Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters Part 10

Twice or thrice she spoke of the ties of nature, intimating that they were as a bond and obligation laid on by THE MAKER, whereby kindred were bound to stand by one another in weal or in woe, lest those who sinned should be utterly abandoned by all the world. The which tender and Christian sentiment, though it was melodious to my grandfather's spirit, pierced it with a keen pain; for he thought of the manner in which he had left his own parents, even though it was for the blessed sake of religion, and his bosom was at the moment filled with sorrow. But, when he said how much he regretted and was yet unrepentant of that step, Elspa cheered him with a consolation past utterance, by reminding him, that he had neither left them to want nor to sin; that, by quitting the shelter of their wing, he had but obeyed the promptings of nature, and that if, at any time hereafter, father or mother stood in need of his aid or exhortation, he could still do his duty.

Without well considering what he said, the bailie observed on this, that he was surprised to hear her say so, and yet allow her sister to remain so long unreproved in her offences.

Elspa Ruet to this made no immediate reply,--she was indeed unable; and my grandfather sympathised with her, for the sting had plainly penetrated to the very marrow of her soul. At last, however, she said,--

"Your reproach is just, I hae been to blame baith to Heaven and man--but the thing has na been unthought, only I kent na how to gang about the task; and yet what gars me say sae but a woman's weakness, for the road's no sae lang to St Andrews, and surely iniquity does not there so abound, that no ane would help me to the donsie woman's bower."

My grandfather, on hearing this, answered, that if she was indeed minded to try to rescue her sister, he was ready and willing to do all with her and for her that she could desire; but, bearing in mind the light woman's open shame, he added, "I'm fearful it's yet owre soon to hope for her amendment: she'll hae to fin the evil upshot of her unG.o.dly courses, I doubt, before she'll be wrought into a frame of sincere penitence."

"Nevertheless," replied Elspa Ruet, "I will try; it's my duty, and my sisterly love bids me no to be slothful in the task." At which words she burst into sore and sorrowful weeping, saying, "Alas, alas! that she should have so fallen!--I loved her--oh! naebody can tell how dearly--even as I loved myself. When I first saw my ain face in a looking-gla.s.s I thought it was her, and kissed it for the likeness, in pity that it didna look sae fair as it was wont to be. But it's the Lord's pleasure, and in permitting her to sink so low HE has no doubt some lesson to teach."

Thus, from less to more, as they continued conversing, it was agreed that Elspa Ruet should ride on a pad ahint my grandfather next morning to St Andrews, in order to try if the thing could be to move her sister to the humiliation of contrition for her loose life. And some small preparations being needful, Elspa departed and left the bailie and my grandfather together.

"But," said my grandfather to him, after she had been some time away, "is't your design to take the unfortunate woman back among your innocent la.s.sie bairns?"

"No," replied the bailie; "that's no a thing to be now thought of; please Providence, she'll ne'er again darken my door; I'll no, however, allow her to want. Her mother, poor auld afflicted woman, that has ne'er refraint from greeting since her flight, she'll tak her in; but atween her and me there's a divorce for ever."

By daylight my grandfather had his horse at the door; and Elspa having borrowed the provost's lady's pad overnight, it was buckled on, and they were soon after on the road.

It was a sunny morning in June, and all things were bright, and blithe, and blooming. The spirits of youth, joy and enjoyment were spread about on the earth. The b.u.t.terflies, like floating lilies, sailed from blossom to blossom, and the gowans, the bright and beautiful eyes of the summer, shone with gladness, as Nature walked on bank and brae, in maiden pride, spreading and showing her new flowery mantle to the sun. The very airs that stirred the glittering trees were soft and genial as the breath of life; and the leaves of the aspine seemed to lap the suns.h.i.+ne like the tongues of young and happy creatures that delight in their food.

As my grandfather and Elspa Ruet rode along together, they partook of the universal benignity with which all things seemed that morning so graciously adorned, and their hearts were filled with the hope that their united endeavours to save her fallen sister would be blessed with success. But when they came in sight of the papal towers and gorgeous edifices of St Andrews, which then raised their proud heads, like Babel, so audaciously to the heavens, they both became silent.

My grandfather's thoughts ran on what might ensue if the Archbishop were to subject him to his dominion, and he resolved, as early as possible, to make known his arrival to the Lord James Stuart, who, in virtue of being head of the priory, was then resident there, and to claim his protection. Accordingly he determined to ride with Elspa Ruet to the house of the vintner in the Shoegate, of which I have already spoken, and to leave her under the care of Lucky Kilfauns, as the hostess was called, until he had done so. But fears and sorrows were busy with the fancy of his fair companion; and it was to her a bitter thing, as she afterwards told him, to think that the purpose of her errand was to entreat a beloved sister to leave a life of shame and sin, and sadly doubting if she would succeed.

Being thus occupied with their respective cogitations, they entered the city in silence, and reached the vintner's door without having exchanged a word for several miles. There Elspa alighted, and being commended to the care of Lucky Kilfauns, who, though of a free outspoken nature, was a most creditable matron, my grandfather left her, and rode up the gait to the priory yett, where, on his arrival, he made himself known to the porter, and was admitted to the Lord Prior, as the Lord James was there papistically called.

Having told his Lords.h.i.+p that he had delivered his message to John Knox, and that the Reformer would not fail to attend the call, he then related partly what had happened to himself in his former sojourn at St Andrews, and how and for what end he had brought Elspa Ruet there that day with him, entreating the Lord James to give him his livery and protection, for fear of the Archbishop; which, with many pleasing comments on his devout and prudent demeanour, that n.o.ble worthy most readily vouchsafed, and my grandfather returned to the vintner's.

CHAPTER XXII

When my grandfather had returned to the vintner's, he found that Elspa had conferred with Lucky Kilfauns concerning the afflicting end and intent of her journey to St Andrews; and that decent woman sympathising with her sorrow, telling her of many woful things of the same sort she had herself known, and how a cousin of her mother's, by the father's side, had been wiled away from her home by the abbot of Melrose, and never heard tell of for many a day, till she was discovered, in the condition of a disconsolate nun, in a convent, far away in Nithsdale.

But the great difficulty was to get access to Marion Ruet's bower, for so, from that day, was Mrs Kilspinnie called again by her sister; and, after no little communing, it was proposed by Lucky Kilfauns, that Elspa should go with her to the house of a certain Widow Dingwall, and there for a time take up her abode, and that my grandfather, after putting on the Prior's livery, should look about him for the gilly, his former guide, and, through him, make a tryst, to meet the dissolute madam at the widow's house. Accordingly the matter was so settled, and while Lucky Kilfauns, in a most motherly and pitiful manner, carried Elspa Ruet to the house of the Widow Dingwall, my grandfather went back to the priory to get the cloak and arms of the Lord James' livery.

When he was equipped, he then went fearless all about the town, and met with no molestation; only he saw at times divers of the Archbishop's men, who recollected him, and who, as he pa.s.sed, stopped and looked after him, and whispered to one another and muttered fierce words. Much he desired to fall in with that humane Samaritan, Leonard Meldrum, the seneschal of the castle, and fain would he have gone thither to inquire for him; but, until he had served the turn of the mournful Elspa Ruet, he would not allow any wish of his own to lead him to aught wherein there was the hazard of any trouble that might balk her pious purpose.

After daunering from place to place, and seeing nothing of the stripling, he was obligated to give twalpennies to a stabler's lad to search for him, who soon brought him to the vintner's, where my grandfather, putting on the look of a losel and roister, gave him a groat, and bade him go to the madam's dwelling, and tell her that he would be, from the gloaming, all the night at the Widow Dingwall's, where he would rejoice exceedingly if she could come and spend an hour or two.

The stripling, so fee'd, was right glad, and made himself so familiar towards my grandfather, that Lucky Kilfauns observing it, the better to conceal their plot, feigned to be most obstreperous, flyting at him with all her pith and bir, and chiding my grandfather, as being as scant o'

grace as a gaberlunzie, or a novice of the Dominicans. However, they worked so well together, that the gilly never mis...o...b..ed either her or my grandfather, and took the errand to his mistress, from whom he soon came with a light foot and a glaikit eye, saying she would na fail to keep the tryst.

That this new proof of the progress she was making in guilt and sin might be the more tenderly broken to her chaste and gentle sister, Lucky Kilfauns herself undertook to tell Elspa what had been covenanted to prepare her for the meeting. My grandfather would fain have had a milder mediatrix, for the vintner's worthy wife was wroth against the concubine, calling her offence redder than the crimson of schism, and blacker than the broth of the burning brimstone of heresy, with many other vehement terms of indignation, none worse than the wicked woman deserved, though harsh to be heard by a sister, that grieved for her unregenerate condition far more than if she had come from Crail to St Andrews only to lay her head in the coffin.

The paction between all parties being thus covenanted, and Lucky Kilfauns gone to prepare the fort.i.tude of Elspa Ruet for the trial it was to undergo, my grandfather walked out alone to pa.s.s the time till the trysted hour. It was then late in the afternoon, and as he sauntered along he could not but observe that something was busy with the minds and imaginations of the people. Knots of the douce and elderly shopkeepers were seen standing in the streets with their heads laid together; and as he walked towards the priory he met the provost between two of the bailies, with the dean of guild, coming sedately, and with very great solemnity in their countenances, down the crown of the causey, heavily laden with magisterial fears. He stopped to look at them, and he remarked that they said little to one another, but what they did say seemed to be words of weight; and when any of their friends and acquaintances happened to pa.s.s, they gave them a nod that betokened much sadness of heart.

The cause of all this anxiety was not, in its effects and influence, meted only to the men and magistrates: the women partook of them even to a greater degree. They were seen pa.s.sing from house to house, out at one door and into the next, and their faces were full of strange matters.

One in particular, whom my grandfather noticed coming along, was often addressed with brief questions, and her responses were seemingly as awful as an oracle's. She was an aged carlin, who, in her day, had been a midwife, but having in course of time waxed old, and being then somewhat slackened in the joints of the right side by a paralytic, she eked out the weakly remainder of her thread of life in visitations among the families that, in her abler years, she had a.s.sisted to increase and multiply. She was then returning home after spending the day, as my grandfather afterwards heard from the Widow Dingwall, with the provost's daughter, at whose birth she had been the howdy, and who, being married some months, had sent to consult her anent a might-be occasion.

As she came toddling along, with pitty-patty steps, in a rose satin mantle that she got as a blithemeat gift when she helped the young master of Elcho into the world, drawn close over her head, and leaning on a staff with her right hand, while in her left she carried a Flanders pig of strong ale, with a clout o'er the mouth to keep it from jawping, scarcely a door or entry mouth was she allowed to pa.s.s, but she was obligated to stop and speak, and what she said appeared to be tidings of no comfort.

All these things bred wonder and curiosity in the breast of my grandfather, who, not being acquaint with any body that he saw, did not like for some time to inquire; but at last his diffidence and modesty were overcome by the appearance of a strong party of the Archbishop's armed retainers, followed by a mob of bairns and striplings, yelling, and scoffing at them with bitter taunts and many t.i.tles of derision; and on inquiring at a laddie what had caused the consternation in the town, and the pa.s.sage of so many soldiers from the castle, he was told that they expected John Knox the day following, and that he was mindet to preach, but the Archbishop has resolved no to let him. It was even so; for the Lord James Stuart, who possessed a deep and forecasting spirit, had, soon after my grandfather's arrival with the Reformer's answer, made the news known to try the temper of the inhabitants and burghers.

But, saving this marvelling and preparation, nothing farther of a public nature took place that night; so that, a short time before the hour appointed, my grandfather went to the house of Widow Dingwall, where he found Elspa Ruet sitting very disconsolate in a chamber by herself, weeping bitterly at the woful account which Lucky Kilfauns had brought of her sister's loose life, and fearing greatly that all her kind endeavours and humble prayers would be but as water spilt on the ground.

CHAPTER XXIII

As the time of appointment drew near, Elspa Ruet was enabled to call in her wandering and anxious thoughts, and, strengthened by her duty, the blessing of the tranquil mind was shed upon her. Her tears were dried up, and her countenance shone with a serene benignity. When she was an aged, withered woman, my grandfather has been heard to say that he never remembered her appearance without marvelling at the special effusion of holiness and beauty which beamed and brightened upon her in that trying hour, nor without thinking that he still beheld the glory of its twilight glowing through the dark and faded clouds of her old age.

They had not sat long when a tapping was heard at the widow's door, and my grandfather, starting up, retired into a distant corner of the room, behind a big napery press, and sat down in the obscurity of its shadow.

Elspa remained in her seat beside the table, on which a candle was burning, and, as it stood behind the door, she could not be seen by any coming in till they had pa.s.sed into the middle of the floor.

In little more than the course of a minute, the voice of her sister was heard, and light footsteps on the timber stair. The door was then opened, and Marion swirled in with an uncomely bravery. Elspa started from her seat. The guilty and convicted creature uttered a shriek; but in the same moment her pious sister clasped her with loving-kindness in her arms, and bursting into tears, wept bitterly, with sore sobs, for some time on her bosom, which was wantonly unkerchiefed.

After a short s.p.a.ce of time, with confusion of face, and frowns of mortification, and glances of rage, the abandoned Marion disengaged herself from her sister's fond and sorrowful embraces, and, retreating to a chair, sat down, and seemed to muster all the evil pa.s.sions of the guilty breast,--fierce anger, sharp hatred, and gnawing contempt; and a bad boldness of look that betokened a worse spirit than them all.

"It was na to see the like of you I cam' here," said she, with a scornful toss of her head.

"I ken that, Marion," replied Elspa, mournfully.

"And what business then hae ye to come to snool me?"

Elspa for a little while made no answer to this, but, drying her eyes, she went to her seat composedly, and then said,--

"'Cause ye're my sister, and brought shame and disgrace on a' your family. O, Marion, I'm wae to say this! but ye're owre brave in your sin."

"Do ye think I'll e'er gae back to that havering, daunering cuif o' a creature, the Crail bailie?"

"He's a man o' mair worth and conduct, Marion," replied her sister, firmly, "than to put that in your power--even, woman, if ye were penitent, and besought him for charity."

"Weel, weel, no to clishmaclaver about him. How's a' wi' the bairns?"

"Are ye no frighted, Marion, to speer sic a question, when ye think how ye left them, and what for ye did sae?"

"Am na I their mither, have na I a right to speer?"

"No," said Elspa; "when ye forgot that ye were their father's wife, they lost their mother."

"Ye need na be sae snell wi' your taunts," exclaimed Marion, evidently endeavouring to preserve the arrogance she had a.s.sumed; "ye need na be sae snell; I'm far better off, and happier than e'er I was in James Kilspinnie's aught."

"That's no possible," said her sister. "It would be an unco thing of Heaven to let wickedness be happier than honesty."