The Three Perils of Man Volume Ii Part 16

"I wish you would get on with it then," said Tam; "for if ye maun aye stop to laugh at your ain jests, we'll be a' dead o' hunger or ever the votes be ta'en. Nane but fools laugh at their ain sports."

"Whisht, whisht, Tam," returned Charlie,--"I hae a gay wide wizen when I am amang friends, but there are some things that I canna swallow for a'

that--Where was I at? Aye at the sacking o' Ravensworth."

We drave the richest prey that morning that I ever yet saw lift.i.t, if we had gotten it a' hame. We had thirty horses laden wi' stuff, and other thirty led anes, besides thirteen score o' good cattle; and we gae the banks o' the Teme and the Blackburn an unco singe afore we left them. I was rather against the burning, but Habby wadna be stayed; "Na, na; t.i.t for tat, Charlie. That will stand for Hawick and Abbotrule."

We drave on, and drave on, as fast as the cattle could gang, and some o'

the heavy soft anes we were obliged to leave behind sair against our wills. We were terrified for raising the country, for we had sic a far drive: but luckily the Nevilles had ta'en amaist every man with them in their expedition into Scotland; and the first time that we hovered was on Tersit-moor in Northumberland, a little before the break o' day. At that place there was the strangest thing happened to us that ever happened to men,--and it was for that that I began my tale.

My heart had been unco sair a' the night wi' thinking about the bonnie Lady Neville o' Ravensworth; and I had often been sae grieved about her death, and her bairn's death, that I hardly kend what I was doing. I thought I saw her kneeling on her knee, and begging of me to spare her life, and the life o' her child; and then how cruel it was in me to rin away rummaging up the stair, and lose the opportunity of preserving her.

These thoughts had made my heart wholly inclined to pity, and, as soon as we lighted, I sought out Will Laidlaw o' Craik, to see if he had still been able, amang a' the confusion, to preserve the life of the child. Will had had a great deal o' trouble wi' him, chiefly from his a.s.sociates, but he had him still safe an' sound. He had stuffed him in a horse's pack o' blankets and sheets, _wi' his head out_, and had kept beside him a' the gate; and now when I found him he had laid the boy down on the heather to sleep, and had him weel happit up, and Will himsel was lying streekit beside him. He thought that I wad gibe him about the business, and tried to waive the subject; but when I told him how much I was pleased wi' what he had done, he grew rather crouser, and could speak about naething else but the boy and his little sayings to him by the way. "Poor little dear soul!" said Will; "I think some body had flung him o'er the castle wa' in an armfu' claes, and never kend; and wha kens but he may be the heir o' Ravensworth himsel. He has been sae miraculously saved that he will surely come to something. But do ye ken, Charlie, my heart is already sae closely knitted to that bit helpless bairn, that I wadna see ony ill come ower him for a' the kye on the Crib-Law."

"Laidlaw, you shall never rue your kindness o' heart and attentions to that puir misfortunate bairn," quo' I: "The moment that I saw you take him up, and row him in a blanket, _wi' his head out_, as ye had been rowing up a wab, I resolved to reward you wi' my hale share o' the spulzie."

"Never speak about that, Charlie; if we get safe hame wi' every thing we'll no differ about the spulzie."

"Ha, but Will, your rowing up o' the bairn was a rare scene! ony other body but you, ye ken, wad hae taken the creature up in their arms and rowed a blanket about it: but instead o' that you doubled a pair o'

blankets their hale length on the green, laid the bairn across the one end o' them, and rowed it ower the body, and ower the body, and ower the body, till ye came to the far end; and it was but ill rowed up after a'--ha! ha! ha!"

"Hout, Charlie! deil a bit but ye're ower muckle ta'en up about trifles.

I wish ye wad think mair about the perilous situation we are in. Watch a wee while, and let me get a sleep."

Will then laid his arm over the boy and the hott o' claes, and fell sound asleep. Our men were a' placed two and three around the hale muir to guard the cattle, and all were resting on their arms, to be ready to rush together on any alarm. I was sitting and keeping a good look out a' round about, and Will he was swuffing and sleeping. Every thing was quiet, except now and then that the hum of an ox was to be heard which missed his neighbour, or the eiry whistle o' the moss-plover. It was a while before the day-sky, and I was just beginning to turn drowsy, when I thought I saw something white on the muir, about two hundred strides from me. "St Mary be my buckler!" said I to mysel: "What can you be? It is surely a flight o' white mist risen out o' the earth, for I see it moving. If it be a mist fawn, as I dare say it can be naething else, it has drawn itself up into a form the likest that of a woman of ought ever I saw." As I was mumbling and speaking this to mysel, I perceived that it still drew nearer, and that it wasna ane o' the fairy fawns o' mist whiles to be seen stealing about i' the night-time, but a lady a' clad in white. It glided athort the moor, and athort the moor, as if it had been looking for something it had lost; and at last I saw it spring away from one point to another at a considerable distance, as swift as a flash o' fire, as if something had startled or offended it. I learned after that the point from which it fled was the very spot where Habby Elliot lay, and who at that time was lying in a sound and troubled sleep. When it again stopped, its motions were very extraordinary,--for though the morning was dark, there was such a pale and a pure whiteness about it, that I saw it the better. It was like a streamer o' light, or the reflection of a starn in the water, that aye in the darkest nights appears brightest. When it paused at the place I mentioned, it bent its body backward, its arms were crossed on its breast, and I saw like its hair streaming in the air behind it. Then it spread both its hands toward heaven, as in the act of making fervent supplication. From that point it came straight toward me, after giving a s.h.i.+ver that made all my een dazzle.

"Will Laidlaw!" cried I, but in a violent whisper below my breath; "Will Laidlaw o' Craik! for G.o.d's sake waken up, and see what this is."

I was sitting, but Will sprang to his feet, and seized his sword.

"Where? where? where? Where is it, Charlie? Where is it, callant?"

whispered he. I pointed to it, but durst not speak. Will rubbed his een and rubbed his een, and at length perceived it. "I do believe, lad, that is some hizzy--and a weel dressed ane she is," said he; still speaking in a whisper, and sitting down close beside me. "What on G.o.d's earth can she be seeking on this waste at sic an untimely hour?" I durst hardly draw my breath, let be to answer him; and sae he continued, "I think it wad hae been as decent-like an she had lain still in her bed rather as comed raiking out amang a wheen wild men on sic a wild height. Oho! I'll wager my neck it is some spy in disguise."

She was by this time within ten paces o' us, and we both sat still in breathless suspense till she came close to us. I thought I had seen the face before, but couldna tell where, till she kneeled on one knee at my feet, crossed her hands, and looked me in the face with the most piteous expression of countenance. Then I saw it was the lady o' Ravensworth, and in the very posture that I had seen her for the first and last time.

Yet there was no anger in her face; it seemed merely a look of supplication; and at length she touched her lips three times, as an intimation that she wished to speak and could not. As for me, my mouth was sealed; and that I might see nae mair than I had seen, I threw mysel agroof, wi' my face to the ground, and held by the heather firmly wi'

baith my hands.

Honest Will had nae suspicions o' ony thing beyond nature; and at length he says, "What are you wanting wi' us, Madam, that ye're making a' thae murgeons?"

"You do not know me," returned she, "but that young warrior beside you does. He has been guilty of a neglect that he will rue till the day of his death. But, for another deed of mercy that you and he have done, your fates are averted, and your heads shall be covered in the hour of danger, which is fast approaching. You have saved a child from the devouring flames;--if you dare to wrong a hair of that child's head, how dreadful will be your doom! There is a terrible hour approaching;--look at his breast that you may know him again, for I cannot see the fate of the day. But if you would thrive on earth and be admitted into heaven, guard and preserve that dear child--That child is mine--"

"Say nae mair, honest woman," says Will, perfectly undismayed, "an the child be yours you're perfectly welcome to him. It was to save his bit innocent life that I brought him away, and no for ony greed o' other folks bairns. I kendna wha was aught him, but sin he be yours I'll deliver him safe into your hands. Take care an' no let him get cauld, for the morning air is no gude for a bairn."

So saying, Will howked the boy out o' the mids o' a great heap o' claes, rowed him up as weel as he could, and then said, after two or three sobs, "I like ill to part wi' him, but a mother's aye a mother." Then he kissed him, and added, "Fare-ye weel, my wee man! You and I will may-be never meet again; but, whether or no, you will be nae the waur o' a trooper's blessing. An ye be spared ye'll be a man when auld Will Laidlaw's head is laid i' the grave. Hae, honest woman, there's your son, and G.o.d bless you baith!"

She bent her body over him in the most affectionate way, and stretched her arms as if to embrace him, but she neither touched him nor any part of Laidlaw's claes. The boy had awakened, and when Will held him out to give him up to his mother, he cried out, "No-no-no-no. No go ty'e, no go t'ye. Daddy's boy feared, daddy's boy feared."

"Gude faith, sae ye may, my man! thinks I to mysel, "an ye kend about a'

this as weel as I do!"

I saw naething that was pa.s.sing, for I was lying close on my face, and hinging by the heather; but I heard a that was said, and Will tauld me the rest afterwards. He said, she made the sign of the cross above her child's breast, then over his own head, as he stooped forward with him in his arms. Then she glided aside, and made the cross over my head and shoulders, and it was heaven's grace that I didna ken, else I wad hae swarfed away. Last of all, she again bent herself over her child, and stretched out her arms on each side of him; then, leaning herself back on the air, she arose gently from the ground, and sailed away through the dim shades of the morning toward the verge of the heaven.

I wondered what was asteer then, for I heard Will crying on the Virgin Mary to preserve him, and rhaming o'er the names o' a' the saints he had ever heard of; and at length he gae a great gluther, like a man drowning, and fell down wi' sic a dunt he gart a' the moss shake again.

The bairn screamed and grat; and I didna ken what to do, for I durstna look up for fear o' seeing the ghost; till at length I heard that the rest of the sentinels had caught the alarm, and were pa.s.sing the watch-word frae ane to another, and then I ventured to set up my head.

But, gude and gracious, sic a grip as I did haud by the heather!

I took up the child, covered him with my cloak, and soothed him; and the poor little hara.s.sed thing hid his face in my bosom. Will lay quivering and struggling like ane in a dream, or under the influence of the night-mare; and, after I had rolled him three times over, he awoke in the most horrid consternation. "Charlie, where are ye? Speak to me, Charlie, and tell me where I am." Then a whole string o' saints and angels were a' invoked, one after another, ower and ower again. "Mercy on us, Charlie! I hae had sic a dream as never mortal man had; and a'

sae plain and sae particular, I could amaist swear it was real. What do ye think, Charlie? Didna this bairn's mother come to me in my sleep? and she says to me, 'That bairn's mine.'--Na, that wasna what she said first. 'Ye dinna ken me,' says she." And then Will began and told me all that I had heard pa.s.s between them before, and all that I had seen, and some part that I had not seen; but a' that I could do, I couldna persuade him that it wasna a dream. And it was better it was sae; for if he had kend and believed that he had conversed with a spirit, it wad hae put him daft. It pat me clean out o' my judgment; and for that day, and mony a day and night after, I kend nae mair what I was doing than ane dreaming, and remembered nae mair what I had been doing than if I had been asleep all the time. I can therefore gie but a puir and a lame account o' what followed, for it is maistly from hearsay, although I was tauld that I bure a princ.i.p.al hand in the fray.

We started at the scraigh o' day, and drove on. There were always four or five light hors.e.m.e.n, well mounted, who rode before our array to see if the coast was clear; and as we went round the head of the Gowan Burn, about mid-day, ane o' these came galloping back, and told us that the English were awaiting us at the fords of Keilder, with an army of a thousand horse.

"Aha!" quo' Habby Elliot! "I thought we warna to get hame this way. We hae just twa choices, callants, either to fight or flee."

There was not a man in all our little army that could think of scampering off for bare life, and leaving such a prey behind him; so, with one a.s.sent, we rode forward in a body to the brow of the hill that overlooks the fords of Keilder. The English were stationed on a rising ground to the west of the river, and that being pa.s.sable only by one ford, which was very rough, we could not attack them without the certainty of being cut to pieces; so we kept our station on the steep brae over against them, and sent some few of our oldest and weakliest men to be moving the prey out toward Keilder-head.

We calculated the English to be about five hundred; but neither durst they cross the ford to come to us. They sent a few flights of arrows among our men, which we regarded very little, and determined, if possible, to keep them at bay there till our rich prey had crossed the border fell. But just at the fall of the evening, to our great surprise, the English rushed at once into the ford, with loud and reiterated shouts; and scarcely had we begun to advance down the steep to meet them, when we were attacked by another body of hors.e.m.e.n behind.

These men were led by a great priest whose name was Bishop Boldone, but who was always called b.l.o.o.d.y-Sark; and at the very first encounter Hab Elliot rushed among the English ranks and slew the Bishop with his own hand at the first blow. But it cost Habby dear, for he was cut down in endeavouring to retreat, and fell under a dozen of spears. In short, our small band, being inclosed between two stronger bodies, was literally hewed in pieces, but not before they had slain a great number of our enemies. Will Laidlaw and I fought side by side; and though enclosed in the very middle of our foes, we cut our way through, and escaped without a wound, and with short pursuit.

Our prey was gone. We saw a great part of them scattered on the hills, and heard them lowing, as they returned toward their native pastures.

Our drivers, having watched the fate of the day, made their escape when they saw us surrounded, abandoning the spoil. We two fled in silence toward the north-east, and could not even get time to look for the child, in whom we were both so much interested. We had lost our well earned prey; we had lost our friends and companions in arms, and we had lost our honour by suffering ourselves to be surprised by the ambush behind; yet we both felt as if the loss of the child sat heavier on our hearts than all. There was something so mysterious in our connection with him, that it could not fail making a deep impression on our minds.

The vision that we had seen, and the promise that had been made to us,--that "for what we had done our heads should be s.h.i.+elded in the day of battle,"--soon recurred to us, and we both agreed that our escape was miraculous, and perfectly unaccountable to ourselves. There were not two in the battle who exposed themselves more, and Laidlaw averred that he sometimes saw twenty weapons raised against us at once, and that still, as we approached, the bearers of them seemed to lose the power of striking. It was no wonder that we were impressed with deep awe, nor that we both wished it had been in our power to have preserved the boy, over whose life there seemed to be some good guardian spirit permitted or appointed to watch. Our conversation was all about him. There had been a nest made for him in a pack of clothes. Laidlaw had led the horse himself all the way, and the child had chatted to him, till the alarm was given that we were waylaid, and he had then given the horse in charge to one of the drivers, with particular injunctions to take care of the child; but he could not even remember who that driver was. I came up immediately after, and charged the lad to take care of the child; and, in the hearing of several of my followers, said that I would rather they lost the whole drove than that ought should happen to him. But now we had lost him; we had lost all but our horses and our swords.

We jogged on all the night in melancholy mood, crossed the Border, and then turned westward toward the Cowd-Peel, which we reached about sun-rise. A little after the break of day, as we were coming through a hollow of the height, called the Spretty-Grain, we perceived something before us that appeared to be moving, and of a prodigious bulk, which, after some hesitation we made up to, and found that the phenomenon consisted of eight horses, all well loaden, and every one with its head yerked to the tail of the one before him; and all these were driven by one yeoman on horseback, who rode beside them with a long goad in his hand.

We soon overtook and examined him; and never was I so much astonished in my life as when I found it was my own henchman auld Will Nicol. He was very dour and shy of communication at first.

"Will Nicol! Is it you?" said I. "How in the name of wonder did you escape?"

"Humph! I think I may as weel speir that question at you: Humph!" says Will.

"I thought you had fallen with the rest in the battle," said I.

"Humph! but I'm here," says Will. "And I think there's mae here nor me: humph! and I rather think I hae brought mair wi' me nor some fock: humph! I'm comed as fu' handit as some fock, I think. Humph!"

"But, Will, were you in the engagement?"

"What need ye speir that? humph! Where was I else but in the engagement?"

"And did you stay till it was over?"

"Humph! I stayed lang aneuch, I think! humph! It is needless to wait ower lang on a seen bad job. Humph!"

But the real truth of the story was, that instead of staying till the battle was ower, Will didna stay till it began, nor near that time. He was an auld-farrant chap Will, and had a great deal o' foresight; and when he saw us begin to stop, and the English standing peaceably before us, _herding us_, as he ca'ed it, he was sure there were more enemies coming up behind.

"Will, if I were sure that ye deserted our cause, and came off before the engagement began," said I, "although I have not a man left that I ken o', but Will o' Craik and yoursel, may I be a coward and a traitor if I wadna cut you down i' the place where you stand."

Will had nothing to say for himself but "Humph! humph!" and he scratched his head and grumbled. I was quite indignant at the old fellow, and was getting into a greater rage than ever I hae been in at a friend sinsyne, when all at once I heard a weak tremulous voice say, "Daddy's boy cold."