Volume Iii Part 6 (2/2)
”Ha! is it so?” said the abbot, in a hollow, tremulous voice. ”Are my friend and fellow-soldier's men detained in that guise? Come, my brethren, let us ride,--let us fly to their release, and we shall see whose power can stand against our own. For Aikwood, ho!”
”For Aikwood, ho!” shouted Dan and his companions, as they took the rear of the four sable dignitaries; and striking the spurs into their steeds all at the same time, they went off at their horses' utmost speed, but in a short time the four yeomen were distanced. The black steeds and their riders went at such a pace as warrior had never before witnessed. Up by the side of Hindly-burn they sped, with the most rapid velocity,--over mire, over ditch, over ford, without stay or stumble. Dan and his companions posted on behind, sparing neither whip nor spur, for they were affronted that these gownsmen should display more energy in their master's cause, and the cause of his friends, than they should do themselves. But their horses floundered, and blew, and snorted, and puffed, and whisked their tails with a whistling sound, and still lagged farther and farther behind.
”Come, come, callants,” cried Dan to his companions, ”let us rein up.
These bedesmen's horses are ower weel fed for our bog-trotting nags.
They fly like the wind. Od, we may as weel try to ride wi' the devil.”
”Whisht, whisht,” said Will Martin; ”I dinna like to mak ower familiar wi' that name now-a-days. We never ken wha's hearing us in this country.”
They were nigh to the heights when these words pa.s.sed, and the four black hors.e.m.e.n perceiving them to take it leisurely, they paused and wheeled about, and the majestic primate taking off his cornuted chaperon, waved it aloft, and called aloud, ”For shame, sluggish hinds! Why won't you speed, before the hour of prevention is lost? For Aikwood, ho, I say!” As he said these words, his black courser plunged and reared at a fearful rate; and, as our troopers thought, at one bolt sprung six or seven yards from the ground. The marks of that black horse's hoofs remain impressed in the sward to this day, and the spot is still called _The Abbot's lee_. At least it had been so called when Isaac the curate wrote this history.
To keep clear of the wood that was full of thickets, they turned a little to the left, and pursued their course; and the ground becoming somewhat firmer, our yeomen pursued hard after them. But on coming over the steep brow of a little hill, the latter perceived a mountain lake of considerable extent that interrupted their path, and, to their utter astonishment, the four black hors.e.m.e.n going straight across it, at about the same rate that the eagle traverses the firmament. ”The loch is frozen and bears over,” said Dan: ”Let us follow them across.”
”The loch is frozen indeed,” said Will Martin, ”but, ony man may see, that ice winna bear a cat.”
”Haud your tongue, you gouk,” said Dan: ”Do ye think the thing that bore them winna bear us?” And as he spurred foremost down the steep, he took the lake at the broad side; but the ice offering no manner of resistance, horse and man were in one moment out of sight. The sable hors.e.m.e.n on the other side shouted with laughter, and called aloud to the troopers, ”to venture on, and haste forward, for the ice was sufficiently strong.”
The bold trooper and his horse were extricated with some difficulty, and the monks testifying the utmost impatience he remounted, dripping as he was, and not being able to find the pa.s.sage across the lake on the ice, he and his companions gallopped around the head of it. As he rode, the morning being frosty, he chanced to utter these words: ”Heigh-ho, but I be a _cauld cheil_!” Which words, says Isaac, gave the name to that lake and the hill about it to all future ages; and from those perilous days of witchcraft and divination, and the shocking incidents that befel to men, adds he, have a great many of the names of places all over our country had their origin.
The dark hors.e.m.e.n always paused until the troopers were near them, as if to encourage them on, but they never suffered them to join company. When they came over a ridge above old Lindean they were hard upon them, but lost sight of them for a short s.p.a.ce on the height; and, coming on full speed, they arrived on the brink of a deep wooded dell, and to their utter astonishment saw the four gownsmen on the other side, riding deliberately along, and beckoning them forward.
”I am sair mista'en,” said Will Martin, ”gin thae chaps hae nae gaen ower the cleugh at ae bound. An it warna for their habits I wad take them for something nouther good nor cannie.”
”Haud your tongue, or else speak feasible things,” said Dan; ”Can the worthy Father Lawrence, and his chief priors and functionaries ever be suspected as warlocks, or men connected wi' the devil and his arts. If sic were to be the case, we hae nae mair trust to put in aught on this earth. The dell maun be but a step across. Here is a good pa.s.sable road; come, let us follow them.
Dan led the way, and they dived into the dell by a narrow track, rather like a path for a wild goat than men and horses; however, by leaping, sliding, and pus.h.i.+ng one another's horses behind, they got to the bottom of the precipice, and perceiving a path on the other side, they expected to reach the western brink immediately. But in this they were mistaken; abrupt rocks, and impenetrable thickets barred their progress on every side, and they found it impossible to extricate themselves without leaving their horses. They tried every quarter with the same success, and at the last attempted to ascend by the way they came; but that too they found impracticable, and all the while they heard the voices of their fellow travellers chiding their stay from above, and shaming them for their stupidity in taking the wrong path.
At one time they heard them calling on them to come this way, here was an excellent out-gate; and when the toiled yeomen stuck fairly still in that direction, they instantly heard other voices urging them to ascend by some other quarter. At other times they thought they heard restrained bursts of giggling laughter. After a great deal of exertion to no manner of purpose, they grew they neither knew what to do nor what they were doing, and at last were obliged to abandon their horses, and climb the ascent by hanging by the bushes and roots of trees. When they emerged from the deep hollow, they perceived eight black hors.e.m.e.n awaiting them instead of four; but as the country around Melrose and Dryburgh swarmed with members of the holy brotherhood of every distinction and rank, the troopers took no notice of it, thinking these were some of the head functionaries come to wait on their abbot. The latter chided our yeomen in sharp and resentful language for their utter stupidity in taking the wrong path, and regretted exceedingly the long delay their mistake had occasioned, his time he said being limited, as was also the time that his power prevailed in a more particular way over the powers of darkness. ”For us to go alone,” added he, ”would signify nothing. The manual labour of breaking through the iron gates we cannot perform; therefore, unless you can keep up with us, we may return home by the way we came.”
”I am truly grieved,” said Dan, ”at our misfortune. We have certainly been more forward than wise, and I fear have marred the fairest chance we will ever have for the deliverance of our friends. But I have a few fellow warriors at the mill who will accompany you for a word of your mouth. I beg that you will not think of returning, for the case brooks no delay. We have lost our horses, and can hardly reach the castle on foot before it be evening. I wot not what we shall do.”
”Brethren, I am afraid I must request of you to lend these brave troopers your horses,” said the abbot to the four last comers. ”My esteem for the doughty champion of my domains is such, that I would gladly do him a favour.” ”O thank you, thank you, kind sir; we are mair behadden to you than tongue can tell,” said Dan. The four new come brethren dismounted at their abbot's request; and, without taking a moment to hesitate, the four yeomen mounted their horses. The abbot Lawrence charged them to urge the steeds to their utmost speed. Away went the abbot and his three sable attendants, and away went the four troopers after them; but from the first moment that they started the latter lost sight of the ground, unless it was, as they thought, about a mile below their feet. The road seemed to be all one marble pavement, or sheet of solid alabaster; there was neither height nor hollow in it that they could distinguish; but the fire flew from the heels of the horses, and sparkled across the firmament like thousands of flying stars. The velocity at which they went was such, that the borderers could not draw their breath save by small broken gulps; but as they imagined they rode at such an immense distance from the ground, they kept firm by their seats for bare life, leaning forward with their eyes and their mouths wide open. Having never in all their lives rode on such a path, they were soon convinced that they could not be riding toward Aikwood, around which the roads were very different. They often attempted to speak to one another, but could not utter any thing farther than one short sound, for the swiftness with which they clove the atmosphere cut their voices short. At length Dan, perceiving his comrade, Will Martin, scouring close by his side, forced out the following sentence piecemeal:
”Where--the--devil--are we--gaun--now?”
”Straight--to--h.e.l.l.--What--need--ye--speer?”
”The--lord--for--for--for--bid--Will Martin,” was the reply, which has since grown to a proverb.
On they flew, over hill, over dale, over rock and river, over town, tower, and steeple, as our yeomen deemed; but they might deem what they pleased, for they saw nothing except now and then the tails of the churchmen's gowns flapping in the air before them. However, they came to their goal sooner than they expected, and that in a way as singular as that by which they reached it.
The miller at Aikwood-mill had a whole hill of kiln-seeds, or shealings of oats, thrown out in a heap adjoining to the mill. Ere ever our yeomen knew what they were doing from the time they mounted, they were all lying in this immense heap of kiln-seeds, perfectly dizzy and dumfoundered, and setting up their heads from among them with the same sort of staring stupid attempt at consideration as the heads of so many frogs which may be seen newly popped up out of a marsh. The bedesmen were a-head of them to the end of the course, and drew up by wheeling their horses round the kiln as if it had been a winning-post; but the yeomen's horses, in making the wheel, threw their riders, one by one, with a jerk over head and ears among the loose heap of seeds, and galloping off around the corner of the hill, they never saw another hair of their tails.
The miller came running out from his mill with his broad dusty bonnet; the smoky half-roasted kiln-man out from his logie; the mill-maidens came skipping from the meal-trough, as white as lilies; the rest of the warden's men, and the four sable dignitaries of the church came also, and all of them stood in a ring round our dismounted troops, some asking one question, some another, but all in loud fits of laughter. Their wits could not be rallied in an instant; and all that they could do or say was to blow the seeds out of their mouths, with which they were literally filled, and utter some indefinite sentences, such as, ”Rather briskish yauds these same!” ”May the like o' mine never be crossed by man again!” ”Hech! but they are the gear for the lang road!” ”What's become o' them? I wad like to take a right look o'
them for aince.” ”Do ye want to look if they have mark o' mouth, Will?
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