
It was one of those lovely October days which they used to
have in Scotland before the east wind was invented. A brisk
breeze, indeed, was blowing from the north, and the Jan
Mayen, with all her sails spread, came sweeping swiftly to-
wards the harbour mouth. Nearer and nearer the good
ship, with so many of the "burgh's bairns" on her deck,
and so much of the burgh's wealth in her hold, approached
the shore ; and the demure elation of these undemonstrative
Scots became actually audible when it was seen that " a gar-
land" hung from the topmost spar of the mainmast "A
full ship, lads," said an old tar cheerily to the crowd, as he
shut up his glass, from the top of the herring-barrel which he
had mounted. " A full ship ! "
The crowd was essentially a representative one. Fishermen,
farm-labourers, shopkeepers, lawyers, merchants, doctors, min-
isters no class in the community was unrepresented. There
was Dr Caldcail, who prosed in the Muckle Kirk, and the
Reverend Neil Brock, who ministered in a backyard to the
Original Reformed Particular Anti-Burghers; there was Captain
Knock, of the coastguard, and Corbie, the burgh lawyer (or
" liar," as they call that functionary in these parts) ; and
most interested of all there were the wives and sisters and
sweethearts of the crew who manned the gallant little craft.
VOL. i. H
114 IN THE YEAR ONE.
Just as the men of the Jan Mayen had lowered the main-
sail, just as the last "tack" to enable her to clear the reef
outside the harbour mouth had been completed, a young man
with a dare-devil look in his face, and riding, with an air of
reckless abandon, a half-broken colt of the native breed, then
commonly used in the remoter districts of the north, galloped
down to the beach. He threw a half -scornful, half -defiant
greeting to the crowd, which fell back as he pushed his way
through it to the pier -head. "It's that wild lad, Harry
Hacket," said Corbie to the provost of the burgh, who stood
beside him. " What deil's errand brings him here ? "
Then ropes were caught, the foresail loosed, the ship brought
up and made fast to the pier; the crew swarmed on shore,
and the landsmen swarmed on board ; there were tears and
laughter and cordial greetings, the eager embrace for the hus-
band, the shyer welcome for the lover. The gallant old ship
looked finely weather-beaten ; the treasures of the hail and the
snow had been poured out upon her, and her stout sides had
been torn by iceberg and floe ; the decks were covered with
skins of seals and jawbones of whales, and in a huge cask
amidship a young polar bear showed its ugly teeth, and
growled savagely at the boys, who had already begun to tor-
ment him. To me there has always been the attraction of a
romance in the return of one of these Arctic adventurers
it is the sort of fascination one feels when stalking a hooper
or a loon. They come to us from the bleak and sombre
north, and bleakly behind them rises the northern winter.
And then the wild strangeness and remoteness of the wilder-
ness into which they have penetrated mountains of ice that
reel together in perilous madness iron-bound seas which the
tempest cannot ripple the angry flush of the aurora upon
the night!
Meanwhile the horse and his rider stood immovable upon
the pier-head. Hacket had scanned attentively the faces of
the crew as the ship was moored, though he had shown no
sign of recognition even when stout Captain Manson waved
his hand to him on landing. But at length a young, strongly
built sailor, who had been taken possession of by a pretty girl
IN THE YEAR ONE. 115
the moment he put his foot on shore, freed himself from her
embrace, and approached the horseman. He had one of the
typical faces of a district where the Scandinavian blood is
mixed with the Celt's the fair skin, the soft blue eyes, the
curly yellow hair, the frank tone and fearless carriage of the
North Sea rover. He nodded coolly to Hacket (who returned
his careless greeting), and then coming close up to the horse,
and laying his hand upon the straggling mane, said in a
low significant whisper so that the horseman alone could
hear
"We hailed the Crookit Meg, sir, last night, aff Rattray
Briggs."
Tam or Tammas Corbie, the lawyer, was perhaps the sharp-
est man in Balmawhapple. At the burgh school, and at the
Marischal College, he had as a lad carried everything before
him. He was possessed by the passionate liking for out-of-
the-way learning which seems to come naturally to some men.
With a little patrimony of his own to start with, he elected to
try the bar, and for some years he appeared to be on the fair
way to the bench. But suddenly and unaccountably he broke
down utterly and irretrievably. There had always, along
with the real love of letters, been a scampish element in the
man, which had led him to prefer the shady side of literature
and law. As he grew older the taint infected his whole
nature ; and by-and-by the intellectual thirst was succeeded
by a thirst of a more dangerous kind. So when he had lost
his last client he left the Parliament House, and returning to
his native town became its legal adviser. Even at home,
however, his reputation was dubious. He was, as I have
indicated, a clever, shrewd, learned lawyer, who might have
made his mark anywhere ; but as he seldom went to bed sober
(being invariably, indeed, as his cronies said, " blin' fou " early
in the evening), and as he was, even at his soberest, more
remarkable for keenness of scent and sharpness of tongue (and
his nose was keen and his tooth sharp as a weasel's) than for
honesty, veracity, or general trustworthiness, his business
Il6 IN THE YEAR ONE.
gradually diminished, and he had latterly become the adviser
mainly of that section of the community which is more or less
beyond the pale of the law. Yet, socially, he still kept his
head above water ; for he was a magnificent whist-player, and
among a small community such a gift is invaluable. He
played by a sort of instinct ; the tipsier he got the more
masterly was his management of his cards ; even when " blin'
fou " he seldom lost a trick.
On the evening of the day on which the Jan Mayen arrived,
Corbie was seated in his office, as it was called by courtesy
a wooden shed which overlooked the harbour, and which
smelt suggestively of stale fish, tar, and whisky. He had had
interviews during the afternoon with a smuggler, who had left
a small keg of brandy behind him ; a poacher, who had
neglected to remove a hare and a brace of wild-fowl ; a farm
wench, who had instructed him to raise an action of aliment
against a gay Lothario of the farmyard; a farmer, out of
elbows, who wanted the lawyer to back a little bill on the
bank ; and now he was closeted with the last client of the
day an elderly woman, neatly dressed in the style then
common among the class to which she belonged a short
gown over a thick woollen petticoat, a coarse wincey apron,
and a close white mutch, with a black hood over it, now
thrown back upon her neck, and exposing her fresh comely
face.
A huge spirit-bottle belonging to the " tappit-hen " variety
half-full of whisky, a jug of water, and a tumbler, were on
the table beside him.
"Tak 5 a seat, Lucky," he was saying, "tak' a seat, and
I'll be wi' you quant primum/" He had been rummaging
through his drawers for some old papers ; and musty letters
and mildewed processes were scattered in wild disorder on the
floor. " The Cairn-catta Mortification faith it was a mortifi-
cation to the laird sax hunderd poonds or thereby oot o'
that sour moss to ony hizzy in the parish, forbye the taxed
expenses before the Lords. I needna keep the papers
there's nae mair to be made o' that, I'm thinkin'," he added
pensively, throwing the bundle into the fire, " though it was
IN THE YEAR ONE. 1 1/
a guid-gangin' plea for mony a year. The laird's far doun the
hill, and young Harry's a dour whalp. It needs a lang spoon
to sup kail wi' Cloutie ; but I ken a thing or twa may bring
the lad to reason. The Skilmawhilly Augmentation a weel-
kent case, Lucky, reported at length, wi' mony obiter dicta o'
the bigwigs, in the first volume of the Decisions of the
Faculty. Auld Skilmawhilly never could thole the minister,
and they gaed at it like cat and dog. Sir Islay was coonsel
for Dr Drumly, and it was gran' to hear him proponin' his
pleas in law for the Kirk. Whilk, Lucky, were to this effec',"
he continued, putting on his horn spectacles, and partly
reading from the print "that, though the infeudation of
teinds to laymen was forbidden by Innocent III. under the
heavy penalty of the want of Christian burial, and the yet
heavier one of eternal damnation, yet that by the Act 1567,
cap. 10, commonly known as the Assumption of Thirds, it
was enacket that the Commissioners of Plat and sae on for
saxteen pages. Indeed, Lucky, he could speak like a buik,
and he drove Skilmawhilly clean dementit, though that daft
body Polkemmet ca'd him ' a Hielan' slot ' for, you see, he
cam' from the coonty o' Argyll."
At this juncture Corbie turning round to replenish his
glass the old woman made a nervous attempt to interpose.
" Jist for ae minute, Mr Corbie, for ae minute."
"Presently, presently, Mrs Cruickshank what's to hinder
you and me having our cracks? Ye'll mind Polkemmet, a
daft auld body, as I was sayin', but he loved his joke, and he
had a pleasant wut. He sattled Skilmawhilly fairly when the
laird took Yonderton to coort for stealin' his bees. Ye see
Yonderton's orra man was fast asleep in the field, wi' his head
aneath his oxter, when the bees swarmed upon the back pairt
o' his person. They fand an auld skep, and were gettin' the
swarm fairly skepped when Skilmawhilly cam' on the ground.
' They're my bees,' quoth Skilmawhilly ; but Yonderton wudna
alloo it ; and sae they gaed to the shirra. Skilmawhilly man-
teent that he followed the bees from his ain door, and saw
them swarm where they did. But it was pleaded for Yonder-
ton that, possession being nine-tenths o' the law, they were noo
Il8 IN THE YEAR ONE.
his lawful property ; and that though, if they had swarmed on a
tree, it might behove the owner to cut the branch, it cudna be
expeckit that sic a liberty wud be taken wi' his man's legs. So
the pleading stood, when Polkemmet, pittin' his wig back, and
movin' his chair a bit, whilk, Lucky, was his manner when
he was ready wi' his joke, said that he was prepared to
advise the cause. ' I'm for Yonderton,' says Polkemmet,
' inasmickle as the bees libelled, from the place they settled,
must hae been bumbees.' He ! he ! he ! Ye may believe,
Lucky, that they were braw times when Polkemmet was shirra ;
but it's fifteen year noo, since they made him a lord a paper
lord" he continued thoughtfully, turning again to the tappit-
hen "a Senator of the College of Justice, whereof I am an
unworthy member."
The old woman's impatience could be restrained no longer.
" I canna bide, Liar Corbie," she exclaimed ; " if ye wunna
hear me, I maun e'en haud the gait."
This appeal was attended with success. Corbie lay back in
his chair, and the old woman, drawing her seat close to him,
began her narrative in a low confidential tone. For some
time he found it hard to keep his mind from wandering (the
whisky had begun to tell), and more than once he interrupted
her when some familiar technical phrase gave him an oppor-
tunity of airing his erudition, and of becoming discursive and
anecdotical.
"Ye dinna mean to tell me that you've intromittit wi' the
effec's ? " he exclaimed, when at length the old woman paused
for a moment to recover her breath. "Then you're within
the ratio deddendi o' the coort in the action at the instance o'
Umquhile Dagers against Christian Penny sister to Bessie
wha lived in the Langate ye'll mind Bessie ? in which sum-
mons o' poinding, Lucky, it was fand and declared by the
Lords, that though the defender had only intromittit wi' a
little timber bed and a pint-stoup which pertained to the de-
funct, yet was she liable as Universal Intromissatrix "
" O man, what's Christian Penny to me, or Bessie, forby ? "
cried the old woman, driven fairly desperate. " I cam' to
speak to you aboot auld Yokieshill John Racket John
IN THE YEAR ONE. 1 19
Hacket and my sister Elspit we had news on Mononday that
Elspit is dead and ye wunna listen to a word I say."
" Joe Hacket ! " the lawyer exclaimed with an oath, rising
unsteadily to his feet, " what for did you not speak oot your
errand at ance ? Keep your seat, my guid freen', keep your
seat ; but we'll steek the door in the meantime, and syne we'll
no be interrupit." He cautiously drew the bolt ; and then
sitting down close to the old woman, he listened in perfect
silence and with the keenest attention to her narrative. The
expression of his face changed as she proceeded ; before her
whispered communication was over he was another man. The
story had quite sobered him ; and when she had departed
leaving some soiled and barely legible papers with him a
certificate of marriage, a notice of death, an old number of
a local journal he continued to sit and ponder gravely over
the dying embers of the peats.
" A Deil's bairn," he muttered to himself. " A Deil's bairn
did I say? Na na. The verra deevil incarnate Hornie
himsel'. But suppose that Joe Hacket was married on Elspit
Elspit Cheyne, she was how would Harry stand then ? "
At this moment steps were heard outside, the door was
violently flung open, and Captain Knock of the coastguard
" the Commodore," as he was called in his faded naval uni-
form, entered the office.
" Come awa', Corbie, come awa' they're waitin' for us at
the Provost's ; the Doctor is mad for his rubber. What in the
name o' the saints has keepit you sae lang ? "
The Balmawhapple worthies of the year One played their
nightly rubber at the Provost's lodgings for the Provost was
a bachelor, and except his housekeeper Mailie the " Pro-
vost's ae lass " had no inconvenient impedimenta. To-night
it was not yet seven o'clock, but in those days they dined
in the forenoon Dr Caldcail and the Provost were seated be-
fore the chess-board, with which they were whiling away the
time until the other players arrived. The Provost was a poor
I2O IN THE YEAR ONE.
hand at the game, whereas the Doctor was an adept at this as
at other games requiring skill, coolness, and address. But,
as we are waiting, my dear old friends may, meanwhile, have
a paragraph to themselves.
Of Provost Roderick Black it is perhaps enough to say that
he was a hero after Mr Carlyle's heart. He possessed indeed
a fine capacity for silence. He had also a fine capacity for
snuff. It was insinuated by superficial and discontented bur-
gesses that these were his main characteristics. But that was
a mistake, a most sagacious soul looked out at you from
under the shaggy eyebrows. The eye was cloudy, the brow
heavy, the limbs loosely put together and ill-arranged; but
any one with a knack for construing the hieroglyphics of char-
acter could see that behind this rather unpromising exterior
there was much to admire and love, the bland temper, the
homely energy, the shrewd integrity of a very genuine and
typical Scotsman.
Dr Caldcail had been coined in an altogether different mint.
He was a clergyman belonging to a school of which the last
survivor died out when I was a boy. Farmers and theolo-
gians ; the keen -eyed controversialists of the Church court
and the Academy, but dull as ditch-water in the pulpit ; gay
with French esprit, but without a spark of spiritual life ; who,
in a manner, sincerely accepted the statutory creed of the
Church, and yet in their life and conversation quietly set
aside the Christianity of which they were the official repre-
sentatives, it is a perished race. Dr Caldcail was in person
dried and shrivelled a piece of parchment or vellum, tough
and yellow as leather, his legs in his tight -fitting gaiters,
when he mounted his grey mare, being the merest spindle-
shanks. He was a famous chess-player, a famous whist-
player, a fine scholar, a man who had spent many years on
the Continent, and could speak French and Italian like a
native, a bon vivant, a gallant among ladies, especially the
great ladies at Pitfairlie and Slains (Jean, Duchess of Gordon,
loved him dearly he played a rubber with her every night
when she was drinking the waters) ; but among his people he
affected the bluff and homespun farmer, and was indeed a
IN THE YEAR ONE. 121
hard hand at a bargain. He would as soon have parted with
a tooth without value as with a shilling, and he never sold the
oats or " sma' corn " off the glebe, except during the famine
years when wheat was at iocs, the quarter. He took his
snuff with the grace of a courtier. He rapped out his clear
sharp sententious retorts like pistol-shots. He handled his
rapier with the dexterity of a practised dialectician, as be-
came the friend of David Hume and Voltaire. He was as
wiry and vigorous at seventy as he had been at seven-and-
twenty, there was nothing about that spare body of which
death or disease could lay hold. Bright, alert, and rapid in
the intercourse of society, he was dull and tedious in the pul-
pit, and a deadly bore in the General Assembly to which,
however, he was sent regularly once a-year by his less active
brethren.
This was the man who was now indulging in a sort of
monologue while he moved his pieces or watched his ad-
versary's moves. The Doctor's tongue was " aye waggin',"
even the solemnity of whist could not silence his vivacious
commentary, and of course chess with a much inferior foe
was mere child's play.
" Ha ! ha ! Provost, what say you to that ? Queen in
check, and impossible to relieve her. Mary Stuart or Marie
Antoinette ? What precious scamps these French fellows are,
to be sure as bad as Geordie Buchanan when he defamed
his mistress, or Murray when he sold his sister. You pit the
pawn forrit what's the gude o' a pawn ? My leddy's page wi'
his bit pasteboard sword against Cceur de Lion. But, Provost,
I never could understand how Davie Hume cared to row in
the same boat wi' Geordie Buchanan. I would as soon lie
heads and thraws wi' that hairy John the Baptist, who is
deevin' the Whinnyfold lads oot o' their sma' wits. O man,
but he's a lousy Apostle. Aff goes the queen, and I'll mak'
you a present o' the castle. But, as I was sayin', Davie
whiles gaed wrang, aboot Mary Stuart, and miracles, and
particular providences, and the standard o' taste. What
could he ken aboot miracles mair than the rest o' us, and to
say that nae weight o' evidence could persuade him that
122 IN THE YEAR ONE.
Lazarus rose from the dead was maist unphilosophical.
Deed, my lord, you're getting into deep water that king o'
yours is close pressed as Saul at Mount Gilboa, or poor King
Jamie on the field o' Flodden.-j-Not that I wud say a word
against David Hume, with whom I had much pleasant con-
verse at Paris when I took the grand tour wi' my Lord Tilly-
whilly in the saxty-five before I was transported to this
blessed Bceotia. To think o' that body Warburton settin'
himsel' up to refute him as he pretendit : he micht as well
hae refuted the Bass Rock. Ye wudna daur say check to the
king? Faith, Provost, I hae you noo. What's your next
move ? As sure as gospel that's a groat into my pocket we're
playing for groats, mind. Fritz himsel' could not have pued
his men thegither after sic an unspeakable and unaccoontable
blunder. There are mair things in heaven and earth in the
way o' perfec' unreasonableness than the unassisted intellect
is capable o' conceiving. Never lose your temper, laird ; it's
neither dulce nor decorum to fa' into a fit. Put on the pieces,
and I'll gie you a knight. A knight, and we'll mak' it sax-
pence this time. But you maun look sharper after your
queen you had a keen eye ance for the queans, Provost, if
a' tales be true Gratia solutis zonis, as the poet says. O
the little rogues ! there were some remarkably fine women at
Paris in the saxty-five ! And to think how many o' my auld
acquaintance are dead ! Whist ! whist ! my lord. We have
nae confession in the Kirk o' Knox, at least between auld
haverels like you and me, and a minister of the Gospel is
bound to walk warily. Surely that's Corbie and the Captain
in the street. Lord, how it blows ! there's mair than the
east wind lowse this nicht ! Bring up the haddies, Mailie,
and I'll look oot the Glendronoch dissipat Euius auras
edaces it's a fine speerit, Glendronoch (tho' it needs mixing),
and as the auld Abbe used to say to me when uphauding
Purgatory, 'Ye may gang farer and fair waur.'"
" And here's the buiks," says the Provost, bringing out a
well-thumbed pack of cards, as Corbie and the Captain enter
the room.
" I say with Jack Cade," the Doctor exclaims cheerily, as
IN THE YEAR ONE. 123
he clears the table. " The first thing we do let's kill all the
lawyers."
"We'll finish the rubber first, if you please," says the
Provost, with a chuckle, as they cut for partners.
So they sat down ; and for two or three hours the game
proceeded with varying luck amid comparative silence.
The wind had risen during the evening, and now it was
blowing a gale. There was no sound in the streets, except
the rattling of the windows and the distant roll of the surf
the townspeople, for the most part, were safe abed. Early
to bed and early to rise made us healthy, wealthy, and wise
in the year One. The second rubber had newly begun, when
there was a modest rap at the street door, and Mailie entering,
announced
"It's Watty Troup" Watty was the burgh idiot
"speerin" for sneeshin'."
But that was hours ago, and they were preparing to lay
aside the cards and gather round the blazing peats for the
final tumbler and the penultimate " eke," when a louder and
more peremptory knock arrested the players.
"Here's Alister Ross," said Mailie, opening the door,
"wants to see the Captain."
" Bring him ben," quoth the Provost. A remarkably hand-
some young fellow in the uniform of the coastguard, carrying
a cutlass of the old-fashioned pattern, and with a pistol in his
belt, entered the room.
" What's up, Alister ? " said the Captain huskily to his sub-
ordinate. "What's up? What an infernal din the wind is
making ! Speak oot, man."
" I don't think it will last, sir ; it is taking round to the
land, and the fog is rising. But I've just heard that the
Crookit Meg was seen aff Rattray Briggs this morning."
" D n the Crookit Meg ! She's the curse o' the coast,"
sputtered the Captain. " But they can't land a keg to-night,
Skipper Dick himself couldn't make the Bloody Hole in this
fog, and the wind blowing dead in shore. There'll be a heavy
sea aff Dunbuy : he'll not risk it."
" That's true, sir ; but they might run round to the Ward,
124 IN THE YEAR ONE.
and if I'm not wrong, it will be clear before daylight. I'd
better warn our men at Whinnyfold."
" Ay, ay, my lad, aff wi' you the Crookit Meg and them
on boord o' her are kittle cattle. And Alister a word in
your ear. I'm an auld man and ye're a young ane. Dinna
lippen to that little quean, Eppie Holdfast there's mair
maidens than mawkins in this country, and mony a strappin'
lass is thinkin' lang for a stoot lad. Hoot awa', man, dinna
glower ; that hizzie is no to be trusted. She'll beguile you if
she can. Her brither's on boord the lugger, and it's my
opinion Harry Hacket kens mair o' baith the cutties than he
wud care to tell at the town-cross."
So Alister went out into the darkness, and the Captain re-
turned to his cronies, who were gathered cosily round the fire.
The Captain was a well-known figure in Balmawhapple a
short, stout man, with a face like a harvest moon a face
beaming with whisky and fun but without any neck to speak
of; so that when he became hilarious towards the end of the
evening he went off every now and again into a sort of apo-
plectic fit, from which he would emerge out of breath, and
with the tears running out of his honest eyes testifying to
the violence of the process of recovery. His friends were used
to these paroxysms of choking, and allowed him to take his
own time in coming to. What between spitting, and sputter-
ing, and stuttering, he was not what is called a ready speaker;
but, on the other hand, he had a vast command of " nautical "
language, and a very vivid and prolific fancy in short, he
swore like a trooper and lied like Munchausen. But he was
a general favourite, and he was specially popular with his men ;
for he had a kind heart (that universal solvent), an open hand,
and an unquenchable thirst for " news."
" Ha ! ha ! Captain, this breeze will bring the woodcock
across the water ; we must have a day on the Ardlaw. That's
the cover for a cock."
" The cover for a cock ! " sputtered the Captain, attempting
to relight his pipe, which had a chronic habit of going out.
" There's not a decent cover on this side o' Benachie. Give
me the Loch o' Skene for cocks, ay ! and for jacks too. Why,
IN THE YEAR ONE. 12$
Doctor, when I used to shoot there wi' auld Pitfoddels, we
could have walked across the loch on their backs ! "
" Noo, Captain, that's a lee," said Corbie, who as the night
advanced was apt to grow pugnacious and opinionative.
The Captain began to spit and stutter, but before he could
bring his guns into position to open fire on the enemy, the
agile Doctor interposed.
" Hoots, Captain, dinna mind him. We a' ken Corbie.
His bark's waur than his bite. And Pitfoddels was that rara
avis," he went on, trying to create a diversion "that rara
avis, an honest lawyer. Ha ! ha ! Corbie, what say you to
that, my man ? "
"There's mair honest lawyers than honest D.D.'s, Doctor.
That's what I say. The canon law compared with the ceevil
is superficial, unphilosophical, and sophistical."
"The civil law!" the Doctor retorted. "Why, the men
who made it if my friend Gibbon is right were some of the
greatest scoundrels unhung."
The lawyer was fairly roused. " Ye ken little of the Roman
law, my freen', of whilk in its main features the Scots is a verra
reasonable imitation. The Romans were a great people, and
their law is a maist remarkable system o' jurisprudence. They
had a perfec' respect for fac's ay, Captain, a perfec' respect
for fac'. For what says the Corpus Juris ? ' Nam plus valet
quod in veritate est, quam quod in opinione.' That's the main
distinction, Doctor, between the lawyer and the D.D., the
lawyer seeks diligently for facts which he can verify, the D.D.
blethers aboot a hash o' doctrines which are incapable of
identification. Nor did Justinian if ye like to ca' the haill
body o' laws after the ruler in whose reign they were codified
haud wi' your Whig freen's on this side, or your French
freen's on the tither side o' the water. Dootless we have made
changes in oor laws, says he, but why ? ' quod non innova-
tionem induximus, sed quoniam aequius erat.' "
By this time Corbie had talked himself into high good-
humour and comparative sobriety, and when shortly after-
wards the party broke up, he took the Commodore under
his wing, and saw him safely housed.
126 IN THE YEAR ONE.
" The maut's aboon the meal wi' Corbie," the Doctor said
to himself, as he strolled towards the manse ; " but what a
lawyer's lost, because he canna drink in moderation ! "
The streets were wet with mist when the young coast-
guardsman opened the Provost's door. An occasional oil-
lamp shone with a sort of nebulous radiance into the thick
fog ; but a good deal of circumspection was needed to avoid
the pitfalls on either side of the narrow footway. He met no
one except one solitary woman with a child in her arms, who
came towards him as he quitted the town. The wind had
driven her long hair into her eyes, and she looked, as far as
he could judge in the uncertain light, poverty-stricken and
dishevelled. " It's no a nicht for the likes o' you to be oot,
my lass," he said to her kindly, as a fierce blast nearly tore
the rags from her back and the infant out of her arms. " The
likes o' me ! " she replied, with a hoarse hysterical sob, as she
disappeared into the darkness.
Alister had now left all the streets behind him ; but a
single light still burned ahead. The house from which it
proceeded stood on the very margin of the sea between the
sea and the roadway. The outer door was partially open,
and pausing for a moment before he entered, Alister gazed
into the room from which the light came. It was an ordinary
cottage interior a but and a ben : in what appeared to
be the kitchen a bed was let into the wall, and at the bed-
side there was a shelf for books, on which some half-dozen
volumes were deposited. A very old man sat on a three-
legged stool before the fire an old, spare, and wizened man,
in a homespun suit of corduroys, with a square leather apron
fastened close up to his chin, and a pair of horn spectacles
upon his nose. The spectacles appeared to be more for
ornament than use, the wearer looked over them, not
through them. Shrewd sagacious eyes planted in a face
which must always have been strongly marked, and which
was now deeply lined by ruts which time and care had worn.
IN THE YEAR ONE. 127
Shrewd grey eyes, yet with that dreamy light in them which
denotes the passion of the student or the abstraction of the
mystic. The lamp was hung on the wall, and the light
fell full upon the volume which lay on his knee a folio
volume printed in picturesque old-fashioned type, and held
together by quaintly worked clasps of brass or tarnished
silver the sort of book which used to lie about many an
English farmhouse, and now at Christie's or Sotheby's is
worth its weight in gold.
This was the cottage which Adam Meldrum had occupied
for many years.
Alister paused a moment, and then pushing back the door
entered the room. A pleasant cordial warmth came' into the
old man's face, as he laid aside his book.
" Dinna move, Uncle Ned, I canna bide. I'm awa' to the
Ward, where it's like enough the Crookit Meg will be afore
me. But it's a wild nicht, I wonder you left the door
aff the sneck."
"I forgot it," said the old man simply. There was a
wonderful gentleness and sweetness in the voice.
" I see how it is you have been at the buiks again.
I wish I could bide, Uncle Ned, for a screed of an auld
play ; but I just lookit in to say that you might bar the door,
for I canna be back before morning. Only I had best tak'
the lantern wi' me the mist's verra thick, and the road
across the Saddle Hill is no fit for a Christian even in
daylicht."
Alister lighted his dark lantern, and the old man went with
him to the door.
" The mist's rising," he said, looking round the sky ; " and
the moon will be up by one. I promised to get a tarrock's
wing for Eppie. It's a sin to kill the puir birds, but she's a
wilfu' lass, and wins her way wi' maist o' us. Look round by
Pothead as you are passing the morn's morn, and you'll
maybe find me at Charlie's Howff. Gude nicht, my lad
God bless you."
" Gude nicht, daddy, gude nicht"
There is something always strangely impressive in passing
128 IN THE YEAR ONE.
out of the noise and bustle of a crowded city into the
darkness in exchanging the light and warmth of human life
for the vast spaces of night, and the solemn company of the
stars. You become at once a citizen of an altogether different
world, and invert at a step your relationships. The interests
of the streets out of which you have passed cease to be
engrossing : these are the self-same stars under which the
ships of Ulysses sailed; that is the Greater Bear, that the
Lesser, and that the Belt of Orion. And if, as on this
evening, a thick wet mist hides the stars, and disturbs in a
portentous way the proportions of the objects on the roadway
or by the roadside, the effect is hardly less striking. As
Alister with the occasional aid of his dark lantern felt his
way through the darkness, he could hear the roll of the surf
at his feet muffled by the mist, and the occasional plaint of
a plover as it rose from the beach and went past him on the
wind to the inland mosses. From Bowness, where the fisher-
people stay Bowness itself being blotted out by the mist
the old road leaves the shore and mounts the hillside, thus
cutting off that extremest angle of the land from whence the
lighthouse flashes its welcomes and its warnings across the
deep. At the summit of the Saddle Hill there is the Ale-
house tavern a hostelry well known in the old posting days
when this was the sole road to the south. Alister did not
meet a living creature ; only when near the summit, looking
in a break of the fog across the peat-hags, he saw that lights
were flitting about the mansion-house of Yokieshill where
"auld Laird Racket" lived.
On reaching the hostelry he found the house still open, and
men and women on the move. A horse, steaming in the mist,
stood saddled at the door.
" What's up, my man ? " he said to the ostler ; " you're late
to-night."
" It's young Hacket," Jock the ostler replied, pointing with
his thumb across his shoulder. " He's speakin' a word wi' the
mistress. They say the auld laird's in the dead-thraws. God
save us it's a wild nicht for flittin'. Yokieshill is sair to pairt
wi' his gear ; he wunna dee, he swears, till he sees his liar, and
IN THE YEAR ONE. 129
Harry's awa' to the Broch to fetch Corbie. There's been
some queer splores up the glen, if a' the folk says is true "
"Stand out of the way, you lout," said a deep voice at
his elbow, and throwing himself on his horse, young Hacket
galloped off into the mist.
Jock shook his fist at the vanishing figure. " If he disna
keep a ceevil tongue in his ugly head, the unhangt thief," he
muttered, as he retreated to his den in the loft among the
straw.
Alister resumed his march. He had by this time passed
the crest of the hill, and had begun the descent to the low-
lying lands of the Ward. On this side the fog had lifted.
The vast expanse of a boundless ocean was dimly visible in
the starlight. He passed Fontainbleau lying high and cold
among its rocks ; and his heart beat more rapidly as he
noticed that a light was still burning in an upper room of the
lofty farmhouse. " It's Eppie's room," he whispered softly to
himself. The surf was thundering up the beach at Long-
haven ; the spray that came from the Bloody Hole wetted his
face. At this moment a shrill whistle roused him from his
dreams. He paused abruptly, laying his hand on the pistol
in his belt. The whistle was thrice repeated a whistle that
to a less attentive ear might have passed for the cry of a
startled whaup. Then a dim figure cautiously approached,
and a low voice said, " Is that you, Harry Hacket ? They're
waitin' for you at Hell's Lum." Then the speaker paused for
a second, and then with a startled oath, " By the Lord, it's
the gauger," disappeared as swiftly and noiselessly as he had
come.
Alister hurried on. " It's impossible they can land to-
night," he muttered, as he heard the surf boiling among the
fissures along the coast. But he hurried on until he had
reached the Hawklaw, a vast mound of sand that rises among
the bents of the Ward. From thence he could see the whole
Bay of Slains. The bay was white with foam. The waves
were rolling up whitely upon the sand. Then he went on to
the station, where he found one of the men standing at the
door with his pipe in his mouth.
VOL. I. I
130 IN THE YEAR ONE.
" Well, Colin, anything up ? " he asked.
"Tim noticed a smart craft in the offing just before sun-
down. It had the raking masts of the Crookit Meg, but they
must have changed the rig. It bore away to the south. Tim
went down to Collieston to see the captain ; it's .no possible
they can land this side o' Newburgh. There was a bleeze on
the Hill o' Cask after dark, but it might have been the lads
at Achnagatt firin' the whins."
A bright peat-fire was blazing within. Alister threw himself
upon the unoccupied bed in the guard-room, telling Colin to
waken him if the wind went down.
But there was no word of the Crookit Meg that night.
* *
*
Dr Caldcail was an early riser, and when he looked out
next morning from his bedroom window the wind had fallen,
the sparrows were chirping cheerily among the boor - tree
bushes, and the October sea was sparkling in the October
sunshine. The manse was built just outside the burgh the
Peel burn separating it from the Kirkton on a pleasant emi-
nence above the beach. Adam Meldrum's cottage stood on
the other side of the highroad, closer to the sea, and thus the
minister and the old boat-builder and bird-stuffer were next-
door neighbours. The alliance between these curiously as-
sorted friends was very close and cordial. " Uncle Ned "
never went to church ; but the Doctor, with a twinkle in his
eye, good-humouredly accepted the situation. " I make no
man's creed but my own," he said with Swift ; and to him the
Dean of St Patrick's, after David Hume, was the first of men.
Neither Adam nor the Doctor was an unbeliever, but both
were old men who had seen much of life ; and while most
of the Doctor's convictions had by wear and tear grown thin
and tentative and provisional, Adam had drifted away into a
theology of his own a theology extracted mainly from the
Old Testament, the plays of Shakespeare, the Religio Medici,
and Edwards's Ornithology. Uncle Ned had as much con-
tempt for the Doctor's sermons as the Doctor himself could
IN THE YEAR ONE. 131
possibly have had ; preaching was the process by which his
friend " gat that trash aff his stamach," the absence of which
made him an honester and wholesomer companion.
They were close allies, and indeed the Doctor was probably
the only man in the community who did the crazy bird-stuffer
anything like justice. But then the community was never
quite certain when the Doctor was serious. His jests, like
his sermons, went over the heads of his hearers. When he
told the councillors of the burgh on an occasion of civic
festivity that a bailie is made once a-year, but a poet or a
naturalist only once in many years, he took the precaution to
veil the compliment in the obscurity of a learned language
("Consules fiunt quotannis, et novi proconsules, Solus aut rex
aut poeta non quotannis nascitur "). So no harm was done ;
on the contrary, the Doctor's acquaintance with the tongues of
antiquity was looked upon as a credit to the town.
Adam was not a native of the burgh ; he belonged to the
fertile lowlands of Moray, but he had been little more than a
lad when he migrated to Balmawhapple. The great sorrow of
his life had driven him away from his own people ; but of it and
of them he never spoke ; and he had long ago taken root upon
the bleak and stormy headland where "the broch" stands.
For many years he had lived a solitary life, until "little
Alister" had been thrown upon his hands by an unthrifty
nephew, "little Alister," now two-and-twenty years old, six
feet one in his stockings, and (in spite of his six feet) in love
over head and ears with Eppie Holdfast of Fontainbleau.
Adam, as I have said, was partly boat-builder and partly
bird-stuffer; this morning, seated on a three-legged stool, he
was hammering away at an old boat. It was placed on a slip
which he had constructed close to his cottage, so that in either
capacity he had his tools at hand. The Doctor, strolling down
to the beach in his slippers after his early breakfast, greeted
his neighbour with a jest and a quotation as was his
wont :
" On such a stool immortal Alfred sat ! "
" Ay, Doctor, but he lat the cakes singe."
" And you object to the comparison ? Good ; but tell me,
132 IN THE YEAR ONE.
my learned Theban, why Shakespeare did not put Alfred into
a play?"
" That's a question that neither you nor me can answer
nor yet the General Assembly. Nae livin' man can tell what
Shakespeare would, or could, or should hae done in ony con-
ceivable circumstances he is just simply unaccountable."
" But where's the young fellow, Alister Ross ? Is he on a
journey, or making love, or making war, or baith? It's a
presentable lad, let me tell you, and they think a deal of him
up the way."
"Alister gaed to the Ward last night; he was to have
been back early. I pairtly promised to meet him at
Fontainbleau."
The Doctor gave a whistle. " Sits the wind in that
quarter, eh?
' Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,
The power of beauty I remember yet. '
But don't let him burn his fingers with that little French witch ;
she's not a craft to ride the water wi'."
" Eppie is a gude lass in the main," said Adam, " though
ill-guidit it may be."
" Tush ! I forgot that she, too, is one of your scholars.
But just give Alister a hint ; I saw her at the Memsie ploy,
and I didn't quite like the way she was carrying on with
Harry Hacket. An honest lass should keep clear of that
nice young man. By the way, what's become of Lizzie
Cheves ? "
"They tell me she's somewhere about the Kirktoun wi'
her bairn. Puir lass ! "
" Ay, ay, Adam ; there's a heavy account some folks will
have to settle by-and-by. Baith you and me believe that, if
we believe naething mair. And there's little to choose between
us, if Brimstone disna lee."
"That's true, sir. Heaven is aboon a' yet; there sits a
judge that nae king can corrupt. I howld wi' you and wi'
Shakespeare, baith respectable authorities. I mind weel the
day," he continued, " when Rob Cheves was married on
\
IN THE YEAR ONE. 133
Esther Cheyne they were a happy and a handsome pair.
He was keeper at Yokieshill ; he had been twenty year with
the laird. Mony a queer outlandish bird he has sent me, for
Rob was a dead shot. It never was known how he cam' by
the mischance : some said that the gun burst, ithers that it
was the laird's doing in ane o' his mad fits. Howsomever
he lost his place they were ever hard folk the Rackets and
syne he lost heart and was gude for naething. I was coming
hame early ae summer morn from the Teal Moss, where I had
been seekin' a strange deuck's nest, when I saw a woman sittin'
by the dyke-side wi' her head in her apron. It was Esther
Cheyne. Puir Rob had tried a rash cure ! The doctor could
do naething for his crippled leg, and Rob kent that he was a
sair burden upon the wife, wha was workin' her fingers to the
bane to keep him, and so and so ' Esther,' he had said to
her wi' his last breath, ' I could wark nane for mysel', and I
was just hinderin' you.' "
" A pitiful story, indeed ! "
"Ay, but that's no the warst. When they were turned
awa' by the auld laird, young Hacket kent brawly hoo it was
with the bonnie bit lass that had been the sunshine o' her
father's hoose. She was little better than a bairn ; and he lat
her leave wi'oot a word. He never lookit near them again.
And ye ken what Lizzie is noo ! ' Vengeance is mine, saith
the Lord, I will repay ; ' but, Doctor, if Rob had lived, the
loan would hae been repaid lang syne wi' usury."
" All in good time, my friend. The mills of the gods grind
slowly, but they grind exceeding sure. ' Dii laneos^ habent
pedes.' And troth here comes Corbie himsel', on auld Jess,
hittin' her feet at ilka step ; a wisp o' straw round her hind-
legs, my man, and ye wudna mak sic a noise in the world.
Truly, the body's lookin' gash. What ails you, Corbie?
Have you no a word for a freen' ? Though your glorification
o' the Ceevil Law was maist unceevil, and ye micht hae letten
the Captain draw his lang-bow at pleasure it hurts naebody
I bear no malice."
But Corbie, looking like a man who has got a mortal scare,
and turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, went
134 IN THE YEAR ONE.
straight on to "The Royal," where he stabled his steed.
Then the news got abroad. The laird of Yokieshill Joe
Hacket was dead, and Corbie (a ghastly comforter) had
been with him till he died. But the dying man had been
unable to sign the will which the lawyer had prepared. It
was of no consequence, however, Corbie explained, with a
curiously absent and preoccupied air, as he quitted the grey-
gabled house among the moors of no consequence; the
deed had only declared Harry to be what in point of law
he was without any deed whatever owner of Yokieshill, sole
heir to his father's goods and gear, heritable and movable.
The minister and Uncle Ned looked at each other.
"There's something in the wind yonder," said the former.
" Faugh ! " he added, as a whiff of stale fish and blubber was
wafted across the bay, " I am of Sir Toby's opinion, ' A plague
o' these pickle herrings ! ' "
II.
POOR Queen Mary paid but a brief and troubled vis ; t to the
country of her birth ; but some of the domestics wno came
with her from France remained in Scotland after their mis-
tress had sailed across the Solway. Among these was Marie
Touchet, who had been body servant to the Queen, and who
was married in the spring of 1566, at the Palace of Holyrood,
to a trusty retainer of the Earl of Erroll one of the loyal
noblemen who through good and evil report adhered to Mary.
Loyalty had been a passion with the courtly and comely Hays
ever since Robert the Bruce, after the disastrous eclipse of the
great house of Comyn, had conferred on his tried friend the
barony of Slains, which at that time included nearly the whole
district that lies between the Ugie and the Ythan. It was
only natural that the retainers of the great house of Erroll
should be in favour at Court, and thus it happened that
Anthony Holdfast had been permitted to take with him to
his distant home among the sea-swept moors of the north the
favourite servant of the Queen. Marie had been born among
IN THE YEAR ONE. 135
the leafy woodlands of Fontainebleau ; and Anthony, who was
desperately in love with his charming little wife, gallantly pro-
posed that her new home should be christened or rechristened
after the place where she was bred. It was a pleasant fancy
enough ; and Marie was duly grateful, and thanked her Scotch
husband in her pretty though rather incomprehensible French-
Scots very sweetly for his loving devotion to la belle France
and to herself. Yet there was a tear in her eye, and her gay
smile grew wistful and doubtful when she compared the Fon-
tainebleau of her girlhood with the Fontainbleau to which she
was welcomed. The contrast between the sunny plains and
the leafy forests of the South and this gaunt farmhouse upon
the barren seaboard of the Mare Tenebrosum was certainly
very striking. As the melodious syllables of " Fontainbleau "
sound curiously out of place among "Casks," and "Achna-
gatts," and " Yokieshills," so the blithe little Frenchwoman
must have felt ill at ease for a time among her novel sur-
roundings.
The Holdfasts of Fontainbleau, though neither lords
nor lairds, clung like limpets to their rocks ; and thus it
came about that in the year One a Mrs Holdfast was still
tenant of the farm. Her husband, Mark Holdfast, had died
a month or two before his youngest daughter was born ;
so that for more than seventeen years Mrs Holdfast had
been a widow. She had had a numerous family ; but the
eldest son Mark was at least twenty years older than his
sister Euphame. For after the birth of five sons in succes-
sion there had been a long break an interval of ten years
and upwards ; and then Dick had come, and then, a year
later, Euphame or Eppie. The elder sons had all swarmed
off from the family hive, some were farmers, some were
sailors, some settlers in the backwoods. Mark, the eldest,
was tenant of Achnagatt, the farm which "marched" with
Fontainbleau ; and Mark had married about the time that
Eppie was born. So that Eppie and her nephews and
nieces were nearly of an age, and might have been boon
companions and bosom friends if Eppie had chosen. But
in point of fact the relations between the two farmhouses
136 IN THE YEAR ONE.
were not particularly cordial. Young Mark and his comely
wife and her comelier daughters were the simple, unpre-
tending, honest sort of people that are to be met with in
any average farmhouse on the eastern seaboard ; but in
Eppie there was a strain of unfamiliar blood. They were
soft and gentle, and perhaps rather inclined to flabbiness,
physical and intellectual ; she was keen, piquant, exacting.
They were contented with their lot ; a fitful fire burned
in her veins. The Achnagatt girls were shy, timid, and
undecided; the girl at Fontainbleau looked you straight
in the face as a skua looks at you without winking. Her
bright black eyes might have been thought somewhat over-
bold in a less perfectly moulded face ; but such a face
disarms criticism. The Norsemen, who peopled these north-
ern coasts, had no part in this girl. Eppie was half a
Frenchwoman and half a gipsy.
This was how the estrangement between the two houses
came about. Old Mrs Holdfast had been a masterful
woman. She was Euphame Keith in her maidenhood, and
the Keiths, from the great Marshal down to the farmer at
the Mains, were as obstinate as mules ; but this latest wild-
flower softened her into graciousness. There was a charm
about her madcap Dick which a mother's heart could not
altogether resist ; but Dick had taken to the water like a
duck ; had years ago deserted the family nest ; and was now
seldom within hail, except sometimes of a moonlight night,
when a skittish little cutter, of questionable pedigree, was in
the offing, a skittish little cutter which, like the Flying
Dutchman, was often heard of, but seldom seen, so seldom
indeed that there were people who held that The Crookit
Meg was a myth. (Whether Dick Holdfast will find a place
in this chronicle is not yet certain ; it will be a casual
glimpse at most.) So that all the jealous affection of a
severe, intense, and reticent nature had been concentrated
upon her youngest daughter. The girl was the spoilt pet
of her widowhood. Eppie was perfect, immaculate, without
flaw or blemish of any sort. To eyes not blinded by love,
this little gipsy-cat was by no means without flaw or blemish.
IN THE YEAR ONE. 137
Flawless, indeed, she would have missed her main attraction,
like that kind of china which is only perfect when cracked.
It would have been better for herself and for them all had
she been broken in to decorum ; but then, perhaps, the
wild violet, or rather the sweet-briar, flavour of her life it
is the sweet briar and not the sweet violet which scents the
garden at Fontainbleau might have evaporated; and this
history might not have been written.
Mark, as I have said, was a plain man, plain in manner
and plain in speech, if not in person. His affections were
deep though by no means effusive; and he had a specially
warm place in his heart for his mother, and for Eppie too.
But he felt that a character with some very curious and
unaccountable traits, which he did not pretend to fathom
they were not in his line was being allowed to run to seed ;
and he spoke his mind frankly and bluntly. This was the
beginning of the breach which gradually widened as Eppie's
moods grew day after day more wilful and restive and in-
calculable. For Mrs Holdfast would believe no evil of
Eppie; and shut her ears and hardened her heart against
whoever ventured to hint that this undisciplined favourite
would inevitably prove a heart-break to her mother. Thus
a false element came into her life ; while, on the other hand,
Mark, after a single repulse, washed his hands of the conse-
quences, and went his way. But he too felt sore, angry,
vexed : it troubled him that any one should come between
him and his mother ; and he silently resented the injustice,
as he considered it, of her choice. Thus division was es-
tablished, with the usual consequences.
" When love begins to sicken and decay,
It useth an enforced ceremony,"
a ceremony which is never more irksome than when it grows
up between those who are near of kin or near in love ; and
Mark adored his mother. But Eppie was not troubled ; so
long as she was permitted to go her own way unchallenged,
she was supremely tolerant because perfectly indifferent.
138 IN THE YEAR ONE.
Yet there had been a time now some seasons past when
Eppie's fate hung in the balance.
Fontainbleau is built on a heathery plateau upon the sum-
mit of the Heughs. Any one acquainted with the coast
knows Longhaven, a ravine or chasm which penetrates for
wellnigh a quarter of a mile into the solid land ; and at the
upper end of this ravine the old farmhouse stands or stood
within the memory of living men. There is another chasm
a hundred yards farther south called Pothead ; another be-
yond it called Hell's Lum. Opposite Hell's Lum, and
nearly blocking up the passage from the open sea, is the
island of Dunbuy. This is the last of the great granite head-
lands ; thereafter the cliffs break away, and the coast sinks
down to the sandy bents which enclose the Bay of Slains.
The farm of Achnagatt lies behind the sandhills which
shelter it from the sea, and is separated from Fontainbleau
by the great south road that now is, and by an affluent of the
Whapple. Fontainbleau has no shelter of any kind, it
stands, as I have said, upon the summit of the cliff, and the
fierce winter winds beat upon its windows day and night.
Sometimes, when the winds have churned the waves into
yeast, the windows that look to the east are white with the
driving foam. No tree can take root upon that inclement
seaboard; the alder -bushes whenever they rise above the
garden wall are cut across as by a knife. What may be called
the arable district of this country is singularly unpicturesque ;
but when, leaving the plateau, we descend into the chasms
along the coast, we enter another world, a world of romance
and mystery, of light and shade, of stern strength and tender
beauty, where the measured beat of the wave and the sorrow-
ful complaint of the sea-mew only add to the impressive
solitariness of the scene. The path which leads from Fon-
tainbleau to the shore, zigzagging among bracken, winding
round boulders, resting beside bubbling spring or mossy bank
of ferns and primroses, the blue sea and the white sea-birds
IN THE YEAR ONE. 139
framed in every variety of green, is one of the most delight-
ful that can be imagined. The promontory between Long-
haven and Pothead consists of a succession of heathery knolls,
sparsely planted with scraggy spruce and juniper - bushes,
where the earliest woodcock is sure to alight, it being the first
bit of cover this side Norway. At the extreme point even
the heather wears off, and the bare rocks rise naked and
jagged from the water, yellow with lichen and brown with
tangle.
They used to call a particular ledge or niche on this head-
land "Charlie's Howff." This was the natural observatory
from which Uncle Ned took his bird's-eye views of nature.
And the cool sparkling water of the Rood well, bubbling
up from some unfathomable depth below the sea, was the
only stimulant which the old naturalist on his rambles could
be persuaded to touch. It was older, he asserted, than
the oldest vintage in the Provost's cellar : of an age indeed
to be computed, not by years of annual magistrates, but by
great conjunctions and the fatal periods of kingdoms. So it
went well with the bread and cheese which he carried with
him when on the tramp.
" What brings you here, Uncle Ned ? " little Eppie would
inquire little Eppie, then about ten years old.
" If you lived in the High Street of Edinbro', Eppie, you
would sit at the window to see the folk gae by. So I sit here
to see my freen's pass the sea-birds, and the porpoises, and
the whales. It's the calendar that shows me the time o' year.
When I notice the lang wedges o' wild swans and bean-geese
and loons and lang-tailed harelds and eider deucks flyin' past
to the south, I ken that autumn is over and the winter
comin'. Then when they begin to return it is a sign and
a testimony that the spring-time is at hand. Sae when the
whales are blowin' like waterspoots, and the grampuses rollin'
about like barrels, and the solans fa'in' like bullets into the
water, the fisher-bodies are advised that the great herrin' shoals,
that bide in the deep sea till the heat o' summer, are nearin'
the shore. Truly there's nae month in the year like June, wi'
the bays a' swarmin' wi' fish ; tho' indeed the haill year is a
140 IN THE YEAR ONE.
perfec' perpetual feast to them that remember Him who de-
signed the birds and the beasts, and young and auld bairns
like you and me, Eppie."
At other times he would be accompanied by Alister, the
sturdy schoolboy, who lived under his kinsman's roof, and
then the children would have famous days of scrambling
among the rocks. Eppie could climb like a squirrel or a
cat; her eye was perfect; even when on a narrow, slippery
ledge, with the surf boiling below, her head never failed her.
It seemed that a spice of danger added to the zest of her
enjoyment, putting her upon her mettle and bracing her
nerves. If she could induce Alister to venture along a ledge
from which he could not return without a helping hand, she
would skim round about him like a sea-mew, and laugh un-
sympathetically at his terror. But in truth the boy was a
daring cragsman, quite as venturesome in reality as Eppie
herself; and he had taken the eggs of the shag and the
peregrine from crags which had never been scaled before
by anything heavier than a conie or a fox.
Then they would return to Uncle Ned's seat, and at the
old man's feet share his frugal meal, listening lazily in the
sunshine to his discursive talk.
" There's a leam-fishing in St Catherine's Dub," he would
say, pointing to a deep gash in the rocks. " Lang syne,
Eppie, a great Spanish barque the St Catherine by name
struck upon that reef. It was a ship of the great Armada,
and it carried the Admiral's flag. It went to the bottom wi'
every sowl on board. They say that a great store o' gowd
lies at the bottom o' the Dub, that was the clash of the
country-side when I was a wean. But lang or ever the
Armada sailed the Danes kent ilka landin'-place alang the
Heughs. They were wild folk, fearin' neither God nor man.
Mony a farmhouse they harried, and they burned the kirks,
and spared neither mither nor maiden. But in the end a
great battle was fought at the Ward it began in the dawnin'
and lasted far on thro' the nicht and the saut-water thieves
were forced back to their ships. It was a grand deliverance,
and the Yerl built a kirk on the battle-field, for it was said
IN THE YEAR ONE. 141
that mair than mortal men took part in the fecht That's
an auld wife's story, it may be ; but that the battle was won
wi' God's help we may richtly believe. The kirk stood for
a thousand years, and may be standin' yet : for ae wild winter
nicht a mighty wind arose, and blew for a week, so that no
man could stand against it When it ceased the kirk was
gone it had been owercassen by the sand ; and indeed the
sandbank itsel' may be seen to this day at the Water o'
Slains."
Then as the boy and girl grew older he would take them
with him into that imaginative domain where he spent so many
of his days.
"When you are a bigger lass, Eppie, you shall read the
plays of Shakespeare, and you too, Alister. There has been
nae man like Shakespeare born into this world. He was
acquent wi' a' the devices o' man's heart; and yet had he
spent his time like mysel' in inquirin' into the ways o' birds
and beasts, he could not hae been mair familiar wi' their
ongoings. There's the teuchit wha ever was mair pleased
wi' its divertin' wiles, which indeed have always seemed to
me mair like understandin' than instinct; for afore it could
steal awa frae its nest and rise anon on broken wing, it must
hae considered sariously hoo it could best beguile us :
' I would not, tho" 'tis my familiar sin
With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest
Tongue far from heart, play with all virgins so. '
How tenderly he peeps into the nest of the cushey doo
there's never mair than ae pair of young cushies in a nest
whar her golden couplets are lying saft and snug. And
Juliet desires a falconer's voice to lure her tassel-gentle back
again just as Alister whistles a plover oot o' the lift ; and
Coriolanus will be to Rome as the osprey to the fish who
takes it by sovereignty of nature ; and Antony, leaving the
fight in height, claps on his sea-wing and like a doting mallard
flies after the Egyptian witch ; and the shy Adonis is the dive-
dapper peerin' thro' a wave ; and Duncan has nae thocht or
suspicion o' that bloody midnight business, because the castle
142 IN THE YEAR ONE.
o' Macbeth is haunted by the swallows, who have built their
pendent nests at ilka window; which pruves that the air is
sweet and delicate, and better than doctors' drugs for an auld
king. Puir auld Duncan ! as he sits there \vi' the sunset
touching his grey hairs, list'nin' to the twitterin' o' the swal-
lows, he looks a sweet and gentle and contentit auld man :
and a contentit auld man, my dears, is the happiest o' men.
But, O my bairns, the death-warrant had been signed, and
the bluidy designs o' twa black hearts a man's, ay, and a
woman's had been registered in hell.
' Within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits. '
You've heard of Leddy Macbeth, Eppie, from your spellin'-
buik ; some ither day I'll tell you about Juliet and Coriolanus
and Antony and Cymbeline, and the thrang o' kings and
clowns and fair women wha have been embalmed for ever in
the imperishable pages o' the chief o' poets."
This sort of talk went over their heads often, no doubt ;
yet children are far wiser than the people who make stories
for them suppose.
" Did he belang to the Broch ? " Eppie asks. The Broch
rounded her horizon.
"Na, he was never sae far north. Yet he kent the sea
weel, though whar he saw it, oot o' his dreams, I canna tell.
The sea," he went on, " that responds like the weather-glass
to every impulse of the breeze the always-wind-obeying
deep until as the gale rises it loses its equilibrium a'thegither,
like a man oot o' his wits as mad as the vexed sea must
hae been regarded by Shakespeare in a' its moods. Timon,
weary o' the warld and its fickle praise and blame, would
mak' his grave beside the sea, upon the very hem o' the sea,
whar its licht foam might beat his gravestone daily. And for
my ain part, bairns, I would love to lie within hearin' o' the
swell for the sea never sleeps, and it may weel be that even
amang the mools we micht hear its voice when ither voices
are heard nae main Moreover, the sea itsel' is full of life,
IN THE YEAR ONE. 143
being the image or visible manifestation of Him who is the
centre and the source of life. The vital force o' oor Maker is
nowhere else sae veevidly personified. Therefore, my bairns,
the sea to an auld man like me has a hopefu' soun' it speaks
o' vitality and immortality, like him who said ' Thou shall
not leave my soul in hell, neither shall Thou suffer Thy Holy
One to see corruption.' The auld prophet indeed believed
thai the sea was unquiet because it was sorrowful, there is
sorrow on ihe sea, il cannot be quiet, says he ; but Jeremiah's
knowledge of the sea was leemited, and he lived before the
art o' boat-buildin' had been brought lo oor present perfection,
so that there was a prejudice against the saut water amang
his countrymen. But Shakespeare kent weel that the habitual
motion o' ihe sea was pleasanl and blythesome; for when
Perdita dances Florizel wishes her a wave o' the sea that she
might do nothing but that ; and in verra trulh, the fa' o' a
wave and the footfa' o' a blythe lass are twa o' Ihe sweelest
soun's in ihis aslonishin' warld."
Il cannot be doubted, I think, lhal ihe ideal domain into
which his companionship with Uncle Ned broughl Alisler
Ross tended to enrich a characler lhal would olherwise have
been mainly noliceable for simplicity, shrewdness, and natural
candour a clear and limpid soul such as Ihe gods love ; but
somehow or olher the influence was, or seemed to be, wasted
on Eppie : Ihe ideal ran off her, as water off a duck's back.
Uncle Ned loved her as if she had been his daughter, and
perhaps he loved her none the less because he felt, as the old
Puritans would have said, thai he was fighling for her soul
that the struggle between him and ihe Devil for Ihis " precious
piece of childhood " was slill a drawn baltle. Her wilfulness,
her insensibility, Ihe spiril of mockery by which she was
possessed, were purely impish ; yel her dauntless courage, her
direclness, her brighlness, fascinated and dazzled him. Her
heart was slill lorpid, he would own ; bul love mighl lhaw the
ice, and breathe a woman's soul, a woman's sense of duty and
devoledness, inlo Ihe cold bosom of this wilful kelpie.
But, as I have said, the ideal solution which was to thaw
her selfishness into sacrifice, her impishness into womanliness,
144 IN THE YEAR ONE.
had not yet begun to work. She was seventeen years of age ;
a choice piece of workmanship ; in splendid health, and with-
out a touch of fear. On her eighteenth birthday (her birth-
day fell in the winter-time she was born in the terrible
winter of '82) she had sat with Uncle Ned at "Charlie's
Howff," while the great white gulls sailed majestically along
the cliffs, and the raven and the peregrine screamed at the
intruders out of the sky. There had been a sprinkling of
snow during the night ; the frost was keen, and the limpid
stream that trickled from the Rood well was being gradually
translated by incrustation into a pendent crystal, an enor-
mous icicle.
"See, Eppie," said Uncle Ned, pointing to certain sharp
and delicate imprints upon the snow, " mony hae been here
this mornin' besides you and me. That's a rabbit's foot, and
that's a roe's. What has brocht the buck doun to the sea?
He'll be oot o' sorts, likely, and wantin' a taste o' the saut
water. A haill thicket o' patricks hae been scrapin' on the
lee side o' this drift. And here's the lang taes o' the wood-
cock, and Gude guide us, Eppie the webbed fute o' a
wild-goose ! There hae been some fine ploys here in the
starlicht ! That's a hare's seat beside the hedge : pussie has
washed her face, and curled her whiskers, and noo she's aff*
to the neeps. There's mony a simple history, my dear, to be
read by the hedgerows and the burn-side in the winter time :
and I never weary o' spellin' oot the letters. I'm an auld
man noo ; but they're a' as wonnerfu' to me as when I was a
wean. For it's true what the Apostle says, tho' aiblins no in
the sense he intendit : Ever learnin', and yet never able to
come to the knowledge o' the truth. For the truth is un-
fathomable and unsearchable."
" I don't see what good it has done you, Uncle Ned," says
the young realist in her blunt fashion. " What's the good of
a thing that's good for nothing ? " she adds, in the very words
of the philosophy of David Hume.
IN THE YEAR ONE. 145
Alister loved Eppie, but Eppie did not love Alister. In this,
however, there was no disparagement of Alister : for Eppie
loved no one except herself. In point of fact, Eppie liked
Alister as much perhaps as she was capable of liking. There
was a subtle vein of sensuousness in this chilly nature ; but
Love ? of that as yet she knew nothing. Alister was strong
and active, a fine specimen of the Scandinavian type of man-
liness ; and Eppie saw that he was true and simple and warm-
hearted and yet she did not love him. She admired his
rustic bravery, his open-mindedness, his faith in herself, as
well as the frank blue eyes and the stalwart limbs of his outer
man, somewhat in the way that a man admires a handsome
woman, with whom he is minded to flirt, but whom he does
not mean to marry. That was all.
Once indeed she had nearly thawed. They had been out
in the Fontainbleau skiff, fishing and fowling, and they were
floating homewards in the autumn moonlight a fathom or
two from the cliffs. The glamour of the moonlight was around
them. Birds of calm sat brooding on the charmed wave. An
occasional auk floated past with the tide, its head under its
wing. Then they came to a huge stack of snow-white rocks on
which the moonlight rested broad and full. Half-way up the
cliff a blue heron a bird seen once in fifty years or so, and
associated with quaint and fantastic superstitions was perched
on one leg in a cleft of the precipice. It was blue in every
feather as a summer sky at morning. The ledge where it had
posted itself was exactly like a niche carved on purpose to hold
a relic or a little statue or a picture of a saint. The moon
was full, and the bird looked as if the cliff had been made for
it. Something in the solitariness and the strangeness of the
surroundings touched Eppie. She was sitting on the same
seat with Alister, and a sort of pathetic gleam came into her
eyes. He stole his arm round her waist without speaking.
She did not resist; her head lay upon his shoulder; she
nestled closer and closer. This unaccountable tenderness
what did it mean? It was beneath these cliffs that other
earlier lovers as we partly know had pledged their troth ;
and why not Eppie?
VOL. I. K
146 IN THE YEAR ONE.
But when the boat touched the shore she sprang from his
arms, and thereafter she did not speak to him for a month.
They had been brother and sister ; now they were lovers ; and
the whole soul of the wilful girl rebelled against the claim
which in a moment of incalculable weakness she had seemed
to allow.
Then Alister was despatched to a station in the south, and
they did not meet again for a year or two. When he came
back, in the summer of the year One promoted to a fair
place in the service he heard that old Hacket was on his
deathbed, and that Harry Hacket would be the new laird of
Yokieshill.
This, I think, was the turning-point of Eppie's life. Had
she yielded at that time to the soft persuasions of her better
nature, she might have been saved.
III.
IT was during the year of Alister's absence in the south that
Eppie's acquaintance with young Hacket began at some
harvest -home or other rustic merry-making. The Hackets
belonged to the gentry ; but the old laird of Yokieshill was a
complete recluse, having withdrawn himself before his boy
grew up from the society of the county. He was in bad
odour both as master and neighbour. Insolent and over-
bearing by nature, he became morose and savage as the dark-
ness deepened round him. It was a gloomy house, haunted
by memories of evil-doing, standing gauntly among the melan-
choly moors. Mrs Hacket (she was one of the Logics, Jean
Kilgour of Logic) had died when her boy was born ; and
thereafter no woman of the better sort had entered its doors.
There was a tacit antipathy between father and son ; a dreary
childhood how unutterably dreary is the shy isolation of a
child ! had matured into a sullen manhood ; and altogether
the outlook for Harry Hacket when he came of age was one
which the most poverty-stricken hind on the estate need not
IN THE YEAR ONE. 147
have envied. He was grossly ignorant ; he had no companions
except his gun and his dogs ; his conscience was obtuse ;
paroxysms of passion had acquired for him the reputation of a
bully, while, in truth, the habitual ill-usage to which he had
been exposed, by crushing the animal spirits and the native
elasticity of childhood, had made him a coward.
" The stars in their courses fight against Sisera," the Doctor
said, discussing with Uncle Ned the character of the young
squire.
" Ay, Doctor, but what business had the stars to talc' ony
part in the strife ? Hoo are we to guide oor battles if the
stars come doun and fight like the auld gods on this side and
on that ? But there's some men who never get a chance :
they are reprobates from the beginning. Heaven and earth
have conspired against them. It's ane o' the mysteries o' this
warld which metapheesics and theology have clean failed to
expiscate. But between oorsels, Doctor, I've aye had great
sympathy with Sisera. The stars werena verra particular in
their choice o' tools. A nail in a sleepin' man's lug it's no
fair."
Yet this swaggering young fellow was presentable enough.
Although he knew nothing of the dainties that are bred in a
book, he had a certain measure of natural shrewdness which
served to keep him out of any quite fatal scrapes. He was
strongly built ; his features were massive ; his crisp black hair
had a natural curl; the large black eyes were sombre but
penetrating. Their stealthiness was not visible to the casual
observer, the stealthiness of a wild animal which has been
hunted from its cradle, whose ancestors have been hunted
from immemorial time. There was an underbred look about
him, it is true, which would have made him, in spite of his
broad chest and masterful air, distasteful to a woman of true
cultivation ; but then the girls about Yokieshill were not gifted
with the keen and educated perceptions of the gentlewoman.
The lasses who worked on the neighbouring farms were, many
of them, sufficiently comely ; and as their moral standard was
not high, the fact that Merran Shivas or Kirsty Murrison had
been seen with the young laird in the gloaming was rather a
148 IN THE YEAR ONE.
feather in her cap than otherwise. Harry had no scruples on
this or on any other subject ; desire and its gratification went
hand in hand ; and by the time he was five-and-twenty he had
contrived to win for himself an unsavoury repute among honest
women.
It was not to be wondered at in the circumstances that Harry
Hacket should have sought the society of his inferiors. He
could not, in fact, help himself. He was shut out, by his
father's habits and by his own, from the great houses of the
neighbourhood. Man is a gregarious animal, and Harry
Hacket was driven by the social instinct, by the craving for
companionship, to the public-house and the bothie. Then he
was the young laird. A great part of the land round about
had been inherited or acquired by his father. The fortunes
of many of these simple people would by-and-by come to
depend on his goodwill. He was not loved; but he was
tolerated, invited, encouraged. He and his father were barely
on speaking terms. The old man had grown very miserly;
it was his last enjoyment in a world which he did not love
and more or less despised. Harry might commit as many
follies as he pleased, but he must not expect his father to pay
for them. At that time smuggling by land and by sea was in
full swing; foreign wines and silks as well as home-made
spirits were at famine prices ; the illicit traffic was a lucrative
one. Harry was driven by his necessities to consort with men
who habitually and successfully evaded the law. Even by
these men he was not trusted : a true instinct warned them
against one who was destitute of the rudimentary principles
of honour which are current among thieves, who was at heart
a coward ; but then he was useful to them. Had he been
openly hostile, the son of the resident proprietor, who was
constantly wandering about the moors with his gun and his
dogs, might have come inconveniently in their way. He
would certainly have learnt that the Black Moss was frequented
not by wild ducks only. Harry was proud in his coarse igno-
rant fashion ; he would not have married a cottar's daughter
even to spite his father ; for in his own conceit he belonged
to the upper class which could do what it liked with the
IN THE YEAR ONE. 149
lower; and he internally resented the familiarities which he
was forced to accept from his associates.
This is not a nice character, but it was one very common
in Scotland in the year One, the home-bred son of the miserly
or impecunious laird, whose education had been neglected,
and whose morals had been worse than neglected. Uncle
Ned was very tolerant : he believed that, rough-hew them how
we may, a divinity shapes our ends ; that the world would go
topsy-turvy were there no hand behind the scenes to keep the
puppets on their feet; and that without some such unseen
direction education becomes an utterly hopeless enterprise.
But even Uncle Ned admitted that Harry Racket was a diffi-
culty ; and when, in spite of such warnings as he could give
her, Eppie Holdfast's name began to be associated with the
young laird's, he turned away with a dull but poignant feeling
of pain and displeasure in his heart to which his simple nature
had been hitherto unused.
But Eppie was not blinded.
I don't want to do Eppie any injustice. She was a remark-
ably fine animal her physique was splendid she had magni-
ficent vitality. Her skin was pure and her eye bright with
perfect health. But she had never been broken into harness,
and at length she became unmanageable. What strict control
and discipline might have effected I cannot pretend to say
something, not everything, for the vice was in the blood. It
requires something more than the wise direction of man it
needs the fire of Almighty God to warm the cold and calcu-
lating instincts of a worldly nature into the glow of sacrifice
and the ideality of love. There were all sorts of superficial
contrarieties in Eppie's nature ; she was hard yet cunning, icy
yet sensitive, frank yet reticent. On one side she seemed
rude, blunt, imperious ; yet she had that native capacity for
treachery which is bred in the bone of the wild-cat and the
hawk. The girl was utterly fearless; yet nature had armed
her with the stealthy arts with which she arms the weaker
150 IN THE YEAR ONE.
animals. You say that this is an unnatural combination ?
But there are no vital inconsistencies in such a character as I
am sketching. Given an original basis of urgent and clamant
selfishness, and to compass its end any disguise can be as-
sumed, or rather it can shape itself into any mould. Poor
Eppie must have committed some dreadful crime in a prior
state of existence, for even in her bluntest moments she was
watchful ever on the alert to guard against surprise.
Eppie was not blinded. But Harry was the young laird ;
and his wife might be should be would be a great lady.
Why not ? said Eppie to herself. But to become a great lady
it was necessary to marry this man ; and then she had to ask
herself if she loved him as she would love her husband. Well
she was not quite sure of her feelings he repelled and at-
tracted her as the loadstone attracts and repels. She knew by
repute that he was sulky and passionate; she had a sort of
moral conviction that he was a coward. He might have be-
haved badly to girls to do Eppie justice, the worst of his
iniquities were not known to her ; well, girls must look after
themselves as she meant to look after herself; but cowardice
that was a crime in a man which it was difficult to forgive.
And then there was Alister. Poor Alister ! Lord of his pres-
ence and no land beside, as Uncle Ned would say.
" Harry," said Eppie, as they stood on the Saplin Brae, " I
don't know that mither would like me to ride so far."
" Oh, never heed, Eppie ; we'll be hame before dark."
Eppie was a bold rider, and she looked splendid in the
rustic habit which her own deft fingers had woven. Her
steed was only a " shalt " or " shaltie," a half-bred, half-broken
native of the farm, yet a wiry and indefatigable little beast.
The breed of Highland ponies has died out now, more's the
pity.
It is the spring-time, a soft wind is blowing from the south,
and the braes of Fontainbleau are white with cowslips. Eppie
looks splendid : her face is flushed with the excitement of the
gallop up the Saplin Brae to the ridge above Yokieshill ; the
young laird has dismounted to tighten a girth and adjust a
stirrup ; he gazes up into her face with eyes that are brimful
IN THE YEAR ONE. 151
of passion. He has never had a toy like this before ; his
longing to clasp it, to seize it, to make it his own, takes away
his breath at times ; he is mad with desire. They have raced
up the steep ascent ; the horses took the bits between their
teeth and flew like the wind ; and now they are resting on
the summit. And at their feet is the old house of Yokieshill,
and the mosses round about that the wild duck love, and the
blue sea edged with a white line of breakers, and circled by
the Sandhills of Slains. And all the land between is owned
by the laird of Yokieshill, who is dying at home in his bed.
The tempter selected an exceedingly high mountain from
which to show the tempted all the kingdoms of the world and
the glory of them.
Harry Hacket was but a coarse and rustic edition of
Mephistopheles ; yet he judged rightly when he brought
Eppie in their rides to the Saplin Brae. For from thence
she could behold all the goodly heritage which she coveted ;
and distance gave the gaunt old Scotch house a charm which
would not have stood the test of a closer acquaintance.
" Let me call you Eppie," he had asked on one occasion
as they stood on this spot.
" My name's Euphame," she had answered calmly
" There's aye been a Euphame Holdfast in Fontainbleau or
ever there was a Hacket in Yokieshill ; but you may call
me Eppie if it pleases you, I am sure."
"And you will call me Harry?"
"Surely," she answered, returning his ardent glance with
a shrug of her pretty shoulders. " Harry's a prettier name
than Hacket."
"What ails you at Hacket?" he said, gloomily, for he
secretly hated the name which belonged to his father as
well as to himself.
"Oh, the name's guid enough for them that owns it,
she replied, with airy indifference. "Naebody of course
would tak' it for choice."
After this fashion it had been settled that "Eppie" and
" Harry " were to be substituted for " Miss Holdfast " and
"Mr Hacket." Bitin' and scartin' are Scots folks' wooin' ;
152 IN THE YEAR ONE.
and the more he was hurt by the sharp tongue and the
dangerous teeth of this chilly and unapproachable damsel,
the more furiously did his passion blaze.
And now the gay knight and his fair damozel are pricking
on the plain. In that barren treeless country, and to these
hard weather-beaten men and women of the coast, the
shadowy coverts and the wide park-like spaces of Pitfairlie
for which they are bound form an enchanted domain.
The sea is a sharp taskmaster : never at rest itself, its
unrest creeps into the blood of those who live on its shores ;
its companionship implies a constant strain. To cross from
Balmawhapple into the Pitfairlie woods was to reach a haven
of repose after painful wrestling with the east wind; the
wavy outlines, the deep shadows, the soft greenery of the
park rested eye and brain wearied by the poignant light. And
then, to add to its attractions, there was " the auld admiral,"
who brightened it by his wit and enriched it by his goodness
my dear old .friend, who wore his seventy years lightly
like a flower, and whose keen tongue and mother wit were
crisp and bracing as a winter morning.
Pitfairlie was delightfully situated. In front of the castle
a noble chace dotted with forest trees magnificent limes
and chestnuts retreated slowly till it lost itself in a thicket
of spruce and brushwood. The approach swept in a suc-
cession of fine curves along the brink of the river. There
were no gates to shut in the face of the people; nothing
to indicate exactly where the lawn terminated or the outer
world began. Cottages were scattered here and there among
the cover; blue smoke curled in lazy wreaths over the
tree-tops.
They rode through the castle grounds, till they came to
the barren upland, where the plover and the moorfowl breed.
It was a glorious ride ; the road continually ascending from
the rich banks of the river to the region of the heather
and the pine, and disclosing a new coign of vantage at
every turn. The picturesque antiquity of the historic abbey,
the lordly breadth of the modern mansion, the rose flush
of my lady's flower-garden, the blue curves of the river
IN THE YEAR ONE. 153
gleaming through the spring greenery of the woodland, the
low backs of the bushless downs crowned with shining crests
of purple heather, the white swans upon the lake ruffling
their snowy plumage, or dipping their long necks into the
clammy weeds, I do not wonder that the Balmawhapple
poets of the year One should have waxed eloquent in praise
of the fair Pitfairlie domain.
They drew up their panting horses in the middle of the
encrimsoned downs, and turned their faces homeward. A
gorcock crowed lustily, startling the gathering shadows of
the night. There was no sound or trace of man ; the wild
Highland cattle that fed upon the scrubby herbage were
the only denizens of these dreary flats. Obstinate, mouse-
coloured, picturesque little brutes, with shaggy manes and
shaggy heads crowned with long branching horns, who
looked at the riders with brown, tranquil, meditative eyes
as they went past. The ox-eyed Juno !
" O dear me, how delightful it is ! " sighed Eppie to her-
self. And then as they rode home in the dark if it is
ever dark in these high northern latitudes Harry made
her understand at last that he loved her as such men love.
Eppie was in a dream : dreaming was a new sensation to
her; for Eppie, as a rule, slept the sleep of the just, or
at least of a perfectly healthy young animal. Two voices
sounded in her ears the voice of the man beside her, and
the voice of another who had been her playfellow in the
old days ; and while she listened in an unfamiliar reverie
to Harry's story, she thought of Alister. But all the time
she knew, or fancied she knew, that she had made her
choice; for her own self-love was deeper and more vital
than any other. Ambition had the whole, or wellnigh the
whole, of her heart; Love only an obscure corner. And
for his part, Harry, even in that gust of passion, felt that
he was a fool; was even then mentally calculating how
he could win her on the easiest available terms.
But the upshot was that in the meantime Eppie had two
lovers in hand, to neither of whom, however, had it been
finally and irretrievably pledged.
154 IN THE YEAR ONE.
So the months passed, Eppie still on her guard, and
hedging as they say on the turf: grave and silent with
Uncle Ned, mocking and masterful with Harry Hacket,
but watchful always ; until on an August evening of the
year One, Alister Ross, looking remarkably handsome in
his new uniform, returned to Balmawhapple.
"What is to come of it all?" Eppie asked herself nerv-
ously when, on the day following his return, the blue-eyed
sailor, browned with sun and salt-water, and grown from a
boy into a man (though there was still a boyish sparkle
in the honest untroubled eyes), presented himself at Fontain-
bleau. Eppie in her grave matter-of-fact way was not much
of a humourist; yet she smiled to herself rather uneasily
to be sure when somehow or other the vision of a cat
playing dexterously with two mice (until she had decided
which to eat first) inopportunely occurred to her. "What
brings him here when he is not wanted ? " she said, pettishly ;
and indeed she was angry with him and with herself, and
would have rated him soundly had she dared. But Alister
looked so big and strong and gentle and comely that the
angry words died upon her lips. "Is it possible that I
am afraid of him? Is it possible that I " and then
Eppie, who had been watching him as he made his way
through the moor, ran up to her room without completing
the sentence.
The Jan Mayen entered the harbour at Port Henry on
the first day of October 1800, the day before Laird Hacket
died ; and the reader will be kind enough to understand
that while I have been chatting with him about old times
and old stories three weeks have passed. The stooks at
Fontainbleau have been gathered into the farmyard, and
the Achnagatt "clyack" is to take place to-morrow.
IN THE YEAR ONE. 155
IV.
IT was the forenoon of the day on which the Achnagatt
harvest-home was to be held; and Mrs Mark and her
daughters were busy in the kitchen preparing " sowens " and
other delicacies for the entertainment. I have not got a
copy of Mrs Dods in the house, and cannot therefore give
you any authoritative recipes for the dishes that were being
made ready. There were bannocks, and oat-cakes, and piles
of fresh butter, and basins of yellow cream, and an ample
supply of Glendronoch. The girls were pictures of health ;
their short petticoats disclosed serviceable, though by no
means clumsy, feet and ankles ; their arms were bare and
bespattered with the flour and oatmeal which they were
baking into the delicious home-made bread of the farmhouse,
not the arms more white than milk of which the poet sings,
but good, honest, sturdy arms, tanned a little by the sun
while milking, and reddened a little by the fire when cooking.
The girdle was suspended over the peats, and there was a
constant running to and fro between it and the baking-board.
Cousin Kate was considered the prettiest of these unsophis-
ticated Graces ; but Kate was the housewife too ; and indeed
a sort of commander-in-chief, who looked after her father's
accounts and took charge of the dairy. Mrs Mark's exer-
tions in bringing these nice girls, and one or two rather
violently disposed schoolboys, into the world, associated as
they had been with a growing tendency to plumpness, had
induced her to hand over the active duties of preparing for
the feast to her slimmer daughters ; while she and Miss
Sherry who had been brought out from Balmawhapple by
Mark on the previous evening sat in the ingleneuk with
their spinning-wheels, the constant companion of gentle
and simple at the time of which I am writing. Altogether
the kitchen was highly picturesque. The girls flitting to and
fro, with their sparse petticoats and upturned sleeves, in the
frisky mettlesomeness of earliest maidenhood ; Miss Sherry,
with her old-fashioned spinning-wheel (which is being again
IN THE YEAR ONE.
introduced into our drawing-rooms in an inane and irrelevant
way); the long array of shining pots and pans and willow-
pattern plates suspended in a haik above the dresser; the
gipsy-looking girdle ; the wide, homely, hospitable fireplace ;
the ruddy glow of the peats; the gathering shadows of the
October night ; it is one of those " symphonies " in light
and shade which are not easily forgotten, especially by
children, artists, and lovers.
Miss Sherry was an institution of Balmawhapple, where
she and her sister Grace lived in one of the nicest houses of
the town. Each of those old patrician mansions had its
motto (had for they are all gone) carved in good broad
Scots over the doorway. " Feir the Lord." " Flie from
syn." " Mak for lyf everlastin." " No this lyf is bot vanity."
" Svear note." The house occupied by Miss Sherry and her
sister had belonged to the Earls Marischal, and their defiant
distich " They haif sayd : Qhat sayd they ? Lat them say "
was nearly as characteristic of its present occupants as of
the old fighting Keiths. These elderly Scotch ladies of the
year One had indeed small regard for what would now be
termed public opinion and the proprieties. Miss Sherry was
one of this race of old Scottish gentlewomen ; for though by
no means rich, and mixing rather with the middle than with
the upper classes, she had a strain of gentle blood in her
veins which made her fifteenth or sixteenth cousin to all the
great people in the county. The old Admiral loved Miss
Sherry and her caustic speech; he called her "cousin," and
always sent the sisters a fat goose on New Year's Day. He
made a point of calling upon them whenever he visited the
burgh (which he represented in Parliament the Provost and
two other freeholders forming the constituency ; and a very
good constituency it was holding remarkably sound and
constitutional opinions), and drank a glass of their elderberry
wine without wincing, and indeed in the cheeriest possible
spirit. Her niece, Mrs Mark, was naturally proud of the
connection ; and Miss Sherry was always a welcome visitor at
the farm. She was a neat, natty, daintily dressed old lady ;
and her sharp face and keen eyes (which had seen seventy
IN THE YEAR ONE. 1 57
summers) were nearly as fresh as her grandnieces', and dis-
closed a fund of shrewd intelligence and sarcastic life. She
had witnessed in her time a good deal of hard living, and
hard drinking, and hard swearing, without being prudishly
scandalised. Yet her directness of speech and somewhat
easy morals belonged to the outside, and there was a sound
heart and high principle behind.
" And the Doctor bid me tell you," Miss Sherry was saying,
as she sat burrin' at her wheel, "that he'd be here before
dark and bring John Skinner wi' him (that harn's not what
it used to be). The auld man's beginnin' to fail he's no
sae soople as he was when I mind him first ; but he has a
gran' voice for a man o' his years he's auchty if he's a day
and he sings his ain sangs verra sweetly. We maun hae the
Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn, or Tullochgorum. It's fearsome,
Marion, to think how auld we are gettin' ; it's saxty years last
June since he was clapt into the Tolbooth by the sodgers, and
his wife puir thing at the doun-lying. Weel-a-wat, the
Doctor may flyte as he likes at the like o' us " all these old
Balmawhapple ladies were stout for Episcopacy " but he'd
best let that flee stick to the wa'. He's a snell body the
Doctor; he wunna argue wi' an auld wife like me, and if
I drive him into a corner he jist taks his pinch o' snuff, and
tells me that I maun hae heard that the deil and the dean
begin wi' ae letter ; when the deil gets the dean the kirk '11 be
the better ; and then he mak's me the yeligant bow which he
learnt at the Court o' Louise Quinze so he says and
marches aff wi'oot waitin' for an answer. But he's a steady
hand at a rubber that I maun alloo and after a', the body's
kind in his way though pecooliar."
" What's become o' your feyther, lasses ? " Mrs Mark ob-
serves to her daughters. "The barn must be ready by this time;
and the folk '11 be arrivin' shortly. Sae run and dress yoursel's,
my dears, and auntie and I '11 see that the cakes dinna singe."
So the three Graces rush up the wooden stairs to don their
finery ; and Miss Sherry resumes.
" I maun speak to the Doctor about oor Kirsty, she'll hae
to stan' the session. Kirsty considers a lad jist perfec' salva-
158 IN THE YEAR ONE.
tion ; and I've aften tellt her how it wud end. Yet when she
cam' to me wi' her head in her apron, I cudna believe my
ears, for she's a dounricht fright. ' Kirsty Meerison,' says I,
' it's not possible an ill-fa'ured limmer like you ! Wha in the
name o' mercy 's the feyther o' the wean ? ' ' Indeed, Miss
Sherry,' says the impudent hizzy in a bleeze at the notion, ' I
could hae got plenty o' feythers.' "
" Dear me," says Mrs Mark, " I'm sorry for Kirsty."
" But it's the same wi' them a' a lad's jist perfect salvation.
And there's Mark's sister, Eppie Holdfast she'll be comin' to
the ploy, nae doobt ? "
"She wudna say when Kate gaed up to see. The auld
mither has been but poorly this month back "
" It's little Eppie cares for her mither," Miss Sherry retorted,
" and she'll come if she chooses, you may depend on that. I
dinna like the clash I hear aboot Eppie in the Broch. There's
that nice lad frae Moray at least they say that baith he and
Uncle Ned belang to Fochabers Alister Ross is clean daft
aboot her ; but Eppie, they tell me, hauds up her nose at him.
And they do say but ye'll ken best, Marion, though there's
aye water whar the stirkie drowns that she's ower thick wi'
young Racket "
" Harry is laird noo," Mrs Mark interposed.
"To be sure, we a' ken that the laird's dead," says Miss
Sherry. " He was an acquaintance o' mine in auld days, afore
he gaed gyte never a freen'. There were some bad stories
aboot him lang syne, and if puir Rob Cheves hadna been a
fule, we micht hae gotten some verra enterteenin' information
noo that Joe Hacket's safe awa'. And young Hairy's a bad
boy, or I'm mistaen. Bourd not wi' bawtie ; and if Eppie
comes, I maun gie her a word o' advice. Mark should look
after her a bit."
" Eppie '11 gang her ain gait, auntie we maunna mell. But
I shouldna wonner if baith Alister and Harry Hacket were at
the ploy to-night "
" Harry Hacket ! " exclaimed Miss Sherry. " It's no a week
sin' the auld man was buried. It wudna be decent, but it's
little for decency he cares."
IN THE YEAR ONE. 159
" Weel, auntie, I dinna ken ; but Mark met him on the road
yestreen, and he thocht it was neeborlike to ask him to come
across. Mark's very simple honest man ! but Hairy was as
ceevil as could be, and Mark thinks he'll come."
Then the guests began to arrive.
The farm lads and lasses were sent to eat their cakes and
sup their " sowens " in the barn ; whereas Dr Caldcail, Mr
Skinner, Captain Knock, and one or two more of the better
sort, were ushered into the parlour. Mark gave his friends a
cordial greeting and a tremendous " grip " ; and they forthwith
gathered round the hospitable board, where the savoury messes
prepared by the Graces were steaming invitingly. A cold
turkey, a red-hot haggis, crappit-heads, mealy puddings, a
roly-poly these old Scotch dishes were worthy of the worthy
people who were bred upon them. So long as the Nodes
Ambrosiana survive and the Nodes will live when the Radi-
cals and Republicans who sneer at the ambrosial nights and
their ideal gluttony are eaten of worms (the poor worms !)
the memory at least of this national and historical fare will be
kept fresh and savoury, embalmed in immortal prose.
" Mr Skinner will ask a blessing on these mercies," says
Mark ; and then they set to, and ate as they could eat in the
year One.
A sweet and venerable old man was John Skinner, genial
and easy-tempered as a singer of songs should be, yet with a
quiet tenacity of character and conviction that could have
nerved him to die had it been required of him for what he
deemed to be the truth of God. The evil persecuting days,
when he had been dragged from his bed to jail for venturing
to minister to the scattered remnant, had passed away like a
bad dream ; and now, loved and honoured by gentle and
simple, he saw his children's children at his knee, and peace
in Israel. He had been a poet of the people before Robert
Burns was born ; and now " puir Robbie " was dead, and the
old man mourned for him as for a brother.
160 IN THE YEAR ONE.
Captain Knock, who was seated beside the comely hostess,
was in great force.
"A remarkable turkey, Mrs Holdfast, a verra fine turkey
indeed, and you maun favor me wi' the receipt for the stuffin',
which is maist excellent. But if you had seen the breed we
had at Tillymaud ! they were simply stu-pen-dious ! I mind
the Admiral dining wi' me ae day. ' Captain,' says he, ' that
turkey weighs fifteen punds good.' ' Fifteen punds ! ' says I.
' I'll wager a dozen of Bordeaux that it's thirty if it's an ounce.'
' Done ! ' says he and we had it oot o' the dish and weighed
upon the spot. It was five-and-thirty punds, as I'm a leein'
sinner ! The Admiral wudna believe his eyes ; but he sent
the hogshead a' the same, and gude claret it was, and weel
liket for mony a day. We ca'ed it the thirty-five."
Miss Sherry for her share had a minister on either hand,
the kindly representatives of the rival creeds.
" The Doctor tells me, John Skinner, that ye are leavin' us
for gude and a'. That maunna be : the bishop's a worthy
man and a gude son ; but it wud be a sin to tak' you from
your auld freen's."
"Indeed, Miss Sherry, I'm beginnin' to break, and the
lasses are a' forisfamiliate, and in spite of the Gude Book and
a bit sang at times the house feels lonely, tho' Kirsty is a
canty and couthie lass."
" And the Pharos o' Linshart," said the Doctor, " will be
darkened ! Have you considered how the Longside lads will
wun thro' the Longate bogs on the mirk nights ? "
" We are unaccoontable beings," replied the old man, softly.
"Will you believe me, Miss Sherry, that I canna thole the
notion o' extinguishin' that poor little Pharos, as oor reverend
freen' ca's it ? It has burned there for fifty years as steady as
the Polar star. I was tellin' the laird that he maun execute
a mortification on its behalf; but he says that in that case
the auld man maun bide to see that it burns fairly. Indeed,
Pitfour has a kind heart, and I sent him a bit rhyming letter
o' thanks for a' the gude he has done to me and mine."
"You maun gie me a copy, John Skinner," says Miss
Sherry. " I dearly love your verses yours and Robbie's ;
IN THE YEAR ONE. l6l
tho' the Doctor here is a' for Pop, and Swift, and Addison
feckless bodies wi' their fushionless English trashtrie. But
you see he has nae ear for music, puir man ! "
"Come, come, Miss Sherry, that's not fair. I could ance
dance Tullochgorum with the best of you ; and I agree with
Rob that there's a wild happiness o' thocht and expression
that's what he wrote you, Skinner, if I remember richtly
about the Ewie wf the Crookit Horn, which makes it one
o' the best o' Scotch sangs. But, my dear freen', do let us
hear a verse or two o' the epistle to Pitfour."
" My memory is no what it used to be, tho' indeed to this
day I can repeat the maist part o' Chryste-Kirk-d'-the-Green.
But there's twa-three lines that wud you believe it ! brocht
the tears into my auld een as I penned them ; " and the old
man repeated in a low voice the simple lines which some of
us have not forgotten :
' ' Now in my eightieth year, my thread near spun,
My race through poverty and labour run ;
Wishing to be by all my flock beloved,
And for long service by my Judge approved ;
Death at my door, and heaven in my eye
From rich or great what comfort now need I ?"
There was a shadow of a tear in Miss Sherry's keen eyes as
he concluded, and the Doctor exclaim'ed somewhat testily,
" Hoots, hoots, my freen', this will never do. You'll set us
greetin', and what wud Mrs Mark say to weet eyes at her
ploy?"
" To be sure, to be sure ; yet, as we a' ken, Doctor, joy wi'
jist a touch o' regret is ever the sweetest. And tears and
smiles are aye meetin' in this changefu' warld. 'Seria non
semper delectant, non joca semper. Semper delectant seria
mixta jocis.' Beggin' Miss Sherry's pardon."
" That's true, my freen', and we'll talk nae mair Latin, tho'
indeed no man can write better Latin than John Skinner.
And that reminds me that I've never got the copy o' the
Batrachomyomachia Homeri latinis vestita cum additamentis
(your pardon again, Miss Sherry) that you promised to send
me."
VOL. I. L
162 IN THE YEAR ONE.
" It will be ready by the New Year. It's still in Charles
Chalmers's printin' office."
" Mark is lookin' at you, Doctor," says Miss Sherry.
" Mr Skinner," Mark shouts from the bottom of the table,
" I hear Sandy Scott tunin' his fiddle. They'll be waitin' for
us in the barn. But we maunna part till you sing us the
Ewie?
" Mark," said the old man, " I've never sung the Ewie
since my dear Grisel left me. But there's a wheen verses to
the tune o' ' Auld Lang Syne ' that might not come amiss at
this time."
And then he sang, in a remarkably pure and clear voice for
a man of eighty, to the air that goes direct to every Scotsman's
heart, a verse or two from the Auld Minister's Sang.
f ' Though ye live on the banks o' Doun,
And me besooth the Tay,
Ye well might ride to Faukland town
Some bonny simmer's day.
And at that place where Scotland's King
Aft birled the beer and wine,
Let's drink, an' dance, an' laugh, an' sing,
An' crack o' auld lang syne."
" Noo, Doctor," said Miss Sherry, " mind, ye are promised
to dance a strathspey wi' me."
" Indeed, Miss Sherry, my dancin' days are past, forbye it
was the minuet we mainly practised at the French Court in
the year saxty-five. But," continued the Doctor, gallantly, " I
never could resist the solicitations of the gentle sex. Ye will
have your fling at Pop, Miss Sherry ; but wha could compli-
ment the leddies like Pop ?
' Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.'
So I maun do my best wi' my auld legs," he added, looking
down complacently at the knee-breeches and black silk stock-
ings then commonly worn as evening dress by the order to
which he belonged.
IN THE YEAR ONE. 163
The fun had become fast and furious before Eppie arrived.
She was dressed with excessive simplicity, she always dressed
simply. She had discovered that the simplest dress set off to
best advantage her shapely figure and finely poised head.
The Doctor, rather out of breath with the strathspey, was
seated beside Miss Sherry when she arrived. "What a grand
creature it is ! " he said. "But she's oot o' her place in a
farmhouse. She should hae been bred in a palace. She's
fine as Desdemona. She might lie by an emperor's side and
command him tasks."
" Gude be here, Doctor," said Miss Sherry. " I howp she
disna think o' lyin' by onybody's side yet. Eppie's jimp
eighteen ; and I never did quite like the expression o' her
face. Gie me a sweet honest face like Kate's ; that's the face
that wears best."
" Nothing venture nothing have," quoth the Doctoi. " If
I were a young man I wud risk a fa' for Eppie."
It was clear that more than one at least of the young fellows
present were of the Doctor's opinion. Eppie had known, as
if by instinct, the moment she entered, that both Alister and
Racket were present ; and she had barely greeted her aunt
before they were by her side.
" No," she said, merely bending her head to the young men,
" I canna dance ; mother's poorly. I've promised Cousin
Mark to be his partner for a Hoolachan." Cousin Mark,
commonly known as Mopsy, was a chubby-cheeked curly-
headed little fellow of eight, who doted on his youthful aunt.
" But I maun be hame in an hour."
She had made up her mind that the situation was too
dangerous. So she would dance with neither.
Alister retreated ; Harry looked black as thunder. Then
the fiddle struck up ; the floor was quickly covered by the
dancers ; the girls were swiftly swung round by their partners
in the frantic passion of Tullochgorum ; the pace grew faster
and faster ; there were wild shouts and shrieks and laughter.
Little Mark clung to Eppie, and was whirled off his feet in
the delirium of the dance. It was a grand romp to an air that
puts mettle into the clumsiest feet the sort of Bacchanalian
1 64 IN THE YEAR ONE.
riot in which these grave people give vent to the suppressed
excitement of their lives. Out of such moments they snatch
a fearful joy, unfamiliar to the grey sky of a land that seldom
brightens into imperfect sunshine.
Eppie and little Mark threw themselves on a bench in a
dim corner. Even in the noisy rapture of the dance, Eppie,
whose head was always cool, had had time to whisper to
Harry (who was leaning against the wall, watching her
moodily), " Harry, I maun speak to you. There's word from
Dick."
So when the dance was finished, Harry sauntered up sulkily
to the place where she sat with the boy in the partial dark-
ness. He was in one of his black moods.
" Rin awa', Mopsy," she whispered to the boy ; and then
turning to Harry, and looking him straight in the face with
her careless unshrinking eyes, " Dinna glower, Harry," she
said. '"You might have the sense to see that I couldna
dance wi' you the night. But, sulky or no, it's the same to
me only I maun gie you the message I gat frae Cummin
Summers. He was waitin' ootside to see you, but he couldna
bide langer. They were fishin' on the Gutter Bank last night.
The Crookit Meg is cruising aboot the bank, waitin' for the
neap-tide. He spoke to Dick and the skipper. They will
run for Pot-Head on Monday night whenever it's dark, and
they'll ken from the licht at Port Erroll whar they can land
freely. Now, go ; see, they are lookin' at us."
" But, Eppie, why are you so unkind ? It's weeks since I
saw you, and now you haven't a civil word for a poor devil.
Let me take you home."
"No no no," she exclaimed, hastily. "Watty is here
wi' his lantern ; it's only a minute's run. Bide whar you are,
Harry ; there would be a clash if you gaed wi' me."
"Stay, Eppie, one minute. What are we to do with the
gauger?" looking askant at Alister, who was now seated at
the other end of the room with one of the Graces. " I hear
he's at your place every Sabbath afternoon, he and that crazy
fule Uncle Ned." (Eppie frowned.) " It'll be clean impossible
to land a keg if he's in the way ; oor men winna face him.
IN THE YEAR ONE. 165
Well, this is the last job of the kind for me ; I'm sick of the
risk. And, Eppie, anither word. You said that you would
like a cross like Lady Yen-oil's. Now, the skipper is to get
one at Antwerp a gold cross set wi' pearls from the Braes o'
Gicht. I gaed him a dozen wi' him that I got whan divin' as
a boy "
Eppie was touched "Harry, that was kind of you. A
gowd cross "
At this moment they were interrupted by the Doctor and
Miss Sherry.
" What do I hear about a gold cross ? " said the Doctor,
who saw, with his quick tact, that the situation was difficult,
and who was ready to shield, as far as he could, a pretty girl
like Eppie. " We'll have no papistrie in Buchan, Mr Racket
not even to oblige Miss Sherry, who is hand and glove wi'
the Pop. No, no, Miss Eppie, if we are to introduce the
cross into a land which has profited by the Reformation, it
maun be a less debatable article, and mair becomin' a sweet
lass like yoursel'. There is another Pop for whom my freen'
Miss Sherry has nae particular regard in fact, no regard at
all and he wrote some most delectable verses, in English,
I grant you : he didna understan' the Scots, mair's the pity
aboot his Belinda's cross
' On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss and infidek adore.' "
The Doctor rattled off his nonsense gallantly, resolved to see
Eppie out of the scrape if possible. Hacket, with a sullen
salutation to Miss Sherry, had turned away ; Eppie had drawn
herself up to her full height, and stood at bay with a curl on
her lips, and the unpleasant look in her eyes. Miss Sherry
was ready for battle.
" Eppie Holdfast," she said, " it becomes a maid to walk
warily. The Doctor kens that I'm nae a preceesian" here
she turned round ; but the Doctor, seeing the conflict inevi-
table, had fled " and I've nae patience wi' the Pharisee who
because he has a sore nose threeps that a' the warld should
wear plasters. But there's a line across which an honest lass
1 66 IN THE YEAR ONE.
canna venture ; and Harry Racket is no an improvin' freen'
for an honest lass. It's no that he's wild, Eppie maist young
lads will get into a scrape at times ; but he's hard and cruel.
He wull seek a' that you can gie him, and then leave you
without a thocht. Tak' my word I kent his feyther, and
I ken himsel'. They're like ane anither as twa peas baith
in body and soul. Listen to me, Eppie. There are things
which I canna speak o' to a young lass like you ; but had you
seen Merran Cheves last week fished oot o' Port Henry "
Eppie could listen no longer. Her heart had beat louder
than it had done even during the reel, though her lips did
not cease to smile, and her eye did not quail.
" Harry Mr Hacket is naething to me less than nae-
thing," she said, with a cold hauteur that would have become
a queen.
And then she turned away, and went home without another
word. The warning could not have come at a less fortunate
time ; for to-night, for the first time, her heart had softened to
Harry a little bit a very little bit.
Do not misunderstand me. It was pity that softened her
not love. Ever since Alister's return it had become daily
clearer to herself that some unknown spiritual force had taken
possession of her soul. She resented the unfamiliar durance,
strove against it as a captive against his chain. She had been
mistress of herself till now, except for one brief intoxicating
moment months ago upon the moonlight sea ; and it humbled
her to feel that her heart was growing stronger than her will.
She was angry with both her lovers. She spoke coldly to
Harry; to his rival she was brusque and repellent. But if
Alister had been able to lift the veil, he would have known
that she was already won.
The moonlight was still brilliant upon the moors, though
Eppie had been hours in bed. She woke suddenly from a
vaguely troubled dream to acute and vivid consciousness. She
had owned to herself as she lay down that Love was winning
the day, and yet she made the admission with reluctant bitter-
ness, O, the pity of it, the pity of it ! Here was the young
laird at her feet, with all the broad acres of Yokieshill in his
IN THE YEAR ONE. 167
hand as a bridal gift, and yet she could not take it. Why
not ? Was it possible that life without Alister could be such
a forlorn business as she now pictured to herself it must be ?
The potent attraction which draws a girl to the one man in
the world for her is not much believed in nowadays ; but in
the year One the Divine Right of Kings and Lovers was still
acknowledged at least by the vulgar in remote parts of the
country. But when she woke of a sudden from her troubled
dreams, all this reluctance had unaccountably vanished. The
knot somehow had untied itself while she slept. She rose
from her bed ; for she felt instinctively that at such a moment
the man she loved must be near at hand. We look on the
faces of the sleeping and they awake ; is there the same mag-
netic force in Love ? Anyhow she saw, as she drew aside the
curtain, a dark figure standing below her window, his long
shadow projected across the moor. She knew it was Alister,
and, unseen, she stretched out her arms towards him. " Dear-
est, dearest," she murmured, with a passion of yearning that
surprised herself; and then, blushing, ashamed, hardly believ-
ing as yet in the new bliss which had made her for the moment
feeble and "foolish" as a love-sick girl, she let the curtain
drop. But Alister had not witnessed the transfiguration of
love; and as he turned away his heart was sore.
# *
*
Uncle Ned was working next morning in the small and
secluded apartment where he kept his birds, now whistling
softly, anon talking discursively to himself, a habit which he
had acquired in his long solitary rambles.
" I dinna believe that ony boonds can be set to the sagacity
o' beasts and birds, especially birds. They have undoubtedly
a quicker and finer sensebeelity than fowr-legged beasts, which
is not to be wondered at considerin' their daintier and mair
delicate upbringin'. That storks will live only in republics is
a proposition that is unsupported by credible testimony, and
would not indeed increase ane's opinion o' the poleetical in-
telligence and discrimination of the bird. Yet I can well
1 68 IN THE YEAR ONE.
believe that resting on ae leg while haudin' up the ither, she
keeps a chucky-stane in her claw, which droppin' when she is
like to sleep, the noise waukens her. Nor is that auld story
incredible which affirms that when the geese pass Mount
Taurus they stap their pipes fu' o' gravel to avoid gaggling,
and so by silence escape the eagles, for it is jist clean
impossible to circumvent a wild-guse."
Then, as the work proceeds rapidly under the deft fingers,
his thoughts wander away to the great master of his imagina-
tive life.
" The Doctor maintains whiles in his humorsome way that
Shakespeare is but a nominis umbra, and that Nature hersel'
fashioned the plays as she fashions the crystals and the shells.
And indeed it is true in a sense. But there is mair than the
inevitable instinct o' the silkworm in Lear and Hamlet and
Macbeth. It seems to me whiles that ilk ane o' the great
plays incarnates a master passion o' the sowl : love wi' its
bitter sweetness in Juliet ; and jealousy, which is cruel as the
grave, in Othello ; and anger and desire and madness and
patriotism and ambition. But as I grow auld I have a queer
fondness for Measure for Measure, which they say he wrote
when a lad tho' I canna believe it; for it traverses a' the
problems o' life and death, justice and injustice, order and
anarchy, the strict operation o' law and the finer compen-
sations o' equity ; and contains the latest judgments of that
maister mind on ilka chance o' the game in this vast tennis-
court, where men and women are the ba's."
" So Uncle Ned is at his auld tricks again ? " quoth the
cheery voice of the Doctor at the door. " Shakespeare and
the musical glasses, as the Vicar says ? "
"Sit down, Doctor, sit down. I'm in that humour that if
I canna speak to you or Alister, I maun speak to mysel'. And
sae our musical freen' Mr Skinner means to leave Linshart,
troth, I'm grieved to hear it. Mony a nicht, wadin' after
wild deucks across the Rora mosses, the licht o' that kindly
beacon has warmed my heart. There is naething mair lone-
some than these lang watches beneath the stars, when we
feel that we are being carried swiftly thro' boondless space,
IN THE YEAR ONE. 169
when oor bit warld seems but an insecure and narrow perch.
If we lose oor hold, Doctor, hoo far do we fa'? But that's
mair than a' the doctors can tell. We see aboot us for a bit,
and then, as Hamlet says, the rest is silence. If you'll move
the Tammy Nory to ae side you'll find that a safter seat,
Doctor."
" And that's a Tammy Nory," the Doctor replied, lifting the
bird and seating himself in its place ; " and perhaps you could
tell me, Uncle Ned, what's the difference between a Tammy
Nory and a John Dory."
" Noo, Doctor, I'm no prepared at present to enter on a
metapheesical discussion. But I wanted to speak a word to
you about Alister. The Commodore says that he does his
wark verra weel ; but it's clear to me that the lad has lined
heart a'thegither."
"Alister is bewitched, Uncle Ned, clean bewitched; and
the little French monkey at Fontainbleau has done the mis-
chief. What sweet oblivious antidote can physic love? give
him a dose of it and the boy will mend. I saw the witch at
Achnagatt last night : she has got a great big blustering horse-
fly in her web, and she means to to eat him. What fools
the women are, to be sure and the men too ! Yet it seems
to pay : Fortuna favit fatuis"
"Ay, Doctor, the Deil's aye guid to his ain. But I can
mak' naething o' Eppie noo. Speak to her and she jist sits
and looks at you wi' her black gipsy eyes, wi'oot answerin' a
word. A maiden has nae tongue but thought. True ; yet
there's something uncanny and bye-ordinar' in Eppie's silence."
" Hang it, man, dinna fash her. It's you and Miss Sherry
will drive her across the dyke. She's no the first witch I've
kent, they were in covies at Paris in the year saxty-five. Wha
can tell what thochts pass thro' these inscrutable creatures,
specially at eighteen or thereby? The Dean declares that
women's prayers are things perfectly by rote, as they pit on
one stocking after anither ! Nae doobt they sattle doon after
a bit; but they need a light hand at startin'. But here's
Willie Macdonald wi' the papers, let's hear what \hzjournal
says."
I/O IN THE YEAR ONE.
A battle might be lost, or a crown cast away like a bauble,
without Uncle Ned being a bit the wiser. He took little or
no interest in the politics of the grosser world : whereas the
fact that the puffins arrived each year at the Scrath Rock
on the thirtieth of April was really momentous. But the
Doctor was a keen politician.
Any reader who cares to consult a file of the Journal for
the year One may do so at his leisure. He may possibly
light upon the very number which Dr Caldcail unfolded in
Adam Meldrum's inner chamber on that October morning. The
career of Galloping Dick the highwayman, he will observe,
has been brought to a close on the Aylesbury scaffold. Ma-
rengo has been fought, and Seringapatam taken, and Tippoo
Saib killed. Possibly the most vivid reminiscence that these
names will conjure up to him is old Mrs Baird's pious ejacu-
lation when she heard that Tippoo had chained her son to
a brother officer, "Lord pity the chiel that's chained to
oor Davie ! " But from the columns devoted to the latest
London news (ten days old) he will learn that smuggling is
alarmingly on the increase, and that the laws for its suppres-
sion are to be vigorously enforced.
The Achnagatt "clyack" was held on the Wednesday;
the Crookit Meg was timed to reach Hell's Lum on the
Monday night. So much for the days of the week : I
must refer you to the columns of the Journal if you are
anxious to identify the days of the month.
Eppie was curiously restless during these intervening days.
She sat talking dreamily to her mother, who was ill in bed,
or wandered aimlessly about the farm and among the rocks.
But no one came near her. There was the occasional white
sail of a passing ship at sea. A flock of golden plover wheeled
over the house : the melancholy wail of the curlew was heard
from the distant mosses. The men were at work in some
outlying fields. Mennie, her mother's old servant, flitted un-
easily about her pale mistress, who seemed to her experienced
IN THE YEAR ONE. 1 71
eye to be growing thinner and frailer each successive day,
wasting away with the wasting year. And the weather was as
still as the house ; the noisy equinoctial gales had exhausted
their passion, and the days were soft and moist and warm,
though the sun was invisible through the dull steamy haze
that rested on land and sea. It was that ghost of the Indian
summer which visits Scotland in October.
At last Eppie could bear it no longer. She got Watty to
saddle Bess, and she started by herself for a canter across the
moors. The swift motion brought the blood into her cheeks.
The little mare galloped gamely, and for an hour her mistress
did not tighten the reins. Then of a sudden the pony came
to a dead stop, she had cast a shoe. It was well on in the
Thursday afternoon.
Fortunately the mischance had occurred on the Saddle-hill
within a few hundred yards of the Alehouse Tavern. There
is, or was, a smithy on the other side of the road. Eppie
dismounted and led the mare to the smithy, which was grow-
ing effulgent as the darkness gathered. Rob Ranter, the
smith, was absent ; but a little imp, who had been blowing
the bellows to keep his hand in, undertook to fasten the shoe
which Eppie had picked up when she dismounted. The
people of that district have a curious liking for diminutives,
and this little imp of the forge was familiarly and affectionately
known as "the Deevilikie." Meantime Eppie, gathering up
her skirt, sauntered across the road.
On the bench in front of the hostelry a familiar figure was
seated. It was our old acquaintance Corbie, the honest
" liar." A pewter measure of spirits stood on the table before
him : it was obvious that he had been drinking hard. Eppie
eyed him curiously and coldly as he greeted her with drunken
gravity.
" Ay, ay, my bonnie young leddie, a sicht o' a sonsy lass
like you is guid for sair een. What wud you be pleased to
tak' ? Lucky will be here presently. Come awa', Lucky, and
attend to the young leddie. And so as I was sayin' when
interrupit by your lordship," he continued, and a wicked
gleam came into the drunken eyes " I gaed doun to Yokies-
172 IN THE YEAR ONE.
hill to see Joe Hacket na, na; I'm wrang Joe was the
auld laird, and the auld laird's dead and damned. Preserve
us a', that's actionable, and veritas convicii non excusat as they
say in the Coorts. Or as the Doctor pits it verra pleasantly,
letters of cursing, says he, being the exclusive privelege o' the
Kirk. Weel, you maun understan', as the morning was fine
for the time o' year, I had the mear oot early and rode an" to
veesit a client or twa. And first I gaed to Mains o' Rora, for
the new millart has a gude-gangin' plea regardin' the sma'
sequels o' the outsucken multures, bannock, knaveship, lock-
and-gowpen, and siclike. And Rora himseF the doited body
winna lat the tacksmen at Clola cut their peats in his moss,
for he manteens, you see, that the clause cum petariis et tur-
bariis is no in the charter. Anither gill, Lucky, anither gill.
But that, my dear, is a contestation that is not regarded wi'
favour by the Coort, for the servitude o' feal and divot may be
constituted by custom, in like manner as the clause cum fab-
rilibus (whereof our gude freen' Rob Ranter is an ensample)
has fa'en into disuse. But these are kittle questions o' her-
itable richt, which maun be decided by the Lords o' Coonsel
and Session, the market-cross o' Edinbro' and the pier and
shore o' Leith being communis patria. And sae, my Lord,"
as he became tipsier he turned more frequently to the
Court, which he fancied he was addressing "being arrived
at Yokieshill, as aforesaid, I tauld Mr Hairy Hacket that it
wud be convenient if he wud sattle the sma' accoont for busi-
ness undertaken by me on the instructions o' his late feyther.
You maun understan', my Lord, that the accoont was maist
rediculously sma' nae aboon twa hundred poonds or thereby.
Weel, he glowered at me like a hell-cat, and swore that not
one doyt or bodle or plack o' his should gae into the pocket
o' a drucken scoon'rel ; drucken scoon'rel, my Lord, these
were the verra words, for I made a note o' them at the time,
and I wull tak' the oath de calumnia if your Lordship pleases.
' Mr Hairy Hacket,' says I, ' ye'll pay my taxed bill o' expenses
by Mononday mornin', or by the Lord ! I'll see you oot o'
Yokieshill.' At this he jist gaed fairly gyte. Says he, comin'
up to me pale as death, and catchin' me by the back o' the
IN THE YEAR ONE. 173
neck, 'Got you go in the first place, you leein' scamp,'
' leein' scamp,' my Lord ; and whan he gat me ootside the
door, he whistled to an ugly savage tyke that was lyin' in the
sun. ' Nell,' says he to the bitch quite coolly, takin' oot his
watch, ' if this infernal swindlin' scoon'rel is not ootside the
yard afore I count ten, gie him a taste o' your teeth.' Mercy
on us, the beast looked up in his face wi' a low snarl. What's
come o' the mutchkin, Lucky? Ay, ay, Mr Hairy Hacket,
infernal swindler leein' scamp drucken scoon'rel, verra
gude, a conjoined action for defamation and assault,
damages laid at twa thoosan' poonds, not a penny less.
Is't you indeed, Miss Eppie? Dear me, so you've come a'
this gait to see the Lords o' Session and Justiciar'. Come
awa" ben, my dear, come awa' ben, auld Joe Hacket is in
the dock for bigamy, and I'm ceeted to speak ceeted as a
wutness, if I'm no ower fou," he added with a dazed look.
" Yes, my Lord, I was present, John Hacket, bachelor, and
Elspet Cheyne, spinster for life and for death, for better and
for waur. But whar's the lines?" Here he pulled some
papers out of his pocket and flung them loose upon the table.
"They were ill-matcht, my Lord, ill-matcht. She couldna
thole his black looks I dinna wonner and she ran aff wi' a
sodger within the year. It was noised at the time that the
ship gaed doon in mid-sea. But auld Mrs Cruickshanks tells
me what did Lucky say? it was the day the Jan Mayen
cam' hame troth, my Lord, I feel that a taste o' speerits, if
the Coort wudna objec' " ,
Here his head fell forward on the table, and in another
minute he was fast asleep.
Eppie had heard the first sentences of the lawyer's harangue
without the least show of interest. She saw that the man was
tipsy, and she stared him straight in the face with her native
chilly indifference. She did not pity him, nor was she afraid
of him : let any man, tipsy or sober, dare to lay a hand upon
her ! So she sat down at the other end of the bench without
uttering a word, and began switching the dust out of her habit
with her whip. But when " Yokieshill " caught her ear, she
turned and listened with closer attention. The legal and Latin
IN THE YEAR ONE.
phrases were, of course, quite unintelligible to her; but she
contrived to follow the main current of the rambling narrative.
This drunken, disreputable lawyer had become master of a
secret which made Harry Hacket what ? Her heart stood
still with sudden fright. Who and what was the man with
whom she had established such perilously close relations?
Was he the laird of Yokieshill or was he not? And the
whole story was to be found in these papers that lay scattered
about the table. She saw the imp bringing her pony out of
the smithy, and she rose to go. Then, with a sudden im-
pulse, turning her back upon the boy, she swept the scattered
papers together and thrust them into her pocket. Corbie
stirred and muttered in his sleep, but he did not waken.
Then she mounted her steed and rode away.
Watty was waiting for her at the farm-door, and took the
pony. Eppie ran up-stairs to her room. It was dark, the
half-veiled moon was rising from the sea like a nymph half-
submerged, shaking the water from her dripping locks. She
got a light, and then she pulled out the papers which she had
well appropriated. Even to Eppie the significance of the
story they told was clear as day. The first paper was a cer-
tificate showing that an irregular marriage had been celebrated
at Inverurie on the i4th of May 1768 between John Hacket
of Yokieshill and Elspeth Cheyne, spinster, lately residing
with Joshua Cheyne in Clola. (Eppie knew that the late
Mrs Hacket Harry's mother had been a Kilgour Jean
Kilgour of Logic.) Then there was a letter of somewhat
later date with the Maryland post-mark, enclosing a draft in
favour of Betsy Cheyne or Cruickshank. The last letter was
written from some place in Maryland, and stated briefly that
Elspeth Cheyne was dead. She had died about a week before
the letter was written. The date and the signature were
illegible; but Eppie found from the post-mark that it must
have been posted during the year then current the year
One. That was all, but it was enough : it was clear that at
the date of the Laird's second marriage his first wife was
alive ; Corbie had not exaggerated when he swore that he
could turn Harry Hacket adrift. His father had left no dis-
IN THE YEAR ONE. 175
position of his estate ; and Yokieshill belonged not to Harry
the bastard, but to the legal heir whoever he might be.
* *
*
The Provost and Bailies of Balmawhapple were met in
solemn conclave. A special messenger from the south had
arrived on horseback that morning Friday morning bring-
ing an official letter addressed to the Provost. On the
cover, in a bold masterful hand, the words "William Pitt"
could be plainly read.
A crowd of excited sailors and fisher-folk were gathered
round the door of the Council Chamber, for rumour as usual
had been busy. The Jacobins were in possession of the
Metropolis the French fleet was in the offing the Provost
was to be knighted a new battery was to be built on the
Ronheads. It seemed, however, to be generally understood
that Corbie was in possession of authentic intelligence ; and
his diplomatic disclaimers were treated with ill-concealed
incredulity.
" Sir Roderick, indeed ! A compliment to the burgh !
Na, na, they're ower busy to send compliments sae far north.
And the Provost's a decent and deservin' body, wha winna
mak' a fule o' himsel' at his time o' life, tho' it's true, as they
say, that there's nae fule like an auld fule. A new battery ?
It's not to be denied, Mrs Lyell, that the rickle o' auld
stanes at the Ronhead is fa'in' to pieces; but whar's the
siller to be fand ? The Jacobites were bad eneuch, and the
Jacobins are nae better, I grant you ; but if we're to be eaten
oot o 1 hoose and Ian' wi' these murderin' taxes, there'll soon
be little love for King George left in the country-side. Pawt-
triotism, my freen's? it's not possible to be a pawtriot wi'
Glendronoch at twenty shillings a gallon. And as to the
French man-o'-war aff Collieston "
Here the Provost appeared on the steps of the Town Hall,
and beckoned to the lawyer. Corbie obeyed the summons
with alacrity.
"Look here, Corbie," said the Provost, when they were
IN THE YEAR ONE.
out of earshot of the crowd, " this is no a matter for argument,
nor yet for a joke. I have never mysel' had dealings with
the free-traders ; and tho' it is said that there are folk in the
toun wha dinna objec' to traffic wi' them our freen's in the
Council bein' agreeable to wink when needfu' I'm willing
that byganes should be byganes. But, Corbie, my man,
there maun be an end o' the trade noo. They have heard
in Lunnon that a' that trash o' French treason comes across
the water on boord the luggers ; and the Commodore has
been warned that he'll lose his place if anither cargo is
landed this side o' Newburgh. A troop o' sodgers will be
here next week, and ilka yard o' the coast will be watched
day and nicht. Noo, Corbie, ye ken verra weel what you're
aboot, and if you should hear by chance that ony o' your
acquaintance hae a taste for Hollands and French brandy,
you might advise them privately to stick to the native speerit,
as being, in the meantime at least, safer for the stamack.
Dinna say a word, my man least said, soonest mended I'm
awa' to get the Doctor to compose a bit note to Mr Pitt, for
neither Bailie nor Provost, I reckon, has the pen of a ready
writer."
Corbie was sharp enough when sober (he had slept off
yesterday's debauch), and he saw the drift of the Provost's
speech quite plainly. The Provost, he knew, was, till roused,
the soul of good nature and good fellowship ; and the mere
fact of his delivering this elaborate address proved that he
was roused now. It was clear that the authorities had re-
solved, willingly or unwillingly, to set their faces against the
trade ; and that any one who was interested in it and who
was not? had better look to himself with all convenient
speed.
But Corbie was puzzled how to act. After his experience
of yesterday he would have no more dealings with Mr Harry
Hacket except in a court of law Harry might go hang for
him; and besides, it was awkward that the documents on
which he mainly relied should have unaccountably gone
astray. He knew for certain that the Crookit Meg was daily
expected : he knew that the cargo was of altogether excep-
IN THE YEAR ONE. 177
tional value. What was to be done? The increase in the
strength of the coastguard was not to take place for some
days : could the landing be effected before the new-comers
arrived ? It had been whispered about that the cargo was to
be run on the Monday night ; but if the Crookit Meg was
communicated with in time, it might be possible to get every-
thing made snug before the close of the week then current
which would be a deal better. And if it came to the worst,
there were the twelve hours after sunset on Sunday ; and in
the year One in a district, moreover, where an easy-going
Episcopacy had survived Sabbatarianism was not rampant,
least of all among the free-traders and the fisher-folk.
During the course of the afternoon Corbie had a word or
two in his office with Peter Buchan " Young Peter " as he
was called, to distinguish him from his father " Auld Peter."
Peter had returned from the Greenland seas on board the
Jan Mayen a week or two before (being, indeed, the smart
young fellow who had greeted Harry Hacket on the pier at
Port Henry) ; and he was now engaged in his usual winter
pursuit cod-fishing off the Gutter Bank.
It was not quite dusk when one of the large yawls used in
the deep-sea fishing left the south harbour for the Gutter
Bank. Peter Buchan was at the helm. " It's a mighty fine
night for the big cod," he remarked casually, as they stole
past the pier-head, where a private of the coastguard was
seated, whistling drowsily as he polished his pistols.
* *
*
The fishing hamlet of Port Erroll is built along the ledges
of the North Haven cliffs ; while the fishing-boats are drawn
up out of reach of the breakers on the bleached sands of the
cove. Seen from a distance from a distance, remember
these whitewashed, red-tiled cottages present an appearance of
most picturesque confusion. A quaint gable end with a most
preposterous little window peeps round the corner : one old-
fashioned mansion has mounted bodily on the back of its
neighbour : were a single wall in the lower tier to give way,
VOL. I. M
178 IN THE YEAR ONE.
the whole community would incontinently topple into the sea.
Slippery steps compounded of mud and water and the remains
of slaughtered fish connect the various storeys of this perpen-
dicular hamlet, and lead ultimately, after a series of successful
manoeuvres, to the beach on the one hand and the upper
world on the other. Nets and great black pots and dried
fish and the wings of sea-fowl are suspended along the walls ;
and ducks, and gulls who have been made captive in their
youth, and a large scrath with a look of insatiate gluttony
stamped on its ugly face, explore the recesses of an ample
ash-pit, which has not been emptied within the memory of the
oldest inhabitant. An ill-favoured and ill-conditioned sow
waddles greedily from one tempting abomination to another,
and disputes with lean and weather-beaten curs the savoury
nuisances of the dung-heap. Amid the dirt, innumerable little
bundles of rags and tatters the progeny of the fertile sea
wallow with unspeakable zest, and as we discover in these
parcels of filth the bright eye and the roguish smile, we are
more than ever impressed by the unquenchable Han of boy-
hood. Nowadays such a community would be held to offend
grievously against all the conditions on which health depends ;
but in the year One sanitary science was in its infancy, and
these worthy people those of them, at least, who escaped
the perils of the sea never thought of dying, except of old
age.
The sun has set : lights begin to twinkle among the cot-
tages. It is the Sabbath night, and the inmates are sitting
lazily at the doors of their dwellings. Then a bell is rung,
and the women rise and walk leisurely towards the chapel on
the rock a building as grey and weather-stained as the rock
itself. Some of the men follow. The evening service has
begun, and forthwith the music of the great sea-psalm echoes
across the bay :
"The floods, O Lord, have lifted up,
They lifted up their voice ;
The floods have lifted up their waves,
And made a mighty noise.
IN THE YEAR ONE. 179
But yet the Lord that is on high
Is more of might by far,
Than noise of many waters is
Or great sea billows are. "
Presently the rough voice of the Missionary in urgent interces-
sion with a jealous God is heard through the open door,
though the words of the prayer cannot be distinguished. But
were we to enter we could guess that the congregation are
preoccupied and inattentive, even the preacher becoming
ultimately aware that the thoughts of his hearers are wool-
gathering. So the service is brought to an abrupt conclusion,
and the congregation stream out into the twilight All eyes
are turned at once and instinctively towards the sea. Yes
a blue light is burning on the water, a couple of miles from the
land. One or two of the men disappear from the crowd, and
scramble away to a ledge where a heap of brushwood has been
collected ; a piece of tinder is ignited with the old-fashioned
"flint and fleerish," and presently the brushwood is in a
blaze. These are signals signals between the sea and the
shore. If you were versed in the language of the craft, you
would understand that the blue light from the Crookit Meg
was a note of interrogation " Is the coast clear ? " and that
the red blaze from North Haven was the answer " It is all
safe at Hell's Lum."
Then the women and children go indoors, and in parties of
twos and threes the men ascend the steep footpath leading to
the mainland, and turn their faces to the south.
V.
I CANNOT tell exactly what passed through Eppie's soul
during the two days that followed her interview with Corbie
on the Saddle Hill. Her mind was in a whirl. The un-
familiar restlessness which had taken possession of her in-
creased more and more. She was as unquiet as the flock
of plover which continued to wheel round the farmhouse
180 IN THE YEAR ONE.
haunting and hurting her with the burden of their plaintive
lament. Her chilly serenity had deserted her, she was
anxious, nervous, excited. A medical man who had felt
her pulse then for the first time would have fancied that
there was fever in her blood. Ambition had twisted its
fibres round her heart; and she had seen her way at last
to the high place which she coveted. She had, in a fashion,
persuaded herself that she was in love with the Prince, this
bluff Prince Hal, who had ascended the vacant throne, and
who kept a seat for her by his side. And it was true that she
had thawed to him ; he had been considerate in his rough
way : the world, she began to feel, had treated him hardly
had, it might be, even harder treatment in store for him.
And, had her heart only been free to consent, there was a
certain innate largeness in Eppie's nature, almost or indeed
more than masculine in its supercilious magnanimity and
indifference to public opinion, which would have kept her
obstinately loyal to one born under an adverse and evil star.
Yet it was, in truth, a very different force a far more potent
attraction that had shattered at last the crust of her self-
regard. The beginnings of life are full of mystery : so are
the beginnings of love. Why Eppie's heart should have
selected this precise moment to assert its rights will
probably never be known : Eppie herself did not, I believe,
know any more about it than the rest of us. But the
fact remains : it was the secret sweetness of the hopes
and memories with which the thought of Alister suddenly
and unaccountably suffused her soul that had softened her,
softened the keen hard eyes, and made the world which she
saw through the mist of unfamiliar tears a world of unfamiliar
tenderness. Ah ! my poor Eppie, why did you not waken a
little earlier ? Is it possible that you can yet free yourself
from the net which your own selfish pride has woven ? can
yet escape from the entanglements, the mean and base
entanglements, in which you are caged? Or is it too late
for redress?
Alas ! the punishment of sin by some mysterious law is
often delayed until the sin has been put away from us, and
IN THE YEAR ONE. l8l
traitors to love are tried and convicted when their treason is
dead and buried.
There is a piercing wail of delicious pain which we
sometimes hear in music, as when the Mermaid's Song in
Oberon is sung low and softly at twilight. Such a passion
of longing and sadness and exquisite abandonment took
possession of Eppie's soul. It startled her, but it soothed
her. She was mesmerised by the sweet subtle persuasive
desire that had nestled itself like a bird -Cupid in her
heart.
She scarcely slept during these nights. She heard the
murmur of the sea, not the loud beat of noisy waves on
pebbly beaches (for the high cliffs divide us from the strife at
their feet), but the still small voice of the mighty tides which
circle majestically round the world. Her window was open,
she was as hardy as the plovers whose shrill challenge when a
whitret or a fox came prowling past disturbed the mystery of
the silence and the darkness. At times she heard Mennie
stirring about her mother, and she rose in her bed and
listened softly. A thrill of tenderness for the pale, silent,
suffering woman in the room below touched her as it had not
touched her before. The pitifulness of the doom which had
thrust this strong masterful will aside made her heart ache.
Could it be that Fate was to bear her, was even now bearing
her, yet farther away from the little kingdom whose policy for
many a year she had guided and inspired? Death is sad
enough ; but the few dreary days during which the sceptre of
high command is falling from the listless emaciated fingers
are even sadder.
So that when the Sunday evening came and Alister arrived,
Eppie's whole soul was swelling on the unfamiliar tide of
tenderness. Tears came into her eyes on the slightest
provocation. She had begun to understand that divine
necessity of life which joins its joy and its sorrow together
in mystic inseparable union. We must needs reach the
heights of joy before we perceive that they dip for ever
into an abyss of sadness. Eppie had reached this height.
If Alister speaks out to-night, her casual glimpse into the
1 82 IN THE YEAR ONE.
deep places of the soul may become an habitual mood.
And Alister means to speak out.
But the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
I do not believe that in all their after-lives that soft October
evening, when the mellow autumn twilight melted into moon-
light, was forgotten by Alister and Eppie. Eppie had at
length abandoned herself to the stream which was bearing her
gently to the Happy Islands ; Alister was infected by her
dreamy bliss. They wandered among the rocks where they
had wandered as children ; they crossed in mere wantonness
the mauvais pas at the Bloody Hole ; they laughed gleefully
when their old friend the peregrine rose screaming and scold-
ing from his rock. The Scrath Pillar was black with cormo-
rants, who were balancing themselves in all sorts of grotesque
attitudes on impossible pinnacles ; they laughed again at the
uncouth gambols of the solemn and funereal birds. Then they
went into the house, where supper had been prepared for them
by Mennie. Eppie ran up to her mother's room, and returned
radiant. Mrs Holdfast was a shade better, and would see
Alister. So Alister was taken into the sick-room, and the
sick woman smiled into his face, and pressed his hand with
an air of soft entreaty. Was she resigning to the lover the
mother's jealous rights in her wilful pet ? In these last hours
the soul, "beginning to be freed from the ligaments of the
body," rises into a finer air, and sees right and wrong, the
true and the false, the noble and the ignoble, as they are seen
by the eyes of immortality. But neither Eppie nor Alister
knew that when the wan woman laid her trembling hands
upon his hand it was a farewell blessing she meant to convey
to him. Then they returned into the little parlour which
opened into Eppie's sitting-room, where they found the simple
fare of the farmhouse oat-cakes, fresh butter, fragrant honey,
creamy milk (do not scorn it, on such fare the Ossianic
heroes were bred) arranged for them on a heavy oaken
buffet, elaborately carved in fruit and flowers, which Marie
Touchet may have brought with her from Fontainebleau.
IN THE YEAR ONE. 183
Alister had been commissioned by Uncle Ned (who was
confined to the house by a feverish attack) to implement a
promise which he had long ago made to Eppie. The Saints'
Rest, the family Bible (in which Eppie's was the latest entry
among the births), and one or two manuals of Calvinistic
divinity lay on the window-sole of the parlour ; but there was
no Shakespeare in the limited library of the farmhouse. The
whole of that wonderful fable-land (except for Uncle Ned's
reminiscences) was a terra incognita to Eppie, who indeed,
from her childhood, like the old lords of the district, had
loved better to hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak.
This day Alister had brought one of the prized volumes in his
pocket, and when the meal was finished Eppie insisted that
he should read her "a bit of a play." Their conversation
had begun to flag ; the girl had grown shy and conscious
adorably shy and conscious ; the open book was a barrier be-
hind which she instinctively retreated. She pushed the volume
across the table, and sat looking at him as he turned the
leaves, with her hands in her lap. The volume had opened
at Romeo and Juliet. Juliet ? ay, here was a braver Juliet,
and as he ran rapidly over the earlier incidents of the tragic
story, which is bitter with the bitterness of things too sweet,
his thoughts wandered away from fair Verona to return to the
Fontainbleau farmhouse. Romeo's boyish rapture, indeed,
could poorly compare with his steadier and manlier love ; but
Juliet's novel abandonment of passion suited Eppie's mood.
Here at last, set in articulate speech, was that ideal world of
which she had been dreaming dreaming since she awoke.
She sat looking at him, her lips apart, her hands pressed to-
gether, as if fascinated. Had he spoken at that moment, all
might have been well. But when he came to
" It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale "
Eppie started up : " Stay, Alister, stay, I hear mither movin',"
she exclaimed in a voice that sounded tense and excited, as
she darted out of the room.
Alister's heart was full. Love had told him that Eppie was
altered. Her voice was softer her mood more playful and
1 84 IN THE YEAR ONE.
yet more tender. There was an unfamiliar moisture of happi-
ness in her eyes. Alister was a simple lad ; but love quickens
the apprehension. He felt that the spring-time had come at
last.
He waited for her to return. He would take her in his
arms, and whisper the story of a devotion of which after all
Romeo's wayward vehemence was but a dim reflection.
" See, how she leans her head upon her hand !
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek ! "
No no, the direct energy of his passion would employ no
such tortuous diplomacy. And Eppie, this new Eppie,
so changed from the Eppie who had listened with chilly
acquiescence
At this moment he heard a low whistle outside (the
window was open) " Hist Hist Miss Eppie Miss
Eppie ! " and then a scrap of paper wrapped round a pebble
fell upon the floor at his feet. He sprang to the window
through which it had been flung ; but though the moonlight
was clear as day on the moors, this side of the house was
in deep shade, and he saw no one.
Then he picked up the scrap of paper which had become
detached by the fall. He looked at it involuntarily; in-
voluntarily his eyes followed the words. There were only a
couple of hastily scrawled lines; but he staggered as if
struck by a blow. " Darling Eppie," it said, " Eppie darling,
dinna let the gauger leave by hook or by crook keep him
from Hell's Lum." And it was initialed " H. H."
I need make no mystery about this fateful scroll. Harry
Hacket on his way to the Cove had learned at the Alehouse
Tavern that Alister (whose movements had been anxiously
watched) was still at Fontainbleau ; and he had immediately
despatched "the Deevilikie" with the lines which he had
hurriedly scrawled at the bar. "The Deevilikie," with the
perverse ingenuity of his connection, had cleverly conveyed it
to the wrong hand.
*
*
IN THE YEAR ONE. 185
" I swear by the God who made me that it is false ! "
Eppie exclaimed passionately, as with a bitterness of pain
past all words she clung to her lover, seeking with one last
frantic despairing effort to detain him. Treachery was ab-
horrent to every instinct of the better nature which love was
fashioning, and this was treachery of which she was accused,
mean and base and senseless treachery to the man she
loved.
But Alister would not relent would not indeed listen;
the simple honest heart had grown implacable in a moment.
Had he known women better he would have known that this
mad passion of despair was genuine, that no actress could
have thrown all that heartbreak into spoken words, that
only an agony of love and longing could have forced this icy
maiden to cling to him as she did.
But he did not believe her her treason was too patent,
even thus with her arms about him she was only obeying the
mandate of his rival.
Then the clock struck ten : the rosy hours as they read
together had slipped away unnoted.
" Ten o'clock, by God, and the men at Collieston."
It was the first time that any one had heard Alister take
that high name in vain : but he was not himself.
Then without another word he tore himself from the
clinging arms, and went out swiftly into the moonlight.
There might yet be time.
The image of Love had been irreparably fractured ; but
the failure of duty might be repaired.
Eppie stood where he had left her, dreary, hopeless,
heartbroken. Then she cast herself in hard tearless silence
upon her bed, where she lay for hours without moving, her
face turned to the wall. When, in the first light of the chilly
dawn, she rose up pale and silent, with black circles round
the coal-black eyes, the bloom of young desire, the purple
Might of love, had passed out of her face.
* *
*
1 86 IN THE YEAR ONE.
Uncle Ned had that evening been as restless as Eppie.
He was feverish and unsettled. His books, even his birds,
had failed to interest him. He was continually going to the
open door, voices were sounding in his ears that seemed
to come from the sea. When it was close upon midnight he
looked out again. The moon was high in heaven, night was
as clear as day. For many years he had tramped about the
country by moonlight. To most of us Nature is only known
in her waking moods ; we are asleep during those ineffable
moments when she is dreaming, when the shy birds are
fishing in the river mouth, when the owl and the fox and the
dormice are alert, with listening ears. But the night side
of her life was as well known to Uncle Ned as the other.
The short summer nights were over for the year, and the old
man had felt with a pang that, in the meantime at least, he
would go no more a-gipsying. But the splendour of the
moonlight tempted him until he could resist no longer.
There was a bank of whins above the Water of Slains from
whence he had often watched the water-birds all night. Yes,
the air was soft and warm, he could take no harm. And if
he should ? How could a lover die better than in the lap
of his mistress? "Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade,
minions of the moon," he said, with a soft laugh. Then he
went into the inner sanctum, to take a farewell look at the
birds. There was a small family of kittiwakes downy little
morsels which he had still in hand. The group was not
quite to his mind, so he sat down and deftly touched them
here and there. Then he rose, and locking the outer door,
took the road to the Ward, walking rather unsteadily at
times. His feet did not seem to move as freely as they once
did, he confessed, rather sadly.
I know that whin-bank myself once, long ago (when on a
summer fishing ramble), I slept among the furze. Then I
saw something by snatches of the life that Uncle Ned knew
by heart. It is a memorable experience in its way. The
unquiet and unrest of the daytime are gradually subdued
as the evening descends. Anon the hoarse cry of the heron,
the shrill plaint of the plover, or the wild cry of some belated
IN THE YEAR ONE. 187
sea-bird, break at long intervals the quiet murmur that comes
seaward across the sandhills. Then there is an hour or so of
perfect stillness in the deep of the dead night, which lasts
until the grey light begins slowly to gather along the sullen
sky. When we are able to look abroad the world is motion-
less and inanimate, and a heavy cloud of mildew hangs over
the river. The blackfaced sheep had begun to bleat when it
was still dark, and now the voices of countless water-birds,
who have been waiting for the retreat of the tide, answer
each other mournfully through the damp air of the -early
morning.
"The air bites shrewdly," said Uncle Ned, by this time
settled comfortably in a furze-bush. " It maun be nigh the
dawnin'. What a congregation o' lang-necked herons a per-
fect Presbytery ! I wonner to what religious persuasion they
belang? Maybe they howld wi' John Calvin I suldna be
surprised. This brae is fairly alive wi' bunnies. Dinna mind
me, my furry friend ; nibble awa' wi'oot stanin' on ceremony.
The verra witchin' time o' night ! Surely Shakespeare is
wrang when he mak's it of evil repute there's far less evil
afoot by night than by day. But he pits the words nae doobt
into the mouth of some sinful man, devoured by greed and
ambition. The noon of night the innocent, angel-haunted
hour when even the inaudible and noiseless foot o' time
may be heard by the listening ear. See what a fair pro-
cession o' spiritual forces are on the move, passing across the
face of heaven, like the Northern Dancers. And there's the
first streak o' licht in the east the grey-eyed morn will be
moving presently. A heavenly birth ! Dayrise that is the
hour before the sun himsel' is up to my thinking, is just
perfectly divine. The dew of thy birth is of the womb of the
morning. Truly thae auld Hebrew poets had a wonnerfu'
knack of saying preceesly the richt thing at the richt time."
But it was soon clear to Uncle Ned that more than the
birds were stirring. In fact their clamour quacking of wild
ducks, shrill piping of sandpipers, screaming of sea-mews
proved that they had been disturbed by man. And in the
bright moonlight he discovered across the river a column of
1 88 IN THE YEAR ONE.
men moving down to the ford. The moonlight gleamed upon
steel the men had cutlasses in their hands. It was the coast-
guard.
The incoming tide fills all the low ground which lies be-
tween the sandhills. When Uncle Ned arrived, the wide
level space was flooded. A bright unquiet plain of waters
quivered beneath his feet. But the tide even then was ebbing
running back like a mill-race; and now only a shallow
streamlet flowed lazily through the centre of a wide sandy
plain.
There was a little delay at the ford; but the men were
quickly across. The path from the ford, passing below
"Charlie's Pot" (a noted pool for sea-trout), leads almost
directly to the bank where Uncle Ned was established. Here
it joins the road which runs up-stream to Ardallie; down-
stream across the sandhills to the fishing hamlets at Hell's
Lum.
The night was so still that the hoarse cheery voice of
Captain Knock was recognisable by Uncle Ned. "Well,
you see, Alister, when I had skewered the first Johnny Craw-
paw, I turned upon the ither twa. The ane was a complete
Goliath o' Gath in the uniform o' the auld Guard. He cam'
at me like a mad bull o' Bashan ; but I caught him aneath
his oxter, and he gaed down like a shot dead as Julius
Caesar. The last o' the three a little black pock-marked
chiel, wi' a lang mustache turned to rin, but I had him on
the grun' before he could say Jock Wabster. I was a first-
rate rinner, Alister, in those days I had ta'en a' the prizes
that simmer at the Strathbogie meetin' ; so when the general
Marlboro', ye ken comes up, ' Captain Knock,' says
he "
" I think, sir," said Alister, " that this is the place we spoke
of; it commands baith the road and the foord."
"The verra spot so get the men under cover, and a
mouthfu' o' speerits," added the gallant Captain, diving into
his pocket for his flask, "will keep the mildew oot o' the
stamack." The men were lying down among the whins and
heather, when Uncle Ned, looking towards the sea, saw the
IN THE YEAR ONE. 189
advance-guard of the free-traders appear over the sandhills.
The richest cargo that the Crookit Meg had yet run was at
hand. Slung in panniers on the backs of some thirty or forty
hill-ponies, and guarded by the crew, accompanied by fisher-
men and farm-labourers, silks from Lyons, gin from Holland,
lace from Brussels (and one golden cross set in pearls from
Antwerp), were being conveyed to the interior. At the head
of the band came the "Skipper" a noted smuggler of the
day. Harry Hacket rode beside the leader; on his other
hand a youngster, with a look of premature daredevilry in
his face, but bearing a striking resemblance to Eppie, was
laughing merrily like a boy; and indeed Dick Holdfast
(the spoilt urchin had been the merest youngster when he ran
away to sea, leaving Eppie to monopolise all the tenderness
of the mother's heart in that late autumn of her love) was even
yet barely more than a boy.
The moonlight was still brilliant, though morning was at
hand. The free-traders moved quickly ; but at the ford there
was a moment's pause. It had been arranged that one half
of the party should keep to the river-road leading to the bog
of Ardallie, whence the merchandise could be distributed at
leisure ; the other half crossing at the ford and making for
the old tower of Udny near which the great south road
passed. Of this pause the coastguard took advantage. The
men sprang to their feet, barred the way, and Captain Knock,
who in spite of his brag was as brave as a lion, advanced
upon the leaders. Alister was by his side.
" Hulloo, my freen's, have the goodness to stop for one
minute. Now, Mr Skipper, what may be the meaning of this
moonlicht flittin'?"
" Come, come, Captain," said a deep rough voice in reply.
" Don't try any of your tricks upon us. We are good sub-
jects of King George, and have no will to meddle with you.
So please stand out of the way." The speaker was an
Englishman.
The free-traders were taken by surprise. They had heard
that the coastguard were at Collieston, and they fancied that
the road was clear to the hills. But the cargo was worth
IQO IN THE YEAR ONE.
fighting for ; and, if it came to the worst, they meant to fight.
The crew of the lugger were heavily armed.
"Hang it, Skipper," said young Dick, throwing his plaid
aside and drawing a pistol from his belt, as he pushed for-
ward, "the sooner we get this business through the better."
He was followed by the crew.
There was a confused tumult in the moonlight. Uncle
Ned from his perch saw the flash of steel, saw more than one
man fall, heard a pistol-shot or two, heard Dick's cheery voice
and the Commodore's deep growl. It was clear from the
first, indeed, that the fight was one-sided. The crew were
outnumbered ; the fishermen and the farm-labourers had dis-
appeared before a shot was fired, taking the ponies with them ;
but the sailors' blood was up, and they knew besides that the
venture in which each had an interest would be a dead loss
unless they stood their ground. So many oaths were uttered,
and some deep gashes given, before they yielded. Yet it was
all over in a quarter of an hour or less, and Dick, with an
ugly cut in his face, when he saw that there was no more fight
in the men, managed to reach the close cover of the furze, and
crawl cat-like along the bank. The rest surrendered.
Harry Hacket would have gladly escaped at the outset had
it been possible. But he could not help himself; the crew
were behind him, the revenue officers in front. He inwardly
cursed his luck : this was the worst scrape of his life ; and in
truth the whizz of bullets and the flash of steel made his blood
run cold. He was a coward at heart ; the mere presence of
danger of death unnerved and unmanned him. But the
rage of despair sometimes takes the semblance of manhood.
One of the coastguard had singled out the horseman (his
features obscured by his broad felt hat), and rushed at him
with cutlass drawn. Harry's heart beat as if it would burst ;
but forced to face the instant peril, he drove his spurs deep
into the mare's sides, and sent her at his assailant. He had
only a heavy hunting-whip in his hand ; but he flung it in
the man's face as he raised the cutlass, and it blinded him for
the moment. Before he could recover himself, Hacket had
seized the weapon. There was now only a single man
IN THE YEAR ONE. Ipl
between him and the open. It was Alister. By this time
the taste of blood was in his mouth ; the wild beast was
roused ; he could have charged a battery without winking.
Alister was his rival ; Alister was his foe. With a bitter
imprecation, raising the cutlass above his head, and digging
the spurs once more into the terrified animal mad with
fright he rushed at Alister. Down came the heavy clumsy
weapon ; but Alister was unhurt. For just as the mare was
plunging forward, an old man had risen up out of the thick
whins, close in front of the young coastguardsman
" Oh, bairns, bairns ! " said Uncle Ned, lifting his hands.
To save his own life Hacket could not have diverted the
blow. The heavy weapon came down upon the old man's
head with murderous force. Hacket reeled in his saddle, the
horror of the deed had sobered him. He gave a wild startled
glance at Alister, into whose arms Uncle Ned had fallen, and
then, seeing that the coast was clear, set the mare at the low
fence, and disappeared among the sandhills.
" The laird himsel'," muttered Alister, as he laid the old
man on the grass and knelt tenderly beside him. " God be
thanked," he continued, as he bound his handkerchief across
the wound, " it's just gashed his cheek. So, Mr Harry
Hacket, this is your doing a braw nicht's wark, a braw
nicht's wark."
* *
*
But Dick Holdfast's troubles that morning were not yet
over.
When he had crawled for half an hour through the furze,
he descended into the deep cleft cut by the burn of Forvie,
before it joins the greater stream. Then for the first time he
ventured to rise to his feet. Thereafter his path lay up the
course of the burn, until at a sharp angle, about a mile farther
on, he was able to plunge at one step into the shelter of the
sandhills. These sandhills are the dominant feature of this
arid land. The vegetation is salt and bitter ; the prickly bent
wounds the hand ; there are no living creatures to be seen
except the conies, or to be heard except the curlew; even
192 IN THE YEAR ONE.
the hardy blackfaced sheep, when it loses itself in this Dead
Sea valley, simply starves. And it is easy to lose your way
these monotonous undulations are as bewildering as the mon-
otonous levels of the desert. But Dick knew his way well ;
and before the morning was far advanced he had reached
the long tongue of rock which runs into the sea between Port
Erroll and Hell's Lum. A sward of short sweet velvety turf
carpets the plateau ; while on either side the black rock dips
sheer into the sea five hundred feet below.
The morning was simply faultless ; and save for one
obvious blemish the picture was as perfect as it could be.
The sea or what of it was visible was blue as the sky ; but
the broad luminous plain did not carry the eye with it as it
sometimes does to the outermost horizon ; on the contrary,
less than a mile from the land an impenetrable bank of fog
lay upon the water, a damp and humid veil. To enter into
that bank was to leave the sheen of the sunlight, and all the
pleasant sparkle of the morning, behind you.
Dick, lying at full length along the sward, peered cautiously
over the edge of the precipice. It was one of those places
where the brain is apt to lose control over the body ; where
men born on the flats become sick and giddy ; where the
perilous fascination of " knowing the worst of it " becomes at
times imperious and overmastering. But Dick was visited by
no imaginative tremors.
" The verra place," he remarked, as he looked coolly about
him. " The hoody's nest is not fifty feet awa', and it maun
still be possible to swing roun' beneath the bank. I learnt
the trick from Cummin Summers ; it's a trick worth learnin'.
Then down the laigh end o' that lang smooth shelf I can see
a fute-print here and there and then there's the deep gully
that takes you stracht to the water-side. The bit o' rotten
rock at the corner is not canny the maist part cam' awa' in
my hand the last time I passt but it's only a bit loup after
a'. And there's the graceless cutty herseF, I declare, safe and
snug in the Cut. It needs a keen eye to be sure to discover
the Crookit Meg in Hell's Lum, she's as black as the verra
rock. Dander has a' ready to rin that's clear but how the
IN THE YEAR ONE. 193
three o' us are to handle her across the water is mair than I
can tell. And not a breath o' wind in the sky. O for a bit
breeze, and we might won thro' yet ! "
Dick appeared to be satisfied with his survey, for he drew
back from the brink and threw himself into a clump of
heather.
" I wonner," he continued, " if I micht venture to steal
across to Fontainbleau ; the sight o' Eppie is gude for sair
een. And the auld mither ! But the haill country will be
up, and we maun manage to creep awa' or ever the boats
won roun' frae Collieston. But what bit lass is this?" he
continued, as the figure of a young girl appeared at the sum-
mit of the rocky footpath leading from Port Erroll. "If
we're not to start till dark she might warn Eppie. A sweet
slip of a lass it canna surely be little Nan ? "
But little Nan it was the slim little maiden who had been
a comrade of Dick's in the old days when he had run wild
about the country-side. Not out of her teens yet, it would
seem ; little more than a " bairn " indeed ; innocent as a
lamb ; adorably unconscious as bird or flower. Yet Nan
had been early initiated in a sense into the mysteries of love,
Dick having been her "sweetheart" when she was barely
five. And even to-day though she looks on herself as a
great girl now : she is fifteen come March she keeps a very
soft place in her heart for Dick, for Dick the truant, who had
found his land loves too tame, and who was now a rover
upon the sea.
She gave a great start when she saw him. And then a
glad cry of childish delight.
" O Dick Dick ! " she said, throwing her arms innocently
round his neck. " But they have hurt you," she continued,
with a half sob, as she noticed the cut on his face, and the
blood plastered over his cheek.
The boy laughed gleefully as he stooped and kissed her
shaking the clotted curls off his forehead.
" And it's you, little Nan ! And you've grown quite a big
lass, Nan ! And it's only a scart on my cheek, my dear !
And how's auld Lucky? And is Wasp still to the fore?
VOL. I. N
194 IN THE YEAR ONE.
And now sit you down, my bonny Nan, and tell me what
brought you here in the nick o' time?"
She had come to spend the Sabbath with her grandfather
at Port Erroll, " for he's auld and doited, and Peter is aff
to the sea," sobbed Nan, in an April storm of tears and
laughter. " But, O Dick, whar, whar have you been sae
lang ? "
There was much to tell : but at last the boy roused him-
self from a pleasant dream. "Would it be possible, I
wonner, to let Eppie ken that I am here ? " he asked, some-
what anxiously.
" I'll tell her," Nan replied eagerly. " I ken the short cut
thro' the moss "
Nan was still speaking when a low cautious whistle sounded
a note of warning as it seemed to them. It came from
among the rocks about the point.
They started to their feet. A flock of grey plover were
wheeling overhead.
" Look, Dick, look ! " she exclaimed breathlessly. Her
quick eye had caught the gleam of steel in the low morning
sunlight. "It's the coastguard," she said, pointing towards
the land. "Oh, Dick, they will kill you."
" Stand whar you are, Nan ; dinna muve. Gie Eppie a
kiss frae me, an' the dear auld mither : and here's anither for
yoursel', my bonny bairn. They wonna touch you, be sure ;
but dinna muve, dinna muve."
They were standing on the very edge of the cliff.
Sure enough it was the coastguard : the enemy had run
him down at last. The tongue of rock was long and narrow,
and the men were well between him and the land. Dick
was in a trap : the door of escape was barred.
As the men advanced towards the spot where the figure of
the girl stood erect and motionless against the sky, one of
them raised his gun. But the other interposed. " Dinna,
Colin, dinna ye may hurt the lass. It's not possible that
he can jink us now; he's fairly trapped."
The men came closer and closer to where she stood.
IN THE YEAR ONE. 195
There were two of them Colin and Jim handsome dashing
young fellows as one could wish to see among the rigging of
a man-of-war.
Little Nan for the moment was in the heroic mood, or
very near it. She stood there breathless white-lipped
with round wide-open blue eyes her hands pressed tightly
together. But the heroic mood was not suited for Nan. As
one of the men caught her roughly by the shoulder and
pushed her aside with an angry oath " D n it, man, he's
awa'," she broke down of a sudden, and sobbed bitterly
bitterly as if her heart would break.
" Puir Dick ! puir Dick ! "
The men crawled cautiously towards the brink ; but they
quickly drew back. The bank of turf on which they rested
was a mere cornice projecting over a giddy void ; it had been
undermined by wind and rain ; it shook, or seemed to shake,
with their weight. The wall itself of which it formed the
coping leant towards the sea; so that unless you chose to
bend your neck, as Dick had done, clean over the abyss, it
was impossible to scan the face of the precipice, or to see
what was going on at its base.
And yet they did see something something that arrested
their practised eyes in a moment.
" The Crookit Meg, by God ! the Crookit Meg hersel' ! "
She was lying in a deep gash or cut in the rock, a splendid
natural basin in which a three-decker might have rode. There
was not a soul to be seen on board ; yet the slim little craft
looked instinct with eager life, like the captive animal through
whose veins the yearning to be free pulses with a fierce thrill.
Her half-furled sails flapped idly, as if wooing the reluctant
breeze ; a line that ran across her bow was fastened to the
buoy outside the reef, where through the long summer days
the Port Erroll boats are moored ; yes, she is ready to slip
away at any moment, like a bird in the hand or a greyhound
on the leash.
" Not a soul stirring," says Colin, " and the sea like glass.
There maun be boats at Port Erroll handy, we'll stop her yet.
But, O Jim, my man, she's a rare beauty ! "
196 IN THE YEAR ONE.
But as it turned out, the boats at Port Erroll were not
" handy " ; were, indeed, for some reason or other, quite the
reverse of " handy." They had been dragged far up the beach
past the big boulders, and the oars had been carefully stowed
away. It takes half-a-dozen men to move these unwieldy
craft, and there was not a man about the place that morning
who was not bedridden. The women stood at the doors, and
looked moodily at the " gauger bodies."
At last they succeeded in launching a boat; but in the
interval a good half-hour had passed.
The stout young fellows settle to their oars, however, and
pull like grim death.
But ere they round the headland, which rises sheer out of
the deep water, they feel a breath of air upon their faces ; and
even as they round it they see, not the bare masts and the
black hull of the becalmed lugger among the rocks, but the
Crookit Meg ! the Crookit Meg in her finest dress and queen-
liest mood, a shining mass of snow-white canvas, stealing away
like a cloud.
And yet the breeze had barely touched her as yet.
" She's a precious beauty," said Colin again, unable, in spite
of his mortification, to repress a deep-drawn sigh rapturous
as a lover's. They laid down their oars, and rising to their
feet, watched her as she stood straight out to sea.
But even while they looked, the freshening breeze filled her
sails, and she passed from their eyes as a dream passes. A
close, warm, steamy mist thick and impenetrable as night
rested on the water not five hundred yards from the shore.
Into this she entered, cutting the solid fog cleanly like a
knife. It was the last they saw of the Crookit Meg.
Eppie went down next morning to her mother's room in a
sort of stupor. Utter weariness and hopelessness had taken
possession of her. Her heart had opened out to the sun, and
a frost had come and nipped it to the core. To her the
blossoming spring-time had been the time of death not of
IN THE YEAR ONE. 197
physical death, but of spiritual the death of hope, of joy,
and of love.
Had Mrs Holdfast been herself, she must have noticed her
daughter's apathy. But her hold on life had got weaker and
weaker, the silver cord that moors us to time had been slack-
ened, and she was drifting away to that still, strange land
the shadowy home of the shadows. The things of this world
were falling from her. Even her engrossing love for her
cherished pet had begun to grow feeble, she was making
new friends, seeking out fresh interests elsewhere. Where?
Still there was a soft gleam of satisfaction in her eye when
Eppie pressed her hand and kissed her cheek.
Eppie went mechanically about the duties of the house.
She made no mistakes, but she was quite unconscious of
what she said and of what was said to her. It was a close
sultry day for October, but she had not the least notion
whether it was fair or foul. Exciting scraps of news were
brought into the kitchen, and stolidly discussed by the farm-
labourers when they returned to their early dinners ; but she
did not notice that anything was amiss.
About mid-day she took her hat in her hand and went out
of doors. She went as far as the garden. Some late yellow
roses still hung on the bushes ; she gathered a handful
mechanically and stuck them into the breast of her dress.
It had been her habit since she was a child ; but if any one
had asked her that day where she had plucked them, she
could not have told.
There was a rustling among the elder - bushes, and the
elfish face of the " Deevilikie " peered through the branches.
Eppie's ear was sharper than a blackcock's, but to-day it
appeared that her senses had grown torpid as her soul. The
"Deevilikie" had to touch her dress before she noticed him.
" Miss Eppie, Miss Eppie," said the imp, " I was bidden to
tell you that for God's sake you're to meet him at Cairn-
bannow. He'll be waitin' for you at fowr." Then he went
on, leering at her maliciously, " There's been a gran' splore at
Hell's Lum. So they say. The tae half hae been sticket and
the tither drooned ; the rest 'ill be hangit." And an expres-
198 IN THE YEAR ONE.
sion of impish delight pervaded the impish face, which had
been turned prematurely into a leathery brown by the fire
of the forge.
Eppie never thought of resisting resistance would not
avail her. She must dree her weird. She must meet her
doom. The stars had been too strong for her.
" I'll be there," she said, in a voice which sounded dry and
out of tune. " I'll be there in time."
Without even looking at the boy she returned to the house.
She told Watty to have the pony caught and saddled. It
could wait in the stable till she was ready, and he might go
with the men to their work. Then she mounted the stairs
to her bedroom, and changed her dress. Putting her hand
into the pocket of her riding habit, she found some papers.
She looked at them with a puzzled air ; she could not at all
remember how they had come there. Then the scene with
Corbie flashed across her mind. Yes : they were Harry
Racket's; she would take them to him. It was now three
o'clock ; Cairnbannow was an hour's ride. So she went into
her mother's room, stooped down, and kissed her, and said,
" How are you, mither ? " There was no reply only a wan
smile on the worn face. Eppie kissed her again, falling on
her knees beside the bed. Then she rose up and went out
the anxious questioning eyes following her to the door.
How long they followed her was never known. It was an
hour or two before Mennie could go back to her mistress,
and during that hour they must sometimes have sought the
door through which Eppie had passed, and by which she
would return. But she did not return in time ; nor did
any one. The appealing eyes grew dim; the heart beat
fainter and fainter ; and Mrs Holdfast died as she had lived
a strong, solitary, self-reliant soul, a true daughter of the
masterful Keiths : recalling to me, indeed, when I think of
her, the bronze statue in the Wilhelm Platz at Berlin, under
which they have written (or is it only in the old church at
Hochkirch ?) an inscription not easily surpassable in the lapi-
dary way "words which go through you like the clang of
steel."
IN THE YEAR ONE. 199
There was no sound in the sick-chamber that night : it had
ceased to be the chamber of sickness and had become the
chamber of death. There had been no sound in it, at least,
since Mark, hastily summoned, threw himself on his knees
beside the bed, which, with its still occupant, had been made
smooth, and decent, and comely for the grave. " O mither,
mither, but I did love you," cried poor Mark, who in the grim
reticence of his love had never said so much before. But a
Scotsman is a grim animal.
Do not blame Eppie overmuch. To do her justice (and as
the old proverb says, " It's a sin to lee on the Deil "), she had
no notion whatever that the end was near.
* *
*
" And you will go with me, Eppie ? " Harry asked ardently,
yet with the watchfulness of the hunted animal in his eyes.
" Ay, Harry, I will go with you," Eppie answered listlessly.
Hacket had ventured to return home after his escape. He
put the mare into the stable himself, fed and groomed her,
then led her to an outlying byre at some distance from the
house, where he left her saddled. Then he went up to his
own sitting-room, the room that had been his father's, and
opening an old-fashioned writing-table, began to examine the
letters and papers which it contained, throwing them, after a
brief glance at each, into the fire which still smouldered on
the hearth. He was thus occupied the whole morning. At
intervals he rose and scanned uneasily the distant highroad
leading to Balmawhapple. Later he had something to eat ;
a little later he stole cautiously by an unfrequented footpath
to the smithy on the Saddle Hill, and despatched the imp
with the message to Eppie. Then he returned to his room
and resumed his work. If he was preparing for flight, it was
clear that he had resolved to leave no written evidence be-
hind him. One bundle of papers obviously startled him ; he
read them again and again ; then he tied them up carefully as
if he meant to keep them ; then, with a sudden impulse, he
threw the packet into the fire with the others.
200 IN THE YEAR ONE.
Cairnbannow is a heap of whinstone high up among the
moors. Some remote Hacket, riding blindly among the peat-
hags, had broken his neck at this spot, and they had buried
him where he fell and put the stones over him. The common
people said that he had broken his neck on purpose ; but that
is a feat difficult to accomplish : accident is more potent than
design in such cases. This, however, was the spot which
Harry had selected for his meeting with Eppie. It was a
mile or two beyond Yokieshill on the road to Ardallie not
the highroad, but a rough track through the moors used by
the farm-carts that went in autumn to bring down the peats from
the moss, and as a short cut by packmen and tinkers. The
grouse sunned themselves upon the cairn in September; a
little later on in the year a watchful blackcock looked round
him from the summit. Eppie had once or twice ridden here
lately ; the coveted domain of the Rackets lay stretched be-
low ; so she knew the place.
The "lovers" met: Eppie listless and jaded; Harry rest-
less, watchful, eager. They did not dismount ; the horses
moved on as they talked. Harry told her only that something
had occurred which required him to leave the country without
delay for a time : would she, oh ! would she go with him ?
He pleaded for himself with a vehemence that almost woke
her out of her lethargy. She looked at him with wondering
inquiry in her eyes. Was he really going to leave ? She had
broken one lover's heart : was she to break another ? Any
love that had ever found a place in her own heart had been
frozen in the bud ; and even the old ambition appeared to be
dead. She was utterly passive : either way it was the same
to her.
Then she had said mechanically for in truth she did not
attach any definite meaning to the words, did not in the least
realise that the moment for instant action had come " Yes,
Harry, I will go with you."
Her companion could not but notice her unnatural listless-
ness and abstraction. The sun was already setting, and yet
she rode on without making any movement or showing any
desire to return. The shadows of night came down upon
IN THE YEAR ONE. 2OI
the moors; but this pale impassive bride rode on silently
beside him.
Neither of them had observed that the unseasonably op-
pressive weather of the past few days was about to culminate
in a thunderstorm. The crisis was upon them. The huge
white clouds which had been mounting out of the west all day
had latterly grown ominously blue and slate-coloured, casting
a lurid reflection of the stormy sunset upon the moor.
The whaups passed by overhead with wailing cries. A gor-
cock which they started on the track flew a few yards, and
then went down plump into the heather. A great convulsion
of nature was at hand.
Between Yokieshill and Ardallie there was not in the year
One a single dwelling-house; the barren moorland was un-
broken by spade or plough ; but at Pitlurg the high-lying
table-land dips into the valley of the Whapple, and at the
junction of the highroad with the hill-road where the toll-
bar now stands the Cottage Inn (what in Switzerland they
would call the Chalet Inn) of Ardallie was placed. It was
then kept by Jean Catto, and was mainly used by pedlars and
smugglers. Many an illicit bargain pactum illicitum, as
Corbie said with a wink was concluded in the widow's snug
little parlour. It was a sort of half-way house between Balma-
whapple and Aberhaddy.
The first heavy drops fell as they arrived at the door, and
the "fire-flacht" was blazing across the dark before they
had dismounted. Peal after peal rattled out of the heaven.
And then the rain came down in perfect sheets of water.
Yet in spite of the flood, the lightning continued to flash,
and the thunder to growl and mutter like a caged beast,
who ever and again breaks into a roar in the impotent vio-
lence of passion. No human creature could have stirred
out of doors that night without danger of being washed
bodily away.
The storm which cleared the air cleared Eppie's soul. She
awoke and found herself seated in the cosy parlour of the inn.
Jean Catto was bustling about her in a helpful way. " I maun
sort the blue bedroom for you and your man," said Jean,
2O2 IN THE YEAR ONE.
assuming that they were married folks ; and then she left her
to get supper ready.
Eppie's eyes opened wide ; her lips parted ; but she did not
speak a word. She stared after her hostess in dumb dismay.
At this moment Hacket, who had been seeing to the
horses, entered the room. Eppie rushed up to him with a
great cry.
"What does it mean, Harry? Where have you brought
me ? I am ready to go. Please saddle Bess."
"It's not possible, Eppie, to move to-night," Hacket re-
plied, the uneasy furtive look coming into his eyes. Nature
had treated Harry badly. Had it not been for those uneasy
furtive eyes r he would have been, though in a coarse, half-bred
style, really handsome. " You must let Jean Catto they call
her Jean, I think make you as comfortable as she can. We
will get away to-morrow by daylight."
A great dread took possession of Eppie's soul. What did he
mean ? Now that he had got her into his power would he deal
fairly by her ? Now that her good name was in peril, could
she trust him as she could have trusted the other ? She could
have gone with Alister over the world secure in the innate
integrity of the man's nature : but Harry Hacket ? That was
the wretchedness of it. She did not believe in the loyalty of
her lover.
What, indeed, did Harry intend by this girl after all, only
a farmer's daughter whom he had, wittingly or unwittingly,
induced to accompany him thus far ? She had certainly com-
promised herself, whispered the mocking Mephistopheles who
is always at our elbow ready to take advantage of any slip we
may make. Why not win her now more cheaply far more
cheaply than he had fancied possible when they started that
afternoon ?
I cannot for my own part be certain that the temptation was
seriously entertained by him. It was undoubtedly a temptation
that would appeal very directly to the sensual instincts of an
evil and cowardly nature. But I do not love Harry Hacket,
and I may be doing him injustice.
But as she looked at him, Eppie recovered herself. Her
IN THE YEAR ONE. 203
immense superiority of mind made itself felt. Whenever they
had hitherto come into the direct stress of conflict, her moral
and physical courage had made her his master. She was to
win again to-night, always assuming, that is, that he had not
meant fairly by her.
" Harry," she said in a clear voice, coming up to where he
stood shivering before the fire. " Harry, look here. I winna
say which of us is to blame it may be me, it may be you
but you hae brocht me whar I sudna hae come. A lass
maunna lippen to a man if she wud keep her gude name.
Mine is gone. I canna gang back to Fontainbleau, except
you mak' me your wife. O Harry, it wud hae been better for
us baith if we had never met ; but what maun be maun be.
Harry, you must marry me to-night."
She spoke with perfect distinctness in extremest simplicity.
Her good name had been inestimably dear to Eppie : it was
the one possession, besides her beauty, which ministered to
her pride; and Eppie, as we know, was proud as Lucifer.
Other girls might give themselves away if they chose; other
girls had soft hearts and weak heads. But she ! And yet this
sulky booby of a lad had somehow contrived to compromise
her as she fancied. There might be something of exaggera-
tion in the fancy ; she was for the moment weak, morbid, and
unhinged. The excitement of the fever, which replaces the
lethargy of despair, burnt in her blood. But at all hazards,
this miserable sickness of shame which overcame her when
she realised her position must be put an end to put an end
to by some iriltant decisive antidote. A terrible fatality had
driven her back upon her own self hard, unloving, and un-
lovable; but that was no good reason why she should drift
helplessly to utter shipwreck. The words " utter shipwreck,"
if applied to other girls of that place and time, would have
been, I admit, a mere rhetorical expression, but to Eppie they
meant that, and nothing less. There was no ideal element, as
I have often said, in this girl ; she had little or none of the shy
reverence for the right, for what is pure and modest and of
good report, which is the crown of womanhood. And yet her
vestal hardness and coldness had truly expressed a natural
2O4 IN THE YEAR ONE.
attitude of her mind ; she shrank from what was morally un-
comely with critical annoyance and disapproval. And now
there seemed to her only one method by which she could save
herself from the ugly gulf that opened before her feet Harry
must marry her to-night. It must be done now, at once, with-
out an hour's delay; thereafter, though her heart broke (if
further breakage were possible), she could hold her head up
again, and look the world straight in the face with her clear
unshrinking eyes, and in the arrogant simplicity of her rustic
pride, as she had done before. Yes, she must be married to-
night.
He stood before the fire silent, looking down. He had
never seen her so moved before; there was a thrill in her
voice he had never heard before. But he did not reply
Mephistopheles was still at his elbow. It was a pity that he
did not reply ; it forced her to shoot her last shaft.
" Look at me, Harry Hacket," she exclaimed, after a long
pause, her face lighting up brilliantly with anger or was it
scorn ? "I saw Liar Corbie after he had been wi' you at
Yokieshill, and he tell't me something aboot your feyther."
Hacket started, and moved uneasily. "You can tell me
whether it be true "
" It's a lie," he said, in a hoarse broken voice.
" And he gied me some papers." Here he started again.
" Leastwise I've got them by fair means or by foul I've got
them. I felt that you were ill-used amang them, and my heart
was softened to you. I thocht to do you a gude turn. Noo,
Harry, I may be forced to bide here this nicht * the rain was
lashing against the panes " but Mrs Catto will lat me sit in
her room, I dinna doobt ; and though I may be missed at
hame " (Alas ! Eppie, there is no one to miss you now)
" yet when I get to Corbie's to-morrow wi' the papers "
Reader, you must remember that this girl's moral nature had
been utterly undeveloped, and that she was now at bay a wild
creature at bay. It seems to be assumed by many wise men
among us that the conscience in each soul, like the Greek
daughter of Zeus, is armed at every point from birth "a
crowned truth." It is not so : it needs to blossom, to expand,
IN THE YEAR ONE. 20$
to mature : the sunshine and storm, the tears and laughter,
the sorrow and sacrifice, of many a spring and summer, of
many an autumn and winter, are needed to ripen it to perfect
life. Eppie's moral education had only begun the other day ;
she had grown into a woman ; but her conscience was still in
its childhood, and love had been nipped in the bud. Do not
let us hate her because in her mortal terror she seized the
nearest available weapon. She knew not what she did.
It is possible indeed that she was unnecessarily terrified,
and that her lover had not designed to harm her. So at least
he declared, and I am willing to believe him for once.
" You need not fear me, Eppie," he said, raising his eyes at
last. " I always meant you to be my wife."
Marriage in Scotland is not attended with any unnecessary-
preliminaries. Go into the next room, and declare before
your landlady and her guests that you are man and wife, and
the thing is done. You are married past redemption ; the
Archbishop of Canterbury with all his deans and archdeacons
could not tie the knot tighter. In some such primitive fashion,
Harry Racket and Euphame Holdfast were made man and wife.
A suspicion of the validity of the ceremony was some-
times expressed : but Corbie knew better. " Consensus non
concubitus facit matrimonium," said Corbie, when he went to
the High Court; "and though it's undeniable, Mr Drumly,
that only the ostler and the kitchen-wench, forbye Mrs Catto,
were ben, yet nae plea against the credibility o' the witnesses
has been proponed. And as has been judiciously observed
by Mr Erskine in his Institute o' oor law, whilk like that o' a'
civileesed nations is imported from the Roman (tho' the Eng-
lish, to be sure, hae some cankered notions o' their ain), Mr
Erskine, I say, has weel remarked that it is not essential to
marriage that it be celebrated by a D.D., or even by the shirra
the consent o' parties being plainly expressed before credible
witnesses ; for it is the consent o' the parties which alone con-
stitutes marriage."
It was a wild and stormy night for a wedding ; but it would
have been even darker to Eppie had she known all. But it
was not until the ceremony, such as it was, had been completed
206 IN THE YEAR ONE.
that an officer of the law, buffeted by the storm, but bringing a
warrant for the apprehension of Harry Racket of Yokieshill, on
the charge of wounding Adam Meldrum to the danger of life,
entered the inn.
Poor Eppie !
It was too true dear old Uncle Ned had been wounded to
the death. He was stupefied by the blow, and quite uncon-
scious while they bore him to Achnagatt, the nearest farmhouse.
He was carried into the best bedroom, where, in addition to
prints of the storming of Seringapatam and of the Lord Lieu-
tenant of the county, Mrs Mark's Pre-Raphaelite sampler, a
chef- (Fcettvre of the MacWhistler school of the period, was
suspended over the fireplace. They put the old man to bed,
and before the surgeon arrived consciousness had returned.
His wound was bound up ; but the surgeon shook his head.
Adam had lost a deal of blood ; the shock to the system had
been tremendous ; he was over seventy. No : he might linger
for a week ; he would suffer no pain ; but his days were
numbered.
His friends gathered about him as he lay there serene and
composed. Kate was a deft nurse, Alister got leave of absence
from the Commodore, Dr Caldcail was a constant visitor. The
old boatbuilder was wonderfully happy with his friends, young
and old. His bed was placed beside the window, whence he
could see down to the river, where the sandsnipe were piping
to each other as they swept swiftly, like the shadow of a cloud,
across the sand. One wild windy day a broken rainbow
touched the clouds all morning, now melting into mist, anon
growing vivid and consistent .again. To the dying man it
seemed in its perfect comeliness of colour, in its perfect shape-
liness of outline, an earnest, a foretaste of the good things that
were in store. "It compasseth the heaven about with a
glorious circle, and the hands of the Most High have bended
it." He never wearied of repeating these words ; which are
indeed very great words simply realistic, yet vitally ideal
as some great painter who puts a band of light round the
IN THE YEAR ONE. 2O7
head of the Redeemer. The hands of the Most High have
bended it.
" Indeed, my bairns," he said (it was Alister and Kate now,
not Alister and another), " if Shakespeare hadna been born,
I could have been weel content with the natural history o' the
Auld Testament. But then, you see, the poets and prophets
of the Hebrew people lived in a different warld ; whereas
Shakespeare is, as it were, ane o' oorsels. But they had un-
doobtedly a great enjoyment of nature. Beautiful upon the
mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings. Is
there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? He
kept him as the apple of his eye. But unto you that fear my
name, shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in
his wings. Ay, bairns, the men who wrote thae words were
wayfarers who had abided wi' Nature in her secret places, until
the sleepy magic of her music suffused their souls. With
healin' in his wings ! Dear me it minds me somehow of the
saft fa' o' the cushey's wings as she settles on her nest."
At another time he would discuss with the Doctor the con-
ditions of that mysterious existence on which he was about to
enter.
" Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to
come, said the Apostle. And anither saw the holy city, New
Jerusalem, coming down from God oot o' heaven. Weel,
Doctor, you and me may not have any sic veevid eemage of
the New Jerusalem ; for the warld is greatly changed since
John lived in Patmos. Poor John ! he must have got verra
weary o' his bit rock, with the constant thud-thud o' the sea in
his ears, and I canna wonner that he couldna thole it in the
New Jerusalem. And there was no more sea ! Indeed,
Doctor, I canna say that I fear death ; it is rayther that I am
ashamed o' it, it being, as our freen' o' Norwich observes, the
verra disgrace and ignominy of our nature. Yet death, as he
says in anither place, is the cure o' all diseases nectar and
a pleasant potion of immortality. But the lang habit of livin'
indisposeth us for dying. That's it, Doctor ; we are the verra
creatures of habit. I wonner what Elisha thocht when he saw
Elijah fleein' into heaven like a laverock? He must have
208 IN THE YEAR ONE.
been simply dumfoonded. But if the haill business was a
cunnin' deceit, as your freen' Mr Hume conten's, it was
maist extra-ordinar' clever o' the auld writer to mak' him
louse his mantle. And Elisha took up also the mantle of
Elijah which fell from him. For wha can help believin' it
after that?"
So he rambled on gently and sweetly to his friends beside
him ; until, as his strength failed, delirium came and took him
back into the past.
" Sit doun beside me, Rachel, and sing me a bit sang. I'm
uncommon weary this nicht. It's a rale bonny bird, the
grey plover. What Rachel gone ? Ay, the bells are ring-
ing the folk are at the kirk door she's in the Laird's seat.
See how the sunshine o' heaven touches her brown hair. She
sits abune the lave like a saint in glory ! But sic a woman-
like smile, sic a bird-like twitter o' a laugh, when she meets
me in the yard. 'Surely, Adam, surely,' she says softly.
How caller the air, how the birds sing, this Sabbath mornin' !
' And, Adam, mind ye bring me a sprig o' heather from
Benachie ! ' I was on my way to the Hielan's for a week
for a week only. Ay, darlin', a hatfu' o' heather, and a heartfu'
o' love ! And so we parted for ever."
He paused and looked about him, and then the old story
was resumed.
" A week thereafter I stood again in the doorway. I had
tellt the corries o' the joy that was in store for me the
heather had taen a rarer bloom, sic gowd in the sunset, sic
purple glooms in the gloamin', I had never beheld before. I
waited a moment in the trance, for an unaccountable dread
cam' suddenly upon me. Even as I waited a woman clad in
black passed oot her eyes red wi' weepin', her cheeks soiled
wi' tears. I kent my doom before a word was spoken. She
looked at me I had the bit sprig o' white heather in my han'
wi' sad, pitiful eyes. ' It is all over,' she said, ' Rachel is
in heaven.'"
He fell back upon the pillow, the eyes bright with fever
gazing blankly into the sky, until, after a strained pause of
inquiry, they cleared, and he added softly, "A great crood
IN THE YEAR ONE. 2OQ
that nae man can number an endless thrang o' warlds but
Love will bring the beloved."
So it went on, in broken snatches, until the end came
the gentle and peaceful end of a gentle and peaceful life.
The delirium had left him, and he had bidden farewell to the
Doctor not without a touch of the old humorous twinkle in
his eyes. " Gude-bye, my auld freen', gude-bye
' If we do meet again, why we shall smile ;
If not, why then this parting was well made. '
And, Alister my dear, dear boy you will keep the birds,
but gie Eppie the buiks. Puir Eppie ! " Then the voice
sank to a whisper, " Rachel ! Rachel ! nineteen and
seventy-three dootless, a lang reckonin' but this mak's
these odds a' even."
So with the unforgotten name, and a scrap from the beloved
book on his lips, Uncle Ned passed away.
The High Court of Justiciary was crowded by ten o'clock
on the morning of the last day of the year One. Harry
Hacket was to be tried on that day for the killing of Adam
Meldrum, and the prospect of the trial had excited con-
siderable interest in the northern metropolis. The social
position of the accused, the audacity of the outrage, the
growing feeling against the severity of the Excise laws,
rumours about the romantic circumstances in which the
irregular marriage with Eppie Holdfast had been contracted,
had contributed to draw a crowd of idlers to the dingy court-
room. Corbie, propitiated by payment of his account (with
legal interest), had insisted on coming all the way from
Balmawhapple to instruct counsel, and was now seated within
the bar in consultation with one of the clerks of Messrs Tod
& Trotter, Writers to the Signet the agents employed for
Hacket. In a dim corner of the court, with a thick veil
drawn across her face, sat the criminal's young wife
VOL. I. O
210 IN THE YEAR ONE.
Euphame Holdfast or Racket, as she was called in the
indictment.
Corbie employed the interval before the judges entered
in obtaining opinions on certain questions of legal procedure
in which his clients were interested from the clerk at his
side. It was a tempting opportunity, moreover, to air his
own erudition, which had been growing somewhat musty of
late.
"Noo, you maun understan', Mr Drumly, that by the sett
o' the burgh, the sea-greens belang to the feuars. But the
deeficulty arises What's a sea-green ? ' A variety o' sea-kail,'
says the Doctor jocosely ; but he's a daft body. Indeed, Mr
Drumly, I've heard him declare that the Decretum et Decretalia
o' the Canonists are superior in maist respec's to the Corpus
Juris Civilis ! But the truth is that the study o' deeveenity
obscures and stultifies the faculties o' the understanding whilk
on the contrar are recreated, refreshed, and whetted by the
law. Noo, the sea and the sea-shore are onquestionably inter
regalia that I wunna dispute but it disna appear to me, and
it certainly to the best o' my judgment has not been sattled
by the Coort at laste by the Hoose o' Lords that the sea-
shore, being inter regalia, extends beyond the ordinary leemits
o' the tide. Whereas it is the land covered by the spring-
tides whereof a sea-green consists, accordin' to oor institutional
writers, and mair particularly Lords Stair and Bankton. Says
I to the Provost 'Dootless, Provost, the value o' the property
is sma' ' for you see the Broch is entirely bigget on rocks
which rise perpendicular from the deep sea ' but the question
o' law being of general importance, a declaratory action at the
instance o' the Provost and Bailies o' the burgh against his
Majesty's Advocate as representing the Crown '"
At this moment a macer entering announced " The Court."
The audience rose.
Their lordships sat down, and the audience resumed their
seats.
" It's Pitblethers, Kilreekie, and Fozie," said Mr Drumly.
" The Lord hae mercy on Harry Hacket," Corbie rejoined
piously. " If it's within the leemits o' possibeelity, Fozie '11
IN THE YEAR ONE. 211
hang him." Lord Fozie had an evil name among the criminal
classes.
"Any objections to the relevancy, Mr Pittendreich ? " asked
the Justice-Clerk, when he had arranged his petticoats, and
opened the scroll -book in which he made his notes, and
taken a look at the prisoner, who had been brought up
from below.
"Certainly, my Lord." And then Mr Pittendreich rose,
and, taking up the indictment, tore it (figuratively speaking)
to tatters. Thereafter my Lord Advocate in reply proved
that no prisoner had ever had the satisfaction of being
hanged on a more logical, coherent, and strictly relevant
document. I don't mean to go into the legal argument;
you will find it reported at length by Mr Cowpen (after-
wards Lord Drumsaddle) in the first volume of his Justiciary
Reports. It was exactly one of those nice points which the
Court may settle by a toss-up with perfect safety. I had
forgotten, to be sure, that a man's life in this case depended
upon the solution, but so had the lawyers on either side ; for
indeed they hanged right and left in the year One, and
thought no more of a man's life than of a rat's.
Then my Lords, modestly arranging their petticoats, retired
to the robing-room to consider their judgment.
The Lord Justice-Clerk, Pitblethers, was one of Pitt's poli-
ticians, a pleasant speaker, a strong partisan, an agreeable
and well-informed man of the world, but not much of a
lawyer.
"Well, Kilreekie, what do you say?" asked the Justice-
Clerk.
"Faith, Pitblethers, ye may mak' a kirk or a mill o't.
There is gude reason and nae reason on baith sides o' the
Bar. I'm rather for lettin' the youngster aff ; if we pit him to
the jury, they're like to hang him. And did you notice the
lass in the black veil under the gallery? that's Mistress
Euphame Holdfast or Hacket, I'll be bound ; and an un-
common handsome lass she is. We'll susteen the objections,
Pitblethers, if you please," said Kilreekie, who was a judicious
admirer of the fair sex, though a cynical critic of his own.
212 IN THE YEAR ONE.
" Well, my Lords," said the Justice-Clerk, " I recollect his
father, old Racket, on the Inverness circuit after Culloden,
and he married a very nice girl Jane Kilgour of Logic
by the way, a sort of cousin of my own. What say you,
Fozie? My impression is that the major won't hold water.
And as you say, Kilreekie, the jury are safe to hang
him."
"And it wudna be the first o' the clan, Pitblethers, that
has undergone a process o' suspension, if the auld Border
thieves havena been misca'ed." The Justice-Clerk, who be-
longed to an old Border family, rather prided himself on
his descent.
" I presume you agree, Fozie," the Justice-Clerk continued,
disregarding the interruption, "that we can't sustain the
relevancy? The definition of the locus delicti is quite too
defective."
"We'll ca' it the locus pcenitenticz, if you like, Fozie," Lord
Kihreekie interposed again.
Fozie shut his eyes, wagged his head, and addressed a
few inaudible observations to his cravat, in which the word
"hangin'," however, occurred.
Lord Fozie, however, was in the minority; and it was
agreed that the Justice-Clerk should deliver the unanimous
judgment of the Court.
There was an eager intensity of interest in the prisoner's
gaze when the judges returned. Hacket had divined truly
enough that his fate depended on the decision of the pre-
liminary pleas.
Lord Pitblethers made his points neatly, and sustained the
interest to the end. More than once the prisoner felt that it
was all over with him ; but Pittendreich rubbed his hands
and chuckled. He knew what was coming. "But," con-
tinued his Lordship, "we are unanimously of opinion that
the words in the major to which objection has been taken is
a fatal misdescription. It appears to us "
"'Deed, my Lord, that's soun' sense if not gude law,"
exclaimed Corbie, unable any longer to restrain himself. He
had that morning, as well as the night before, been revisiting
IN THE YEAR ONE.
with some old cronies a certain well-known tavern in the
Advocates' Close.
The interruption caused a general burst of laughter, and
the noise made by the macers in their efforts to restore
silence prevented the audience from becoming acquainted
with what remained of his Lordship's opinion which came
indeed to a speedy conclusion. The jury were discharged ;
the witnesses were liberated ; and Harry Racket had saved
his neck.
*
*
So Uncle Ned died : and sooner or later it is but a
question of sooner or later with us all the other members of
the secluded society on that weather-beaten coast, who were
so bright and cheery in the year One, were laid out of the
way of the east wind. Captain Knock, " Liar " Corbie,
Doctor Caldcail, Miss Sherry, my friend Alister and his
pretty wife Mistress Kate (for men have died from time to
time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love; and
the blow to Alister, though stunning at the moment, was not
fatal) have finished each of them his or her bit of work in a
world where there are always plenty of fresh hands. Pit-
blethers, and Kilreekie, and Fozie, have ceased to be a
terror to evil-doers, and a praise and protection to those
that do well; and their places are occupied by the men of
a new world, who have forgotten the tongue of their grand-
fathers, and speak that astonishing English of the Scotch
bar which has so often perplexed an amazed Legislature.
Eppie came of a long-lived house ; and I can still recall
the bright-eyed old lady, in her black silk gown and wonderful
white hair, who occupied the many-gabled house among the
moors when I was a boy. In my time she was Lady of
Yokieshill ; and only a confused tradition of Harry Racket's
misdoings survived. For the popular feeling against the man
who had dealt that savage blow at Uncle Ned was too bitter
to permit him to return, and he went abroad. Eppie did not
accompany him. She had fought his battle obstinately so
214 IN THE YEAR ONE.
long as his life was in peril; but after the trial she came
back to Balmawhapple, and lived in close retirement under
Miss Sherry's hospitable roof. She sent Cousin Kate on her
marriage morning a lovely little gold knick-knack, which had
been an heirloom in the Holdfast family since Marie Touchet's
time (the initials M. S. and the Scottish lion being faintly
engraved on the inner shield), but she was not at the wedding.
She and Alister never met. Then some arrangements had to
be made about the property, which continued to be managed,
or mismanaged, by our friend Corbie ; and then Harry died,
and it was found that Eppie Holdfast had, under her hus-
band's settlements, the sole interest in Yokieshill. Inquiries
were instituted on her behalf by the Maryland authorities ;
but if Elspeth Cheyne left any issue, no trace of them was
recovered. So she reached the goal of her ambition ; Eppie
Holdfast was Mistress of Yokieshill.
I do not know that she was unhappy. She looked keen
and bright, and active and healthy, to the end. She was very
good to her poor cottars, very kind to children and beggars
and wayfarers. Her hair, it was said, had turned grey in
a single night ; but it had needed more, I daresay, than the
mad misery of an hour to humble the pride of her heart,
and soften the hardness of her ambition. No she was not
unhappy. She had contrived to live down (and it is done
somehow) the exquisite bliss and the exquisite torture she
had tasted in the Year One.
215
VI.
LISETTE'S DREAM.
IN an old story-book I told how Nancy had kept her
tryste. A voice imploring help had come to her
out of the dark while she slept. It was the voice of
her lover, who, miles away, was in mortal peril. But
in Lisette's Dream it was a Vision, not a Voice. I had
heard the story long ago ; only the other day, fishing
a remote and secluded loch in Assynt, while the thun-
der rolled and the lightning flashed among the corries
of Quinag, my gillie said to me suddenly It was
here that the tinker's body was found. They seldom
speak of the tragedy on that wild coast ; the shame of
it is still felt by a community which in its seclusion
does not readily forget ; and the lad became studiously
reticent when he realised that I had gathered the
import of his half-involuntary exclamation. But I did
not need his help ; for, as I have said, the story was
well known to me from of old. I need not add that
Lisette's Dream is only an adaptation of the central
incident of a strange history.
216 LISETTE'S DREAM.
I.
BALMAWHAPPLE is at its best, I think, during that season which
is called by some the late summer, and by others the early
autumn. The season has a touch of both. The air is crisp
yet mellow. The summer heat is over ; but though the stars
begin to light up the sky after dark, there is no frost at night
to blacken flower or fern. It is during this pause in the year
which is only broken by the winds and rains of the autumnal
equinox that the Balmawhapple farmer harvests his grain.
It is at this season also that the bays and coves along our
rocky coast are at their best. And at their best they are, I
venture to think, as perfect in their way as Venetian lagoon
or the olive-crowned wall of the Riviera. The crisp sea-sand
the crimson sea-weeds the beaten sward with its hardy
flowers the fields of yellow oats which have been sown along
the steep brae-sides, and which half-clad hinds are now reap-
ing with the sickle which they and their fathers have used
since the days of the Danes and Norsemen ! The tarrock
skims lightly along, and screams as the skua comes prowling
round the cape; high up, the gannet watches its prey, and
arresting its flight in mid -air, dives with prodigious force,
straight as an arrow, below the surface ; the terns, like hand-
fuls of feathers, are blown about the sky, or, balanced upon
the breakers, weave their wings swiftly together.
This August day, for example, has been one of those red-
letter days whose charm is none the less exquisite because
there are no words fit to arrest and accentuate its fugitive
loveliness. Hour after hour the waves broke upon the sandy
beach with the same monotonous roll, though a perceptible
change of tone might be detected by the practised ear as the
tide retreated from the land and again returned. The boat
of a solitary fisherman and a lustrously white bird a gannet or
one of the larger gulls lay the whole morning together near
the centre of the bay. About noon, a large ship with every
inch of canvas spread dropt lazily along to the south. As the
day waned and the tide ebbed, the gull and the fisher left
LISETTE'S DREAM. 2 17
their stations ; small flocks of ducks beat in quickly towards
the shoal water in single file ; and once a pair of red-throated
divers, in their petulant coquettish way, chased each other
round the margin of the bay. High up upon the downs the
lights began to twinkle a red lurid glow showed where the
village blacksmith plied his craft voices muffled by the twi-
light came down upon the shore and a wary heron flapped
its unwieldy wings as it passed along to the pool where, until
the grey of the morning, it will watch the retreating tide. And
now, while the voice of the restless ocean rises up to them for
ever, silently, one by one, the stars come out above the hills.
The bay I have been describing our North Bay, as we
call it stretches from the Ronheads to the estuary of the
Whapple. On the other side of the placid stream lie the
white sands and wavy bents of St Abbs a long low belt
between sea and sky, often struck into sudden radiance by
the sunset. All this is visible from the door of the Cottage
on the cliff, the only dwelling now in sight or at least was
visible before the sun went down.
As the evening fell, the door of the cottage opened, and a
girl dressed, as the fisher-girls dress, in white wrapper and
short blue petticoat came out. Putting her hand over her
eyes, she gazed out to sea ; but nothing was visible through
the grey mist that had gathered since sunset. The moon had
not yet risen, but from the ruddy glow in the upper sky it
was evident that it was not far below the horizon. The girl sat
down on the wooden bench in front of the window and waited.
The silence over sea and land was intense, and for a time
unbroken ; but by-and-by the measured beat of oars outside
became audible. Then still later when from out of the
mist and the twilight the sound of voices was carried to where
she sat, she rose and ran lightly down the winding footpath
that led to the water. Just as she reached the beach, the
boat entered the cove, its black mast cutting in two as it
seemed from where she stood the blood-red disc of the
newly risen moon.
Three men were on board, the girl's father and cousin,
and one other Allan Park. They had been a week away at
218 LISETTE'S DREAM.
the deep-sea fishing, somewhere beside the Dogger Bank.
The heavy boat laboured in ; and as it touched the jetty, the
eldest of the three exclaimed
"Is that you, Lisette?"
Our fisher-girls, as a rule, are not pretty, but Lisette would
have been considered a beauty anywhere. The pure classic
outline of her head and neck would have satisfied a Greek ;
a Parisian would have been charmed by her sauciness, her
petulance, the mockery of her smiling mouth, her elfin and
bewildering prettiness. She was a born coquette now
reserved and demure, now arch and caressing but a coquette
who had yet at times her dreamy and incalculable moods.
Lisette was, or professed to be, the daughter, the only
daughter, of honest John Buchan, a simple fisherman of the
Ronheads (the unsavoury suburb of Balmawhapple where the
fishers live) ; but if we had been told that this child of the
sea had been cast ashore in a wild winter gale, or caught in a
salmon-net in whose meshes she had got entangled, and from
which she could not escape in time, the tale would not have
seemed strange or incredible. There were those at least who
had seen her sitting upon the rocks of summer nights while
she sang a beguiling song and combed her flaxen hair. The
mermaiden if such indeed she was had been taken from
her native element ; but, even in the dingy surroundings of
the Ronheads, she remembered, like the sea-shell, her august
abode ; and the murmur of the sea, of the vast and fickle and
mischievous sea, was around her.
I do not know where Lisette got her Southern coquetry, or
the deft fingers, and the native taste and refinement which
could give her simple Shetland shawl the graceful fold of a
mantilla, and turn her coarse homespun petticoat into the
tunic that a duchess or a Greek nymph might have worn.
These fishers are mostly Danes or Norsemen genial giants
with the blue eyes and the yellow hair of the Scandinavian
colonists ; but mixed with them we find another race, where
the gipsy or Spanish blood shows itself in coal-black eyes and
hair, and swarthy olive skins, and voices which are low and
musical indeed, but through which the force and violence of
LISETTE'S DREAM. 219
ungovernable passion can find an outlet when needed. Some
of this gipsy blood was in Lisette ; probably it came from her
mother, who belonged to a fishing village beside which one of
the great war-vessels of the Armada had been wrecked, the
hull, of a windless day, when the water is limpid and serene,
is still visible, they say. Some score or so of the crew had
been saved, and their black beards and swarthy cheeks had
proved attractive to the blue-eyed daughters of the village.
Whether the strain of alien blood was thus sufficiently
accounted for, I am not prepared to say ; but the fact of two
typical races living side by side in these remote and secluded
communities is not to be gainsaid. Allan Park, for instance,
was Norse or Scandinavian to the tips of his fingers a mighty,
modest, blue-eyed Goliath ; whereas Lewie Gordon was dark
and slim, with eyes that, though furtive at times, could blaze
with passion, and a voice that might wile the bird from the
tree. For Lewie, as for Lisette, one had to go back to the
time when Philip's ships were driven by stress of weather
beyond the farthest Hebrides. The contrast between the two
races is perhaps most noticeable in their manner. The blue-
eyed are bluff and hearty, and even their women look you
straight in the face, as a hawk does without winking ; the
black-eyed the girls at least are petulant and caressing,
while the men are instinctively courteous, deferential, and
refined. The blue-eyed are gentlemen ; the black-eyed,
courtiers.
Lisette was not always gay ; she was a daughter of the sea
indeed ; but the sea which she had known all her life was the
Mare Tenebrosum. Her sea had little leisure for the multi-
tudinous laughter in which elsewhere it is said to indulge ;
hers was the sea of the black fogs, and the white breakers,
and the fierce winds, and the driven rain, and the blinding
sleet, and the ghostly winter twilights, in which men and
boats are lost to sight and never return. When the rain
streamed down the window-panes, and the storm howled
down the chimney, while father and brother were outside
the white line of surf, which grew whiter as the wind rose
and the darkness gathered, she would leave her bed and peer
22o LISETTE'S DREAM.
out into the night, and listen in dreary solitude to the raving
of the storm and the muffled thunder of the waves. She was
not afraid there was no room for fear in her stout little
heart ; but she felt very lonely ; and the poised head and
pure profile, against a background of cottage wall grimy and
black with smoke, were as wan and pallid and statuesque as
if indeed ages ago they had been cut from the solid marble
by a Greek.
We are presently, however, in our Indian summer, and
Lisette's spirit is not touched by any winter gloom. She is
apparently, however, in one of her tricky, defiant, impish,
mischievous moods ; and the mood has been on her for days.
Only the most ardent of the many lovers of this adorable
vixen, whose smile is as sweet as her tongue is bitter, have
not been put to flight. But Allan Park and Lewie Gordon
are not easily discouraged. It is true that at times these big,
stalwart fellows are mortally afraid of this slight slip of a girl ;
daunted by her scorn and bewildered by her caprice ; but all
the same, the sea-witch has "cuist the glamour o'er them,"
and they cannot leave her. Nor is she always hard; she
melts, she relents at times ; and then one or other of them
it is a toss-up which is in Paradise for the day. For though
she likes both, she is in real, earnest, downright love with
neither.
At least, so it was till the other month ; we shall see
immediately how it was now.
I have said that John Buchan lived in the Ronheads ; but,
in point of fact, his cottage stood by itself an outlying cottage,
one hundred yards beyond its nearest neighbour. So that it
had its own seclusion, its own sea and sky, and its own lawn,
studded with primroses in spring, a lawn of close, crisp grass,
such as golfers love, that ran right down through the centre of
the rocky cove where the boats are drawn up in winter to
the very lip of the water.
I don't know that it would be fair to say that Lisette had
played the one lover against the other so as to prevent the
suit of either of them pressing too closely, and so becoming
embarrassing. The truth is, that she did not know her own
LISETTE'S DREAM. 221
mind. Neither dominated her ; she was not the sort of girl
who would surrender at the first assault. She was too critical ;
had she been in a higher station, people would have said too
cynical. A pair of very observant black eyes looked out from
under heavy eyebrows, which reminded me of Mary Stuart's
in her picture at the Castle, and gave the eyes themselves the
same languid yet obstinately masterful expression.
Lisette would often blaze out at both : the lazy strength
of the blue-eyed giant would irritate her one day ; while on
another the crisp, sleek, almost cat-like comeliness of Lewie
Gordon would have a like effect upon her nerves, and she
would turn with a sense of relief and repose to the heavier
but more open and candid face of his rival. Allan, as we
know, was a fisherman ; Lewie was one of a fraternity that
has almost died out, the travelling merchant or pedlar. At
the time of which I am writing, when communication with the
outer world was slow and uncertain, the packman was a per-
sonage of some importance : it was on his periodical visits
that the country people relied for their hardware and cutlery
knives, forks, spoons, and suchlike articles of household
use ; and one corner of his pack was sometimes reserved for
daintier trifles which, when stealthily exhibited to the laird's
sister or the farmer's daughters, excited emotions in their
chaste rustic bosoms similar, or at least not widely dissimilar,
to those with which a petted beauty regards a masterpiece of
art in a Bond Street jeweller's. Lewie had more than once
endeavoured to persuade Lisette to accept one or other of the
really rather pretty knick-knacks (for his taste was good)
locket, or brooch, or bracelet which he had picked up in
the South ; but after trying on his whole stock, fastening
them all over her dress, so that she dazzled them like a
queen
"Lollia Paulina,
When she came in like star-light hid with jewels, "-
she would make him a mocking curtsey, and point-blank re-
fuse to have any. The dull tarnished silver chain and cross
which she wore round her neck, and which when closely
222 LISETTE'S DREAM.
examined proved to be a piece of really rare workmanship,
had been given to her by Allan when she was a child. They
had been fishing he and his brother at the Heughs, not
far from the spot where the Spanish vessel had foundered.
They had shot their lines, and were anchored near the shore
while they waited to draw them. (The " long lines " are paid
out from the boat, which is kept in motion, and with a
bladder at either end are left for an hour or so under water,
near the bottom.) The water in the bay was of limpid clear-
ness, so that they could see the pink shells and the crimson
sea-weeds on the sand, and brown and green crabs walking
leisurely about, fifteen or twenty feet below the surface. A
gleam of metal caught Allan's eye as he looked idly over the
boat's side. He was the strongest swimmer and diver in Bal-
mawhapple (where the boys take to the water like ducks);
and as it was one of the hottest days of a hot summer (such
as we used to have before the storm-cloud of the nineteenth
century darkened our skies), he had rapidly undressed and
plunged overboard. When after his long deep dive he re-
turned to the surface, he held the prize in his hand, the
silver chain and cross which Lisette had worn ever since, and
on which some letters of the maker's name could still be read.
It was that of a famous jeweller of Seville who had in his
time worked for Philip and Don John. So the expert in
gems from the British Museum, who came to Balmawhapple
for change of air, told us. He told us, too, that they were
still worn by the Spanish women as charms or amulets. If a
girl wore hers during the day, it would keep her from harm,
for they had power to drive evil spirits (whether in or out of
the body) away ; if she wore it at night, she would dream of
her lover. But we did not know of these queer old Spanish
monkish tomfooleries (if they were tomfooleries ; but the
orthodox belief of one age is the superstition of the next)
till afterwards.
I rather think Allan had an obscure hope, somewhere in
his heart of hearts, that so long as Lisette wore his cross he
had a chance some time of winning her. That was his
superstition ; and curiously enough, it was shared by Lewie
LISETTE'S DREAM. 223
Gordon, who on most other subjects was rather inclined to scoff.
Lewie had more than once tried to induce the girl to part
with it or put it away without success; for even to her
unpractised eye the tempting baubles of his wallet, pretty as
they were, seemed tawdry in comparison with this sea-worn
charm.
Gordon had been absent with his pack for the last month ;
but on the evening of which I am writing he had returned,
and while they still lingered in the cottage kitchen (supper
being over), the door opened noiselessly and he entered.
There was gloom on his brow, and the black eyes blazed
rather viciously when he found that Allan (who lived at the
other end of the village) made one of the party which were
now gathered round the peat-embers which smouldered on
the hearth. The men were smoking; Lisette, who had
washed and put away the coarse earthenware dishes, was
knitting one of those gossamer trifles fine as a spider's web
which we buy at Lerwick, but which may be had anywhere
along the coast where the native wool is sufficiently delicate.
Lewie was hospitably welcomed by the old man ; Allan
nodded to him ; Lisette, with something between a blush
and a laugh (for she was visibly embarrassed), inquired where
he had been so long.
He sat down among them ; but his answers were curt and
sullen. Something ailed him, that was clear even to the
unsophisticated and unsuspicious Allan. Lewie was com-
monly a bright and lively companion ; his calling made him
sociable; and his jests and stories, when he was in the
humour, kept Hodge's supper-table in a roar the jolly red-
faced Hodge in whose house he lodged for the night ; he was
a favourite with the women, too, for his natural courtesy
(handed down possibly from some remote courtly Hidalgo ?)
made him behave to them with a deference to which they were
unaccustomed. But when the black fit was on him, his gloom
was excessive. And for some months now the gloom had
been gathering. Rumour had been busy, as usual ; but no
one ever knew if Lisette had actually rejected him ; it was
more probable that, with his keen vision, quickened as it was
224 LISETTE'S DREAM.
by love and jealousy, he had silently observed a change in her
which had not been noticed by the others. Although he had
not given up the pursuit, he was wellnigh persuaded, I fancy,
that within the past two months she had made her choice,
and that her heart which had swung like a pendulum be-
tween them had at last settled on the other.
He did not remain long, and Allan left with him. He was
to start in the grey of the morning on his usual autumn ex-
pedition, a protracted tramp along the Atlantic seaboard
from Loch Broom to the wild highlands of Assynt ; a district
which at that time was thickly peopled, and where the pack-
man drove a thriving trade with the clansmen who had not
yet been disbanded and cast adrift by their chiefs. Curiously
enough, these East Coast fisher folks were familiar with the
other side of the Island, where among the salt-water lochs of
the Western Highlands they fished twice a-year in spring
and autumn. Lisette herself had been once in Assynt. Her
aunt had married a Mac who had a croft on the shoulder of
Ben More ; and a year or two before, she had paid Mrs Mac
a visit at her Highland home. But hemmed in all round by
mighty mountains, the sea-maid had pined for the sea ; and
she was glad to go back to Balmawhapple and breathe freely
again. Lisette needed a wide horizon.
Allan parted from Lewie at the corner of the Ronheads.
" We'll be at Lochinver for the cod before the month is out,
and you'll be passing that way," Allan had said as they parted.
To which the other, who had barely opened his lips, responded
by a savage grunt. " What ails him ? " Allan asked himself,
as he took a last look at the broad expanse of sea before
turning in. The modest giant had no inkling of the truth.
For the truth was, as Lewie had guessed, that Lisette's
heart had gone out that summer to Allan. This was how it
came about.
All her life till now Lisette had regarded Allan as she
might have regarded a good-natured Polar bear. He might
be bland and benevolent ; but he was big and uncouth ; and
he made a poor show at the festivities of dance or wedding,
of "Clyack" or New Year, at least when compared with
LISETTE'S DREAM. 225
Lewie, who was as refined and high-bred as the Duke himself.
(So Lisette thought ; had she known the Duke, she would
have said that Lewie was the finer gentleman of the two.)
But one memorable Monday night in July of this same year
not yet forgotten, nor like to be forgotten on our rock-
bound coast she had suddenly a vision of quite another
Allan.
The July evening had been fine, and more than five
hundred boats had gone out to the fishing-ground. Gulls
of every kind had been seen the day before in immense flocks
upon a bank at some distance to the north, and the clamour
they made as they hung with quivering wings over the water
where the shoal of herring lay, had been heard miles off. So
the crews had started in good time, looking forward to a
heavy fishing, and little dreaming of what was in store for
them. Allan was almost the only man in the fleet who was
dull and depressed; Lisette had been teasing him in mere
wantonness all the morning. He had left her at last with a
heavy heart. The parting had been cold and formal; and
Lisette, repenting too late of her wicked petulance, had shed
a tear or two after he left. " If he wasn't just such a big
bear ! " she had said to herself, as she wiped them away.
The twilight had deepened into night when Lisette barred
the door, and went up to her little cot among the rafters.
She was vaguely disquieted. Though the sea was smooth
and glassy as oil, its roar was loud and menacing, as some-
times happens when a storm has swept down the Norwegian
fiords, and spent itself at sea. There was hardly a breath of
wind ; what there was came direct from the east, and felt cold
and chill for the season. Lisette was weather-wise, as all
fisherwomen are ; but even now, though she said to herself
that there would be more wind ere morning, she did not
believe that a great gale was in the offing. Before she slipt
into bed, she gave one last look across the wide expanse of
water. The mist was rising from the land ; yet she saw, or
fancied that she saw, the lights on board the fleet twinkling in
the distance many miles to the nor'ard.
She slept soundly the sleep of the young till nearly
VOL. I. P
226 LISETTE'S DREAM.
three, when she wakened with a start. The wind was
shrieking down the chimney. She knew at once that a
great gale was blowing blowing dead inshore. Dressing
herself hurriedly, she went out to the cliff, where she barely
managed to keep her feet ; and from there, by the uncertain
light of the dawn, she could see that the sea was already
fiercely agitated. Huge white breakers roared in hoarsely,
and dashed themselves against the rocks below the spray
blinding her where she stood. Here and there among the
waves a scrap of sail was visible, the brown sail of a boat in
awful peril. Already the St Abbs shore was black with wreck,
the wreck of yawls which had just managed to weather
Rattray Briggs, but could not venture again to face the
full force of the gale in the open sea. Some half-dozen
boats, however, whose crews had shot their nets farther south
than the rest, were running under nearly bare poles for the
harbour.
Lisette, wrapping a shawl round her head, hurried down to
the shore. There was an excited crowd on the pier, women
mostly, whose men were outside in the storm. But it was not
a noisy crowd ; the wives and daughters of fishermen could
measure the danger ; and but for a muffled scream, when a
luckless boat hugging the rocks of the Keith Inch too closely
was sucked in and swamped among the breakers, they waited
in absolute silence. For they were well aware from past
experience that the most imminent peril was at the harbour-
mouth within fifty yards of where they stood. Between the
breakwater on the weather side of the harbour where the
coastguard were stationed, and the Black Rock immediately
below the house occupied by Miss Christian and Miss Anne,
on which the breakers burst with a noise like thunder, there
ran a narrow lane of smooth dark water, and along this lane
the path to safety lay. The utmost skill of the crew was
required here. The protecting jetty needed to be fairly
rounded, and sufficient "way" left on the boat to carry it
against the wind into the inner harbour. All depended upon
the dexterity with which the sail was lowered at the exact
moment; if it was caught by the wind as the jetty was
LISETTE'S DREAM. 227
rounded, the boat lost the necessary impetus, and was driven
back upon the sharp saw-like ridge of the fatal reef. When
this happened and it had already happened more than once
Lisette shut her eyes, and a stifled murmur went up from
the crowd. For it was instant death, in that seething
whirlpool there could be no escape no deliverance for man
or boat. The misery of it was, that from where she stood
(the rain in her eyes, the wind in her hair), the faces of the
crews who were hurried past to destruction could be plainly
seen. They were friends, neighbours, kinsmen ; and now at
last, rushing in at tremendous speed on the back of a mighty
wave which threatened every instant to break, and overwhelm
it, came her father's boat Old John Buchan was at the
helm ; Allan, sitting on the weather gunwale, had the sheet
in his hand the rope which held the thrice-reefed foresail.
Lisette could see him as plainly as if he stood at her side, and
for the first time her heart told her that her modest lover had
the. soul of a hero. Cool, steadfast, ready for life or death,
his mouth firm, his eye calm and confident, holding the sheet
in one hand while with the other he signalled to John how
indeed could she have been so blind as not to know that this
was a man of whom any woman might be proud ? " If he
wun through," she inwardly vowed, " I will never tease him
any more." He held on even with a smile on his comely
face, as it seemed to her till the right moment ; then the
sail fell sheer, and another crew were safe.
This was the vision which had sobered and steadied Lisette.
Thenceforth the current of her wayward fancy set steadily
towards Allan.
Yet the honest young fisherman did not fare much better
than before, when in the course of the evening he appeared at
the cottage. Lisette indeed was even more unapproachable
than usual. She had not forgotten her vow ; but she was
incensed at her own weakness. She resented what she held
to be an ignominious capitulation. She ! to lose her heart
to a man who was too modest (or stupid) to see that he had
won it. All the arrogance of her nature, all the exclusiveness
of her maiden reserve, rebelled against being thus led away
228 LISETTE'S DREAM.
a captive victim who hugged her chain. It was too humili-
ating. It was indeed past bearing.
This contradictory mood, in which pure passion struggled
with morbid pride, lasted more or less into the autumn; so
that Allan departed for the West Highland fishing early in
September, without any suspicion of the conquest he had
made.
II.
BOTH her lovers, and half the young men in the village, were
now absent ; and as she sat and knitted mechanically in front
of the cottage, her eyes would wander away to the Rattray
Skerries, round which the boats had to return. A local
distich, known to every seaman on these coasts, ran
" Keep Mortnond Hill a handspike high,
And Rattray Briggs you'll not come nigh ; "
and day and night, with the obstinate persistency of fever, the
refrain rang in her ears. Allan had taught her the lines when
she trotted after him in her childhood a tiny mite, whose
great round eyes, as black as jet, were often clouded by
fits of childish passion, which were more than childish in
their intensity ; and it was Allan they recalled. Her waking
thoughts were of her lover, and, with the amulet in her hand
or under her pillow, she dreamt of him at night.
Lisette had always been a dreamer ; her thronging fancies
took form when she was asleep ; and her dreams were often
so vivid (especially when she was left alone in the cottage for
weeks without a break) that she would sometimes ask herself
with an amused sense of bewilderment, Which was the dream ?
and, Which the sober fact ?
But never had she dreamt as she dreamt now and one
dream one dream from which she tried in vain to escape
began to repeat itself with dreary persistency. In this dream
she did not see Allan's face ; but all the time she was uneasily
conscious that he was somehow present.
Those of us who are familiar with the great moors round
LISETTE'S DREAM. 229
Loch Assynt know what a bare and miserable and God-for-
gotten country it is what a stony wilderness. But an oc-
casional oasis is to be met with by burnside or mountain tarn,
where wild roses bloom in the watery sunshine, and the rare
ferns flourish in not uncongenial fogs. The burns are pure
and sparkling, for they come from the live rock ; but a black
tarn in the middle of a black peat-hag on a black winter day
is one of the gloomiest combinations to be found out of the
Inferno.
It was beside such a tarn as this that Lisette beheld two
men in her dream. The only bit of colour was a mountain-
ash (with a profusion of scarlet berries) that grew out of the
precipitous rock which on one side overhung this stagnant
pool.
After a time Lisette began to recognise the place. It was a
lochan not far from her aunt's cottage on the Ben More Moor.
The scarlet berries, after which she had scrambled, first re-
called it to her mind. A path, little frequented, except by
tramps and gipsies, passed close beside it, and led to the
Lochinver road.
One of the men whose face was always averted wore the
blue jacket and the blue bonnet of a sailor. She seemed to
know him perfectly, and yet in the strange perversity of her
dream his name persistently escaped her. The other, slight
and slim, with black eyes and an olive skin, was Lewie
Gordon. Of that the dreamer had no doubt.
There had been a hot altercation between the two so
much also was clear. But how it came about that on a
sudden they should be wrestling desperately for dear life on
the edge of the precipice was not so clear to the dreamer.
Lewie had bent forward; there had been a flash of steel
and a rush of blood ; and then the larger-limbed of the two,
the wounded man, had recovered sufficiently to throw himself
upon his would-be assassin. The struggle lasted some time ;
no cry escaped from either ; but it began to be plain that Lewie
was overmatched. Yet he clung to the other with the ferocity
of a wolf, and what he meant to do became plain to the dreamer.
She read it in his eye the eye of a maniac from which all
230 LISETTE'S DREAM.
expression except that of mortal hate was banished. He would
take the other with him over the cliff ; they would go down,
go down together. He nearly succeeded; but on the very
brink his strength seemed suddenly to fail ; his grasp relaxed ;
his eyes closed ; a deadly pallor spread over his face ; and he
fell back into the loch, clutching instinctively at the branches
of the rowan-tree as he fell. The other had fainted.
Here on the first night the dream broke off. On the fol-
lowing night the story was resumed.
The man whose face was always in shadow lay for hours
insensible. Then life began painfully to return. He sat up
and looked around him. The moon was on the wane. It
threw a wan light on the moor ; but the tarn was black and
inscrutable. There was no living creature in sight ; no sound
except the croak of a heron in a pool near by. The man had
obviously no idea where he was until a dark object lying beside
him attracted his attention. It was the pedlar's pack. Then
he remembered remembered vaguely what had taken place.
It came back upon him gradually with a lurid horror that, in
his weakened state, for he had lost much blood, was more
than he could bear. Was he a murderer, or was he not?
His brain grew giddy again, and he fell back upon the heather.
At length he rose, and lifting the pack with what strength
remained, dropt it over the rock. He heard it plunge into
the water. His jacket was torn, his shirt was wet with blood,
his head was bare. He groped about trying to find his
cap; but he failed. Then he hurried away, bareheaded,
across the moor.
Beyond this the dream did not go.
The autumn closed in ; the crews returned Allan, her
father, and the rest; but even when winter was at hand,
there came no news of Lewie Gordon. It was well on to
Christmas before rumours of foul play began to spread through
the town.
Then Lisette could keep her dreadful secret no longer.
She had never as yet mentioned her dream ; for she had
a haunting dread, for which she could not account, that it
would bring trouble to them all. And as yet, too, she had
LISETTE'S DREAM. 231
never been able to identify, so to speak, the man who had
gone away bareheaded across the moor.
Now, however, she told her father ; and old John Buchan,
though attaching no importance to it, mentioned it casually to
the Fiscal, a brisk, kindly, good-humoured official, who had
done John a good turn more than once. The Fiscal looked
grave, and intimated that he would come and see Lisette. He
came the same night. Allan was with them looking delicate
and haggard. He had had brain fever when he was away ;
he had been found wandering in a half-crazy condition across
the moor below Suilven ; and some gipsies, after rifling his
pockets, had brought him to Lochinver, where he had been
nursed in a cottage built by the Duke for the sick poor on
his estate. He must have injured himself seriously when out
of his mind ; his clothes were in shreds ; he was covered with
bruises ; there was a deep gash in his neck. But he recovered
with amazing "rapidity, and was able to return in his own boat
when the fishing was over.
The Fiscal was urgent, and Lisette, somewhat against her
inclination, told him briefly the main incidents of her dream.
Whereabouts was Lochan Dhu ? Not a mile, she replied, from
her aunt's house ; both aunt and uncle knew it well ; the path
by it was a short cut to the kirk. He put a score of ques-
tions most of them shrewd and to the point ; then he left,
with a kindly greeting all round, though he looked thoughtful
and preoccupied.
Allan had been sitting in a dark corner, and no one except
Lisette had noticed the startled expression of his face while he
listened to her story. The mists which had clouded his mind
since his illness seemed to melt away. The whole terrible
scene which he had so utterly forgotten came back upon him.
A deep groan startled the other two. Allan rose and staggered
to the door. Lisette followed him.
" It's God's truth," he said, looking pitifully into her eyes.
" I mind it now." Then he went out into the darkness.
The veil fell from Lisette's eyes. This was indeed the
" other man " she had seen in her dream. How could she
have been so blind ? What infatuation could have possessed
232 LISETTE'S DREAM.
her? The blue jacket the sailor's cap the broad shoul-
ders "I was clean wud," said poor Lisette as she crept
into her bed.
But during a sleepless night she had determined what
course to take. Some families of fisher-people from a neigh-
bouring village had gone to Sweden on the invitation of
Thomas Erskine an Erskine of the old St Abbs stock which
had stuck by Queen Mary, and traced its pedigree back to
King Robert half of Balmawhapple belonged to them at one
time who was then consul at Gottenburg, as his grand-
father had been before him, where he had extensive works.
A flourishing colony of Scotch -speaking people had there
grown up under his eye, and many an invitation had been
sent by them to their kinsmen on this side the water. Allan
among others had been pressed to go ; but as yet he had
returned no answer. Why should he not go while there was
yet time, and leave all this trouble behind him ? That was
the question Lisette put to herself as she tossed sleeplessly
in bed.
A girl has little difficulty in finding her lover. Allan was
engaged in putting a final coat of tar on the summer boat,
which was now laid up for the winter, when he heard her
voice calling to him from the beach. He was very pale
the lines under the candid blue eyes" had grown darker than
it was good to see. He too had spent a sleepless night. He
came at her bidding ; but the expression of his face was not
that of an alert lover it was grave and sad.
With gentle persistency Lisette urged him to go ; but he
was immovable. No ; he had meant no harm to Lewie
Gordon ; but if he had been the unwitting cause of his
death, he was sorry for it, would be sorry all his life. He
could not quit the country, he could not leave Balmawhapple
while a possible charge of murder hung over his head, until
either his guilt or his innocence had been made plain.
" How could he prove that he was innocent ? " she asked,
and he could make no reply. But his obstinate simplicity
was beyond the reach of argument. "I maun dree my
weird." To that sublime fatalism, that blind submission to an
LISETTE'S DREAM. 233
inscrutable decree, the serene composure which enables these
humble heroes to meet danger and death every winter night
is due.
Then Lisette broke down. "You will break my heart,"
she sobbed.
Allan looked at her with mild astonishment in his honest
eyes. The truth, the astonishing truth, was beginning to
dawn upon him ; but he could not yet put it in words. It
was not possible that she could love him?
But now Lisette could restrain herself no longer. She
was shaken by her sobs ; she gasped for breath ; her face was
dabbled with tears. " I will go with you mysel', Allan," she
murmured at last.
Was he dreaming ? Was this great, this incredible happi-
ness really within his reach ?
" I will go with you, Allan, Oh, man," she added hastily,
with a touch of the old petulant impatience, " do ye no' ken
that I lo'e ye lo'e ye better than mysel' ? "
Then at last Allan understood. He folded her in his
arms ; that moment repaid him for much that was past and
much that was to come. But even in that moment of su-
preme happiness he was immovable. " I maun dree my
weird."
It fell out as Lisette had foreseen that it would. The
Black Lochan Lochan Dhu was dragged, and Gordon's
body was found. The pack also was dragged up, and along
with them the sailor's cap that Allan had worn. His ini-
tials were on it; they had been worked by Lisette. That
he had been at the Macs on or about the day of the murder
was also clearly established.
Allan was apprehended, and lodged in the Balmawhapple
jail. When examined before the Sheriff, he said only that he
was innocent. The Sheriffs duty was quickly performed ;
he had simply to remit a prisoner charged with murder to
the Court of Justiciary, which twice a-year held sittings at
Balmawhapple. The indictment, as it is called, was served
in March ; then Allan learnt that he was to be tried at the
Spring sittings. The 2oth of April was the day named.
234 LISETTE'S DREAM.
All Balmawhapple was in Court that day. There were
Corbies, and Caldcails, and Buchans, and Meldrums, and
Skinners, and Rackets, and Holdfasts among the audience,
which not only filled the spacious Town Hall, but overflowed
into the High Street. Much sympathy was felt for the brave
and simple lad whose life was in hazard, but Lisette's dream
was the engrossing topic. Lord Oronsay, the President of
the High Court, was on the bench, having good-naturedly
taken the place of one of his colleagues who was in poor
health. Lord Oronsay was one of those judges of whom it
is almost impossible to speak too highly ; serene, luminous,
equable ; never swayed by passion, never warped by pre-
judice ; an orderly and abstemious reasoner, disinclined
though not unfitted to deal with principles and abstract pro-
positions, and clinging to fact with characteristic tenacity.
Orderly for the manner in which he grouped the leading
facts of a case was so admirable that when the conclusion to
which he had all along been cautiously working was at length
disclosed, it seemed that no other was possible, and that
argument was superfluous ; abstemious never throwing away
a word, or a scrap of logic, or a grain of sense ; always equal
to the occasion, never below it, and (a common infirmity
with men of great powers) never above it.
A smart and clever young counsel, Charles Newell by
name, who later on attained celebrity as an incisive logician
and a brilliant wit, conducted the prosecution as Advocate-
Depute with exemplary fairness and moderation.
Allan's counsel had not been long at the bar ; but he had
already made his mark. He became afterwards, as we all
know, a great advocate; his speech in a cause ceftbre, of
which the world has heard, is one of the masterpieces of our
time symmetrical in arrangement, and executed with a con-
summate knowledge of strategy and effect. For pure, lucid,
intellectual force John Carstairs had no peer at either bar.
But the moral force of his character was even more impres-
sive. He was neither witty nor sarcastic ; but the haughty
scorn of his virtue, the intense bitterness of his integrity,
crushed its victim to pieces. His presence was imposing,
LISETTE'S DREAM. 235
and he knew how to use it to perfection. He folded his
black stuff gown about him with the austere dignity of a
Chatham. The contemptuous curl of his nether lip was
deadly. His manner was singularly still and restrained until
the victim was fairly in his toils, when he came down upon
him like a thunderclap.
The audience rose as Lord Oronsay, accompanied by Ad-
miral Holdfast (whose notes made at the time I have been
permitted to read), entered and took his seat; he bowed
rather stiffly in response, and the business began. It is not
my intention to describe what took place at any length : the
legal discussions will be found in the authorised reports ; the
evidence in the newspapers of the day. Allan pleaded not
guilty in a steady voice, and with an accent of sincerity that
favourably impressed his hearers. There was very little dis-
pute about the facts ; the forensic battle raged round Lisette.
When she entered the witness-box she was as white as a sheet ;
she was almost inaudible when she swore, as she would answer
to God at the great day of judgment, that she would tell the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ; but she
rapidly regained her composure. Lisette was quick-witted, as
we know, and she had come to understand that much depended
upon the manner in which her evidence, if admitted, was given.
So, though her heart continued to beat painfully whenever her
eye involuntarily turned to Allan, she pulled herself together
for the ordeal that was before her.
But it was doubtful for long whether her evidence would be
admitted at all. She was no sooner in the box than the argu-
ment began. Allan's junior counsel professed to be convinced
that what she would say must be irrelevant. He understood
from his learned friend's statement that she knew nothing
directly of what had taken place. She was brought, it was
admitted, with quite another object in view. She was brought
to speak of a dream she had had ! A dream, forsooth ! This
was the first time in his recollection, and he dared say in his
lordship's, that it was proposed to produce a dream as evidence
in a court of law. But the Advocate-Depute cleverly evaded
the destructive effect of the ridicule by declaring that he had
236 LISETTE'S DREAM.
called the girl with the object of showing only how it was that
the inquiry had taken a particular direction. It was merely,
so to speak, as a link in the chain of investigation that she was
there. He did not, indeed, propose to examine her at any
length, if at all, on the substance of her dream.
Here Carstairs sprang to his feet. He had got the admis-
sion he desired. What did the other side mean ? Was the
girl's evidence to be mangled and mutilated to suit the con-
venience of the prosecution ? It must either be rejected alto-
gether or admitted without reserve.
The counsel on either side continued to bob up and down
for some time ; but the President ultimately decided that no
part of Lisette's evidence need necessarily be excluded. The
audience were unable to follow the argument, and they listened
to it with impatience. What was the good of all this fencing ?
They were not aware that the first move for the defence had
been more or less of a feint, the object being to secure an un-
interrupted hearing for Lisette. Carstairs was persuaded that
if she was permitted without constant challenge to tell her
story in her own simple and expressive language, as it had
been told to himself the night before, the effect on the jury
would be powerful, and upon the whole, though this line of
defence was attended with a certain risk, advantageous for his
client.
So Lisette was permitted to tell her story in her own way ;
and she told it well with grace and modesty at times with
a touch even of the old vivacity.
It was thought by the onlookers that Mr Carstairs would
have succeeded in gaining a verdict for his client so per-
suasive and strenuous was his appeal had it not been for
the tell-tale cap. If Allan was innocent, how came his cap to
be in the loch ? That was how the jury would reason, they
said.
Lord Oronsay summed up with the perfect impartiality for
which he was renowned. No consideration that could tell
either for or against Allan was overlooked. If Lisette's nar-
rative was credible, or rather if it correctly represented what
had taken place at the Black Loch, murder had not been
LISETTE'S DREAM. 237
committed, for the death of Gordon was, according to her
account, due to an accident. The prisoner had no doubt
caused Gordon's death ; but he had acted in self-defence, as
he was entitled to do. But what in law was the worth of her
evidence ? She had not been present ; she had not been a
spectator, except in her dream. He admitted the force of Mr
Carstairs's contention that the case was one of the most excep-
tional that had ever been tried in a court of justice. It was
undoubtedly through this girl's instrumentality through her
dream, in short that the criminal authorities had been enabled
to show that Gordon had met with a violent death. This they
admitted, although they refused to go a step further, and
accept her version of what had occurred at Lochan Dhu. He
was not a metaphysician ; he could not explain those obscure
conditions of the consciousness in sleep or in the second-sight
with which, from the earliest times, a marvellous power of
vision had been associated. He himself was a Highlander,
and Highlanders were held to be more credulous than their
Lowland neighbours. He had himself known cases in which
the bodily or the spiritual ear had been so keenly on the alert,
so morbidly active, that the last words of one dearly loved,
though dying at a distance, had been distinctly audible. Only
the other day he had heard of a shepherd who was drowned
in Yarrow, and whose wife, at the door of their cottage miles
away, had caught his parting sob, " O Ailie, Ailie ! " But
while, as a Highlander, he might believe in what one of their
bards had said (here he gave the Gaelic with immense gut-
tural inflection ; the passage was subsequently translated by a
living poet
" Star to star vibrates light ; may soul to soul
Strike through a finer element of her own ? "
or more literally, "As messages are sent through the starry
spaces by invisible couriers, so through the magic of love
those far distant from each other in body may be brought
together in spirit") he could not, as a judge, advise them
that it was safe or prudent in a court of law to attach any
weight to intimations that had been made through so ques-
238 LISETTE'S DREAM.
tionable a medium. Let him not be misunderstood ; when
he spoke of a questionable medium he meant the dream, not
the dreamer, who had given her evidence, he was bound to
say, with perfect simplicity and candour, and yet with a force
and vivacity which were rare anywhere, and in a court of law
were generally conspicuous by their absence.
With these words the President concluded his charge, and
the jury retired to consider their verdict.
While they were absent Carstairs rose, looked round, and
catching her eye, beckoned to Lisette. They met at the
door.
" Go home now," he said to her. " I rather suspect the
jury are not at one, they can't get over Allan's cap some of
them anyway. But don't be afraid ; I give you my word of
honour that, whatever the verdict is, Allan will be a free man
in a week. The dream will save him ; good or bad as
evidence, it supplies the one credible explanation of all that
took place. I make no doubt whatever that Gordon had
divined that his rival had won the prize if you will allow
me to say so, and that, mad with jealousy, he had struck as
a maniac strikes. Take my word, the Home Secretary will
send Allan a free pardon before the week is out."
It was a speech dictated by true kindness, for Carstairs
had felt that he had failed to convince Boghall, the obstinate
farmer who acted as foreman, and he instinctively appre-
hended what the issue would be. It was not well, he thought,
that this spirited but delicate girl should be present at the
last scene of all. So Lisette went home with her father her
eyes moist, but her heart wonderfully light.
The jury were absent until the dim tallow candles of the
period were brought in. So that their verdict was delivered
in comparative obscurity, or rather in a darkness that might
be felt. By a majority of seven to six they found Allan Park
guilty of MURDER. The verdict, however, was accompanied
by a unanimous recommendation to mercy.
Well, it was over; and Allan had been sentenced to be
taken from the prison of Balmawhapple to the place of
execution, and there hanged by the neck until he was dead.
LISETTE'S DREAM. 239
But Balmawhapple had inwardly resolved that these cruel
and barbarous words were relics of a cruel and barbarous
age, unworthy of an enlightened Balmawhapple, and that the
sentence should not be carried out. The fiery cross was sent
round the coast, and from a score of villages interested in the
credit of their craft there was a ready response. From
Buchanness to the Pentland Skerries a thousand"" stalwart
fishermen had sworn that if Allan was not released by the
law, he should be rescued by themselves.
The day was drawing near, and no reprieve had come.
The outlying fishermen had begun to arrive, and both
harbours were crowded with their boats. They had come
ostensibly to make their bargain with the curers, but the
authorities had been privately warned that this was not the
real object. The Sheriff had ostentatiously pooh-poohed the
warning ; the Fiscal had smiled placidly, as he could afford
to do, having been confidentially assured from headquarters
that a reprieve was being prepared. Of this, however, he
could say nothing, although he had gone quietly along to
the cottage one evening when the citizens were mostly in
bed, and told Lisette to be of good courage and cheer as
indeed, to the surprise of the village gossips, she had been all
along.
The jail of Balmawhapple was an old-fashioned building
which had at one time been used as an inn. The Home
Secretary, though warned of the risk of disturbance, had re-
fused to give the governor an elderly gentleman with silky
white hair, and the manners of the last century a single
policeman or a single trooper ; and- on the night for which
the rescue had been provisionally fixed, Captain Keith had
been invited by Miss Christian and Miss Anne (I am afraid
the worthy ladies on this occasion were not so innocent as
they looked) to make a fourth at their nightly rubber. The
old gentleman was passionately fond of whist, and of course
he went, taking his wife with him. Thus only a turnkey was
left to look after the " inmates " rari nantes in gurgite vasto
and a collection had been judiciously made to pay his
expenses. The fishermen were marshalled noiselessly on the
240 LISETTE'S DREAM.
Keith Inch shore behind the breakwater ; and whenever nine
struck nine was the hour that had been agreed on they
marched in perfect order and silence, three abreast, from the
Keith Inch past the harbours and along the High Street to
the front gate of the jail. The turnkey having been duly
summoned, protested loudly that he only yielded to superior
force, and thereupon handed over his prisoner. Allan was
quickly brought down amid smothered cheers to the north
harbour, where a long light whaling-boat, manned by eight
stalwart seamen, was waiting to take him off to the sloop in
the offing. There had been much restrained jubilation ; the
hero of the night had been nearly shaken to pieces by his too
ardent admirers ; and he was just stepping on board the skiff
when the undaunted Fiscal, elbowing his way through the
threatening crowd, appeared on the scene. There was such
an angry murmur as precedes a storm ; but he was known to
many of them, and his good-nature and good-humour were
proverbial. So they listened to him as they would probably
have listened to no one else. "Men, men, what are you
after?" he exclaimed, addressing those nearest at hand, but
raising his voice as he proceeded. He seemed stern, but
there was a twinkle in his eye. "You are doing Allan an
ill turn. Prison-breaking is an ugly business. Have none of
you heard the news ? A special messenger arrived a quarter
of an hour ago with a reprieve" here there were frantic
cheers "a free pardon is on the road" here the cheers
became deafening "and the sooner you have Allan safely
locked up again, the better it will be for him and for us all."
The leaders looked blankly at each other; their labour had
been for nought; but the advice was so obviously sound,
that, hoisting the Fiscal (much to the worthy man's disgust),
as well as Allan, shoulder-high, the crowd surged up the High
Street as it had done an hour before, and paused again before
the great gate of the jail. Here, however, they encountered
an unlooked-for obstacle. They found to their dismay that
the gates were securely barred against them. They had got
the prisoner out easily enough, but how were they to get him
in ? The turnkey had thought it prudent to take French leave
LISETTE'S DREAM. 241
of his masters, and the prison was actually deserted. There
was not a soul at least within the walls who could unbar the
outer gate ; and it almost seemed at one time as if Allan, with
or without his consent, must still submit to be rescued. At
this crisis it happily occurred to some one to suggest that the
Provost had the keys in duplicate which proved to be the
case ; and in the nick of time Allan was restored to his cell
and securely locked up. Just in the nick of time, for the
key had barely been turned when the Sheriff arrived. That
dignitary was either judicially or judiciously blind, or he was
too much engrossed otherwise to notice that anything was
amiss. The letter from the Home Office was in his hand,
and turning to Allan, he read it aloud. The cheers with
which it was greeted by the bystanders were taken up outside,
and Balmawhapple will not soon forget the roar like thunder
that came from a thousand throats, and that startled the
sleeping sea-gulls a mile off in the bay.
When he had finished reading the letter, which concluded
with the intimation that it would be followed immediately by
a free pardon, the Sheriff he had the reputation of being a
humourist, and his jokes from the bench, although he shared
the proverbial "deeficulty" of his countrymen, were always
received with respect by the Bar shook hands with the
prisoner, and added, with more than judicial gravity (this was
supposed to give the jokes their point), that though he dared
say it was against the rules approved by the Commissioners,
yet as the dream and the use that had been made of the
dream were innovations for which no precedents could be
found in the series of Reports so meritoriously conducted by
Mr Cowpen of that Ilk (afterwards Lord Drumsaddle), he
would, in the language of the poet, "for this night only"
make bold to disregard them.
And then, with a proud and happy smile on her face,
Lisette entered the condemned cell.
VOL. I.
242
VII.
AFTER CULLODEN.
I HAVE said in an earlier chapter that the records of
Balmawhapple during the last century are meagre.
I had hoped to find in the charter-room at the Cleuch
many references to " the King across the water," and
the risings of the '15 and the '45. But I was disap-
pointed. It was probably considered safer to " read
and burn." But the other day I came upon a scrap
in cipher of old letter or journal journal most likely
without beginning or end, which had, however,
plainly been written a month or two after Culloden.
Sir Gilbert Holdfast himself the then laird of the
Cleuch was, as we know, a stout Hanoverian, like
most of the Balmawhapple townsfolk; but, in spite
of warning and remonstrance, young Walter Holdfast
of the Heughs the Holdfasts of the Heughs were a
younger branch of the house had joined the Prince.
He came back after Culloden in sorry plight, and was
more than once in dire peril from the red-coats, who
swarmed, like angry wasps in a hot summer, all over
AFTER CULLODEN. 243
the country-side. His most vigilant and pertinacious
enemy was the contemporary Corbie ; whereas the
great-great-grandfather of my veteran ally Dr Jackson
was mainly instrumental in aiding him to escape. I
am not positive, but I fancy that the parish minister
of the day was an Evergreen ; for, in the Kirk of
Balmawhapple, son has followed father in unbroken
succession from beyond the memory of man. The
letter, which was discovered quite lately within the
covers of an old family Bible, is incomplete and un-
signed ; but its writer (whoever he was) must have
had a decided literary aptitude, for its drift is clear
enough. A captious critic indeed might be tempted
to opine that it is even modern in its realism,
which however is partly due, no doubt, to the fact
that the cipher is obscure, and the decipher more or
less tentative and provisional. Throughout this vol-
ume, as the reader will have observed, I have care-
fully avoided the archaic. It needs a great master
of " our English " to make the obsolete vital. Did
even Thackeray quite succeed ?
" It was late on the Friday night a Friday night towards
the middle of September.
" I was about to undress when I heard a soft tap on the
window. My room is on the ground-floor, and looks into the
garden. It was nearly midnight, but the yellow hunter's moon
had risen, and a long lane of light lay upon the unquiet plain
of water that stretched away to the horizon.
" ' Are you up, Mr James ? ' said the Doctor, peering in at
me through the open window. ' We must get this foolish boy
out of the way. Corbie is off for the red-coats. The Shirra
is a good fellow, who does not love Corbie, and he gave me a
244 AFTER CULLODEN.
hint. I have got Watty to the Old Manse, where our good
friend the D.D. is taking charge of him till we come. One of
the whaling brigs is in the bay ; she sails with the first light ;
and I want you to have a boat ready to take him on board.
Get old Peter Buchan if you can he would do anything for
Watty Watty used to go with him to the deep-sea fishing
years ago when a bairn. Meantime I shall try to get the
lad's belongings together if I can manage it quietly.'
" The Doctor darted off into the darkness, and, putting out
the light, I went down to the fishers' quarter of the town,
where Peter lived. The unsavoury suburb was all astir ; the
lines were being baited in the flickering lamp-light ; the fleet
were to leave with the first flow of the tide. I sought out
Peter, who was yet barely awake ; but he brightened up pres-
ently when I told him my errand, and he promised that his
yawl would be lying under the sea-wall of the Old Manse at
one sharp. It was now midnight.
" The townspeople were fast asleep, and the oil-lamp at the
Provost's door was economically turned out, as I made my
way along the shore to the Old Manse. Only the blue and
red lights of the smacks were burning in the bay, though
further off, near the point of the promontory, a star-like flash
from the brilliant lamp which the Laird keeps in the Tower
showed that the inmates of the Cleuch were still up.
" The door of the Manse stood open, and I entered quietly.
The evening devotions had been delayed by the arrival of the
unexpected guest ; but the household were now gathered in
the parlour, and I could follow more or less distinctly the
tremulous voice of the old man praying the Lord to guard
those who had wandered from the fold, and to guide their
feet into the way of peace. They were singing a verse from a
good old Scottish hymn,
' To an inheritance divine
He taught our hearts to rise ;
'Tis uncorrupted, undefil'd,
Unfading in the skies,' 1
I had fancied that this version was of later date.
AFTER CULLODEN. 245
when I heard the Doctor's feet on the gravel. 'We must
hurry up,' he whispered. ' Corbie will be back in an hour
there are red-coats at Ardallie they will take the short cut
across the hill. We can't wait.'
" The old man laid his withered hands upon Watty's head,
and gave him a last blessing. ' Be a good lad,' he said ; ' be
a good lad.'
" We went down noiselessly to the beach. The moon was
high in heaven, and it was clear as day. The black shadows
of the hedges lay across the path cut sharply as by a knife.
Cautiously we opened the wicket-gate in the sea-wall of the
garden, and looked out. The sands lay white before us.
Black sails were beginning to leave the harbour. At the
little pier beneath our feet a boat was drawn up. I whistled
softly ; there was a low whistle in reply : the coast was clear.
We glided down the steep path the three of us the Doctor,
Watty, and myself. When we reached the pier no time was
lost; the oars were already in the water; Peter stood with
one foot on the jetty, with one on the gunwale of the boat,
ready to shove off. I grasped Watty's hand, bidding him in
a whisper to bear himself like a man, and all might yet be
well; the Doctor bundled the valise into the bow; and in
another second four strong oars were driving the heavy boat
through the phosphorescent water.
" Even while we waited a shrill whistle came from the big
ship. The sails were up ; the anchor was in ; she was eager
to be off to whale and iceberg. The boat glided alongside,
and then after a moment's delay the two dark objects fell
apart. Those on board the Orion bound for the Faroes
and the great whaling-grounds beyond would not see England
again for two years.
" The Doctor's gig was waiting for him at the corner of the
Deacon's Wynd. 'There is a nip in the air,' he said, 'it
must be near the dawn.' As he spoke we heard the big
clock in the Tower strike two. The bells of Balmawhapple
answered across the bay.
" Then in the moonlight silence that followed we heard the
clatter of hoofs. It was the red-coats Corbie with them
246 AFTER CULLODEN.
riding down the Langgate. But we were in deep shadow,
and they saw us not.
" ' The bird has flown,' said the Doctor, with a chuckle, as
he took the reins. ' I am bound for Cuddiestone old
Davie Dewar will not last the night but I'll see the laird as
I pass the Cleuch, and warn him that Watty is weel awa'.
And the Prince too thank God ! if this night's news be
true.' "
I may add that Walter, a sea-bird like them all by
birth and breeding, took to the sea, and lived to be an
old man. My father used to tell us that he had had a
client who was " out in the '45." Watty was the man.
* *
#
Here in the meantime I put away the pen. But
how about the struggle over Hector's body ? It had
been my intention, as you may have gathered, to
conclude the First Book of the Chronicles of Balma-
whapple the historical series, if I may make bold to
use the expression with a true and particular account
of the great election fight between Mark Holdfast, who
represented the party of privilege and a creed as
extinct as the Dodo (so Pat's rival editor remarked),
and the great social and domestic reformer Mr Pigs-
wash, who was in favour of the payment of members
and purity all round. (" Pigswash and Purity ! "
indeed, during these days met us at every turn.)
The whole forces of the ancient burgh were trotted
out ; here Bohemian sharpshooters, there the heavy
cavalry of the Philistines ; Corbie, and " G.G," and
AFTER CULLODEN. 247
" daft Davie Dewar," and the butter and egg mer-
chant on the one side; and Pat, and the Tomahawk,
and the Doctor, and the Ronhead fisher-lads, and Miss
Christian and Miss Anne, and Lawrence and Dobbs
on the other. But the documents have been mislaid,
and if I write from memory only some considerate
critic will be sure to remind me that I am morbidly
inaccurate. Besides, though it took place only thirty
years ago, the vital spark is fled. The speeches have
grown vapid ; the sting has gone out of them ; the
pleasantries which evoked tumultuous " cheers and
laughter " are no longer intelligible. Oblivion scat-
tereth her poppies. The honest yeoman who said in
the witness-box the other day that he had lived on
his land from time immemorial was not so far wrong
as the audience fancied when they laughed. The
pace grows more and more furious as we near the
goal, and the newspapers of 1860 are already further
away from us than Homer or Jeremiah.
And yet from another point of view I regret the
misadventure. Had I been privileged to bring this
opening series to a close with a vivid report of the
famous Balmawhapple " mill," the reader would have
been able to compare the Balmawhapple of a milder
and possibly happier age with the Balmawhapple
which burnt witches, and continued to regard with
wholesome respect the tail, the horns, and the cloven
hoof of the dreaded enemy of mankind. The report
not being forthcoming, I am haunted by an uneasy
suspicion that my record is more or less imperfect.
248 AFTER CULLODEN.
How, I ask myself, is the gap to be filled ? How can I
prove to you that we have travelled many miles, have
entered indeed into another world altogether, since
John Knox thundered in the High Street against the
Witch at the other end of the Canongate ? I can only
comfort myself with the reflection that in the later
Books of these veracious Chronicles an answer may
possibly be found. Mark shall speak for himself,
shall take us with him to Summer Isles which look out
upon the Atlantic, where the eider nests, and the solan
dives, arid the great seal basks upon the tangle ; his
daughter Madge, in an Idyll of Alpine Valleys, shall
tell us, with not unbecoming freedom, let us hope,
how among the mighty mountains which we have come
to love, but which were so " monstrous " to our great-
grandmothers and their beaus, her wooing sped ; the
impressions of an Impressionist shall not be unre-
corded ; and on the hillside, over above Balmawhapple,
we shall listen, it may be, to animated discourse on the
wits and critics and poets and painters and philoso-
phers who in the autumn (or winter) of this Nineteenth
Century have been falling as the leaves fall in October.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
PRINTED BV WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
DATE DUE