The Brownie of Bodsbeck, and Other Tales Volume I Part 5

When Clavers and Livingstone entered the Old Room, it will be remembered that Bruce and Copland penetrated into the other. There they found the goodwife of Chapelhope, neatly dressed in her oldfas.h.i.+oned style, and reading on her Bible, an exercise in which she gloried, and of which she was very proud.

Bruce instantly desired her "to lay that very comely and precious book on the hottest place of all the beautiful fire, that was burning so pleasantly with long crackling peat; and that then he would converse with her about things that were, to be sure, of far greater and mightier importance."

"Hout, dear sir, ye ken that's no consistent wi' natural reason-Can any thing be o' greater importance than the tidings o' grace an' salvation, an' the joys o' heaven?"

"Oho!" cried Bruce, and straddled around the room with his face turned to the joists.-"My dear Copland, did you ever hear such a thing in all the days that ever you have to live? Upon my soul, the old woman is talking of grace, and salvation, and the joys of heaven too, by Saint G--! My dearest honey and darling, will you be so kind as stand up upon the soles of your feet, and let me see what kind of a figure you will be in heaven. Now, by the cross of Saint Patrick, I would take a journey there to see you go swimming through Heaven in that same form, with your long waist, and plaitted quoif, and that same charming face of yours. Och! och! me! what a vile she whig we have got in this here corner!-Copland, my dear soul, I foresee that all the ewes and kine of Chapelhope will soon be rouped at the cross of Selkirk, and then what blessed lawings we shall have! Now my dear mistress Grace, you must be after renouncing the joys of heaven immediately; for upon my honour, the very sight of your face would spoil the joys of any place whatever, and the first thing you must do is to lay that delightful old book with the beautiful margin along the side of it, on the coals; but before you do that we shall sing to his praise and glory from the 7th verse of the 149th psalm."

He then laid aside his helmet and sung the psalm, giving out each line with a whine that was truly ludicrous, after which he put the Bible into the goodwife's hand, and desired her, in a serious tone, instantly to lay it on the fire. The captain's speech to his companions about the ewes and kine of Chapelhope was not altogether lost on the conscience of Maron Linton. It was not, as she afterwards said, like water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. "Why, dear sir," said she, "ye ken, after a', that the beuk's naething but paper an' ink, an'

three s.h.i.+llings an' aughtpence will buy as gude a ane frae Geordy Dabson, the morn, an' if there be ony sin in't, it will lye at your door, an' no at mine. I'll ne'er haigel wi' my king's officer about three and aughtpence."

So saying, Maron laid the Bible on the fire, which soon consumed it to ashes.

"Now, may the devil take me," said Bruce, "if I do not believe that you are a true woman after all, and if so, my purse is lighter by one half than it was; but, my dear honey, you have the very individual and genuine seeds of whiggism in your const.i.tution-You have, I will swear, been at many a harmless and innocent conventicle."

"Ye ken little about me, sir.-Gude forbid that ever I countenanced sic traitors to the kirk and state!"

"Amen! say I; but I prophecy and say unto thee, that the first fieldmeeting into which thou goest in the beauty of holiness, thou shalt be established for ever with thy one foot in Dan and the other in Beersheba, and shalt return to thy respective place of abode as rank a whig as ever swung in the Gra.s.sMarket."

A long dialogue next ensued, in which the murder of the priest, Ma.s.s John Binram, was discussed at full length, and by which Bruce and Copland discerned, that superst.i.tious as Maron was, she told them what she deemed to be the truth, though in a strange roundabout way. Just as they were beginning to talk over the mysterious murder of the soldiers, Claverhouse and Sir Thomas joined them, and Bruce, turning round to them, said, "My lord, this very honest woman a.s.sures me, that she believes the two princ.i.p.al murderers of the curate are lying concealed in a linn not far hence, and there seems to be little doubt but that they must likewise have been concerned in the murder of our soldiers."

Clavers, the horrors of whose execrations are yet fresh in the memory of our peasants, burst out as follows, to the astonishment of Bruce, who was not aware of his chagrin, or of aught having befallen him.

"May the devil confound and d--n them to h.e.l.l!-May he make a brander of their ribs to roast their souls on!"

Maron Linton, hearing herself called a good woman, and finding that she was approven of, could not refrain from interfering here.

"Dear sir, my lord, ye sudna swear that gate, for it's unco illfaur'd ye ken-an' at ony rate, the deil canna d.a.m.n naebody-if ye will swear, swear sense."

The rage of the general, and the simplicity of the goodwife, was such an amusing contrast, that the three attendants laughed aloud. Clavers turned his deep grey eye upon them, which more than the eye of any human being resembled that of a serpent-offence gleamed in it.

"Gentlemen," said he, "do you consider where you are, and what you are about? Sacre! am I always to be trysted with boys and fools?"

He then began and examined the goodwife with much feigned deference and civility, which so pleased her that she told him every thing with great readiness. She was just beginning to relate the terrible, but unfortunate story of the Brownie of Bodsbeck, and his train of officious spirits; of the meat which they devoured, and in all probability would have ended the relation with the woeful connection between the Brownie and her daughter, and the part that she had taken in the murder of the soldiers, when Walter entered the room with a discomposed mien, and gave a new turn to the conversation. But that eventful scene must be left to the next chapter.

CHAPTER VIII.

Walter, on coming to the troopers and asking for their leader, soon discovered how roughly he had treated Clavers; and it being so much the reverse of the reception he meant to have given him, he was particularly vexed about it. Still he was conscious that he had done nothing that was wrong, nor any thing that it did not behove a parent and a master of a family to have done in the same circ.u.mstances; therefore there was nothing farther from his intention than offering any apology. He entered his own room, as he supposed he had a good right to do, bluntly enough.

He indeed touched the rim of his bonnet as he came in; but, seeing all the officers covered, he stalked into the midst of them with that immense circle of blue woollen on his head, which moved over their helmets like a black cloud as he advanced. Bruce, who was well used to insult the peasantry with impunity, seeing Walter striding majestically by his general in this guise, with his wonted forwardness and jocularity lifted up his sword, sheathed as it was, and with the point of it kicked off Walter's bonnet. The latter caught it again as it fell, and with his fist, he made Bruce's helmet ring against the wall; then again fitting on his bonnet, he gave him such an indignant and reproving look, that Bruce, having no encouragement from the eye of Clavers, resented it no farther than by saying goodhumouredly, "'Pon my body and shoul, but the carle keeps his goodlooking head high enough."

"Copland," said Clavers, "desire Serjeant Daniel Roy Macpherson, with eleven troopers, to attend." They were instantly at the door. "Seize and pinion that haughty rebel, together with all his family," said he, "and then go and search every corner, chest, and closet in the house; for it is apparent that this is the nest and rendezvous of the murdering fanatics who infest this country. Let the rest of the soldiers guard the premises, that none escape to the mountains with tidings of our arrival.

This good dame we will first examine privately, and then dispose of her as shall seem most meet."

The command was promptly obeyed. Walter and all his family were taken into custody, pinioned, and a guard set on them; the house was ransacked; and in the meantime the general and his three a.s.sociates continued the examination of the goodwife. Clavers observed that, on the entrance of Walter before, she seemed to be laid under some restraint, stopped short in her narration, and said, "But there's the gudeman; he'll tell ye it wi' mair preceesion nor me;" and he had no doubt, if she were left to herself, of worming as much out of her as would condemn her husband, or at least furnish a pretext sufficient for the forfeiture of his wealth. Clavers had caused to be sold, by public roup, the whole stock on the farm of Phillhope, which belonged to Walter's brotherinlaw, merely because it was proven that the farmer's wife had once been at a conventicle.

In the present instance, however, Clavers was mistaken, and fairly overshot his mark; for poor Maron Linton was so overwhelmed with astonishment when she saw her husband and family taken prisoners and bound, that her speech lost all manner of coherence. She sobbed aloud-complained one while, entreated another; and then muttered over some illsorted phrases from the Scripture. When Clavers pressed his questions, she answered him, weeping, "O dear sir, my lord, ye ken I canna do naething, nor think naething, nor answer naething, unless ye let Watie loose again; I find as I war naebody, nor nae soul, nor naething ava wantin' him, but just like a vacation or a shadow. O my lord, set my twa bits o' callants an' my puir auld man loose again, and I'll say ony thing that ever ye like."

Threats and proffers proved alike in vain. Maron's mind, which never was strong, had been of late so much unhinged by the terrors of superst.i.tion, that it wavered in its frail tenement like "the baseless fabric of a vision," threatening to depart, and leave not a wreck behind. Clavers told her that her husband's life depended on the promptness and sincerity of her answers, he having rendered himself amenable to justice by rescuing his daughter by force, whom they had taken prisoner on their arrival, having found her engaged in a very suspicious employment. This only increased Maron's agony; and at length Clavers was obliged to give up the point, and ordered her into custody.

The soldiers had by this time taken old John of the Muchrah and another of Laidlaw's shepherds prisoners, who had come to a.s.sist their master with the farmwork that day. All these Clavers examined separately; and their answers, as taken down in shorthand by Mr Adam Copland, are still extant, and at present in my possession. The following are some of them, as decyphered by Mr J. W. Robertson, whose acquaintance with ancient ma.n.u.scripts is well known.

John Hay, shepherd in Muchrah, aged fiftysix, sworn and examined.

"Do you know such a man as the Rev. James Renwick?"

"Yes. I once heard him pray and preach for about the s.p.a.ce of two hours."

"Was it on your master's farm that he preached?"

"No, it was in a linn on the Earl Hill, in the march between two lairds'

lands, that he preached that day."

"How durst you go to an unlawful conventicle?"

"I didna ken there was a law against it till after-it's a wild place this-we never hear ony o' the news, unless it be twice ayear frae the Moffat fairs. But as soon as I heard him praying and preaching against the king I cam aff an' left him, an' brought a' my lads an' la.s.ses wi'

me; but my wife wadna steer her fit-there she sat, shaking her head and glooming at me; but I trow I cowed her for't after."

"What did he say of the king?"

"O, I canna mind-he said nae muckle gude o' him."

"Did he say that he was a b.l.o.o.d.y perjured tyrant?"

"Ay, he said muckle waur nor that. He said some gayan illfarr'd things about him. But I cam away and left him; I thought he was saying mair than gude manners warrant.i.t."

"Were you in the Hope, as you call it; on that day that the king's soldiers were slain?"

"Ay, that I was; I was the first wha came on them whan they war just new dead, an' a' reeking i' their warm blude-Gude keep us a' frae sic sights again!-for my part, I never gat sic a confoundit gliff sin' I was born o' my mother."

"Describe the place where the corpses were lying."

"It is a deep cleuch, wi' a sma' sheep rodding through the linn not a foot wide; and if ye war to st.i.te aff that, ye wad gang to the boddom o'

the linn wi' a flaip."

"Were the bodies then lying in the bottom of that linn?"

"Odd help ye, whar could they be lying else?-D'ye think they could lie on the Cleuchbrae? Ye might as weel think to lie on the side o' that wa' gin ye war dead."

"How did it appear to you that they had been slain-were they cut with swords, or pierced with bullets?"

"I canna say, but they war sair hashed."

"How do you mean when you say they were hashed?"

"Champit like-a' broozled and jurmummled, as it war."