Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XVI Part 25

M'Gregor went to the window, to see what he had no doubt was the last of his poor friend, Sullivan--and he soon had this melancholy satisfaction.

In a few minutes, the party appeared proceeding down the avenue, with Terence in the centre, mounted on one of the dragoon's horses--a favour which his uproarious good-fellows.h.i.+p at Duntruskin had procured for him.

He caught a sight of Malcolm just as he and his escort were about to take a turn in the road that would conceal them from each other, and waved an adieu, accompanied by one of his characteristic shouts, which, though plainly enough indicated by his gestures, was, from the distance, unheard by him for whose edification it was intended.

In about an hour after the departure of Terence Sullivan, the commanding officer of the party, who had been at Duntruskin House in the morning, appeared riding up the avenue at the head of his troop. In a few minutes afterward, he was again in the apartment with M'Gregor.

"We will now proceed, sir, if you please," he said, on entering. "Are you ready?"

"I believe I must say I am, sir," replied Malcolm, with as much composure as he could command.

"Nay," said the officer, who marked his agitation; "you need not say you are, if you are not. Is there anything you wish yet done before you go?

Any one you wish to see?"

"There is--there is one I wish to see, sir--one to whom I should have wished to have bidden farewell," said Malcolm, with an emotion which he could not conceal; "but I know not when she may be here, and----"

"She is here, Malcolm--she is here," said Grace, at this instant rus.h.i.+ng into the apartment.

Malcolm flew towards her. "G.o.d be thanked, Grace, you are come! I would have been miserable, if I had not seen you before I went. A few minutes later, Grace, and we should never have beheld each other more. We have now met," he added, "for the last time."

"No, no, Malcolm; we have not, we have not," said Grace, hurriedly, and in great agitation, taking a letter from her bosom, which, with a blush and a curtsey, she presented to Major Ormsby--the name of the officer already so often alluded to. He bowed as he received it; and, unfolding it, began to read. The perusal did not occupy him an instant. The matter was short but effective. Having read it, he advanced towards Malcolm with extended hand, and said--

"Allow me, sir, to congratulate you on your restoration to freedom, and to an immunity from all danger on account of certain late transactions which you wot of." And, as he said this, he smiled significantly. "You are at liberty, Mr M'Gregor. I have no more control over you, and have therefore to regret that I shall not have the pleasure of your company to Fort-George, as I expected."

"What does all this mean, sir?" inquired Malcolm, in the utmost amazement.

"Why, sir, it means simply that you are a free man," replied Major Ormsby. "And here is at once my authority for saying so and my warrant for releasing you." And he read:--

"This is to discharge all officers of his majesty's government, civil and military, and all other persons whatsoever, from apprehending, or in any other ways molesting, Malcolm M'Gregor, Esq. of Strontian, for his concern in the late rebellion; and, if he be already taken, this shall be sufficient warrant for those detaining him to set him at liberty, which they are hereby required to do forthwith.

"c.u.mBERLAND.

"_At Inverness, the 19th day of April, 1746._"

"Grace," exclaimed Malcolm, in a transport of joy, when Major Ormsby had concluded, "this is your doing, n.o.ble and generous girl. It is to you, and to you alone, that I am indebted for life and liberty. But how, how on earth, Grace, did you accomplish it?" he added, taking her affectionately by the hand.

The explanation was a brief one. She had gone to Inverness--had sought and obtained an interview with the Duke of c.u.mberland--had implored him for a pardon to her lover, and to the amazement of those who were present on the occasion, had succeeded. Her youth, her beauty, the natural eloquence of her appeal, and the romance of the circ.u.mstance altogether, had touched the merciless conqueror, and had betrayed him for once into an act of humanity and generosity.

After partaking of some refreshment, Major Ormsby with his troop left Duntruskin, and the happiness of Malcolm would have been complete only for one circ.u.mstance. This was the miserable situation of his poor friend, Sullivan; presenting, as it did, such a contrast to his own.

This, however, was a ground of unhappiness which was soon and most unexpectedly to be removed. In less than two hours after the departure of Major Ormsby, as Malcolm, Miss Cameron, and her father were sitting together, talking over the events of the preceding two or three days, to their inexpressible amazement, Sullivan suddenly burst into the apartment, with a loud shout.

"Haven't I done them, after all, Malcolm?" He exclaimed--"done them beautifully! Didn't I tell you, now, I would give the drunken rogues the slip somewhere? Och! and just give me a bottle of whisky in my fist, and I'll take in hand to bother a saint, let alone a serjeant of dragoons."

We need not describe the joy of the party whom Terence on this occasion addressed, when he appeared amongst them. It was very great, and very sincere. Terence, however, was immediately hurried off by M'Gregor, who dreaded an instant return of the dragoons in quest of him, to a place of concealment at a little distance from the house, where he remained for two days, when he was secretly conveyed by his friend to the coast, and embarked on board a small wherry, hired for the purpose, for his native land, where he arrived in safety on the evening of the following day.

Within a year after these occurrences, Grace Cameron was fully better known in the country by the name of Mrs M'Gregor, than by that which we have just written.

THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.

In the very midst of apparent contentedness and happiness, W---- B----, a merchant in Dumfermline, disappeared all at once. No one could tell whither he had gone; and his wife was just as ignorant of his destination or fate as any one else. That he had left the country, could not be supposed, because he had taken nothing with him; that he had made away with himself, was almost as unlikely, seeing that it is not generally in the midst of gaiety and good humour that people commit suicide. Every search, however, was made for him, but all in vain--no trace could be found of him, except that a person who had been near the old ruin called the Magazine, part of the old castle in the neighbourhood of the town, reported that, on the night when he disappeared, he, the narrator, heard in that quarter a very extraordinary soliloquy from the lips of some one in great agony; but that all his efforts (for it was dark) could not enable him to ascertain who or where he was. So far as he could recollect, the words of the person were as follows:--

"The self-destroyer has nae richt to expect a better place." (Groans.) "A' is dark and dismal--a thousand times mair sae than what my fancy ever pictured upon earth. But there will be licht sune, ay, and scorchin fires, and a' the ither terrors o' the place whar the wicked receive the reward o' their sins. If I had again the days to begin, which, when in the body, I spent sae fruitlessly and sinfully, hoo wad I be benefited by this sicht o' the very entrance to the regions o' the miserable? and yet does not the great Author o' guid strive, wi' a never-wearyin energy, by dreams and visions, and revelations and thoughts, which vain man tries to measure and value by the gauge o' his insignificant reason, to show him what I now see, and turn him to the practice o' a better life. This is a narrow pit--there is neither room for the voice o'

lamentation, nor for the struggle o' the restless limbs o' the miserable; the light, and the air, and the s.p.a.ce, and the view o' the blue heavens, and the fair earth, which mak men proud, as if they were proprietors o' the upper world, and sinfu, as if its joys were made for them, are vanished, and a narrow cell, nae bigger than my body, wi' nae air, nae licht, nae warmth--cauld, dark, lonely, and dismal--is the last and eternal place appointed for the wicked." (Groans.) "On earth men, though sinners, hae the companions.h.i.+p o' men; here my only companion is a gnawin conscience, the true fire o' the lower pit, and a thousand times waur than a' the imagined flames which haunt the minds o' the doers o' evil."

These dreadful words were spoken at intervals, and loud groans bespoke the agony of the sufferer. The individual who heard them, at a loss what to conceive, became alarmed, ran away to get a.s.sistance, and, in a short time, returned, with a companion and a light, to search among the old ruins for the individual who was thus apparently suffering under the imagined terrors of the last place of punishment. They looked carefully up and down throughout the place called the Magazine, among the ruins of the castle, and in every hole and cranny of the neighbourhood, but neither could they see any human being, nor hear again any of the extraordinary sounds which had chained the ear of the listener, and roused his terrors. The idea of a supernatural presence was the first that presented itself; and a ghost giving its hollow utterance to the lamentations of its suffering spirit, confined, doubtless, in some of the vaults of the castle, and struggling for that liberty which depends upon the performance of some penance upon earth, was the ready solution of a difficulty which defied all recourse to ordinary means of explanation. Having ascertained that nothing was to be seen or heard, the two friends returned to the town, where they told what had happened.

The disappearance about that time of W---- B---- suggested to many a more rational explanation of the mysterious affair; and a number of people adjourned to the Magazine, for the purpose of exploring its dark recesses more thoroughly, under the conviction that the missing individual might be concealed in some part that had not been searched.

Every effort was employed, in vain. They penetrated all the holes, and explored all the dark corners--nothing was to be seen, nothing heard; and the conclusion was arrived at, either that the narrator was deceiving or deceived, or that the spirit had ceased to issue its lamentations.

For many days and many years afterwards, no trace could be had of W----B----, nor was there ever even so much as whispered a single statement of any one who had seen him either alive or dead. The food for speculation which the mysterious affair afforded to the minds of the inhabitants was for a time increased by the total want of success which attended all the efforts of inquiry; and, after the fancies of all had been exhausted by the vain work of endeavouring to discover that which seemed to be hid by a higher power from human knowledge, the circ.u.mstance degenerated into one of the wonders of nature, supplying the old women with the material of a fireside tale, for the amus.e.m.e.nt or terror of children. But it would seem that the energies of vulgar everyday life are arrayed with inveterate hostility against the luxury of a mystery so greedily grasped at by all people, however thoroughly liberated from the prejudices of early education or of late sanctification; and accordingly, one day many years after the occurrences now mentioned, as some boys were amusing themselves among the ruins of the old castle, they discovered lying in a hole--called the Piper's Hole, from the circ.u.mstance of a piper having once entered it with a pair of bagpipes, which he intended to play on till he reached the end of it, but never returned--the body of a man, reduced to a skeleton, but retaining on his bare bones the clothes which he had worn when in life. It was the body of W---- B----. On searching his pockets, there was found in one of them a few pence, and in another a bottle, with a paper label, marked "Laudanum."

This discovery cleared up all mystery. The unfortunate man had intended to kill himself in such a way as would put his suicidal act beyond the knowledge of his friends, and had resorted to the extraordinary plan of creeping up into the dark and narrow pa.s.sage, where the action of the fatal soporific had produced the delusion that he was in the place appointed for the wicked, with the soliloquy already detailed, and then death. The physical mystery was cleared up; but a mystery of a moral nature remains, which will bid defiance to the revealing efforts of philosophers--the strength and peculiarity of feeling which, working on a sane mind, produced a purpose so extraordinary, and the resolution to carry it into effect.

END OF VOL. XVI