by John Buchan
“Ye thrawn jackanapes,” he cried, as he beat me. “Ye’ll pay dear for playing your pranks wi’ John Donald.”
I was a child in his mighty grasp, besides having no breath left in me to resist. He tied my hands and legs, haled me to his horse, and flung me sack-like over the crupper. There was no more shamefaced lad in the world than me at that moment, for coming out of the din I heard a girl’s light laughter.
CHAPTER 3. THE CANONGATE TOLLBOOTH
“Never daunton youth” was, I remember, a saying of my grandmother’s; but it was the most dauntoned youth in Scotland that now jogged over the moor to the Edinburgh highroad. I had a swimming head, and a hard crupper to grate my ribs at every movement, and my captor would shift me about with as little gentleness as if I had been a bag of oats for his horse’s feed. But it was the ignominy of the business that kept me on the brink of tears. First, I was believed to be one of the maniac company of the Sweet-Singers, whom my soul abhorred; item, I had been worsted by a trooper with shameful ease, so that my manhood cried out against me. Lastly, I had cut the sorriest figure in the eyes of that proud girl. For a moment I had been bold, and fancied myself her saviour, but all I had got by it was her mocking laughter.
They took us down from the hill to the highroad a little north of Linton village, where I was dumped on the ground, my legs untied, and my hands strapped to a stirrup leather. The women were given a country cart to ride in, and the men, including Muckle John, had to run each by a trooper’s leg. The girl on the sorrel had gone, and so had the maid Janet, for I could not see her among the dishevelled wretches in the cart. The thought of that girl filled me with bitter animosity. She must have known that I was none of Gib’s company, for had I not risked my life at the muzzle of his pistol? I had taken her part as bravely as I knew how, but she had left me to be dragged to Edinburgh without a word. Women had never come much my way, but I had a boy’s distrust of the sex; and as I plodded along the highroad, with every now and then a cuff from a trooper’s fist to cheer me, I had hard thoughts of their heartlessness.
We were a pitiful company as, in the bright autumn sun, we came in by the village of Liberton, to where the reek of Edinburgh rose straight into the windless weather. The women in the cart kept up a continual lamenting, and Muckle John, who walked between two dragoons with his hands tied to the saddle of each, so that he looked like a crucified malefactor, polluted the air with hideous profanities. He cursed everything in nature and beyond it, and no amount of clouts on the head would stem the torrent. Sometimes he would fall to howling like a wolf, and folk ran to their cottage doors to see the portent. Groups of children followed us from every wayside clachan, so that we gave great entertainment to the dwellers in Lothian that day. The thing infuriated the dragoons, for it made them a laughing-stock, and the sins of Gib were visited upon the more silent prisoners. We were hurried along at a cruel pace, so that I had often to run to avoid the dragging at my wrists, and behind us bumped the cart full of wailful women. I was sick from fatigue and lack of food, and the South Port of Edinburgh was a welcome sight to me. Welcome, and yet shameful, for I feared at any moment to see the face of a companion in the jeering crowd that lined the causeway. I thought miserably of my pleasant lodgings in the Bow, where my landlady, Mistress Macvittie, would be looking at the boxes the Lanark carrier had brought, and be wondering what had become of their master. I saw no light for myself in the business. My father’s ill-repute with the Government would tell heavily in my disfavour, and it was beyond doubt that I had assaulted a dragoon. There was nothing before me but the plantations or a long spell in some noisome prison.
The women were sent to the House of Correction to be whipped and dismissed, for there was little against them but foolishness; all except one, a virago called Isobel Bone, who was herded with the men. The Canongate Tollbooth was our portion, the darkest and foulest of the city prisons; and presently I found myself forced through a gateway and up a narrow staircase, into a little chamber in which a score of beings were already penned. A small unglazed window with iron bars high up on one wall gave us such light and air as was going, but the place reeked with human breathing, and smelled as rank as a kennel. I have a delicate nose, and I could not but believe on my entrance that an hour of such a hole would be the death of me. Soon the darkness came, and we were given a tallow dip in a horn lantern hung on a nail to light us to food. Such food I had never dreamed of. There was a big iron basin of some kind of broth, made, as I judged, from offal, from which we drank in pannikins; and with it were hunks of mildewed rye-bread. One mouthful sickened me, and I preferred to fast. The behaviour of the other prisoners was most seemly, but not so that of my company. They scrambled for the stuff like pigs round a trough, and the woman Isobel threatened with her nails any one who would prevent her. I was black ashamed to enter prison with such a crew, and withdrew myself as far distant as the chamber allowed me.
I had no better task than to look round me at those who had tenanted the place before our coming. There were three women, decent-looking bodies, who talked low in whispers and knitted. The men were mostly countryfolk, culled, as I could tell by their speech, from the west country, whose only fault, no doubt, was that they had attended some field-preaching. One old man, a minister by his dress, sat apart on a stone bench, and with closed eyes communed with himself. I ventured to address him, for in that horrid place he had a welcome air of sobriety and sense.
He asked me for my story, and when he heard it looked curiously at Muckle John, who was now reciting gibberish in a corner.
“So that is the man Gib,” he said musingly. “I have heard tell of him, for he was a thorn in the flesh of blessed Mr. Cargill. Often have I heard him repeat how he went to Gib in the moors to reason with him in the Lord’s name, and got nothing but a mouthful of devilish blasphemies. He is without doubt a child of Belial, as much as any proud persecutor. Woe is the Kirk, when her foes shall be of her own household, for it is with the words of the Gospel that he seeks to overthrow the Gospel work. And how is it with you, my son? Do you seek to add your testimony to the sweet savour which now ascends from moors, mosses, peat-bogs, closes, kennels, prisons, dungeons, ay, and scaffolds in this distressed land of Scotland? You have not told me your name.”
When he heard it he asked for my father, whom he had known in old days at Edinburgh College. Then he inquired into my religious condition with so much fatherly consideration that I could take no offence, but told him honestly that I was little of a partisan, finding it hard enough to keep my own feet from temptation without judging others. “I am weary,” I said, “of all covenants and resolutions and excommunications and the constraining of men’s conscience either by Government or sectaries. Some day, and I pray that it may be soon, both sides will be dead of their wounds, and there will arise in Scotland men who will preach peace and tolerance, and heal the grievously irritated sores of this land.”
He sighed as he heard me. “I fear you are still far from grace, lad,” he said. “You are shaping for a Laodicean, of whom there are many in these latter times. I do not know. It may be that God wills that the Laodiceans have their day, for the fires of our noble covenant have flamed too smokily. Yet those fires die not, and sometime they will kindle up, purified and strengthened, and will burn the trash and stubble and warm God’s feckless people.”
He was so old and gentle that I had no heart for disputation, and could only beseech his blessing. This he gave me and turned once more to his devotions. I was very weary, my head was splitting with the foul air of the place, and I would fain have got me to sleep. Some dirty straw had been laid round the walls of the room for the prisoners to lie on, and I found a neuk close by the minister’s side.
But sleep was impossible, for Muckle John got another fit of cursing He stood up by the door with his eyes blazing like a wild-cat’s, and delivered what he called his “testimony.” His voice had been used to shout orders on shipboard, and not one of us could stop his ears against it. Never have I hear
d such a medley of profane nonsense. He cursed the man Charles Stuart, and every councillor by name; he cursed the Persecutors, from his Highness of York down to one Welch of Borrowstoneness, who had been the means of his first imprisonment; he cursed the indulged and tolerated ministers; and he cursed every man of the hill-folk whose name he could remember. He testified against all dues and cesses, against all customs and excises, taxes and burdens; against beer and ale and wines and tobacco; against mumming and peep-shows and dancing, and every sort of play; against Christmas and Easter and Pentecost and Hogmanay. Then most nobly did he embark on theology. He made short work of hell and shorter work of heaven. He raved against idolaters of the Kirk and of the Bible, and against all preachers who, by his way of it, had perverted the Word. As he went on, I began to fancy that Muckle John’s true place was with the Mussulmans, for he left not a stick of Christianity behind him.
Such blasphemy on the open hill-side had been shocking enough, but in that narrow room it was too horrid to be borne. The minister stuck his fingers in his ears, and, advancing to the maniac, bade him be silent before God should blast him. But what could his thin old voice do against Gib’s bellowing? The mariner went on undisturbed, and gave the old man a blow with his foot which sent him staggering to the floor.
The thing had become too much for my temper. I cried on the other men to help me, but none stirred, for Gib seemed to cast an unholy spell on ordinary folk. But my anger and discomfort banished all fear, and I rushed at the prophet in a whirlwind. He had no eyes for my coming till my head took him fairly in the middle, and drove the breath out of his chest. That quieted his noise, and he turned on me with something like wholesome human wrath in his face.
Now, I was no match for this great being with my ungrown strength, but the lesson of my encounter with the dragoon was burned on my mind, and I was determined to keep out of grips with him. I was light on my feet, and in our country bouts had often worsted a heavier antagonist by my quickness in movement. So when Muckle John leaped to grab me, I darted under his arm, and he staggered half-way across the room. The women scuttled into a corner, all but the besom Isobel, who made clutches at my coat.
Crying “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon,” Gib made a great lunge at me with his fist. But the sword of Gideon missed its aim, and skinned its knuckles on the stone wall. I saw now to my great comfort that the man was beside himself with fury, and was swinging his arms wildly like a flail. Three or four times I avoided his rushes, noting with satisfaction that one of the countrymen had got hold of the shrieking Isobel. Then my chance came, for as he lunged I struck from the side with all my force on his jaw. I am left-handed, and the blow was unlocked for. He staggered back a step, and I deftly tripped him up, so that he fell with a crash on the hard floor.
In a second I was on the top of him, shouting to the others to lend me a hand. This they did at last, and so mazed was he with the fall, being a mighty heavy man, that he scarcely resisted. “If you want a quiet night,” I cried, “we must silence this mountebank.” With three leathern belts, one my own and two borrowed, we made fast his feet and arms, I stuffed a kerchief into his mouth, and bound his jaws with another, but not so tight as to hinder his breathing. Then we rolled him into a corner where he lay peacefully making the sound of a milch cow chewing her cud. I returned to my quarters by the minister’s side, and presently from utter weariness fell into an uneasy sleep.
* * * * *
I woke in the morning greatly refreshed for all the closeness of the air, and, the memory of the night’s events returning, was much concerned as to the future. I could not be fighting with Muckle John all the time, and I made no doubt that once his limbs were freed he would try to kill me. The others were still asleep while I tiptoed over to his corner. At first sight I got a fearsome shock, for I thought he was dead of suffocation. He had worked the gag out of his mouth, and lay as still as a corpse. But soon I saw that he was sleeping quietly, and in his slumbers the madness had died out of his face. He looked like any other sailorman, a trifle ill-favoured of countenance, and dirty beyond the ordinary of sea-folk.
When the gaoler came with food, we all wakened up, and Gib asked very peaceably to be released. The gaoler laughed at his predicament, and inquired the tale of it; and when he heard the truth, called for a vote as to what he should do. I was satisfied, from the look of Muckle John, that his dangerous fit was over, so I gave my voice for release. Gib shook himself like a great dog, and fell to his breakfast without a word. I found the thin brose provided more palatable than the soup of the evening before, and managed to consume a pannikin of it. As I finished, I perceived that Gib had squatted by my side. There was clearly some change in the man, for he gave the woman Isobel some very ill words when she started ranting.
Up in the little square of window one could see a patch of clear sky, with white clouds crossing it, and a gust of the clean air of morning was blown into our cell. Gib sat looking at it with his eyes abstracted, so that I feared a renewal of his daftness.
“Can ye whistle ‘Jenny Nettles,’ sir?” he asked me civilly.
It was surely a queer request in that place and from such a fellow. But I complied, and to the best of my skill rendered the air.
He listened greedily. “Ay, you’ve got it,” he said, humming it after me. “I aye love the way of it. Yon’s the tune I used to whistle mysel’ on shipboard when the weather was clear.”
He had the seaman’s trick of thinking of the weather first thing in the morning, and this little thing wrought a change in my view of him. His madness was seemingly like that of an epileptic, and when it passed he was a simple creature with a longing for familiar things.
“The wind’s to the east,” he said. “I could wish I were beating down the Forth in the Loupin’ Jean. She was a trim bit boat for him that could handle her.”
“Man,” I said, “what made you leave a clean job for the ravings of yesterday?”
“I’m in the Lord’s hands,” he said humbly. “I’m but a penny whistle for His breath to blow on.” This he said with such solemnity that the meaning of a fanatic was suddenly revealed to me. One or two distorted notions, a wild imagination, and fierce passions, and there you have the ingredients ready. But moments of sense must come, when the better nature of the man revives. I had a thought that the clout he got on the stone floor had done much to clear his wits.
“What will they do wi’ me, think ye?” he asked. “This is the second time I’ve fallen into the hands o’ the Amalekites, and it’s no likely they’ll let me off sae lightly.”
“What will they do with us all?” said I. “The Plantations maybe, or the Bass! It’s a bonny creel you’ve landed me in, for I’m as innocent as a newborn babe.”
The notion of the Plantations seemed to comfort him. “I’ve been there afore, once in the brig John Rolfe o’ Greenock, and once in the Luckpenny o’ Leith. It’s a het land but a bonny, and full o’ all manner o’ fruits. You can see tobacco growin’ like aits, and mair big trees in one plantin’ than in all the shire o’ Lothian. Besides—”
But I got no more of Muckle John’s travels, for the door opened on that instant, and the gaoler appeared. He looked at our heads, then singled me out, and cried on me to follow. “Come on, you,” he said. “Ye’re wantit in the captain’s room.”
I followed in bewilderment; for I knew something of the law’s delays, and I could not believe that my hour of trial had come already. The man took me down the turret stairs and through a long passage to a door where stood two halberdiers. Through this he thrust me, and I found myself in a handsome panelled apartment with the city arms carved above the chimney. A window stood open, and I breathed the sweet, fresh air with delight. But I caught a reflection of myself in the polished steel of the fireplace, and my spirits fell, for a more woebegone ruffian my eyes had never seen. I was as dirty as a collier, my coat was half off my back from my handling on the moor, and there were long rents at the knees of my breeches.
Another d
oor opened, and two persons entered. One was a dapper little man with a great wig, very handsomely dressed in a plum-coloured silken coat, with a snowy cravat at his neck. At the sight of the other my face crimsoned, for it was the girl who had sung Montrose’s song in the rain.
The little gentleman looked at me severely, and then turned to his companion. “Is this the fellow, Elspeth?” he inquired. “He looks a sorry rascal.”
The minx pretended to examine me carefully. Her colour was high with the fresh morning, and she kept tapping her boot with her whip handle.
“Why, yes, Uncle Gregory,” she said, “It is the very man, though none the better for your night’s attentions.”
“And you say he had no part in Gib’s company, but interfered on your behalf when the madman threatened you?”
“Such was his impertinence,” she said, “as if I were not a match for a dozen crazy hill-folk. But doubtless the lad meant well.”
“It is also recorded against him that he assaulted one of His Majesty’s servants, to wit, the trooper John Donald, and offered to hinder him in the prosecution of his duty.”
“La, uncle!” cried the girl, “who is to distinguish friend from foe in a mellay? Have you never seen a dog in a fight bite the hand of one who would succour him?”
“Maybe, maybe,” said the gentleman. “Your illustrations, Elspeth, would do credit to His Majesty’s advocate. Your plea is that this young man, whose name I do not know and do not seek to hear, should be freed or justice will miscarry? God knows the law has enough to do without clogging its wheels with innocence.”
The girl nodded. Her wicked, laughing eyes roamed about the apartment with little regard for my flushed face.
“Then the Crown assoilzies the panel and deserts the diet,” said the little gentleman. “Speak, sir, and thank His Majesty for his clemency and this lady for her intercession.”
