The Brownie of Bodsbeck, and Other Tales Volume I Part 4

"D--n the old b--! Burn her with matches-squeeze her with pincers as long as there's a whole piece of her together-then throw her into prison, and let her lie till she rot-the old wrinkled hag of h--! Good woman, I pity you; you shall yet go free if you will tell us where you last saw Hamilton and your own goodman."

"Ye sall hing me up by the tongue first, and cut me a' in collops while I'm hingin."

"Burn her in the cheek, cut baith her lugs out, and let her gae to h-- her own way."

After this strange soliloquy, the speaker sobbed aloud, spoke in a suppressed voice for some time, and then began a strain so sweet and melancholy, that it thrilled the hearer, and made her tremble where she stood. The tune was something like the Broom of Cowdenknows, the sweetest and most plaintive of the ancient Scottish airs; but it was sung so slow, as to bear with it a kind of solemnity.

"The kye are rowting in the lone, The ewes bleat on the brae, O, what can ail my auld gudeman, He bides sae lang away!

An' aye the Robin sang by the wud, An' his note had a waesome fa'; An' the corbie croupit in the clud, But he durstna light ava;

Till out cam the wee grey moudiwort Frae neath the hollow stane, An' it howkit a grave for the auld grey head, For the head lay a' its lane!

But I will seek out the Robin's nest, An' the nest of the ouzel shy, For the siller hair that is beddit there Maun wave aboon the sky."

The sentiments of old Nanny appeared now to her young mistress to be more doubtful than ever. Fain would she have interpreted them to be such as she wished, but the path which that young female was now obliged to tread required a circ.u.mspection beyond her experience and discernment to preserve, while danger and death awaited the slightest deviation.

CHAPTER VI.

Next morning Clavers, with fifty dragoons, arrived at Chapelhope, where they alighted on the green; and putting their horses to forage, he and Sir Thomas Livingston, Captain Bruce, and Mr Adam Copland, before mentioned, a gentleman of Clavers' own troop, went straight into the kitchen. Walter was absent at the hill. The goodwife was sitting lonely in the east room, brooding over her trials and woes in this life, and devising means to get rid of her daughter, and with her of all the devouring spirits that haunted Chapelhope; consequently the first and only person whom the gentlemen found in the kitchen was old Nanny.

Clavers, who entered first, kept a shy and sullen distance, for he never was familiar with any one; but Bruce, who was a jocular Irish gentleman, and well versed in hara.s.sing and inveigling the ignorant country people to their destruction, made two low bows (almost to the ground) to the astonished dame, and accosted her as follows: "How are you today, mistress?-I hope you are very well?"

"Thank ye kindly, sir," said Nanny, curtseying in return; "deed I'm no sae weel as I hae been; I hae e'en seen better days; but I keep aye the heart aboon, although the achings and the st.i.tches hae been sair on me the year."

"Lackaday! I am so very sorry for that!-Where do they seize you?

about the heart, I suppose?-Oh, dear soul! to be sure you do not know how sorry I am for your case-it must be so terribly bad! You should have the goodness to consult your physician, and get blood let."

"Dear bairn, I hae nae blude to spare-an' as for doctors, I haena muckle to lippen to them. To be sure, they are whiles the means, under Providence"--

"Oho!" said he, putting his finger to his nose, and turning to his a.s.sociates with a wry face,-"Oho! the means under Providence!-a d--d whig, by ----. Tell me, my dear and beautiful Mistress St.i.tchaback, do you really believe in that blessed thing, Providence?"

"Do I believe in Providence!-Did ever ony body hear sic a question as that? Gae away, ye muckle gouk-d'ye think to make a fool of a puir body?"

So saying, she gave him a hearty slap on the cheek; at which his companions laughing, Bruce became somewhat nettled, and, drawing out his sword, he pointed at the recent stains of blood upon it. "Be so good as to look here, my good lady," said he, "and take very good note of all that I say, and more; for harkee, you must either renounce Providence, and all that I bid you renounce,-and you must, beside that, answer all the questions that I shall ever be after asking,-or, do you see, I am a great doctor-this is my very elegant lance-and I'll draw the blood that shall soon ease you of all your st.i.tches and pains."

"I dinna like your fleem ava, man-'tis rather ower grit for an auld body's veins. But ye're surely some silly skemp of a fallow, to draw out your sword on a puir auld woman. Dinna think, howanabee, that I care for outher you or it. I'll let ye see how little I mind ye; for weel I ken your comrades wadna let ye fash me, e'en though ye were sae silly as to offer. Na, na; d'ye ever think that little bonny demurelooking lad there wad suffer ye to hurt a woman?-I wat wad he no! He has mair discreation in his little finger than you hae i' your hale bouk.-Now try me, master doctor-I'll nouther renounce ae thing that ye bid me, nor answer ae question that ye speer at me."

"In the first place, then, my good hearty dame, do you acknowledge or renounce the Covenant?"

"Aha! he's wise wha wats that, an' as daft that speers."

"Ay, or no, in a moment-No juggling with me, old Mrs Skinflint."

"I'll tell ye what ye do, master-if ony body speer at ye, gin auld Nanny i' the Chapelhope renounces the Covenant, shake your head an' say ye dinna ken."

"And pray, my very beautiful girl, what do you keep this old tattered book for?"

"For a fancy to gar fools speer, an' ye're the first-Come on now, sir, wi' your catechis-Wallydye man! gin ye be nae better a fighter than ye're an examiner, ye may gie up the craft."

Bruce here bit his lip, and looked so stern that Nanny, with a hysterical laugh, ran away from him, and took shelter behind Clavers.

"You are a d--d fool, Bruce," said he, "and constantly blundering.-Our business here, mistress, is to discover, if possible, who were the murderers of an honest curate, and some of our own soldiers that were slain in this neighbourhood while discharging their duty; if you can give us any information on that subject, you shall be well rewarded."

"Ye'll hear about the curate, sir-ye'll hear about him-he was found out to be a warlock, and shot dead.-But ah, dear bairn! nane alive can gie you information about the soldiers!-It was nae human hand did that deed, and there was nae e'e out o' heaven saw it done-There wasna a man that day in a' the Hope up an' down-that deed will never be fund out, unless a spirit rise frae the dead an' tell o't-Muckle fear, an' muckle grief it has been the cause o' here!-But the men war a' decently buried; what mair could be done?"

"Do you say that my men were all decently buried?"

"Ay, troth, I wat weel, worthy sir, and wi' the burialservice too.-My master and mistress are strong king's folk."

"So you are not the mistress of this house?"

"A bonny like mistress I wad be, forsooth-Na, na, my mistress is sittin be hersel ben the house there." With that, Nanny fell a working and singing full loud-

"Little wats she wha's coming, Little wats she wha's coming, Strath and Correy's ta'en the bent, An' Ferriden an' a's coming; Knock and Craigen Sha's coming, Keppoch an' Macraw's coming, ClanMackinnon's ower the Kyle, An' Donald Gun an' a's coming."

Anxious now to explore the rest of the house, they left Nanny singing her song, and entered the little parlour hastily, where, finding no one, and dreading that some escape might be effected, Clavers and Livingston burst into the Old Room, and Bruce and Copland into the other. In the Old Room they found the beautiful witch Katharine, with the train of her snowwhite joup drawn over her head, who looked as if taken in some evil act by surprise, and greatly confounded when she saw two gentlemen enter her sanctuary in splendid uniforms. As they approached, she made a slight curtsey, to which they deigned no return; but going straight up to her, Clavers seized her by both wrists. "And is it, indeed, true,"

said he, "my beautiful shepherdess, that we have caught you at your prayers so early this morning?"

"And what if you have, sir?" returned she.

"Why, nothing at all, save that I earnestly desire, and long exceedingly to join with you in your devotional exercises," laying hold of her in the rudest manner.

Katharine screamed so loud that in an instant old Nanny was at their side, with revenge gleaming from her halfshaded eyes, and heaving over her shoulder a large greenkale gully, with which she would doubtless have silenced the renowned Dundee for ever, had not Livingston sprung forward with the utmost celerity, and caught her arm just as the stroke was descending. But Nanny did not spare her voice; she lifted it up with shouts on high, and never suffered one yell to lose hearing of another.

Walter, having just then returned from the hill, and hearing the hideous uproar in the Old Room, rushed into it forthwith to see what was the matter. Katharine was just sinking, when her father entered, within the grasp of the gentle and virtuous Clavers. The backs of both the knights were towards Walter as he came in, and they were so engaged amid bustle and din that neither of them perceived him, until he was close at their backs. He was at least a foot taller than any of them, and nearly as wide round the chest as them both. In one moment his immense fingers grasped both their slender necks, almost meeting behind each of their windpipes. They were rendered powerless at once-they attempted no more struggling with the women, for so completely had Walter's gripes unnerved them, that they could scarcely lift their arms from their sides; neither could they articulate a word, or utter any other sound than a kind of choaked gasping for breath. Walter wheeled them about to the light, and looked alternately at each of them, without quitting or even slackening his hold.

"Callants, wha ir ye ava?-or what's the meanin' o' a' this unmencefu'

rampaging?"

Sir Thomas gave his name in a hoa.r.s.e and broken voice; but Clavers, whose nape Walter's right hand embraced, and whose rudeness to his daughter had set his mountainblood aboiling, could not answer a word.

Walter, slackening his hold somewhat, waited for an answer, but none coming-

"Wha ir ye, I say, ye bit useless weazelblawn like urf that ye're?"

The haughty and insolent Clavers was stung with rage; but seeing no immediate redress was to be had, he endeavoured to p.r.o.nounce his dreaded name, but it was in a whisper scarcely audible, and stuck in his throat-"Jo-o-o Graham," said he.

"Jock Graham do they ca' ye?-Ye're but an unmannerly whalp, man. And ye're baith king's officers too!-Weel, I'll tell ye what it is, my denty clever callants; if it warna for the blood that's i' your master's veins, I wad nite your twa bits o' pows thegither."

He then threw them from him; the one the one way, and the other the other, and lifting his huge oak staff, he strode out at the door, saying, as he left them,-"Hech! are free men to be guidit this gate-I'll step down to the green to your commander, an' tell him what kind o' chaps he keeps about him to send into fock's houses.-Dirty unmensefu' things!"

Clavers soon recovering his breath, and being ready to burst with rage and indignation, fell a cursing and fuming most violently; but Sir T.

Livingston could scarcely refrain from breaking out into a convulsion of laughter. Clavers had already determined upon ample revenge, for the violation of all the tender ties of nature was his delight, and wherever there was wealth to be obtained, or a private pique to be revenged, there never was wanting sufficient pretext in those days for cutting off individuals, or whole families, as it suited. On the very day previous to that, the Earl of Traquair had complained, in company with Clavers and his officers, of a tenant of his, in a place called Bald, who would neither cultivate his farm nor give it up. Captain Bruce asked if he prayed in his family? The Earl answered jocularly, that he believed he did nothing else. Bruce said that was enough; and the matter pa.s.sed over without any farther notice. But next morning, Bruce went out with four dragoons, and shot the farmer as he was going out to his work. Instances of this kind are numerous, if either history or tradition can be in aught believed; but in all the annals of that age, there is scarcely a single instance recorded of any redress having been granted to the hara.s.sed country people for injuries received. At this time, the word of Argyle's rising had already spread, and Clavers actually traversed the country more like an exterminating angel, than a commander of a civilized army.

Such were the men with whom Walter had to do; and the worst thing of all, he was not aware of it. He had heard of such things, but he did not believe them; for he loved his king and country, and there was nothing that vexed him more than hearing of aught to their disparagement; but unluckily his notions of freedom and justice were far above what the subjects of that reign could count upon.