Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry/Death of the Laird Of Warlsworm
DEATH OF THE LAIRD OF WARLSWORM.
It happened on a fine harvest afternoon, that I found myself at the entrance of one of the wild and romantic glens or vales of Galloway; and as a Galwegian vale has a character of its own, it would mutilate my story to leave it undescribed. Imagine an expanse of brown moorland extending as far as sight can reach, threaded by innumerable burns or brooks, and only tenanted in appearance by flocks of sheep, or by coveys of red and black game. Here and there a shepherd was seen with his dogs, or a bare-headed maiden with her pails of milk, going homewards from the fold, and cheering her way with one of those old tender traditional ballads which some neglected spirit, like that of John Lowe, has scattered so largely among the pastoral glens of Galloway. A shepherd's house, or his summer sheal, rising like the "bonnie bower," of the two heroines of Scottish song, on a burn brae, and covered thick with rushes, while it threw its long wavering line of blue smoke into the clear sharp air, spoke of the presence of the sons and daughters of man, or said, in the quaint and homely language of the Galwegian proverb, "where four cloots go, man's twa feet maun follow."
But this heath, barren and wild as it seemed, had other attractions. At the distance of almost every little mile, numerous streams of smoke ascended from the brown moor; the sound and the hum of man, busied with the flail, the hatchet, or the hammer, was heard; the cry and the merriment of children abounded; and here and there a green tree-top or a chimney-head, a kirk-spire or a ruined tower, projecting above the horizon of blossomed heather, proclaimed to the traveller that Caledonia, amid her deserts, has her well-peopled glens and her fruitful places.
On a summer Sabbath morning the people of Galloway are to be beheld in their glory; then every little deep-green and populous vale pours forth its own sedate and pious and well-dressed multitude. From the dame in the douce grey mantle to the maiden in glittering silks and scarlets; from him in the broad blue bonnet to her in the gallant cap and feather; from the trembling and careful step of age to the firm and heedless stride of youth; from her who dreams of bridal favours and bridegroom's vows, to him bent to the earth with age, musing on the burial procession and the gaping grave—all are there, moving on staid and soberly to the house of God. Often have I stood and seen the scanty current of people issue out like the little brook of their native glen, join themselves to a fuller stream, and, increasing as they flowed on, become as a river ere they reached the entrance to the burial-ground, which, hallowed with their fathers' dust, encompassed their native kirk. I have heard the bell toll, and the melody of their psalms of praise and hymns of thanksgiving flow far and wide. I have thought, while these holy sounds arose, that the bleat of the flocks became softer, the cry of the plover less shrill, and that the divine melody subdued into music the rough brawling of the brook along which it was heard.
At the heathy entrance into one of these beautiful vales I accordingly stood and pursued the winding of a little stream, which, after leaping over two or three small crags, and forming several little bleaching grounds of greensward for the villagers' webs, gathered all its waters together, and concentrated all its might, to pour itself on a solitary mill-wheel at the farther end of the valley. On either side of the glen the shepherds and husbandmen had each constructed his homely abode, according to his own fancy; the houses were dropped here and there at random, facing east, and west, and south, each attached to its own little garden, the green flourishing of which was pleasant to the eye, while the fragrance of some sweet herbs, or a few simple flowers, escaped from the enclosure, and was wafted about me by the low and fitful wind. The whole glen was full of life, the sickles were moving beneath the ripe grain, the bandsmen were binding and stooking it, several low-wheeled cars were busied in depositing this rustic treasure in the farmer's stack-yard; while the farmer himself moved about, surveyed the fulfilment of his wishes, and rubbed the full ears between his palms, and examined with a pleased and a curious eye the quality of his crop. At the doors of the cottages the old dames sat in groups in the sun, twirling their distaffs, and driving the story round of wonder or of scandal; while an unsummable progeny of barefooted bairns ran, and rolled, and leaped, and tumbled, and laughed, and screamed, till the whole glen remurmured with the din.
I sat down by the side of a flat gravestone, bedded level with the grass; the ancient inscription, often renewed by the pious villagers, told that beneath it lay one of those enthusiastic, undaunted, and persecuted peasants, who combated for freedom of faith and body when the nobles of the land forgot the cause of God and their country. Presently the children desisted from their merriment, and gathered about and gazed on me, a man of an unknown glen, with a quiet and a curious eye. I ever loved the innocent scrutiny of youthful eyes; so I allowed them to descant at freedom on my southland garb, and wonder what could make me choose my seat by the martyr's tombstone, a place seldom visited, save by men in a devotional frame of mind. A venerable old dame, with a straggling tress or two of grey hair flowing from beneath her mutch or coif, laid aside her distaff, and advanced to free me from the intrusion of a dozen or more of her curly-headed descendants. The admonishing tone in which she said, "Bairns, bairns!" with the rebuke of her eye, accomplished her wishes; the children vanished from my side, and retired to a little round green knowe or knoll, which rose on the rivulet bank in the middle of the village, and seemed appropriated for rustic games, pitching the bar, casting the stone, for leaping and for wrestling. "A bonnie harvest afternoon, sir," said the Galwegian matron, "but ye would be wiser to come and rest ye in a comfortable house than sit on the cauld stane, though it lies aboon the dust of ane of the godly auld folk of the saintly days of Galloway, or maybe ye might like the change-house better to birl yere sixpence, and be behadden to none, and I cannot say that I can advise ye."
I was prevented from replying by another of the village dames, who thus broke in on our parley: "Birl his silver in the change-house!—wherefore should he? What can hinder him from slipping cannilie away up the brae to the gudeman of Warlsworm? he's either dead, or as good as dead; and if he's no departed, so much the better; he will leave the world with a perturbed spirit, for sore, sore, has he stuck to the earth, and loth will he be to leave his gowd and his gains, and his bonnie broad lairdships; and who kens but the sight of a stranger breaking his bread and drinking his milk may make him die through downright vexation for the unwonted waste? Andrew, my bonnie lad, take this strange man up to auld Warlsworm's hall-door; I would gang myself, but I vowed never to cross his threshold or enter his land, since he cheated my ain cousin out of the green holms of Dee: black be his cast, and bitter his doom!"
A little boy came to my side, and put his hand in mine; and, willing to know more of a man of whom I had heard so much, away I walked with my barefooted guide, and soon came within sight of the mansion of Warlsworm.
It was a rough old house, built of undressed granite, and covered with a slating of coarse sandstone. The smoke, despairing to find its way through the windings of a chimney almost choked with sides of bacon and soot, sought its passage in many a curl and turn along the roof, and, finally descending, streamed out into the pure air through window and door. Groups of black cattle, after browsing on every green thing which the garden contained, and trying to digest the withered thatch which depended from the sides of the barn and stable, stood lowing knee-deep in a pool of muddy water before the mansion, and looking wistfully on the green hills and the golden harvest around them. The fowls, undismayed by foumart or fox, plundered the corn which hung drop-ripe and unreaped in the field; while a multitude of swine, breaking, in the desperation of hunger, from their pens, ran grunting through the standing grain, crushed the growing potatoes in unwieldy joy, and finally cooled their sides, and fulfilled the Scripture proverb, by wallowing in the mire which encompassed as with a fosse this miserable mansion.
The door stood open. In summer, in the pastoral districts, few doors are closed; and, with the privilege which a stranger claims in a hospitable land, I entered the house. Wheeled towards the fire, and bedded thick with sheepskins and soft cushions, stood the lang settle, or rustic sofa; and on it lay a man bald and feeble with age, and kneeling by his side I saw a fair-haired girl, her hands clasped, and her large blue eyes fixed with a moist and motionless gaze on his face. This was the owner of the mansion, the far-famed Laird of Warlsworm; and the maid was his niece, as remarkable for her gentleness and beauty as her relative for his grasping and incessant greed. As my shadow darkened the floor, she looked up, and motioned me to silence and a seat. I accordingly sat down, and looked with an eye of deep interest on the touching scene before me. There lay Age, his face gross and covetous, his mind seeking communion with the riches of the earth, while his body was fast hasting to dust, and his soul to its final account; and there knelt Youth, glowing in health and ripe in beauty, her tresses bright, and flowing over her neck, like sunshine visiting a bank of lilies; her hands, white and shapely and small, clasped over a white and a perturbed bosom; while from her long dark eyelashes the tears of sorrow descended drop by drop. On both, a young man in a homely garb, but with a face comely and interesting, sat and looked, and looked too with a brow on which might be read more of love for the maid than of sorrow for the man.
The old man uttered a groan, turned on his couch, half opened his eyes, and said, "Bessie, my bairn, let me have hold of thy hand; my sight is not so good as it ought to be; and I think I see queer things, that should not be seen by a man when he lies down to die. But I have wronged no man; I took but what the law gave me; and if the law grips with an iron hand, it's the worse for them that made it. I thought I heard the footstep of the young portioner of Glaiketha; he'll be come to borrow gold and to wadset land. But, Bessie my lass, gold's scarce, and land abundant; no that I refuse the minted money when the interest will do thee good, and when the security's sicker; sae gang thy ways, my wean, to the old pose ahint the cathud, or hear ye me; there's a saddle bag of good red gold riding on the rannel-tree that has nae seen sun or wind these seven-and-twenty summers."
"Oh! forget the cares of the world," said the maiden, with a voice smothering with sorrow, "and think of your health. This is not the young portioner of Glaiketha seeking for gold to cast away in eating and drinking and dancing, or in more evil pursuits; but a stranger youth come to repose him all night as strangers do, and recommence his journey in the morning."
"Repose him!" re-echoed the old man, his voice deepening and his faded eyes brightening as he spoke. "Have I wranged any of his kin, that he comes hither to riot on my substance? Have I ever darkened his father's door, that he should presume to darken mine? Alas! alas! the bonnie haughs of Orr, and the fair holms of Dee, will be wasted on loons and limmers, and I shall no find repose where all men find rest. Ay! ay! my hall will soon be a changed place; there will be fizzenless tea instead of weel-buttered breakfast brose; a pudding with spices and raisins for a gallant haggis dropping with fatness, and full of marrowy strength; and for the pleasant din of the spinning-wheel there will be the sounding of fiddle-strings, and the leaping of wanton feet. Strangers will feast at my supper-board, where strangers never feasted before; and auld men will shake their heads and say, 'Away fly the riches of honest Warlsworm.'"
And putting his hands over his eyes, as if to hide the hideous picture of extravagance which his imagination had painted, and uttering groan succeeding groan, he stretched himself at full length on the lang settle.
His niece turned pale as she beheld him writhing under the infliction of the spirit which she mistook for a deadlier pang, and thus she addressed the young man, who seemed to remain there that he might gaze without intermission on her beauty. "Oh, Willie, lad, if ye wish for wealth in this world, and weal in the ane to come—rise up, and run."
The youth leaped to his feet, stood with his lips apart, his left foot forward, and his whole face beaming with joy at being commanded by so sweet a tongue. "Oh run, William, run! fly over moor and moss, and seek and bring auld Haudthegrup, a man gifted in prayer and conversant with godly things; he will cheer my uncle's spirit. For oh, they're gladsome when they get thegither. I have seen them sit in the howe heart of winter, laying schemes for gripping and guiding wealth, when the snow was on the hill, and the icicle on the house-side, with less fire to thowe them than would warm a bairn's breakfast. Oh run, William, run! tell him to hasten; for the sands of life are nearly out; and that my uncle talks of the gathered gold of faith, and the set siller of redemption; and that's nae symptom of health with him."
The youth looked at her for a moment, then away he darted from the door, climbed the hill with the swiftness of a fowl in its flight, tarried for a second on its summit, to look back on the dwelling; nor were his glances unrewarded; he then vanished along the moor, to seek the home of auld Haudthegrup.
This devotional auxiliary soon made his appearance; he seemed a personification of penance and famine. He was tall and lean, with a frame of iron, a forehead villanous low, and eyes small, restless and glimmering about in quest of gain, like those of a cat seeking prey in the twilight. His nose was sharp and thin, like the style of a sun-dial; while his lips, though very broad, were too scanty to cover a seam of teeth as rusty as the jaws of an unused fox-trap, and wholly unacquainted with the luxury of the pastoral district, the flesh of lambs or ewes, unless when a friend's house had the scourge of his company. He carried under his arm a mighty Bible, garnished with massy clasps of iron; and entered the abode of his dying friend with the satisfied look of a man proud of his gifts, and conscious of the extensive influence of his intercessions. "Peace be among you," said the goodman of Haudthegrup, "and may God claim his ain in his blessed time and way; when the grain's ready let it go to the threshing-floor, and when the grapes are ripe, take them to the wine-press." So saying, he made a stride or two, and, looking in the face of his ancient friend, thus proceeded to comfort him.
"Bless me, Laird of Warlsworm! ye're no going to leave us; leaving us, too, when golden days are at hand? Never was there such an appearance of a harvest of gold, and the precious things of the earth, all ripening and getting ready for thy sickle and mine. Cheer up, man, ye'll hear the chink of gold in yere left lug for mony a bonnie year yet. Would ye lie there, and let the breath sough away frae atween your lips, like a cow strangled with her tether in a field knee-deep of clover? Look me in the face, I say; bankers are breaking, and the credit of cattle-dealers is cracked—gold will be gold soon, and the rate of interest will rise in Galloway. The crouse and ringing frosts of winter will soon come to purify the air, and make yere auld blood course boldly in yere veins. Then the grass will grow green, the bushes will bud, and the primroses will blow on the bonnie burn bank, and ye'll get yere feet among the braw blooming gowans, that lie scattered o'er the face of the earth, like as mony pieces of a spendthrift's gold. Sae cheer up, man, ye would do wrong to die, and so many blessings awaiting ye."
The Laird of Warlsworm sat erect for a moment; the prospect of life, and the hopes of future gain, passed by him like a bright pageant; his eyes sparkled with that unholy light by which Mammon sums his treasure, and he stretched forth his hand to clutch the visionary gold, which deceitful fancy heaped up before him. But nature could not sustaiu the effort, the light faded in his eyes, his hand sank and his head declined, and sinking on the cushions, he muttered, "Na, na, it winna do, it winna do, I maun away to the worms, and my bits of bonnie gold will get a fearful scattering;" and fixing his looks on the old bag of coin, which was suspended in the chimney, he lay for a while in woeful rumination, and thus proceeded: "Ay, ay, ye'll no hang lang in that cozie place now; the hand of the spoiler will come, and thy braw broad pieces which I gathered with care and with sorrow, and regarded as gods, will gang to the silk shop and the maker of golden gimcracks, glancing with polished stones for woman's neck and bosom." And shutting his eyes in despair, and clutching his hands in agony of spirit, he resigned himself to his fate.
Meanwhile the devout twin-brother of Mammon seated himself in an old chair, laid his Bible on his knees, uncovered his head, placed his long iron fingers on the clasps, and with a prolonged preliminary cough, which hypocrisy had taught to imitate the listless and weary end of a dull sectarian sermon, he opened the volume. He glanced his eye around, to see if his auditors were composed, and commenced his search for a chapter befitting the perilous state of his friend. I was seated beside him, and thus I heard him converse with himself, as he turned over the leaves: "A chapter fit for a sinner's state! I mauna read about repentance, nor speak of the benefits of redemption. He'll never forgive me for directing his thoughts to such strange objects."
The laird uttered a low groan, and the devout man proceeded with his mutterings. "He's going gear, he's going gear; he winna shoot over the coming midnight: he'll be a stretched-out corse, and Bessie Lamond, his niece there, a braw rich heiress before the morning light. She'll be a weel tochered lass, when auld Gripagain travels. Let me see, there's Hurleyhawkie, a rich land and well watered; there's Auchenling, a dreary domain it's true, but there's gallant shooting on't, though it bears little but cranberries; then there's Wyliehole, and the sixteen acre parks of Warlsworm, forbye bails and bonds and gathered gold; my sooth, Bessie my lass, many a gallant will cast his cap at thee." And he glanced his sharp considerate eyes on the young maiden, to whose mind her uncle's danger seemed alone present. "Ay, ay," he resumed, "she's a well-favoured lass, and I'll warrant has a gift of knowing on't; deil a doubt of that, but I am not so very auld, and have been single for seven year, and bating a sad cough, which I can mend when I like for sixpence, and sundry grey hairs, the lass may have sillier woosters than me. When I cock my bonnet, and put on my crousest coat, and give my horse a tasting of corn, and then a tasting of the spur, I think the quean will no be a drapsblood to her uncle if she say me nay. And the lassie, too, is modest of demeanour, she wears nae silver in her shoon, nor frights the fowls with the feathers of her cap; and weel I mind it was her thrifty mother's boast that she should never sit on a sark till she could spin ane. I'll warrant her a gallant lassie, and a gude guider of gear. I should like to lead her to a brankan bridal." And, resuming his search of a suitable chapter, he withdrew his looks from the maid, who with brimful eyes, a troubled brow, and quivering hands, ministered to the sick man.
Her pure sincerity of heart won its way to auld Warlsworm's bosom, frozen as it seemed, and shut up resolutely against the charities of nature. "Ah, Bessie, lass," he murmured, "thy uncle maun leave the bonnie links of Orr, and the gowany braeside of Dee. Many a tug, and many a toiled brow, has it cost him to get them; but the strength of man cannot endure like the hills, nor his spirit flow for ever, like a running stream. And talking of running streams, that reminds me that Miller Macmillan owes me a year's rent, past on Tuesday; gar Jack Candlish gang and fetch it: the miller's a sicker ane; he thinks my dam is nearly run, and that my wheel of existence lacks the water of life, and sae he'll keep up the rent till my head's happit, and then wheedle or swear thee out on't. So that's settled, and my spirit's all the calmer for it. And now for thee, lass, ye'll be a rich quean, Bessie, and the lads will like ye nae the waur because he who lived before ye had a gathering eye and a sicker grip. But ye maun never wear a towering bonnet with a long feather; for that is an abomination in devout eyes, and a sad drain for the pocket; and sair I slighted bonnie Jenny Duff for the pride of her apparel: wear the snood of maiden singleness as lang as ye can, lassie; and, if ye maun be a wife, wear a douce hood, or a devout mutch; ye'll find ane of yere grandmother's treasured by among my bonds; for I loved my ain mother better than ever I loved gold; ye'll hardly credit that, Bessie; and I love thee, too, my ain sweet sister's wean."
He laid his arms around her neck, looked full in her face, with a kind and a glistening eye, and the demon of lucre spread his wings, to forsake the mansion where he had lived so long. But it was otherwise ordered. The poor weeping girl knelt over him, and wiped away from his face the tears which flowed from her own eyes, for tears never flowed from his, and hid her face in his bosom with many a bitter sob.
"Ah, ye waster hussey!" exclaimed the laird, in a tone above his strength, "wherefore wipe ye my face with a damask napkin, when a cloth three threads to the pound is too good for a wadset about to be redeemed like me? And see, as I hope to be saved, if ye are not consuming the good dry wood which I kept for the cozie winter night; ground-elding (dried turf) is good enough to warm such an old sapless bough as me, which the feller's axe is fast lopping away from the green tree of existence."
This appearance of unwonted profusion smote sore on the heart of the parsimonious old man, and in a tone of rebuke and bitterness he continued his discourse. "I may waste my breath—and I ought to leave some for a scrap of prayer, it may help me where I am going; I may waste my breath, Bess, I say, in counselling ye how to choose a husband. When a woman's eye is bright, her ear is deaf. Take not a man, Bess, who counts kindred four generations back; he'll call his ancestor a gentleman, and spill the brimming cup of thy fortune in justifying his descent. Nor yet marry a man who scorns his ancestors; the man who mocks his forefathers, tramples on their dust. I hold a father's fair name equal with hoarded siller. Above all things wed not a lawyer, lass; ye should aye strive to mend your fortune and better your fame. Think not of a sailor, for he thinks there is no Sunday in five fathoms of water, and finds a love in every land. Shun too the soldier, for shining scarlet, golden shoulder-knots, and a hat filled with fowls' feathers, will consume thy gold, and fly away with thy happiness; and, oh, what a gowk he maun be, who stands up to be shot at for saxpence a day, Sunday included! But marry, lass, for all women love to be married, were it only for the sake of having somebody to scold at, and to bear the fault for their folly,—wed, I say, a strong-handed chield, who can keep the crown of the causeway, and make himself be obeyed at his own fireside. A cannie homely lad, who can clip seven score of sheep while another clips six; kens the buttered frae the bare side of the bread; loves nought so well as his own wife but the knotting of his own purse-strings; and who fears the Lord, and can back five bushels of barley."
This grave and worldly counsellor fairly exhausted himself, and, laying his head on the cushion, and fixing his eye on his bag of gold, which common fame calculated at a thousand pieces, remained silent while that devout person, Haudthegrup, commenced family devotion. He had examined the New Testament for a fitting and seemly text; but the divine meekness and charity and self-denial, and scorn of all terrestrial grandeur, which inspire its pages, rejected all community of feeling, and obliged him to seek consolation under the splendid and ostentatious dispensations of the Mosaic law.
"Spoiling the Egyptians," I heard him mutter, as he hastened along, "the heathen Egyptians of their jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, a meritorious deed; making the molten calf, a piece of dark idolatry, and a waste of precious metal; spoiling the Amalekite, a rich and a pagan people, a pleasant act and an acceptable. The Temple, ay, ay, the Temple of Solomon, the roof thereof was of fine cedar, the pillars of ivory, the floor of pure silver, and the walls of beaten gold—this has often consoled me, and doubtless will console him. It would be pleasant to die with a vision of this golden palace before him." Here he raised his head and said audibly: "Let us begin the worship of Him on high, by readfng in his praise first Kings, chapter the sixth." And, elevating his voice, he chanted forth the history of the building of Solomon's Temple, adorning it with the prolonged tone and quavering grace-notes of an ancient Cameronian professor. Nor did he fail to express his own admiration at the profusion of precious metal, by dwelling, with a delight that seemed unwilling to depart, on the passages recording the overlayings of the wall with gold, and the altar, and the floor. As he proceeded, the eye of old Warlsworm looked on his own sooty rafters, and on his coarse unhewn floor, and on the ark which contained his meal; yet what were they, covered, as his imagination made them, with beaten gold, compared to the immeasurable riches of the Jewish temple! Devotion fell prostrate before the divinity of wealth, and the man who had not five hours to live, leaped to his feet, smote his hands together, and exclaimed, "Oh Lord, what, o' gowd! what, o' gowd!"
"Ay, lad, and pure gowd too," responded Haudthegrup, casting the Bible from him as he spoke, and pacing round the room with a proud look and an augmented stride.
At this lamentable conclusion to family worship and intercession for the soul of a departing sinner, the beauteous relation of Warlsworm seemed deeply affected and incensed. She caught the laird in her arms, replaced him on his cushions, soothed down his worldly spirit, and wiped from his face the moisture which disease and excitement had brought to his brow, and that, too, with a cloth of a texture very unlike the fine twined linen and needlework of Egypt which had contributed to this unseemly rapture. While this passed, I observed the shadow of a man, lengthened by the departing sun, moving on the hall-floor, and seeming to whirl round and round with the agility of a dancer. I looked about, and beheld a singular being, a man about the age of fifty, clad in coarse cloth, called by the shepherds hiplock plaiden, bare-foot, bare-legged, bare-necked, and bare-headed. About his shoulders hung a mass of withered and matted hair; and he carried in his hand a long straw, which he held up before his face, moving all the while round and round, and accompanying his gestures with wild and disjointed words.
"Alas, alas!" said the young maiden, "what can have brought that poor demented simpleton here? He knows our doors were ever closed against him, and that our meal never augmented the little store which he obtained, more by the intercession of his own innocent face than by the entreaty of his tongue, from the scrupulous charity of our neighbours. Ah, poor houseless, homeless, hapless creature! he is come to express the sorrow of his own harmless heart for the illness of the head of this house; and hame shall he not go without partaking of the mercies with which we have been so long blessed." And with meat and drink in her hands forth she walked, and approached, not without hesitation, to the little green knoll on which the poor maniac had stationed himself, in order perhaps to give greater effect to the singular ceremony he was performing.
"East and west, and north and south," he chanted in a tone of dissonance equal to the croak of the raven—"east, west, north, and south; not a cloud—not a breath of wind—a burning heat, and a scorching drouth—the grasshopper cannot sing for want of her evening dew." He paused, and reversed the straw, and, holding it up before him, renewed his dancing and his chant. "North, south, west, and east, the morning sun cannot ascend for the concourse of clouds—the little streams sing among their pebbles, for their banks will soon be overflowed; and the little flowers, bless their bonnie faces, hold up their parched heads, rejoicing in the descending shower. The rains fall, the winds blow, the rivulets swell and the thunders roll, and rock the green hills. The wide and winding water—even the links of my bright and stately Orr—flows like a wild and a raging sea. I see it, I see it, I see it; man may not ride it; and the saddled steed neighs across the flood, which it trembles to take. Ah! I would not go to be buried in the old kirkyard, beyond that roaring river, though ye were to make me a bed three ell deep, and lay the greenest turf in Galloway aboon me."
"Gawain, Gawain," said Bessie Lamond, in her sweetest tone, and with a smile of sympathy and kindness on her lips; "Gawain—hinnie, have ye forgotten how many bowls of curds and cream, and pieces of bread and cheese, I have stolen from our penurious board to feed ye in the glen? Turn and speak to me, my bonnie man, and spae nae mair about uncannie things, and see nae mair unsonsie sights."
But Gawain was possessed beyond the influence of the tongue and charms of the fair niece of the penurious laird, and continued to elevate and dandle the straw with an increasing wildness of look and gesture. "But who are those who ride mourning on their coal-black steeds, two and two, and bear a coffined corse before them? I see some whom I shall not see long, and the owner of this house is among them; stretched full gay in his burial linen, and a velvet pall aboon him—the siller it costs would be a sore sight; it is well for him that his senses are shut, else the expense of the burial wine would break his heart. There is a deep grave dug, and the bedral leans on his spade, and looks to the burial train about to pass the river. Aha! Johnnie Feastheworm, ye're cheated, lad, ye're cheated," shouted Gawain, changing the wild seriousness of his tone to that of laughter and merriment. "Fill your kirkyard hole again with the black mools, for auld Warlsworm's floating down the links of Orr, and his bonnie black coffin will frighten the seamen on Solway; and wha should float aside him but auld Haudthegrup? But he'll no float far, for twa pouchfuls of stolen gowd will tug the sinner down, and sink him to perdition: ye're cheated, Johnnie Feastheworm, ye're cheated, sae fill yere kirkyard hole with the fat mools again, my cannie man."
These concluding words were too loud to escape notice, and out upon him sallied Haudthegrup, his face inflamed, his hand clenched, and burning anger on his tongue. "What fiend hath possessed himself of this man, and utters this falseness through his foolish lips? Verily, I will cast him out; a sore buffeting shall the foul thief abide, that presumes to enter into the living image of the High One, and prophesy against righteous men. Lo! I will rebuke him with my right hand, and chasten him sorely with this rod of rowan-tree, with which I once combated and overcame three witch women in the wicked parish of Penpont." And, advancing upon Gawain as he spoke, he aimed a blow, which the maniac turned aside, exclaiming: "Aha! auld greedy Haudthegrup, I have ye now, I have ye now; take that, man, for throwing a bone at me, at Joe Tamson's bridal, seven-and-thirty years syne come beltan." As he uttered these words, he dashed his opponent from him with such force that he reeled several paces, and plunged into a miry hole, fairly under the verdant mantle with which the summer warmth had decked it. Gawain, having performed this feat, stalked perpendicularly into the hall—seated himself by the warm ashes on the hearth, and, looking on the sick man, said, "Ye lie soft and braw on your bonnie white cushions there; and deed and trouth, an I was you, I wad nae die till the cauld frost and winter should come, when I care na to accompany ye to the kirkyard hole mysel, and take my word for't, ye'll lie saftest and fealest on the Buittle side of the kirk; I aye think the gowans are bonnier, and the grass the fairer, and the blinks of the simmer sun sweeter on that side than the other: 'od, but lad, if ye hope to lie wi' me, ye maun lie quiet, and nae trouble ane with your weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth—the cauld grave's a bad place to repent in."
We were now rejoined by old Haudthegrup, purified by the fair hands of the maiden from the soil of the pond, and anxious to drown shame and mortification by a long and lamentable prayer. The sun was set, and a soft and balmy twilight had succeeded. The sound of the reaper's returning song, and the repeated call of the harvest-horn, were audible on all sides; and in the hall of Warlsworm we had that silence which ushers in prayer, and that fitful and glimmering light afforded by the decaying beams of day, and the twinkling gleam of fading embers. As we knelt, I could not refrain from looking on the singular group thus strangely assembled.
Gawain, abasing himself in the ashes, and stooping his forehead quietly into the dust, accompanied with a chorusing groan the melancholy cough of the sick man; the maiden knelt by the couch, watching with a steady and uninterrupted gaze the changing looks of her uncle; while Haudthegrup himself clasped his hands, drew down his cheeks to a most hypocritical length, and, fixing his eyes on things above, namely, on the golden hoard which hung beyond reach in the chimney, proceeded with his prayer. The prayers of the righteous avail much, says the Fountain of Belief, but what avail the prayers of the hypocrite? Unwise would that man be who would give them a record and a sanctuary. A strong and a burning faith, a day of firm belief, and an hour of deathbed repentance, were pressed with many a mighty word and many a weary groan. He recommended the health of his friend to Him who sweetened the waters of Marah, and his spirit to that Being who presided over angels and thrones, and the souls of just men made perfect. "To thee," said he, making a concluding address to the Fountain of all glory, "to thee, who can make silver into gold, and the dust upon which we tread into precious gems, it can be little to mend a broken body and revive a contrite spirit. To thee, who made my lambs worth five half-crowns at the St. James's fair of Lanark, though when I supplicated thee they were worth but five and sixpence, the renovation of this frail and fainting man is but a breath from thy nostrils. But if it is thy will to glean this ripened ear, to snatch this brand from the fires of this sinful world, let him honour thee and serve thee, and leave a moiety of that worldly dross, which men call gold, even unto him who thus wrestled with thee for his welfare and salvation." Here the sick man moaned, and the glances of his gifted friend and him flashed towards the hidden gold like the hostile lights of two adverse planets. Haudthegrup concluded, "And, leaving his red gold in thy servant's hand, let him dwell in that house not built with hands, eternal in the heavens."
"A house not built with hands," re-echoed Gawain in the tone of the prayer, and leaping to his feet, "I never saw a house not built with hands except a magpie-nest in the foot of my mother's garden." With him, too, rose the Laird of Warlsworm, the deadly paleness of rage and receding life in his face; he fixed his eyes, shining with a light that seemed of the world below, on Haudthegrup, and stretching his hands towards him to pour forth his departing malediction, seemed inspired by the fiend who presides over the last hours of evil men. He opened his lips, the curse trembled on his tongue; but words never came, for he was stricken speechless, and fell back on the settle, his lips apart, his eyes fixed, and his hands clenched. "He'll never hound me frae his door mair," said Gawain, "nor tell me that wet straw is owre good a bed for a beggar bodie."
"Let us carry him into the spence," said Haudthegrup, "his spirit winna part in peace while his eye is fixed on that dross called gold, and his worldly good." The dying man seized his niece's hand, and pointed to several bags which hung among hams and tongues in the chimney. "Ah, he's making an edifying hinder end," said his parsimonious friend, "his hopes are with things aboon, with the blessed, doubtless." And away he bore him amid some faint resistance to a little secluded chamber, his hands still stretched towards the chimney, and his lips moving with the rapidity of one who speaks in haste. His dumb warnings were all in vain.
"Now, my bonnie young lady of Warlsworm," said this sanctified person in a whisper, "watch over the last moments of the righteous, and let these two youths and this simple innocent attend you; verily, they may profit by such an edifying sight; I, even I, a man dead to the things of this earth, will go and kneel down even where I lately knelt, and my intercession shall arise and go upward for the welfare of the body, and the glorification of the spirit."
The maiden wept, and, half insensible with sorrow, bathed her cheeks in tears, while away strode the comforter to the hall, and presently his voice arose in vehement intercession—the sick man groaned. In a little while, the sound of the prayer seemed to ascend from the floor, the laird made a convulsive effort to rise, the voice of Haudthegrup quavered and hesitated, as the voice of a man will do when his hands are busied, and then the sound as of gold falling was heard. At this mishap the tongue of the inteceder uttered a curse, and the power of speech returning to the dying man, he smote his hands together and exclaimed, "He's herrying me, he's herrying me, and I maun gang to the brimstone pit with no a penny in my pocket." And with these words he expired.
The singular prophecy of Gawain met with a remarkable fulfilment. The day of the burial of the laird was wild and stormy, the place of interment was in an old churchyard on the south side of the river Orr. The mourners were mounted, and the coffin was borne on horses' necks, covered with a pall of black velvet, the parochial mortcloth, which reached nigh to the ground. Haudthegrup was chief mourner, and, to elude the expense of a toll-bar, he proposed to ford the river, red and swollen with rain. When he reached the middle of the stream, his horse, unaccustomed to such processions, startled and plunged, and fairly flung his rider over his ears. In his fall, he seized the coffin of Warlsworm, and the quick and the dead alike found a grave in the links of the Orr.
"Alas, for Haudthegrup!" said one of the mourners; "watch when he swims, and let us try to save him."
"Swims!" rejoined another mourner, "how think ye will he swim, and seven hundred stolen pieces of Warlsworm's gold in his pocket? I'll prophesy, when his body's found he'll be holding his hands on his breeches-pockets to preserve his treasure."