The Three Perils of Man Volume Iii Part 12

my dear daughter! What had I ado making a man of thee! Thy blood is on thy old father's head. "Alas, for my beloved daughter!"

"Daughter!" exclaimed they all again and again, "Daughter!" re-echoed Will Laidlaw, as if he had not known well before. "Daughter?" cried the skin-men: "Have we then been led to the field by a maid? Shame on our heads that suffered the overthrow! against the rules of chivalry as her attempt was! Alas, for the gallant and high spirited young dame!"

They put her to bed, and dressed her wounds, and from all appearances had high hopes that she was more afraid and fatigued than hurt. She soon fell into a quiet slumber, in which they left her, and retired to take some refreshment, and talk over their morning's adventure. It turned out as suggested, that their three prisoners were the three chief men of the gang, who had completely lost themselves and all traces of their companions among the mist; and having heard a report of the seizure formerly made at that place, they cunningly tried to pa.s.s themselves off as messengers sent in search of the lost travellers. If they had been with their own party, that would have proved an overmatch for the Chisholms. The Reids and Halls had been herried of their whole live stock by the Warden's people, and learning that the greater part of it was driven up into these mountains, they naturally wanted to make some reprisals and recover their own again.

Had it not been for their misfortune in separating, and the exertions of the gallant hide-men, they would have effected their purpose with the utmost ease. It proved a luckless raid for them, for they lost all their horses, the greater part of their men, and the chief, squire Anthony, and six of his friends, were sent prisoners to the castle of Mountcomyn.

The country people at Chisholm's board were loud in praise of the skin-men, and of their trusty and gallant behaviour; in particular, they averred that Laidlaw had killed the half of the thieves with his own hand, for that he rode about the field like a resistless angel, destroying all before him. When Peter heard that he fought so valiantly for the recovery of his stock, and regained his darling daughter's life, his heart warmed toward him, and he bid him ask any thing of him he chose that was in his power to give, and he should not be said nay. Will at once asked the maid whose life he had saved for his wife. Peter hesitated, and said it was hard to bestow the flower of all the Chisholms on an English skin-merchant, a man who seemed to have neither house nor name, or was ashamed to own them. However, as he had proved himself a warrior and a hero, Peter consented, provided the maid grew better, and was herself satisfied with the match. Will said he asked her on no other terms, and went ben to see her before he departed. She was still sound asleep, or pretended to be so; therefore, unwilling to disturb her, he breathed a blessing over her, and impressed two or three warm affectionate kisses on her lips. As he came away he felt a slight pressure of her arms around his neck.

When Sandy Pot learned that the lovely youth with whom he had watched the prisoners all the night and morning of the battle was a maid, and the younger sister of his gallant friend Dan, Sandy's wound grew so ill that he could not be removed, so he remained where he was, and the other four went off with their uncouth loading. They found Dan Chisholm at Hawick waiting for them in the utmost impatience, having collected no fewer than twenty horse-loads of hides, every one of them in size like a hay-stack; and away the motely train marched and joined the Warden on the night after his arrival before the walls of Roxburgh.

CHAPTER VIII.

So they shot out and they shot in, Till the morn that it was day, When mony o' the Englishmen About the draw-brigg lay; When they hae yoket carts and wains, To ca' their dead away, And shot auld dikes aboon the lave, In gutters where they lay.

_Ball. of Old Mettlin._

The expedition of the Douglas against Musgrave is, like the innumerable Border battles of that reign, only shortly mentioned by historians; and although it was a notable encounter, and is detailed by Isaac at great length, it lies out of our way here. Let it suffice that they skirmished cautiously for two days with various success, and at last came to an engagement on a field right opposite to the junction of the Tweed and Gala. After a hard fought battle, Douglas'

left wing was discomfitted; and just as he was arranging his force so as to cover the retreat, an unaccountable confusion was noted among the English ranks, which seemed to be engaged anew, and with one another, there being no other army nigh. Douglas, recalling his routed squadrons, faced about, but advanced with caution, till he saw Musgrave's army broken and flying in all directions. This gallant feat was accomplished by a Sir John Gordon, who was on his way with seven hundred fresh men to the a.s.sistance of Douglas; and as he came on the English ranks behind at that important crisis, he broke them at the first onset, and took Sir Thomas Musgrave prisoner with his own hand.

Thus far the affairs of Douglas wore the aspect of prosperity--but a settled gloom hung over his mind; an oppression of spirits was apparent in every sentence that he uttered and every plan he suggested, and these were far from being traits of his wonted disposition. But the monk Benjamin had been with him again and again!--had been harra.s.sing his soul with commissions and messages from the mansions of the dead; and one night he heard the voice of his lost and dearly regretted princess, speaking to him in his tent, as it were out of the canvas. Still the most solemn injunctions of secrecy were imposed on him, insomuch that he deemed himself not at liberty to open his mind to any one. Besides all this, the disconsolate Mary Kirkmichael had been constantly lingering nigh to him, and always presenting herself in the utmost agony of mind, to make enquiries about her royal mistress. That lady's appearance became so terrible to him that he was unable to bear it, and gave strict charges that she should not be suffered to come within the limits of his camp. But for all that, availing herself of her rank and her s.e.x's privilege, she forced her way to him several times, and at every visit filled his soul with the most racking torments; so that, harra.s.sed with _war_ as he was, he found this his first intercourse with _women_, attended with ten times more distracting and grievous perils than the former. While, on the other hand, the heroes that visited the castle of Aikwood, even those who escaped, not including the wretched victims who remained behind, discovered, to their dear bought experience, that there were perils in nature infinitely superior to both.

It is now absolutely necessary to shorten the curate's narrative, to prevent this work running to an inordinate length; and though two of his tales have been left out already, the great events that follow must also be related in a style abbreviated, though not mangled by indistinctness.

After the intrepid Lord Musgrave had sacrificed his own life in order to save those of his only brother and the lady of his love, Clavering was unanimously chosen captain in his room, and every soldier took a new oath to him to die in defence of the fortress. The commission of which he accepted was a dismal one; but he entered into all the feelings of the famis.h.i.+ng inmates in their hatred of the Scots, and implacable enmity against them,--therefore, he was the very man for their purpose.

Every attempt of the besiegers to scale the walls of the castle, or to gain an entrance by fraud or force, had hitherto proved utterly abortive; the determined sons of England laughed at them, regarding them in no other light than as freaks of mere insanity, or the gambols of children. The fortress was impregnable with such heroes within, had they been supplied with sufficient stores of food and of arrows, both of which had long been exhausted; and though a small and welcome supply of the former had been obtained during the tempest and the flood which followed, for which they were obliged to the devil and Master Michael Scott, yet, like all the benefits derived from that quarter, it proved rather more hurtful than advantageous, for they devoured it with such avidity that the distemper, with which they had formerly been visited, broke out among them with greater violence than ever. Yet disregarding all these privations, which a looker-on would suppose might naturally tend to break the human heart and daunt the resolution of the boldest,--with famine and pestilence both staring them in the face,--they bound themselves by a new and fearful oath never to yield the fortress to the Scots while a man of them remained alive. Every new calamity acted but as a new spur to their resolution; and their food being again on the very eve of exhaustion, their whole concern was how to procure a new supply. Not that they valued their own lives or their own sufferings,--these had for a good while been only a secondary consideration,--but from the excruciating dread that they should die out, and the Scots attain possession of the fortress before Christmas.

The warders soon noted the alteration that had taken place in the beleaguering army. They perceived the ground that had formerly been occupied by the Angus men, and the Mar Highlanders, now taken up by the tall, athletic, and careless looking borderers, against whom they found their antipathy was not so mortal: and they had some surmisings of what really was the case, that a strong diversion had been made in their favours, that had drawn off their inveterate and hateful enemy Douglas from the siege. Every hour convinced them farther of the truth of this suggestion; for they perceived a laxness in the manner of conducting the blockade which they had not witnessed for many days, and all their conversation turned on the manner in which they ought to avail themselves of it. The carelessness of the besiegers themselves, or something subordinate thereto, soon furnished an opportunity to them of putting their policy once more to the test, and that by an adventure the most ardently desired. On the second day after the departure of Douglas the warder on the topmost tower perceived, on a rising ground two miles to the southward, about thirty head of cattle, that came gradually in view as a wing of a large drove might be supposed to do; and after they had fed for some time there, two men came before them and chased them back out of sight of the castle, as if a great oversight had been committed by letting them come in view of it. Notice of this important discovery was instantly given to the captain, and the news spreading among the garrison, many a long and longing look was cast from the battlements and loopholes of the high western tower that day. They were not cast in vain. Just toward the fall of evening they perceived a part of the drove appear again only a very short s.p.a.ce from the castle, and they likewise perceived by their colours that they were a drove of English beasts which had been brought from their native pastures by the strong hand of rapine, for the supply of this new come border army. They perceived likewise that they approached the army by a concealed way, that the two glances they got of them were merely casual, and that they were very slightly guarded.

A council of war was immediately called, in which it was agreed, without one dissentient voice, that the garrison should make a sham sally at the eastern draw-bridge, as if with intent to gain the city, in order that they might draw the attention of the besiegers to that point; and in the meantime the captain, with the choicest of the men were to march out by Teviot-bridge, of which the garrison had necessarily the sole possession, and endeavour to seize the prey. Thence they were to proceed westward, and try to elude the enemy's posts, or give them battle, if the former were found to be impracticable; but at all events, either to die or succeed in attaining that valuable supply, or a part of it. The success of the contest now turned on that single point as on a pivot; the balance was against them, but, that turned in their favours by an exertion of warrior prowess, they could then reckon on a complete triumph over their unappeasable foes.

Besides, every thing seemed to concur in support of their gallant expedition. The nights were dark even beyond their usual darkness at that gloomy season, and the moon did not arise till two in the morning. Both these circ.u.mstances were in their favour,--the one in attaining possession of the prey unperceived, and the other in enabling them to fight their way home; for they knew that though they themselves might pa.s.s the strong Scottish posts favoured by the deep darkness, still it was impossible to bring the drove through them, and along the bridge, without a hard skirmish. The captain, therefore, gave command to the division left behind, that the more noise they heard of an engagement about the bridge of Teviot, and the gate toward the west, the more they should press their battle eastward, to divert the strength of the army to that quarter. Because on that side the Scots could make no impression, and the English could lose nothing there save a few lives, which they accounted of small avail; but if the expedition to the west failed, their cause was finally ruined.

That was a busy evening within the walls of Roxburgh, while all was quietness and indifference without. Within there was arming and disarming, for the suits of armour that once fitted these emaciated warriors would not now hang on their frames. There was grinding of swords, pointing of spears and ox-goads, and even the slaughter-houses of the fort were cleared, with a provident concern seldom overlooked by Englishmen; and at eleven o'clock at night, by the convent matin bell, Clavering, with five hundred chosen men, well armed, issued silently from the garrison, creeping along the Teviot-bridge on their hands and knees. From that they proceeded westward in the most profound silence, and so close by the Scottish posts, that they heard them breathing and conversing together. One party crept up all the way within the water-brae, and the other, led by Clavering himself, past through between two Scottish posts, drawing themselves along the ground close on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and once or twice were obliged to squat close down, and lie silent for a considerable s.p.a.ce, while the following dialogue pa.s.sed between the sentinels.

"Od, Sandie Scott, think ye it can be true that the English are eating ane another?"

"There's nae doubt o't. I hear that they're snapping up five o' the fattest o' their number every day. They will eat themsels out bit by bit that gate."

"Aih wow, man! I wad rather die o' hunger than pick the banes of ane acquaintance. Bursten devils, that they are!"

"Aha, Sandie, billie, ye dinna ken till ye be tried. A man will do ought or he die o' hunger. An do you ken, Sandie Scott, I think our captain has done wrang in bringing sae mony fat bullocks a' sae near the castle at ae time. Thae hungered louns will hae a haud o' some o'

them, and maybe cut a wheen o' our throats into the bargain, some o'

thir dark nights."

"Now, ye see neighbour, I ken sae weel that our master never does the sma'est thing without some design, that I think he wants to wile out the English, and then kill them; and that he has brought a' thir braw stots o'er the border, just on the same principle that a fisher throws a bait into the water."

"Na, na, Sandie, that canna be the case, for he has gi'en strict orders that no ane o' them be suffered to come within sight o' the castle. He just thinks the beasts canna be sae safe ony where else as beside himsel' and his lads. But hunger has sharp een, and I wadna wonder if this drove should lead to some hard tulzie."

"Whisht! G.o.dsake, haud your tongue! What's that I hear?"

"The English, I'll warrant you. If hunger hae clear een, fear has unco lang lugs. What was it that Sandie heard?"

"I heard a kind o' rubbing and thristing, as a fox or a foumart had been drawing himsel through a hole aneath the ground. Hilloa! What guard?"

"Howpasley and Gemelscleugh."

"Watch weel. There's something stirring."

"Not a mouse."

"So say the sleeping foresters; but I can tell you, men o'

Gemelscleuch and Howpasley, an there be nought stirring aboon the ground, the moudies are very busy aneath it the night. Clap close, and keep an ee on the withergloom. I had a heavy dream at nightfa', and I'm resolved no to close an ee. Come, neighbour, tell a tale, or say a rhame to keep us wauking."

"Have ye heard the new ballant made by the rhiming dominie o'

Selchrit, the queerest thing ever was heard? It begins this gate:

The Devil he sat in Dornock tower, And out at a slip-hole keekit he, And he saw three craws come yont the lift, And they winged their flight to the Eildon tree.

O whow, O whow, quo the muckle deil, But yon's a sight that glads my ee, For I'll lay the steel-brander o' h.e.l.l There's a storm a-brewing in the west countrye."

"Whisht, for heaven's sake! I heard the tod again, Hilloa!

Gemelscleuch to the glaive! Have lug and hawk e'e, or there'll be news afore the morn that's unheard tell o' yet."

"And that there will! Saint David be with us! and the blessed Saint Mary, the mother of G.o.d, be with us! Hist havering, say Benedicite."

At that instant a sharp breeze arose which drowned the noise, and Clavering and his men pa.s.sed fairly by on their perilous expedition.

Beyond the next hollow they found the cattle all lying puffing and dozing on a round hill. An immense drove of them there seemed to be, for the hill appeared to be literally covered, but the night was as dark as pitch, and they could see nothing distinctly. Clavering gave his commands in a whisper to his chief men, to surround the whole drove, and drive them furiously, that by these means they might throw the enemy's lines into confusion. "We have the advantage of the ground," said he; "the bridge is clear, and the gates open. Let us play the men for once, and our difficulties are all over. Providence has favoured us beyond what could have been calculated on. Our force is superior to that of our enemies on this side the river. On whatever side our column is attacked, let us keep a running fight, so as to push on and preserve the prey, and the day is our own: And now, Saint Anthony for the right!"

The men then formed themselves into a crescent behind the cattle six-line deep, and with club, goad, and spear pushed them on. There were a few dour lazy driving runts behind that bore all the thumps, but the bulk were high-spirited, and galloped off on the path toward Roxburgh with the utmost fury, insomuch that the delighted drivers never got a sight of them. They broke through the Scottish lines without either stop or stay. The alarm was instantly given, but a night muster is always attended with some delay. So the English thought,--so they said; and to their great joy they found their suggestions realized; for not till the last cow was past the strong line of posts on the height were they attacked by the Scots. But then, indeed, the Gemelscleuch and Howpasley men set upon them with unparallelled fury, and being every five minutes joined by more of their companions, they pressed hard upon the English, who, being obliged to keep up a retreating battle, fell thick on the brae beyond the bridge. The brave and judicious Longspeare himself led the attack, and behaved like a lion; for though wounded in three different places of the body, he fought in the front of the main battle all that night.

The Scots, to the utter amazement of their enemies, never once offered to stop the cattle, but merely attacking the English crescent behind, drove them and cattle and all towards the bridge. This Clavering and his chief men attributed wholly to the surprise by which the Scots were taken; and when the former saw the dark column of cattle take the bridge, he thanked the G.o.d of heaven, the blessed Virgin, and all the saints whose names were known to him, for such a wonderful success and merciful deliverance. The English host then raised such a shout of triumph that the echoes called from the castled towers to the forest, and from the forest to the distant rocks. The Scots soon joined in it with equal enthusiasm; and the two armies then engaged at the eastern gate, also joined their voices to the general chorus. The gray friars of Roxburgh, and the Benedictine monks of Kelso, raised their heads from their flinty pillows, committed themselves to heaven, and deplored the madness and folly of the men of the world. The city dames wept and prayed, and the men ran to head-quarters to learn the cause of the uproar. The sounds were actually heard in the camp of Douglas, at the distance of sixteen miles; and when this was reported to him next morning, he said, "There was the Redhough on the ramparts of Roxburgh!"

But man's thoughts are vanity! He cannot judge of events so as to calculate on what is to happen from one moment to another: incidents of the slightest moment so often having the effect of overturning the greatest and most momentous enterprizes. Never was there one so nearly overturned as this, although it was not once thought of till afterwards,--and it was on this wise: There was a strong guard of English placed at the south end of the bridge, to guide the foremost of the drove on to it, or help to cut a way for the cattle through such troops as might interpose. The cattle, as was said, came galloping furiously without intervention, and, as if led by an unseen providence, took the bridge with all their vigour, the battle being then raging behind them, and the shouts beginning to rend the sky.

This guard had nothing to do, of course, but to open into two lines, and give them head. But at the end of the bridge there was a deep puddle, and among the men there chanced to be a little boy, who was running about and thras.h.i.+ng the cattle as they went through this puddle, which made them spring up the arch with redoubled velocity, which the urchin thought good sport. But in the midst of this frolic he bolted away at once with such velocity that he had almost overthrown one of the men in the file, and as he ran he cried out, "Lord, saw ever ony mortal the like o' that?" "What was it, rash idiot?" said the man. "Grace and mercy, man, did you not see how yon great black stott stood straight up on his hind legs and waded the pool?" said the boy. "Take that to clear your eyes, impertinent brat,"

said the man, and gave him a blow with his fist that made him run away howling and crying, always repeating as he went, "I'll tell your captain,--now! 'at will I that--now!"

The combat behind the cattle thickened apace. The English were sore borne down on the hill, but when they came to the little plain at the bridge-end they stood firm, and gave as hard blows as they got. They had fairly gained their aim, and their spirits, so long depressed, mounted to an unusual height. The last lingering hoof of the whole countless drove was now on the arch, and they could calculate on holding out the fortress against their hated foes not only till Christmas, but till that time twelvemonth. Their shouts of joy were redoubled. So also were those of the Scots. "The people are mad!" said they, "thus to shout for their own loss and their own defeat. It is a small trait of the cursed perversity of the whole nation!"

The English narrowed their front and narrowed their front still as their files found room on the arch of the bridge, which was long and narrow, and very steep at the south end, that rose directly from the plain. But the road up to the castle by the two tremendous iron gates was likewise exceedingly steep, and went by a winding ascent, so that the latter end of the drove, those dull driving ones that bore all the strokes, got very slowly up, and with great difficulty. There was a guard of considerable strength left in this gateway by Clavering, lest any attempt should be made by the enemy to enter in his absence. But these men had strict charges to clear the way for the cattle, and help to drive the foremost ones up the steep. The fore part of the drove however came up the steep with such main fury, that the men were glad to clear a way for them, by flying out of the path, up to the citadel.

There was not a man left in the gateway, save two at each of the iron portcullises, and these stood in deep niches of the wall, out of all danger. Each of these men held the end of a chain that was twisted round an immense bolt in the wall,--and these bolts, Isaac says, are to be seen sticking to this day. On untwisting this chain the portcullises fell down, and when they were to raise up it was done with levers. Well, as the two outermost men stood in their niches, holding by the ends of their chains, they observed, that two of the oxen that first came in, nay the very first two that came in, turned round their ugly heads, leaned their sides to the wall, and kept in their places, the one on the one side and the other on the other, till the whole drove pa.s.sed them. The men could not move from their posts to drive them on with the rest, but they wondered at the beasts; and the one cried to the other, "What can ail them two chaps?" "O them are two tired ones," said the other: "Dom them for two ugly monsters! they look as them hod been dead and roosen again."

At length, by dint of sore driving and beating, the last hoof of the Warden's choice drove pa.s.sed inward through the castle gate of Roxburgh, for the maintenance of his irascible enemies. Could any thing be so unfortunate? or how was he to set up his face, and answer to the Douglas now? But the Redhough was determined that he would set up his face and answer to the Douglas and his country too, as well as to his kinsmen and followers, whom he valued highest of all. Just as the last lazy cow crossed the gate, and when the triumphant shouts of the English were at the loudest, the two great lubberly oxen that stood shaking their ugly heads, and leaning against the wall, ripped up their own bellies; and out of two stuffed hides two most ingenious cases, started up two no less men than Sir Ringan Redhough and his doughty friend Charlie Scott of Yardbire. Off went the heads of the two porters in one moment, and down came the portcullis with a thundering rattle, and a clank that made the foundations of the gate shake. "Now, southron lads, haud ye there!" cried the Redhough: "Time about is fair play. Keep ye the outside o' the door threshold as lang as ye hae gart us keep it."