Chapter II (4)

“I beg your pardon, friend,” replied the menial; “but I must give Sir John’s answer in his own words. He says if you choose to wait two hours he will then see whether you are a knave or a fool; but if you send another such impertinent message to him, both you and I shall have cause to repent it. However, for your civility, come with me, and I will find you something to eat and a horn of good ale, to put off the time till Sir John can be seen.”

“I give you hearty thanks, my good fellow, but, as I said, I cannot wait. Here, take these three groats; go again to the warden, and say that the Gudeman of Ballengeich insists upon seeing him immediately.”

No sooner was the porter’s back turned, than James winded his buglehorn so loudly that its echoes seemed to shake the castle walls; and the porter found his master in consternation, which his message changed into fear and trembling.

By the time the warden had reached the gate, James had thrown off his coat, and stood arrayed in the garb and insignia of royalty, while his train of nobles were galloping up in great haste. When they were collected around him, the king, for the first time, condescended to address the terrified warden, who had prostrated himself at the feet of his sovereign.

“Rise, Sir John,” said he, with a stern and commanding air. “You bade your porter tell me that I was either knave or fool, and you were right, for I have erred in delegating my power to a knave like you.”

In tremulous accents the warden attempted to excuse himself by stammering out that he did not know he was wanted by his Majesty.

“But I sent you a message that I wished to speak with you on business of importance, and you refused to be disturbed. The meanest of my subjects has access to me at all times. I hear before I condemn, and shall do so with you, against whom I have many and heavy charges.”

“Will it please your Majesty to honour my humble dwelling with your presence, and afford me an opportunity of speaking in my own defence?” said the justly alarmed warden.

“No, Sir John, I will not enter beneath that roof as a judge, where I was refused admission as a petitioner. I hold my court at Hoddam Castle, where I command your immediate attendance; where I will hear your answer to the charges I have against you. In the meantime, before our departure, you will give orders for the entertainment of my retinue, men and horses, at your castle, during my stay in Annandale.”

The king then appointed several of the lords in attendance to accompany him to Hoddam Castle, whither he commanded the warden to follow him with all possible despatch.

Sir John was conscious of negligence, and even something worse, in the discharge of his duty, although ignorant of the particular charges to be brought against him; but when ushered into the presence of his sovereign, he endeavoured to assume the easy confidence of innocence.

James proceeded to business, by inquiring if there was not a recent incursion of a small marauding party, in which a poor widow’s cow was carried off, her house plundered, and her son taken prisoner; and if she did not early next morning state this to him, requesting him to recover her property.

“Did you, Sir John, do your utmost in the case?”

“I acknowledge I did not; but the widow shall have the best cow in my possession, and her house furnished anew. I hope that will satisfy your Majesty.”

“And her son, how is he to be restored?”

“When we have the good fortune to make an English prisoner, he can be exchanged.”

“Mark me! Sir John. If Wallace Maxwell is not brought before me in good health within a week from this date, you shall hang by the neck from that tree waving before the window. I have no more to say at present. Be ready to wait on me in one hour when your presence is required.”

The warden knew the determined resolution of the king, and instantly despatched a confidential servant, vested with full powers to procure the liberation of Wallace Maxwell, at whatever price, and to bring him safely back without a moment’s delay. In the meantime, the retinue of men and horses, amounting to several hundreds, were living at free quarters, in Sir John’s castle, and the visits of the king diffusing gladness and joy over the whole country.

Next morning James sent the young nobleman, whom he had pointed out to the widow at Stirling, to bring her and Mary Morrison to Hoddam Castle. He received both with easy condescension; when the widow, with much grateful humility, endeavoured to express her thanks, saying that Sir John had last evening sent her a cow worth double that she had lost; also blankets, and other articles of higher value than all that had been carried away; but, with tears in her eyes, she said, all these were as nothing without her dear son. Assuring them that their request had not been neglected, James dismissed them, with the joyful hope of soon seeing Wallace, as he would send for them immediately on his arrival.

The distress of the warden increased every hour, for he was a prisoner in his own castle; and his feelings may be conjectured, when he received a message from the king, commanding him to come to Hoddam Castle next day by noon, and either bring Wallace Maxwell along with him, or prepare for a speedy exit into the next world. He had just seen the sun rise, of which it seemed probable he should never see the setting, when his servant arrived with Wallace, whose liberty had been purchased at an exorbitant ransom. Without allowing the young man to rest, Sir John hurried him off to Hoddam Castle, and sent in a message that he waited an audience of his Majesty.

To make sure of the youth’s identity, the king sent instantly for his mother, and the meeting called forth all the best feelings of his heart, for maternal affection triumphed over every other emotion, and it was only after the first ebullition of it had subsided, that she bade him kneel to his sovereign, to whom he owed his liberty, and most probably his life. Wallace gracefully bent his knee, and took Heaven to witness that both should be devoted to his Majesty’s service.

James was delighted with the manly appearance and gallant behaviour of Wallace; and, after having satisfied himself of the sincerity of his attachment to Mary, he ordered him to withdraw.

He next despatched a messenger for Mary, who, the moment she came, was ushered into the presence of Sir John; James marking the countenance of both,—that of Mary flushed with resentment, while her eye flashed with indignant fire. The pale and deadly hue which overspread the warden’s cheek was a tacit acknowledgment of his guilt.

“Do you know that young woman, Sir John? Reply to my questions truly; and be assured that your life depends upon the sincerity of your answers,” said the king, in a determined and stern voice.

“Yes, my liege, I have seen her,” said Sir John, his lip quivering, and his tongue faltering.

“Where?”

“At Amisfield.”

“On what occasion?”

“She came to me for the release of Wallace Maxwell.”

“And you refused her, except upon conditions which were an insult to her, and a disgrace to yourself. Speak; is it not so?”

“To my shame, my sovereign, I confess my guilt; but I am willing to make all the reparation in my power; and I leave it to be named by your Majesty.”

“You deserve to be hanged, Sir John; but when I look on that face, I acknowledge your temptation, and it pleads a mitigation of punishment. You know that Mary loves and is beloved by Wallace Maxwell, whom you have already ransomed; you shall give him a farm of not less than fifty acres of good land, rent-free, during his life, or that of the woman he marries; and, further, you shall stock it with cattle, and every article necessary, with a comfortable dwelling;—all this you shall perform within three months from this date. If you think these conditions hard, I give you the alternative of swinging from that tree before sunset. Take your choice.”

“My sovereign, I submit to the conditions, and promise that I shall do my best to make the couple happy.”

Wallace was now called in, when Mary clasped him in her arms, both falling on their knees before their sovereign. He raised them up and said, “I have tried both your loves, and found them faithful. Your Mary is all that you believed her, and brings you a dowry which she will explain. I shall see your hands united before I leave Annandale, and preside at the feast. Let your care of the widow be a remuneration for what she has done for both, and I trust all of you will long remember the Gudeman of Ballengeich’s visit to Annandale.”—_Edinburgh Literary Gazette._

THE ALEHOUSE PARTY:
_A CHAPTER FROM AN UNPUBLISHED NOVEL_.

BY THE AUTHORS OF “THE ODD VOLUME.”

The night drave on wi’ sangs and clatter,
And aye the ale was growing better.—BURNS.

On the evening of that day which saw Mrs Wallace enter Park a bride, Robin Kinniburgh and a number of his cronies met at the village alehouse to celebrate the happy event. Every chair, stool, and bench being occupied, Robin and his chum, Tammy Tacket, took possession of the top of the meal girnel; and as they were elevated somewhat above the company, they appeared like two rival provosts, looking down on their surrounding bailies.

“It’s a gude thing,” said Tammy, “that the wives and weans are keepit out the night; folk get enough o’ them at hame.”

“I wonder,” said Jamie Wilson, “what’s become o’ Andrew Gilmour.”

“Hae ye no heard,” said Robin, “that his wife died yesterday?”

“Is she dead?” exclaimed Tammy Tacket. “Faith,” continued he, giving Robin a jog with his elbow, “I think a man might hae waur furniture in his house than a dead wife.”

“That’s a truth,” replied Jamie Wilson, “as mony an honest man kens to his cost.—But send round the pint stoup, and let us hae a health to the laird and the leddy, and mony happy years to them and theirs.”

When the applause attending this toast had subsided, Robin was universally called on for a song.

“I hae the hoast,” answered Robin; “that’s aye what the leddies say when they are asked to sing.”

“Deil a hoast is about you,” cried Wattie Shuttle; “come awa wi’ a sang without mair ado.”

“Weel,” replied Robin, “what maun be, maun be; so I’ll gie ye a sang that was made by a laddie that lived east-awa; he was aye daundering, poor chiel, amang the broomie knowes, and mony’s the time I hae seen him lying at the side o’ the wimpling burn, writing on ony bit paper he could get haud o’. After he was dead, this bit sang was found in his pocket, and his puir mother gied it to me, as a kind o’ keepsake; and now I’ll let you hear it,—I sing it to the tune o’ ‘I hae laid a herrin’ in saut.’”

SONG.

It’s I’m a sweet lassie, without e’er a faut;
Sae ilka ane tells me,—sae it maun be true;
To his kail my auld faither has plenty o’ saut,
And that brings the lads in gowpens to woo.
There’s Saunders M‘Latchie, wha bides at the Mill,
He wants a wee wifie, to bake and to brew;
But Saunders, for me, at the Mill may stay still,
For his first wife was pushioned, if what they say’s true.

The next is Tam Watt, who is grieve to the Laird,—
Last Sabbath, at puir me a sheep’s e’e he threw;
But Tam’s like the picters I’ve seen o’ Blue Beard,
And sic folk’s no that chancie, if what they say’s true.
Then there’s Grierson the cobbler, he’ll fleech an’ he’ll beg,
That I’d be his awl in awl, darlin’ and doo;
But Grierson the cobbler’s a happity leg,
And nae man that hobbles need come here to woo.

And there’s Murdoch the gauger, wha rides a blind horse,
And nae man can mak a mair beautifu’ boo;
But I shall ne’er tak him, for better, for worse,
For, sax days a week, gauger Murdoch is fou.
I wonder when Willie Waught’s faither ’ll dee;
(I wonder hoo that brings the blude to my brow;)
I wonder if Willie will then be for me;—
I wonder if then he’ll be coming to woo?

“It’s your turn now to sing, Tammy,” said Robin, “although I dinna ken that ye are very gude at it.”

“Me sing!” cried Tammy, “I canna even sing a psalm, far less a sang; but if ye like, I’ll tell you a story.”

“Come awa then, a story is next best; but haud a’ your tongues there, you chiels,” cried Robin, giving the wink to his cronies; “we a’ ken Tammy is unco gude at telling a story, mair especially if it be about himsel.”

“Aweel,” said Tammy, clearing his throat, “I’ll tell you what happened to me when I was ance in Embro’. I fancy ye a’ ken the Calton hill?”

“Whatna daftlike question is that, when ye ken very weel we hae a’ been in Embro’ as weel as yoursel?”

“Weel then,” began Tammy, “I was coming ower the hill—”

“What hill?” asked Jamie Wilson. “Corstorphine hill?”

“Corstorphine fiddlestick!” exclaimed Tammy. “Did ye no hear me say the Calton hill at the first, which, ye ken, is thought there the principal hill?”

“What’s that ye’re saying about Principal Hill?” asked Robin. “I kent him weel ance in a day.”

“Now, Tammy,” cried Willie Walkinshaw, “can ye no gang on wi’ your story, without a’ this balwavering and nonsense about coming ower ane o’ our Professors; my faith, it’s no an easy matter to come ower some o’ them.”

“Very weel,” said Tammy, a little angrily, “I’ll say nae mair about it, but just drap the hill.”

“Whaur, whaur?” cried several voices at once.

“I’m thinkin’,” said Robin, drily, “some o’ the Embro’ folk would be muckle obliged to ye if ye would drap it in the Nor’ Loch.”

“Ye’re a set o’ gomerals!” exclaimed Tammy, in great wrath. “I meant naething o’ the sort; but only that I would gie ower speaking about it.”

“So we’re no to hae the story after a’?” said Matthew Henderson.

“Yes,” said Tammy; “I’m quite agreeable to tell’t, if ye will only sit still and haud your tongues. Aweel, I was coming ower the hill ae night.”

“’Odsake, Tammy,” cried Robin, “will ye ne’er get ower that hill? Ye hae tell’t us that ten times already; gang on, man, wi’ the story.”

“Then, to mak a lang story short, as I was coming ower the hill ae night about ten o’clock I fell in—”

“Fell in!” cried Matthew Henderson, “Whaur? Was’t a hole, or a well?”

“I fell in,” replied Tammy, “wi’ a man.”

“Fell in wi’ a man!” said Willie Walkinshaw. “Weel, as there were twa o’ ye, ye could help ane anither out.”

“Na, na,” roared Tammy, “I dinna mean that at a’; I just cam up wi’ him.”

“I doubt, Tammy,” cried Robin, giving a sly wink to his cronies, “if ye gaed up the Calton hill wi’ a man at ten o’clock at night, I’m thinking ye’ll hae been boozing some gate or ither wi’ him afore that.”

“Me boozing?” cried Tammy. “I ne’er saw the man’s face afore or since; unless it was in the police office the next day.”

“Now, Tammy Tacket,” said Robin, gravely, “just tak a’ frien’s advice, and gie ower sic splores; they’re no creditable to a decent married man like you; and dinna be bleezing and bragging about being in the police office; for it stands to reason ye wouldna be there for ony gude.”

“Deil tak me,” cried Tammy, jumping up on the meal girnel, and brandishing the pint stoup, “if I dinna fling this at the head of the first man who says a word afore I be done wi’ my story:—And, as I said before, I fell in—”

Poor Tammy was not at all prepared for his words being so soon verified, for, in his eagerness to enforce attention, he stamped violently with his hobnailed shoe on the girnel, which giving way with a loud crash, Tammy suddenly disappeared from the view of the astonished party. Robin, who had barely time to save himself from the falling ruins, was still laughing with all his might, when Mrs Scoreup burst in upon them, saying, “What the sorrow is a’ this stramash about?”—but seeing a pale and ghastly figure rearing itself from the very heart of her meal girnel, she ejaculated, “Gude preserve us!” and, retreating a few steps, seized the broth ladle, and prepared to stand on the defensive.

At this moment Grizzy Tacket made her appearance at the open door, saying, “Is blethering Tam here?”

“Help me out, Robin, man,” cried Tammy.

“Help ye out!” said Grizzy; “What the sorrow took you in there, ye drucken ne’er-do-weel?”

“Dinna abuse your gudeman, wife,” said Jamie Wilson.

“Gudeman!” retorted Grizzy; “troth, there’s few o’ ye deserve the name; and as for that idle loon, I ken he’ll no work a stroke the morn, though wife and weans should want baith milk and meal.”

“’Odsake, wife,” cried Robin, “if ye shake Tammy weel, he’ll keep ye a’ in parritch for a week.”

“_She’ll_ shake him,” cried the angry Mrs Scoreup; “cocks are free o’ horses’ corn; _I’ll_ shake him,” making, as she spoke, towards the unfortunate half-choked Tammy.

“Will ye, faith?” screamed Grizzy, putting her arms akimbo. “Will ye offer to lay a hand on my gudeman, and me standing here? Come out this minute, ye Jonadub, and come hame to your ain house.”

“No ae fit shall he steer frae this,” cried Mrs Scoreup, slapping-to the door, “till I see wha is to pay me for the spoiling o’ my gude new girnel, forby the meal that’s wasted.”

“New girnel!” exclaimed Grizzy, with a provoking sneer, “it’s about as auld as yoursel, and as little worth.”

“Ye ill-tongued randy!” cried Mrs Scoreup, giving the ladle a most portentous flourish.

“Whisht, whisht, gudewife,” said Robin; “say nae mair about it, we’ll mak it up amang us; and now, Grizzy, tak Tammy awa hame.”

“It’s no right in you, Robin,” said Grizzy, “to be filling Tammy fou, and keeping decent folks out o’ their beds till this time o’ night.”

“It’s a’ Tammy’s faut,” replied Robin; “for ye ken as well as me, that when ance he begins to tell a story, there’s nae such thing as stopping him; he has been blethering about the Calton hill at nae allowance.”

The last words seemed to strike on Tammy’s ear; who hiccuped out, “As I cam ower the Calton hill—”

“Will naebody stap a peat in that man’s hause?” exclaimed Matthew Henderson. “For ony sake, honest woman, tak him awa, or we’ll be keepit on the Calton hill the whole night.”

“Tak haud o’ me, Tammy,” said Robin; “I’ll gang hame wi’ ye.”

“I can gang mysel,” said Tammy, giving Robin a shove, and staggering towards the door.

“Gang yoursel!” cried Grizzy, as she followed her helpmate; “ye dinna look very like it:” and thus the party broke up—

And each went aff their separate way,
Resolved to meet anither day.

AUCHINDRANE; OR, THE AYRSHIRE TRAGEDY.

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.

John Muir, or Mure, of Auchindrane, was a gentleman of an ancient family and good estate, in the west of Scotland, bold, ambitious, treacherous to the last degree, and utterly unconscientious,—a Richard the Third in private life, inaccessible alike to pity and remorse. His view was to raise the power and extend the grandeur of his own family. This gentleman had married the daughter of Thomas Kennedy of Barganie, who was, excepting the Earl of Cassilis, the most important person in all Carrick, the district of Ayrshire which he inhabited, and where the name of Kennedy held so great a sway as to give rise to the popular rhyme,—

’Twixt Wigton and the town of Ayr,
Portpatrick and the Cruives of Cree,
No man need think for to bide there,
Unless he court the Kennedie.

Now, Muir of Auchindrane, who had promised himself high advancement by means of his father-in-law, saw, with envy and resentment, that his influence remained second and inferior to the house of Cassilis, chief of all the Kennedies. The Earl was indeed a minor, but his authority was maintained and his affairs well managed by his uncle, Sir Thomas Kennedy of Culleyne, the brother to the deceased earl, and tutor and guardian to the present. This worthy gentleman supported his nephew’s dignity and the credit of the house so effectually that Barganie’s consequence was much thrown into the shade, and the ambitious Auchindrane, his son-in-law, saw no better remedy than to remove so formidable a rival as Culleyne by violent means.

For this purpose, in the year 1597, he came with a party of followers to the town of Maybole (where Sir Thomas Kennedy of Culleyne resided), and lay in ambush in an orchard through which he knew that his destined victim was to pass, in returning homewards from a house where he was engaged to sup. Sir Thomas Kennedy came alone and unattended, when he was suddenly seized and fired upon by Auchindrane and his accomplices, who, having missed their aim, drew their swords and rushed upon him to slay him. But the party thus assailed at disadvantage had the good fortune to hide himself for that time in a ruinous house, where he lay concealed till the inhabitants of the place came to his assistance.

Sir Thomas Kennedy prosecuted Muir for this assault, who, finding himself in danger from the law, made a sort of apology and agreement with the Lord of Culleyne, to whose daughter he united his eldest son, in testimony of the closest friendship in future. This agreement was sincere on the part of Kennedy, who, after it had been entered into, showed himself Auchindrane’s friend and assistant on all occasions. But it was most false and treacherous on that of Muir, who continued the purpose of murdering his new friend and ally on the first opportunity.

Auchindrane’s first attempt to effect this was by means of the young Gilbert Kennedy of Barganie (for old Barganie, Auchindrane’s father-in-law, was dead), whom he persuaded to brave Cassilis, as one who usurped an undue influence over the rest of the name. Accordingly, this hot-headed youth, at the instigation of Auchindrane, rode past the gate of the Earl of Cassilis without waiting on his chief, or sending him any message of civility. This led to mutual defiance, being regarded by the earl, according to the ideas of the time, as a personal insult. Both parties took the field with their followers, at the head of about two hundred and fifty men on each side. The action which ensued was shorter and less bloody than might have been expected. Young Barganie, with the rashness of headlong courage, and Auchindrane, fired by deadly enmity to the house of Cassilis, made a precipitate attack on the earl, whose men were strongly posted and under cover. They were received by a heavy fire. Barganie was slain. Muir of Auchindrane, severely wounded in the thigh, became unable to sit on his horse, and the leaders thus slain or disabled, their party drew off without continuing the action. It must be particularly observed that Sir Thomas Kennedy remained neuter in this quarrel, considering his connection with Auchindrane as too intimate to be broken even by his desire to assist his nephew.

For this temperate and honourable conduct he met a vile reward; for Auchindrane, in resentment of the loss of his relative Barganie, and the downfall of his ambitious hopes, continued his practices against the life of Sir Thomas of Culleyne, and chance favoured his wicked purpose.

The knight of Culleyne, finding himself obliged to go to Edinburgh on a particular day, sent a message by a servant to Muir, in which he told him, in the most unsuspecting confidence, the purpose of his journey, and named the road which he proposed to take, inviting Muir to meet him at Duppill, to the west of the town of Ayr, a place appointed for the purpose of giving him any commissions which he might have for Edinburgh, and assuring his treacherous ally he would attend to any business which he might have in the Scottish metropolis as anxiously as to his own. Sir Thomas Kennedy’s message was carried to the town of Maybole, where his messenger, for some trivial reason, had the import committed to writing by a schoolmaster in that town, and despatched it to its destination by means of a poor student, named Dalrymple, instead of carrying it to the house of Auchindrane in person.

This suggested to Muir a diabolical plot. Having thus received tidings of Sir Thomas Kennedy’s motions, he conceived the infernal purpose of having the confiding friend who sent the information waylaid and murdered at the place appointed to meet with him, not only in friendship, but for the purpose of rendering him service. He dismissed the messenger Dalrymple, cautioning the lad to carry back the letter to Maybole, and to say that he had not found him, Auchindrane, in his house. Having taken this precaution, he proceeded to instigate the brother of the slain Gilbert of Barganie, Thomas Kennedy of Drumurghie by name, and Walter Muir of Cloncaird, a kinsman of his own, to take this opportunity of revenging Barganie’s death. The fiery young men were easily induced to undertake the crime. They waylaid the unsuspecting Sir Thomas of Culleyne at the place appointed to meet the traitor Auchindrane, and the murderers having in company five or six servants well mounted and armed, assaulted and cruelly murdered him with many wounds.

The revenge due for his uncle’s murder was keenly pursued by the Earl of Cassilis. As the murderers fled from trial, they were declared outlaws; which doom being pronounced by three blasts of a horn, was called “being put to the horn, and declared the king’s rebel.” Muir of Auchindrane was strongly suspected of having been the instigator of the crime. But he conceived there could be no evidence to prove his guilt if he could keep the boy Dalrymple out of the way, who delivered the letter which made him acquainted with Culleyne’s journey, and the place at which he meant to halt. Muir brought Dalrymple to his house, but the youth tiring of this confinement, Muir sent him to reside with a friend, Montgomery of Skelmorley, who maintained him under a borrowed name amid the desert regions of the then almost savage island of Arran. Being confident in the absence of this material witness, Auchindrane, instead of flying like his agents Drumurghie and Cloncaird, presented himself boldly at the bar, demanded a fair trial, and offered his person in combat to the death against any of Lord Cassilis’ friends who might impugn his innocence. This audacity was successful, and he was dismissed without trial.

Still, however, Muir did not consider himself safe so long as Dalrymple was within the realm of Scotland; and the danger grew more pressing, when he learned that the lad had become impatient of the restraint which he sustained in the island of Arran, and returned to some of his friends in Ayrshire. Muir no sooner heard of this than he again obtained possession of the boy’s person, and a second time concealed him in Auchindrane, until he found an opportunity to transport him to the Low Countries, where he contrived to have him enlisted in Buccleuch’s regiment; trusting, doubtless, that some one of the numerous chances of war might destroy the poor young man whose life was so dangerous to him.

But after five or six years’ uncertain safety, bought at the expense of so much violence and cunning, Auchindrane’s fears were exasperated with frenzy, when he found this dangerous witness, having escaped from all the perils of climate and battle, had left, or been discharged from, the Legion of Borderers, and had again accomplished his return to Ayrshire. There is ground to suspect that Dalrymple knew the nature of the hold which he possessed over Auchindrane, and was desirous of extorting from his fears some better provision than he had found either in Arran or the Netherlands. But, if so, it was a fatal experiment to tamper with the fears of such a man as Auchindrane, who determined to rid himself effectually of this unhappy young man.

Muir now lodged him in a house of his own, called Chapeldonan, tenanted by a vassal and connection of his, named James Bannatyne. This man he commissioned to meet him at ten o’clock at night, on the sea-sands, near Girvan, and bring with him the unfortunate Dalrymple, the object of his fear and dread. The victim seems to have come with Bannatyne without the least suspicion. When Bannatyne and Dalrymple came to the appointed spot, Auchindrane met them, accompanied by his eldest son James. Old Auchindrane, having taken Bannatyne aside, imparted his bloody purpose of ridding himself of Dalrymple for ever, by murdering him on the spot. His own life and honour were, he said, endangered by the manner in which this inconvenient witness repeatedly thrust himself back into Ayrshire, and nothing could secure his safety but taking the lad’s life, in which action he requested James Bannatyne’s assistance. Bannatyne felt some compunction, and remonstrated against the cruel expedient, saying it would be better to transport Dalrymple to Ireland, and take precautions against his return. While old Auchindrane seemed disposed to listen to this proposal, his son concluded that the time was come for accomplishing the purpose of their meeting, and without waiting the termination of his father’s conference with Bannatyne, he rushed suddenly on Dalrymple, beat him to the ground, and kneeling down upon him, with his father’s assistance accomplished the crime, by strangling the unhappy object of their fear and jealousy. Bannatyne, the witness, and partly the accomplice, of the murder, assisted them in their attempt to make a hole in the sand with a spade which they had brought on purpose, in order to conceal the dead body. But as the tide was coming in, the hole which they made filled with water before they could get the body buried; and the ground seemed, to their terrified consciences, to refuse to be accessory to concealing their crime. Despairing of hiding the corpse in the manner they proposed, the murderers carried it out into the sea as deep as they dared wade, and there abandoned it to the billows, trusting that the wind, which was blowing off the shore, would drive these remains of their crime out to sea, where they would never more be heard of. But the sea, as well as the land, seemed unwilling to conceal their cruelty. After floating for some hours, or days, the body was, by the wind and tide, again driven on shore, near the very spot where the murder had been committed.

This attracted general attention; and when the corpse was known to be that of the same William Dalrymple whom Auchindrane had so often spirited out of the country, or concealed when he was in it, a strong and general suspicion arose that this young person had met with foul play from the bold bad man, who had shown himself so much interested in his absence. Auchindrane, indeed, found himself so much the object of suspicion from this new crime that he resolved to fly from justice, and suffer himself to be declared a rebel and an outlaw rather than face a trial. He accordingly sought to provide himself with some ostensible cause for avoiding the law, with which the feelings of his kindred and friends might sympathise; and none occurred to him as so natural as an assault upon some friend and adherent of the Earl of Cassilis. Should he kill such a one, it would be indeed an unlawful action, but so far from being infamous, would be accounted the natural consequence of the avowed quarrel between the families. With this purpose, Muir, with the assistance of a relative, of whom he seems always to have had some ready to execute his worst purposes, beset Hugh Kennedy of Garriehorne, a follower of the earl, against whom they had especial ill-will, fired their pistols at him, and used other means to put him to death. But Garriehorne, a stout-hearted man and well-armed, defended himself in a very different manner from the unfortunate knight of Culleyne, and beat off the assailants, wounding young Auchindrane in the right hand, so that he wellnigh lost the use of it.

But though Auchindrane’s purpose did not entirely succeed, he availed himself of it to circulate a report that if he could obtain a pardon for firing upon his feudal enemy with pistols, weapons declared unlawful by Act of Parliament, he would willingly stand his trial for the death of Dalrymple, respecting which he protested his total innocence. The king, however, was decidedly of opinion that the Muirs, both father and son, were alike guilty of both crimes, and used intercession with the Earl of Abercorn, as a person of power in these western counties, as well as in Ireland, to arrest and transmit them prisoners to Edinburgh. In consequence of the Earl’s exertions, old Auchindrane was made prisoner, and lodged in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh.

Young Auchindrane no sooner heard that his father was in custody, than he became as apprehensive of Bannatyne, the accomplice in Dalrymple’s murder, telling tales, as ever his father had been of Dalrymple. He therefore hastened to him, and prevailed on him to pass over for a while to the neighbouring coast of Ireland, finding him money and means to accomplish the voyage, and engaging in the meantime to take care of his affairs in Scotland. Secure, as they thought, in this precaution, old Auchindrane persisted in his innocence, and his son found security to stand his trial. Both appeared with the same confidence at the day appointed. The trial was, however, postponed, and Muir the elder dismissed, under high security to return when called for.

But King James, being convinced of the guilt of the accused, ordered young Auchindrane, instead of being sent to trial, to be examined under the force of torture, in order to compel him to tell whatever he knew of the things charged against him. He was accordingly severely tortured; but the result only served to show that such examinations are as useless as they are cruel.

Young Auchindrane, a strong and determined ruffian, endured the torture with the utmost firmness, and by the constant audacity with which, in spite of the intolerable pain, he continued to assert his innocence, he spread so favourable an opinion of his case, that the detaining him in prison, instead of bringing him to open trial, was censured as severe and oppressive. James, however, remained firmly persuaded of his guilt, and by an exertion of authority quite inconsistent with our present laws, commanded young Auchindrane to be still detained in close custody till further light could be thrown on these dark proceedings.

In the meanwhile, old Auchindrane being, as we have seen, at liberty on pledges, skulked about in the west, feeling how little security he had gained by Dalrymple’s murder, and that he had placed himself by that crime in the power of Bannatyne, whose evidence concerning the death of Dalrympie could not be less fatal than what Dalrymple might have told concerning Auchindrane’s accession to the conspiracy against Sir Thomas Kennedy of Culleyne. But though the event had shown the error of his wicked policy, Auchindrane could think of no better mode in this case than that which had failed in relation to Dalrymple. When any man’s life became inconsistent with his own safety, no idea seems to have occurred to this inveterate ruffian save to murder the person by whom he might himself be any way endangered. Bannatyne, knowing with what sort of men he had to deal, kept on his guard, and by this caution disconcerted more than one attempt to take his life. At length Bannatyne, tiring of this state of insecurity, and in despair of escaping such repeated plots, and also feeling remorse for the crime to which he had been accessory, resolved rather to submit himself to the severity of the law than remain the object of the principal criminal’s practices. He surrendered himself to the Earl of Abercorn, and was conveyed to Edinburgh, where he confessed before the king and council all the particulars of the murder of Dalrymple, and the attempt to hide his body by committing it to the sea.

When Bannatyne was confronted with the two Muirs before the Privy Council, they denied with vehemence every part of the evidence he had given, and affirmed that the witness had been bribed to destroy them by a false tale. Bannatyne’s behaviour seemed sincere and simple, that of Auchindrane more resolute and crafty. The wretched accomplice fell upon his knees, invoking God to witness that all the land in Scotland could not have bribed him to bring a false accusation against a master whom he had served, loved, and followed in so many dangers, and calling upon Auchindrane to honour God by confessing the crime he had committed. Muir the elder, on the other hand, boldly replied, that he hoped God would not so far forsake him as to permit him to confess a crime of which he was innocent, and exhorted Bannatyne in his turn to confess the practices by which he had been induced to devise such falsehoods against him.

The two Muirs, father and son, were therefore put upon their solemn trial, along with Bannatyne, in 1611, and after a great deal of evidence had been brought in support of Bannatyne’s confession, all three were found guilty. The elder Auchindrane was convicted of counselling and directing the murder of Sir Thomas Kennedy of Culleyne, and also of the actual murder of the lad Dalrymple. Bannatyne and the younger Muir were found guilty of the latter crime, and all three were sentenced to be beheaded. Bannatyne, however, the accomplice, received the king’s pardon, in consequence of his voluntary surrender and confession. The two Muirs were both executed. The younger was affected by the remonstrances of the clergy who attended him, and he confessed the guilt of which he was accused. The father also was at length brought to avow the fact, but in other respects died as impenitent as he had lived; and so ended this dark and extraordinary tragedy.

A TALE OF THE PLAGUE IN EDINBURGH.

BY ROBERT CHAMBERS, LL.D.

In several parts of Scotland, such things are to be found as “tales” of the Plague. Amidst so much human suffering as the events of a pestilence necessarily involved, it is of course to be supposed that, occasionally, circumstances would occur of a peculiarly disastrous and affecting description,—that many loving hearts would be torn asunder, or laid side by side in the grave, many orphans left desolate, and patriarchs bereft of all their descendants, and that cases of so painful a sort as called forth greater compassion at the time, would be remembered, after much of the ordinary details was generally forgotten. The celebrated story of Bessy Bell and Mary Gray is a case in point. So romantic, so mournful a tale, appealing as it does to every bosom, could not fail to be commemorated, even though it had been destitute of the great charm of locality. Neither could such a tale of suffering and horror as that of the Teviotdale shepherd’s family ever be forgotten in the district where it occurred,—interesting at it is, has been, and will be, to every successive generation of mothers, and duly listened to and shuddered at by so many infantine audiences. In the course of our researches, we have likewise picked up a few extraordinary circumstances connected with the last visit paid by the plague to Edinburgh; which, improbable as they may perhaps appear, we believe to be, to a certain extent, allied to truth, and shall now submit them to our readers.

When Edinburgh was afflicted, for the last time, with the pestilence, such was its effect upon the energies of the citizens, and so long was its continuance, that the grass grew on the principal street, and even at the Cross, though that Scottish Rialto was then perhaps the most crowded thoroughfare in Britain. Silence, more than that of the stillest midnight, pervaded the streets during the day. The sunlight fell upon the quiet houses as it falls on a line of sombre and neglected tombstones in some sequestered churchyard—gilding, but not altering, their desolate features. The area of the High Street, on being entered by a stranger, might have been contemplated with feelings similar to those with which Christian, in the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” viewed the awful courtyard of Giant Despair; for, as in that well-imagined scene, the very ground bore the marks of wildness and desolation; every window around, like the loopholes of the dungeons in Doubting Castle, seemed to tell its tale of misery within, and the whole seemed to lie prostrate and powerless under the dominion of an unseen demon, which fancy might have conceived as stalking around in a bodily form, leisurely dooming its subjects to successive execution.

When the pestilence was at its greatest height, a strange perplexity began, and not without reason, to take possession of the few physicians and nurses who attended the sick. It was customary for the distempered to die, or, as the rare case happened, to recover, on a particular day after having first exhibited symptoms of illness. This was an understood rule of the plague, which had never been known to fail. All at once, it began to appear that a good many people, especially those who were left alone in their houses by the death or desertion of friends, died before the arrival of the critical day. In some of these cases, not only was the rule of the disease broken, but, what vexed the physicians more, the powers of medicine seemed to have been set at defiance; for several patients of distinction, who had been able to purchase good attendance and were therefore considered as in less than ordinary danger, were found to have expired after taking salutary drugs, and being left with good hopes by their physicians. It almost seemed as if some new disease were beginning to engraft itself upon the pestilence—a new feature rising upon its horrid aspect. Subtle and fatal as it formerly was, it was now inconceivably more so. It could formerly be calculated upon; but it was now quite arbitrary and precarious. Medicine had lost its power over it. God, who created it in its first monstrous form, appeared to have endowed it with an additional sting, against which feeble mortality could present no competent shield. Physicians beheld its new ravages with surprise and despair; and a deeper shade of horror was spread, in consequence, over the public mind.

As an air of more than natural mystery seemed to accompany this truly calamitous turn of affairs, it was, of course, to be expected, in that superstitious age, that many would attribute it to a more than natural cause. By the ministers, it was taken for an additional manifestation of God’s wrath, and as such held forth in not a few pulpits, accompanied with all the due exhortations to a better life, which it was not unlikely would be attended with good effect among the thin congregations of haggard and terrified scarecrows, who persisted in meeting regularly at places of worship. The learned puzzled themselves with conjectures as to its probable causes and cures; while the common people gave way to the most wild and fanciful surmises, almost all of which were as far from the truth. The only popular observation worthy of any attention, was that the greater part of those who suffered from this new disease died during the night, and all of them while unattended.

Not many days after the alarm first arose, a poor woman arrested a physician in the street, and desired to confer with him a brief space. He at first shook her off, saying he was at present completely engaged, and could take no new patients. But when she informed him that she did not desire his attendance, and only wished to communicate something which might help to clear up the mystery of the late premature deaths, he stopped and lent a patient ear. She told him that on the previous night, having occasion to leave her house, in order to visit a sick neighbour, who lay upon a lonely death-bed in the second flat below her own garret, she took a lamp in her hand, that she might the better find her way down. As she descended the stair, which she described as a “turnpike,” or spiral one, she heard a low and inexpressibly doleful moan, as if proceeding from the house of her neighbour,—such a moan, she said, as she had ever heard proceed from any of the numerous death-beds it had been her lot to attend. She hastened faster down the stair than her limbs were well able to carry her, under the idea that her friend was undergoing some severe suffering, which she might be able to alleviate. Before, however, she had reached the first landing-place, a noise, as of footsteps, arose from the house of pain, and caused her to apprehend that all was not right in a house which she knew no one ever visited, in that time of desolation, but herself. She quickened her pace still more than before, and soon reached the landing-place at her neighbour’s door. Something, as she expressed it, seeming to “swoof” down the stair, like the noise of a full garment brushing the walls of a narrow passage, she drew in the lamp, and looking down beyond it, saw what she conceived to be the dark drapery of the back of a tall human figure, loosely clad, moving, or rather gliding, out of sight, and in a moment gone. So uncertain was she at first of the reality of what she saw, that she believed it to be the shadow of the central pile of the stair gliding downwards as she brought round the light; but the state of matters in the inside of the house soon convinced her, to her horror, that it must have been something more dreadful and real—the unfortunate woman being dead; though as yet it was three days till the time when, according to the old rules of the disease, she might have lived or died. The physician heard this story with astonishment; but as it only informed his mind, which was not free from superstition, that the whole matter was becoming more and more mysterious, he drew no conclusions from it; but simply observing, with a professional shake of the head, that all was not right in the town, went upon his way.

The old woman, who, of course, could not be expected to let so good a subject of gossip and wonderment lie idle in her mind, like the guinea kept by the Vicar of Wakefield’s daughters, forthwith proceeded to dissipate it abroad among her neighbours, who soon (to follow out the idea of the coin) reduced it into still larger and coarser pieces, and paid it away, in that exaggerated form, to a wider circle of neighbours, by whom it was speedily dispersed in various shapes over the whole town. The popular mind, like the ear of a sick man, being then peculiarly sensitive, received the intelligence with a degree of alarm, such as the news of a lost battle has not always occasioned amongst a people; and, as the atmosphere is best calculated for the conveyance of sound during the time of frost, so did the air of the plague seem peculiarly well fitted for the propagation of this fearful report. The whole of the people were impressed, on hearing the story, with a feeling of undefined awe, mixed with horror. The back of a tall figure, in dark long clothes, seen but for a moment! There was a picturesque indistinctness in the description, which left room for the imagination; taken in conjunction, too, with the moan heard at first by the old woman on the stair, and the demise of the sick woman at the very time, it was truly startling. To add to the panic, a report arose next day, that the figure had been seen on the preceding evening, by different persons, flitting about various stairs and alleys, always in the shade, and disappearing immediately after being first perceived. An idea began to prevail that it was the image of Death—Death, who had thus come in his personated form, to a city which seemed to have been placed so peculiarly under his dominion, in order to execute his office with the greater promptitude. It was thought, if so fantastic a dream may be assigned to the thinking faculty, that the grand destroyer, who, in ordinary times is invisible, might, perhaps, have the power of rendering himself palpable to the sight in cases where he approached his victims under circumstances of peculiar horror; and this wild imagination was the more fearful, inasmuch as it was supposed that, with the increase of the mortality, he would become more and more distinctly visible, till, perhaps, after having despatched all, he would burst forth in open triumph, and roam at large throughout a city of desolation.

It happened on the second day after the rise of this popular fancy, that an armed ship, of a very singular construction, and manned by a crew of strangely foreign-looking men, entered Leith harbour. It was a Barbary rover; but the crew showed no intention of hostility to the town of Leith, though at the present pass it would have fallen an easy prey to their arms, being quite as much afflicted with the pestilence as its metropolitan neighbour. A detachment of the crew, comprising one who appeared to be the commander, immediately landed, and proceeded to Edinburgh, which they did not scruple to enter. They inquired for the provost, and, on being conducted to the presence of that dignitary, their chief disclosed their purpose in thus visiting Edinburgh, which was the useful one of supplying it in its present distress with a cargo of drugs, approved in the East for their efficacy against the plague, and a few men who could undertake to administer them properly to the sick. The provost heard this intelligence with overflowing eyes; for, besides the anxiety he felt about the welfare of the city, he was especially interested in the health of his daughter, an only child, who happened to be involved in the common calamity. The terms proposed by the Africans were somewhat exorbitant. They demanded to have the half of the wealth of those whom they restored to health. But the provost told them that he believed many of the most wealthy citizens would be glad to employ them on these terms; and, for his own part, he was willing to sacrifice anything he had, short of his salvation, for the benefit of his daughter. Assured of at least the safety of their persons and goods, the strangers drew from the ship a large quantity of medicines, and began that very evening to attend as physicians those who chose to call them in. The captain—a man in the prime of life, and remarkable amongst the rest for his superior dress and bearing—engaged himself to attend the provost’s daughter, who had now nearly reached the crisis of the distemper, and hitherto had not been expected to survive.