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

"Dinna anger me," vociferated Charlie, in a nettled tone, looking at his pistol; "I tauld ye ye would get yer ser'in. There's nocht to hinder me frae giein ye't noo. There--tak that!" And in a moment the freebooter raised his pistol, and shot the unsuspecting Will o'Gunmerlie, who rolled from his horse in the agonies of death.

Sir James Johnstone, on hearing the shot and the groans of his murdered attendant, turned about to see what had happened, and (in the words of the old chronicler) "immediately Maxwell shot him behind his back with ane pistoll chairgit with two poysonit bullets." The unfortunate chief fell from his horse; and, although he lingered for some time, his wound was mortal. He lived, however, so long as to declare his wishes with regard to various weighty matters, and to utter a word of consolation to Orchardstone, whose grief was rendered agonising by the recollection that his credulity had been the means of hastening the death of Sir James.

Lord Maxwell immediately proceeded to the Castle of the Thrieve, where a large company was a.s.sembled, for the purpose, as they thought, of celebrating the reconciliation betwixt the two clans, and also the marriage of the chief with Lady Margaret Hamilton, who had been conducted thither by her brother. On Lord Maxwell's return, he sought a private interview with the marquis--told him what he had done--asked him to communicate the circ.u.mstances to the bride, and learn whether she would be wedded to a man whose hand was newly stained with blood.

"But he has slain his enemy in honourable battle," said Lady Margaret; "he has borne himself like a true knight; and, even though he may now depart for a season, the king has pardoned more heinous offences."

When the reply was reported to the baron, he muttered, with that sneering the which betrays the bitterness of the heart--"In honourable fight!--most honourable! Would it had been so!--But I will not now undeceive her."

The nuptials proceeded; the festivities were commenced, and continued to a late hour. Early on the following morning, the baron left his weeping bride, and, with his faithful retainer, Charlie o'Kirkhouse, hastened in disguise from his own home and country.

Notwithstanding all the efforts of the Marquis of Hamilton and other friends of the expatriated Baron of Nithsdale, no pardon could be extorted from King James--whose virtue seems for once to have been proof against all the temptations and threats which his most powerful Scottish subjects could hold forth. Lord Maxwell's peace of mind was gone; for all that was dear to him--his country and kindred--were at a distance; the engrossing object of his thought for many years past had been attained; and his memory would not allow him to forget that his revenge had been accomplished by meanly a.s.sa.s.sinating his enemy. After he had remained for about three or four years, wasting the prime of his days in exile and in misery, he learned that Lady Margaret was in bad spirits; then in bad health; then that her life was despaired of; and he resolved, at all hazards, to revisit Scotland. But, before his voyage was ended, Lady Margaret had breathed her last--heart-broken in the midst of those enjoyments--wealth, power, and rank--which are fondly supposed, by those who possess them not, and by not a few who do possess them, to be the infallible means of securing human felicity. The only object which made life worth retaining, in the estimation of Lord Maxwell, was thus s.n.a.t.c.hed from him; and he would have immediately delivered himself up to justice, had it not been for the remonstrances of his faithful attendant, Charlie o'Kirkhouse. The family of Sir James Johnstone, as well as the const.i.tuted authorities, hunted the baron over the whole country; until, after frequently enduring the extremity of distress, he was seized in the wilds of Caithness, to which he had ultimately been driven. The indefatigable industry of his hereditary foes pursued him even to this distant retreat; and he was brought to Edinburgh, where, once more, he returned to his old quarters in the castle.

Among the friends who came to visit him, with the view of concerting measures for his defence, was the Marquis of Hamilton.

"Do you know that they mean to rob Charles of his birthright?" said the baron, on the entrance of his friend. "Oh, my good lord, such deeds would never have been done, had some of your ancestors filled the seat of the mean-spirited prince who rules this unhappy country."

"Hush, hush, my friend!" said the marquis; "speak nought like treason. I know it all. My lord treasurer, or his deputy, cannot want the estates; and you must therefore submit to a charge of fire-raising as well as of murder."

"May my curse or my blessing--for I know not which is more likely to bring the worse consequences--rest upon them all, if they take from my race their own inheritance, because I, forsooth, have sent a h.o.a.ry villain a little before his time to his account!"

"Speak not so harshly, kinsman; your sense of your own sufferings makes you unjust. Men say that these sufferings have been self-inflicted; but I will not say so. I come to learn if in aught I can mitigate them."

"Mitigate them, did you say? I ask no mitigation; for my life is now a burden. I ask no pity; I ask no sympathy I have but one possession which I can still call my own; it is not inherited; I cannot transmit it; it is my sole luxury, my sole treasure--and it is one which you will not covet. I have nought but my own misery that I can call my own--self-inflicted it may be; I dispute not about a word. But if it be self-inflicted, so much the more is it my own property. Forgive me, my lord, if I seem rude and hasty in temper; but I have scarce slept under a roof since, after long absence, I last touched my native soil, until last night, indeed, when I harboured here. I have been hunted by hounds of human breed; I have skulked in mosses, forests, and caverns, as familiarly as you have trodden the courts of palaces. Need you wonder I am worn to what I am--a mere skeleton-a wretched, decrepid thing--more like a being returned from the grave, than a living man?"

"It is but too true," said the marquis; "yet is there nought you would wish me to do? No token of affection to send to your friends----"

"Nothing--nothing."

The time of trial at length arrived, and Lord Maxwell was indicted for the crimes of murder and of fire-raising. The introduction of the latter charge was the cause of bitter complaint on the part of the prisoner; for he well knew that the object of the public authorities was to obtain the forfeiture of his estates; and the treasurer-depute, Sir Gideon Murray, was supposed to have instigated them to combine this minor accusation with the other. The crime of fire-raising, according to the ancient Scottish law, if perpetrated by a landed man, const.i.tuted a species of treason, and inferred forfeiture. The purpose of public justice, however, was, on this, as an other occasions in the same reign, sullied by being united with that of enriching some needy favourite. No difficulty was felt in proving either of the charges; the former, indeed, was not denied; and the latter was established by the evidence of some sufferers in the course of the first outrages committed after the battle of Dryffe Sands. The baron was found guilty of both crimes, and sentenced to be beheaded. Every effort was made to obtain pardon for him; but the king and his counsellors were inexorable.

On the night before the execution, Sir Robert Maxwell of Orchardstone, who was now very far advanced in years, visited his kinsman and chief, under the guidance of the Marquis of Hamilton.

"And it has come to this at last!" exclaimed the old man. "Would to heaven, my dear lord, you had listened to the prayer of your humble clansman, eighteen years ago. Brief time is left to make your peace.

Some holy man may be able to soothe your mind, ruffled though it be."

"Mock me not, dear uncle," said the baron, in a tone of bitterness which startled the old man with horror. "Torture me not with talk about peace and holy men. They cannot give me peace--they cannot give me happiness on earth or in heaven. I am content with the share I have enjoyed. One gleam of suns.h.i.+ne has crossed my path--one fair flowret has blessed my sight--one spring has gladdened the weary wilderness--one human heart has been mine; and though it is mine no longer--though the flower has been blighted, and the bright gleam of happiness, now departed, has only made me more sensitive to the succeeding darkness, and the spring is dried, and the human heart lies in the dust--I ask no more. My cup of bliss is full--one drop has filled it. My heaven has been already enjoyed--no dotard can bring me tidings of weal or wo; I cannot part with it. Leave me, good uncle and good cousin. I would bless you, but my blessing might prove a curse."

His sorrowing friends left him as he wished. He was beheaded on the following morning.

His estates, which had been forfeited, were granted in part to the treasurer-depute, a favourite of the king; but, after the lapse of a few years, the attainder was reversed, and the honours and estates conferred upon his brother.

THE CLERICAL MURDERER.

The story which has been told of John Smithson, the minister of Berwick, who was, in the year 1672, executed for committing a crime which has seldom stained the hands of the ministers of the religion of Christ, is as true as it is extraordinary. There are connected with it some circ.u.mstances which have communicated to it a character of even deeper interest than what generally invests tales of blood. Sympathy for the victim, disgust and hatred towards the perpetrator, and a general feeling of horror at the contemplation of the crime, are the usual emotions excited by the commission of an aggravated murder; but there are sometimes afforded, by these melancholy exhibitions of the weakness and sinfulness of our fallen nature, certain lights, "burning blue,"

which lay open, with their mysterious glare, recesses in the heart of man which no philosophy has ever been able to reach and develop.

It was remarked that Smithson was one of the best of sons. His aged mother was supported by him for a long period, and at a time when he could very ill spare the means. Indeed, such was his filial affection, that he once travelled fifty miles in one day, to get payment of a small sum of money that had been due to his father; and to procure which for his mother he required to beg his way to the residence of the creditor.

When he returned, he presented to her the whole sum; and when asked upon what he had supported himself on the journey, he replied that the cause in which he was engaged procured him the means of subsistence, for he was not refused alms by a single individual whom he had solicited.

It was in consequence of his kindness to his father and mother that he was a.s.sisted by a rich friend to acquire education fitted for his becoming a clergyman. For this patron he ever afterwards felt the strongest esteem; and his grat.i.tude kept pace with his affection. He attended his friend on his death-bed, and administered to him that knowledge and consolation which the clerical education he had received enabled him to bestow on his dying benefactor. Nor did he consider that the gratuitous a.s.sistance which had thus been extended to him could be repaid alone by affection towards the vicarious giver, but declared that, as it came from Heaven, so ought the grat.i.tude of his heart to be directed to the origin of all gifts that are bestowed on the deserving.

Grat.i.tude is not only its own reward, but the cause often of the means of its own increase; for Smithson's benefactor was so pleased with his attention to him when dying, that he left him a large legacy in his will, which relieved him from that state of dependence which he found had limited his means of doing good. He soon afterwards married a very beautiful woman, and got himself placed in the church of Berwick.

His ministerial duties were performed with the greatest devotion and zeal for the welfare of the people intrusted to his charge. His attention to his paris.h.i.+oners was unremitting--his prayers for the dying or the sorrow-smitten were fervent--and the poor and aged not only tasted of the consolations afforded by his pious sympathy, but often had their wants relieved by his charitable hand. No mortal eye could discover in this any insincerity, far less any cloak put on to cover evil already done, or any false a.s.sumption of a good and devout character, to avert the eye of suspicion from deeds intended to be perpetrated.

His character had indeed, in other respects, been tried, and found not awanting. A relation of his had died, and left a large sum of money to be divided among his nephews and nieces. The money was recovered by Smithson, and upon the young heirs arriving at majority, was divided among them with so much honesty, that they all combined in addressing to him a letter, wherein they extolled his character for justice, honour, and piety, and attributed to him all the qualities of a saint.

In addition to all this, his conjugal character was unspotted. His attentions to his wife were what might have been expected from a good husband and a minister of the gospel; the breath of scandal never dimmed the purity of his fidelity; nor could the most querulous exacter of conjugal obligations have found any fault with the manner in which he fulfilled, not only the duties of a husband, but the more generous and less easily counterfeited attentions of the lover. His wife seemed to be grateful for his kindness, and respected his official character as much as she loved those private virtues, from which she was much benefited.

On a Sunday previous to that on which the Sacrament was to be dispensed, he preached in the church of Berwick. His text was the sixth Commandment--"Thou shalt not kill." His sermons, always animated and vigorous, and possessing even a tint of devout enthusiasm, were much relished by his congregation; but on that day he outshone all his former efforts of pulpit eloquence. He painted the character of the murderer with colours drawn from the palette of inspired truth; the cruel, remorseless, bloodthirsty heart of the son of Cain was laid open to the eyes of his entranced audience; the feelings of the victim were described with such power of sympathy, that the tears of the congregation fell in ready and heartfelt tribute to the power of his delineation; his own emotion, equalling that of his people, filled his eyes with tears, and lent to his voice that peculiar thrilling sound which calls forth, while it expresses, the strongest pity. The man of G.o.d seemed inspired, and he communicated the inspiration to those who heard him. His hand was observed to tremble; his eye was bloodshot; his manner nervous, tremulous, excited, and enthusiastic; his voice "broken with pity," and at times discordant with the overpowering excess of his emotion. His whole soul seemed under the influence of divine power; and his body, quailing under the energies of its n.o.bler partner, shook like a thing touched by the hand of the Almighty.

On that morning the preacher had murdered his wife. By the time the congregation came out, the news had begun to spread. n.o.body would credit what they heard, while they exclaimed that his sermon was strange, and his manner remarkable. A determination not to believe was mixed with strange insinuations, and the town of Berwick was suspended between extravagant incredulity and unaccountable suspicions. But the report was true, and the fact remains as one of those occurrences in life which no knowledge of the heart of man, though dignified with the proud name of philosophy, has been, or perhaps ever will be, able to explain.

END OF VOL. XV.