Old Mortality, Complete

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER XII.

  They require Of Heaven the hearts of lions, breath of tigers, Yea and the fierceness too. Fletcher.

  Evening had fallen; and, for the last two hours, they had seen none oftheir ill-fated companions, when Morton and his faithful attendant gainedthe moorland, and approached a large and solitary farmhouse, situated inthe entrance of a wild glen, far remote from any other habitation.

  "Our horses," said Morton, "will carry us no farther without rest orfood, and we must try to obtain them here, if possible."

  So speaking, he led the way to the house. The place had every appearanceof being inhabited. There was smoke issuing from the chimney in aconsiderable volume, and the marks of recent hoofs were visible aroundthe door. They could even hear the murmuring of human voices within thehouse. But all the lower windows were closely secured; and when theyknocked at the door, no answer was returned. After vainly calling andentreating admittance, they withdrew to the stable, or shed, in order toaccommodate their horses, ere they used farther means of gainingadmission. In this place they found ten or twelve horses, whose state offatigue, as well as the military yet disordered appearance of theirsaddles and accoutrements, plainly indicated that their owners werefugitive insurgents in their own circumstances.

  "This meeting bodes luck," said Cuddie; "and they hae walth o' beef,that's ae thing certain, for here's a raw hide that has been about thehurdies o' a stot not half an hour syne--it's warm yet."

  Encouraged by these appearances, they returned again to the house, and,announcing themselves as men in the same predicament with the inmates,clamoured loudly for admittance.

  "Whoever ye be," answered a stern voice from the window, after a long andobdurate silence, "disturb not those who mourn for the desolation andcaptivity of the land, and search out the causes of wrath and ofdefection, that the stumbling-blocks may be removed over which we havestumbled."

  "They are wild western whigs," said Cuddie, in a whisper to his master,"I ken by their language. Fiend hae me, if I like to venture on them!"

  Morton, however, again called to the party within, and insisted onadmittance; but, finding his entreaties still disregarded, he opened oneof the lower windows, and pushing asunder the shutters, which were butslightly secured, stepped into the large kitchen from which the voice hadissued. Cuddie followed him, muttering betwixt his teeth, as he put hishead within the window, "That he hoped there was nae scalding brose onthe fire;" and master and servant both found themselves in the company often or twelve armed men, seated around the fire, on which refreshmentswere preparing, and busied apparently in their devotions.

  In the gloomy countenances, illuminated by the fire-light, Morton had nodifficulty in recognising several of those zealots who had mostdistinguished themselves by their intemperate opposition to all moderatemeasures, together with their noted pastor, the fanatical EphraimMacbriar, and the maniac, Habakkuk Mucklewrath. The Cameronians neitherstirred tongue nor hand to welcome their brethren in misfortune, butcontinued to listen to the low murmured exercise of Macbriar, as heprayed that the Almighty would lift up his hand from his people, and notmake an end in the day of his anger. That they were conscious of thepresence of the intruders only appeared from the sullen and indignantglances which they shot at them, from time to time, as their eyesencountered.

  Morton, finding into what unfriendly society he had unwittingly intruded,began to think of retreating; but, on turning his head, observed withsome alarm, that two strong men had silently placed themselves beside thewindow, through which they had entered. One of these ominous sentinelswhispered to Cuddie, "Son of that precious woman, Mause Headrigg, do notcast thy lot farther with this child of treachery and perdition--Pass onthy way, and tarry not, for the avenger of blood is behind thee."

  With this he pointed to the window, out of which Cuddie jumped withouthesitation; for the intimation he had received plainly implied thepersonal danger he would otherwise incur.

  "Winnocks are no lucky wi' me," was his first reflection when he was inthe open air; his next was upon the probable fate of his master. "They'llkill him, the murdering loons, and think they're doing a gude turn! butI'se tak the back road for Hamilton, and see if I canna get some o' ourain folk to bring help in time of needcessity."

  So saying, Cuddie hastened to the stable, and taking the best horse hecould find instead of his own tired animal, he galloped off in thedirection he proposed.

  The noise of his horse's tread alarmed for an instant the devotion of thefanatics. As it died in the distance, Macbriar brought his exercise to aconclusion, and his audience raised themselves from the stooping posture,and louring downward look, with which they had listened to it, and allfixed their eyes sternly on Henry Morton.

  "You bend strange countenances on me, gentlemen," said he, addressingthem. "I am totally ignorant in what manner I can have deserved them."

  "Out upon thee! out upon thee!" exclaimed Mucklewrath, starting up: "theword that thou hast spurned shall become a rock to crush and to bruisethee; the spear which thou wouldst have broken shall pierce thy side; wehave prayed, and wrestled, and petitioned for an offering to atone thesins of the congregation, and lo! the very head of the offence isdelivered into our hand. He hath burst in like a thief through thewindow; he is a ram caught in the thicket, whose blood shall be adrink-offering to redeem vengeance from the church, and the place shallfrom henceforth be called Jehovah-Jireh, for the sacrifice is provided.Up then, and bind the victim with cords to the horns of the altar!"

  There was a movement among the party; and deeply did Morton regret atthat moment the incautious haste with which he had ventured into theircompany. He was armed only with his sword, for he had left his pistols atthe bow of his saddle; and, as the whigs were all provided withfire-arms, there was little or no chance of escaping from them byresistance. The interposition, however, of Macbriar protected him for themoment.

  "Tarry yet a while, brethren--let us not use the sword rashly, lest theload of innocent blood lie heavy on us.--Come," he said, addressinghimself to Morton, "we will reckon with thee ere we avenge the cause thouhast betrayed.--Hast thou not," he continued, "made thy face as hard asflint against the truth in all the assemblies of the host?"

  "He has--he has," murmured the deep voices of the assistants.

  "He hath ever urged peace with the malignants," said one.

  "And pleaded for the dark and dismal guilt of the Indulgence," saidanother.

  "And would have surrendered the host into the hands of Monmouth," echoeda third; "and was the first to desert the honest and manly Burley, whilehe yet resisted at the pass. I saw him on the moor, with his horse bloodywith spurring, long ere the firing had ceased at the bridge."

  "Gentlemen," said Morton, "if you mean to bear me down by clamour, andtake my life without hearing me, it is perhaps a thing in your power; butyou will sin before God and man by the commission of such a murder."

  "I say, hear the youth," said Macbriar; "for Heaven knows our bowels haveyearned for him, that he might be brought to see the truth, and exert hisgifts in its defence. But he is blinded by his carnal knowledge, and hasspurned the light when it blazed before him."

  Silence being obtained, Morton proceeded to assert the good faith whichhe had displayed in the treaty with Monmouth, and the active part he hadborne in the subsequent action.

  "I may not, gentlemen," he said, "be fully able to go the lengths youdesire, in assigning to those of my own religion the means of tyrannizingover others; but none shall go farther in asserting our own lawfulfreedom. And I must needs aver, that had others been of my mind incounsel, or disposed to stand by my side in battle, we should thisevening, instead of being a defeated and discordant remnant, havesheathed our weapons in an useful and honourable peace, or brandishedthem triumphantly after a decisive victory."

  "He hath spoken the word," said one of the assembly--"he hath avowed hiscarnal self-seeking and Erastia
nism; let him die the death!"

  "Peace yet again," said Macbriar, "for I will try him further.--Was itnot by thy means that the malignant Evandale twice escaped from death andcaptivity? Was it not through thee that Miles Bellenden and his garrisonof cut-throats were saved from the edge of the sword?"

  "I am proud to say, that you have spoken the truth in both instances,"replied Morton.

  "Lo! you see," said Macbriar, "again hath his mouth spoken it.--And didstthou not do this for the sake of a Midianitish woman, one of the spawn ofprelacy, a toy with which the arch-enemy's trap is baited? Didst thou notdo all this for the sake of Edith Bellenden?"

  "You are incapable," answered Morton, boldly, "of appreciating myfeelings towards that young lady; but all that I have done I would havedone had she never existed."

  "Thou art a hardy rebel to the truth," said another dark-brow'd man; "anddidst thou not so act, that, by conveying away the aged woman, MargaretBellenden, and her grand-daughter, thou mightest thwart the wise andgodly project of John Balfour of Burley for bringing forth to battleBasil Olifant, who had agreed to take the field if he were insuredpossession of these women's worldly endowments?"

  "I never heard of such a scheme," said Morton, "and therefore I could notthwart it.--But does your religion permit you to take such uncreditableand immoral modes of recruiting?"

  "Peace," said Macbriar, somewhat disconcerted; "it is not for thee toinstruct tender professors, or to construe Covenant obligations. For therest, you have acknowledged enough of sin and sorrowful defection, todraw down defeat on a host, were it as numerous as the sands on thesea-shore. And it is our judgment, that we are not free to let you passfrom us safe and in life, since Providence hath given you into our handsat the moment that we prayed with godly Joshua, saying, 'What shall wesay when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies?'--Then camestthou, delivered to us as it were by lot, that thou mightest sustain thepunishment of one that hath wrought folly in Israel. Therefore, mark mywords. This is the Sabbath, and our hand shall not be on thee to spillthy blood upon this day; but, when the twelfth hour shall strike, it is atoken that thy time on earth hath run! Wherefore improve thy span, for itflitteth fast away.--Seize on the prisoner, brethren, and take hisweapon."

  The command was so unexpectedly given, and so suddenly executed by thoseof the party who had gradually closed behind and around Morton, that hewas overpowered, disarmed, and a horse-girth passed round his arms,before he could offer any effectual resistance. When this wasaccomplished, a dead and stern silence took place. The fanatics rangedthemselves around a large oaken table, placing Morton amongst them boundand helpless, in such a manner as to be opposite to the clock which wasto strike his knell. Food was placed before them, of which they offeredtheir intended victim a share; but, it will readily be believed, he hadlittle appetite. When this was removed, the party resumed theirdevotions. Macbriar, whose fierce zeal did not perhaps exclude somefeelings of doubt and compunction, began to expostulate in prayer, as ifto wring from the Deity a signal that the bloody sacrifice they proposedwas an acceptable service. The eyes and ears of his hearers wereanxiously strained, as if to gain some sight or sound which might beconverted or wrested into a type of approbation, and ever and anon darklooks were turned on the dial-plate of the time-piece, to watch itsprogress towards the moment of execution.

  Morton's eye frequently took the same course, with the sad reflection,that there appeared no posibility of his life being expanded beyond thenarrow segment which the index had yet to travel on the circle until itarrived at the fatal hour. Faith in his religion, with a constantunyielding principle of honour, and the sense of conscious innocence,enabled him to pass through this dreadful interval with less agitationthan he himself could have expected, had the situation been prophesied tohim. Yet there was a want of that eager and animating sense of rightwhich supported him in similar circumstances, when in the power ofClaverhouse. Then he was conscious, that, amid the spectators, were manywho were lamenting his condition, and some who applauded his conduct. Butnow, among these pale-eyed and ferocious zealots, whose hardened browswere soon to be bent, not merely with indifference, but with triumph,upon his execution,--without a friend to speak a kindly word, or give alook either of sympathy or encouragement,--awaiting till the sworddestined to slay him crept out of the scabbard gradually, and as it wereby strawbreadths, and condemned to drink the bitterness of death drop bydrop,--it is no wonder that his feelings were less composed than they hadbeen on any former occasion of danger. His destined executioners, as hegazed around them, seemed to alter their forms and features, likespectres in a feverish dream; their figures became larger, and theirfaces more disturbed; and, as an excited imagination predominated overthe realities which his eyes received, he could have thought himselfsurrounded rather by a band of demons than of human beings; the wallsseemed to drop with blood, and the light tick of the clock thrilled onhis ear with such loud, painful distinctness, as if each sound were theprick of a bodkin inflicted on the naked nerve of the organ.

  Morton Awaiting Death--frontispiece2]

  It was with pain that he felt his mind wavering, while on the brinkbetween this and the future world. He made a strong effort to composehimself to devotional exercises, and unequal, during that fearful strifeof nature, to arrange his own thoughts into suitable expressions, he had,instinctively, recourse to the petition for deliverance and for composureof spirit which is to be found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Churchof England. Macbriar, whose family were of that persuasion, instantlyrecognised the words, which the unfortunate prisoner pronounced halfaloud.

  "There lacked but this," he said, his pale cheek kindling withresentment, "to root out my carnal reluctance to see his blood spilt. Heis a prelatist, who has sought the camp under the disguise of anErastian, and all, and more than all, that has been said of him mustneeds be verity. His blood be on his head, the deceiver!--let him go downto Tophet, with the ill-mumbled mass which he calls a prayer-book, in hisright hand!"

  "I take up my song against him!" exclaimed the maniac. "As the sun wentback on the dial ten degrees for intimating the recovery of holyHezekiah, so shall it now go forward, that the wicked may be taken awayfrom among the people, and the Covenant established in its purity."

  He sprang to a chair with an attitude of frenzy, in order to anticipatethe fatal moment by putting the index forward; and several of the partybegan to make ready their slaughter-weapons for immediate execution, whenMucklewrath's hand was arrested by one of his companions.

  "Hist!" he said--"I hear a distant noise."

  "It is the rushing of the brook over the pebbles," said one.

  "It is the sough of the wind among the bracken," said another.

  "It is the galloping of horse," said Morton to himself, his sense ofhearing rendered acute by the dreadful situation in which he stood; "Godgrant they may come as my deliverers!"

  The noise approached rapidly, and became more and more distinct.

  "It is horse," cried Macbriar. "Look out and descry who they are."

  "The enemy are upon us!" cried one who had opened the window, inobedience to his order.

  A thick trampling and loud voices were heard immediately round the house.Some rose to resist, and some to escape; the doors and windows wereforced at once, and the red coats of the troopers appeared in theapartment.

  "Have at the bloody rebels!--Remember Cornet Grahame!" was shouted onevery side.

  The lights were struck down, but the dubious glare of the fire enabledthem to continue the fray. Several pistol-shots were fired; the whig whostood next to Morton received a shot as he was rising, stumbled againstthe prisoner, whom he bore down with his weight, and lay stretched abovehim a dying man. This accident probably saved Morton from the damage hemight otherwise have received in so close a struggle, where fire-armswere discharged and sword-blows given for upwards of five minutes.

  "Is the prisoner safe?" exclaimed the well-known voice of Claverhouse;"look about for him, and dispatch the whig dog wh
o is groaning there."

  Both orders were executed. The groans of the wounded man were silenced bya thrust with a rapier, and Morton, disencumbered of his weight, wasspeedily raised and in the arms of the faithful Cuddie, who blubbered forjoy when he found that the blood with which his master was covered hadnot flowed from his own veins. A whisper in Morton's ear, while histrusty follower relieved him from his bonds, explained the secret of thevery timely appearance of the soldiers.

  "I fell into Claverhouse's party when I was seeking for some o' our ainfolk to help ye out o' the hands of the whigs, sae being atween the deiland the deep sea, I e'en thought it best to bring him on wi' me, forhe'll be wearied wi' felling folk the night, and the morn's a new day,and Lord Evandale awes ye a day in ha'arst; and Monmouth gies quarter,the dragoons tell me, for the asking. Sae haud up your heart, an' I'sewarrant we'll do a' weel eneugh yet."

  [Note: NOTE TOCHAPTER XII. The principal incident of the foregoing Chapter was suggested by an occurrence of a similar kind, told me by a gentleman, now deceased, who held an important situation in the Excise, to which he had been raised by active and resolute exertions in an inferior department. When employed as a supervisor on the coast of Galloway, at a time when the immunities of the Isle of Man rendered smuggling almost universal in that district, this gentleman had the fortune to offend highly several of the leaders in the contraband trade, by his zeal in serving the revenue.

  This rendered his situation a dangerous one, and, on more than one occasion, placed his life in jeopardy. At one time in particular, as he was riding after sunset on a summer evening, he came suddenly upon a gang of the most desperate smugglers in that part of the country. They surrounded him, without violence, but in such a manner as to show that it would be resorted to if he offered resistance, and gave him to understand he must spend the evening with them, since they had met so happily. The officer did not attempt opposition, but only asked leave to send a country lad to tell his wife and family that he should be detained later than he expected. As he had to charge the boy with this message in the presence of the smugglers, he could found no hope of deliverance from it, save what might arise from the sharpness of the lad's observation, and the natural anxiety and affection of his wife. But if his errand should be delivered and received literally, as he was conscious the smugglers expected, it was likely that it might, by suspending alarm about his absence from home, postpone all search after him till it might be useless. Making a merit of necessity, therefore, he instructed and dispatched his messenger, and went with the contraband traders, with seeming willingness, to one of their ordinary haunts. He sat down at table with them, and they began to drink and indulge themselves in gross jokes, while, like Mirabel in the "Inconstant," their prisoner had the heavy task of receiving their insolence as wit, answering their insults with good-humour, and withholding from them the opportunity which they sought of engaging him in a quarrel, that they might have a pretence for misusing him. He succeeded for some time, but soon became satisfied it was their purpose to murder him out-right, or else to beat him in such a manner as scarce to leave him with life. A regard for the sanctity of the Sabbath evening, which still oddly subsisted among these ferocious men, amidst their habitual violation of divine and social law, prevented their commencing their intended cruelty until the Sabbath should be terminated. They were sitting around their anxious prisoner, muttering to each other words of terrible import, and watching the index of a clock, which was shortly to strike the hour at which, in their apprehension, murder would become lawful, when their intended victim heard a distant rustling like the wind among withered leaves. It came nearer, and resembled the sound of a brook in flood chafing within its banks; it came nearer yet, and was plainly distinguished as the galloping of a party of horse. The absence of her husband, and the account given by the boy of the suspicious appearance of those with whom he had remained, had induced Mrs--to apply to the neighbouring town for a party of dragoons, who thus providentially arrived in time to save him from extreme violence, if not from actual destruction.]