Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XVII Part 12

"Let him die!--let him die!" she exclaimed. "Is not his doom inevitable?

You will torture my Eugene by keeping in his life till the law demands its victim, and he may be carried--carried! O G.o.d!--to a second death, ten times more cruel than that which he is now suffering."

"No rejection of the pet.i.tion has been intimated," I replied; "and there is hope to the last grain in life's ebbing gla.s.s. It is not yet two years since a reprieve came to a prisoner, in this very jail, within three hours of the appointed term of his life. You have spoken from the impulse of an agony which has overcome the truer feelings of a mother and the better dictates of prudence."

"Small, small, indeed, is that hope which a mother may not see through the gloom of a despair such as mine," she replied. "But what means that dreadful noise in Eugene's cell?"

"Only the efforts of the men to keep him awake," replied I. "My duty requires my efforts in behalf of a fellow-creature to the last moment.

Reflect for an instant, and the proper feeling will again vindicate its place in the heart of a parent."

"Dreadful alternative!" she replied. "But, sir, hear me. I am his mother, and I tell you, from the divination of a mother's heart, that there will now be no respite. I say it again; it would be a relief to me if I heard, at this moment, that he had escaped by death that tragedy which will now be rendered a thousand times more painful to him and dreadful to me."

The father moved his eyes, and fixed them on the face of the mother of his boy, who, in her agony, thus called for his death in a form which bore even a shade of relief from the horror of what awaited the victim. It was, indeed, an extraordinary request; and told, as no words spoken by mortal had ever told, the pregnancy of an anguish that could seek for alleviation (if I may use so inadequate a phrase) from so fearful an alternative. All were, for a time, now silent, and there was no sound to be heard but the deep sobs of the daughter, as she recovered from her swoon; the struggle in the throat of the mother; and the shuffling and tramping in the cell of the prisoner.

"There is still hope," I whispered in the ear of the mother.

"None--none!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed again. "My Eugene! my Eugene!"

She reclined back, with her hands over her face, still sobbing out the name of her son. I pointed to the father to a.s.sist her, while I should go again to ascertain the state of the son; but he did not seem to understand me--retaining still his rigid position, and looking with the calmness of despair on the scene around him. Her silence continued but a few moments; and when she opened her eyes again, it was to fix them on me.

"What are you doing?" she exclaimed again. "What, in the name of heaven, are you doing to my Eugene?--Saving him for second, and still more cruel death. It might have been all over. Let me see him--let me see him!"

And she rose to proceed to the cell where her son was confined; but her strength failed her, and she again reclined helplessly back in her seat.

The clergyman's ministrations were called for by these uttered sentiments, which seemed so little in accordance with the precepts of Holy Writ, however natural to the bursting heart of the mother, to whom the reported death of her son, in his unparalleled situation might almost have been termed a boon. Retreating from a scene so fraught with misery, I hastened back to Eugene, who was still in the arms of the men. One of them whispered to me that he had spoken when he heard the shrill cry of his sister; but, immediately after, he relapsed again into stupor. The men complained of being exhausted by their efforts to keep him moving. His weight was now almost that of a dead body; and it was only at intervals that he made any struggles to move himself by the aid of his paralysed limbs. Two other individuals were got to relieve them; and the compulsory motions were continued. The lethargy had not altogether mastered the sentient powers; and, the operation having been stopped that I might examine his condition, he lifted his head slowly, looked round him with a vacant stare, and, after a few moments, muttered again the word "hour." I pulled out my watch, and told him that it was twenty minutes past one, he understood me, as I thought; and p.r.o.nouncing indistinctly "mother," he again sank into apparent listlessness. The men again resumed their work.

Meanwhile, a buzz from without intimated too distinctly that the mob was collecting to witness the fate of their townsman. There was no distinct sound, save that which a ma.s.s of people, under the depressing feelings of sorrow, seem to send forth involuntarily--making the air, as it were, thick, and yet with no articulation or distinct noise which can be caught by the ear of one at a distance, or within the walls of a house. Eugene, I am satisfied, was unable to recognise the faint indication. It was well for him. I learned, from the turnkey, that the sound of the hammer in the erection of the gallows had put him almost distracted, and precipitated the execution of the purpose, which he had wished to delay till after the arrival of the mail. I had little doubt that he might now be kept from the grasp of the death-stupor for the remaining three quarters of an hour; but, alas! what would be my triumph? Every minute added to the certainty that I was only preparing for him and his relations greater pain; for, in any view, he could not walk to the fatal spot without as much aid as might have sufficed to carry him; and it was even more than probable that he would be so overcome that that latter operation would require to be resorted to, under the stern sanction of a law that behoved to be put in force within a given time, or not at all. The case I am now describing might suggest some consideration worthy of the attention of our legislators, who, arrogating to themselves a license as wide as the limits of the human mind, deny all manner of discretion to the superintendents of the last execution of the law. We profess to be abhorrent from scenes of torture, as well as, on grounds of policy, hostile to a species of punishment which, indeed, defeats its own ends; and yet I could give more than one case where the substance has been retained in all its atrocity, while the form was veiled by flimsy excuses of a false necessity. My situation was now a very painful one indeed. I was training and supporting the victim for the altar; rescuing from death only to sacrifice him with more b.l.o.o.d.y rites and a crueller spirit of immolation. The words of his mother, wrung from the agony of a parent's love, rang in my ears; the look of the father--that of imbecile despair--was imprinted on my mind; the hour was fast on the wing; all hope had perished; and before me was the unfortunate youth, handsome, elegant, and interesting, even in the writhings of the master-fiend, suffering a death which was to be, in effect, repeated in another and a crueller form. I had seen him under circ.u.mstances of friends.h.i.+p, and the ebullitions of his generous spirit; and I was become, as I pictured to myself, his enemy, who would not allow him to die, to escape from shame and an increased agony of dissolving nature. Will I admit it? For a moment or two I hesitated; and, indeed, had half-resolved to tell the men to stop--the time might yet have sufficed for finis.h.i.+ng what he had begun. If he was not dead before two, he would, at least be beyond feeling; and, if the officials chose to take the last step of getting him carried to the gallows, they would in effect be immolating a corpse.

My better and calmer thoughts of duty, however, prevailed; and, in the meantime, I saw the prudence of preventing any meeting between Eugene and his parents, which could tend to nothing but an increase of pain on the side of those who were still able to feel--for, as regarded the young man himself, he was beyond the impulse of the feelings that might otherwise have been called up, even by such a scene. I was not even ill pleased to hear from the under turnkey, that the magistrates had given orders for the departure of the friends; though, for my own satisfaction, I wished that the father, who had still some command of himself, might visit his son for a few minutes, and sanction my proceedings with his approbation. I was informed also by the turnkey, that the father was resisting to the utmost of his power the efforts of the mother to get into the cell. He probably saw too clearly that in the excited condition in which she still remained, the scene might prove disastrous, as affecting either life or reason; and, if I could judge from what I myself felt in spite of the blunting effects of a long acquaintances.h.i.+p with misery in its various phases, there was good reason for his fears. The scene presented features

"Direr than incubus's haggard train."

I had just looked my watch--it wanted now only twenty minutes of the last hour. The order for the friends to quit the jail was about to be obeyed.

The father sent a messenger for me. I repaired to the cell; but to avoid the appeals of the mother and daughter, I beckoned him forth to the lobby.

He asked me whether he should see his son now that he was all but insensible, and could not probably recognise him. He feared that he could not stand the scene, for that the calmness he a.s.sumed was false! I replied that it certainly required no ordinary firmness; and yet the pain might in some degree be even lessened by the state of stupor and insensibility in which the youth still continued. He fixed his eyes on my face with an expression of forced and unnatural calmness, that pained me more than the death-like inanity of the still beautiful countenance of his son, or the hysterical excitement of the mother. He at last seized my hand and proceeded along to the cell hurriedly, as the turnkey was crying loudly for the friends to depart. We entered and stood for a moment. He stood and gazed at his son, as the latter was still kept moving by the men; but Eugene was apparently unconscious of the presence of his parents. A loud cry from the dense crowd who had a.s.sembled to witness the execution, struck my ear. I ran to the window, and saw a man in the act of coming off a horse, whose sides were covered with foam and blood. The cries of the crowd continued, and I could distinctly hear the word "_reprieve_" mixed with the shouts. Mr. D---- was at my back, and I felt his hands press me like a vice. The two men who were supporting Eugene, had also heard the sound, and, paralysed by the extraordinary announcement, they actually let the prisoner sink on the floor. The sound of his fall made me turn; the father had vanished, doubtless to meet the messenger, and communicate the tidings to his wife and daughter. A great bustle in the neighbouring cells succeeded. The two men stood and looked at me in silence. Eugene still lay on the floor, to all appearance insensible. By my orders he was immediately again lifted up, and dragged more violently than ever, backwards and forwards. In a few seconds, the turnkey came in, and struck off the irons, by which his ancle had been so severely torn that the blood flowed from it on the floor. He informed me that he was indeed reprieved, and that the fault of the delay was attributable to the authorities in London. I shouted in the ear of the young man the electric word; he lifted his head, looked wildly around him for a few seconds, and uttered a strange gurgling sound unlike any expression of the human voice I ever heard. I was indeed uncertain whether he understood me or not. In a few minutes more, the cell was crowded--the father, mother, and daughter, the chaplain, the messenger, and several of the officials, all bursting in, to see the condition of the criminal. To this I was not averse; because the more excitement that could be produced in the mind of the youth, the greater chance remained of our being able to keep off the deadly effects of the drug. A thousand times did the parent and mother sound into his dull ear the vocable pregnant with so much relief to him and his friends; but it was not until two hours afterwards that he was so far recovered as to understand perfectly the narrow escape he had made from death. In the evening he was conveyed home in a carriage; and, as they were leaving the jail, he looked out at the grim apparatus which had been erected for him, and which the workmen were removing in the midst of a dense crowd of citizens.

Some days afterwards, Eugene D---- had almost entirely recovered from the effects of the poison. One day when I called, I found him lying on a sofa, with his mother sitting by his side. She took her eyes off her son, and bent them on me till tears filled them.

"Before you entered," she said, "I was talking to Eugene about the request I made to you in the jail on that dreadful day, to let my son die.

Repeatedly since, have I thought of my wild words; but they know little of human nature, at least little of the feelings of a mother in my situation, who could brand them as unnatural, or doubt the sanity that recognised fully their effect."

"I am too well apprised, madam," I replied, "of the workings of that organ, whose changes often startle ourselves, to be surprised at the words you then made use of. I knew not, after all, if you did not exhibit as much heroism as Brutus, who condemned his son to death; certainly more than Zaleucus, who condemned his to the loss of an eye, having first submitted to the loss of his own, to make the love of a father quadrate with the justice of the law-giver."

"And what say you to yourself, to whom I owe the safety of my Eugene?" she added.

"An Acesias might have accomplished all that I accomplished, madam--for all I did was to keep off sleep; but, if the secret must needs be told, I had some doubts at least of the humanity of my proceedings, whatever I might have thought of my duty."

Eugene afterwards went to the East Indies, where he made a fortune. Some pecuniary embarra.s.sments afterwards overtook the family, on which occasion he sent them home the one half of the money he had made, whereby they were again placed in a condition of affluence. A present was also sent to me. It is not yet very many years ago since I saw Eugene. He had a.s.sumed another name in India, where he had married a very beautiful woman, and to whom he again returned.

THE UNBIDDEN GUEST,

OR, JEDBURGH'S REGAL FESTIVAL.

"In the mid revels, the first ominous night Of their espousals, when the room shone bright With lighted tapers--the king and the queen leading The curious measures, lords and ladies treading The self-same strains--the king looks back by chance, And spies a strange intruder fill the dance; Namely, a mere anatomy, quite bare, His naked limbs both without flesh and hair, (As we decipher Death,) who stalks about Keeping true measure till the dance be out."

_Heywood's Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels._

There is no river in this country which presents in its course, scenes more beautifully romantic than the little Jed. Though it exhibits not the dizzy cliffs where the eagles build their nests, the ma.s.s of waters, the magnitude and the boldness, which give the character of sublimity to a scene; yet, as it winds its course through undulating hills where the forest trees entwine their broad branches, or steals along by the foot of the red, rocky precipices, where the wild flowers and the broom blossom from every crevice of their perpendicular sides, and from whose summits the woods bend down, beautiful as rainbows, it presenteth pictures of surpa.s.sing loveliness, which the eye delights to dwell upon. It is a fair sight to look down from the tree-clad hills upon the ancient burgh, with the river half circling it, and gardens, orchards, woods, in the beauty of summer blossoming, or the magnificence of their autumnal hues, encompa.s.sing it, while the venerable Abbey riseth stately in the midst of all, as a temple in paradise. Such is the character of the scenery around Jedburgh now; and, in former ages, its beauty rendered it a favourite resort of the Scottish Kings.

About the year 1270, an orphan boy, named Patrick Douglas, herded a few sheep upon the hills, which were the property of the monks of Melrose. Some of the brotherhood, discovering him to be a boy of excellent parts, instructed him to read and to write; and perceiving the readiness with which he acquired these arts, they sought also to initiate him into all the learning of the age, and to bring him up for their order. To facilitate and complete his instructions, they had him admitted amongst them, as a _convert_ or lay-brother. But, though the talents of the shepherd boy caused him to be regarded as a prodigy by all within the monastery, from the Lord Abbot down to the kitchener and his a.s.sistants; yet, with Patrick, as with many others even now, gifts were not graces. He had no desire to wear the white ca.s.sock, narrow scapulary, and plain linen hood of the Cistertian brethren; neither did he possess the devoutness necessary for performing his devotions seven times a-day; and when the bell roused him at two in the morning, to what was called the _nocturnal_ service, Patrick arose reluctantly; for, though compelled to wedge himself into a narrow bed at eight o'clock in the evening, it was his wont to lie awake, musing on what he had read or learned, until past midnight; and, when the _nocturnal_ was over, he again retired to sleep, until he was aroused at six for _matins_; but, after these came other devotions, called _tierce_, the _s.e.xte_, the _none_, _vespers_, and the _compline_, at nine in the morning, at noon, at three in the afternoon, at six in the evening and before eight.

These services broke in on his favourite studies; and, possessing more talent than devotion, while engaged in them he thought more of his studies than of them. Patrick, therefore, refused to take the monastic vow. He

"had heard of war, And longed to follow to the field some warlike lord."

He, however, was beloved by all; and when he left the monastery, the Abbot and the brethren gave him their benediction, and bestowed gifts upon him.

He also carried with him letters from the Lord Abbot and Prior, to men who were mighty in power at the court of King Philip of France.

From the testimonials which he brought with him, Patrick Douglas, the Scottish orphan, speedily obtained favour in the eyes of King Philip and his n.o.bles, and became as distinguished on the field for his prowess and the feats of his arms, as he had been in the Abbey of Melrose for his attainments in learning. But a period of peace came; and he who was but a few years before a shepherd boy by Tweedside, now bearing honours conferred on him by a foreign monarch, was invited as a guest to the palace of the ill.u.s.trious Count of Dreux. A hundred n.o.bles were there, each exhibiting all the pageantry of the age; and there, too, were a hundred ladies, vying with each other in beauty, and in the splendour of their array. But chief of all was Jolande, the daughter of their host, the Count of Dreux, and the fame of whose charms had spread throughout Christendom. Troubadours sang of her beauty, and princes bent the knee before her. Patrick Douglas beheld her charms. He gazed on them with a mixed feeling of awe, of regret, and of admiration. His eyes followed her, and his soul followed them. He beheld the devoirs which the great and the n.o.ble paid to her, and his heart was heavy; for she was the fairest and the proudest flower among the French n.o.bility --he an exotic weed of desert birth. And, while princes strove for her hand, he remembered, he felt, that he was an orphan of foreign and of obscure parentage--a scholar by accident, (but to be a scholar was no recommendation in those days, and it is but seldom that it is one even now.) and a soldier of fortune, to whose name royal honours were not attached, while his purse was light, and who, because his feet covered more ground than he could call his own, his heels were denied the insignia of knighthood. Yet, while he ventured not to breathe his thoughts or wishes before her, he imagined that she looked on him more kindly, and that she smiled on him more frequently than on his lordly rivals; and his heart deceived itself, and rejoiced in secret.

Now, it was early in the year 1283, the evening was balmy for the season, the first spring flowers were budding forth, and the moon, as a silver crescent, was seen among the stars. The young scholar and soldier of unknown birth walked in the gardens of the Count of Dreux, and the lovely Jolande leaned upon his arm. His heart throbbed as he listened to the silver tones of her sweet voice, and felt the gentle pressure of her soft hand in his. He forgot that she was the daughter of a prince--he the son of a dead peasant. In the delirium of a moment, he had thrown himself on his knee before her, he had pressed her hand on his bosom, and gazed eagerly in her face.

She was startled by his manner, and had only said--"Sir! what means?"--though in a tone neither of reproach nor of pride, when what she would have said was cut short by the sudden approach of a page, who, bowing before her, stated that four commissioners having arrived from the King of Scotland, the presence of the Princess Jolande was required at the palace.

Patrick Douglas started to his feet as he heard the page approach, and as he listened to his words he trembled.

The princess blushed, and turning from Patrick, proceeded in confusion towards the palace; while he followed at a distance, repenting of what he had said, and of what he had done, or, rather, wis.h.i.+ng that he had said more, or said less.

"Yet," thought he, "she did not look on me as if I had spoken presumptuously! I will hope, though it be against hope--even though it be but the shadow of despair."

But an hour had not pa.s.sed, although he sought to hide himself with his thoughts in his chamber, when he heard that the commissioners who had arrived from his native land, were Thomas Charteris, the High Chancellor; Patrick de Graham, William de St Clair, and John de Soulis; and that their errand was to demand the beautiful Jolande as the bride and queen of their liege sovereign, Alexander the Third, yet called good.

Now, the praise of Alexander was echoed in every land. He was as a father to his people, and as a husband to his kingdom. He was wise, just, resolute, merciful. Scotland loved him--all nations honoured him. But Death, that spareth not the prince more than the peasant, and which, to short-sighted mortals, seemeth to strike alike at the righteous and the wicked, had made desolate the hearths of his palaces, and rendered their chambers solitary. Tribulation had fallen heavily on the head of a virtuous King. A granddaughter, the infant child of a foreign prince, was all that was left of his race; and his people desired that he should leave behind him, as inheritor of the crown, one who might inherit also his name and virtues. He was still in the full vigour of his manhood, and the autumn of years was invisible on his brow. No "single silverings" yet marked the raven ringlets which waved down his temples; and, though his years were forty and three, his appearance did not betoken him to be above thirty.

His people, therefore, wished, and his courtiers urged, that he should marry again; and fame pointed out the lovely Jolande, the daughter of the Count of Dreux, as his bride.

When Patrick Douglas, the learned and honoured, but fortuneless soldier, found that his new compet.i.tor for the hand of the gentle Jolande was none other than his sovereign, he was dumb with despair, and the last, the miserable _hope_ which it imparts, and which maketh wretched, began to leave him. He now accused himself for having been made the sacrifice of a wild and presumptuous dream, and again he thought of the kindly smile and the look of sorrow which met together on her countenance, when, in a rash, impa.s.sioned moment, he fell on his knee before her, and made known what his heart felt.

But, before another sun rose, Patrick Douglas, the honoured military adventurer of King Philip, was not to be found in the palace of the Count de Dreux. Many were the conjectures concerning his sudden departure; and, amongst those conjectures, as regarding the cause, many were right. But Jolande stole to her chamber, and in secret wept for the brave stranger.

More than two years pa.s.sed away, and the negotiations between the Courts of Scotland and of France, respecting the marriage of King Alexander and Fair Jolande, were continued; but, during that period, even the name of Patrick Douglas, the Scottish soldier, began to be forgotten--his learning became a dead letter, and his feats of arms continued no longer the theme of tongues. It is seldom that kings are such tardy wooers; but between the union of the good Alexander and the beautiful Jolande many obstacles were thrown. When, however, their nuptials were finally agreed to, it was resolved that they should be celebrated on a scale of magnificence such as the world had not seen. Now, the loveliest spot in broad Scotland, where the Scottish King could celebrate the gay festivities, was the good town of Jedworth, or, as it is now called, Jedburgh. For it was situated, like an Eden, in the depth of an impenetrable forest; gardens circled it; wooded hills surrounded it; precipices threw their shadows over flowery glens; wooded hills embraced it, as the union of many arms; waters murmured amidst it; and it was a scene on which man could not gaze without forgetting, or regretting his fallen nature. Yea, the beholder might have said--"If the earth be yet so lovely, how glorious must it have been ere it was cursed because of man's transgression!"

Thither, then, did the Scottish monarch, attended by all the well-affected n.o.bles of his realm, repair to meet his bride. He took up his residence in the castle of his ancestors, which was situated near the Abbey, and his n.o.bles occupied their own, or other houses, in other parts of the town; for Jedburgh was then a great and populous place, and, from the loveliness of its situation, the chosen residence of royalty. (It is a pity but that our princes and princesses saw it now, and they would hardly be again charmed with the cold, dead, and bare beach of Brighton.) An old writer (I forget whom) has stated, in describing the magnitude of Jedburgh in those days, that it was six times larger than Berwick. This, however, is a mistake, for Berwick, at that period, was the greatest maritime town in the kingdom, and surpa.s.sed London, which strove to rival it.

On the same day that King Alexander and his splendid retinue reached Jedburgh, his bride, escorted by the n.o.bles of France and their attendants, also arrived. The dresses of the congregated thousands were gorgeous as summer flowers, and variegated as gorgeous. The people looked with wonder on the glittering throng. The trees had lost the hues of their fresh and living green--for brown October threw its deep shadows o'er the landscape--but the leaves yet trembled on the boughs from which they were loath to part; and, as a rainbow that had died upon the trees, and left its hues and impression there, the embrowning forest appeared.

The marriage ceremony was performed in the Abbey, before Morel, the Lord Abbot, and glad a.s.sembled thousands. The town and the surrounding hills became a scene of joy. The bale-fires blazed from every hill; music echoed in the streets; and from every house, while the light of tapers gleamed, was heard the sounds of dance and song. The Scottish maiden and the French courtier danced by the side of the Jed together. But chief of all the festive scene was the a.s.sembly in the hall of the royal castle. At the farther end of the apartment, elevated on a purpled covered dais, sat King Alexander, with the hand of his bridal queen locked in his. On each side were ranged, promiscuously, the Scottish and the French n.o.bility, with their wives, daughters, and sisters. Music lent its influence to the scene, and the strains of a hundred instruments blended in a swell of melody.