Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume VIII Part 3

"She who cooks Rippon steel, Wat, needeth a fire," replied she.

"Charters will burn. I'll give ye the spurs, if ye'll give me the parchment. It will roast one of Gilmanscleugh's kye."

"But I have no cause of quarrel, Mary," said Harden.

"If I were to swear on the altar at Melrose," replied she, laughing, "that Harden, wis.h.i.+ng cows, asked for a cause, there wouldn't a simpleton on the Borders believe my oath. Where be thy wits, Wat? What better cause of quarrel need ye now than you ever did--a good hanger?"

"You would not have me kill my kinsman, Mary, to get his lands for our son? By the moon of our armorials, I've slain enough. Nothing now will make me take a man's life but anger, unless he be an Englishman, and then I'll do it for love."

"There is no use for killing," rejoined she, "I'll give ye the steel feast in the morning, and set ye forth for Gilmanscleugh kine. Take them all, with the pet lamb that frisks before the door, on the green lea, and if this do not make Scott complain, I had no t.i.tle to be called the Flower of Yarrow. If he complain, ye want no more. Ranshakle the house, bring me the parchment rights, and I'll have a fire 'bleezing bonnilie.'

One who hath cooked spurs may cook parchment."

"But there may be copies, Mary--doubles o' the rights," said Wat.

"Aweel, my fire's big enough," answered she. "I've seen ye take fivescore o' sheep in one night, and the deil's in't if ye cannot take two skins."

"Good faith, but thou'rt the Flower o' the Yarrow rievers, Mary! Now, tell me where I shall get a property for our remaining son?"

"Gilmanscleugh may serve them both," replied she.

These last words were spoken by Mary as she went out of the room; and Walter, having no opportunity of asking what she meant (though, indeed, she meant nothing more than that the property might be large enough to serve both), continued to mutter the words for a time, with a view to ask her for an explanation.

"Gilmanscleugh may serve them both," he repeated. "The woman hath gone mad. It is not enough for one of them. Has she lost the spirit of our house, and brought down her ambition to a mailing? By my faith, Dryhope itself will make up the deficiency; and, if nothing else can be got, Dryhope shall be taken for my youngest."

After this manner old Walter ruminated on the unexplained statement of his wife; and, by repeating it again and again, roused the pride that lay at the bottom of his heart, and made him wax even angry with the wife of his bosom, and she the Flower of Yarrow, and the mother of his six sons. But, angry as he was, he was also weary, having been hunting in the forest during the day; and he went to sleep, muttering, as he struggled ineffectually with the drowsy G.o.d, some oaths peculiar to himself, and to the effect that, take Gilmanscleugh when he chose, it should not suffice for the portion of two sons.

In the morning he awoke, but did not forget the statement of Mary, that had given a momentary impulse to his bile, and, repairing to the breakfast-room, he found there his six sons and his wife, who, from some fugitive indications of face and manner, appeared to be engaged in some by-plot, in which she was the exclusive actor. Her original beauty, which acquired for her the poetical soubriquet by which she was so well known, still vindicated a place among the ravages of advanced ago, and her spirit, in place of falling with her bodily strength, had increased, and was continually breaking forth in expressions of vivacity and humour, which sustained the heart of the old chief, and made her the sun of the domestic circle which she had so long graced with her beauty. She was now in the very height of her most delightful occupation--serving up with her own hands the morning meal of her brave Wat and her six gallant sons, the parallel of whom, for make and manhood, might not again be found in broad Scotland. So happy was she, and so full of the joyous and soul-cheering fire of a woman's humour, that the six youths sat and looked at her with mute expressions of sons whose filial eyes saw, in the Flower of Yarrow, more beauties of mind and person than even exuberant nature had bestowed; and old Wat himself smiled as he gazed upon her, and finally relinquished his _malice prepense_, which had been urging him forward to ask her for an explanation of what she had said on the previous evening--that Gilmanscleugh would suffice for a portion to the two sons of proud Harden. The parties sat down to the morning meal; and as the old chief took off the cover of the first dish, a loud laugh, in which he heartily joined, announced the fulfilment of the spirited dame's promise of the previous evening, for there was nothing beneath it but a pair of spurs, made of s.h.i.+ning Rippon steel, and presenting, in their sharp rowels, little power of a.s.suaging the hunger of the youths, who had been hunting in the neighbouring dells, and could have eat, as the saying goes, the horse behind the saddle. Harden knew the meaning of the manoeuvre; for he recollected the statement of the dame, that she would present to him the feast of spurs, to send him to Gilmanscleugh for a portion to her sons, and, nothing loth to receive the sharp hint, he exhibited, through his rough growling laugh, the fire and keenness of his rieving spirit, which was now to be gratified by the luxury of an adventure.

"What game shall these Rippon rowels p.r.i.c.k us to, Mary?" cried the chief, still laughing.

"A good portion for our youngest," replied she; "the broad acres of Gilmanscleugh, and all the kye thereon, and eke the kist that holds the parchment; which last is to be placed in my safe keeping."

"And why not for our _two_ youngest?" rejoined Harden, recollecting with a slight bitterness mixed with his good humour, her former statement.

"May not Gilmanscleugh serve both of our unprovided sons? What right have the sons of the Flower of Yarrow to more than the half of what hath served one Scott of Gilmanscleugh? By my faith, Mary! if I had not so good a breakfast before me, I would quarrel with my Flower for her depreciation of the honour of Harden, and were it not for that contract thy father wheedled out of me, I'd seize Dryhope in revenge."

"And forfeit the five pledges," replied she, laughing. "But, Wat, had we not better measure Gilmanscleugh first, before we quarrel about its proportions."

"I have driven too many of his cattle over it to Harden Glen, not to know the breadth of it," said he, keeping up the humour. "But come, my boys, we shall take a better gauge of its dimensions to-day. Harden never rieves by day; but the light of the sun tells us best what the moon may light us to."

And having breakfasted on something more substantial than the dish of spurs, the old laird, and his sons were prepared to sally forth to take a survey of Gilmanscleugh's flock, with a view to those ulterior operations which might have the effect of precipitating its unlucky proprietor into such a quarrel with his st.u.r.dy superior as might afford the latter a pretext for carrying his object of ambition into effect. To cover their proceedings, they took with them their hunting-graith, without forgetting the stirrup-cup, or rather without being allowed, by the provident solicitude of the spirited dame, to forget that essential preparative to a Borderer's forth-going, whether he was bent on hunting, rieving, or wooing. Mounted on their strong s.h.a.ggy garrons, with bows slung over their shoulders, swords by their sides, and the accompaniment of two wolf-dogs of great size and strength, and a number of stag-hounds, all yelling around, till their voices awakened the sleeping echoes of the glen, and formed a rugged harmony with the long shrill winding of the hunter-horns, they presented in the features of the group, that mixture of the war and the chase, sport and spoliation, which marked all the roving parties of that extraordinary period and still more extraordinary place. The mother of six such sons had presented to her a fair subject of exultation in the party that stood before her; and her eye, which still retained the blue light of that of the Flower of Yarrow, spoke the pride which swelled her bosom, as it pa.s.sed, in laughing intelligence, from one fair face and manly person to another.

"It was as a hunter I first saw you, Walter, from Dryhope Tower," said she; "and he who hunted for a wife, may well hunt for a portion to her children."

"If I bring down Gilmanscleugh," replied Wat, laughing, "it will be a higher quarry than the Flower of Yarrow."

"You thought not so then, Wat," rejoined she, in the same spirit; "but love giveth way to ambition. That day thou callest Gilmanscleugh thine own, I will busk me again, as I once busked thy bonny bride, and put thy once-cherished Flower of Yarrow in fair compet.i.tion with the broad acres of Gilmanscleugh. By my troth, thou wouldst be a bold man to prefer the new love to the old."

"I would not give thee, woman," rejoined he, "for all Branxholm's wide domains, with the whole of Ettrick Forest to boot; so hold thy peace, and apply thee to thy hussyskep; for, by my sword, we will come home hungry men."

And old Wat's horn sounded again among the hills. The signal for starting was well known, and away they dashed down the steep, with that speed which the Borderers always exhibited--a consequence, perhaps, of the habit of getting off with their booty in the fear of a rescue. They were soon out of the sight of the fond dame, who long afterwards sat at the small window on the east side of the tower, listening to the notes of the horn, as they reverberated among the heights, and died away like the parting notes of mountain spirits that seek their dark recesses in the opening morn. A true Borderer's wife, she never feared for the result of an expedition of either hunting or harrying; and, as yet, a prosperous fate, by saving her husband and her six sons from the dangers to which their mode of life exposed them, had visited her with no cause of a wife's sorrow or a mother's affliction. But such was her heroic spirit, that, much as she loved these objects of her affection, she could have acted the Spartan dame over the dead body of the dearest among them, and quelled the bursting heart with the thought that he had died n.o.bly in the vocation to which his fate had called him. It was not that habit had worn out the ordinary solicitude of the female heart; for, if custom had recognised the actions of a rieving female in the affair of moveable property as well as of moveable hearts, we dare to be bold enough to say that Mary Scott would have been as famous as an amazon scaumer, as she was as the Flower of Yarrow. Many an expedition she had planned; and it was often more easy for Harden to satisfy himself as to the number of good cattle he might lodge in the glen, than it was to come up to the expectations of his better half, who, as the ballad says, if he had brought her less than ten, would not have "roosed his braverie." Nor was Harden's wife singular in the possession of these unfeminine feelings of Border heroism; for, as women are generally seen to take on the hues and complexions of the minds of their lords, the Border dames were generally remarkable for the spirit with which they applauded the deeds of their husbands, and the fort.i.tude with which they bore the consequences, often lamentably tragic, which resulted from the wild life they were habituated to lead. In her present situation, Mary Scott thought only of the fair property of Gilmanscleugh, which she conceived so well suited for the heirloom of her two sons that still wanted provisions; and she had already in her mind's eye the bickering flame that was to consume the parchment rights, and roast the oxen that would serve for the celebration of the new acquisition to the wealth and property of Harden.

Meanwhile the hunting troop spread through the surrounding woods, sounding their horns, but caring less for the dun deer of the Scotch hills than for the black cattle of Gilmanscleugh. They had not proceeded far, being still within the limits of Harden's lands, when they heard the hunting-horn of some party in the distance; and the old chief immediately despatched one of his sons--whom he styled the Forester, from his love of the sports of woodcraft--to p.r.i.c.k his garron forward, and ascertain who it was that had the hardihood to drive the dun deer so near to Harden's glen. The young man obeyed, and as he proceeded, he found that the huntsman, whoever he was, had, probably from hearing the sounds of the approaching chief, retired to the westward, with a view to avoid the coming party. This construction on his conduct was the first thought that arose on the mind of young Harden, and it came with the suspicion that the sound of the stranger's horn indicated no other a visitor to the Harden woods than that very Gilmanscleugh against whom his father and mother had been nouris.h.i.+ng the schemes which might contribute to the gratification of their ambition. With these thoughts came another--viz., that he, the young Harden, who was one of the unprovided sons for whom Gilmanscleugh was intended, would contribute to the satisfaction of both his father and mother, if he made short work of the projected scheme, and, by urging the proprietor of the envied property to a quarrel and battle, got quit of him by a bilbo thrust, and thus settle in an instant an affair which apparently occupied a great deal more thought than it was ent.i.tled to. The idea brought a whole train of the most delightful cogitations that had ever yet fired his young fancy. He would antic.i.p.ate the views of his father; set off by contrast the simplicity of his own act--a simple extension of the sword-arm--with the intricate machinery of his parents' scheme of ambition; enjoy the surprise of his father and the wonder of his mother when he told them that he had, by an unlucky quarrel, killed Gilmanscleugh, and asked, with affected simplicity, what would become of the property? show himself the best of the six sons of Harden, and worthy of the best smile of the Flower of Yarrow. The acc.u.mulation of rising thoughts and stirring feelings inflamed his mind; and, striking deep the rowels into his garron's side, he p.r.i.c.ked forward at the rate of a quick gallop, with the wolf-dog Grim bounding before him, baying forth a deep yell, and his tongue hanging half-a-foot over his bloodthirsty jaws. He kept his pace for a considerable time, and was already far from his father's party, when he saw Gilmanscleugh's dog, also a wolf-hound, and known to him by the peculiarity of his colour, being almost white, bounding away to the left--in the track, doubtless, of his master. The moment the dogs perceived each other in the breathless, foaming condition into which their race had inflamed them, they closed in a fell struggle, and made the wood ring with the sounds of their wrath. Gilmanscleugh heard the affray, and returned to save his favourite hound from the jaws of Harden's, which was so famous throughout the forest, that no animal of its species, or indeed of any other in the wood, could stand before it. Coming up, he struck the fierce animal of his chief; and young Harden, coming from behind, upbraided him for a.s.saulting his dog, in such terms of galling abuse that the insulted man turned and laid his hand on his sword. The act was followed by a similar movement on the part of the Forester--in another moment they were engaged in fight, and the period of a minute did not pa.s.s away before the young and beautiful son of Harden lay upon the ground, a bleeding corpse!

"Ho, for Gilmanscleugh!" cried the victor, as he sheathed his b.l.o.o.d.y sword, and saw all the danger of his situation. "Ho, for Gilmanscleugh!

and that without blast o' horn; for every tree o' Harden woods will rise up to avenge the death o' the Flower o' Yarrow's favourite son!"

And he struck his horse's sides, and urged him forward, calling out for his dog Wolf, who was as anxious to get out of the clutches of Grim, as his master was to get out of the reach of Harden.

"Wolf! Wolf!" he cried, as he turned round. "For Gilmanscleugh--hame--hame--ho! I have killed a dun deer to-day, whose umbles will tell the seer a sad tale o' our house, and whose corbin bane will bring mony a Harden corbie to Gilmanscleugh."

But Wolf was too firmly in the fangs of Grim; and now Harden's horn was sounding in shrill tones in the hollows, announcing to the unfortunate victor the near approach of the fierce chief, but no longer awaking the ear of the victim, who lay already stiff among the green leaves of the forest. The dogs were still fast, and he must spend as much time in disengaging them as would bring the father of the slain youth to the scene of his sorrow and revenge, or he must braid on with the top-speed of his favourite Sorrel, and leave his dog an evidence of the deed, that, if traced to him, would bring ruin on his home, his wife, and his children, and all the retainers of Gilmanscleugh. Springing off, and nerved with the force of despair, he flung himself on the wrestling dogs, and laying hold of the throat of Harden's, he clutched it with such strength that the animal opened his jaws, gasping for breath, and turning up his eyeb.a.l.l.s beneath the lids, fell on his side; but his revengeful opponent, no sooner free from the gripe which had bound him, seized Grim in his turn; and Gilmanscleugh saw before him an alternation of a process of choking that would consume more than his hurrying moments. There was not an instant for deliberation: seizing his sword, he stuck it into the heart of the dog, and, detaching Wolf, sprung to his saddle, and flew through the forest with the speed of light; while his faithful animal, seeing no longer life in his enemy, forsook his prey and his revenge, and bounded away after his flying master. But too much time had, unfortunately for Gilmanscleugh, been already lost in disengaging the dogs; for the tw.a.n.g of a bow announced to him, as he hurried on, that a messenger more fleet than Sorrel was after him, and, looking round, he saw his faithful attendant fall to the ground, with a long shaft quivering in his smoking side.

"There is my king's evidence left behind me," muttered he, as he stuck the rowels deeper in the sides of his horse. "Wae to Gilmanscleugh when Harden has to avenge the death o' a son slain by his arm! Braid on, good Sorrel, to a flaming stable, and carry your master to what may be sune a lordless ha'!"

The speed of his horse soon took him out of the reach of Harden and his sons--but not before they had seen him in the act of flight, and brought down his dog by an arrow sent from the unerring hand of the old chief's namesake. On coming up to the place where his favourite lay extended dead on the ground, with his face upturned to heaven, and, though partly covered by his bonnet's plume that had fallen down in the flight, displaying too evidently the rigid muscles of death, his father and his brothers uttered a loud cry of astonishment and grief, and ran to satisfy themselves of the terrible truth, that the beautiful youth was indeed dead. The satisfaction was easy and ready: enough of blood lay in a pool by his side to have carried in its stream two young lives; and a single glance at his pale face struck the mind with the palsy which death in the human countenance so strangely produces. His sword, firmly grasped in his hand, told also a part of the story, which was eked out by the body of the dead Grim and that of his lifeless antagonist, which one of the sons had brought to the place where the group stood, and looked at each other in mute grief. But that was only for a moment. The heavy, tear-filled eye of sorrow of the father changed in an instant, and flashed forth the fire of revenge, and, as every one of his five sons clutched their swords, loud cries rent the air--"Ho! for Gilmanscleugh with the sword and the fire-f.a.ggot!" So entirely were the fiery youths led away by the impulse of the new feeling, that they had all remounted their garrons, clanging their drawn swords, and uttering their deep-mouthed cries, without reflecting for a moment that the body of the dead youth had to be disposed of, and that all their party was not able to take Gilmanscleugh Tower, and put its inmates to the sword.

"Hold! ho! my brave sons!" cried the father, as the fire of his revenge beamed through his tears. "Why this hurry? A hundred years would not cool our fire, and a sudden revenge lacketh the fulness of satisfaction.

We must take home the body of my dead son to his mother. It will be her duty to swathe it and to lay it out. It is the first time she hath had this work to do; and, as she does it, she will recollect her words of yestreen when she said that Gilmanscleugh would serve for both of my sons. Too true, alas! Gilmanscleugh hath satisfied one; Gilmanscleugh shall satisfy the other."

The youths, burning as they were for satisfaction, saw the necessity of agreeing to the recommendation of their father; and, dismounting again, they lifted the stiff body from among the clotted gra.s.s, and, wrapping it in a mantle, laid it over the backs of two of their horses, and proceeded in mournful procession towards home, where Mary Scott as yet sat at the castle window indulging in the meditation to which the expedition of her husband and her sons had given rise. The sounds of the horn that had struck her ear had long ceased, and she pictured to herself the bold party scouring over Gilmanscleugh, the intended inheritance of her son, the Forester, the best beloved of her, as he was of his father, for boldness, filial affection, and beauty. She did not expect them till the evening was far gone, and then it would be her duty and greatest delight to prepare for them the cheerful bickering fire, and the warm refres.h.i.+ng meal, and welcome them to their home and their pleasures with her accustomed looks of satisfaction, her well-chosen words of good-humour, and her questions of success, put in such form as might afford the opportunity of recounting their deeds of arms or woodcraft. Many a time had she enjoyed these highest pleasures of the dutiful wife, affectionate mother, and spirited companion; and there was yet time and opportunity in store for her to enjoy them again with undiminished relish. Casting her eyes over the side of the glen, she saw the procession of her husband and five sons, with the dead body of the sixth, coming slowly along the middle of the dell. This was not the way in which old Wat of Harden usually returned to his castle; there were no cattle driven before him, no winding of his horn among the hills, no whoop of triumph from his rough throat. The slow tread of the horses'

feet, as they paced the sod, came upon her ear with a dead, hollow sound; and her heart became busy with its mystic divinations, before her eye could trace all the details of the unusual scene. But feature by feature of this first representation of a mother's bereavement opened gradually on her view; she ran over the faces of her sons and that of her husband, and soon distinguished the beloved victim; the expressions of the countenances of the bearers told her the extent of the calamity, if the form of the extended body, where Death sat triumphant, and gave forth those indications of his presence which cannot be misunderstood, had left any doubt on her mind that her fair Forester was no more. But her griefs knew no feminine paroxysms, the strength of her nerves enabled her to contemplate even the scene of a dead son with that strange calmness which the strongest feeling can draw from the depths of the mental const.i.tution, as its cover and panoply in the hour of nature's greatest need. As the procession approached, she saw Harden draw his hand over his eyes, and the sobs of the youths fell on her ear.

Yet she descended with firmness to meet a sight which, contemplated by a mother, is perhaps the most harrowing that can be exhibited to mortal eye--a dead son, and that son her hope and pride. At the entrance she met her husband, who took her hand, and, as he held it, waved to the conductors to pause in their progress.

"Let them come in, Wat," said she. "I know all--my Forester is dead.

Come forward, my sons, and let me see him who was once my pride, and tell me what cruel cause hath reft me of my boy."

The sons came forward, and, taking the body by the head and feet, carried it into the tower, where, having placed it, they stood around, silently looking on what was, an hour before, their beloved brother, in the heyday of youth and beauty.

"Who hath done this deed?" inquired the mother, as she looked on the pale face of her son, with feelings too deep for tears.

"Gilmanscleugh," answered Walter.

The word operated like electricity on the minds of the sons, as they stood silently looking at the corpse. Revenge had for a moment been clouded by grief, and the talismanic influence of the name of the destroyer drew aside the vapours, and exposed again the fiery sun of their resentment. A simultaneous movement carried their hands to their swords, and every face was turned to the door; but the eye of old Walter, looking askance through a bush of s.h.a.ggy grey brows, watched keenly every motion; and, as they rushed out to raise the cry of destruction to Gilmanscleugh and its master, he called them back, and hurried them into a side-room with grated windows and a strong door, where were contained, as in a stronghold, the t.i.tle-deeds of Harden, and other valuable things which required security. "Let us consult, my bold youths, let us consult," he said, as he pushed the last one in; and the moment they were all fairly enclosed, he turned the key in the lock, and put it into his pocket.

"Give me the Forester's b.l.o.o.d.y doublet," he cried to his wife, "with the hole made by Gilmanscleugh's sword in the right breast."

"What mean ye, Wat?" answered Mary, as, lifting her eyes from the face of the corpse, she noticed these extraordinary proceedings on the part of her husband. "Why do you lock up our five sons, when vengeance calls them to Gilmanscleugh? and why ask ye for the b.l.o.o.d.y vest, which should be the pennon to fly over the smoking ruins of the destroyer's tower? If you are to stop revenge, lock up the mother with her sons; for my heart beats with the pulsations of man's courage, and I will cease to feel as a woman till this blood be avenged. If thou wilt not lead on our sons to Gilmanscleugh, let me undertake the task; and mark well the issue of a woman's foray, when a son's b.l.o.o.d.y doublet hangs on the point of the spear."

"Recollect ye not your words, Mary?" answered Wat, hurriedly. "Said ye not that Gilmanscleugh would serve for both our sons? That one lying there is satisfied; by the powers of revenge, the other shall not be disappointed. The doublet! come, wife, the doublet!--and see that you give our sons meat enough, through the west hole of the strong-room, to keep their blood warm and their hearts glowing for three days. Let our dead Forester lie there for that time; but turn his head to Gilmanscleugh. The doublet! come, quick!"

Mary could not understand the meaning of these words; but she well knew that the resolutions of her husband, when determined, were founded on prudence and principle, and beyond the affecting capabilities of mortal man; so she proceeded to take from the body of her son the doublet, which was stained with blood, and perforated in the right breast by the sword which had deprived him of life. Having removed it, she handed it to Walter, who, holding it up to the light, looked through the hole, and, with that strange mixture of a peculiar humour with the deepest seriousness of human nature for which he was remarkable, declared, with a grim smile, that he saw through it the lands of Gilmanscleugh, and the Harden arms over the door of the old tower; then, wrapping up the vestment, he hurried to the outer court, and, binding it to the front of his saddle, mounted, and clapping spurs to his horse, was, in a few moments, away at a hard gallop over the hills.

Confused by these abrupt and incomprehensible proceedings, Mary had not been able to make the necessary effort to get an explanation, though it is doubtful if all her entreaties would have been successful in wringing from the determined and cunning old chief what were his intentions.

Returning to the apartment where the dead body lay, she found there a duty which would occupy the time till her husband returned--in watching the corpse of her beloved Forester, and tracing in his rigid, pallid features the traces of those expressions of his beautiful face which used to extend so much influence over the hearts of his father and mother, and bring love to him from all sides on the rapid wings of sympathetic attraction. On one side lay the corpse she had to watch; at the other were her five remaining sons, enclosed as prisoners, and prevented from executing the revenge with which she burned, or extending to her the comforting and a.s.suasive a.s.sistance of their presence and conversation. As she looked on the face of the corpse, she heard the impatient murmurings of her sons, who, burning to get forth to satisfy the yearnings of their hearts, demanded of her, through a small opening in the door, what was the intention of their father in thus keeping them from so just and necessary an object as the vindication of the honour of Harden, and the taking of blood for blood.

"We shall not be balked of our revenge, mother," cried the youngest.

"The Forester's blood cries more loudly than the voice of our father.

Call the retainers, and break open the door, that we may get free.

Haste, good mother!"