Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

Aleck, who had with difficulty been hitherto restrained by the united exertions of the three women, here burst from their arms, tossed off his blanket, and leaped with a whoop into the middle of the floor;--except the short petticoat about his loins he was stark naked. "I'm twal stane wecht--my name's Aleck Lawther--I'll slap ony man o' ye for four-an'-twenty tens!" As he uttered this challenge, tossing his long arms about his head, bouncing upright, and cutting like a posture-master at the end of every clause, while the scanty kilt fluttered and flapped about his sinewy hams, the men fell back in a panic, as if from a spectre; but their astonishment soon gave place to indignation, and my questioner, clubbing his pike, stepped forward, and making the shaft rattle off the white array of ribs, which poor Aleck's flourish had left unprotected, reduced his proposals to practice in a trice. He, wisely making up for disparity of forces by superiority of weapon, started back, and adroitly unhooking the long iron chain and pot-hooks from the chimney, set them flying round his head like a slinger of old; and meeting his antagonist with a clash, shot him rocketwise into the corner: then giving another whirl to his stretcher, and leaping out with the full swing of his long body, he brought it to bear upon the next. There was another clattering crash, and the man went down; but pitching with his shoulder into the tub, upset it, and sent a flood of water into the fire. Smoke, steam, and white ashes, whirled up in clouds; the lantern was trampled out, and the battle became general: for one rascal, lifting his fallen comrade's pike (there was luckily but one among them), advanced upon me. I had just light to see the thrust and parry it. Another second, and we had closed in the midst of that strange atmosphere, striking and sneezing at each other across the pike shaft, as we each strove to wrest it to himself. My antagonist was a lusty fellow, and tugged me stoutly, while I kept him between me and the main fight, now raging through the water and the fire: this I could just distinguish among the vapour and smoke, dashed about in red showers of embers, as each new tramp and whirl of the combatants swept it from the hearthstone. How Aleck fought his two opponents I could not imagine; yet once, during a minute's relaxation on our parts, when, having got the pike jammed between a table and the wall, we were reduced to the by-play of kicking one another's shin-bones, I could hear, every now and again, above the medley of curses and screams (for the women were all busy) his lusty "Hah!" as he put in each successive blow; and then the bolt and thud of some one gone down, far away in the distance; or the rush of a capsize among the loose lumber at my feet. But I had no longer an opportunity of noting his prowess; for my antagonist, getting the weapon disentangled, hauled me after him into the open floor, and then began upon the swinging system. So away we went, sweeping down chairs and stools, and rolling fallen bodies over in our course; till tired and dizzy, I suddenly planted myself, let go both holds, and dashing in right and left together, sent him whirling like a comet, impetuous and hot, into the void beyond. But my own head here fell heavily upon my breast; and the whole scene, smoke, fire, and shifting shapes, with all their mingled hissing, and battering, oaths, shrieks, and imprecations, shut upon my senses.

A Babel of dull sound, chiming and sawing within my head, announced my returned consciousness. This is no dream, thought I; I have been hurt, but I am afraid to ask myself where. If my skull should be fractured now, and I should be an idiot all my life, or if my arm should be broken--farewell to the river! But can I be still doubled up among those pots and pans which I crushed beneath me in my fall? No,--dark as it is, I feel that I am laid straight and soft. I must be in bed, but where? where? It was some time before I had courage to confirm my doubts of my head's condition: it was carefully bandaged, and doubtless much shattered: I could feel that I was in a close-panelled bedstead, such as are usual in old houses; but had too much discretion to attempt the hazardous experiment of rising without knowing either my strength or situation. So I lay, fancying all sorts of means to account for my preservation: need I say that the main agent in all was the fair Madeline?

My curiosity was at length relieved; a rude folding-door opened opposite, and showed a low dim sitting-room beyond, from which there rose a few steps to the entrance of my chamber. On these appeared, not, alas! the fancied visitant who was to flit about my bedside, and mix her bright presence with my dreams, but stately and severe, with a pale cheek and compressed lip, her father--my aversion.

I lay silent, sick at the thoughts of my own meanness in his eyes; while he advanced, shading the light of the candle from my face, and in a low cold tone, asked if I desired anything?

I shall never forget him as he stood, the light thrown full upon his strong features and broad chest, and shining purple through the fingers of his large hand. "I asked, sir, did you require any assistance?" he repeated. "Are you in pain?" he went on. I now replied that my chief pain was caused by my own unworthy appearance; made a confused apology for my misconduct, and offered my acknowledgments for the protection I had received. "You have saved the life of my child," he said, turning slightly from me, "and protection is a debt which must be paid; for your follower, he must thank the same circumstance for what little life his own mad conduct has left him." Without another word, he took a phial from the table, and, pouring out a draught, handed it to me; I mechanically drunk it off; but ere I had taken it from my lips, he was gone. I heard the doors close and the bolts shoot after him with strange forebodings; and when the sound of his footsteps had died away in the long passage beyond, fell back in a wild maze of apprehension and self-censure, till I again sank into a heavy sleep.

When I awoke, there was a yellow twilight in my little cabin, from the scattering of a red ray of the sunset which streamed through a crevice in the door. I had therefore slept a whole day; my fever was abated; the gnawing pain had left my head, and I longed to eat. I knocked upon the boards, and the door was presently opened; but it was some time ere my eyes could endure the flood of light which then burst in. The figure which at length became visible amid it, was little worthy so goodly a birth. The lank, slack, ill-hinged anatomy of Peg, with a bottle in one hand, and a long horn spoon in the other, advanced, and in no gracious tone demanded what was my will. I turned and lay silent; for I never felt an awkward situation so embarrassing as then. My gorge rose at the malignant cause of all my disasters; but interest and discretion told me to be civil if I spoke at all. I gave no answer; she was in no humour to suffer such trifling with her time. "Hear till him, Jamie!" she exclaimed to some one behind her, "hear till him, the fashious scunner! he dunts folk frae their wark as if he was the laird o' the Lang Marches himsell, and then----" "Good Mistress Margaret----" "Mistress me nae mistresses! there's ne'er a wife i' the parish has a right to be mistressed, since she deeit wha's wean ye wad betray! Deil hae me gin I can keep my knieves aff ye, ye ill-faured bluid-seller!"--"Ill-faured _what_?" shouted I. "No just ill-faured neither, blest be the Maker, and mair's the pity; ye're a clean boy eneugh, as I weel may say, wha had the strippin' and streekin' o' ye; but I say that ye're just a bluid-seller, a reformer, a spy, gin ye like it better!" She backed down the steps, and holding a leaf of the door at each side, stretched in her neck, and went on, "Ay, spy, Willie Macdonnell, spy to your teeth.--Isna your name upon your sark breast? and arena the arms that ye disgrace upon your seal, and daur ye deny them? daur ye deny that ye're the swearer away o' the innocent bluid o' puir Hughy Morrison, wham ye hangit like a doug upon the lamp-posts o' Doonpatrick? Daur ye hae the face to deny that ye come here e'en noo to reform upon Square O'More and his bonny wean? Daur ye hae the impurence to deny it?" Here I was relieved by the entrance of Mr O'More himself. I addressed him in a tone as cool and conciliatory as I could command. "I am much relieved to find, sir, that any harshness I may have to complain of, has originated in a mistake. I am Mr Macdonnell of Redrigs. It was only last week that I returned from England. I have not been in this part of the country for many years; and can only say, that if any person bearing my name deserves the character you seem to impute to me, I detest him as cordially as you do." He eyed me with visibly increased disgust. "It will not pass, sir, it will not pass. I have had notice of your intentions. Mr Macdonnell of Redrigs is in Oxford."--"I tell you, sir, he is here!" I cried, starting up in bed. "Back, back!" he exclaimed to the servants who were pressing round; they fell back, and he came up to me. "Hark ye, sir, instead of assuming a name to which you have no right----" The passion which had been burning within me all along, blazed out in uncontrollable fury. I started with a sudden energy out into the floor; dashed backwards and forwards through the room, stamping with indignation, while I asserted my honour, and demanded satisfaction; but the fire which had for a minute animated me failed; my tongue became confused and feeble; the whole scene whirled and flickered round me, and I sank exhausted, and in a burning fever, on a seat.

Every one who has suffered fever knows what a fiery trance it is. How long mine had continued I could not guess; when the crisis came, it was favourable, and I awoke, cool and delighted, from a long sweet sleep. That scene I had already witnessed, of sunset through the room beyond, was again before me; the same grey and purple haze hung over the mountain, and the same rich sky from above lit up the river-reaches; the dim old room was warm in the mellow light; the folding-doors stood wide open, but on the steps where the marrer of the whole had stood before, lo! the radiance revelling through her hair; the rich light flushing warm through the outline of her face and neck; the sweet repose of satisfaction and conscious care beaming over her whole countenance; benign and beautiful stood Madeline O'More, her finger on her lips. "She, too, thinks me a spy," I muttered, in the bitterness of my heart, and hid my face upon the pillow. But who can describe my delight when I heard her well-remembered accents murmur beside me, "Oh no, believe me, indeed I do not!" I looked up. She was covered with blushes--I felt them reflected on my own cheek--there was a conscious pause. "Then you do believe that I am what I have told you?" I said at last. "O yes! but indeed you must forgive the error," she replied; and readily did I admit its justifiableness, when she went on to tell me that a friend had ridden a long journey to warn them against a person bearing my name, and answering to my appearance--an apostate from their own cause, and a noted spy, who, upon some vague information of their retreat, had set out with the intention of discovering and betraying them; and that their friend (in whom I at once recognised the priest I had seen her father conduct from the house) had left them but a few minutes before I arrived.

It was now my turn to apologise and explain. She listened, with many pleas of palliation for the indignities I had endured, to my account of my business in Ireland, and the circumstances which had led me to Glen----; but when I came to account for my appearance at Moyabel, her confusion satisfied me that the motive was already known. I felt suddenly conscious of having been dreaming about her; and I knew that a fevered man's dream is his nurse's perquisite: dissimulation, after what I knew and suspected to have passed, would have been as impossible as repugnant. So then and there, among that mellow sunset in the sick chamber, I confessed to her how my whole thoughts had been haunted by her image, since the time when her father had hurried her from the scene of our meeting; how I could not rest while any scheme, how wild soever, promised me even a chance of again beholding her; how this had induced me to snatch at the first opportunity of discovering her, and had brought on that disastrous adventure which had ended in my wound; but that I still endured another, which I feared would prove incurable, if I might not live upon the hope (and I took her hand) of gaining her to be my heart's physician constantly.

Footsteps suddenly sounded in the passage. I released her hand, and she hid her confusion, in a hasty escape through a side-door, just before her father made his appearance at that of the hall. He advanced with a frank expression of pleasure and concern; took his seat by my bedside; congratulated me on the favourable issue of my illness, and repeated those apologies and explanations which his daughter had already made; adding that his first intention had been to detain me prisoner, so that I could have no opportunity of betraying them until their departure for France; but that the moment he had heard my undisguised ravings, he perceived the injustice of which he had been guilty; that Aleck's speech having returned soon after, (for the poor fellow was so beaten that he could not say a word for three days--but I have taken good care of him), another evidence, however unnecessary, was afforded by his declaration; and that, therefore, a messenger was immediately despatched to Knowehead, with private letters, explaining our situation and its causes, and resting on the honour of my friend for the security of all. The trust had been well reposed: Aleck, who was able to go home in a few days, had come the night before (although returned that morning) with the intelligence of the real spy having applied for information to the old gentleman; but that, loyal subject and zealous Protestant as he was, he had given him no more than a civil indication of his door. All this he told with a gratified and grateful air, and left me to a night of happy dreams.

Next morning, however, he came to me, and in a serious, nay severe manner, told me, that as I had divulged the motive which brought me thither in my ravings, he felt it a duty to himself and to me, now that I was established in my recovery, to inform me that, while he forgave my intrusion on a privacy he had already begged me not to break, he must desire that there should be no recurrence of attentions to his daughter, which might distract a heart destined either for the service of a free Catholic in regenerated Ireland, or for that of Heaven in a nunnery.

He had laid his hand upon the table, and it unconsciously rested upon the seals of my watch. "Look," said I, "at these trinkets; I shall tell you what they are, and let them be my answer. That rude silver seal, with the arms and initials, was dug from my father's orchard, along with the bones of his ancestor, who fell there beneath the knives of free Catholics in --41, a greyhaired man, among the seven bodies of his murdered wife and children. Look again at that curious ring; it was worn by his son, the sole survivor of all that ancient family who escaped, a maimed and famished spectre, out of Derry, after the same party had driven him to eat his sword-belt for hunger. Look once again at this more antique locket; it contains the hair of a maternal ancestor, who perished for the faith among the fagots of Smithfield; and look, here, at my own arm--that wound I received when a child, from the chief of a 'Heart of Steel' banditti, who, under the same banner, lighted our family's escape from rape and massacre, by the flames of their own burning roof-tree; and yet I--I, every drop of whose blood might well cry out for vengeance, when I see these remembrancers of my wrongs in the hands of my wrongs' defender, do yet take that hand, and long to call him father."

I was here interrupted by the sudden entrance of a splashed and wearied messenger: advancing with a military salute, he presented a letter to Mr O'More. "Pardon me," he said, hastily tearing it open, "this is on a matter of life and death." He read it in great agitation; led the messenger aside; gave some hurried orders; took down his arms from the mantelpiece; and drawing his belt, and fixing in his pistols while he spoke, addressed me:--"Notwithstanding what you have urged, my determination remains unaltered. I must leave Moyabel, for I cannot now say how long: you shall be taken care of in my absence: farewell, sir, farewell." He shook me by the hand, and hurried away. I heard confusion in the house, and thought I could distinguish the sweet voice of Madeline, broken by sobs at his departure. A considerable party seemed to leave the house; for there was a great trampling of horses in the courtyard, and two or three mounted men passed by the windows. At length they were out of hearing, and I determined not to lose another minute of the precious opportunity. My clothes had been brought from Knowehead, and I was so much recovered that I found myself able to rise, and set about dressing immediately. My continental visions of beard were more than realised; and if I failed to produce a shapely moustache, 'twas not for lack of material. With fluttering expectation, I selected the most graceful of the pantaloons; drew on my rings; arrayed myself in the purple velvet slippers, cap, and brocade dressing-gown; took one lingering last look at the little mirror, and descended into the parlour. I drew a writing-table to me, and penned a long letter to Knowehead, another to Redrigs, and had half-finished a sonnet to Madeline. The day was nearly past, and she had not yet made her appearance.

For the first time the thought struck me, and that with a pang which made me leap to my feet, that she had accompanied her father, and was gone! gone, perhaps, to a nunnery in France! gone, and lost to me for ever! "Hilloa, Peg!" and I thumped the floor with the poker, "Peg, I say! as you would not have me in another fever, come here!" She came to the door: the poor old creature's eyes were swollen and blood-shot: she made a frightened curtsy to me as I stood, the papers crumpled up in one hand, and the poker in the other.--"Peggy; oh, Peggy! where is your young mistress?"

"Save us, your honour! Ye are na weel; sall I fetch you a drap cordial?"

"Your mistress? your mistress? where is your young mistress?"

"Oh, sir, dear! take anither posset, and gang to your bed."

"To the devil I pitch your posset! where is your young mistress? where is Madeline O'More?"

She turned to escape: I leaped forward, and caught her by the shoulder--"Since ye maun ken, then," she screamed, "by God's providence, she's on the saut water wi' the Square, her father"--I sank back upon the sofa--"wha," she continued in a soothing strain, "has left me to take charge o' your honour's head till ye can gang your lane: A' the ithers are awa, but wee Jeanie and mysell; and ye wadna, surely your honour wadna gang to frichten twa lane weemen, by dwamin' awa that gait, and deein' amang their hands? But save us, if there's no auld Knowehead himsell, wi' that bauld sorner, Aleck Lawther, on a sheltie at his heels, trottin' doon the causey!--Jeanie, hoi, Jeanie, rin and open the yett."

I lay back--sick--sick--sick. The old man, booted and spurred, strode in--

"I'm thinkin', Willie, ye hae catched a cloured head?"

"If I do not catch a strait-waistcoat, sir, it will be the less matter."

"Willie, man," said he, without noticing my comment, "she's weel awa, and you are weel redd--but toss off thae wylie-coats and nightcaps, and lap yoursell up in mensefu' braid-claith; for, donsie as you are, you maun come alang wi' me to Knowehead--there's a troop o' dragoons e'en now on Skyboe side, wi' your creditable namesake at their head, and they'll herry Moyabel frae hearthstane to riggin' before sax hours are gane--best keep frae under a lowin' king-post, and on the outside o' the four wa's o' a prevost.--You're no fit to ride, man; and you couldna thole the jolting o' a wheel-car--but never fear, we'll slip you hame upon a feather-bed.--Nae denial, Willie--here, draw on your coat: now, that's something purpose-like--cram thae flim-flams into a poke, my bonny Jean, and fetch me a handkerchief to tie about his head: Come, Willie, take my arm--come awa, come awa."

I was passive in his hands, for I felt as weak as an infant. They wrapped me up in greatcoats and blankets, and supported me to the courtyard. I had hardly strength to speak to Aleck, whom I now saw for the first time since the night of his disaster; the poor fellow's face still bore the livid marks of his punishment, but he was active and assiduous as ever. A slide car or slipe--a vehicle something like a Lapland sledge--was covered with bedding in the middle of the square: a cart was just being hurried off, full of loose furniture, with Peggy and Jenny in front. I was placed upon my hurdle, apparently as little for this world as if Tyburn had been its destination: Knowehead and Aleck mounted their horses, took the reins of that which drew me at either side, and hauled me off at a smart trot along the smooth turf of the grass-grown causeway. The motion was sliding and agreeable, except on one occasion, when we had to take a few perches of the highway in crossing the river; but when we struck off into the green horse-track again, and began to rise and sink upon the ridges of the broad lea, I could have compared my humble litter to the knight's horses, which felt like proud seas under them. From the sample I had had of that part of the country on the night of the flood, I had anticipated a "confused march forlorn, through bogs, caves, fens, lakes, dens, and shades of death," but was agreeably surprised to see the Longslap Moss a simple stripe along the water's edge, lying dark in the deepening twilight, a full furlong from our path, which, instead of weltering through the soaked and spungy flats that I had expected, wound dry and mossy up the gentle slope of a smooth green hill; so that, although the night closed in upon us ere half our journey was completed, we arrived at Knowehead without farther accident than one capsize (the beauty of slipping consists in the impossibility of breaks down), and so far from being the worse of my "sail," I felt actually stronger than on leaving the Grange; nevertheless I was put to bed, where I continued for a week.

Next day brought intelligence of the wrecking of Moyabel in the search for the rebel general and the sick Frenchman: our measures had been so well taken, however, that no suspicion attached itself to Knowehead. I learned from Peggy, so soon as her lamentations subsided, that Mr O'More was a south country gentleman, who had married her master's sister, and that Madeline was his only child; that this had been his first visit to the north since the death of his lady, which had taken place at her brother's house, but that Moyabel had long been the resort of his friends and emissaries. The old woman left Knowehead that night, and I learned no more; for Jenny (who remained with Miss Janet) had been so busy with her care of Aleck during his illness, and afterwards so unwell herself, that she knew nothing more than I.

Another week completely re-established me in my strength; but the craving that had never left me since the last sight of Madeline, kept me still restless and impatient. Meanwhile Aleck's courtship had ripened in the golden sun of matrimony, and the wedding took place on the next Monday morning. He was a favourite with all at Knowehead, and the event was celebrated by a dance of all the young neighbours. After witnessing the leaping and flinging in the barn for half an hour, I retired to Miss Janet's parlour, where I was lolling away the evening on her high-backed sofa, along with the old gentleman, who, driven from his capitol in the kitchen by the bustle of the day, had installed himself in the unwonted state of an embroidered arm-chair beside me. We were projecting a grand coursing campaign before I should leave the country, and listening to the frequent bursts of merriment from the barn and kitchen, when little Davie came in to tell his master that "Paul Ingram was speerin' gain he wad need ony tey, or brendy, or prime pigtail, or Virginney leaf."

"I do not just approve of Paul's line of trade," observed the old man, turning to me; "for I'm thinking his commodities come oftener frae the smuggler's cave than the king's store; but he's a merry deevil, Paul, and has picked up a braw hantle o' mad ballads ae place and another; some frae Glen---- here, some frae Galloway, some frae the Isle o' Man, and some queer lingos he can sing, that he says he learned frae the Frenchmen."

A sudden thought struck me. "I will go out and get him to sing some to me, sir."--"Is Rab Halliday there, Davie?" inquired he.

"Oh aye, sir," said Davie; "it's rantin' Rab that ye hear roarin' e'en noo."

"Weel, tell him, Davie, that here's Mr William, wha has learned to speel Parnassus by a step-ladder, has come to hear the sang he made about my grandmither's wooin'."

Accordingly Davie ushered me to the kitchen. I could distinguish through the reaming fumes of liquor and tobacco about half a dozen of carousers; they were chorusing at the full stretch of their lungs the song of a jolly fellow in one corner, who, nodding, winking, and flourishing his palms, in that state of perfect bliss "that good ale brings men to," was lilting up

"Till the house be rinnin' round about,
It's time enough to flit;
When we fell, we aye gat up again,
And sae will we yet!"

This was ranting Rab Halliday--they all rose at my entrance; but being able to make myself at home in all companies, I had little difficulty in soon restoring them to their seats and jollity; while Davie signified what was to him intelligible of his master's wishes to the tuneful ranter. Rab, after praying law for any lack of skill that might be detected by my learning, sang with great humour the following verses, which he entitled

THE CANNY COURTSHIP.

Young Redrigs walks where the sunbeams fa';
He sees his shadow slant up the wa'--
Wi' shouthers sae braid, and wi' waist sae sma',
Guid faith he's a proper man!
He cocks his cap, and he streeks out his briest;
And he steps a step like a lord at least;
And he cries like the deevil to saddle his beast,
And aff to court he's gaun.

The Laird o' Largy is far frae hame,
But his dochter sits at the quiltin' frame,
Kamin' her hair wi' a siller kame,
In mony a gowden ban':
Bauld Redrigs loups frae his blawin' horse,
He prees her mou' wi' a freesome force--
"Come take me, Nelly, for better for worse,
To be your ain guidman."

"I'll no be harried like bumbee's byke--
I'll no be handled unleddy like--
I winna hae ye, ye worryin' tyke,
The road ye came gae 'lang!"
He loupit on wi' an awsome snort,
He bang'd the fire frae the flinty court;
He's aff and awa' in a snorin' sturt,
As hard as he can whang.

It's doon she sat when she saw him gae,
And a' that she could do or say,
Was--"O! and alack! and a well-a-day!
I've lost the best guidman!"
But if she was wae, it's he was wud;
He garr'd them a' frae his road to scud;
But Glowerin' Sam gied thud for thud,
And then to the big house ran.

The Glowerer ran for the kitchen-door;
Bauld Redrigs hard at his heels, be sure,
He's wallop'd him roun' and roun' the floor,
As wha but Redrigs can?
Then Sam he loups to the dresser-shelf--
"I daur ye wallop my leddy's delf;
I daur ye break but a single skelf
Frae her cheeny bowl, my man!"

But Redrigs' bluid wi' his hand was up;
He'd lay them neither for crock nor cup,
He play'd awa' wi' his cuttin' whup,
And doon the dishes dang;
He clatter'd them doon, sir, raw by raw;
The big anes foremost, and syne the sma';
He came to the cheeny cups last o' a'--
They glanced wi' goud sae thrang!

Then bonny Nelly came skirlin' butt;
Her twa white arms roun' his neck she put--
"O Redrigs, dear, hae ye tint your wut?
Are ye quite and clean gane wrang?
O spare my teapot! O spare my jug!
O spare, O spare my posset-mug!
And I'll let ye kiss, and I'll let ye hug,
Dear Redrigs, a' day lang."

"Forgie, forgie me, my beauty bright
Ye are my Nelly, my heart's delight;
I'll kiss and I'll hug ye day and night,
If alang wi' me you'll gang."
"Fetch out my pillion, fetch out my cloak,
You'll heal my heart if my bowl you broke."
These words, whilk she to her bridegroom spoke,
Are the endin' o' my sang.

I got this copy of his song since, else I could not have recollected it from that hearing; for I was too impatient to put the plan into execution for which I had come out, to attend even to this immortalising of an ancestor.

I knew Ingram at once by his blue jacket, and the corkscrews which bobbed over each temple as he nodded and swayed his head to the flourishes of "the gaberlunzie man" (the measure which Halliday had chosen for his words); so when the song was finished, and I had drank a health to Robin's muse, I stepped across to where he sat, and said I wished to speak with him alone. He put down his jug of punch, and followed me into my own room. I closed the door and told him, that as I understood him to be in the Channel trade, I applied to know if he could put me on any expeditious conveyance to the coast of France. "Why, sir," said he, "I could give you a cast myself in our own tight thing, the Saucy Sally, as far as Douglas or the Calf; and for the rest of the trip, why there's our consort, the Little Sweep, that will be thereabouts this week, would run you up, if it would lie in your way, as far as Guernsey, or, if need be, to Belle Isle." "Belle Isle!" repeated I, with a start; for the words of O'More to the priest came suddenly upon my recollection, "Has any boat left this coast or that of Man for Belle Isle within the last fortnight?" "Not a keel, sir; there's ne'er a boat just now in the Channel that could do it but herself--they call her the Deil-sweep, sir, among the revenue sharks; for that's all that they could ever make of her. She is the only boat, sir, as I have said, and if so be you are a gentleman in distress, you will not be the only one that will have cause to trust to her--but, d--n it (he muttered), those women--well, what of that?--Mayn't I lend a hand to save a fine fellow for all that?--but harkye, brother, this is all in confidence."

"Your confidence shall not be abused," whispered I, hardly able to breathe for eager hope--the female passengers--the desire for exclusion--the only boat that fortnight, all confirmed me. "Mr O'More and I are friends; fear neither for him nor yourself; let me only get first on board, and I can rough it all night on deck, as many a time I've done before: his daughter and her woman can have your cabin to themselves." It was a bold guess, but all right; he gaped at me for a minute in dumb astonishment; then closing one hand upon the earnest which I here slipped into it, drew the other across his eyes, as if to satisfy himself that he was not dreaming, and in a respectful tone informed me that they intended sailing on the next night from Cairn Castle shore. "We take the squire up off Island Magee, sir; he has been lying to on the look-out for us there for the last ten days; so that if you want to bear a hand in getting the young lady aboard, it will be all arranged to your liking."

During this conversation, my whole being underwent a wonderful change; from the collapsing sickness of bereavement, I felt my heart and limbs expand themselves under the delightful enlargement of this new spring of hope: I shook Ingram by the hand, led him back to the kitchen, and returned turned to the old man with a step so elated, and with such a kindling of animation over my whole appearance, that he exclaimed, in high glee, "Heard ye ever sic verses at Oxford, Willie? Odd! man, Rab Halliday is as good as a dozen o' Janet's possets for ye; I'll hae him here again to sing to ye the morn's e'en."

"He is a very pleasant fellow--a very pleasant fellow indeed, sir; but I fear I shall not be able to enjoy his company to-morrow night, as I purpose taking my passage for the Isle of Man in Ingram's boat."--"Nonsense, Willy, nonsense; ye wadna make yoursell 'hail, billy, weel met,' wi' gallows-birds and vagabonds--though, as for Paul himsell"----"My dear sir, you know I have my passport, and need not care for the reputation of my hired servants; besides, sir, you know how fond I am of excitement of all sorts, and the rogue really sings so well"----

"That he does, Willy. Weel, weel--he that will to Cupar maun to Cupar!" and so saying, he lifted up his candle and marched off the field without another blow.

Ingram and I started next evening about four o'clock, attended by little Davie, who was to bring back the horse I rode next day; Ingram, whose occupation lay as much on land as sea, was quite at home on his rough sheltie, which carried also a couple of little panniers at either side of the pommel, well-primed with samples of his contraband commodities. We arrived a little after nightfall in Larne, where we left Davie with the horses, while Ingram, having disposed of his pony, joined me on foot, and we set off by the now bright light of the moon along the hills for Cairn Castle.

During the first three or four miles of our walk, he entertained me with abundance of songs echoed loud and long across the open mountain; but when we descended from it towards the sea, we both kept silence and a sharp look-out over the unequal and bleak country between. We now got among low clumpy hills and furzy gullies, and had to pick our steps through loose scattered lumps of rock, which were lying all round us white in the clear moonshine, like flocks of sheep upon the hill-side. The wind was off the shore, and we did not hear the noise of the water till, at the end of one ravine, we turned the angular jut of a low promontory, and beheld the image of the moon swinging in its still swell at our feet.

Ingram whistled, and was answered from the shore a little farther on; he stepped out a few paces in advance, and led forward; presently I saw a light figure glide out of the shadow in front and approach us.

"Vell, mine Apostéle Paul, vat news of the Ephesiens?"

"All right, Munsher Martin, and here is another passenger."

He whispered something, and the little Frenchman touched his hat with an air, and expressed, in a compound of Norman-French, Manx, and English, the great pleasure he had in doing a service to the illustrious cavalier, the friend of liberty. Hearing a noise in front, I looked up and discerned the light spar of a mast peeping over an intervening barrier of rock; we wound round it, and on the other side found a cutter-rigged boat of about eighteen tons hauled close to the natural quay, with her mainsail set and flapping heavily in the night wind. Here we met another seaman. In ten minutes we were under way; the smooth groundswell running free and silent from our quarter, and the boat laying herself out with an easy speed, as she caught the breeze freshening over the lower coast. The Saucy Sally was a half-decked cutter (built for a pleasure-boat in Guernsey), and a tight thing, as Ingram had said. I did not go into the cabin, which occupied all the forecastle, but wrapping myself in my cloak, lay down along the stern-sheets, and feigned to be asleep, for I was so excited by the prospect of meeting Madeline, that I could no longer join in the conversation of the crew. In about half an hour I heard them say that we were in sight of Island Magee, and rising, beheld it dark over our weather-bows. I went forward and continued on the forecastle in feverish impatience as we neared it. The breeze stiffened as we opened Larne Lough, and the Saucy Sally tossed two or three sprinklings of cold spray over my shoulders, but I shook the water from my cloak and resumed my look-out. At last we were within a quarter of a mile of the coast, and a light appeared right opposite; we showed another and lay to. With a fluttering heart I awaited the approach of a boat. Twice I fancied I saw it distinguish itself from the darkness of the coast, and twice I felt the blank recoil of disappointment. At last it did appear, dipping distinct from among the rocks, and full of people. They neared us; my heart leapt at every jog of their oars in the loose thewels; for I could now plainly discern two female figures, two boatmen, and a muffled man in the stern. All was now certain; they shot alongside, laid hold of the gunnel, and I heard O'More's voice call on Ingram to receive the lady. I could hardly conceal my agitation as she was lifted on deck, but had no power to advance; Nancy followed, and O'More himself leaped third on deck--the boat shoved off, the helmsman let the cutter's head away, the mainsail filled, and we stood out to sea.

Here I was then, and would be for four-and-twenty hours at the least, by the side of her whom a little time before I would have given years of my life to have been near but for a minute; yet, with an unaccountable irresolution, I still delayed, nay, shrunk from, the long-sought interview. It was not till her father had gone into the little cabin to arrange it for her reception, and had closed the door between us, that I ventured from my hiding-place behind the foresail, and approached her where she stood gazing mournfully over the boat's side at the fast passing shores of her country. I whispered her name; she knew my voice at the first syllable, and turned in amazed delight; but the flush of pleasure which lit up her beautiful features as I clasped her hand, had hardly dawned ere it was chased by the rising paleness of alarm. I comforted her by assurances of eternal love, and vowed to follow her to the ends of the earth in despite of every human power. We stood alone; for two sailors were with O'More and the girl in the cabin, and the third, having lashed the tiller to, was fixing something forward. We stood alone I cannot guess how long--time is short, but the joy of those moments has been everlasting. We exchanged vows of mutual affection and constancy, and I had sealed our blessed compact with a kiss, witnessed only by the moon and stars, when the cabin-door opened, and her father stood before me. I held out my hand, and accosted him with the free confidence of a joyful heart. The severe light of the moon sharpened his strong features into startling expression, as he regarded me for a second with mingled astonishment and vexation. He did not seem to notice my offered hand; but, saying something in a low cold tone about the unexpected pleasure, turned to the steersman, and demanded fiercely why he had not abided by his agreement? The sailor, quailing before the authoritative tone and aspect of his really noble-looking questioner, began an exculpatory account of my having been brought thither by Ingram, to whom he referred.

Bold Paul was beginning with "Lookee, Squire, I'm master of this same craft," when I interrupted him by requesting that he would take his messmates to the bows, and leave the helm with me, as I wished to explain the matter myself in private. He consigned his soul, in set terms, to the devil, if any other man than myself should be allowed to make a priest's palaver-box of the Saucy Sally, and sulkily retired, rolling his quid with indefatigable energy, and squirting jets of spittle half-mast high.

O'More almost pushed the reluctant Madeline into the cabin, closed the door, and addressed me.--"To what motive am I to attribute your presence here, Mr Macdonnell?"

"To one which I am proud to avow, the desire of being near the object of my sole affections--your lovely daughter; as well, sir, as from a hope that I may still be able to overcome those objections which you once expressed."

He pointed over the boat's side to the black piled precipices of the shore, as they stood like an iron wall looming along the weather-beam.--"Look there, sir; look at the Bloody Gobbins, and hear me--When a setting moon shall cease to fling the mourning of their shadows over the graves of _my_ butchered ancestors, and when a rising sun shall cease to bare before abhorring Christendom"----

"Luff, sir, luff," cried Ingram, from the forecastle.

"Come aft yourself, Paul," I replied in despair and disgust.

O'More retired to the cabin bulkhead, and leaned against the door, without completing his broken vow. Ingram took the helm, and I sat down in silence. Paul saw our unpleasant situation, and ceasing to remember his own cause for ill-humour, strove to make us forget ours. He talked with a good deal of tact, but with little success, for the next half hour. O'More remained stern and black as the Gobbins themselves, now rapidly sinking astern, while the coast of Island Magee receded into the broad Lough of Belfast upon our quarter. The moon was still shining with unabated lustre, and we could plainly discern the bold outline of the hills beyond; while the coast of Down and the two Copelands lay glistening in grey obscure over our starboard bow. No sail was within sight; we had a stiff breeze with a swinging swell from the open bay; and as the cutter lay down and showed the glimmer of the water's edge above her gunnel, the glee of the glorying sailor burst out in song:--

Haul away, haul away, down helm, I say;
Slacken sheets, let the good boat go.--
Give her room, give her room for a spanking boom;
For the wind comes on to blow--
(Haul away!)
For the wind comes on to blow,
And the weather-beam is gathering gloom,
And the scud flies high and low.

Lay her out, lay her out, till her timbers stout,
Like a wrestler's ribs, reply
To the glee, to the glee of the bending tree,
And the crowded canvass high--
(Lay her out!)
And the crowded canvass high;
Contending, to the water's shout,
With the champion of the sky.

Carry on, carry on; reef none, boy, none;
Hang her out on a stretching sail:
Gunnel in, gunnel in! for the race we'll win,
While the land-lubbers so pale--
(Carry on!)
While the land-lubbers so pale
Are fumbling at their points, my son,
For fear of the coming gale!

All but O'More joined in the chorus of the last stanza, and the bold burst of harmony was swept across the water like a defiance to the eastern gale. Our challenge was accepted. "Howsomever," said Ingram, after a pause, and running his glistening eye along the horizon, "as we are not running a race, there will be no harm in taking in a handful or two of our cloth this morning; for the wind is chopping round to the north, and I wouldn't wonder to hear Sculmarten's breakers under our lee before sunrise."

"And a black spell we will have till then, for when the moon goes down you may stop your fingers in your eyes for starlight," observed the other sailor, as he began to slacken down the peak halliards; while they brought the boat up and took in one reef in the mainsail; but the word was still "helm a-larboard," and the boat's head had followed the wind round a whole quarter of the compass within the next ten minutes. We went off before the breeze, but it continued veering round for the next hour; so that when we got fairly into the Channel, the predictions of the seamen were completely fulfilled; for the moon had set, the wind was from the east, and a hurrying drift had covered all the sky.

We stood for the north of Man; but the cross sea, produced by the shifting of the wind, which was fast rising to a gale, buffeted us with such contrary shocks, that after beating through it almost till the break of day, we gave up the hope of making Nesshead, and, altering our course, took in another reef, and ran for the Calf.

But the gale continued to increase; we pitched and plunged to no purpose; the boat was going bows in at every dip, and the straining of her timbers as she stooped out to every stretch, told plainly that we must either have started planks or an altered course again. The sailors, after some consultation, agreed on putting about; and, for reasons best known to themselves, pitched upon Strangford Lough as their harbour of refuge. Accordingly, we altered our course once more, and went off before the wind. Day broke as we were still toiling ten miles from the coast of Down. The grey dawn showed a black pile of clouds overhead, gathering bulk from rugged masses which were driving close and rapid from the east. By degrees the coast became distinct from the lowering sky; and at last the sun rose lurid and large above the weltering waters. It was ebb tide, and I represented that Strangford bar at such a time was peculiarly dangerous in an eastern gale; nevertheless the old sailor who was now at the helm insisted on standing for it. When we were yet a mile distant, I could distinguish the white horses running high through the black trembling strait, and hear the tumult of the breakers over the dashing of our own bows. Escape was impossible; we could never beat to sea in the teeth of such a gale; over the bar we must go, or founder. We took in the last reef, hauled down our jib, and, with ominous faces, saw ourselves in ten minutes more among the cross seas and breakers.

The waters of a wide estuary running six miles an hour, and meeting the long roll of the Channel, might well have been expected to produce a dangerous swell; but a spring-tide, combining with a gale of wind, had raised them at flood to an extraordinary height, and the violence of their discharge exceeded our anticipations accordingly. We had hardly encountered the first two or three breakers, when Ingram was staggered from the forecastle by the buffet of a counter sea, which struck us forward just as the regular swell caught us astern; the boat heeled almost on her beam ends, and he fell over the cabin door into the hold; the man at the helm was preparing for the tack as he saw his messmate's danger, and started forward to save him: he was too late; the poor fellow pitched upon his head and shoulders among the ballast; at the same instant the mainsail caught the wind, the boom swung across, and striking the helmsman on the back of the neck, swept him half overboard, where he lay doubled across the gunnel, with his arms and head dragging through the water, till I hauled him in. He was stunned and nearly scalped by the blow. Ingram lay moaning and motionless; the boat was at the mercy of the elements, while I stretched the poor fellows side by side at our feet. I had now to take the helm, for the little Frenchman was totally ignorant of the coast; he continued to hand the main-sheet; and O'More, who all night long had been sitting in silence against the cabin bulkhead, leaped manfully upon the forecastle and stood by the tackle there. We had now to put the boat upon the other tack, for the tide made it impossible to run before the wind. O'More belayed his sheet, and, as the cutter lay down again, folded his arms and leaned back on the weather-bulwark, balancing himself with his feet against the skylight.