Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume X Part 22

"That's weel thocht on," said James. "I canna say but ye hae sometimes a gliffin o' sense aboot ye, Nanny."

The stranger soon recovered so far as to be able to put off his own clothes; and though he remonstrated strongly against taking possession of the honest couple's bed, they would not be resisted in their kindness; and he was obliged to comply. Nanny now took the management of the patient wholly into her own hands; and, as she had all her life considered heat the only remedy for a man peris.h.i.+ng with cold, she began to make preparations for applying her own cure. She stirred the fire, supplied it with fresh fuel, laid a brick across it on each side, and placed a panful of water between them. She then took James's leather ap.r.o.n, and folded it so as to form a subst.i.tute for a fan; and with it she blew the slumbering embers into flaming activity. In a very short time the bricks were _red_, and the water boiling hot. The former were immersed in water, and then wrapped up in flannel, and laid to the stranger's feet and breast; the latter was converted into gruel, which, though not very thirsty, he drank with a very good appet.i.te--having missed his supper that night on the hill.

"Noo, sir," said Nanny, "ye maun just lie doon and try if ye can get a gloffen o' sleep; for I'll warrant ye're baith tired and drowsy, after sic a wrastle amang the snaw. Gin ye want onything, Jamie and me'll just be sittin at the ingle here; but we'll mak nae din to disturb ye."

Thus heated within and without, the stranger soon lost all recollection of his wanderings, in a deep and refres.h.i.+ng sleep.

"The storm without micht rair and rustle, _He_ didna mind the storm a whustle."

James betook himself to his old companion, Josephus; and Nanny sat down by the other side of the fire, and resumed her evening's employment, which had been the knitting of a pair of stockings for the guidman. She now felt all a mother's anxiety for the comfort of the stranger; and she frequently rose and peeped into the bed, to see how he rested; then returned to her husband, with a smile, and whispered into his ear--

"The lad's sleepin as sound as a tap, yet."

The night pa.s.sed away; and by the time that daylight dawned down the _lum_--the little windows being drifted up with the snow--Nanny had prepared a warm breakfast for the stranger, the guidman, and herself. It consisted of oatmeal porridge, served up in two wooden platters, with a jugful of milk and three horn spoons set down on the table between them.

Nanny now awakened the stranger by asking how he had rested. She then took his clothes, which had been carefully dried and warmed before the fire; and, handing them into the bed, which had to serve the purpose of a dressing-room also, she closed the lids--remarking, that "the parritch was ready; and it wad be better to sup them afore they got owre cauld."

The stranger dressed, and took a seat beside his kind entertainers.

James asked a blessing, apologised for the coa.r.s.eness of the fare, and despatched his portion of the repast in shorter time than a fas.h.i.+onable eater would take to stir about his coffee and crack the sh.e.l.l of his egg. It occurred to Nanny that she might make the porridge more agreeable to the stranger's delicate taste, by giving him cream, instead of milk, to sup them with. She accordingly brought her evening's _melt.i.th_, and skimmed it into his dish, remarking, at the same time--

"Ye'll no like oor coorse way o' livin, sir; but hunger's guid kitchen, they say, and that's no ill sap, I think, for it was just drawn frae the coo yestreen." The stranger a.s.sured her that he liked the dish exceedingly well; and Nanny added--"Ye'll be used to drappies o' tea, I warrant; but we haena had ootower twa brewins i' the hoose sin we were married; and, though a wee sirple o't may do brawly when the sap's scarce, yet I aye thocht that it was an unco f.e.c.kless sort o' a diet, for a manbody especially."

After breakfast, the young student (for such was the stranger) gave his entertainers an account of his wildered wanderings on the hill, as we have already narrated them; and James explained all the mysteries which he had met to his entire satisfaction. We shall only give his exposition of the last; namely, the fearful minglings of sounds which had alarmed him so much when he approached the lake. These were occasioned by the breaking up of the ice, which, driven ash.o.r.e in innumerable fragments by the wind, rose and fell with every wave, making a confused tinkling, like the ringing of a thousand little bells.

The storm had now abated; and, though the roads in many places were entirely blocked up, by keeping along the high ground it was possible for a person on foot to pursue his journey. The stranger, who was travelling to the College of St. Andrews, prepared to depart. He offered Nanny such a sum of money as he could spare, in acknowledgement of her kindness; but she refused it.

"Na, sir!" said she, "we'll hae nae reward. Only look what a dad o' a stockin I've wrocht, that wadna been wrocht gin ye hadna been here; and the guidman's gotten as muckle lear oot o' that auld book, as may ser'

him for a twalmonth to crack aboot; sae, ye see, we hae made some profit o' yer visit, forby a' the pleasure o' yer company."

James also refused money; and still further enhanced his kindness, by accompanying the stranger to the top of the hill, where he gave him the best directions with respect to the road, and bade him an affectionate farewell.

Many years after this, a medical student from the neighbourhood was attending the lectures of the celebrated Dr. B---- of Edinburgh, who one evening intimated a desire to speak with him after the cla.s.s was dismissed. He accordingly waited, and the doctor opened the conversation by inquiring if he knew an individual of the name of James W----, who lived near the village of Lindores. He was answered in the affirmative.

"Well," said the doctor, "I owe my life to the exertions of that old man and his wife; and I received my first lessons in medical science from them. When I was a student at the College of St. Andrews, I lost my way among the hills, and was nearly smothered among the snow. I at last discovered their cottage, and was kindly admitted. Like all good knights of _misventure_, I fainted and fell down upon the floor. James and his wife held a consultation over me, and I afterwards came to learn that even here 'doctors differed.' James was an Emperic, and argued from experience, or experiment, that cold water and friction was the best remedy for numbed fingers. Nanny adhered to the Dogmatics, and inferred, from reason and nature, that heat was the best application for driving away cold.

"Thus Epilogism and Dogmatism contended in the mouths of people who had probably never heard of the names of Aristotle and Plato in their lives.

But, in my case, both the systems were adopted with advantage. I was resuscitated by the empiric with cold, and recovered by the theorist with heat. And, what is more wonderful still, my kind physicians, unlike all other members of the profession, refused to take any fee. But they are not forgotten. They cast their bread upon the water, and they shall find it again after many days."

We shall only add, that in a short time after this James received an elegant silver-mounted snuff-box, bearing the following inscription:--"From Dr B---- to James W----. 'I was a stranger, and ye took me in.'"

Nanny at the same time received a more useful present; and both rejoiced that they had once possessed an opportunity of being useful to a man whose genius had made him an honour to his country, and an ornament to the profession to which he belonged.

THE CROOKED COMYN.

Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, one of the "three Comyns," all earls, who, in the minority of Alexander III., possessed so much power in Scotland as to be able to oppose all the other n.o.bility together, was a very remarkable man. Of low stature, deformed in his person, dark in his complexion, of gigantic strength--he possessed the spirit of a lion with the subtlety of a fox. Neither in the planning nor the executing of a political scheme could any man in Scotland or England cope with him. He made his two brothers, and the thirty-three knights who joined him against the measures of the English regency, his puppets, allowing them no will of their own, but subjugating them entirely to his direction. He could read the human countenance even of a courtier of Henry III. of England as easily as he could do the court hand of the clerks of his time; and, to complete his character, he so falsified the muscles of his face, by mixing up smiles and frowns in such a thorough confusion of activity and change, that no one could tell his thoughts or his feelings.

His wife, the countess, was directly the reverse of her husband. Tall in her person, handsomely formed, with graceful movements and accomplished manners, she was accounted open-hearted, good-humoured, approaching to simplicity, dest.i.tute of all guile and deceit. Her countenance wore a continual smile, and was so open and ingenuous, that it might be read like the page of a book. The best proof of her goodness was the kindness she exhibited to the deformed partner of her life. She boasted--and he admitted--that she was the only person who could read him, not from her powers of penetration, but from his yielding relaxation of the deceptive discipline of his face and manners. He often remarked that it was fortunate for him that his Countess Margaret was so much of a child; for he felt and acknowledged that it was only in the presence of children that he considered himself safe in throwing off his disguise, and appearing for a time in his natural character. Such are the effects of ambition.

A legend saith that, on one occasion, the following conversation took place between these dissimilar yet well-mated companions--

"Wert thou not so simple, fair Margaret," said the earl, "I would suspect thou hadst no great affection for him whom King Henry calleth the 'Crooked Comyn.' Men may love me for my subtlety and power, from interest; my brothers because I am their brother, from instinct; and my wolf-dog, Grim, because I join him in the chase. Now, to gratify my humour for frolic on this night when I think I have overturned the power of the English regent, tell me what thou lovest me for, good simpleton; for I cannot doubt that simpletons have their fancies like other folks; and, if thou dost not love me, why hast thou prepared for me, even now on this night of my triumph, that cup of warm milk curdled with sack which thou callest a posset? I asked it not of thee, and love must have suggested it."

"What should I love my Walter for," replied Countess Margaret, "but his n.o.ble qualities, placed in a person the defects of which, as he states them, I cannot see? Custom hath made thee straight, and love hath embellished both thy mind and body; but, above all, I love thee because thou lovest me; for it is an old saying in our cottage, that love begets love, and"--patting him playfully on the cheek--"my heart must have been barren indeed, if, after ten years of thy wooing, it produced no more affection than was able to prepare for thee a posset of milk and sack on the evening of the day of thy triumph."

"Thou hast made a good turn of the subject, simpleton," said Comyn. "If I beat my political opponents during the day, thou worstest me at night by thy ingenious pleasantry. Thou conquerest even nature's twists and torsels, for my crooked mind and deformed body become straight under the soft ministration of thy simple manners. I cannot help sometimes thinking that, if it had been thy fate to be wedded to such a fair piece of nature's handiwork as the English baron, John Russel, who banqueted with us yesterday--a thing of red and white pigment--an automaton mannerist, without a mind--every woman's slave, and never his own master--thy simplicity would have lost its power, for, having no foil, it would have merged into the idiocy of thy husband, and you would have become a pair of quarrelsome simpletons."

"And if thou hadst got a wife," answered Countess Margaret, smiling, "as deep and subtle as thyself, the charm thou hast for me--thy mental superiority--would have been lost, for want of a foil; but thou wert too clever to fall into that snare, and didst avoid artful and knowing women, though beautiful, as anxiously as I, if I were still unmarried, would avoid that fair painted Jackalent thou hast mentioned, the English baron, John Russel. Sheep, thou knowest often fight, and get entangled in each other's horns. They are then an easy prey to the wolves. I would not give my 'Crooked Comyn' for all the Russels of England."

"Thy rattle pleaseth me, sweet Margaret," said Comyn. "But how is this?

I feel ill. What can ail Comyn on the night of his day of triumph? These pains rack me. So sudden an attack! These are not usual feelings that now a.s.sail me."

"Ill in the midst of health!" cried Countess Margaret. "What meaneth this!--where is the complaint? Speak, dear husband! tell thy devoted wife what may enable her to yield thee relief."

"A burning pain wringeth my heart," replied Comyn, with an expression of agony, "and unmanneth a soul that never knew subjugation; that is to me the only symptom of danger. When Comyn trembleth, death cannot be far distant."

"Thou alarmest me, dear husband," cried Countess Margaret; "speak not in such ominous terms of what I could not survive one solitary moon. What can I minister to thee?"

"Water, water from the icy springs of Lapland!" cried the frantic earl; "yet the frozen sea will not quench this burning fire! What availeth now the wiles, the subtlety, the courage of Scotland's proudest earl? I never was master or director of such pains as these. Death! how successfully dost thou earn thy reputation of being the grim king!

Water, beloved Margaret, for this miniature h.e.l.l!"

"It is here, good heart," cried Countess Margaret. "G.o.d bless its efficacy!--drink."

"It is as nothing," cried Comyn, after swallowing the contents of the cup. "It is as nothing--these tormina laugh at the puny quencher of fires fiercer than those of Gehenna. I must submit. Thou wilt have no terce from my earldom, wherein I am not yet feudally seised. Alas! shall my innocent be left terceless--a beggar--the dependant of my brothers?

'Sdeath, this is worse than these scorching fires! Call the clerk of St John's--quick."

The countess flow out of the room, and in a short time returned with the clerical lawyer.

"Attend, sir," cried Comyn. "Thou seest one in the hands of death; prepare, with the greatest speed of thy quill, a liferent disposition of my whole earldom in favour of Countess Margaret, my wife. I shall then confess to thee, and thou shalt pray for me."

"The liferent disposition I shall make out," replied the clerk of St John's; "for Comyn's commands must be obeyed. But I, in behalf of the holy brethren of our order, must tell thee, n.o.ble earl, that our prayers can be of little avail if they are limited, in point of time, to the period of thy sojourn on earth. Thy mausoleum must be lighted for ten years with wax tapers, a thousand ma.s.ses must be said for thy soul, and a pilgrimage to the Holy Land must be performed, ere we can hope to bring thee out of purgatory. If thou leavest the liferent of thy earldom to Countess Margaret--the fee going to thy eldest brother as heir--what is to pay the monks of St John for all their labours, in thus endeavouring to free thee from the pains of that temporary place of punishment?"

"No purgatory can equal these pains, man," cried the earl. "Thou shalt have my earldom this instant for one hour's relief from this h.e.l.l-fire."

"Why, good priest," said the lady, "canst thou thus talk of worldly possessions to one in such agony? While I am thus ministering to the body, it would better become thee to minister to the soul, while it is still in its earthly tabernacle. I, his dear wife, asked for no liferent, and yet thou requirest a mortification."

"It is for his own sake," said the priest, "that I have recommended the provision of the means for saving his soul. We are not bees, to produce wax for tapers; nor birds of paradise, to fly from hence to Jerusalem, and sit on the holy shrine, without being fed as other birds; nor are we canonised saints, requiring no meat nor drink. We must live, or we cannot pray. Wilt _thou_, madam, give up a half of thy liferent, to aid in the redemption of the soul thou lovest so ardently?"

"Thou hast heard my lord's commands," rejoined the lady. "I cannot allow my mind to be occupied at present with thoughts of that contemptible trash thou callest gold. What is all the earldom of the Comyns to the preservation of the life of my dear husband?--Walter, dear Walter! what can be done for thee?"

"The priest hath already my commands," answered the earl. "The parchment!--the parchment!--and--and--water--water!"

"Hie thee away to thy work, good monk," cried the lady. "There's no time for parley. Away. Thou seest that _I_ deny him not his request."

"Water costeth little," said the priest, with a smile of suspicion, "and availeth little either to a.s.suage these pains or those of purgatory."

The priest retired, and in the course of an hour returned, with the deed extended, and two witnesses at his back. The paper was read. Comyn was still able to sign it. He attached his name, and in a few minutes expired.