The Life of Mansie Wauch / Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself

While standing on the same spot, where of yore the boyish multitude congregated in pursuit of their eager sports, a silent awe steals over the bosom, and the heart desponds at the thought, that all these once smiling faces are scattered now!  Some, mayhap, tossing on the waste and perilous seas; some the merchants of distant lands; some fighting the battles of their country; others dead—inhabitants of the dark and narrow house, and hearing no more the billows of life, that thunder and break above their low and lonely dwelling-place!

* * * * *

Nanse, who was sitting by the table, knitting a pair of light-blue worsted stockings for Benjie, and myself, who was sewing on the buttons of a velveteen jacket for a country lad, were, I must say, not a little delighted, not only with the way in which the Welshman’s late master had spoken of his school-fellows, but with the manner in which James Batter, with his specs on, had read it over to us.  Upon my word—and that of an elder—I do not believe that even Mr Wiggie himself could have done the thing greater justice.  It was just as if he had been a play-actor man, spouting Douglas’s tragedy.

Having folded up that paper, and turned over not a few others, the docketings of which he read out to us, James at last says, “Ou ay, here it is.  I think I can now prove to ye, that the gentleman’s sweetheart died abroad; and that, likely from her name—for it is here mentioned—she must have been a Portugée or Spaniard.”

“Ay, let us hear it,” cried Nanse.  “Do, like a man, let us hear it, James; for I delight above a’ things to hear about love-stories.  Do ye mind, Maister,” she said, “when ye was so deep in love aince yoursell?”

By this, James, who did not relish interruption, and was a thought fidgety in his natural temper, had laid down the paper on the table, snuffed the candle, and raised his spectacles on his brow.  But I said to him, “Excuse freedoms, James, and be so good as resume your discourse.”  Then wishing to smooth him down, I added, by way of compliment—“Do go on; for you really are a prime reader.  Nature surely intended ye for a minister.”

“Dinna flatter me,” said James; looking, however, rather proudishly at what I had said, and replacing his glasses on the brig of his nose, he then read us a screed of metre to the following effect; part of which, I am free to confess, is rather above my comprehension.  But, never mind.

ELEGIAC STANZAS.

I.

’Tis midnight deep; the full round moon,
As ’twere a spectre, walks the sky;
The balmy breath of gentlest June
Just stirs the stream that murmurs by;
Above me frowns the solemn wood;
Nature, methinks, seems Solitude
Embodied to the eye.

II.

Yes, ’tis a season and a scene,
Inez, to think on thee; the day,
With stir and strife, may come between
Affection and thy beauty’s ray,
But feeling here assumes control,
And mourns my desolated soul
That thou are rapt away!

III.

Thou wert a rainbow to my sight,
The storms of life before thee fled;
The glory and the guiding light,
That onward cheer’d and upward led;
From boyhood to this very hour,
For me, and only me, thy flower
Its fragrance seem’d to shed.

Dark though the world for me might show
Its sordid faith and selfish gloom,
Yet ’mid life’s wilderness to know
For me that sweet flower shed its bloom,
Was joy, was solace:—thou art gone—
And hope forsook me, when the stone
Sank darkly o’er thy tomb.

V.

And art thou dead?  I dare not think
That thus the solemn truth can be;
And broken is the only link
That chain’d youth’s pleasant thoughts to me!
Alas! that thou couldst know decay,
That, sighing, I should live to say
‘The cold grave holdeth thee!’

VI.

For me thou shon’st, as shines a star,
Lonely, in clouds when Heaven is lost;
Thou wert my guiding light afar,
When on misfortune’s billows tost:
Now darkness hath obscured that light,
And I am left in rayless night,
On Sorrow’s lowering coast.

VII.

And art thou gone?  I deem’d thee some
Immortal essence—art thou gone?—
I saw thee laid within the tomb,
And turn’d away to mourn alone:
Once to have loved, is to have loved
Enough; and, what with thee I proved,
Again I’ll seek in none.

VIII.

Earth in thy sight grew faëry land;—
Life was Elysium—thought was love,—
When, long ago, hand clasp’d in hand,
We roam’d through Autumn’s twilight grove;
Or watch’d the broad uprising moon
Shed, as it were, a wizard noon,
The blasted heath above.

IX.

X.

Never revives the past again;
But still thou art, in lonely hours,
To me earth’s heaven,—the azure main,—
Soft music,—and the breath of flowers;
My heart shall gain from thee its hues:
And Memory give, though Truth refuse,
The bliss that once was ours!

After this, Mr Batter read over to us a great many other curiosities, about foreign things wonderful to hear, and foreign places wonderful to behold.  Moreover, also, of divers adventures by sea and land.  But the time wearing late, and Tammie Bodkin having brought ben the shop-key, after putting on the window-shutters, Nanse and I, out of good-fellowship, thought we could not do less than ask the honest man, whose cleverality had diverted us so much, to sit still and take a chack of supper;—James being up in the air, from having been allowed to ride on his hobby so briskly, made only a show of objection; so, after a rizzard haddo, we had a jug of toddy, and sat round the fire with our feet on the fender—Benjie having fallen asleep with his clothes on, and been carried away to his bed.  Poor bit mannikin!

I never remember to have heard James so prime either on Boston or Josephus; but as his heart warmed with the liquor and the good fire, for it was a cold rawish night,—he returned to Taffy with the pigtail’s master; and insisted, that as we had heard about his foreign sweetheart’s death, which he appeared to have taken so much to heart, we should just bear with him once more, as he read over what he called her dirgie, which was written on a half-sheet of grey mouldy paper—as if handed down from the days of the Covenanters.  It jingles well; and both Nanse and me thought it gey and pretty; but eh! if ye only had heard how James Batter read it.  It beat cock-fighting.

I.

Weep not for her!—Oh she was far too fair,
   Too pure to dwell on this guilt-tainted earth!
The sinless glory, and the golden air
   Of Zion, seem’d to claim her from her birth;
A Spirit wander’d from its native Zone,
Which, soon discovering, took her for its own:
      Weep not for Her!

II.

Weep not for her!—Her span was like the sky,
   Whose thousand stars shine beautiful and bright;
Like flowers that know not what it is to die;
   Like long-linked, shadeless months of Polar light;
Like music floating o’er a waveless lake,
While Echo answers from the flowery brake:
      Weep not for Her!

III.

Weep not for her!—She died in early youth,
   Ere hope had lost its rich romantic hues;
When human bosoms seem’d the homes of truth,
   And earth still gleam’d with beauty’s radiant dews.
Her summer prime waned not to days that freeze;
Her wine of life was run not to the lees:
      Weep not for Her!

IV.

Weep not for her—By fleet or slow decay,
   It never grieved her bosom’s core to mark
The playmates of her childhood wane away,
   Her prospects wither, or her hopes grow dark;
Translated by her God with spirit shriven,
She pass’d as ’twere in smiles from earth to heaven:
      Weep not for Her!

V.

Weep not for her!—It was not hers to feel
   The miseries that corrode amassing years,
’Gainst dreams of baffled bliss the heart to steel,
   To wander sad down age’s vale of tears,
As whirl the wither’d leaves from friendship’s tree,
And on earth’s wintry wold alone to be:
      Weep not for Her!

Weep not for her!—She is an angel now,
   And treads the sapphire floors of paradise:
All darkness wiped from her refulgent brow,
   Sin, sorrow, suffering, banish’d from her eyes;
Victorious over death, to her appear
The vista’d joys of heaven’s eternal year;
      Weep not for Her!

VII.

Weep not for her!—Her memory is the shrine
   Of pleasant thoughts, soft as the scent of flowers.
Calm as on windless eve the sun’s decline,
   Sweet as the song of birds among the bowers,
Rich as a rainbow with its hues of light,
Pure as the moonshine of an autumn night:
      Weep not for Her.

VIII.

Weep not for her!—There is no cause for woe;
   But rather nerve the spirit that it walk
Unshrinking o’er the thorny paths below,
   And from earth’s low defilements keep thee back:
So, when a few, fleet, severing years have flown,
She’ll meet thee at heaven’s gate—and lead thee on!
      Weep not for Her.

Having right and law on my side, as any man of judgment may perceive with half an eye, nothing could hinder me, if I so liked, to print the whole bundle; but, in the meantime, we must just be satisfied with the foregoing curiosities, which we have picked out.  All that I have set down concerning myself, the reader may take on credit as open and even-down truth; but as to whether Taffy’s master’s nick-nackets be true or false, every one is at liberty, in this free country, to think for himself.  Old sparrows are not easily caught with chaff; and unless I saw a proper affidavit, I would not, for my own part, pin my faith to a single word of them.  But every man his own opinion,—that’s my motto.

Home went the man, and home went the son, and home went my grand coat and waistcoat over his arm; and putting my hands into my breeches pockets, as if I had satisfactorily concluded a great transaction, I marched ben to the back shop, and took my needle into play, as if nothing in the world had happened; but where their home lay, or whether the raiment fitted or not, goodness knows, having never to this blessed hour heard word or wittens of either of them.  Such a pair of blacks!  It just shows us how simple we Scotch folk are.  The London man swindled me out of my lawful room-rent and my Sunday velveteens; the Eirishers, as will be but too soon seen, made free with my hen-house, committing felonious robbery at the dead hour of night; and here a decent-looking old Welshman, with a pigtail tied with black tape, palmed a grand coat and waistcoat upon me, that were made away with by a man and his son, a devilish deal too long out of Botany Bay.

Benjie, poor doggie, was vastly proud of the flute, which he fifed away on morning, noon, and night; and, for more than a fortnight, would not go to his bed unless it was laid under his pillow.  But for me I could not bide the sight of it, knowing whose hands it had been in, and reminding me as it did of the depravity of human nature.

Verily, verily, this is a wonderfully wicked world.  To find out the two vagabonds would have been hopeless; unless I could have followed them to the Back of Beyond, where the mare foaled the fiddler.

Come from the hills where your hirsels are grazing,
   Come from the glen of the buck and the roe;
Come to the crag where the beacon is blazing,
   Come with the buckler, the lance, and the bow:
      Many a banner spread
      Flutters above your herd,
   Many a crest that is famous in story;
      Mount and make ready then,
      Sons of the mountain glen,
   Fight for the King, and our old Scottish glory.

Sir Walter Scott’s Monastery.

The sough of war and invasion flew over the face of the land, at this time, like a great whirlwind; and the hearts of men died within their persons with fear and trembling.  The accounts that came from abroad were just dreadful beyond all power of description.  Death stalked about from place to place, like a lawless tyrant, and human blood was spilt like water; while the heads of crowned kings were cut off; and great dukes and lords were thrown into dark dungeons, or obligated to flee for their lives into foreign lands, and to seek out hiding-places of safety beyond the waves of the sea.  What was worst of all, our trouble seemed a smittal one; the infection spread around; and even our own land, which all thought hale and healthy, began to show symptoms of the plague-spot.  Losh me! that men, in their seven senses, could have ever shown themselves so infatuated.  Johnny Wilkes and liberty was but a joke to what was hanging over the head of the nation, brewing like a dark tempest which was to swallow it up.  Bills were posted up through night, by hands that durst not have been seen at the work through day; and the agents of the Spirit of Darkness, calling themselves the Friends of the People, held secret meetings, and hatched plots to blow up our blessed King and Constitution.

What was worst of all, it was an agreed and determined on thing among them, these wise men of Gotham, to abolish all kings, clergy, and religion, as havers.  No, no—what need had such wise pows as theirs of being taught or lectured to?  What need had such feelosophers of having a king to rule over, or a Parliament to direct them?  There was not a single one among their number, that did not think himself, in his own conceit, as wise as Solomon or William Pitt, and as mighty as King Nebuchadnezzar.

It was full time to put a stop to all such nonsense.  The newspapers told us what it had done abroad; and what better could we expect from it at home?  Weeds will not grow into flowers anywhere, and no man can handle tar without being defiled; the first of which comparisons is I daresay true, and the latter must be—for we read of it in Scripture.  Well, as I was saying, it was a brave notion of the king to put the loyalty of his land to the test, that the daft folk might be dismayed, and that the clanjamphrey might be tumbled down before their betters, like windle-straes in a hurricane:—and so they were.

I will never forget the first day that I got my regimentals on; and when I looked myself in the bit glass, just to think I was a sodger, who never in my life could thole the smell of powder, and had not fired any thing but a penny cannon on a Fourth of June, when I was a haflins callant.  I thought my throat would have been cut with the black corded stock; for, whenever I looked down, without thinking like, my chaff-blade played clank against it, with such a dunt that I mostly chacked my tongue off.  And, as to the soaping of the hair, that beat cock-fighting.  It was really fearsome; but I could scarcely keep from laughing when I glee’d round over my shoulder, and saw a glazed leather queue hanging for half an ell down the braid of my back, and a pickle horse-hair curling out like a rotten’s tail at the far end of it.  And then the worsted taissels on the shoulders—and the lead buttons—and the yellow facings,—oh, but it was grand!  I sometimes fancied myself a general, and giving the word of command.  Then the pipeclayed breeches—but that was a sore job; many a weary arm did they give me—beat-beating camstane into them.

The pipeclaying of the breeches, I was saying, was the most fashious job, let alone courtship, that ever mortal man put his hand to.  Indeed, there was no end to the rubbing, and scrubbing, and brushing, and fyling, and cleaning; for to the like of me, who was not well accustomed to the thing, the whitening was continually coming off and destroying my red coat, or my black leggings.  I had mostly forgot to speak of the birse for cleaning out the pan, and the piker for clearing the motion-hole.  But time enough till we come to firing.

We all cracked very crouse about fighting, when we heard of garments rolled in blood only from abroad; but one dark night we got a fleg in sober earnest.

There were signal-posts on the hills, up and down all the country, to make alarms in case of necessity; and I never went to my bed without giving first a glee eastward to Falside-brae, and then another westward to the Calton-hill, to see that all the country was quiet.  I had just papped in—it might be about nine o’clock—after being gey hard drilled, and sore between the shoulders, with keeping my head back and playing the dumb-bells; when, lo and behold! instead of getting my needful rest in my own bed, with my wife and wean, jow went the bell, and row-de-dow gaed the drums, and all in a minute was confusion and uproar.  I was seized with a severe shaking of the knees, and a flaffing at the heart; but I hurried, with my nightcap on, up to the garret window, and there I too plainly saw that the French had landed—for all the signal posts were in a bleeze.  This was in reality to be a soldier!  I never got such a fright since the day I was cleckit.  Then such a noise and hullabaloo in the streets—men, women, and weans, all hurrying through ither, and crying with loud voices, amid the dark, as if the day of judgment had come, to find us all unprepared; and still the bells ringing, and the drums beating to arms.  Poor Nanse was in a bad condition, and I was well worse; she, at the fears of losing me, their bread-winner; and I, with the grief of parting from her, the wife of my bosom, and going out to scenes of blood, bayonets, and gunpowder, none of which I had the least stomach for.  Our little son, Benjie, mostly grat himself blind, pulling me back by the cartridge-box; but there was no contending with fate, so he was obliged at last to let go.

Next day, out we were taken for the whilk purpose; and we went through our motions bravely.  Prime—load—handle cartridge—ram down cartridge—return bayonets—and shoulder hoop—make ready—present—fire.  Such was the confusion, and the flurry, and the din of the report, that I was so flustered and confused, thinking that half of us would have been shot dead, that—will ye believe it?—I never yet had mind to pull the tricker.  Howsomever, I minded aye with the rest to ram down a fresh cartridge at the word of command; and something told me I would repent not doing like the rest, (for I had half a kind of notion that my piece never went off;) so, when the firing was over, the sergeant of the company ordered all that had loaded pieces to come to the front.  I swithered a little, not being very sure like what to do; but some five or six stept out; and our corporal, on looking at my piece, ordered me with the rest to the front.  It was just by all the world like an execution; we six, in the face of the regiment, in a little line, going through our mauœuvres at the word of command; and I could hardly stand upon my feet, with a queer feeling of fear and trembling, till at length the terrible moment came.  I looked straight forward—for I durst not jee my head about, and turned to the hills and green trees, as if I was never to see nature more.

When I found myself not killed outright, I began to rise up.  As I was rubbing my breek-knees, I saw one of the men going forward to lift up the fatal piece; and my care for the safety of others overcame the sense of my own peril,—“Let alane—let alane!” cried I to him, “and take care of yoursell, for it has to gang off five times yet.”

The laughing was now terrible, but being little of a soldier, I thought, in my innocence, that we should hear as many reports as I had crammed cartridges down her muzzle.  This was a sore joke against me for a length of time; but I tholed it patiently, considering cannily within myself, that knowledge is only to be bought by experience, and that, if we can credit the old song, even Johnny Cope himself did not learn the art of war in a single morning.

CHAPTER XIII.—THE CHINCOUGH PILGRIMAGE.

Man hath a weary pilgrimage
   As through the world he wends:
On every stage from youth to age
   Still discontent attends.
With heaviness he casts his eye
   Upon the road before,
And still remembers with a sigh
   The days that are no more.

Southey.

My son Benjie was, at this dividual time, between four and five years old, when—poor wee chieldie!—he took the chincough, and in more respects than one was not in a good way; so the doctor recommended his mother and me, for the change of air, first to carry him down a coal-pit, and syne to the limekilns at Cousland.

The coal-pit I could not think of at all; to say nothing of the danger of swinging down into the bowels of the earth in a creel, the thing aye put me in mind of the awful place, where the wicked, after death and judgment, howl, and hiss, and gnash their teeth; and where, unless Heaven be more merciful than we are just—we may all be soon enough.  So I could not think of that, till other human means failed; and I determined, in the first place, to hire Tammie Dobbie’s cart, and try a smell of the fresh air about the limekilns.

It was a fine July forenoon, and the cart, filled with clean straw, was at the door by eleven o’clock; so our wife handed us out a pair of blankets to hap round me, and syne little Benjie into my arms, with his big-coatie on, and his leather cappie tied below his chin, and a bit red worsted comforterie round his neck; for, though the sun was warm and pleasant withal, we dreaded cold, as the doctor bade us.  Oh, he was a fine old man, Doctor Hartshorn!

I cannot tell how many thoughts came over my mind, one after another, like the waves of the sea down on Musselburgh beach; but especially the days when I was a wee callant with a daidly at Dominie Duncan’s school, were fresh in my mind as if the time had been but yesterday; though much, much was I changed since then, being at that time a little, careless, ragged laddie, and now the head of a family, earning bread to my wife and wean by the sweat of my brow.  I thought on the blythe summer days when I dandered about the braes and bushes seeking birds’-nests with Alick Bowsie and Samuel Search; and of the time when we stood upon one another’s backs, to speil up to the ripe cherries that hung over the garden walls of Woodburn.  Awful changes had taken place since then.  I had seen Sammy die of the black jaundice—an awful spectacle! and poor Alick Bowsie married to a drucken randie, that wore the breeks, and did not allow the misfortunate creature the life of a dog.

When I was meditating thus, after the manner of the patriarch Isaac, there was a pleasant sadness at my heart, though it was like to loup to my mouth; but I could not get leave to enjoy it long for the tongue of Tammie Dobbie.  He bade me look over into a field, about the middle of which were some wooden railings round the black gaping mouth of a coal-pit.  “Div ye see that dark bit owre yonder amang the green clover, wi’ the sticks about it?” asked Tammie.

“Yes,” said I; “and what for?”

“Weel, do you ken,” quo’ Tammie, “that has been a weary place to mair than ane.  Twa-three year ago, some o’ the collyer bodies were choked to death down below wi’ a blast of foul air; and a pour o’ orphan weans they left behint them on the cauldrife parish.  But ye’ll mind Hornem, the sherry-officer wi’ the thrawn shouther?”

“Ou, bravely; I believe he came to some untimeous end hereaway about?”

“Save us!” said I, “it makes a’ my flesh grue.”

“Weel it may,” answered Tammie, “or the story’s lost in the telling; for the collyers that fand him shook as if they had been seized wi’ the ague.  The dumb animal, ye observe, had far mair sense than him; for, when his fitting gaed way, instead of following it had plunged back; and the bit o’ the bridle, that had broken, was still in his grup, when they spied him wi’ their lanterns.”

“It was an awful like way to leave the world,” said I.

“’Deed it was, and nae less,” answered Tammie, “to gang to his lang account in the middle of his mad thochtlessness, without a moment’s warning.  But see, yonder’s Cousland lying right forrit to the east hand.”

At this very nick of time Benjie was seized with a severe kink; so Tammie stopped his cart, and I held his head over the side of it till the cough went by.  I thought his inside would have jumped out; but he fell sound asleep in two or three minutes; and we jogged on till we came to the yill-house door, where, after louping out, we got a pickle pease-strae to Tammie’s horse.

Aff they a’ went galloping, galloping;
Legs and arms a’ walloping, walloping;
De’il take the hindmost, quo’ Duncan M‘Calapin,
The Laird of Tillyben, joe.

Old Song.

He went a little further,
   And turn’d his head aside,
And just by Goodman Whitfield’s gate,
   Oh there the mare he spied,
He ask’d her how she did,
   She stared him in the face,
Then down she laid her head again—
   She was in wretched case.

Old Poulter’s Mare.

At long and last we saw them all set in motion, like a regiment of dragoons, two and two, with a drum and fife at their head, as if they had been marching to the field of battle.  By-the-bye, it was two of our own volunteer lads that were playing that day before them, Rory Skirl the snab, and Geordie Thump the dyer; so this, ye see, verified the old proverb, that travel where ye like, to the world’s end, ye’ll aye meet with kent faces; Tammie and me coming out to the yill-house door to see them pass by.

Behind the drum and fife came a big, half-crazy looking chield, with a broad blue bonnet on his head, and a red worsted cherry sticking in the crown of it.  He was carrying a new car-saddle over his shoulder on a well-cleaned pitchfork.  Syne came three abreast, one on each side of my lord, being the key-keepers; he keeping the box, and they keeping the keys, in case like he should take any thing out.  And syne came the auld my lord—him that was my lord last year, ye observe; and syne came the colours, as bright and bonny as mostly any thing ye ever saw.  On one of them was painted a plough and harrows, and a man sowing wheat; over the top of which were gilded letters, the which I was able to read when I put on my specs, being, if I mind well, “Speed the Plough.”  On the other one, which was a mazarine blue with yellow fringes, was the picture of two carters, with flat bonnets on their heads, the tane with a whip in his hand, and the tither a rake, making hay like.  Then came they all passing by two and two, looking as if each one of them had been the Duke of Buccleuch himself, every one rigged out in his best; the young callants, such like as had just entered the box, coming hindmost, and thinking themselves, I daresay, no small drink, and the day a great one when they were first allowed to be art and part in such a grand procession.

Ilka ane his sword and dirk has,
Ilka ane as proud’s a Turk is;
There’s the Grants o’ Tullochgorum,
Wi’ their pipers gaun before ’em;
Proud the mithers are that bore ’em.
Feedle, faddle, fa, fum.

But who do ye think should come up to us at this blessed moment, with a staff in his hand, being old now, and not able to ride in the procession, as he had many a time and often done before, but honest Saunders Tram, that had been a staunch customer of mine since the day on which I opened shop, and to whom I had made countless pairs of corduroy spatterdashes; so we shook hands jocosely together, like old acquaintances, and the body hodged and leuch as if he had found a fiddle, he was so glad to see me.

Benjie having fallen asleep, Luckie Barm of the Change, a douce woman, put him to his bed, and promised to take care of him till we came back; Saunders Tram insisting on us to go forward along with him to see the race.  I had no great scruple to do this, as I thought Benjie would likely sleep for an hour, being wearied with the joogling of the cart, and having supped a mutchkin bowlful of Luckie Barm’s broo and bread.

By the time we had tramped on to the braehead, two or three had booked for the race, and were busy pulling away the flowers that hung over about their horses’ lugs, to say little of the tapes and twine; and which made them look, poor brutes, as if they were not very sure what was the matter with them.  Meanwhile, there was a terrible uproar between my lord and a man from Edinburgh Grassmarket, leading a limping horse, covered with a dirty sheet, with two holes for the beast’s een looking out at.

To cut a long tale short, the drum ruffed, and off set four of them, a black one, and a white one, and a brown one, and the man’s one, neck and neck, as neat as you like.  The race course was along the high-road; and, dog on it, they made a noise like thunder, throwing out their big heavy feet behind them, and whisking their tails from side to side as if they would have dung out one another’s een; till, not being used to gallop, they at last began to funk and fling; syne first one stopping, and then another, wheeling round and round about like peiries, in spite of the riders whipping them, and pulling them by the heads.  The man’s mare, however, from the Grassmarket, with the limping leg, carried on, followed by the white one, an old tough brute, that had belonged in its youth to a trumpeter of the Scots Greys; and, to tell the truth, it showed mettle still, though far past its best; so back they came, neck and neck, all the folk crying, and holloing, and clapping their hands—some “Weel dune the lame ane—five shillings on the lame ane;”—and others, “Weel run Bonaparte—at him, auld Bonaparte—two to one that Whitey beats him all to sticks,”—when, dismal to relate, the limping-legged ane couped the creels, and old white Bonaparte came in with his tail cocked amid loud cheering, and no small clapping of hands.

“It canna be helpit,” he said, giving his head a bit shake; “it canna be helpit, friends.  Ay, Jess, ye were a gude ane in yere day, lass,—mony a penny and pound have I made out of ye.  Which o’ ye can lend me a hand, lads?  Rin away for a gun some o’ ye.”

Here Thomas Clod interfered with a small bit of advice—a thing that Thomas was good at, being a Cameraman elder, and accustomed to giving a word.  “Wad ye no think it better,” said Thomas, “to stick her with a long gully-knife, or a sharp shoemaker’s parer?  It wad be an easier way, I’m thinking.”

Dog on it!  I could scarcely keep from shuddering when I heard them speaking in this wild, heathenish, bloody sort of a manner.

“No, no;” cried Tammie Dobbie, lending in his word, “a better plan than a’ that, wad be to make a strong kinch of ropes, and hang her.”

Lovey ding! such ways of showing how to be merciful!!  But the old Jockey himself interfered.  “Haud yere tongues, fules,” was his speech; “yonder’s the man coming wi’ a gun.  We’ll shune put an end to her.  She would have won for a hunder pounds, if she hadna broken her leg.—Wha’ll wager me that she wadna hae won?  But she’s the last of my stable, puir beast; and I havena ae plack to rub against anither, now that I have lost her.  Gi’e me the gun and the penny candle.  Is she loaded?” speired he at the man that carried the piece.

“Troth is she,” was the answer, “double charged.”

“Then stand back, lads,” quod the old round-shouthered horse-couper, and ramming down the candle he lifted up the piece, cocking it as he went four or five yards in front of the poor bleeding brute, that seemed, though she could not rise, to know what he was about with the weapon of destruction; casting her black eye up at him, and looking pitifully in his face.

When I saw him taking his aim, and preparing to draw the trigger, I turned round my back, not being able to stand it, and brizzed the flats of my hands with all my pith against the opening of my ears; nevertheless, I heard a faint boom; so, heeling round, I observed the miserable bleeding creature lift her head, and pulling up her legs, give them a plunge down again on the divots: after which she lay still, and we all saw, to our satisfaction, that death had come to her relief.

This job being over to his mind as well as mine, and the money safely stowed into his big hinder coat-pocket—would ye believe it? ere yet the beast was scarcely cold, just as we were decamping from the place, and buttoning up our breeches-pockets, we saw him casting his coat, and had the curiosity to stand still for a jiffy, to observe what he was after, in case, in the middle of his misfortunes, he was bent on some act of desperation; when, lo and behold! he out with a gully knife, and began skinning his old servant, as if he had been only peeling the bark off a fallen tree!

CHAPTER XV.—THE RETURN.

That sweet home is their delight,
And thither they repair
Communion with their own to hold!
Peaceful as, at the fall of night,
Two little lambkins gliding white
Return unto the gentle air,
That sleeps within the fold.
Or like two birds to their lonely nest,
Or wearied waves to their bay of rest,
Or fleecy clouds when their race is run,
That hang in their own beauty blest,
’Mid the calm that sanctifies the west
Around the setting sun.

Wilson.

As I was thus musing, the bright red sun of summer sank down behind the top of the Pentland Hills, and all looked bluish, dowie, and dreary, as if the heart of the world had been seized with a sudden dwalm, and the face of nature had at once withered from blooming youth into the hoariness of old age.  Now and then the birds gave a bit chitter; and whiles a cow mooed from the fields; and the dew was falling like the little tears of the fairies out of the blue lift, where the gloaming-star soon began to glow and glitter bonnily.

“Have you your snuff-box upon ye?”—said Tammie.  “Gi’e me a pinch.”

Having given him the box, I observed to him, that “it was beginning to grow dark and dowie.”

“’Deed is’t,” said Tammie; “but a body can now scarcely meet on the road wi’ ony think waur than themsell.  Mony a witch, de’il, and bogle, however, did my grannie see and hear tell of, that used to scud and scamper hereaway langsyne like maukins.”

“Witches!” quo’ I.  “No, no Tammie, all these things are out of the land now; and muckle luck to them.  But we have other things to fear; what think ye of highway robbers?”

“Highway robbers!” said Tammie.  “Kay, kay; I’ll tell ye of something that I met in wi’ mysell.  Ae dark winter night, as I was daundering hame frae Pathhead—it was pitmirk, and about the twall—losh me, I couldna see my finger afore me!—that a stupid thocht cam into my head that I wad never wun hame, but be either killed, lost, murdered, or drowned, between that and the dawing.  All o’ a sudden I sees a light coming dancing forrit amang the trees; and my hair began to stand up on end.  Then, in the next moment—save us a’!—I sees anither light, and forrit, forrit they baith cam, like the een of some great fiery monster, let loose frae the pit o’ darkness by its maister, to seek whom it might devour.”

“Stop, Tammie,” said I to him, “yell wauken Benjie.  How far are we from Dalkeith?”

“I’m sure I canna tell,” said I.

“Naithing mair then,” answered Tammie, “but twa bowets; ane tied to ilka knee of auld Doofie, the half-crazy horse-doctor, mounted on his lang-tailed naig, and away through the dark by himsell, at the dead hour o’ night, to the relief of a man’s mare seized with the batts, somewhere down about Oxenford.”

I was glad that Tammie’s story had ended in this way, when out came another tramping on its heels.

“Do you see the top of yon black trees to the eastward there, on the braehead?”

“I think I do,” was my reply.  “But how far, think ye, are we from home now?”

“About a mile and a half,” said Tammie.—“Weel, as to the trees, I’ll tell ye something about them.

“When the poor lassie heard what had come to pass, and how her sweetheart had ta’en the bounty, she was like to gang distrackit, and took to her bed.  The doctor never took up her trouble; and some said it was a fever.  At last she was roused out o’t, but naebody ever saw her laugh after; and frae ane that was as cantie as a lintie, she became as douce as a Quaker, though she aye gaed cannily about her wark, as if amaist naething had happened.  If she was ony way light-headed before, to be sure she wasna that noo; but just what a decent quean should be, sitting for hours by the kitchen fire her lane, reading the Bible, and thinking, wha kens, of what wad become o’ the wicked after they died; and so ye see”—

“What light is yon?” said I, interrupting him, wishing him like to break off.

“Ou, it’s just the light on some of the coal-hills.  The puir blackened creatures will be gaun down to their wark.  It’s an unyearthly kind of trade, turning night intil day, and working like moudiewarts in the dark, when decent folks are in their beds sleeping.—And so, as I was saying, ye see, it happened ae Sunday night that a chap cam to the back door; and the mistress too heard it.  She was sitting in the foreroom wi’ her specs on, reading some sermon book; but it was the maid that answered.

“In a while thereafter, she rang her bell, being a curious body, and aye anxious to ken a’ thing of her ain affairs, let alane her neighbours; so, after waiting a wee, she rang again,—and better rang; then lifting up her stick, for she was stiff with the rheumaticks and decay of nature, she hirpled into the kitchen,—but feint a hait saw she there, save the open Bible lying on the table, the cat streekit out before the fire, and the candle burning—the candle—na, I daur say I am wrang there, I believe it was a lamp, for she was a near ane.  As for her maiden, there was no trace of her.”

“What do ye think came owre her then?” said I to him, liking to be at my wits’ end.  “Naething uncanny, I daur say?”

“Preceesely,” said I—“I see them well enough.”

“Weel, after a’ thochts of finding her were gi’en up, and it was fairly concluded, that it was the auld gudeman that had come and chappit her out, she was fund in a pond among yon trees, floating on her back, wi’ her Sunday’s claes on!!”

“Drowned?” said I to him.

“Drowned—and as stiff as a deal board,” answered Tammie.  “But when she was drowned—or how she came to be drowned—or who it was drowned her—has never been found out to this blessed moment.”

“Maybe,” said I, lending in my word—“maybe she had grown demented, and thrown herself in i’ the dark.”

“Or maybe,” said Tammie, “the de’il flew away wi’ her in a flash o’ fire; and, soosing her down frae the lift, she landit in that hole, where she was fund floating.  But—wo!—wo!” cried he to his horse, coming across its side with his whip—“We maun be canny; for this brig has a sharp turn, (it was the Cow Brig, ye know,) and many a one, both horse and man, have got their necks broken, by not being wary enough of that corner.”

This made me a thought timorous, having the bit laddie Benjie fast asleep in my arms; and as I saw that Tammie’s horse was a wee fidgety; and glad, I dare say, poor thing, to find itself so near home.  We heard the water, far down below, roaring and hushing over the rocks, and thro’ among the Duke’s woods—big, thick, black trees, that threw their branches, like giant’s arms, half across the Esk, making all below as gloomy as midnight; while over the tops of them, high, high aboon, the bonnie wee starries were twink-twinkling far amid the blue.  But there was no end to Tammie’s tongue.

“James ran in for his hat; but, as he was coming out at the door, he met another messenger, such as came running across the plain to David, to acquaint him of the death of Absalom, crying, ‘Rin away doun, Jamie, rin away doun; your cart is standing yonder, without either horse or driver; for they’re baith killed!’

“Jamie thanked Heaven that the cart was to the fore; then, rinning back for his stick, which he had forgotten, he stopped a moment to bid his wife not greet so loud, and was then rushing out in full birr, when he ran foul of a third chield, that mostly knocked doun the door in his hurry.  ‘Awfu’ news, man, awfu’ news,’ was the way o’t, with this second Eliphaz the Temanite.  ‘Your cart and horse ran away—and threw the driver, puir fellow, clean owre the brig into the water.  No a crunch o’ him is to be seen or heard tell of; for he was a’ smashed to pieces!!  It’s an awfu’ business!’

“‘But where’s the horse? and where’s the cart, then?’ askit Jamie, a thought brisker.  ‘Where’s the horse and cart, then, my man?  Can ye tell me ought of that?’

“‘Ou,’ said he, ‘they’re baith doun at the Toll yonder, no a hair the waur.’

“‘That’s the best news I’ve heard the nicht, my man.—Goodwife, I say, Goodwife; are ye deaf or donnart?  Give this lad a dram; and, as it rather looks like a shower, I’ll e’en no go out the night.—I’ll easily manage to find another driver, though half a hundred o’ the blockheads should get their brains knocked out.’

“Is not that a gude ane noo?” quo’ Tammie, laughing.  “’Od Jamie Bowie was a real ane.  He wadna let them light a candle by his bedside to let him see to dee; he gied them a curse, and said that was needless extravagance.”

“Hold your hand, hold your hand, for the sake of mercy!” cried I.  “Spare the father of a small family that will starve on the street if ye take my life!!  Hae—hae—there’s every coin and copper I have about me in the world!  Be merciful, be merciful; and do not shed blood that will not, cannot be rubbed out of your conscience.  Take all that we have—horse and cart and all if ye like; only spare our lives, and let us away home!”

“De’il’s in the man,” quo’ Tammie, “horse and cart! that’s a gude one!  Na, na, lads; fire away gin ye like; for as lang as I hae a drap o’ bluid in me, ye’ll get neither.  Better be killed than starve.  Do your best, ye thieves that ye are; and I’ll hae baith of ye hanged neist week before the Fifteen!”

Every moment I expected my head to be shot off, till I got my hand clapped on Tammie’s mouth, and could get cried to them—“Shoot him then, lads; shoot him then, lads, if he wants it; but take my siller like Christians, and let me away with my poor deeing bairn!”

The two men seemed a something dumfoundered with what they heard; and I began to think them, if they were highway robbers, a wee slow at their trade; when, what think ye did they turn out to be—only guess?  Nothing more nor less than two excise officers, that had got information of some smuggled gin, coming up in a cart from Fisherrow Harbour, and were lurking on the road-side, looking out for spuilzie!!

When they quitted us giggling, I could not keep from laughing too; though the sights I had seen, and the fright I had got, made me nervish and eerie; so blithe was I when the cart rattled on our own street, and I began to waken Benjie, as we were not above a hundred yards from our own door.

In this day’s adventures, I saw the sin and folly of my conduct visibly, as I jumped out of the cart at our close mouth.  So I determined within myself, with a strong determination, to behave more sensibly for the future, and think no more about limekilns and coal-pits; but to trust, for Benjie’s recovery from the chincough, to a kind Providence, together with Daffy’s elixir, and warm blankets.