Chapter II (2)

I had supposed that the Piedmontoise would have laid aside her stilts when she ascended the ladder, but far from it, for in this consisted the singularity of the exhibition. She climbed the ladder, still mounted on them, then descended like a cat on the other side of it; she hopped down as she had hopped up, with equal steadiness and agility, and thought to crown her efforts by a notable feat, which was no less than standing on her head on the top of the ladder, and brandishing the two stilts, from which she had disengaged herself, round about her, like the arms of a windmill. It required no great skill to see that the old lady was very much offended with this last performance, for when the little dish was carried to her, and the ladder-dancer directed a beseeching look accompanied by an attitude which seemed to imply that there were other feats yet in reserve, if encouragement was held out, the patroness of the stair-head could restrain herself no longer, but poured out a torrent partaking both of objurgation and admonition.

“Ne’er-do-weel hussie,” and “vagrant gipsy,” were some of the sharp missiles shot at the unsuspecting figurante, who, as little aware of the meaning of all this “sharp-toothed violence,” as the bird is of the mischief aimed at him by the fowler, sadly misapprehended its import, and thinking it conveyed encouragement and approbation, ducked her head in acknowledgment, while the thunder of the old lady’s reprobation rolled about her in the most ceaseless rapidity of vituperation.

“Ye’re a pretty ane indeed, to play sic antics afore ony body’s house! Hae ye naebody to learn ye better manners that to rin up and down a ladder like a squirrel, twisting and turning yoursel till my banes are sair to look at you? Muckle fitter gin ye would read your Bible, if as much grace be left to ye; or maybe a religious tract, to begin wi’, for I doubt ye wad need preparation afore ye could drink at the spring-head wi’ ony special profit.”

The last part was conveyed with a kind of smile of self-approbation; for of all tasks, to reclaim a sinner is the most pleasing and soothing to religious vanity;—so comfortable it is to be allowed to scold on any terms, but doubly delightful, because it always implies superiority. But the ladder-dancer and her attendant were aware of no part of what was passing in the mind of the female lecturer, and fully as ignorant of the eloquent address I have just repeated; she only saw, in the gracious looks in which her feats were condemned, an approval of her labours, for it passed her philosophy to comprehend the ungodly qualities of standing on the head, or whirling like a top. Again the ladder-dancer cringed and bowed to her of the stair-head; and her male supporter, who acted as a kind of pedestal to her elevation, bowed and grinned a little more grimly, while the boy held out his plate to receive the results of all this assiduity. But they could not command a single word of broad English among them. Theirs only was the eloquence of nods and grimaces; a monkey could have done as much, and in the present humour of the old lady, would have been as much approved. The ladder-dancer grew impatient, and seemed determined on an effort to close her labours.

“Ah, Madame!” she exclaimed; “Madame” was repeated by the man, and “Madame” was re-echoed by the boy.

“Nane o’ your nonsense wi’ me,” was the response from the stair-head; “your madam’ing, and I dinna ken what mair havers. Ye needna fash your head to stand there a’ day girning at me, and making sic outlandish sport. I’m mair fule than you, that bides to look at you; a fine tale they’d hae to tell that could say they saw me here, idling my precious time on the like o’ you.”

She now whispered to one of the girls, who retired, and soon after returned, giving her a small parcel, which she examined, and seemed to say all was right. She beckoned the ladder-dancer, who slid down with cat-like agility, and was instantly with her, standing a step lower, in deference to the doughty dame.

“Here,” said she, with a gruff air, which was rather affected than real, “tak these precious gifts,” handing her a bunch of religious tracts. “See if ye canna find out your spiritual wants, and learn to seek for the ‘Pearl of Price.’ My certie, but ye’re a weel-faured hussie,” examining her more narrowly, “but your gaits are no that commendable; but for a’ that, a mair broken ship has reached the land.”

I could observe that she slipped a half-crown into the hand of the Piedmontoise; and as she turned away to avoid thanks, an elderly gentleman (perhaps her husband), who stood by, said in a low voice,—

“That’s like yoursel, Darsie; your bark was aye waur than your bite, ony day!”—_Blackwood’s Magazine_, 1826.

THE ELDER’S DEATH-BED.

BY PROFESSOR WILSON.

It was on a fierce and howling day that I was crossing the dreary moor of Auchindown, on my way to the manse of that parish—a solitary pedestrian. The snow, which had been incessantly falling for a week past, was drifted into beautiful but dangerous wreaths, far and wide, over the melancholy expanse; and the scene kept visibly shifting before me, as the strong wind that blew from every point of the compass struck the dazzling masses, and heaved them up and down in endless transformation. There was something inspiriting in the labour with which, in the buoyant strength of youth, I forced my way through the storm; and I could not but enjoy those gleamings of sunlight that ever and anon burst through some unexpected opening in the sky, and gave a character of cheerfulness, and even warmth, to the sides or summits of the stricken hills. Sometimes the wind stopped of a sudden, and then the air was as silent as the snow—not a murmur to be heard from spring or stream, now all frozen up over those high moorlands. As the momentary cessations of the sharp drift allowed my eyes to look onwards and around, I saw here and there, up the little opening valleys, cottages just visible beneath the black stems of their snow-covered clumps of trees, or beside some small spot of green pasture kept open for the sheep. These intimations of life and happiness came delightfully to me in the midst of the desolation; and the barking of a dog, attending some shepherd in his quest on the hill, put fresh vigour into my limbs, telling me that, lonely as I seemed to be, I was surrounded by cheerful, though unseen company, and that I was not the only wanderer over the snows.

As I walked along, my mind was insensibly filled with a crowd of pleasant images of rural winter life, that helped me gladly onwards over many miles of moor. I thought of the severe but cheerful labours of the barn—the mending of farm-gear by the fireside—the wheel turned by the foot of old age less for gain than as a thrifty pastime—the skilful mother making “auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new”—the ballad unconsciously listened to by the family all busy at their own tasks round the singing maiden—the old traditionary tale, told by some wayfarer hospitably housed till the storm should blow by—the unexpected visit of neighbours on need or friendship—or the footstep of lover undeterred by snow-drifts that have buried up his flocks;—but above all, I thought of those hours of religious worship that have not yet escaped from the domestic life of the peasantry of Scotland—of the sound of psalms that the depth of the snow cannot deaden to the ear of Him to whom they are chanted—and of that sublime Sabbath-keeping which, on days too tempestuous for the kirk, changes the cottage of the shepherd into the temple of God.

With such glad and peaceful images in my heart, I travelled along that dreary moor, with the cutting wind in my face, and my feet sinking in the snow, or sliding on the hard blue ice beneath it—as cheerfully as I ever walked in the dewy warmth of a summer morning, through fields of fragrance and of flowers. And now I could discern, within half an hour’s walk, before me, the spire of the church, close to which stood the manse of my aged friend and benefactor. My heart burned within me as a sudden gleam of stormy sunlight tipped it with fire; and I felt, at that moment, an inexpressible sense of the sublimity of the character of that grayheaded shepherd who had, for fifty years, abode in the wilderness, keeping together his own happy little flock.

As I was ascending a knoll, I saw before me on horseback an old man, with his long white hairs beaten against his face, who, nevertheless, advanced with a calm countenance against the hurricane. It was no other than my father, of whom I had been thinking—for my father had I called him for many years, and for many years my father had he truly been. My surprise at meeting him on such a moor—on such a day—was but momentary, for I knew that he was a shepherd who cared not for the winter’s wrath. As he stopped to take my hand kindly into his, and to give his blessing to his long-expected visitor, the wind fell calm—the whole face of the sky was softened, and brightness, like a smile, went over the blushing and crimson snow. The very elements seemed then to respect the hoary head of fourscore; and after our first greeting was over, when I looked around, in my affection, I felt how beautiful was winter.

“I am going,” said he, “to visit a man at the point of death; a man whom you cannot have forgotten; whose head will be missed in the kirk next Sabbath by all my congregation; a devout man, who feared God all his days, and whom, on this awful trial, God will assuredly remember. I am going, my son, to the Hazel Glen.”

I knew well in childhood that lonely farmhouse, so far off among the beautiful wild green hills, and it was not likely that I had forgotten the name of its possessor. For six years’ Sabbaths I had seen the Elder in his accustomed place beneath the pulpit, and, with a sort of solemn fear, had looked on his steadfast countenance during sermon, psalm, and prayer. On returning to the scenes of my infancy, I now met the pastor going to pray by his deathbed; and, with the privilege which nature gives us to behold, even in their last extremity, the loving and the beloved, I turned to accompany him to the house of sorrow, resignation, and death.

And now, for the first time, I observed walking close to the feet of his horse, a little boy of about ten years of age, who kept frequently looking up in the pastor’s face, with his blue eyes bathed in tears. A changeful expression of grief, hope, and despair, made almost pale cheeks that otherwise were blooming in health and beauty; and I recognised, in the small features and smooth forehead of childhood, a resemblance to the aged man whom we understood was now lying on his death-bed. “They had to send his grandson for me through the snow, mere child as he is,” said the minister to me, looking tenderly on the boy; “but love makes the young heart bold—and there is One who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.”

I again looked on the fearless child with his rosy cheeks, blue eyes, and yellow hair, so unlike grief or sorrow, yet now sobbing aloud as if his heart would break. “I do not fear but that my grandfather will yet recover, as soon as the minister has said one single prayer by his bedside. I had no hope, or little, as I was running by myself to the manse over hill after hill, but I am full of hopes, now that we are together; and oh! if God suffers my grandfather to recover, I will lie awake all the long winter nights blessing Him for His mercy. I will rise up in the middle of the darkness, and pray to Him in the cold on my naked knees!” and here his voice was choked, while he kept his eyes fixed, as if for consolation and encouragement, on the solemn and pitying countenance of the kind-hearted pious old man.

We soon left the main road, and struck off through scenery that, covered as it was with the bewildering snow, I sometimes dimly and sometimes vividly remembered; our little guide keeping ever a short distance before us, and with a sagacity like that of instinct, showing us our course, of which no trace was visible, save occasionally his own little footprints as he had been hurrying to the manse.

After crossing, for several miles, morass and frozen rivulet, and drifted hollow, with here and there the top of a stone-wall peeping through the snow, or the more visible circle of a sheep-bucht, we descended into the Hazel-glen, and saw before us the solitary house of the dying Elder.

A gleam of days gone by came suddenly over my soul. The last time that I had been in this glen was on a day of June, fifteen years before,—a holiday, the birthday of the king. A troop of laughing schoolboys, headed by our benign pastor, we danced over the sunny braes, and startled the linnets from their nests among the yellow broom. Austere as seemed to us the Elder’s Sabbath face when sitting in the kirk, we schoolboys knew that it had its week-day smiles, and we flew on the wings of joy to our annual festival of curds and cream in the farm-house of that little sylvan world. We rejoiced in the flowers and the leaves of that long, that interminable summer day; its memory was with our boyish hearts from June to June; and the sound of that sweet name, “Hazel Glen,” often came upon us at our tasks, and brought too brightly into the school-room the pastoral imagery of that mirthful solitude.

As we now slowly approached the cottage through a deep snow-drift, which the distress within had prevented the household from removing, we saw peeping out from the door, brothers and sisters of our little guide, who quickly disappeared, and then their mother showed herself in their stead, expressing by her raised eyes, and arms folded across her breast, how thankful she was to see at last the pastor, beloved in joy and trusted in trouble.

Soon as the venerable old man dismounted from his horse, our active little guide led it away into the humble stable, and we entered the cottage. Not a sound was heard but the ticking of the clock. The matron, who had silently welcomed us at the door, led us, with suppressed sighs and a face stained with weeping, into her father’s sick room, which even in that time of sore distress was as orderly as if health had blessed the house. I could not help remarking some old china ornaments on the chimneypiece, and in the window was an ever-blowing rose-tree, that almost touched the lowly roof, and brightened that end of the apartment with its blossoms. There was something tasteful in the simple furniture; and it seemed as if grief could not deprive the hand of that matron of its careful elegance. Sickness, almost hopeless sickness, lay there, surrounded with the same cheerful and beautiful objects which health had loved; and she, who had arranged and adorned the apartment in her happiness, still kept it from disorder and decay in her sorrow.

With a gentle hand she drew the curtain of the bed, and there, supported by pillows as white as the snow that lay without, reposed the dying Elder. It was plain that the hand of God was upon him, and that his days on the earth were numbered.

He greeted his minister with a faint smile, and a slight inclination of the head—for his daughter had so raised him on the pillows, that he was almost sitting up in his bed. It was easy to see that he knew himself to be dying, and that his soul was prepared for the great change; yet, along with the solemn resignation of a Christian who had made his peace with God and his Saviour, there was blended on his white and sunken countenance an expression of habitual reverence for the minister of his faith; and I saw that he could not have died in peace without that comforter to pray by his death-bed.

A few words sufficed to tell who was the stranger;—and the dying man, blessing me by name, held out to me his cold shrivelled hand, in token of recognition. I took my seat at a small distance from the bedside, and left a closer station for those who were more dear. The pastor sat down near his head; and, by the bed, leaning on it with gentle hands, stood that matron, his daughter-in-law—a figure that would have graced and sainted a higher dwelling, and whose native beauty was now more touching in its grief. But religion upheld her whom nature was bowing down. Not now for the first time were the lessons taught by her father to be put into practice, for I saw that she was clothed in deep mourning and she behaved like the daughter of a man whose life had been not only irreproachable but lofty, with fear and hope fighting desperately but silently in the core of her pure and pious heart.

While we thus remained in silence, the beautiful boy, who, at the risk of his life, had brought the minister of religion to the bedside of his beloved grandfather, softly and cautiously opened the door, and with the hoar-frost yet unmelted on his bright glistering ringlets, walked up to the pillow, evidently no stranger there. He no longer sobbed—he no longer wept—for hope had risen strongly within his innocent heart, from the consciousness of love so fearlessly exerted, and from the presence of the holy man in whose prayers he trusted, as in the intercession of some superior and heavenly nature. There he stood, still as an image in his grandfather’s eyes, that, in their dimness, fell upon him with delight. Yet, happy as was the trusting child, his heart was devoured by fear, and he looked as if one word might stir up the flood of tears that had subsided in his heart. As he crossed the dreary and dismal moors, he had thought of a corpse, a shroud, and a grave; he had been in terror, lest death should strike in his absence the old man, with whose gray hairs he had so often played; but now he _saw_ him alive, and felt that death was not able to tear him away from the clasps, and links, and fetters of his grandchild’s embracing love.

“If the storm do not abate,” said the sick man, after a pause, “it will be hard for my friends to carry me over the drifts to the kirkyard.” This sudden approach to the grave struck, as with a bar of ice, the heart of the loving boy; and, with a long deep sigh, he fell down with his face like ashes on the bed, while the old man’s palsied right hand had just strength to lay itself upon his head. “Blessed be thou, my little Jamie, even for His own name’s sake who died for us on the tree!” The mother, without terror, but with an averted face, lifted up her loving-hearted boy, now in a dead fainting-fit, and carried him into an adjoining room, where he soon revived. But that child and the old man were not to be separated. In vain he was asked to go to his brothers and sisters;—pale, breathless, and shivering, he took his place as before, with eyes fixed on his grandfather’s face, but neither weeping nor uttering a word. Terror had frozen up the blood of his heart; but his were now the only dry eyes in the room; and the pastor himself wept—albeit the grief of fourscore is seldom vented in tears.

“God has been gracious to me, a sinner,” said the dying man. “During thirty years that I have been an elder in your kirk, never have I missed sitting there one Sabbath. When the mother of my children was taken from me—it was on a Tuesday she died, and on Saturday she was buried—we stood together when my Alice was let down into the narrow house made for all living; on the Sabbath I joined in the public worship of God: she commanded me to do so the night before she went away. I could not join in the psalm that Sabbath, for her voice was not in the throng. Her grave was covered up, and grass and flowers grew there; so was my heart; but thou, whom, through the blood of Christ, I hope to see this night in Paradise, knowest that, from that hour to this day, never have I forgotten thee!”

The old man ceased speaking, and his grandchild, now able to endure the scene (for strong passion is its own support), glided softly to a little table, and bringing a cup in which a cordial had been mixed, held it in his small soft hands to his grandfather’s lips. He drank, and then said, “Come closer to me, Jamie, and kiss me for thine own and thy father’s sake;” and as the child fondly pressed his rosy lips on those of his grandfather, so white and withered, the tears fell over all the old man’s face, and then trickled down on the golden head of the child, at last sobbing in his bosom.

“Jamie, thy own father has forgotten thee in thy infancy, and me in my old age; but, Jamie, forget not thou thy father nor thy mother, for that thou knowest and feelest is the commandment of God.”

The broken-hearted boy could give no reply. He had gradually stolen closer and closer unto the old loving man, and now was lying, worn out with sorrow, drenched and dissolved in tears, in his grandfather’s bosom. His mother had sunk down on her knees and hid her face with her hands. “Oh! if my husband knew but of this—he would never, never desert his dying father!” and I now knew that the Elder was praying on his death-bed for a disobedient and wicked son.

At this affecting time the minister took the family Bible on his knees, and said, “Let us sing to the praise and glory of God, part of the fifteenth psalm;” and he read, with a tremulous and broken voice, those beautiful verses:—

“Within thy tabernacle, Lord,
Who shall abide with thee?
And in Thy high and holy hill
Who shall a dweller be?
The man that walketh uprightly,
And worketh righteousness,
And as he thinketh in his heart,
So doth he truth express.”

The small congregation sang the noble hymn of the psalmist to “plaintiff Martyrs, worthy of the name.” The dying man himself, ever and anon, joined in the holy music; and when it feebly died away on his quivering lips, he continued still to follow the tune with the motion of his withered hand, and eyes devoutly and humbly lifted up to heaven. Nor was the sweet voice of his loving grandchild unheard; as if the strong fit of deadly passion had dissolved in the music, he sang with a sweet and silvery voice, that, to a passer-by, had seemed that of perfect happiness—a hymn sung in joy upon its knees by gladsome childhood before it flew out among the green hills, to quiet labour or gleesome play. As that sweetest voice came from the bosom of the old man, where the singer lay in affection, and blended with his own so tremulous, never had I felt so affectingly brought before me the beginning and the end of life, the cradle and the grave.

Ere the psalm was yet over, the door was opened, and a tall fine-looking man entered, but with a lowering and dark countenance, seemingly in sorrow, in misery, and remorse. Agitated, confounded, and awe-struck by the melancholy and dirge-like music, he sat down on a chair, and looked with a ghastly face towards his father’s death-bed. When the psalm ceased, the Elder said with a solemn voice, “My son, thou art come in time to receive thy father’s blessing. May the remembrance of what will happen in this room before the morning again shine over the Hazel Glen win thee from the error of thy ways! Thou art here, to witness the mercy of thy God and thy Saviour, whom thou hast forgotten.”

The minister looked, if not with a stern, yet with an upbraiding countenance, on the young man, who had not recovered his speech, and said, “William! for three years past your shadow has not darkened the door of the house of God. They who fear not the thunder may tremble at the still small voice; now is the hour for repentance, that your father’s spirit may carry up to heaven tidings of a contrite soul saved from the company of sinners!”

The young man, with much effort, advanced to the bedside, and at last found voice to say, “Father, I am not without the affections of nature, and I hurried home as soon as I heard that the minister had been seen riding towards our house. I hope that you will yet recover, and if I have ever made you unhappy, I ask your forgiveness; for though I may not think as you do on matters of religion, I have a human heart. Father! I may have been unkind, but I am not cruel. I ask your forgiveness.”

“Come nearer to me, William; kneel down by the bedside, and let my hand find the head of my beloved son—for blindness is coming fast upon me. Thou wert my first-born, and thou art my only living son. All thy brothers and sisters are lying in the kirkyard, beside her whose sweet face thine own, William, did once so much resemble. Long wert thou the joy, the pride of my soul—ay, too much the pride, for there was not in all the parish such a man, such a son, as my own William. If thy heart has since been changed, God may inspire it again with right thoughts. Could I die for thy sake—could I purchase thy salvation with the outpouring of thy father’s blood—but this the Son of God has done for thee, who hast denied Him! I have sorely wept for thee—ay, William, when there was none near me—even as David wept for Absalom, for thee, my son, my son!”

A long deep groan was the only reply; but the whole body of the kneeling man was convulsed; and it was easy to see his sufferings, his contrition, his remorse, and his despair. The pastor said, with a sterner voice and austerer countenance than were natural to him, “Know you whose hand is now lying on your rebellious head? But what signifies the word father to him who has denied God, the Father of us all?”—“Oh! press him not so hardly,” said the weeping wife, coming forward from a dark corner of the room, where she had tried to conceal herself in grief, fear, and shame. “Spare, oh! spare my husband—he has ever been kind to me;” and with that she knelt down beside him, with her long, soft, white arms mournfully and affectionately laid across his neck. “Go thou, likewise, my sweet little Jamie,” said the Elder, “go even out of my bosom, and kneel down beside thy father and thy mother, so that I may bless you all at once, and with one yearning prayer.” The child did as that solemn voice commanded, and knelt down somewhat timidly by his father’s side; nor did that unhappy man decline encircling with his arm the child too much neglected, but still dear to him as his own blood, in spite of the deadening and debasing influence of infidelity.

“Put the Word of God into the hands of my son, and let him read aloud to his dying father the 25th, 26th, and 27th verses of the eleventh chapter of the Gospel according to St John.” The pastor went up to the kneelers, and, with a voice of pity, condolence, and pardon, said, “There was a time when none, William, could read the Scriptures better than couldst thou—can it be that the son of my friend hath forgotten the lessons of his youth?” He had not forgotten them; there was no need for the repentant sinner to lift up his eyes from the bedside. The sacred stream of the Gospel had worn a channel in his heart, and the waters were again flowing. With a choked voice he said, “Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord; I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.”

“That is not an unbeliever’s voice,” said the dying man triumphantly; “nor, William, hast thou an unbeliever’s heart. Say that thou believest in what thou hast now read, and thy father will die happy!”—“I do believe; and as thou forgivest me, so may I be forgiven by my Father who is in heaven.”

The Elder seemed like a man suddenly inspired with a new life. His faded eyes kindled—his pale cheeks glowed—his palsied hands seemed to wax strong—and his voice was clear as that of manhood in its prime. “Into Thy hands, O God, I commit my spirit!”—and so saying, he gently sank back on his pillow; and I thought I heard a sigh. There was then a long deep silence, and the father, and mother, and child rose from their knees. The eyes of us all were turned towards the white placid face of the figure now stretched in everlasting rest; and without lamentations, save the silent lamentations of the resigned soul, we stood around the “Death-bed of the Elder.”

A HIGHLAND FEUD.

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The principal possessors of the Hebrides were originally of the name of MacDonald, the whole being under the government of a succession of chiefs, who bore the name of Donald of the Isles, and were possessed of authority almost independent of the kings of Scotland. But this great family becoming divided into two or three branches, other chiefs settled in some of the islands, and disputed the property of the original proprietors. Thus, the MacLeods, a powerful and numerous clan, who had extensive estates on the mainland, made themselves masters, at a very early period, of a great part of the large island of Skye, seized upon much of the Long Island, as the isles of Lewis and Harris are called, and fought fiercely with the MacDonalds and other tribes of the islands. The following is an example of the mode in which these feuds were conducted:—

About the end of the sixteenth century, a boat, manned by one or two of the MacLeods, landed in Eigg, a small island peopled by the MacDonalds. They were at first hospitably received; but having been guilty of some incivility to the young women of the island, it was so much resented by the inhabitants, that they tied the MacLeods hand and foot, and putting them on board of their own boat, towed it to the sea, and set it adrift, leaving the wretched men, bound as they were, to perish by famine, or by the winds and waves, as chance should determine. But fate so ordered it, that a boat belonging to the Laird of MacLeod fell in with that which had the captives on board, and brought them in safety to the Laird’s castle of Dunvegan, in Skye, where they complained of the injury which they had sustained from the MacDonalds of Eigg. MacLeod, in great rage, put to sea with his galleys, manned by a large body of his people, which the men of Eigg could not entertain any rational hope of resisting. Learning that their incensed enemy was approaching with superior forces, and deep vows of revenge, the inhabitants, who knew they had no mercy to expect at MacLeod’s hands, resolved, as the best chance of safety in their power, to conceal themselves in a large cavern on the sea-shore.

This place was particularly well-calculated for that purpose. The entrance resembles that of a fox-earth, being an opening so small that a man cannot enter save by creeping on hands and knees. A rill of water falls from the top of the rock, and serves, or rather served at the period we speak of, wholly to conceal the aperture. A stranger, even when apprised of the existence of such a cave, would find the greatest difficulty in discovering the entrance. Within, the cavern rises to a great height, and the floor is covered with white dry sand. It is extensive enough to contain a great number of people. The whole inhabitants of Eigg, who, with their wives and families, amounted to nearly two hundred souls, took refuge within its precincts.

MacLeod arrived with his armament, and landed on the island, but could discover no one on whom to wreak his vengeance—all was desert. The MacLeods destroyed the huts of the islanders, and plundered what property they could discover; but the vengeance of the chieftain could not be satisfied with such petty injuries. He knew that the inhabitants must either have fled in their boats to one of the islands possessed by the MacDonalds, or that they must be concealed somewhere in Eigg. After making a strict but unsuccessful search for two days, MacLeod had appointed the third to leave his anchorage, when, in the gray of the morning, one of the seamen beheld, from the deck of his galley, the figure of a man on the island. This was a spy whom the MacDonalds, impatient of their confinement in the cavern, had imprudently sent out to see whether MacLeod had retired or no. The poor fellow, when he saw himself discovered, endeavoured, by doubling after the manner of a hare or fox, to obliterate the track of his footsteps, and prevent its being discovered where he had re-entered the cavern. But all his art was in vain; the invaders again landed, and tracked him to the entrance of the cavern.

MacLeod then summoned those who were within it, and called upon them to deliver the individuals who had maltreated his men, to be disposed of at his pleasure. The MacDonalds, still confident in the strength of their fastness, which no assailant could enter but on hands and knees, refused to surrender their clansmen.

MacLeod then commenced a dreadful work of indiscriminate vengeance. He caused his people, by means of a ditch cut above the top of the rock, to turn away the stream of water which fell over the entrance of the precipice. This being done, the MacLeods collected all the combustibles which could be found on the island, particularly quantities of dry heather, piled them up against the aperture, and maintained an immense fire for many hours, until the smoke, penetrating into the inmost recesses of the cavern, stifled to death every creature within. There is no doubt of the truth of this story, dreadful as it is. The cavern is often visited by strangers; and I have myself seen the place, where the bones of the murdered MacDonalds still remain, lying as thick on the floor of the cave as in the charnel-house of a church.

THE RESURRECTION MEN.

BY D. M. MOIR, M.D.

How then was the Devil drest?
He was in his Sunday’s best;
His coat was red, and his breeches were blue,
With a hole behind, where his tail came through.

Over the hill, and over the dale,
And he went over the plain:
And backward and forward he switched his tail,
As a gentleman switches his cane.
_Coleridge._

About this time[8] there arose a great sough and surmise that some loons were playing false with the kirkyard, howking up the bodies from their damp graves, and hurling them away to the college. Words canna describe the fear, and the dool, and the misery it caused. All flocked to the kirk yett; and the friends of the newly buried stood by the mools, which were yet dark, and the brown, newly-cast divots, that had not yet ta’en root, looking with mournful faces, to descry any tokens of sinking in.

Footnote 8:

See _ante_, “Benjie’s Christening,” page 214.

I’ll never forget it. I was standing by when three young lads took shools, and, lifting up the truff, proceeded to howk down to the coffin, wherein they had laid the gray hairs of their mother. They looked wild and bewildered like, and the glance of their een was like that of folk out of a mad-house; and none dared in the world to have spoken to them. They didna even speak to ane anither; but wrought on wi’ a great hurry till the spades struck on the coffin-lid—which was broken. The dead-claithes were there huddled a’thegither in a nook, but the dead was gane. I took haud o’ Willie Walker’s arm, and looked down. There was a cauld sweat all ower me;—losh me! but I was terribly frighted and eerie. Three mair graves were opened, and a’ just alike, save and except that of a wee unkirstened wean, which was aff bodily, coffin and a’.

There was a burst of righteous indignation throughout the parish; nor without reason. Tell me that doctors and graduates maun hae the dead; but tell it not to Mansie Wauch, that our hearts maun be trampled in the mire of scorn, and our best feelings laughed at, in order that a bruise may be properly plaistered up, or a sair head cured. Verily, the remedy is waur than the disease.

But what remead? It was to watch in the session-house, with loaded guns, night about, three at a time. I never likit to gang into the kirkyard after darkening, let-a-be to sit there through a lang winter night, windy and rainy, it may be, wi’ nane but the dead around us. Save us! it was an unco thought, and garred a’ my flesh creep; but the cause was gude,—my spirit was roused, and I was determined no to be dauntoned.

I counted and counted, but the dread day at length came, and I was summonsed. All the leivelang afternoon, when ca’ing the needle upon the brod, I tried to whistle Jenny Nettles, Niel Gow, and ither funny tunes, and whiles crooned to mysel between hands; but my consternation was visible, and a’ wadna do.

It was in November, and the cauld glimmering sun sank behind the Pentlands. The trees had been shorn of their frail leaves; and the misty night was closing fast in upon the dull and short day; but the candles glittered at the shop windows, and leery-light-the-lamps was brushing about wi’ his ladder in his oxter, and bleezing flamboy sparking out behind him. I felt a kind of qualm of faintness and down-sinking about my heart and stomach, to the dispelling of which I took a thimbleful of spirits, and, tying my red comforter about my neck, I marched briskly to the session-house. A neighbour (Andrew Goldie, the pensioner) lent me his piece, and loaded it to me. He took tent that it was only half-cock, and I wrapped a napkin round the dog-head, for it was raining. No being acquaint wi’ guns, I keepit the muzzle aye awa frae me; as it is every man’s duty no to throw his precious life into jeopardy.

A furm was set before the session-house fire, which bleezed brightly, nor had I ony thought that such an unearthly place could have been made to look half so comfortable, either by coal or candle; so my speerits rose up as if a weight had been ta’en aff them, and I wondered in my bravery, that a man like me could be afeard of onything. Nobody was there but a touzy, ragged, halflins callant of thirteen (for I speired his age), wi’ a desperate dirty face, and lang carroty hair, tearing a speldrin wi’ his teeth, which lookit lang and sharp eneugh, and throwing the skin and lugs intil the fire.

We sat for amaist an hour thegither, cracking the best way we could in sic a place; nor was onybody mair likely to cast up. The night was now pit-mirk; the wind soughed amid the headstanes and railings of the gentry (for we maun a’ dee); and the black corbies in the steeple-holes cackled and crawed in a fearsome manner. A’ at ance we heard a lonesome sound; and my heart began to play pit-pat—my skin grew a’ rough, like a poukit chicken—and I felt as if I didna ken what was the matter with me. It was only a false alarm, however, being the warning of the clock; and in a minute or twa thereafter the bell struck ten. Oh, but it was a lonesome and dreary sound! Every chap gaed through my breast like the dunt of a forehammer.

Then up and spak the red headed laddie: “It’s no fair; anither should hae come by this time. I wad rin awa hame, only I’m frightened to gang out my lane. Do ye think the doup o’ that candle wad carry in my cap?”

“Na, na, lad; we maun bide here, as we are here now. Leave me alane! Lord save us! and the yett lockit, and the bethrel sleepin’ wi’ the key in his breek-pouches! We canna win out now, though we would,” answered I, trying to look brave, though half frightened out of my seven senses. “Sit down, sit down; I’ve baith whisky and porter wi’ me. Hae, man, there’s a cauker to keep your heart warm; and set down that bottle,” quoth I, wiping the sawdust aff it with my hand, “to get a toast; I’se warrant it for Deacon Jaffrey’s best brown stout.”

The wind blew higher, and like a hurricane; the rain began to fall in perfect spouts; the auld kirk rumbled, and rowed, and made a sad soughing; and the bourtree tree behind the house, where auld Cockburn, that cuttit his throat, was buried, creakit and crazed in a frightful manner; but as to the roaring of the troubled waters, and the bumming in the lum-head, they were past a’ power of description. To make bad worse, just in the heart of the brattle, the grating sound of the yett turning on its rusty hinges was but too plainly heard. What was to be done? I thought of our baith running away; and then of our locking oursels in, and firing through the door; but wha was to pull the trigger?

Gudeness watch ower us! I tremble yet when I think on’t. We were perfectly between the deil and the deep sea—either to stand and fire our gun, or rin and be shot at. It was really a hang choice. As I stood swithering and shaking, the laddie ran to the door, and thrawing round the key, clapped his back till’t. Oh! how I lookit at him, as he stude, for a gliff, like a magpie hearkening wi’ his lug cockit up, or rather like a terrier watching a rotten.

“They’re coming! they’re coming!” he cried out; “cock the piece, ye sumph,” while the red hair rose up from his pow like feathers; “they’re coming, I hear them tramping on the gravel!” Out he stretched his arms against the wall, and brizzed his back against the door like mad; as if he had been Samson pushing over the pillars in the house of Dagon. “For the Lord’s sake, prime the gun,” he cried out, “or our throats will be cut frae lug to lug, before we can say Jack Robinson! See that there’s priming in the pan!”

I did the best I could; but my hale strength could hardly lift up the piece, which waggled to and fro like a cock’s tail on a rainy day; my knees knockit against ane anither, and though I was resigned to dee—I trust I was resigned to dee—’od, but it was a frightfu’ thing to be out of ane’s bed, and to be murdered in an auld session-house, at the dead hour of night, by unyearthly resurrection-men—or rather let me call them devils incarnate—wrapt up in dreadnoughts, wi’ blackit faces, pistols, big sticks, and other deadly weapons.

A snuff-snuffing was heard; and through below the door I saw a pair of glancing black een. ’Od, but my heart nearly loupit aff the bit—a snouff and a gur—gurring, and ower a’ the plain tramp of a man’s heavy tackets and cuddy-heels amang the gravel. Then cam a great slap like thunder on the wall; and the laddie quitting his grip, fell down, crying, “Fire, fire!—murder! holy murder!”

“Wha’s there?” growled a deep rough voice; “open—I’m a friend.”

I tried to speak, but could not; something like a halfpenny roll was sticking in my throat, so I tried to cough it up, but it wadna come. “Gie the pass-word, then,” said the laddie, staring as if his een wad loupen out; “gie the pass-word!”

First cam a loud whussle, and then “Copmahagen,” answered the voice. Oh! what a relief! The laddie started up like ane crazy wi’ joy. “Ou! ou!” cried he, thrawing round the key, and rubbing his hands, “by jingo! it’s the bethrel—it’s the bethrel—it’s auld Isaac himsel!”

First rushed in the dog, and then Isaac, wi’ his glazed hat, slouched ower his brow, and his horn bowet glimmering by his knee. “Has the French landit, do ye think? Losh keep us a’!” said he, wi’ a smile on his half-idiot face (for he was a kind of a sort of a natural, wi’ an infirmity in his leg). “’Od sauf us, man, put by your gun. Ye dinna mean to shoot me, do ye? What are ye aboot here wi’ the door lockit? I just keppit four resurrectioners louping ower the wa’.”

“Gude guide us!” I said, taking a long breath to drive the blude frae my heart, and something relieved by Isaac’s company. “Come now, Isaac, ye’re just giein’ us a fright. Isn’t that true, Isaac?”

“Yes, I’m joking,—and what for no? But they might have been, for onything ye wad hae hindered them to the contrair, I’m thinking. Na, na, ye maunna lock the door; that’s no fair play.”

When the door was put ajee, and the furm set fornent the fire, I gied Isaac a dram to keep his heart up on sic a cauld, stormy night. ’Od, but he was a droll fallow, Isaac. He sung and leuch as if he had been boozing in Lucky Tamson’s, wi’ some of his drucken cronies. Fient a hair cared he about auld kirks, or kirkyards, or vouts, or through-stanes, or dead folk in their winding-sheets, wi’ the wet grass growing ower them; and at last I began to brighten up a wee mysel; so when he had gone ower a good few funny stories, I said to him, quoth I, “Mony folk, I daresay, mak mair noise about their sitting up in a kirkyard than it’s a’ worth. There’s naething here to harm us.”

“I beg to differ wi’ ye there,” answered Isaac, taking out his horn mull from his coat pouch, and tapping on the lid in a queer style—“I could gie anither version of that story. Did ye no ken of three young doctors—Eirish students—alang wi’ some resurrectioners, as waff and wild as themselves, firing shottie for shottie wi’ the guard at Kirkmabreck, and lodging three slugs in ane o’ their backs, forbye firing a ramrod through anither ane’s hat?”

This was a wee alarming. “No,” quoth I—“no, Isaac, man, I ne’er heard o’t.”

“But let alane resurrectioners, do ye no think there is sic a thing as ghaists? Guide ye, my man, my granny could hae telled ye as muckle about them as wad hae filled a minister’s sermons from June to January.”

“Kay—kay—that’s a’ buff,” I said. “Are there nae cutty-stool businesses—are there nae marriages gaun, Isaac?” for I was keen to change the subject.

“Ye may kay—kay—as ye like, though; I can just tell ye this—ye’ll mind auld Armstrong, wi’ the leather breeks, and the brown three-storey wig—him that was the grave—digger? Weel, he saw a ghaist wi’ his leeving een—aye, and what’s better, in this very kirkyard too. It was a cauld spring morning, and daylight just coming in, when he cam to the yett yonder, thinking to meet his man, paidling Jock—but Jock had sleepit in, and wasna there. Weel, to the wast corner ower yonder he gaed, and throwing his coat ower a headstane, and his hat on the tap o’t, he dug awa wi’ his spade, casting out the mools, and the coffin-handles, and the green banes, and sic-like, till he stoppit a wee to tak breath.—What! are ye whistling to yoursel?” quo’ Isaac to me, “and no hearing what’s God’s truth?”

“Ou ay,” said I, “but ye didna tell me if ony body was cried last Sunday?” I wad hae given every farthing I had made by the needle to hae been at that blessed time in my bed wi’ my wife and wean. Ay, how I was gruing! I mostly chacked aff my tongue in chitterin’. But a’ wadna do.

“Weel, speaking of ghaists;—when he was resting on his spade, he looked up to the steeple, to see what o’clock it was, wondering what way Jock hadna come,—when lo, and behold! in the lang diced window of the kirk yonder, he saw a lady a’ in white, wi’ her hands clasped thegither, looking out to the kirkyard at him.

“He couldna believe his een, so he rubbit them wi’ his sark sleeve, but she was still there bodily, and, keeping ae ee on her, and anither on his road to the yett, he drew his coat and hat to him below his arm, and aff like mad, throwing his shool half a mile ahint him. Jock fand that; for he was coming singing in at the yett, when his maister ran clean ower the tap o’ him, and capseized him like a toom barrel; and never stoppin’ till he was in at his ain house, and the door baith bolted and barred at his tail.

“Did ye ever hear the like of that, Mansie? Weel man, I’ll explain the hale history o’t to ye. Ye see,—’od! how sound that callant’s sleeping,” continued Isaac; “he’s snoring like a nine-year-auld.”

I was glad he had stoppit, for I was like to sink through the grund wi’ fear; but na, it wadna do.

“Dinna ye ken—sauf us! what a fearsome night this is! The trees ’ll be a’ broken. What a noise in the lum! I dare say there is some auld hag of a witch-wife gaun to come rumble doun’t. It’s no the first time, I’ll swear. Hae ye a silver sixpence? Wad ye like that?” he bawled up the chimley. “Ye’ll hae heard,” said he, “lang ago, that a wee murdered wean was buried—didna ye hear a voice?—was buried below that corner—the hearthstane there, where the laddie’s lying on?”

I had now lost my breath, so that I couldna stop him.

“Ye never heard tell o’t, didna ye? Weel, I’se tell’t ye.—Sauf us! what swurls o’ smoke coming down the chimley—I could swear something no canny’s stopping up the lum-head—gang out and see!”

At that moment, a clap like thunder was heard—the candle was driven ower—the sleeping laddie roared “Help!” and “Murder!” and “Thieves!” and as the furm on which we were sitting played flee backwards, cripple Isaac bellowed out, “I’m dead!—I’m killed! shot through the head!—oh, oh, oh!”

Surely I had fainted away; for when I came to mysel, I found my red comforter loosed; my face a’ wet—Isaac rubbing down my waistcoat with his sleeve—the laddie swigging ale out of a bicker—and the brisk brown stout, which, by casting its cork, had caused a’ the alarm, whizz—whizz—whizzing in the chimley-lug.—_Mansie Wauch._

MARY WILSON.

On her white arm down sunk her head,
She shivered, sighed, and died.
_Mallet._