John Burnet of Barns: A Romance

CHAPTER V

I CLAIM A PROMISE, AND WE SEEK THE HILLS

And now I set myself resolutely to think out something that might be the saving of my life and my love. I was in a perilous case, for when Gilbert found that I had escaped him, he would come on forthwith to Dawyck, and, in all likelihood, be here ere nightfall. One thing was clear – that I could not bide myself nor leave Marjory to his tender mercies. The hills for me; and for her – ah, that was the rub in the matter!

At last I made out some semblance of a plan. On the edge of Douglasdale, in the shire of Lanark, dwelt William Veitch at the house of Smitwood, the uncle of the dead Sir John, an old man well fallen in the vale of years. He was unmolested by all, being a peaceable soldier who had served God and the king in his day, and now thought of nothing save making a good ending. He would gladly take the lass, I knew, and shelter her till such time as I should come and take her again. Nor would Gilbert follow her thither, for no word should come to his ear of her destined harbour, and he knew naught of the place nor the relationship. The plan came upon me with such convincing force that I took no other thought on the matter. Nicol should be left there both as a guard of the place – and who so vigilant? – and as some means of communication between me and my mistress. For my own part, when once I had seen my lass safely sheltered, I should take to the hills with a light heart. I should love to be free and careless among the wide moors, and try my wits in a fair contest against my sweet cousin.

I told the thing to Nicol and he gladly agreed. Then I sought out Marjory, who had gone to make some preparations for my flight, and found her talking gravely to the old man, the only remaining servant. I drew her to the little oak parlour.

"Marjory, lass," I said, "I am but new come home, and I little thought to have to take flight again so soon. Do you mind ere I went to the Low Countries I came here to bid you farewell, and you sang me a song?"

"I mind it well," said she.

"Have you a remembrance of the air, my dear? How did it go?" and I whistled a stave.

"Ay, even so. You have a good ear, John."

"I think, too, that I have mind of a verse or so," said I. "There was one which ran like this:

Was it not so?"

"Yes," she said, smiling; "how well you remember, John."

"And there was a refrain, too," I went on.

Marjory blushed. "Why do you remind me of my old song?" she said. "It pains me, for I used to sing it ere the trouble came upon us, and when we were all as happy as the day was long."

"Nay," I said, "it is a song for the time of trouble. It was your promise to me, and I have come to claim its fulfilment. I am for the hills, Marjory, and I cannot leave you behind. Will you come and bear me company? I will take you to Smitwood, where even the devil and my cousin Gilbert could not follow you. There you will be safe till I come again when this evil time is past, for pass it must. And I will go to the hills with a blithe heart, if once I knew you were in good keeping."

"Oh, John, to be sure I will follow you," she said, "even to the world's end. I will fare among rough hills and bogs if I may but be near you. But I will go to Smitwood, for most terribly I dread this place."

So it was all brought to a conclusion, and it but remained to make ready with all speed and seek the uplands. We trusted ourselves wholly to Nicol's guidance, for he knew the ways as he knew his own name, and had a wide acquaintance with the hillmen and their hiding-places. On him it lay to find shelter for us on the road and guide us by the most unfrequented paths. So we set about the preparing of provisions and setting the house in order. The old man, who was the sole servant remaining, was left in charge of the place against our uncertain return. For myself I should have taken but one horse, Marjory's roan mare, and tramped along on foot; but Nicol bade me take Maisie, for, said he, "I'll tak ye by little-kenned ways, where ye may ride as easy as walk; and forbye, if it cam to the bit, a horse is a usefu' cratur for rinnin' awa on. I could trot fine on my feet mysel', but though ye're a guid man at the sma'-swird, Laird, I doubt ye'd no be muckle at that." The words were wise, so I saddled Maisie and prepared to ride her to Smitwood, and there leave her.

It was, I think, about three hours after midday when we were ready to start on our journey. A strange cavalcade we formed – Marjory on the roan, dressed plainly as for the hills, and with a basket slung across the saddlebow, for all the world like a tinker's pannier; I myself on Maisie, well-mounted and armed, and Nicol on foot, lean and ill-clad as ever. It was not without a pang that we set out, for it is hard to leave the fair and settled dwellings of home for haphazard lodging among rough morasses. Marjory in especial could scarce refrain from tears, while I own that as I looked down the vale and saw the woods of Barns and the green hills of Manor, I could have found it in me to be despondent.

But once we left the valley and began to ascend the slopes, our spirits returned. It was an afternoon among a thousand, one such as only April weather and the air of the Tweed valley can bring. The sky was cloudless and the wind sharp, and every hill and ridge in the great landscape stood out clear as steel. The grass was just greening beneath our feet, the saugh bushes were even now assuming the little white catkins, and the whole air was filled with a whistling and twittering of birds. We took our road straight through the pine wood which clothes the western slopes of Scrape. The ground was velvet-dry, and the deer fled swiftly as we neared their coverts. It was glorious to be abroad and feel the impulse of life stirring everywhere around. Yet I could not keep from the reflection that at this very time the day before I had been nearing the port of Leith in the Seamaw, expecting nothing save a pleasant homecoming, and thereafter a life of peace. Truly in one short day and night I had led a somewhat active life, and now was fleeing from the very place I had most longed to return to.

Soon we left the woods and came out on the heathery brow of Scrape, and crossing it, entered the deep glen where the burn of Scrape flows to join the Powsail. The heather had been burned, as is the custom here in the early spring, and great clouds of fine white dust rose beneath the hooves of our horses. A dry crackling of twigs and the strident creak of the larger roots as they grated on one another, filled our ears. Then once more we ascended, high and ever higher, over rocks and treacherous green well-eyes and great spaces of red fern, till we gained the brow of the hill which they call Glenstivon Dod, and looked down into the little glen of Powsail.

We crossed the lovely burn of Powsail, which is the most beautiful of all Tweedside burns, since the water is like sapphire and emerald and topaz, flashing in every ray like myriad jewels. Here we watered our horses, and once more took the hills. And now we were on the wild ridge of upland which heads the glens of Stanhope and Hopecarton and Polmood, the watershed 'twixt the vales of Tweed and Yarrow. Thence the sight is scarce to be matched to my knowledge in the south country of Scotland. An endless stretching of hills, shoulder rising o'er shoulder, while ever and again some giant lifts himself clean above his fellows, and all the while in the glen at our feet Tweed winding and murmuring.

I asked Nicol what was the purpose of our journey, for this was by no means the shortest way to Douglasdale and Smitwood. He answered that to go straight to our destination would be to run our heads into the lion's mouth. He purposed that we should go up Tweed to a hiding-place which he knew of on the Cor Water, and then make over by the upper waters of the Clyde and the Abington moors to the house of Smitwood. These were the more deserted and least accessible places, whereas the villages and lowlands around the skirts of the hills were watched like the High Street of Edinburgh.

In a little we passed the wild trough where the Stanhope Burn flows toward Tweed. It was now drawing toward the darkening, and the deep, black glen seemed dark as the nether pit. Had we not had a guide to whom the place was familiar as his own doorstep, we should soon have been floundering over some craig. As it was, our case was not without its danger. It is not a heartening thing to go stumbling on hilltops in the dusk of an April evening, with black, horrific hill-slopes sinking on all sides. Marjory grew frightened, as I knew by the tightened clutch at her horse's rein, and her ever seeking to draw nearer me, but like the brave lass that she was, she breathed never a word of it. Every now and then an owl would swoop close to our faces, or a great curlew dart out of the night with its shrill scream, and vanish again into the dark. It was an uncanny place at that hour, and one little to be sought by those who love comfort and peace. But the very difficulty of the way gladdened us, for it gave us assurance that we would be unmolested by wayfaring dragoons. By and by stars came out and the moon rose, glorious and full as on the night before, when I had ridden from Leith. Then it served to light my course to Dawyck, now to guide me from it.

We were now descending a steep hillside, all rough with sklidders, and coming to the Water of Talla, which we forded at a shallow a little below the wild waterfall called Talla Linns. Even there we could hear the roar of the cataract, and an awesome thing it was in that lonely place. But we tarried not a minute, but urged our horses up a desperate ravine till once more we were on the crest of the hills. And now a different land was around us. Far to the right, where the Talla joins the Tweed, we could mark the few lights of the little village of Tweedsmuir. The higher hills had been left behind, and we were on a wide expanse of little ridges and moor which the people of Tweedside call "The Muirs," and which extends from the upper Clyde waters to the source of the Annan and the monstrous hills which line its course. I had been but once before in the place, in the winter time, when I was shooting the duck which come here in great plenty. To me, then, it had seemed the bleakest place in God's creation, but now, under the silver moonlight, it seemed like a fantastic fairyland, and the long, gleaming line of Tweed like the fabled river which is the entrance to that happy domain.

We were now near our journey's end, and in the very heart of the moors of Tweed. The night was bright with moonlight, and we went along speedily. Soon we came to a narrow upland valley, walled with precipitous green hills. Here Nicol halted.

"There'll be watchers aboot," he said, "and our coming 'ill hae been tellt to the folk in the cave. We'd better gang warily." So we turned our horses up the glen, riding along the narrow strip of meadowland beside the burn. I had heard of the place before, and knew it for the Cor Water, a stream famous for trout, and at this time, no less renowned among the hillmen as a hiding-place. For in the steep craigs and screes there were many caves and holes where one might lie hid for months.

Soon we came to a steep, green bank, and here we drew rein. Nicol whistled on his fingers, with a peculiar, piercing note like a whaup's cry. It was answered by another from the near neighbourhood. Again Nicol whistled with a different pitch, and this time a figure came out as from the hillside, and spoke.

"Whae are ye," he said, "that come here, and what do ye seek? If ye come in the Lord's name, welcome and a night's lodging await ye. If no, fire and a sword."

"I'm Nicol Plenderleith," said my servant, "as weel ye ken, John Laidlaw. And these are twae gentlefolk, whose names are no convenient to be mentioned here, for hillsides hae ears. If ye come near, I'll whisper it in your lug."

The man approached and appeared well-satisfied. He bade us dismount and led the horses off, while we waited. Then he returned, and bidding us follow, led the way up a steep gully which scarred the hillside. In a little he stopped at an out-jutting rock, and crept round the corner of it. At the side next the hill was an opening large enough to allow a man of ordinary stature to pass, and here he entered and motioned us to follow.

CHAPTER VI

THE CAVE OF THE COR WATER

The place we found ourselves in was a narrow passage, very lofty and very dark, and with countless jags of rough stone on all sides to affront the stranger. Some few paces led us into a wider place, lit by some opening on the hillside, for a gleam as of pale moonlight was all about it. There stood a sentinel, a tall, grave man, dressed in coarse homespun, and brown of the face. Through this again we passed into another straitened place, which in a little opened into a chamber of some magnitude.

When I grew accustomed to the candle-light, I made out that it was a natural cave in the whinstone rocks, maybe thirty feet in height, square in shape, and not less than thirty feet long. The black sides were rough and crusted, and hung in many parts with articles of household gear and warlike arms. But the place was less notable than the people who were sitting there, and greeted us as we entered. In the midst was a table of rough-hewn wood, whereon lay the remnants of a meal. Lit pine-staves cast an eerie glow over all things, and in the light I saw the faces of the company clear.

On a settle of stone covered with a sheep's fleece sat an old man, large of limb and tall, but bent and enfeebled with age. His long hair fell down almost to his shoulders; his features as the light fell upon them were strong, but his eyes were sightless and dull as stone. He had a great stick in his hand which he leaned on, and at our entrance he had risen and stared before him into vacancy, conscious of some new presence, but powerless to tell of it. Near him, along by the table-side, were two men of almost like age, square, well-knit fellows, with the tanned faces of hillmen. I guessed them to be shepherds or folk of that sort who had fled to this common refuge. Beyond these again stood a tall, slim man of a more polished exterior than the rest; his attitude had something of grace in it, and his face and bearing proclaimed him of better birth. Forbye, there were one or two more, gaunt, sallow folk, such as I had learned to know as the extreme religionists. These were busy conversing together with bowed heads and earnest voices, and took no heed of our arrival. To add to all, there were two women, one with a little child, clearly the wives of the shepherds.

Our guide went forward to the man who stood by the wall and whispered something to him. In an instant he came to us, and, bowing to Marjory, bade us welcome. "We are glad to see you here, Master Burnet," said he. "I am rejoiced to see the gentlemen of the land coming forth on the side of the Covenant. It is you and such as you that we need, and we are blithe to give you shelter here as long as you care to bide with us. It is a queer thing that two men of the same house should be engaged in this business on different sides."

Here one of the others spoke up.

"I trust, Master Burnet, ye have brought us good news from the Lawlands. We heard that ye had great converse with the godly there, and we will be glad to hear your account of how the guid cause prospers over the water."

Now I felt myself in a position of much discomfort. The cause of my outlawry had clearly got abroad, and here was I, credited with being a zealous religionist and a great man among the Scots exiles in Holland. Whereas, as I have already said, I cared little for these things, being not of a temper which finds delight in little differences of creed or details of ecclesiastical government, but caring little in what way a man may worship his Maker. Indeed, to this day, while I can see the advantage of having fixed rites and a church established, I see little use in making a pother about any deviation. So I now found myself in an unpleasing predicament. I must avow my utter ignorance of such matters and my worldly motives for thus seeking shelter, and in all likelihood, win the disfavour of these folk, nay, even be not suffered to remain.

"I thank you for your welcome," said I, "but I must hasten to set matters right between us. I am not of your party, though it is my misfortune to have to seek safety among the hills. It is true I have been in the Low Countries, but it was for the purposes of study and seeing the world, and not for the sake of religion. If I must speak the truth, when I abode there I had little care of such things, for they were never in my way. Now that I am returned and find myself a fugitive, I am not a whit more concerned with them. My misfortunes arise from the guile of a kinsman, and not from my faith. So there you have my predicament."

I made the declaration crudely and roughly, for the necessity was urgent upon me of making it very plain at the outset. Another man would have been repelled or angered, but this man had the penetration to see through my mask of callousness that I was not ill-disposed to his cause.