Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume III Part 14

During this interval, c.o.c.kburn rose; and, dressing himself, went quietly out of the chamber--his movements having only tended to give some new impulse to her half-dreamy sensations, ineffectual as they were to recall her to the cares of a night vigil. A loud crash was the first sound that awoke her; and opening her eyes, and becoming collected, she recognised, in the sharp sound, the grating fall of the portcullis. A shrill horn now winded among the woods, though its sound was scarcely distinguishable among the repressed bellowings of the night winds that seemed to have risen considerably since she had been overcome by her slumber. She was satisfied that the whole retinue, with her husband at their head, were off to the beetling Castle of Tus.h.i.+elaw, from whose heights so many a riever had been precipitated into the Ettrick.

This conviction, coming, as it did, on the back of a disturbed slumber, in which her dreams had partaken of the dire nature of a nightmare, increased her fears. She could rest no longer, and rising and dressing herself, she sat down at the cas.e.m.e.nt, and listened to ascertain if any of the sounds of the cavalcade could be distinguished. She could satisfy herself of enough to indicate the route they had taken--away over the hills that separate the vales of Ettrick and Yarrow, and by the path that has since got the name of the King's Road, leading directly to the Tower of Tus.h.i.+elaw. But a quick and threatening change in the weather soon attracted her attention. The booming of the wind seemed to cease, and, shortly after, the clouds, through the openings of which the moon had been seen labouring during the previous part of the night, appeared to run rapidly together, so as to conceal the face of the night queen, and to present a h.o.m.ogenous ma.s.s of dark vapour over all the heavens. A flash of vivid lightning now flared in her eyes, and left her for a moment in suspense whether she had not been blinded by the bright fluid; then on came the peal of thunder, which reverberating among the mountains like discharges of artillery, filled her with that peculiar awe which the speaking clouds throw over the hearts of mortals. The rain came down in torrents, and had scarcely begun to pour, when the speat-rills of the high lands were heard das.h.i.+ng down like angry spirits to swell the Henderland Burn and the Megget, and raise the fury of these mountain streams. The sound of the thunder had awoke the children, who, leaving in terror their beds, came running to their mother, to seek that protection which could alone allay their fears. Circling round her knees, they hid their heads among the folds of her clothes, or clambered to her bosom, and twined their arms round her neck. It was in vain she asked them to return to bed; they conceived themselves safer on the breast of their mother, though she still sat at the cas.e.m.e.nt, and the lightning glanced in their eyes, than they could be in their beds, m.u.f.fled up in the bedclothes, and listening to the successive peals of thunder. As she sat in this att.i.tude, with the children cowering into her bosom, like little chickens under the wing of their mother, she observed that the thunder approached nearer and nearer, as the period between the flash and the peal diminished gradually to a second; and a sudden flash among the trees, accompanied with a crackling noise, connected with some destructive operation of the bolt, indicated that mischief had been done in that quarter of the wood. It was where the elm stood, the subject of Merlin's rhyme; and this circ.u.mstance sent the current of her thoughts in that direction, where there was so much aliment for her excited fancy. She silently prayed that the tree might be destroyed; and its towering top, above all others of the wood, held out some hope that her strange wish might be realized.

The sound of a man's voice--that of d.i.c.k of the Muir, as he was styled--the individual who kept the gate of the Tower--was heard shouting to some one without, in reply to some request made by the latter. It was now about two in the morning, and Marjory could not conceive what could be the purpose of the stranger's visit at that dreary hour.

"What want ye wi' my Leddie at this time, man?" said d.i.c.k. "My master's frae hame, and my commission doesna extend to opening the gate to strangers on night visits."

"But I'm nae stranger, d.i.c.k," replied the other. "I served the c.o.c.kburns before ye was born, and hae wandered many a weary step, in the midst o'

this storm, to speak a word to the ear o' my Leddie. The time o' my visit is a good sign o' the importance o' my counsel. For G.o.d's sake, open, man! or ye may rue this hour to that o' your deein struggle, when Laird and Leddie may be in the moil there, ahint the auld chapel, and a'

through the laziness o' their warder."

"Raff i' the mire!" cried the warder--saluting him after the custom of the times, when every man had a distinctive appellation, in the absence of sirnames. "I took ye, man, for ane o' Tus.h.i.+elaw's scouts."

The creaking of the hinges of the gate was now heard.

"What brings ye frae Peebles, man?" continued the warder, "in sic a night as this, when a witch wouldna venture on the Skelf Hill, far less owre North Berwick Law."

"It's no to tell ye that Merlin's elm has fa'en," rejoined Ralph; "but three oaks on three sides o't are lying on the earth, and that stately tree may be a gallows still. You say, Henderland's frae hame. I'm glad o' the news. It's his leddie I want to see: an' she maun be roused frae her couch to speak to her auld servitor. Time bides nae man; neither does King James."

Another peal of thunder drowned the conversation of the man: and Marjory, rousing her little refugees, urged them to return to their beds, that she might be left to hear the intelligence of this midnight messenger, whose words already, so far as she had heard them, carried tokens of evil. His reference to the king struck a chord that prior solitude had made sensitive; and even the remark as to the tree that had escaped the bolt, had in it a peculiar power over her shattered nerves.

Her fears operated upon the children, who, even to the youngest, put strange questions to her.

"Why are you here, mother, in the lightning?" cried Hector.--"And where is my father?" inquired Helen.--"See that flash again!" said Margaret, as she buried her head in her mother's bosom.

"Poor, helpless, little ones!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed she. "How little know ye that that which fears ye most, is to me the smallest of my terrors! If man's wrath were quenched, heaven's would be easily averted. This messenger's intelligence may seal your fates, and be felt in its consequences to the last term of your lives. Come, loves, to bed. Hear ye that foot in the stair?"

The allusion to a mysterious visitor accomplished what the lightning of heaven could not effect--such is the secret power of mystery over the young heart. Rising from her lap, they hurried away to their beds, and left the not less terrified mother to hear the intelligence of the night messenger. The door opened, and Ralph stood before her.

"G.o.d be thanked, my Leddie c.o.c.kburn," said he, in a repressed voice, and with fearful looks--"G.o.d be thanked, for Henderland's absence! The king, wi' his n.o.bles, are at Peebles, on their way to Liddesdale, to tak vengeance on the chiefs o' the Borders, wha hae been foremost in the foray and the rieving raid. They whisper yonder that there's a hangman in the train, wi' ropes, to hang the ring-leaders on their castle b.u.t.tresses; and Henderland is to be their first victim. O my Leddie!

dispatch, quick as thae flashes o' levin, a messenger to the master, and tell him to flee to England, till the king's wrath has blawn owre. I hae braved this awful storm, auld as I am, to save my master; and, if I but saw him safe frae the king's ire, I could lay my banes at the foot o'

the grave o' the c.o.c.kburns."

"I have been looking for this Ralph," answered Marjory, as she lifted her hands to seize her hair, in her distress. "Even now, G.o.d be merciful! my husband is in the very act of rieving and rebellion. But what said ye of Merlin's Elm, man? Is it not skaithed? Speak, no secrets now; are the trees beside it blasted, and does it stand?"

"I hae heard yer Leddies.h.i.+p laugh at that auld rhyme," replied the servitor. "Fear naething for a madman's freak. But it's true that three oaks by its side are blasted, riven and laid on the earth, and yet it stands."

"Strange, strange are the ways of heaven," cried she, wringing her hands. "Ralph, you must be the messenger to my husband. Haste and saddle my grey jennet, and flee by the Riever's Road, to Tus.h.i.+elaw. Tell Henderland and Adam Scott, that King James comes, with a halter, to avenge the rights of royalty and peace. Cry it forth in the midst of their battle. If he will not flee, take his horse's head, and lead him to England. Away, away, for mercy and Henderland's sake, good Ralph, and whisper in his ear--hark ye, man, 'tis no woman's dream--whisper the fate of Lailoken's tree. The thunder may drown his laugh."

The faithful servant obeyed the command of his former mistress; and, hastening as fast as his old limbs would enable him, mounted Marjory's grey jennet, and was soon out in the midst of the storm. The only remaining servant left in the tower, besides the warder, was, at the same time, despatched, by his half-frantic mistress, to proceed on the road to Peebles, and reconnoitre the king's company, and convey to her what intelligence he could learn in regard to its movements. By this time it was now about three o'clock; but the morning was still dark, the storm had not abated, the rain still poured, the lightning flashed, and the neighbouring streams rolled over their rugged channels with a noise that equalled the thunder which yet shook the heavens. Marjory again took her seat on the cas.e.m.e.nt; and her fancy, stimulated by her fears, became again busy in the conjuration of images which, however fearful, unhappily stood too great a chance of being realized. The substratum of indisputable facts was itself a good foundation of fear:--The king, angry, and breathing revenge against his rebellious subjects of the Border, was at hand--even within a few miles of her husband's residence; and the ensign of his authority and punishment was borne by the common executioner; then he would detect her husband in the very commission of that rebellious act against which the royal vengeance was to be directed; and, above all, she feared--nay, she was certain, from her knowledge of Henderland's free, bold spirit, that he would disdain to fly, and would at once commit himself into the hands of a young incensed monarch, who had travelled forty miles for his blood. These were fearful, incontrovertible facts, and they were contemplated by a solitary female in the dark hour of night, in the midst of one of the fiercest storms that had ever visited that part of the country, and under the blue lights of a fancy that, in spite of the appeals of judgment, reverted to an old prophecy of a wonderful being, which seemed to have been respected even by the lightning of heaven: the elm still stood; its brethren of the forest had fallen; and the rope to be attached to it was on its way to Henderland. Fearful forebodings took possession of her mind; and, as her fears rose higher and higher, she looked out in the dark, while the gleams of lightning played round her couch, and every sound that differed from the roaring of the storm arrested her ear, and kept her on the rack of painful anxiety. Her little children, meanwhile, who had caught sympathetically her fears, and could not divine the cause of their mother's vigil by the window in a thunder storm, had renounced sleep; and, disregarding her efforts to restrain them, must see her at intervals, and question her again and again; and even from their sleeping apartment they sent their exclamations of fear, and aggravated, by their sorrows and terror, the misery of their mother.

In this condition Marjory remained for another hour. There was no stir in the tower, where a female domestic or two lay, or slipped about, under the weight of a fear, the cause of which had not been explained to them. The silence internally, broken at times by the cries of the restless children, formed a strange and awe-inspiring contrast to the turmoil without, where darkness and the storm still held sway over the earth. Oppressed by the sight of the black heavens, she yet trembled to look for the first glimpse of dawn, which might be soon expected to be seen struggling through the vapours of the storm. Light would bring the king and the executioner; and she prayed that she might have an opportunity of seeing her husband before the arrival of the royal cavalcade, that she might fall on her knees, and implore his instant flight into England; but her ears caught no sounds in the direction of Tus.h.i.+elaw, save the thunder and the rain, and, at intervals, the scream of the drenched owl or frightened hawk, or the wheep of the restless lapwing, driven from the mora.s.s by the overwhelming torrent. Then came the cry again, of "Mother, mother!" from her sleepless children, responded to by her own, "Hush, hush, my darlings! your father cometh!"

when her pained ear sought again the direction of Peebles, and she trembled as her fancy suggested the sound of hoof or horn.

Thus another hour pa.s.sed, and her racked feelings were still uncheered by a glimpse of hope. The strength of her soul seemed to have pa.s.sed into the physical organs of the eye and ear; and every change, from darkness or silence, produced exacerbations of her fear, and painful apprehension. The faint shade of light in the eastern heavens, which gave tokens of the approaching dawn, might be a precursor of the king and his retinue; and as her eye fell upon it, she listened again for the coming tread. A very faint sound was now heard, and it was too evident that it came not from Tus.h.i.+elaw; it was from the direction of Peebles, and it sounded as if it were the tread of a horse. It must be, she instantly thought, the scout of the king's cavalcade; for, in her painful anxiety, she had forgotten her own messenger. The step approached nearer and nearer; and more intense, in the same degree, grew her apprehension, till the sound of her messenger's voice, calling the warder, struck her ear--and she imagined she never heard a voice so hollow and ominous of death. The man was admitted, and his heavy step up the spiral stair, fl.u.s.tering in the toil of a vain precipitude in the dark entrance, declared the impatience of his intelligence.

"Ah! my Leddie," said he, as he ran forward, breathlessly and fearfully, "Ralph spoke truth. The king's party will be at the castle in less time than an eagle may flee frae Dunyon to Ruberslaw. I hae seen them. They carry torches to shew them the hill-paths, and keep them oot o' the saft bogs. The light shone fearfully on the hill-sides, and the clatter o'

their horses' hoofs rang in my ears. I had seen enough, and made the greatest speed to bring the ill news."

"c.o.c.kburn, c.o.c.kburn," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the disconsolate wife, "what power may now save ye from thy fate? His proud spirit will disdain flight--ay, and prompt a meeting with his executioner. What has become of Ralph?

Everything conspires toward the ruin of my hopes. You must to Tus.h.i.+elaw, Thomas, and give a second warning to your master. Tell him of this torch-light progress of the royal executioner, and warn him again to fly for his life, and the life of one who lives through him. Yet, stay--shall I not go myself? One messenger hath failed already--shall a wife fail in the cause of her husband's life?"

"The mountain torrents are swelled, my Leddie," replied Thomas of the Woodburn, "an' will be noo sweepin owre the Riever's Road, carryin baith man an' horse to the howes; an' nane but an auld hill-roadster may ken the richt tract frae that to ruin in the midst o' the darkness. Ye micht as weel try to pa.s.s the Brig o' Dread, my Leddie. Yer bonnie body wad be fund a corpse wi' the mornin's licht, an' c.o.c.kburn, pardoned by the king maybe, micht greet owre't. Besides, ye should be here. A woman's voice turns awa meikle wrath."

"Away, then, yourself, good Thomas!--I believe your counsel is good.

Heaven speed the message! c.o.c.kburn's delay gives me a glimmer of hope, that Ralph hath already turned his head to England. If so be it, you will report to me privately, and away from the ear of the king's followers. If not, and if he cometh to meet the king, heaven look down in mercy on these poor children, who still cry for their mother, and will not rest!"

Thomas obeyed; and, as she turned to comfort her children, before she again betook herself to her weary station, she heard the clatter of the horse's heels over the gateway. The restlessness of her little ones pained her: she imagined she saw, in their instinctive anxiety and fear, some presage of coming evil, whereby, before another night, they might be orphans; and all her efforts to remove the impression only tended to confirm it--thus strangely and fantastically prophetic, is the apprehensive heart. After again a.s.suring them that their father was coming, she sought her seat at the cas.e.m.e.nt; and saw, now, the grey dawn, throwing a stronger light over the bleak hills, and exhibiting the white, foaming cataracts, das.h.i.+ng from brae to brae! Any hope of seeing c.o.c.kburn, now, before the coming of the king, had gradually dwindled away, and was extinct; and she as much feared to hear a sound from the direction of Tus.h.i.+elaw, as she, an hour before, was anxious for that indication of her husband's approach. Every instant she might expect to hear the tramp of the king's horses; nothing could avert that sound from her ear, or prevent it beating upon her heart. It came at last; she heard it audibly, mixed with the discordant jingle of armour, and striking her ear at the same time that a horrid glare of torch-light pierced the deep wood, and arrested her eye. In a few minutes more, a trumpet sounded a shrill blast; the feet of many restless horses raised a confused noise, that was mixed with broken, under-toned e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, and clanking of swords and bucklers, and, after a minute or two of comparative silence, came the high tones of a herald's voice, demanding admittance in the name of King James. The warder repaired to his mistress, and got his answer. The gate was opened, and Marjory saw the cavalcade enter the base court surrounding the castle; while two large bodies of soldiers, coming up about the same time, took their stations on each side of the entrance. A circle was now formed by those who were within the court; and the grim faces of the n.o.bles, as they reflected the glare of the torches, were revealed clearly to her gaze. In the middle stood the young king, in close and secret counsel with his confidential advisers, and, at last, the warder was called before his Majesty, to account for the absence of his master, tell where he had gone, and record his proceedings. The man reluctantly obeyed the call.

"Where is thy master, sirrah?" inquired the king.

The warder was silent, and the question was repeated in sterner tones.

"I keep only this castle, your Highness," replied the warder; "my master is his ain keeper--an' a better there's no between the twa Tynes."

"Thou art a good keeper of thine own tongue, at least," said James, angrily; "but we come not from court unprepared with remedies for opening the mouths of close-hearted seneschals. Let Lithcraig attend."

An opening was now made in the circle of n.o.bles, and a man, dressed in a long black doublet, came forward, holding in his hands a rope, ready to be suspended, and to suspend, in its turn, the disobedient warder.

"Throw thy cord over the b.u.t.tress, there," cried one of the n.o.bles; "give the noose mouth enough to tell its own tale, and I will answer for it bringing out his."

The man proceeded forward to a b.u.t.tress of the castle completely exposed to the eyes of Marjory, by the gleams that flared from the torches; and she saw him deliberately go through the operation of making the projection available for the purpose of a gallows, by binding the cord to it, and suspending a running noose, which seemed to gape in grim gesture for its victim. The moment the rope was suspended, James pointed to it, and asked the warder to proceed and answer his questions. The terrified man cast a wild eye on the relentless crowd around him, and then on the engine of death that dangled before him, and, with faltering tongue, told the king that c.o.c.kburn had gone on a midnight raid against Adam Scott of Tus.h.i.+elaw, who, some time before, had made an a.s.sault on Henderland, and carried off twenty head of cattle, besides wounding several of c.o.c.kburn's men; he stated, farther, that there had been many raids of late in Liddesdale; but that his master had had, until Tus.h.i.+elaw roused him, scarcely any share in these struggles, preferring the society of his lady, the fairest and the kindest woman of the Borders, to the pleasures of rieving. This statement was received as evidence against c.o.c.kburn.

All these transactions had been narrowly watched by Marjory, who was now more and more satisfied that the doom of her husband was sealed, if he made his appearance before the king in the humour he now exhibited.

She saw them bind the warder with ropes until their trial was over, that he might remain in pledge for the truth of his statements; and the heads again held counsel on the next step they should take in the unexpected event of the "traitor," as they called him, not being found at home, notwithstanding of their attempted surprise by a night visit. These doings had occupied as much time as allowed the glimmer of early dawn to pa.s.s into a grey light, that, while it did not render the torches unnecessary, exhibited in strange and grotesque shades the group of dark figures, their changing faces, moving heads, and inauspicious gestures, on which the gleams of the torches flickered faintly, in struggles with the rising morn. Above them, the dangling noose claimed her averted eye, and sent through her nerves s.h.i.+vers that seemed to make the blood run back in the veins, and stagnate about the heart. In any other position but that in which she was placed, she would have made the castle ring with involuntary screams; and it was only the intense anxiety with which she watched every sound in the distance, in the struggling hope that c.o.c.kburn would not make his appearance, that bound her down in the silent, breathless mood which she now exhibited. Neither could she have borne the extraordinary spectacle below her cas.e.m.e.nt, had it not been that her wish to watch every indication in the direction of Tus.h.i.+elaw, overcame the feelings inspired by the moving tumult of fierce men that waited there for the blood of her husband. Sometimes the thought found its way through her anxiety--why did they not call for or visit her? But the solution was not difficult; for she knew that men bent on purposes of cruelty, do not court the mediation of women. And then again she meditated, for a moment, a descent to them, and an attempt, by throwing herself at the feet of the king, to secure, by antic.i.p.ation, mercy to her husband, when he might, if ever he should, be found. This last thought was pa.s.sing through her mind, and she had intuitively drawn her clothes around her bosom, as a preparation for her rising resolution, when her husband's horn, in all its well-known windings, struck her ear.

That sound had hitherto inspired the pulses of a living heart, and sent through her veins the delightful tumult of a gratified hope; it had been the prelude to the close embrace of affection; the flourish of joy on the meeting again of separated hearts. It was now the death-knell of both. She would have sunk to the ground as the sound fell on her ear, but that the recess of the cas.e.m.e.nt sustained her powerless frame. After a few moments of insensibility, she again opened her eyes; and the first vision that presented itself to her, was her husband marching into the castle between two rows of the king's troops. He came n.o.bly forward, with a free, erect carriage, and a look undaunted by the scowls that fell on him from every side. On coming up to the king, who stood in a haughty, indignant att.i.tude, he was prepared to throw himself at his feet, when his eye caught the rope, with the noose at the end of it, hanging from the b.u.t.tress. He started, and threw a hurried look up to the cas.e.m.e.nt, where Marjory sat watching his every movement; but his fort.i.tude returned again, and making a step forward, he threw himself at the feet of the king.

"Here doth an humble subject," he said, "deposit the loyalty he oweth to his lawful king."

"On the eve, or in the midst of rebellion," cried James, in ironical anger. "Seize the rebel! One caught in the act, maketh a good beginning.

Four reigns of Jameses have been merely borne or suffered, by beggarly tolerance, by these Border sovereigns, and the best part of a kingdom made an arena for the strife of the contention of petty kings, who rob, and steal, and kill on all hands, heedless whether the victim be king or knave. This shall be ended--by the faith of Scotland's king it shall!

'Habit and repute,' is good evidence by our old law against common thieves; and I ask my n.o.bles, too good a jury for such caitiffs, what a common thief deserves?"

"To be strung up to the b.u.t.tress," replied several voices, in deep hollow sounds, that rung fearfully round the recesses of the ballium, and reached the ear of Marjory.

"Parys c.o.c.kburn of Henderland," cried James, "hath, by a jury of our n.o.bles, been deemed worthy to die the death of a thief, and a rebel against our authority. Let him be forthwith hanged till he be dead, on the b.u.t.tress of his own tower, as an example to evil doers in time to come."

A quick movement of simultaneous, and, in many cases, intuitive agitation, followed this order. Two men seized the unfortunate gentleman, and proceeded to bind his hands behind his back, while the executioner proceeded to let go the end of the rope, so as to bring within his reach the noose, which had previously been purposely elevated, so as to be more exposed to the eyes of the beholders. Every step of these proceedings was observed by Marjory from her seat at the window; and it was not till she saw the men lay hold of her husband, and the executioner proceed to adjust the rope, that she ceased to be able to watch the details of this extraordinary mock trial and real condemnation. At that moment she uttered a loud scream, and fell on the floor in a state of insensibility, from which she was roused by her little daughter, Helen, who had come from her bed to ascertain her mother's illness. Rising in a state of frenzy, she sought the door of the apartment, with a view to throw herself between the king and her husband; but the door was locked in the outside--a precaution, doubtless, taken by the king's orders, to prevent a scene of a woman's unavailing grief. The prospect, now, of being forced to remain in a chamber a few feet above the gallows on which her husband, and the object of her strongest and softest affections, was to be suspended, and hanged like a common malefactor, rose on her bewildered view. Though she might place her hands over her eyes, the _sound_ of his death would reach her ear--the jerk of the fatal cord, the struggle of the choking breath, the last sigh of her beloved Parys, would come to her, and reason might remain to bear it. If she could close up both eyes and ears, her fancy would exaggerate the acts performing around her, and fill her mind with shapes and forms, if possible more hideous than the dread spectres of the waking sense. Breaking loose from Helen, and also from Hector--who had joined his sister, and had from the window got some glimpse of the dire operations in progress in the court, and thus ascertained the cause of his mother's scream--she ran round the apartment, in the way of unfortunate maniacs, till her brain became dizzy with the quick circ.u.mgyrations, and then stood ready to fall, staring wildly at her children, who had followed her in her progress with loud screams. Meanwhile, the buzz of the preparations for the execution fell on her ear, and, running to the window, she held forth her extended arms, and implored the king, in wildly pathetic words and moans, to spare her husband. The king never moved his head; but many of the men turned up their grim, embrowned faces, fixed their eyes on her beautiful countenance, and saw her white arms wildly sawing the air, without showing any indications of being moved. c.o.c.kburn himself, who stood with his arms bound behind his back, his armour off, and the neck of his doublet rolled down on his shoulders, could not trust his eye in the direction of his wife and children, but stood with a look fixed on the grey walls of his tower. The voice of the king was now heard, crying, "Is everything prepared?" and, "Yes, my liege," rolled forth from the mouth of the rough-toned executioner. The unfortunate Marjory, in this extremity, turned from the window, and rushed into a neighbouring room, from which a few steps of descent led to a window not so far removed from a broken part of the wall as to prevent her getting to the ground. In this, by a mighty effort, she succeeded, hearing, as she hastened away, the shrill cries of her children following her, and imploring her to return. Her brain was fired beyond the capability of sane thought. The soldiers, who saw her fall on the ground, lifted her up, and then pushed her rudely away from the ground they were ordered to guard, confronting her otherwise impossible efforts to get forward by their swords, and threatening to do her bodily injury if she dared to resist their authority.

At this moment she heard a voice commanding some one to seize and confine the wife of the culprit; and, getting more confused by the occurrence of new and more harrowing incidents--the cries of her children sounding from the window--the noise of those forwarding the execution, if not at that very time, binding her husband to the gallows, filling all the air with a confused buzz--and the coming of the men to seize and secure her--she sprang forward out of a postern, and, with the rapid step of flying despair, endeavoured to get beyond the dreadful sounds which haunted her ear. In her flight--the consequence of the spur of frenzy, as much as of a wish to lessen pain which was insufferable--she came to the Henderland Linn, a mountain stream, that falls rolling down the heights with a loud noise. It was much swelled, and the waters were gus.h.i.+ng and roaring over a ledge of rock that crosses its course, and forms in that quarter a cascade--beautiful in certain states of the river, but frightful when the spirit of the storms has sent down the red stream to dash over the height. The noise was welcome to her; and, exhausted, she threw herself down on a seat by the side of the linn;[4] yet, so quick is the ear to catch, through other sounds, that of the cause of a pregnant grief, that she heard the increased noise of the crowd at the Castle, consequent on the execution of the sentence of condemnation of her husband--a swelling shout, as of a completed triumph, came on the wind; and, unable to bear this consummation of all her woes, she ran forward, and threw herself down with her head in the line of the cascade, that the roar of the waters might drown the dreadful sound.

How long she lay in that extraordinary predicament, she was never able to tell; but the sound of the roaring waters rang in her ear for many an after day. When she ventured to raise her head, everything seemed quiet at Henderland Tower; and the silence now appeared to her more dreadful than the former excitement. The storm, which had been gradually ceasing, was lulled, and the morn had now attained to a grey daylight. She knew not what step to pursue. She would remain, and she would not remain; she would return to the Tower, and she trembled at the thought. Starting up, she began to retrace her steps slowly back through the wood, stopping at every interval of a few moments, to listen if she could hear any sound.

Looking around, she saw, disappearing from an old road that led away to Tus.h.i.+elaw, the last of the king's troops; and she omened sadly that they had completed their work. She hesitated again, whether she should proceed to a place where she would inevitably behold a sight that might unsettle her reason. But whether could she fly? What could she do? Her little children were there; it was still her home, and the dead body of her beloved husband was also there. But judgment might vacillate according to its laws; her feet had an impulse forward, which philosophy might not explain. She was hastening towards the Castle, and she scarcely knew that she was occupied in that act, in the absence of distinct volition. Looking up, she saw an old domestic running towards her; who, on coming up, wished her to relinquish her determination to go towards the Castle, and requested her to sojourn for a time in the woods, or wait till she sent for a jennet, to carry her to some house.

She would give no explanation of her reasons for this advice; but looked terrified and confused when Marjory put to her some broken words of interrogation. Marjory could abide no parley, and, gently pus.h.i.+ng the old attendant aside, hurried forward to the Castle, and entered the postern. The ballium was empty; the retainers of her husband had been marched off before the forces of the king; and any domestics that were left had fled to the woods in terror. She lifted her eye to the b.u.t.tress, and saw suspended there the dead body of her husband. At the window of her apartment were her children, looking on the dreadful spectacle. The two elder had cried till their throats were dried and paralysed; and the youngest, who understood nothing of these proceedings, laughed when it saw its mother, and clapped its little hands for joy.

A knife, that lay alongside the place of execution, was seized by the unhappy wife; and, through a loophole that was opposite to the rope, she stretched her hand, and severed the fatal cord. The body fell with a crash upon the ground. Life was extinct; but who would convince the frantic wife that her beloved Parys was gone for ever? She hung upon the dead body till, as the day advanced, the terrified domestics came in, and took her away from the harrowing spectacle. Force had to be applied to effect the humane purpose; and, for many a night, the screams that came from the west wing of Henderland spoke eloquently the misery of this child of misfortune. c.o.c.kburn was buried in the chapel ground near the Tower. Some time afterwards, when her grief could bear the recital, she wished to know what took place between her husband and the two messengers on that dreadful night--and she was gratified by the intelligence. Scott of Tus.h.i.+elaw had got intelligence of c.o.c.kburn's intentions, and was upon the watch to defend his property. A severe conflict ensued, in which several men on both sides were severely wounded. In the very midst of the fray, Ralph rode up to c.o.c.kburn, and delivered his message; but the proud chief replied, that he would face King James if he were the Prince of Evil himself; but that he could not pay his respects to his king till he first humbled the proud Tus.h.i.+elaw.

A like effort was made by Thomas, and with a similar result. In fact, it appeared that c.o.c.kburn entertained no fear of danger from the visit of the king, and treated the story of the gallows' rope as a mere vision of some terrified mind; at least, if he had any doubts on that subject--and reports of the fiery temper of the king might have roused his suspicions--he conceived that a bold bearing would do him more good than a pusillanimous demeanour; and, as for flight, he despised it, as well as disapproved of it, on grounds of fancied prudence, seeing that he would thereby admit his guilt, and prove his pusillanimity, while it might ultimately turn out that the king's intentions were not hostile, whereby he would be exposed to the ridicule and scorn of both king and subjects. Having beat off Scott's retainers, and secured in this way, as he thought, a fancied victory, he marched direct on to his own Tower; and, as he approached, sounded his horn in his usual way, to tell his wife that he entertained no fear, and to impress upon the mind of the king the boldness of the innocence of a man who had only been performing an act of self defence, in teaching an old enemy that he would not commit an a.s.sault upon him again with impunity.

In the course of time, Marjory c.o.c.kburn recovered slightly from the effects of these terrible visitations, and often she expressed her surprise that Lailoken's prophecy about the elm tree had not been proved by the events of that night; but some people thought that King James, who knew the prophecy well, wished to reduce the credit of soothsaying, and therefore hanged c.o.c.kburn on the b.u.t.tress of the Tower, instead of the tree. Her little children played, as usual, round her; and, if a relenting fate had had in reserve any means for alleviating her grief, surely they might have been found in the prattle of innocence, and the hopes of a mother; but it was not ordained that she should be thus relieved. Every day saw a change on her; she gradually declined, till she took on the appearance of a skeleton. About three years after the death of c.o.c.kburn, Marjory died, doubtless, of that disease which (though discredited by many altogether) kills more mortals than typhus itself--a broken heart. The property had previously been escheated to the king, and the name of the c.o.c.kburns of Henderland never flourished again. She was buried in the grave of her beloved Parys; and some relation, who knew the loves and misfortunes of the pair, caused the foresaid stone to be erected, with the inscription we have copied, and shall copy again--"Here lie Parys of c.o.c.kburn and his wife Marjory."