Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XX Part 9

This done, she redoubled her exertions in general preparation, and with such effect, that in a few minutes, a little round table, spread with a clean white cloth, which she placed by the elbow of her guest, was covered with the homely but wholesome edibles which she had enumerated--namely, a small basin of fresh eggs, a quarter of a cheese, a plate of b.u.t.ter, a large bowl of milk, and a heaped-up platter of warm smoking barley bread.

"Noo, sir, set to, and do me and yoursel credit by makin a hearty supper. I'm sure ye're welcome; and I houp I needna say that again."

Obeying, without hesitation or further ceremony, the kind and cordial invitation of his hostess, the stalworth stranger commenced a vigorous attack on the tempting viands placed before him; and, had the credit of Mrs Grahame been dependant on the quant.i.ty he might consume, it was safe, for he did, indeed, make a splendid meal of it.

The stranger had completed his repast, but his hostess had scarcely removed the surplus and other traces of the meal, when both were suddenly alarmed by the sound of the trampling of horses' feet from without, mingled with occasional shouts by the riders, some of mirth, and some of imprecation.

"No sound of bugle--they cannot be friends!" exclaimed Mrs Grahame's guest, starting to his feet and seizing his sword. "Now, my good weapon," he added, as he unsheathed the s.h.i.+ning blade, "stand me in as good stead this night as thou hast hitherto done, and thou shalt find that I will do my duty by thee."

"Fecht, sir! ye'll fecht nane here," exclaimed Margaret Grahame, who had been, during the previous instant, listening eagerly with her ear close to the door, endeavouring to make out who or what the approaching party of hors.e.m.e.n were. "Fecht! ye'll fecht nane," she exclaimed, rus.h.i.+ng up to her guest, and seizing him by the sword arm. "It wad be madness, perfect madness. It's a party o' Englishers frae Stirlin Castle--a dizzen at least. And what could your single arm, strong as it is, do against sae mony? No, no, come here--here wi' me," she added, in a state of great excitement. "Leave me to fecht the Englishers; I ken how to do't. I'll fecht them wi' barley bannocks and dauds o' b.u.t.ter. Keep thae chiels chowan, and deil haet else they'll think o'."

By this time Margaret Grahame had conducted, or rather dragged her guest, who pa.s.sively, and, it may be added, prudently yielded to her proceeding, into a dark back apartment. This gained, she hastily threw aside the curtain of a bed, which occupied a corner of the room, opened a _press_ or closet, the door of which the former concealed, and unceremoniously thrust her guest, without saying another word, into the unoccupied receptacle, fastened the door, and drew the curtains of the bed again before it.

All this was the work of but an instant, and there was need that it should be so; for the English troopers--such they were--were already thundering at the door for admittance.

"Comin this moment!" exclaimed Margaret Grahame. "Dear me, will ye no gie folk time to throw on their claes," she added, as she undid the fastenings of the door. "To raise folk out o' their beds this way at this time o' nicht."

As she said this, she threw the door open, and, in the same instant, six or eight dismounted troopers, who had given their horses in charge to two or three comrades remaining mounted outside, entered.

On the entrance of the soldiers, Margaret Grahame, in pursuance of the particular line of tactics which she had laid down for herself, commenced, with great volubility of speech, to overwhelm her visiters with both words and deeds of hospitality--she stirred the fire to warm them, and covered her homely board with the best she had to regale them, and all this with such expedition, accompanied by such an outpouring of expressions of kindness, that the soldiers could do nothing but look at each other in surprise, and, by their smiles, express the perplexity into which such an unexpected reception had placed them.

One obvious general effect, however, was produced on them all by Margaret's proceedings; this was the completely disarming them of all vindictive feeling, and subst.i.tuting in its place one of kindness and sympathy.

Pressed by their hostess, and nothing loth themselves, the soldiers now sat down to the well-spread board which the former's hospitality had prepared for them, and ate heartily; those first served giving place to their comrades, until the whole had partaken of the widow's good cheer.

This done, the soldiers, though not without apologies for the rudeness which their duty imposed on them, informed Margaret Grahame that the purpose of their visit was to search her house for a certain important personage--not naming him--who, they had information, had been seen in that neighbourhood in the course of the day.

Having given her this intimation, the soldiers, attended by Margaret herself, proceeded to search the house, but in a temper so mollified by the kind treatment they had received, that they went through the process more as a matter of form than duty.

On completing their brief and cursory search, the troopers, after thanking their hostess for her hospitality, remounted their horses, and departed.

It was not for some time after they were gone, that Margaret Grahame ventured to seek the hiding-place of her first guest of the evening.

There were two reasons for this delay. The first was to ensure the perfect safety of the latter, by allowing her late visiters to get to a secure distance; the other was one of a less definite and more perplexing nature. From some expressions which had dropped from the troopers in the course of their search, she had now no doubt that her concealed guest was no other than Robert Bruce.

It was under this impression, then, and under the feeling of reverential awe it inspired, that Margaret Grahame at length went to intimate to her concealed guest that the troopers were gone, and that he might now come forth from his hiding-place.

On the latter's stepping from his concealment, Margaret flung herself on her knees, and calling him her King, implored his pardon for the homely and familiar manner in which, in ignorance of his quality, she had treated him.

"So, my good dame," replied Bruce, smiling--for it was indeed he--and taking his hostess kindly by the hand, and raising her from her humble position, "so you have discovered me? These troopers have blabbed, I fancy. Well, my secret could not be in safer keeping, I feel a.s.sured, than in thine, my kind hostess. It is even so. I _am_ Robert Bruce, and none other."

Overcome by the various and tumultuous feelings which the incident, altogether, was so well calculated to excite, Margaret Grahame burst into tears, and, raising the corner of her ap.r.o.n to her eyes, stood thus for some seconds without uttering a word.

Bruce, affected, even to the starting of a tear, took his hostess again by the hand, and, not without very evident emotion, said--"Come, my good dame, why those tears?"

"I canna richtly tell mysel, sir. I dinna ken. I canna help it. Maybe it is to see you in this plight--to see Scotland's chief without a single attendant, and glad o' the shelter o' sae lowly a roof as mine."

"Pho, pho, my kind hostess, and what is in that?" replied Bruce, in a cheering tone. "We must all rough it out as we best can in these times, king and cobbler, baron and beggar. Better days are coming, and we will then think of our present hards.h.i.+ps only to laugh at them. As to attendants," he added, with a look of peculiar intelligence, "I am not, perhaps, so dest.i.tute of them as I may seem; although they are not, it may be, within calling at this moment. Half-an-hour's walk into the Torwood, however, and half-a-dozen blasts of this little horn would bring around me a band of as stalworth, nay, as brave hearts as Scotland can boast."

"G.o.d be thankit for that!" said Bruce's enthusiastic hostess. "Then there is hope yet."

"There is, there is. A day of reckoning is coming. But now, my good dame," he added, glancing at a little window, through which the dull, faint light of the breaking day had just begun to gleam, "I must take my departure. I must be at the mustering place an hour after daybreak."

Saying this the redoubted warrior drew out a leathern purse, from whence he took several pieces of gold coin, which he vainly endeavoured to press on the acceptance of his hostess.

"Well, well, my good dame," he said, on finding his urgency only gave offence; "we'll settle all this on some future day. Depend upon it, _I_ will not forget the score which stands against me here. In the meantime, farewell; and fare ye well too, my little maiden," he said, taking his hostess's daughter by the hand; "you and I will meet again." Having said this, and having once more bid mother and daughter adieu, Bruce left the house, and soon after disappeared in the depths of the Torwood.

Margaret Grahame stood at the door, and, with the corner of her ap.r.o.n at her eye, looked after the stately figure of the patriot chief, as long as it remained in sight. When it had disappeared, she returned into the house, and began, as she busied herself in brus.h.i.+ng up, or, as she would herself have called it, "redding" up her little cottage, after the hospitalities of which it had been the scene, in _crooning_ a popular Scottish ditty of the day, of which the two first verses ran thus,

"Guid speed the wark o' bow and brand That's raised for Scotland's weal, And blessins on the heart and hand O' the ever true and leal."

"Come frae the east, come frae the wast, Come frae the south and north; For Bruce's horn has blawn a blast That's heard frae Clyde to Forth."

"Guid speed the wark," &c.

Here, we beg to apprise the reader, the first act of our little drama closes--the curtain drops; and when we again raise it, years have pa.s.sed away, and many things have undergone those changes which the lapse of time so certainly produces.

During the interval to which we allude--an interval of eight or ten years, Scotland, after a long and arduous struggle, had achieved her independence, and Bruce was now in secure and peaceable possession of the Scottish crown.

To all, however, the changes which had taken place had not been equally fortunate or favourable. On many the sanguinary and ruthless warfare which had desolated the country brought poverty and ruin.

Amongst the sufferers of this description was Margaret Grahame. About three years after the occurrence of the incidents which occupy the preceding pages, a party of English soldiers had first plundered and then burned her little cottage, driving herself and family forth on the world, to earn a livelihood as they best might, or to subsist, if other means failed, on the scanty doles of charity.

On being driven from her home, Margaret Grahame, followed by her children, in melancholy procession, wandered she knew nor cared not whither; but, instinctively, taking that direction which promised to leave further danger at the greatest distance behind her. This direction was westward, and on this route she continued; subsisting by the way on the benevolence of the humane; most of whom, however, were more willing than able to relieve her, till she reached the neighbourhood of the village of Kilpatrick, on the Clyde. Exhausted with fatigue, and famis.h.i.+ng with hunger, the widow and her children here applied at a respectable farm-house, which stood a little way off the road, for relief.

The door was opened by the farmer himself, a man of mild and benevolent disposition. To him, therefore, the pet.i.tion of the dest.i.tute widow was not proffered in vain. Herself and children were instantly admitted, and a plenteous meal of bread, and cheese, and milk, placed before them.

When the famis.h.i.+ng family had satisfied the cravings of hunger, the farmer, whose name was Blackadder, inquired, but in the most delicate manner possible, into the history of the widow. She told him her story.

When she had concluded, Blackadder, looking at her two sons, said that they were fine stout boys, and that he thought, if she chose, he could find them employment about his farm.

"Ye're kind, sir, very kind," replied the widow; "but I'm sweart to pairt wi' my bairns. Dest.i.tute as I am, I canna think o' separatin frae them."

"But there's no occasion for that either," replied the farmer. "I'm willin, in consideration o' their services, to gie ye a bit sma cot to live in, and ye'll never want a pickle meal, and a soup o' milk forbye.

And for this bonnie la.s.sie, here," he added, and now looking at Margaret, who had grown into a tall and handsome girl, "she micht mak herself useful about my house too, for which, of course, I wad gie her the wages gaun. Ye micht then be a' comfortable aneuch, for a wee, at ony rate."

Need we say that the kind offers of Blackadder were readily closed with.

We think we need not. The grateful family, the children, by looks of glee and satisfaction, and the mother by broken sentences and tears of joy, acknowledged their deep sense of the obligation proposed to be conferred on them.

"And wha kens," said the farmer, on this matter being settled, "an wha kens," he said, smiling; "but this bonny la.s.sie here," laying his hand on Margaret's shoulder, "may sune fa' in wi' a bit canny guidman hereawa, wi' a weel-stocked mailin."

"I doot, sir, that's a' settled already," replied the widow, smiling, "although there's but little gear in the case. Margaret, I'm jalousin, has left her heart at the Torwood. There's a certain young lad, a farmer's son there, that I'm thinkin she wadna willingly forget. But want o' warl's gear aften sunders fond hearts."

"Better times may come roun, guidwife," replied Mr Blackadder; "an' the la.s.s may get her leman for a'."

During this conversation, the subject of it seemed in an agony of maidenly distress. With a face burning with blushes, she vainly attempted, with a series of unconnected interjections, amongst which were several _denials_ of the _fact_, to arrest her mother's communications regarding the secrets of her heart. Finding these efforts ineffectual, the bashful girl retreated behind her mother's chair, and there, concealing herself as much as possible, awaited, in suffering silence, the conclusion of the, to her, most annoying discussion.

In less than a week from this period, Widow Grahame was comfortably domiciled in a small cot-house at a little distance from the residence of her benefactor, Blackadder. Here, contented with her humble lot, and grateful to a kind Providence, which had so timeously interposed in her behalf, Margaret Grahame plied her wheel the livelong day, singing as merrily, the while, as the "laverock in the lift." Her boys were giving every satisfaction to their employer, and her daughter was no less successful in pleasing in her department. She was thus in the enjoyment of one of the greatest happinesses of which her condition was susceptible, and she fully appreciated the blessing. It was while matters were in this state with Widow Grahame, and somewhere about two years after she had settled at Kilpatrick, that her eldest son said to her one evening, on returning home after the labours of the day were over:--

"Mother, they say the King has come to Cardross Castle and I believe it's true; for I saw, frae the braes, a great cavalcade o' knights and gentlemen on horseback, doon on the Glasgow road, gaun towards Dumbarton as hard's they could bir."

"An' what's that to me, laddie, whar the King, G.o.d bless him, is?"