Chapter I: Part 1

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WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS

AND OF SCOTLAND.

HISTORICAL, TRADITIONARY, & IMAGINATIVE.

WITH A GLOSSARY.

REVISED BY

ALEXANDER LEIGHTON

ONE OF THE ORIGINAL EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS.

VOL. VII.

LONDON:

WALTER SCOTT, 14 PATERNOSTER SQUARE

AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

1885.

CONTENTS.

JUDITH THE EGYPTIAN; OR, THE FATE OF THE HEIR OF RICCON, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_

THE DROICH, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_

THE LYKEWAKE, _(HUGH MILLER)_

THE PENNY WEDDING, _(ALEXANDER CAMPBELL)_

THE AMATEUR LAWYERS, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_

THE PROFESSOR'S TALES, _(PROFESSOR THOMAS GILLESPIE)_

FAMILY INCIDENTS
HOME AND THE GIPSY MAID
THE RETURN

THE POOR SCHOLAR, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_

THE LAIRD OF DARNICK TOWER, _(J. H. )_

THE BROKEN HEART. A TALE OF THE REBELLION, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_

THE CATERAN OF LOCHLOY, _(JAMES MAIDMENT)_

SERJEANT'S TALES, _(JOHN HOWELL)_

JOHN SQUARE'S VOYAGE TO INDIA

WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS, AND OF SCOTLAND.

JUDITH THE EGYPTIAN; OR, THE FATE OF THE HEIR OF RICCON.

"The black-eyed Judith, fair and tall,
Attracted the heir of Riccon Hall.

* * * * *

For years and years was Judith known,
Queen of a wild world all her own;
By Wooler Haugh, by silver Till,
By Coldstream Bridge, and Flodden Hill:

Until, at length, one morn, when sleet
Hung frozen round the traveller's feet,
By a grey ruin on Tweedside,
The creature laid her down and died."--_Border Ballad._

More than three hundred years have elapsed since the people called Gipsies first made their appearance in this country; and, from all that I have been able to trace concerning them, it seems to have been about the same period that a number of their tribes or families proceeded northwards, and became dwellers and wanderers on the Borders. Their chief places of resort, and where, during the inclemency of winter, they horded or housed together, were, Kirk Yetholm, Rothbury, Horncliff, Spittal, and Tweedmouth. I believe that there are none of them now in Horncliff, which, on the bringing in of the muir, ceased to be a refuge for them; and there are but few in Spittal. But, in Rothbury and Kirk Yetholm, they still abound, and of late years have increased in Tweedmouth--that is, during the winter season, for they take to the hedges as soon as the primrose appears, and begin their wanderings. The principal names borne by the different tribes in these parts are Faa, Young, Gordon, Bailie, Blyth, Ruthven, and Winter. Their occupations are chiefly as itinerant muggers or potters, horners or "cuttie-spoon" makers, tinkers or smiths and tin-workers, and makers of besoms and foot-basses. They are still, with very few exceptions, a wandering and unlettered race, such as their fathers were when they first entered Britain. At Kirk Yetholm, however--which is their seat of royalty on the Borders, and where they have a lease of the houses in what is called Tinkler Row, for nineteen times nineteen years, on payment of a quit rent--they have not been so neglectful of the education of their children as in other parts of the country.

At the period of their first appearance in this kingdom, the land was overrun with thieves and vagabonds, who, in the severe and sanguinary laws of Queen Elizabeth and her father Harry, were described as "_loyterers_" and "_sturdy beggars_;" and it is more than probable that many of these, finding the mode of life followed by the gipsies congenial to them, associated with or intermarried amongst them, and so became as a part of them; and this may account for many, calling themselves gipsies, having European, or, I may say, British features. But the real gipsy there is no mistaking--their dark piercing eyes and Asiatic countenance mark them as distinctly as do the eyes and peculiar features of a Jew. (By the by, I wonder that no searcher after the marvellous has endeavoured to prove them to be a remnant of the lost tribes of Israel.) Like the Jews, they are scattered over the whole earth--like them, they are found in every land; and in every land they remain a distinct people.

Who they are, or whence they came, are questions involved in considerable mystery. Their being called Gipsies or Egyptians in this country, I hold to be a popular error which they themselves propagated. Egypt, from the earliest period, was distinguished above all lands for its soothsayers and diviners; and, as the chief occupation of the wanderers then was (and in many places still is) fortune-telling, they had cunning enough to profess to be Egyptians, or natives of the land wherein was taught the mysteries of rolling away the clouds which conceal fate and futurity. They have neither the language nor the manners of the Egyptians. No reason could be assigned for their leaving the land of the Pharaohs; and, although the gipsies of the present day profess to be Egyptians, they can bring forward no proof in support of the pretension. From all that I have read concerning them, it seems to me to be clearly proved that they are natives of Hindostan, where they formed a part of the lowest caste of Indians, called Pariars or Suders--a class held in detestation and abhorrence by the other castes. That the gipsy clans have a language peculiar to themselves, and which they frequently speak amongst themselves, is well known. It is not a written language; and they have endeavoured to conceal a knowledge of it from the people amongst whom they dwell. They have called it _gibberish_; and it has been very generally believed to be nothing more than what is usually understood by that term, or that at most it was a sort of _slang_, similar to the phrases used among thieves. This is an error. So far as those who have examined it have been able to ascertain, the secret language spoken by the British gipsies appears to be, with but trifling corruptions, the same as that which is spoken by the Indian caste of Suders in Hindostan.[1]

[Footnote 1: We subjoin a few words as specimens. They are taken from the Glossaries of Grellmann and Richardson.--ED.

_Gipsy._ _Hindostanee._ _English._

Bebee Beebe An Aunt.
Mutchee Muchee Fish.
Can Kan The Ear.
Gur Ghur A House.
Riah Raye A Lord.
Dai Da'ee Mother.
Mass Mas Food.
Nack Nak The Nose.
Loon Loon Salt.]

But a stronger proof that the gipsies scattered over Europe derive their origin from the Suders of India is demonstrated by the facts that the Suders were the only people who professed the art of palmistry--that they, like the gipsies, are a wandering race--that their occupations are almost identically the same, being fortune-tellers, dancers, and wandering musicians--that the smiths amongst them go about exactly in the same manner as the tinkers, in this country--that, like the gipsies, their favourite food is that of animals that have died of disease--that, like them, they have no fixed religion--and, like them, they endeavour to conceal their language. And the certainty of their being originally the same people is further strengthened, from the Suders having fled in thousands from India, during the murderous ravages of Timur Beg in 1408, which corresponds with the period of the first appearance of the gipsies in Europe. And that they are not Egyptians is strongly proved by the fact, that there are tribes of them in Egypt, where, as in other countries, they are regarded as _strangers and foreigners_.

I may have wearied the patience of the reader with this long and perhaps prosy introduction; but there may be some to whom it will not be uninteresting, as throwing a light on the probable origin of a singular people, of whom Judith the gipsy was one. And now to our story.

One of the chief men amongst the gipsies on the Borders, at the beginning of the last century, was Lussha Fleckie, who was only inferior in authority among the tribes to King Faa, who dwelt at Kirk Yetholm, and boasted of reigning lord over a _free_ people. Lussha's avocations, like the avocations of all his brethren, were mere apologies for idleness. He was one day a tinker, on another a grinder, and on a third a wandering piper. He was a man of great stature and uncommon strength, and renowned for his exploits as a fisher and a sportsman.

The name of his wife was Mariam, and they had a daughter, called Judith, who, as she grew up towards womanhood, became known throughout Roxburgh and Northumberland as the Gipsy Beauty, or the Beautiful Gipsy. The appellation was not unmeritedly bestowed; for, though her skin was slightly tinged with the tawny hue of her race, a soul seemed to glow through her regular and lovely features, and the lustre of her dark eyes to throw a radiance over them. She was tall, and her figure was perfect as her face--it was symmetrical and commanding. Yet she was at once conscious of her beauty and vain of it, and her parents administered to her vanity. They had her fingers adorned with trinkets, her neck with bugles; for Lussha Fleckie, like most of his race, was fond of gold and silver ornaments; and, amongst others, he had in his possession a silver urn, which had been handed down to him through generations, and in which his fathers, as he now did, had deposited the fruits of their spoils and plunder, until it was filled with rich coins as a miser's coffer. He therefore, although a vagrant, was not a poor man, and could afford to deck the charms of his daughter. Judith was early initiated by her mother into the mysteries of the sybilline leaves--her education indeed extended no farther; and, at the age of fifteen, she was an adept in the art of palmistry. The proudest ladies in broad Northumberland or fair Roxburghshire eagerly submitted their hands to the inspection of the beautiful fortune-teller. The searching brightness of her dark eyes seemed to give a prophetic reality to her words; and, as she caused them to kindle with apparent joy or become transfixed at the discovery of coming wo, her fair and high-born patrons have trembled before her, and inquired, "What is it, Judith?" And, being a favourite with them all, for they both loved and feared her, her person was bedecked with their cast-off garments.

It was early in summer when about forty of the Faa people encamped near the foot of the Eildon Hills. A few minutes served for the erection of their portable village in a secure and sheltered situation, and speedily, supported on pieces of crossed branches, the caldrons swung over the crackling fires, each of which blazed fierce and merrily from between two stones. Savoury exhalations impregnated the air, and gave token of a feast. The banquet being spread upon the sward, when it was finished, and the brandy cup had been sent round, Lussha Fleckie took up his Northumbrian pipes, and began to play a merry reel. Old and young, men, women, and children, started to their feet, and joyous

"Tripp'd the light fantastic toe."

Judith glided through the midst of them, with her bright waving tresses falling on her shoulders, as queen of the glad scene. Of her it might have been said--

"A foot more light, a step more true,
Never from heath-flower dash'd the dew;
Even the light harebell raised its head,
Elastic from her airy tread!"

Her partner in the dance was Gemmel Graeme; and in his veins also flowed gipsy blood. Gemmel was now a youth of twenty, and one of the most daring of his race. A passionate enthusiasm marked his disposition. In agile sports and feats of strength he had no competitor. In these he was what Lussha Fleckie had been. He boasted of his independence, and that he had never placed a finger on the property of friend or neighbour, nor been detected in levying his exactions on a stranger or a foe. His merits were acknowledged by all the tribes on the Borders; and, though he was not of the royal family of Faas, many looked to him as heir-apparent to the sovereignty. He held in princely contempt all trades, professions, and callings, and thought it beneath the dignity of a "lord of creation" to follow them. When, therefore, he accompanied the tribes in their migrations from place to place, he did not, as was the habit of others, assume the occupation of either tinker, grinder, bass-manufacturer, or the profession of a musician--but he went forth with his gun and his hound, or his leister and net, and every preserve, plantation, and river supplied him with food, and the barns of strangers with bread.

Judith was two years younger than Gemmel Graeme, and he had not looked upon her lovely face with indifference; for the stronger passions and the gentler feelings of the soul find a habitation in the breast of the wandering gipsy as in those of other men. He had a bold manly bearing, and an expressive countenance. Judith, too, had seen much of his exploits. She had beheld him, to the neck in water, struggle with the strong salmon, raise it up, and cast it on the shore. She, too, had witnessed instances of his daring spirit, and in every sport had seen all vanquished who dared to contend with him. Yea, when the scented blossom, like fragrant fleece, overspread the hawthorn hedgerows, and the primrose and wild violet flowered at its roots--when the evening star shone glorious in the west, brightening through the deepening twilight--when the viewless cuckoo sighed "goodnight" to its mate, and the landrail took up its evening cry--then have Judith and Gemmel sat together by the hedge-side, at a distance from the encampment, with her hand in his. Then he would tell her of the feats he had achieved, of the wrestling-matches he had won, or the leaps he had made, and, pressing her hand, add, "But what care I for what I do, or for what others say, when the bright een o' my bonny Judith werena there to reward me wi' a blink o' joy!"

"Ye're a flatterer, Gemmel," whispered she.

"No, bonniest," answered he; "I deny that; I am nae flatterer. But if I were, ye are far beyont flattery sic as mine; and it is nane to say, that to my een ye are bonnier than yon gowden star, that shines by its single sel' in the wide heavens--and to me ye are dearer than the mountain is to the wild deer, or the green leaves to the singing birds."

Then he would press his lips to hers, and she blushed, but upbraided him not. But in the character of Judith, as in that of every woman over whose bosom vanity waveth its butterfly wings, there was something of the coquette. She did not at all times meet the affections of Gemmel with mutual tenderness, though she loved him beyond any one else, and was proud to see him wear her yoke. She had often smiled upon others, while her eyes glanced cold as illuminated ice upon him. Yet never was there one on whom she so smiled that repented not having courted or obtained it. For, as Gemmel's hand was strong and his love passionate, so was his jealousy keen and his revenge insatiate. There were cripples in the tribe, who owed their lameness to the hand of Gemmel, because, in some instance, Judith had shown a capricious preference to them while she slighted him.

Now, as has been said, it was a day of feasting and rejoicing amongst them, and Judith was Gemmel's partner in the dance. Walter, the young heir of Riccon, was riding round the Eildons, with his grey goshawk upon his arm, and his servant following him; and hearing sounds of music and shouts of revelry, he turned in the direction from whence they proceeded. He drew up his horse within a few yards of the merry group, and, from the first glance, the striking figure and the more striking features of Judith arrested his attention. His eyes followed her through the winding mazes of the dance. They sought to meet hers. Gemmel Graeme observed him, and a scowl gathered on his brow. When the dance was ended, he led Judith to a green hillock on which her father sat, and approaching the heir of Riccon, inquired, fiercely, "What want ye, sir?--what look ye at?"

"Troth, friend," replied Walter, the master of Riccon, who was of too courageous a temperament to be awed by the face or frown of any man, "I look at yer bonny partner, and I want to speak to her, for a lovelier face or a gentler figure my een haena looked on since my mother bore me."

"Sir," retorted Gemmel, more fiercely, "ye hae yer grey goshawk, yer horses, and yer servant; I dinna covet them, and dinna ye covet what is mine, and to me mair precious. Awa' the road ye cam, or ony road ye like, but remain not here. Your company isna desired. Is it the manners o' you gentry to break in where ye are uninvited? Again, I warn ye, _while the earth is green_, to turn your horse's head away! I, Gemmel Graeme, wha never vowed revenge but I satisfied it, warn ye!"

"As well," replied young Walter, haughtily, "might you vend your threats upon the rocks that compose those cloven mountains, as waste them upon me. I shall speak wi' your bonny partner;" and he struck his spurs into his horse to proceed towards her.

Gemmel grasped the bridle, and in a moment horse and rider were upon the ground.

"Gemmel Graeme!" shouted Lussha Fleckie, "is that the welcome ye gie to strangers? Foul fa' ye! ye passionate tyke!--tak yer hands aff the gentleman, and if he wishes to join in oor merriment he's welcome. Gae, Judith, bring forward the gentle stranger."

Gemmel withdrew his hand from young Walter's throat; and, as he did so, he uttered wild and bitter words, and flung himself, as if in carelessness, on the ground, his head resting on his hand.

Judith, at her father's bidding, went and conducted the heir of Riccon to where her father sat and the late dancers were assembled, and Gemmel was left alone. A brief conversation passed between Lussha and Walter, during which the latter failed not to express his admiration of Judith. Her father smiled--there was a look of triumph in the eyes of her mother. The pipes again struck up, the dance was resumed, and Walter the heir of Riccon was the partner of Judith; while Gemmel Graeme lay upon the ground, gazing upon them and gnashing his teeth.

"We maun see that nae harm come to the young Riccon oot o' this," whispered some of the eldest of the tribe to each other, who had not again joined in the dance, "for Gemmel is kicking his heel upon the ground, and whistlin' to himsel', and the horse-shoe is on his brow. It was wrong in Lussha to provoke him. There is an ill drink brewing for the young laird. He is dancing owre gunpoother where the touch-fire is creeping to it."

The dance was ended, and young Walter, taking a costly ring from his finger, placed it on Judith's, and whispered, "Wear it for my sake." And her cheeks seemed more lovely as she blushed, smiled, and accepted the gift.

Gemmel started to his feet as he beheld this. But Walter dashed his spurs into his horse, and, riding away, in a few minutes was out of sight. Gemmel glanced upbraidingly on Judith, and he passed by her parents in sullenness and in silence.

But the heir of Riccon had not ridden far, when he turned round and said to his servant, "We go now to Melrose, and from thence we shall go back and watch the movements o' the party we have seen. Mark ye weel the maiden wi' whom I danced, and whose marrow ye never saw; for rather would I that she was lady o' Riccon Ha', than that I shouldna meet her again."

Shortly after the departure of Walter, some of the tribe, perceiving that what had passed between him and Judith was likely to lead to a quarrel between Lussha Fleckie and Gemmel Graeme, and knowing, from the nature of both, that such a quarrel would be deadly in its results, proposed that the festivities should terminate, and the encampment break up. The proposal was carried by a majority of voices; and even Lussha, though conscious of the reason why it was made, knew so well the fiery and desperate nature of him who was regarded by the tribe as the future husband of his daughter, that he brooked his own temper, and agreed to it. And, while they began to move their tents, and to load their asses and their ponies, Gemmel stood, whistling moodily, leaning against a tree, his eyes ever and anon directed with an inquisitive scowl towards the tent of Judith's father, his arms folded on his breast, and at intervals stamping his foot upon the ground; while his favourite hound looked in his face, howled, and shook its tail impatiently, as though it knew that there was work for it at hand.

Early on the following day, the servant of the heir of Riccon returned, and brought him tidings that the encampment had broken up, and Judith and her father had erected their tent in the neighbourhood of Kelso; for, as the ballad upon the subject hath it,

"Often by Tweed they saunter'd down
As far as pleasant Kelso town."

Walter mounted his horse, and arrived within sight of their tent before the sun had gone down. At a distance from it he perceived Judith. She was alone, and holding her hand towards the declining sun, gazing upon her fingers as if admiring the ring he had presented to her on the previous day. He rode to where she stood. She seemed so entranced that she perceived not his approach. She was indeed admiring the ring. Yet let not her sex blame her too harshly: men and women have all their foibles--this was one of Judith's; and she was a beautiful but ignorant girl of eighteen, whose mind had never been nurtured, and whose heart had been left to itself, to be swayed by every passion. He dismounted--he threw himself on his knees before her--he grasped her hand. "Loveliest of women!" he began----But I will not follow him through his rhapsody. Such speeches can be spoken but at one period of our lives, and they are interesting only to those to whom they are addressed: therefore I will spare my readers its recital. But it made an impression on the heart of Judith. He spoke not of _his_ feats of strength, of his running, leaping, and wrestling, as Gemmel did; but he spoke of _her_, and in strains new but pleasant to her ear. And, although she had chided her first lover as a flatterer, she did not so chide the heir of Riccon. Vanity kindled at his words, and even while he knelt and spoke before her, she forgot Gemmel, and already fancied herself the jewelled lady of Riccon Hall.

He perceived the effect which his first gift had produced, and he saw also how earnestly she listened to his words. He wore a golden repeater, which he had purchased in Geneva, and which was secured by a chain of the same metal, that went round his neck. He placed the chain around her neck, he pressed the watch upon her bosom. In her bosom she heard, she felt it beat, while her own heart beat more rapidly.

"Hark!--hark!" said he, "how constantly it beats upon your breast--yet, trust me, loved one, my heart beats more truly for you."

Before they parted, another assignation was arranged. From that period, frequent interviews took place between Walter and the lovely Judith, and at each visit he brought her presents, and adorned her person with ornaments. Her parents knew of his addresses, but they forbade them not.

Now, one evening they had taken up their abode in a deserted building near to Twisel Bridge; and thither the young laird came to visit Judith. Her father invited him into what had once been an apartment in the ruined building, and requested him to sup with them. Walter consented; for the love he bore to Judith could render the coarsest morsel sweet. But, when he beheld the meat that was to be prepared and placed before him, his heart sickened and revolted, for it consisted of part of a sheep that had died; and, when Lussha beheld this, he said, "Wherefore shudder ye, young man, and why is your heart sick? Think ye not that the flesh o' the brute which has been slain by the hand o' its Creator, is fitter for man to eat than the flesh o' an animal which man has butchered?"[2]

[Footnote 2: Gipsies always assign this as a reason for their preferring the flesh of animals that have died to that of such as are slaughtered.--ED.]

Walter had not time to reply; for, as Lussha finished speaking, a dog bounded into the ruins amongst them. Judith started from the ground; she raised her hands, her eyes flashed with horror.

"Ah!" she exclaimed, in a voice of suppressed agony, "it is Gemmel's--Gemmel's hound! Fly, Walter, fly!"

"Wherefore should I fly?" returned the youth; "think ye, Judith, I am not able to defend myself and you against any man? Let this fierce braggart come."

"Away!--haste ye away, sir!" said Lussha, earnestly, grasping him by the arm, "or there will be blood and dead bodies on this floor! Come away! Gemmel Graeme is at hand, and ye dinna ken him sae weel as I do!"

Walter would have remonstrated, but the gipsy, still grasping him by the arm, dragged him to a door of the ruin, adding, "Steal away--quick! quick among the trees, and keep down by the Till to Tweedside. Dinna speak!--away!"

It was a grey midnight in July, and the heir of Riccon had not been absent three minutes, when Gemmel Graeme stalked into the ruin, and with his arms folded sat down upon a stone in sullen silence.

"We are glad to see ye, Gemmel," said Mariam; "ye hae been an unco stranger."

"Humph!" was his brief and cold reply.

The supper was spread upon the ground, and the mother of Judith again added, "Come, Gemmel, lad, it is o' nae use to be in a cankered humour for ever. Draw forward and help yersel'--ye see there is nae want."

"So I see!" replied he, sarcastically; "did ye expect company? I doubt yer fare would hardly be to _his_ palate!"

"What do you mean, Gemmel?" cried Lussha; "think ye that we are to put up wi' yer fits?--or wherefore, if ye hae naething to say, come ye glunching here, wi' a brow as dark and threatening as a nicht in December?"

Gemmel rose angrily, and replied, "I hae something to say, Lussha, and that something is to Judith, but not in your presence. Judith, will ye speak wi' me?" added he, addressing her.

Judith, who had sat in a corner of the ruin, with her hands upon her bosom, covering the watch which young Walter had given her, and forgetting that the golden chain by which it was suspended from her neck was visible, cast a timid glance towards her father, as if imploring his protection.

"I am no sure, Gemmel," said Lussha, "whether I can trust my daughter in your company or no. If I do, will ye gie me yer thumb that ye winna harm her, nor raise your hand against her."

"Harm her!" exclaimed Gemmel, disdainfully: "I scorn it!--there's my thumb."

"Ye may gang, Judith," said her father.

Judith, with fear and guilt graven on her lovely features, rose and accompanied Gemmel. He walked in silence by her side until they came to an old and broad-branched tree, which stood about forty yards from the ruin. A waning summer moon had risen since he arrived, and mingled its light with the grey gloam of the night, revealing the ornaments which Judith wore.

"Judith," said Gemmel, breaking the silence, and raising her hand from her bosom, with which she concealed the watch, "where got ye thae braw ornaments? Has yer faither found a heart to lay his fingers on the treasures in the silver jug?"

She trembled, and remained silent.

"Poor thing! poor thing!--lost Judith!" exclaimed Gemmel. "I see how it is. For the sake o' thae vile gewgaws, ye hae deserted me--ye hae sacrificed peace o' mind, and bidden fareweel to happiness! O Judith, woman!--wha is the flatterer noo? Do you mind syne we sat by the hedge-side thegither, when the corn-craik counted the moments round about us, and tried to mind us hoo they flew--when the sun had sunk down in the west, and the bonny hawthorn showered its fragrance owre us, as though we sat in the garden where our first parents were happy? Do you mind o' thae days, Judith?--and hoo, when my heaving bosom beat upon yours, as we sat locked in ilka other's arms, I asked, 'Will ye be mine?' and ye let yer head fa' on my shouther, and said, '_I will!_'--Judith! do ye mind o' thae things, and where are they noo?"

"Gemmel Graeme," replied she, and she wept as she spoke, "let me gang--I canna bide wi' ye--and ye hae nae richt to put yer questions to me."

"Nae richt!" he returned. "O Judith! hae ye forgotten a' yer vows?--or hae ye forgotten the time when, in caulder nichts than this, when the snaw was on the ground, and the trees were bare o' leaves, that ye hae stood or wandered wi' me, frae the time that the sun gaed down, until the sea-birds and the craws sailed owre our heads seeking for their food on the next morning?--and now ye tell me ye canna bide wi' me! O Judith! ye hae dune what has made my heart miserable, and what will mak yer ain as miserable?" And as he spoke he still held her hand.

"Let me gang, Gemmel," she again sobbed, and struggled to wrest her hand from his grasp--"I hae naething to say to ye."

"Then ye will leave me, Judith!" he cried, wildly--"leave me for ever, wi' a withered heart and a maddened brain!" She answered him not, but still wept and struggled the more to escape from him.

"Then gang, Judith!" he cried, and flung her hand from him, "but beware hoo we meet again!"

Some months after this, and when the harvest-moon shone full on the fields of golden grain, and the leaves rustled dry and embrowned upon the trees, there was a sound of voices in a wood which overhung the Tweed near Coldstream. They were the voices of Walter the heir of Riccon and of Judith.

"Leave," said he, "dear Judith, leave this wandering life, and come wi' me, and ye shall be clad in silks, dearest, hae servants to wait on ye, and a carriage to ride in!"

"Ah!" she sighed, "but a wandering life is a pleasant life; and, if I were to gang wi' ye, would ye aye be kind to me, and love me as you do now?"

"Can ye be sae cruel as doubt me, Judith?" was his reply.

"Weel," returned she, "it was for yer sake that I left Gemmel Graeme, wha is a bald and a leal lad, and one that I once thought I liked weel. Now, I dinna understand about your priests and your books, but will ye come before my faither and my mother, and the rest o' oor folk, and before them swear that I am yer lawfu' wife, the only lady o' Riccon Ha', and I will gang wi' ye?"

"My own Judith, I will!" replied Walter, earnestly.

"You will not!" exclaimed a loud and wild voice, "unless over the dead body of Gemmel Graeme!"

At the same moment a pistol flashed within a few yards of where they stood, and Walter the heir of Riccon fell with a groan at the feet of Judith. Her screams rang through the woods, startling the slumbering birds from the branches, and causing them to fly to and fro in confusion. Gemmel sprang forward, and grasped her hand. "Now, fause ane," he cried, "kiss the lips o' yer bonny bridegroom!--catch his spirit as it leaves him! Hang roond his neck and haud him to yer heart till his corpse be cauld! Noo, he canna hae ye, and I winna! Fareweel!--fareweel!--fause, treacherous Judith!"

Thus saying, and striking his forehead, and uttering a loud and bitter scream, he rushed away.

Judith sank down by the dead body of Walter, and her tears fell upon his face. Her cries reached the encampment, where her parents and others of her race were. They hastened to the wood from whence her cries proceeded, and found her stretched upon the ground, her arms encircling the neck of the dead. They raised her in their arms, and tried to soothe her, but she screamed the more wildly, and seemed as one whose senses grief has bewildered.

"Judith," said her father, "speak to me, bairn--wha has done this? Was it----"

"Gemmel!--wicked Gemmel!" she cried; and in the same breath added, "No! no!--it wasna him! It was me!--it was me! It was fause Judith."

Gemmel Graeme, however, had dropped his pistol on the ground when he beheld his victim fall, and one of the party taking it up, they knew him to be the murderer. Lussha Fleckie, touched by his daughter's grief, and disappointed by his dream of vain ambition being broken, caused each of his party to take a vow that they would search for Gemmel Graeme, and whosoever found him should take blood for blood upon his head.

And they did search, but vainly, for Gemmel was no more heard of.

Twelve months passed, and autumn had come again. A young maniac mother, with a child at her breast, and dressed as a gipsy, endeavoured to cross the Tweed between Norham and Ladykirk. The waters rose suddenly, and as they rose she held her infant closer to her bosom, and sang to it; but the angry flood bore away the maniac mother and her babe. She was rescued and restored to life, though not to reason, but the child was seen no more.

For thirty years the poor maniac continued at intervals to visit the fatal spot, wandering by the river, stretching out her arms, calling on her child, saying, "Come to me--come to yer mother, my bonny bairn, for ye are heir o' Riccon, and why should I gang shoeless amang snaw! Come to me--it was cruel Gemmel Graeme that murdered yer bonny faither--it wasna me!"

It was in January the body of a grey-haired woman, covered with a tattered red cloak, was found frozen and dead, below Norham Castle. It was the poor maniac Judith, the once beautiful gipsy. Some years afterwards, an old soldier, who had been in foreign wars, came to reside in the neighbourhood, and on his death-bed requested that he should be buried by the side of Judith, and the letters G. G. carved on a stone over his grave.

THE DROICH.

On the evening of that eventful day which saw Patrick Hamilton, Abbot of Ferne, the young and learned Scotch proto-martyr to the Protestant faith, bend his head and resign his soul at the burning stake, in the head-quarters of Scottish superstition--St Andrews--a young man was slowly bending his steps from the scene of execution towards his home, a good many miles distant. The effect produced by that day's proceedings was, as is well known, felt throughout all Scotland, where the scene of martyrdom was, as yet, one of these _mira nova_ which startle a country, and extort from the innermost recesses of the heart thoughts and feelings as new as intense. In the case of Hamilton, there were many features calculated, in an eminent degree, to strike deep into the minds of a sympathetic and meditative people; and doubtless, his birth, descended from the royal house of Albany--his learning, derived from the deep wells of Mair's philosophy--and his extreme youth--were not the least impressive; yet there was something in the mere _manner_ of his death--abstracted even from the species of immolation not altogether new to Scotland, cruelly mangled, as he was, by an awkward or cold-blooded executioner--that deepened and riveted the effect produced by the extraordinary scene of his martyrdom. If casual or merely curious spectators might dream of that scene till their dying hour, we may form some estimate of what the friend and college companion of the martyr--for such was the young man whom we have now introduced to the reader--felt and thought, as, with eyes bent on the ground, he prosecuted his journey homewards, after witnessing the execution. Imbued himself with the spirit of the new faith, he had that day seen it proved, in a manner little less than miraculous. One of the softest and gentlest of mankind, who would have shrunk from the sight of pain inflicted on the meanest of God's creatures, had been enabled, by celestial influence, to stand, in the midst of a scorching and destroying fire, undaunted, unmoved, with smiles on his countenance, and words of exhortation on his lips. The feelings of the religionist were roused and sublimed by the contemplation of one of heaven's marvels; but the pity of the man and the friend was not lost in the admiration of the heaven-born fortitude that simulated total relief from bodily agony. Tears filled the eyes of the youth, and were wiped away only to rise again with the recurring thoughts of the various stages of the trial and triumph of his beloved friend. He had already wandered a considerable distance; but the space bore no proportion to the time occupied; for he had sat down often by the roadside, hid his face in his hands, and been lost in a species of charmed contemplation of images at which he shuddered.

While yet some miles from the end of his journey, the shades of night began to fall over the undulating heights that form the end of the Ochil chain to the west; but, as yet, the sun, the only object seen in the whole horizon, appeared in full disk, red and lurid, like the mass of ember-faggots which, some hours before, lay in the street of St Andrews, surmounted by the blackened corpse of the martyr. The traveller turned his eye in the direction of the luminary; but quickly passed his hand over his brow, from an instinctive feeling of horror, as a dim wreath of cloud, stretching along the superior part of the fiery circle, seemed to realise again, in solemn magnificence, the sight he had witnessed. The altitude of the object which suggested the resemblance, with the gorgeousness in which it was arrayed, again claimed the aspiring thought, that the spirit of his friend, sublimed by the doctrines of the new faith, was even then journeying to the spheres which he contemplated. The final triumph of the martyr was completed in the scene of his agonies; and the seal of eternal truth was, by God's finger, imprinted on the doctrines he had published and explained in the midst of the melting fire of the furnace. Placing his hand in his breast, he drew forth the beautiful Latin treatise which his friend had composed on the subject of the justification of the sinner, through a believing faith in Him who was foretold from the beginning of time; and, sitting again down by the side of a hedge, he struggled, in the descending twilight, to store his mind with some of those precepts which were destined to claim the reverence of an enlightened world. He was soon lost in the rapt meditation in which the spirits of the early reformers rejoiced amidst the persecution with which they were surrounded, and was again in regions brighter than those of this world, in communion with him who, when the flames were already crackling among the faggots, cried out, "Behold the way to everlasting life!" From the exalted sphere of his dreamy cogitations he looked down with a contempt which, as his head reclined among the grass, might have been observed curling the lip of indignant scorn, upon all the thousand corruptions of the Old Church--its sold indulgences, its certified beatifications, its pardons, its soul-redeeming masses, its chanting music, its sins, and its ineffectual mortifications. The bright spirit of Christianity, arrayed in her pure garment of white, was before the view of his fancy; her clear seraphic eye beamed through his soul: and, with finger pointed to heaven, she invited him to brave the pile and the persecution of men, and gain the crown which was now encircling the temples of Hamilton. He thought he could then have died as his friend had perished, and that the pangs of the circling flames would have been felt by him merely as the smart pungency of a healing medicament, which the patient rejoices in as the means of acquiring health.

How long he remained under the influence of this beatific vision he knew not himself. He had fallen asleep. He opened his eyes: the sun had now gone down into the western main; and all that was left of his glory was a thin stream of wavy light, which, shooting across the dark firmament, looked like the wake of the passing spirit of his friend on its journey to heaven. He arose. The searching dews of evening had penetrated to his skin; a cold shiver shot through his frame; and again, clutched by the humbling and levelling harpies of worldly feelings, fears, and experiences, he felt all the terror of his former sensations when he beheld the corpse of the martyr sink with a crash among the embers, which, as they received the body, sent forth a cloud of hissing, crackling sparkles of fire, mixed with a dense cloud of smoke.

"Alas! this spirit of mine is strong only in dreams," he muttered to himself, as the shiver of the night air passed over him. "It is as the eagle of Bencleugh, which, with his eye in the sun and his feet under his tail-plumes, will resist the storms that shiver the pines of the Ochils; yet bring him to earth, and draw one feather from his wing, and he can only raise a streperous noise amidst the sweltering suffocation of his earth-crib."

He had scarcely uttered the words, when he saw the short, thick figure of a man coming along the road, enveloped in a gown, and bearing a stick like a thraw-crook in his hand. Starting to his feet, he stood, for a moment, to see if he could recognise the individual.

"Good even to ye, young Master o' Riddlestain," said the individual, as he came up, and was recognised by the youth--"good even to ye; and God send ye a warmer bed than the hedge-beild, and a caulder than ane o' bleezing faggots."

"Good even, Carey," replied the youth. "I return your salutation. The one lair, as a beadsman of Pittenweem, you may have experienced ere now; the other you stand in small fears of. From St Andrews, if I can judge from your allusion to the sad doings of to-day in that part?"

"Ye guess right," replied the beadsman, as they proceeded forward, side by side; "but how could you guess wrang, when every outlyer and rinner-about in the East Neuk has been this day at the head-quarters o' prelacy. A strange day and a selcouth sight for auld een. It's no often that Carey Haggerston carries a fu' ee and a fu' wallet."

"Then you were moved by the fate of poor Hamilton, Carey?" replied the youth.

"And wha, Papist or heretic, could stand yon sight wi' dry een?" replied the man, in a voice that trembled in the sinews of his throat. "I wad hae gien a' the bodles the prelates threw me--the mair by token, I think, that the puir callant was writhing in the fire-flaughts o' their anger--for ae stroke wi' this kevel at the head o' yon culroun caitiff o' an executioner. The bonny youth was roasted as if he'd been a capon for the table o' the cardinal, only there was mair smoke than might hae suited his lordship's palate, I reckon."

"You have got a good awmous, Carey, will sleep sound, and think nothing of it on the morrow?" said the youth.

"Anster Fair was naething to it," replied the beadsman. "The scene seemed to open the hearts o' prelates and priors, that never gave a plack to a bluegown before. I held up the corner o' my gown beneath the chapel o' the cardinal, and, sure enough, there were mair groats than tears fell into it. Ah, sir, though my wallet was yape, my heart was youden. But we're near the haugh road to Riddlestain, Master Henry, and, as the night is loun and light, I carena though I step up past the Quarryheugh wi' ye."

"You may expect small alms from the Droich," said Henry.

"No muckle, I daresay," replied the bluegown; "but I stand in nae fear o' him, and that's mair than the bauldest heart o' the East Neuk can say. I wad stroke the lang hair o' the creature any day for an awmous, unearthly as he is."

"Know you aught of this extraordinary being, Carey?" said the youth, as they turned up the haugh loan.

"Ye're no the first nor the hundredth that has put that question to the beadsman," replied the other, as he looked up with a side-glance in the face of the questioner. "Everybody thinks I should ken auld Mansie o' the Quarryheugh--the mair by token, I fancy, that naebody on earth kens mair o' him than just that he is a hurklin, gnarled carle, wha cam to the Quarryheugh some months syne, and biggit, wi' his ain hands, a beild which has mair banes than stanes in its bouk."

"I know more of him myself than that, Carey," said the young man.

"What ken ye?" rejoined the other, with a laugh.

Henry's silence was probably meant as a quickener of the beadsman's garrulity.

"Ye may ken, maybe," said the other, "that he speels the sides o' the Quarryheugh--that is, whar there are trees to haud by--like a squirrel, swinging frae ae ryss to anither, and sometimes dangling over the deep pool aneath him, like a showman's signboard, or a gammon frae the kitchen ciel o' the Priory o' Pittenweem; but the creature's legs are nae bigger than an urchin's, while his trunk and arms are like the knur and branches of an oak. What ken ye mair o' him? What kens ony ane mair o' him, an it bena that he has been seen, in the moonlight, howking the banes o' the dead Melvilles o' Falconcleugh frae the side o' the quarry, whar it marches wi' the howf o' the auld house that stands by the brink? An auld wife's tale, doubtless, though maybe he needed the banes for his biggin."

"I believe the people in these parts would know more of him, were they not afraid to go near him," said the youth. "They stand peeping over the quarry brink at him, as if he were the 'gudeman of the croft,' Mahoun himself."

"And nae ferly either, Henry," said Carey; "for his face speaks as clearly o' the skaith o' fire as did that o' Patrick Hamilton when yon gust o' wind drove the flames to the east, and showed his cheeks--sae pale, alace! and like a delicate leddy's, as they ance were--burnt as brown as the wa's o' Falconcleugh House there."

The two speakers had now arrived at the old mansion of the Melvilles, which stood on the brink of the deep crater, whose high sides had procured for it the appellation of the Quarryheugh. At the side or end next the chasm, rose, beetling over it, a high turret, perforated in several storeys by small embrasures, and surrounded by three tiers of bartisans. From this flanking strength, the two side walls--relieved, at intervals, by circular projections containing spiral stairs--ran back, and were terminated by an ordinary gable, the inclined sides of which were cut in gradually-receding steps. The care which seemed to have been taken in securing the casements by closed shutters within, indicated, more certainly than did the general appearance of the withered house, that, though unoccupied, it was still deemed suitable for serving the uses of a dwelling, and that the choughs and stannyels that perched on its roofs were mere tenants at will, and might be removed on a day's warning. For a considerable distance around, there was nothing to be seen but a bare heath, the dark brown aspect of which suggested the probability of its having been swept by the destroying flames of muirburn. Even the few straggling boulders that shot up their grey heads through the scanty gorse stems, springing from their bases, wore a black, scathed appearance, as if they had still retained the traces of the ravage of the sweeping scourge. Hidden, except to near gazers amidst this wild waste, and shelving down from the tower of the mansion, the chasm or quarry, in the form of a huge crater, lay deep and still, with a dark mass of greenish-hued water reposing like another Dead Sea in its bosom. Around two sides of it, where there was a sufficiency of soil to support them, grew a number of stunted pines, the heads of none of which appeared above the superior circle; but, dipping down, added to the darkness of the water beneath, by the shadows they flung over its surface. At the eastern part, and where the pines in that direction ended, there seemed to have fallen down a large portion of the superincumbent bank, whereby there was formed a species of island, whose nearer edge might be about ten feet from the bank from which it had been severed.

On this insular spot, which was now accessible from the mainland by means of two pine trunks thrown across and wattled together, lived the extraordinary individual whose form and habits had, in the conversation of the two speakers, been, in a partial manner, described. The small domicile he had reared for himself was entirely composed of materials supplied by the chasm in which it was situated, and constructed in the rudest manner of a self-taught artist, whose object was to shield himself from the inclemency of the weather, without any view to comforts, which he either despised, or deemed it unsafe or improper to indulge. It was, indeed, a mere rough shieling, with four walls, composed of rubble stones, mixed with--what probably excited more wonder than all the other supernatural attributes of the place, and the being himself--a due proportion of bones, collected from the cemetery of the family of Falconcleugh House, which had, on some disruption of the sides of the chasm, been laid open on its western side. The roof was supported by one or two rough trunks of pines, thrown in a slanting direction across, and composed of small twigs and leaves, wattled and compressed in such a manner as to save the inmate from a part, at least, of heaven's more profuse inundations.

The bare and scorched wilderness around, over which the eyes of the beadsman and his companion were wandering, as they approached the scene of their conversation, had now resigned its embrowned hue, for the not less dreary and mystic tinge of the blue light of the young moon, as she struggled with the falling darkness. The circumstances of the still unseen chasm being tenanted by the only living mortal within the circumference of the bleak waste, and he himself, calculated, by his unusual formation of body, and imputed mystic powers and attributes, to aid the pregnant associations connected with his lonely condition, was, by those acquainted with the locality of Falconcleugh Muir, naturally combined with the dismal celebrity of the place for these deeds of violence so common at that period in Scotland. Whatever may have been felt by his less imaginative companion, whose familiarity with the overt proceedings of the occult powers of the waste and the ruin may have blunted his perceptions of the supernatural, it is at least certain, and assuredly no marvel either, that Henry Leslie surveyed the scene around him with the feelings natural to the time and the country when and where he lived. The dark figure of the house rose before him, claiming the homage due to the genius of the place, where it was almost the only object that arrested the eye. Replete in itself with the elements of gloomy associations, connected with the fate of the once happy Melvilles who resided there, it threw a wizard power over the surrounding heath-waste, investing the bleak inanity of Nature's most negative condition with an interest which could not have been possessed by her multiform productions. The absence of material objects of thought lent even a species of positive character of inspissated essence to the blue haze of the atmosphere, which seemed to hang like a mighty sea in the deepest stillness of nature's silence. For some time, neither of the parties had uttered a word. The brush of their feet on the heath, and the sound of their breath, were intensified by the silence into noises that to the younger of the two seemed startling and painful.