Part 26 (1/2)
CHAPTER XVI
HOW THREE MEN HELD A TOWN IN TERROR
It was towards evening, a dark November evening, that we came near the little town of Biggar. The place lies on a sandy bank raised from the wide moss which extends for miles by the edge of the sluggish stream.
It is a black, desolate spot, where whaups and snipe whistle in the back streets, and a lane, which begins from the causeway, may end in a pool of dark moss-water. But the street is marvellous broad, and there, at the tail of the autumn, is held one of the greatest fairs in the lowlands of Scotland, whither hawkers and tinkers come in hordes, not to speak of serving-men and serving-la.s.ses who seek hire. For three days the thing goes on, and for racket and babble it is unmatched in the countryside.
We halted before the entrance to the town on a square of dry in the midst of the water-way. The weather had begun to draw to storm, and from the east, great ma.s.ses of rolling cloud came up, tinged red and yellow with the dying sun. I know not how many the gipsies were, but, with women and children, they were not less in number than ninety or a hundred. They had with them a great quant.i.ty of gear of all kinds, and their animals were infinite. Forbye their horses and a.s.ses, they had dogs and fowls, and many tamed birds which travelled in their company.
One sight I yet remember as most curious. A great long man, who rode on a little donkey, had throughout the march kept an ugly raven before him, which he treated with much kindness; and on dismounting lifted off with a.s.siduous care. And yet the bird had no beauty or accomplishment to merit his good-will. It is a trait of these strange people that they must ever have something on which to expend their affection; and while the women have their children, the men have their pets. The most grim and quarrelsome tinker will tend some beast or bird and share with it his last meal.
When the camp was made, the fire lit, and the evening meal prepared, the men got out their violins and bagpipes, and set themselves to enliven the night with music. There in the clear s.p.a.ce in front of the fire they danced to the tunes with great glee and skill. I sat beside the captain and watched the picture, and in very truth it was a pleasing one. The men, as I have said, were for the most part lithe and tall, and they danced with grace. The gipsy women, after the age of twenty, grow too harsh-featured for beauty, and too manly in stature for elegance. But before that age they are uniformly pretty. The free, open-air life and the healthy fare make them strong in body and extraordinarily graceful in movement. Their well-formed features, their keen, laughing black eyes, their rich complexions, and, above all, their ma.s.ses of coal-black hair become them choicely well. So there in the ruddy firelight they danced to the quavering music, and peace for once in a while lay among them.
Meanwhile I sat apart with William Baillie, and talked of many things.
He filled for me a pipe of tobacco, and I essayed a practice which I had often heard of before but never made trial of. I found it very soothing, and we sat there in the bield of the tent and discoursed of our several wanderings. I heard from him wild tales of doings in the hills from the Pentlands to the c.u.mberland fells, for his habits took him far and wide in the country. He told all with the greatest indifference, affecting the air of an ancient Stoic, to whom all things, good and evil alike, were the same. Every now and then he would break in with a piece of moralising, which he delivered with complete gravity, but which seemed to me matter for laughter, coming, as it did, after some racy narrative of how he vanquished Moss Marshall at the s.h.i.+eling of Kippertree, or cheated the ale-wife at Newbigging out of her score.
On the morrow all went off to the fair save myself, and I was left with the children and the dogs. The captain had judged it better that I should stay, since there would be folk there from around Barns and Dawyck, who might penetrate my disguise and spread the tidings.
Besides, I knew naught of the tinker trade, and should have been sorely out of place. So I stayed at home and pondered over many things, notably my present predicament. I thought of all my old hopes and plans-to be a scholar and a gentleman of spirit, to look well to my lands and have a great name in the countryside, to study and make books, maybe even to engage in Parliament and State business. And what did I now? Travelling in disguise among tinkers, a branded man, with my love and my lands in danger, nay all but lost. It was this accursed thought that made the bitterest part of my wanderings.
I was in such a mood when a servant came from a farmhouse near to get one of the gipsies to come and mend the kitchen pot. As I was the only one left, there was nothing for it but to go. The adventure cheered me, for its whimsicality made me laugh, and laughter is the best antidote to despair. But I fared very badly, for, when I tried my 'prentice hand at the pot, I was so manifestly incapable that the good-wife drove me from the place, calling me an idle sorner, and a lazy vagabond, and many other well-deserved names. I returned to the camp with my ears still ringing from her cuff, but in a more wholesome temper of mind.
The greater part of the others returned at the darkening, most with well-filled pockets, though I fear it was not all come by honestly; and a special feast was prepared. That gipsy meal was of the strangest yet most excellent quality. There was a savoury soup made of all kinds of stewed game and poultry, and after that the flesh of pigs and game roasted and broiled. There was no seasoning to the food save a kind of very bitter vinegar; for these people care little for salt or any condiment. Moreover, they had the strange practice of grating some hard substance into their wine, which gave it a flavour as if it had been burned in the mulling.
The meal was over and I was thinking of lying down for the night, when William Baillie came back. I noted that in the firelight his face was black with anger. I heard him speak to several of his men, and his tone was the tone of one who was mastering some pa.s.sion. By and by he came to where I sat and lay down beside me.
”Do you wish to pleasure me?” he said, shortly.
”Why, yes,” I answered; ”you have saved my life and I would do all in my power to oblige you, though I fear that just now my power is little.”
”It's a' I want,” said he, leaving his more correct speech for the broad Scots of the countryside. ”Listen, and I'll tell ye what happened the day at the fair. We tinker-folk went aboot our business, daein' ill to nane, and behavin' like dacent, peaceable, quiet-mainnered men and women. The place was in a gey steer, for a heap o' Wast-country trash was there frae the backs o' Straven and Douglasdale, and since a' the G.o.dly and reputable folk thereaways hae ta'en to the hills, nane but the rabble are left. So as we were gaun on canny, and sellin' our bits o'
things and daein' our bits o' jobs, the drucken folk were dancin' and cairryin' on at the ither end. By and by doun the Fair come a drucken gairdener, one John Cree. I ken him weel, a fosy, black-hert.i.t sc.o.o.ndrel as ever I saw. My wife, whom ye know, for it was her that lookit after ye when ye were sick, was standin' at the side when the man sees her.
He comes up to her wi' his leerin', blackgairdly face, and misca's her for a tinkler and a' that was bad, as if the warst in our tribe wasna better than him.
”Mary, she stands back, and bids him get out or she wad learn him mainners.
”But he wadna take a tellin'. 'Oh, ho, my bawbee joe,' says he, 'ye're braw and high the day. Whae are you to despise an honest man? A wheen tinkler doxies!' And he took up a stane and struck her on the face.
”At this a' our folk were for pittin' an end to him there and then. But I keepit them back and bade them let the drucken ful be. Syne he gaed awa', but the folk o' the Fair took him up, and we've got nocht but ill-words and ill-tongue a' day. But, by G.o.d! they'll pay for it the morn.” And the captain looked long and fiercely into the embers.
”I hae a plan,” said he, after a little, ”and, Master Burnet, I want ye to help me. The folk of the fair are just a wheen sc.u.m and riddlings.
There are three o' us here, proper men, you and myself and my son Matthew. If ye will agree to it we three will mount horse the morn and clear oot that fair, and frichten the folk o' Biggar for the next twalmonth.”
”What would you do?” said I.
”I hae three suits,” he said, ”o' guid crimson cloth, which I got frae my grandfather and have never worn. I have three braw horses, which cam oot o' England three year syne. If the three o' us mount and ride through the fair there will be sic a scattering as was never heard tell o' afore i' the auld toun. And, by G.o.d, if that gairdener-body doesna gang wud wi' fricht, my name's no William Baillie.”
Now, I do not know what madness prompted me to join in this freak. For certain it was a most unbecoming thing for a man of birth to be perched on horseback in the company of two reckless tinkers to break the king's peace and terrify His Majesty's lieges of Biggar. But a dare-devil spirit-the recoil from the morning's despondency-now held me. Besides, the romance of the thing took me captive; it was as well that a man should play all the parts he could in the world; and to my foolish mind it seemed a fine thing that one who was a man of birth and learning should not scruple to cast in his lot with the rough gipsies.