The Three Perils of Man Volume Ii Part 18

For all this my master refused to be comforted, but wept and followed after the men, pleading for the life and the freedom of his friend, but he pleaded in vain; the men bound him on a horse, and carried him away with them to the dungeon of the castle of Coombe. I marvelled greatly at the great kindness and generosity of my master, knowing, as he did, that the man was a scoundrel; but I wondered far more what could induce the man to steal the hide and the head from off my ox.

My master was a married man, and had four children; and though he was apparently a kind husband, his wife seemed quite unhappy and discontented, which I thought highly unreasonable on her part. She knew more, however, than I did; and there are some small matters that women never patiently put up with. He had a number of servant-maids for the purpose of milking cows, making hay, and cheeses, and such things; and among them there was a very pretty one named Kelly, with whom he had fallen in love; and, after long toying and courting, he had seduced her.

I knew nothing about these sorts of concerns; but I thought Kell, as we called her, the most beautiful, sprightly, and innocent being that lived, and I liked to look at her and hear her speak; and whenever she came near me, I was like to fall a-trembling. She slept with a little child in a large open loft, above the room where my master and mistress slept; and it so happened that something came by night and frightened her, and she refused to sleep there any longer without some one beside her. I slept by myself in one of the out-houses; and it was immediately proposed by my master that my bed should be removed, and put up in the loft beside Kell's. I was drunken with delight at hearing this intelligence; yet I pretended to be very averse to the plan, hanging my head, and turning about my back, when any one spoke of it, nor would I answer a word to one of them but "Tutt," or "tutts."

"Tam Nosey, it seems ye're gaun to be bedded wi' bonny Kell the night?"

"Tutt!"

"Ye're gaun up to sleep beside her, and do ye think ye'll never brik lair?"

"Tutt!"

"She's a bonny burd yon, Tam, ye maun tak care."

"Tutts!"

Well, up I went the next night to sleep in a bed that stood side by side, or rather end by end, with that of Kell. Oh I was so terrified for her, or for having any communication with her, that I would not speak a word even when she spoke to me, but covered myself over the head with the bed-clothes, and lay puffing till I was like to choak for want of breath. I did not sleep well at all. I could not sleep, for she was always yawning, and then saying, "Heigh-ho!" and then hus.h.i.+ng the child to sleep. The next night I ventured to lye with my head out from beneath the clothes, unless when she spoke, which alarmed me exceedingly; and so I did the next night again, behaving myself with great magnanimity. At length I came to that pa.s.s, that when she spake to me I did not creep down beneath the bed-clothes, but only made a great bustle and flinging as if I _had been_ hiding myself. This practice of deception I continued for several nights, always making more and more pouncing and sc.r.a.ping every time she addressed me. She laughed at me, and seemed highly amused, which made me still the worse. At length she said one night, "Pray do not creep through the house for fright; what makes you so afraid of me? what ill do you think I will do to you? Heigh-ho, Nosey! I wish the bogle may not come to-night. I am afraid it will come, for I thought I heard it. Look that it do not rise at the back of your bed, for that is a very dangerous place. If it come, Nosey, I must either come in beside you, or you must come in beside me."--"Tutts!" said I, and that was my first word of courting; the first syllable that I spoke to Kell in that luckless loft. I said, "Tutts!"

I suspected no evil intention on the part of my kind and indulgent master, and far less on that of Kell; indeed, how could I suspect either? One day he said to me in the fields, "I do not know what to do about you and that wench Kell: for both your sakes I believe I must separate you. She is fallen in love with you, quite over head and ears, and has been complaining to our dame of your unkindness to her. We have a great regard for the girl, and cannot part with her,--but, out of respect for you both, you must be separated. I will, however, trust you together until next week; and if she do not complain any more, you may remain where you are; but I suppose I will be obliged to part with you then, though against my will."

This was a terrible stound to my heart, and shewed my master's masterly policy; for, notwithstanding of all my pretended aversion to the company of women, and to that of pretty Kell in particular, I would not have been parted from her at that time for all the world, not even for all the beef and bacon that was in it. I did not know well how to make up matters with her so as to retain my place, but I thought I would try. So that night I sat down on my own bed-side with my clothes on, and scratched my head, and beat with my bare heel against the loft; but she had lost all hope of gaining me to the measures agreed on between her and her master, and took no heed of me till I was obliged to speak first myself, when the following highly interesting dialogue pa.s.sed between us:

"I'm unco feared the bogle come the night, Kell."

"So am I!"

"I wasna sure, but I thought I heard it yestreen!"

"I aince thought that I heard it a wee too!"

"How does it play when it is gaun to rise?"

"It begins a scart, scarting, like a rattan, making holes, I fancy, to come out and take us away."

"Aih! then it has just been it that I heard!"

"Oh! I'se warrant it was, and that I heard too!"

"Ay; O it's terrible! we're ill, ill set here! but I'll watch a' night, and keep it aff you, Kelly."

With that I came and sat down on the side of her bed, to keep the invidious scratching bogle away from her; but I soon became drowsy, and was like to fall down. She begged me to lay down my head on her pillow, but I would not hear of that. Oh! no, no, I durst not lie down there; so I stretched me on the loft at her bed-side, and fell asleep. Awakening before day, the first thing I heard was the bogle scratching. Kell had stretched her arm below the bed, on the side opposite to me, and was scratching slowly and fearfully; then, pretending to awake, she hid herself among the bed-clothes, muttered prayers, and cried, "Heigh-ho!"

I groaned; and, stretching my hand round the corner, scratched on the other side, even more solemnly, and at more awful intervals than she had affected; so that we lay in great tribulation till the dawning of the day.

Afraid that I had still been too slightly obliging, and that I run the risk of being separated from her, I studied the whole day on the most becoming way of conducting myself, and entered on several most amorous resolutions; but the higher my resolves were, the more pusillanimous was my behaviour when put to the test. I durst not even touch the side of her bed that night; but the wicked unsonsy bogle still continued its scratchings, sometimes on the one side of the bed, and sometimes on the other, I was therefore obliged once more to sit down on her bed side, to guard her from its inroads. In sitting there I dropt asleep, and my head fell down on her pillow--it was impossible I could help that; and then she kindly laid the uppermost coverlet over me for fear of my catching cold; but I was by far too sound asleep to perceive it. She had to pull the covering from below me, in order that she might lay it above me,--for all that I did not awake, which was a great pity, but always as she made the greatest stir, I sniffed the louder. A while after, I turned myself about, and gave my head a ketch toward the back of the bed, till my cheek came in contact with something soft; but it was in my sleep,--and I was in one so so profound, that I could not possibly know what that thing was. What a fright I got next morning on perceiving my situation! I sprung from the bed, and ran away to the hills to my charge, without speaking a word.

I was, however, quite intoxicated with delight, and endeavoured to ingratiate myself with my master, by paying every possible attention to his behests, lest I should lose so delightful a place both for stolen meat and approaching pleasures, which I perceived would still grow more and more sublime, and was glad when he said to me one day that Kell had given over complaining of my rudeness and incivility, and he would trust me as her companion for a little while longer. In the mean while, I was to take care and do nothing improper; but he had such trust to put in me, he was not afraid of that.

He was informed every day by this subservient beauty how matters proceeded; so he let them go on by degrees till they arrived at such a crisis as he desired, which was no more than a boy lying on a girl's bed-side with his clothes on. He then came up with a light one night at midnight to see how his child was resting, pretending that he thought her ill, and found me lying sound asleep, where perhaps I should not have been, though I was as innocent and as free of his mistress as the child that lay in her bosom. He was in great wrath, and pulled me over the bed, giving me two or three gentle thwacks with his open hand: he also rebuked her very sharply, but said to us before going away: "Keep your own secret. For both your sakes I will conceal what I have seen, although you have acted so _very_ improperly; but let me never catch you in the like fault again. If the church get hold of you, you are both undone."

I was dreadfully ashamed; and thence-forward felt my heart quite reckless and desperate, disregardful of all danger or propriety; and my master made me still worse by telling me that I was to part from Kell in a few days, but that he did not like to put me away just then, for fear of awakening suspicions against us, for he had a great regard for us both! I laid all these things to heart, and could not then have staid from Kell's bed-side a night, if my head had been to answer for it next day. One night we were informed that some strangers had come to the house and were making merry, and before we went to bed our master sent us something to eat and drink. I thought there was something going on that night, for I heard a great deal of muttering and saying of paternosters till a late hour. However, I took up my old birth, and after a while fell sound asleep. About midnight we were awaked by four or five gruff looking fellows, with long beards, and staves in their hands, who ordered us both to get up and dress ourselves. Our master made a speech to them, lamenting our guilt, and, with tears in his eyes, beseeching their clemency toward us; but at the same time said, that he could not suffer such immoralities under his roof: he had a family of his own coming up, and bad example was pernicious. Then he related what strict injunctions he had given us, yet we had continued to persist in our wicked unlawful courses; that, therefore, he had been obliged to give us up as lawless and irreclaimable delinquents.

All that he could now do was to intreat theirs and the holy fathers'

merciful clemency towards the youthful offenders; for that, although we had both mocked and set at defiance the statutes of holy church, he had hopes of our repentance and amendment: And with that he delivered us over to the officers of the church, whom he had trysted and suborned for that purpose. They said he was a good man, but that the offenders must needs suffer a heavy penance, in order that they might be again rendered pure and without blame, in the eyes of their fostering and protecting parent.

When Kell saw that she was betrayed and abandoned, her grief and despair knew no bounds, and she would doubtless have accused her master to his face had she been able to articulate aught distinctly,--but she fell into fits, and they hurried her away. We were confined to cells in different religious houses, but both in the same ward. It is well known what tyranny prevails here, and what vengeance is wreaked against all those guilty of breaches of morality, especially if those possessed of riches or power desire it; but it is nothing to that which predominates over the west country, where I then was. They fed me on bread and water, though I asked for fat flesh, and longed for it every hour of the day: and always when the people a.s.sembled to wors.h.i.+p, I was put in the juggs; that is, I was chained to the kirk wall with an iron collar about my neck, and every boy brought a rotten egg, or some filth, and threw at me, till I was all over bedaubed and plastered like a rough stone wall.

The men gave me a kick, and the old maids spit upon me as they pa.s.sed, but the young women looked on me with pity; and the old wives, before my time of penance was expired, espoused my cause, and defended me from the rabble. I heard them saying to one another, "Poor fellow, somebody may be the better o' him yet. What wad the mother that bore him say if she saw him standing in that guise? Surely she wad think the punishment far outwent the crime."

One day, just when I was about to be set at liberty, I saw my kind master speaking to some of the holy brethren, and was glad when I saw him, thinking I saw the face of the only man on earth that cared for me.

But he came with a different intent from what I supposed, namely, with the benevolent one of getting me hanged. He said he had missed some money out of his house ever since I came away; and though he should be sorry indeed to find any part of it on me, for his own satisfaction he requested to search my clothes in their presence, to which I submitted without reluctance, being conscious of my innocence. But he that hides knows best where to seek. It was not long before my kind master took out from between several of the b.u.t.ton-holes in the breast of my grey coat, two gold moudiwarts, three silver merks, and several placks and bodles.

In vain did I protest that I knew nothing about them; the brethren p.r.o.nounced me the most incorrigible wretch and vagabond that traversed the face of the earth; and, as their jurisdiction extended not to such crimes as this, they sent me off with the proofs of my guilt to Lord William for judgment and execution. I shall never forget the figure I cut that day when brought before Lord William, and accused. I was in a wretched state as to clothes, having stood so long in the juggs. I had been hungered almost to death, and maltreated in every way, and altogether looked extremely ill. He asked them to go over the charges against me, when one of the brethren came forward and spoke to him as follows:

"My n.o.ble Lord and benefactor, a worthy gentleman within our bounds of censure and controul, lodged a complaint with us against two of his servants that had been tempted by the devil to fall into lawless and sinful communication; and notwithstanding of all his admonitions and threatenings of church discipline, they not only continued in their mal-practices, but every day grew worse and more abandoned. He therefore prayed us to take cognizance of the offence, which, for the sake of their souls, and the general benefit of our community, we undertook.

Accordingly, my lord, as he suggested, we went disguised as strangers, and at midnight we found this same young gentleman lying snugly in bed beside our friend's princ.i.p.al maid-servant, the very maiden to whom he had entrusted the care of his children, one of whom lay in the bed with them. Think of the atrocity of this my lord, and look at the man!"

The judge did so, and could not help smiling.

"What do you say to that master?" said he, "Is it truth?"

"Yes," said I.

This answer made him burst out a laughing. "Upon my word," said he, "you are a most extraordinary youth! Was the girl pretty, say you, monk?"

"The woman was indeed very beautiful, my lord."

"She has been blessed, however, with a singular taste. I think the stripling may almost be excused for this crime."

The monk then related the circ.u.mstances of the stolen money having been found on me, at which the judge shook his head, and said, "Alak, it is all over with him. He is unfit to live. What do you say to this, sirrah?

Is it true?"

"Yes," said I.

"True that you stole your master's money?" said he.

"No, I never stole it, but it is true that it was there."

"What? you found it I suppose? Tell me the truth, did not you find it?"

"No, I never found it, nor ever saw it till it was taken out of my coat yesterday. I never had either gold or silver in my hand in my life."

"Your woman took it and sewed it in for you, then, I suppose?"

"I do not know who took it, or how it came there, but there it certainly was."

"Did you ever part with your coat to your sweetheart? Did you ever lend her it to mend, or leave it at home with her?"

"I have often on warm weather left my coat at home for three or four days rinning."

"But you declare you did not take the money?"