Volume Iii Part 6 (1/2)
in this way, I winna believe that honest Gibbie has gotten fair play for his life.”
”If you would try it an hundred times over,” said the Master, ”you would see it turn out in the same way. Did not I say to you that there was a power presided over the decision by lot, which you neither know nor comprehend. Man of metaphors and old wives' fables, where art thou now?” ”Keep a gude heart, Peatstacknowe,” said Charlie; ”perhaps things may not come to the worst. I have great dependence on Dan Chisholm and the warden's good men. I wonder they have not appeared wi' proper mattocks, or ladders, by this time o' the morning.”
”If they should,” said the Master, ”and if we were all set at liberty this minute, he shall remain my bondsman, in place of these two and him of whom your arts have bereaved me. Remember to what you agreed formerly, of which I now remind you.”
”I think that is but fair,” said the poet.
”I do not know, gentlemen, what you call fair or foul,” said Gibbie: ”I think there is little that is favourable going for somebody. Of the two evils, I judge the last the worst. I appeal to my captain the Warden.” Gibbie's looks were so rueful and pitiable when he said this, that no one had the heart to remonstrate farther with him on the justice or injustice of his doom. The Master and Tam enjoyed his plight exceedingly; the poet rejoiced in it, as it tended to free Delany from a vile servitude; and the friar also was glad of the release of the darling of his younger years, the grand-daughter of Galli the scribe. Charlie and Delany were the only two that appeared to suffer on account of the laird's dismal prospects, and their feelings were nearly as acute as his own. Stories and all sorts of amus.e.m.e.nts were now discontinued. A damp was thrown over these by the dismal gloom on the laird's countenance, and the congenial feelings of others on his account. The night had pa.s.sed over without any more visitants from the infernal regions; the day had arisen in the midst of heaviness and gloom; and every eye was turned towards the mill, in the expecsation of seeing the approach of Dan and his companions.
CHAPTER IV.
Ask me not whence I am; My vesture speaks mine office.
_Female Parliamenters, a MS. Com._
After the frightsome encounter at the mill, with ”the masterless dog and his bow-wow-wow,” Dan and his companions spent a sleepless night, not without several alarms and breathless listenings on the occurrence of any noise without. Few were the nightly journies on the banks of the Ettrick in those days, and few the midnight noises that occurred, save from the wild beasts of the forest. There were no wooer lads straying at that still and silent hour, to call up their sweethearts for an hour's kind conversation. Save when the English marauders were abroad, all was quietness by hamlet and steading. The land was the abode of the genii of the woods, the rocks, and the rivers; and of this the inhabitants were well aware, and kept within locked doors, whose lintels were made of the mountain ash, and nightly sprinkled with holy water. Cradle and bed were also fenced with cross, book, and bead; for the inmates knew that in no other way could they be safe, or rest in peace. They knew that their green and solitary glens were the nightly haunts of the fairies, and that they held their sports and amorous revels in the retiring dells by the light of the moon.
The mermaid sung her sweet and alluring strains by the sh.o.r.es of the mountain lake, and the kelpie sat moping and dripping by his frightsome pool, or the boiling caldron at the foot of the cataract.
The fleeting wraiths hovered round the dwellings of those who were soon to die, and the stalking ghost perambulated the walks of him that was lately living, or took up his nightly stand over the bones of the unhouseholded or murdered dead. In such a country, and among such sojourners, who durst walk by night?
But these were the natural residenters in the wilds of the woodland, the aboriginal inhabitants of the country; and however inimical their ways might be to the ways of men, the latter laid their account with them. There were defences to be had against them from holy church, which was a great comfort. But ever since Master Michael Scott came from the colleges abroad to reside at the castle of Aikwood, the nature of demonology in the forest glades was altogether changed, and a full torrent of necromancy, or, as Charlie Scott better expressed it, of _witchcraft_, deluged the country all over,--an art of the most malignant and appalling kind, against which no fence yet discovered could prevail. How different, indeed, became the situation of the lonely hind. Formerly he only heard at a distance on moonlight eves the bridle bells of the fairy troopers, which haply caused him to haste homeward. But when the door was barred and fenced, he sat safe in the middle of his family circle as they closed round the hearth, and talked of the pranks of _the gude neyboris_. When the speats descended, and floods roared and foamed from bank to brae, then would they perceive the malevolent kelpie rolling and tumbling down the torrent like a drowning cow, or mountain stag, to allure the hungry peasant into certain destruction. But, aware of the danger, he only kept the farther aloof, quaking at the tremendous experiment made by the spirit of the waters. It was in vain that the mermaid sung the sweetest strain s that ever breathed over the evening lake, or sunk and rose again, spreading her hands for a.s.sistance, like a drowning maiden, at the bottom of the abrupt cliff washed by the waves,--he _would not_ be allured to her embraces.
But what could he do now? His daughters were turned into roes and hares, to be hunted down for sport to the Master. The old wives of the hamlet were saddled and bridled by night, and urged with whip and spur over whole realms. The cows were deprived of their milk,--the hinds cast their young, and no domestic cat in the whole district could be kept alive for one year. That infernal system of witchcraft then began, which the stake and the gibbet could scarcely eradicate in a whole century. It had at this time begun to spread all around Aikwood; but of these things our Border troopers were not altogether aware.
They dreaded the spirits of the old school, the devil in particular; but of the new prevailing system of metamorphoses they had no comprehension.
Dan and three chosen companions, mounting their horses by the break of day, rode straight for the abbey of Melrose, to lodge their complaint against the great enemy of mankind, and request a.s.sistance from the holy fathers in rescuing their friends out of his hands. They reached Darnick-burn before the rising of the sun; and just as they pa.s.sed by a small deep-wooded dell, they espied four hors.e.m.e.n approaching them, who, from their robes and riding appurtenances, appeared to belong to the abbey, and to rank high among its dignitaries. They were all mounted on black steeds, clothed in dark flowing robes that were fringed with costly fringes, and they had caps on their heads that were horned like the new moon. The foremost, in particular, had a formidable and majestic mitre on his head, that seemed all glancing with gems, every one of which was either black, or a certain dazzling red of the colour of flame.
Dan doffed his helmet to this dignified and commanding personage, but he deigned not either to return our yeoman's low bow, that brought his face in contact with the mane of his steed, or once to cross his hand on his brow in token of accepting the submission proffered. He, however, reined up his black steed, and sat upright on his saddle, as if in the act of listening what this bold and blunt trooper had to say.
”Begging pardon of your grand and sublime reverence,” said Dan, ”I presume, from your lofty and priest-like demeanour, habiliments, and goodly steed, and also from that twa-horned helmet on your head, that you are the very chap I want. I beg your pardon I canna keep up my style to suit your dignity. But are nae ye Father Lawrence, the great primate, that acts as a kind o' king or captain ower a' the holy men of Scotland, and has haudding in that abbey down by there?”
”Certes I am Father Lawrence. Dost thou doubt it?”
”No, no; what for should I doubt it when your wors.h.i.+p has said it? An we dinna find truth aneath the mitre and the gown, where are we to look for it?”
The sublime abbot shook his head as if in scorn and derision of the apothegm, and sat still upright on his steed, with his face turned away. Dan looked round to his companions with a meaning look, as much as to say, ”What does the body mean?” But seeing that he sat still in the act of listening, he proceeded.
”Worthy Sir Priest, ye ken our captain, Sir Ringan Redhough, warden of the Border. He has helpit weel to feather your nest, ye ken.”
”He has. There is no one can dispute it,” said the abbot, nodding a.s.sent.
”Then ye'll no be averse, surely, to the lending o' him and his a helping hand in your ain way.”
The priest nodded a.s.sent.
”Weel, ye see, Sir Priest, there is a kinsman of our master's lives up by here at Aikwood, a rank warlock, and master o' the arts of witchcraft and divination. He is in compact wi' the deil, and can do things far ayont the power o' mortal man. What do ye think, Sir Priest? he can actually turn a man into a dog, and an auld wife into a hare; a mouse into a man, and a cat into a good glyde-aver. And mair than that, Sir, he can raise storms and tempests in the air; can gar the rivers rin upward, and the trees grow down. He can shake the solid yird; and, look ye, Sir, he can cleave a great mountain into three, and lift the divisions up like as mony gowpens o' sand.”
The stern abbot gave a glance up to the three new hills of Eildon, that towered majestically over their heads; but it seemed rather a look of exultation than one either of wonder or regret.
”Weel, Sir, disna our captain send a few chosen friends, a wheen queer devils to be sure, on a message of good friends.h.i.+p to this auld warlock Master Michael Scott, merely with a request to read him some trivial weird. And what does the auld knave, but p.r.i.c.ks them a' up on the top o' his castle, wi' a lockit iron-door aneath them, and there has keepit them in confinement till they are famis.h.i.+ng of hunger, and I fear by this time they are feeding on ane another. And the warst o't ava, Sir, is this, I wad break his bolts and his bars to atoms for him, but has nae he the deil standing sentry on the stair, spuing fire and brimstone on a' that come near him in sic torrents that it is like the fa' o' the Grey-mare's-tail. Now, maist reverend and worthy Sir, my errand and request to you is, that, for my master's sake, and for his men's sake, that are a' good Christians, for ought that I ken to the contrary, you will lend us a lift wi' book and bead, Ave Marias, and other powerful things, to drive away this auld sneckdrawing thief, the devil, and keep him away till I get my friends released; and I promise you, in my master's name, high bounty and reward.”