The Monastery - Вальтер Скотт 10 стр.

The mother glanced a proud motherly glance, first at the one, and then at the other, ere she answered the Englishman, Surely, sir, they are both my children.

And by the same father, mistress? said Stawarth; but, seeing a blush of displeasure arise on her brow, he instantly added, Nay, I mean no offence; I would have asked the same question at any of my gossips in merry Lincoln.  Well, dame, you have two fair boys; I would I could borrow one, for Dame Bolton and I live childless in our old hall.  Come, little fellows, which of you will go with me?

The trembling mother, half-fearing as he spoke, drew the children towards her, one with either hand, while they both answered the stranger. I will not go with you, said Halbert, boldly, for you are a false-hearted Southern; and the Southerns killed my father; and I will war on you to the death, when I can draw my fathers sword.

God-a-mercy, my little levin-bolt, said Stawarth, the goodly custom of deadly feud will never go down in thy day, I presume.  And you, my fine white-head, will you not go with me, to ride a cock-horse? No, said Edward, demurely, for you are a heretic.

Why, God-a-mercy still! said Stawarth Bolton. Well, dame, I see I shall find no recruits for my troop from you; and yet I do envy you these two little chubby knaves. He sighed a moment, as was visible, in spite of gorget and corslet, and then added, And yet, my dame and I would but quarrel which of the knaves we should like best; for I should wish for the black-eyed rogue and she, I warrant me, for that blue-eyed, fair-haired darling. Natheless, we must brook our solitary wedlock, and wish joy to those that are more fortunate. Sergeant Brittson, do thou remain here till recalled protect this family, as under assurance do them no wrong, and suffer no wrong to be done to them, as thou wilt answer it.  Dame, Brittson is a married man, old and steady; feed him on what you will, but give him not over much liquor.

Dame Glendinning again offered refreshments, but with a faltering voice, and an obvious desire her invitation should not be accepted. The fact was, that, supposing her boys as precious in the eyes of the Englishman as in her own, (the most ordinary of parental errors,) she was half afraid, that the admiration he expressed of them in his blunt manner might end in his actually carrying off one or other of the little darlings whom he appeared to covet so much. She kept hold of their hands, therefore, as if her feeble strength could have been of service, had any violence been intended, and saw with joy she could not disguise, the little party of horse countermarch, in order to descend the glen. Her feelings did not escape Bolton: I forgive you, dame, he said, for being suspicious that an English falcon was hovering over your Scottish moor-brood. But fear not those who have fewest children have fewest cares; nor does a wise man covet those of another household. Adieu, dame; when the black-eyed rogue is able to drive a foray from England, teach him to spare women and children, for the sake of Stawarth Bolton.

God be with you, gallant Southern! said Elspeth Glendinning, but not till he was out of hearing, spurring on his good horse to regain the head of his party, whose plumage and armour were now glancing and gradually disappearing in the distance, as they winded down the glen.

Mother, said the elder boy, I will not say amen to a prayer for a Southern.

Mother, said the younger, more reverentially, is it right to pray for a heretic?

The God to whom I pray only knows, answered poor Elspeth; but these two words, Southern and heretic, have already cost Scotland ten thousand of her best and bravest, and me a husband, and you a father; and, whether blessing or banning, I never wish to hear them more.  Follow me to the Place, sir, she said to Brittson, and such as we have to offer you shall be at your disposal.

Chapter the Third

The report soon spread through the patrimony of Saint Marys and its vicinity, that the Mistress of Glendearg had received assurance from the English Captain, and that her cattle were not to be driven off, or her corn burned. Among others who heard this report, it reached the ears of a lady, who, once much higher in rank than Elspeth Glendinning, was now by the same calamity reduced to even greater misfortune.

She was the widow of a brave soldier, Walter Avenel, descended of a very ancient Border family, who once possessed immense estates in Eskdale. These had long since passed from them into other hands, but they still enjoyed an ancient Barony of considerable extent, not very far from the patrimony of Saint Marys, and lying upon the same side of the river with the narrow vale of Glendearg, at the head of which was the little tower of the Glendinnings. Here they had lived, bearing a respectable rank amongst the gentry of their province, though neither wealthy nor powerful. This general regard had been much augmented by the skill, courage, and enterprise which had been displayed by Walter Avenel, the last Baron.

When Scotland began to recover from the dreadful shock she had sustained after the battle of Pinkie-Cleuch, Avenel was one of the first who, assembling a small force, set an example in those bloody and unsparing skirmishes, which showed that a nation, though conquered and overrun by invaders, may yet wage against them such a war of detail as shall in the end become fatal to the foreigners. In one of these, however, Walter Avenel fell, and the news which came to the house of his fathers was followed by the distracting intelligence, that a party of Englishmen were coming to plunder the mansion and lands of his widow, in order, by this act of terror, to prevent others from following the example of the deceased.

The unfortunate lady had no better refuge than the miserable cottage of a shepherd among the hills, to which she was hastily removed, scarce conscious where or for what purpose her terrified attendants were removing her and her infant daughter from her own house. Here she was tended with all the duteous service of ancient times by the shepherds wife, Tibb Tacket, who in better days had been her own bowerwoman. For a time the lady was unconscious of her misery; but when the first stunning effect of grief was so far passed away that she could form an estimate of her own situation, the widow of Avenel had cause to envy the lot of her husband in his dark and silent abode. The domestics who had guided her to her place of refuge, were presently obliged to disperse for their own safety, or to seek for necessary subsistence; and the shepherd and his wife, whose poor cottage she shared, were soon after deprived of the means of affording their late mistress even that coarse sustenance which they had gladly shared with her. Some of the English forayers had discovered and driven off the few sheep which had escaped the first researches of their avarice. Two cows shared the fate of the remnant of their stock; they had afforded the family almost their sole support, and now famine appeared to stare them in the face.

We are broken and beggared now, out and out, said old Martin the shepherd and he wrung his hands in the bitterness of agony, the thieves, the harrying thieves I not a cloot left of the haill hirsel!

And to see poor Grizzle and Crumbie, said his wife, turning back their necks to the byre, and routing while the stony-hearted villains were brogging them on wi their lances!

We are broken and beggared now, out and out, said old Martin the shepherd and he wrung his hands in the bitterness of agony, the thieves, the harrying thieves I not a cloot left of the haill hirsel!

And to see poor Grizzle and Crumbie, said his wife, turning back their necks to the byre, and routing while the stony-hearted villains were brogging them on wi their lances!

There were but four of them, said Martin, and I have seen the day forty wad not have ventured this length. But our strength and manhood is gane with our puir maister.

For the sake of the holy rood, whisht, man, said the goodwife, our leddy is half gane already, as ye may see by that fleightering of the ee-lid a word mair and shes dead outright.

I could almost wish, said Martin, we were a gane, for what to do passes my puir wit. I care little for mysell, or you, Tibb,  we can make a fend work or want we can do baith, but she can do neither.

They canvassed their situation thus openly before the lady, convinced by the paleness of her look, her quivering lip, and dead-set eye, that she neither heard nor understood what they were saying.

There is a way, said the shepherd, but I kenna if she could bring her heart to it,  theres Simon Glendinnings widow of the glen yonder, has had assurance from the Southern loons, and nae soldier to steer them for one cause or other. Now, if the leddy could bow her mind to take quarters with Elspeth Glendinning till better days cast up, nae doubt it wad be doing an honour to the like of her, but

An honour, answered Tibb, ay, by my word, sic an honour as wad be pride to her kin mony a lang year after her banes were in the mould. Oh! gudeman, to hear ye even the Lady of Avenel to seeking quarters wi a Kirk-vassals widow!

Loath should I be to wish her to it, said Martin; but what may we do?  to stay here is mere starvation; and where to go, Im sure I ken nae mair than ony tup I ever herded.

Speak no more of it, said the widow of Avenel, suddenly joining in the conversation, I will go to the tower.  Dame Elspeth is of good folk, a widow, and the mother of orphans,  she will give us house-room until something be thought upon. These evil showers make the low bush better than no bield.

See there, see there, said Martin, you see the leddy has twice our sense.

And natural it is, said Tibb, seeing that she is convent-bred, and can lay silk broidery, forby white-seam and shell-work.

Do you not think, said the lady to Martin, still clasping her child to her bosom and making it clear from what motives she desired the refuge, that Dame Glendinning will make us welcome?

Blithely welcome, blithely welcome, my leddy, answered Martin, cheerily, and we shall deserve a welcome at her hand. Men are scarce now, my leddy, with these wars; and gie me a thought of time to it, I can do as good a days darg as ever I did in my life, and Tibb can sort cows with ony living woman.

And muckle mair could I do, said Tibb, were it ony feasible house; but there will be neither pearlins to mend, nor pinners to busk up, in Elspeth Glendinnings.

Whisht wi your pride, woman, said the shepherd; eneugh you can do, baith outside and inside, an ye set your mind to it; and hard it is if we twa canna work for three folks meat, forby my dainty wee leddy there. Come awa, come awa, nae use in staying here langer; we have five Scots miles over moss and muir, and that is nae easy walk for a leddy born and bred.

Household stuff there was little or none to remove or care for; an old pony which had escaped the plunderers, owing partly to its pitiful appearance, partly from the reluctance which it showed to be caught by strangers, was employed to carry the few blankets and other trifles which they possessed. When Shagram came to his masters well-known whistle, he was surprised to find the poor thing had been wounded, though slightly, by an arrow, which one of the forayers had shot off in anger after he had long chased it in vain.

Ay, Shagram, said the old man, as he applied something to the wound, must you rue the lang-bow as weel as all of us?

What corner in Scotland rues it not! said the Lady of Avenel.

Ay, ay, madam, said Martin, God keep the kindly Scot from the cloth-yard shaft, and he will keep himself from the handy stroke. But let us go our way; the trash that is left I can come back for. There is nae ane to stir it but the good neighbours, and they

For the love of God, goodman, said his wife, in a remonstrating tone, haud your peace! Think what yere saying, and we hae sae muckle wild land to go over before we win to the girth gate.

The husband nodded acquiescence; for it was deemed highly imprudent to speak of the fairies, either by their title of good neighbours or by any other, especially when about to pass the places which they were supposed to haunt.

{Footnote: This superstition continues to prevail, though one would suppose it must now be antiquated. It is only a year or two since an itinerant puppet show-man, who, disdaining to acknowledge the profession of Gines de Passamonte, called himself an artist from Vauxhall, brought a complaint of a singular nature before the author, as Sheriff of Selkirkshire. The singular dexterity with which the show-man had exhibited the machinery of his little stage, had, upon a Selkirk fair-day, excited the eager curiosity of some mechanics of Galashiels. These men, from no worse motive that could be discovered than a thirst after knowledge beyond their sphere, committed a burglary upon the barn in which the puppets had been consigned to repose, and carried them off in the nook of their plaids, when returning from Selkirk to their own village.

The party found, however, they could not make Punch dance, and that the whole troop were equally intractable; they had also, perhaps, some apprehensions of the Rhadamanth of the district; and, willing to be quit of their booty, they left the puppets seated in a grove by the side of the Ettrick, where they were sure to be touched by the first beams of the rising sun. Here a shepherd, who was on foot with sunrise to pen his masters sheep on a field of turnips, to his utter astonishment, saw this train, profusely gay, sitting in the little grotto. His examination proceeded thus:

Sheriff. You saw these gay-looking things? what did you think they were?

Shepherd. Ou, I am no that free to say what I might think they were.

Sheriff. Come, lad, I must have a direct answer who did you think they were?

Shepherd. Ou, sir, troth I am no that free to say that I mind wha I might think they were.

Sheriff. Come, come sir! I ask you distinctly, did you think they were the fairies you saw?

Shepherd. Indeed, sir, and I winna say but I might think it was the Good Neighbours.

Thus unwillingly was he brought to allude to the irritable and captious inhabitants of fairy land.}

They set forward on their pilgrimage on the last day of October. This is thy birthday, my sweet Mary, said the mother, as a sting of bitter recollection crossed her mind. Oh, who could have believed that the head, which, a few years since, was cradled amongst so many rejoicing friends, may perhaps this night seek a cover in vain!

The exiled family then set forward,  Mary Avenel, a lovely girl between five and six years old, riding gipsy fashion upon Shagram, betwixt two bundles of bedding; the Lady of Avenel walking by the animals side; Tibb leading the bridle, and old Martin walking a little before, looking anxiously around him to explore the way.