‘Will you wait? Even if they send me away for years, I’ll come back for you, Aylie. I promise you that. Will you wait for me?’ he asked her over and over again.
She leant her head on his chest and said, ‘I promise with all my heart I’ll wait for you, Hugh. Even when I’m an old, old woman, I’ll always be yours, I love you so much.’ Her heart ached in her breast as if it were made of stone. How long would it be, she wondered, before he was free again? She never once allowed herself to consider the possibility that he might be hanged.
However, others were not so optimistic. One day she overheard a group of people discussing the possibility of Hugh Kennedy suffering the death penalty.
‘He shot at the excise men. He’s been a bad lad in the past, all that poaching and preaching revolution. It’s quite likely that they’ll make him swing.’
When she was told that the circuit judge who would hear Hugh’s case was much feared for his harsh sentencing, she tried to banish horrible speculations from her mind but in the darkness of the night they haunted her like spectres.
* * *
Aylie sat between her mother and Maggie, staring sightlessly at the judge’s empty chair. She wished she was able to pray. Jock Hepburn was on Jane’s left and Gilbert Kennedy occupied a seat farther along. There was no sign of Hugh’s scrawny spectre of a mother.
Then the judge mounted his high seat and wiped his red face with a large silk handkerchief before ordering that the prisoner be led in. Aylie felt her heart lurch and begin to palpitate as Hugh climbed the steps to the prisoner’s box. He looked so young, so vulnerable, no longer a rogue, no longer her dashing gypsy. She wanted to rush up to him and throw her arms round him, to protect him from the hard-eyed men who were weighing him up like a beast in a market stall.
The case proceeded without any hitches. He pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted murder and, brazenly, not guilty to one of attempting to smuggle excisable goods into Scotland. Then the panoply of the law swept into action. One by one witnesses appeared, some of them people she had never seen before, who swore to having watched Hugh engage in open smuggling; who swore that they had been offered the chance to go with him but because of their rectitude, of course, they had refused. A self-satisfied Josey appeared in the witness box, his hair plastered down on his head and his face as sly as ever. He testified that he had found out when the gypsy’s gang was going out and which route it took. This information he had passed on to his employer – the Myreheugh farmer. When it was Myreheugh’s time to give evidence, he said that he passed Josey’s information on to the excise men.
After all, he said self-righteously, Kennedy was well known to be an agitator, a troublemaker. His kind were best removed from society.
Then the excise men stood up and perjured themselves by swearing that they had stepped out of the thicket unarmed and challenged the smugglers. They had told Kennedy to give up his arms and yield quietly but instead of doing that, he fired on them, shooting his own dog by mistake. They portrayed themselves as innocent, unarmed men who were fired on point blank by a villain determined to kill.
While listening to this evidence, Aylie gave a gasp and was about to step to her feet when both Jane and Maggie took hold of her and forcibly held her down. With one strong hand Maggie also effectively gagged her.
‘You’ll make it worse for him if you cause a disturbance,’ Maggie whispered.
The proceedings dragged on all day and to the worried people in the front row, it seemed that everybody there except themselves was enjoying the spectacle as much as if they were at the theatre. It was not often that they had such a sensational case to listen to, and the gypsy lad was a local hero.
It was late afternoon when the judge suddenly decided to begin his summing up and the jury were admonished to make haste with their verdict if they did not want to spend another day in court.
They filed dutifully out and within five minutes they were back. The foreman, a tenant on one of Myreheugh’s brother’s properties, said they had agreed their verdict. Hugh Kennedy was guilty of smuggling but – amazingly – not guilty of attempted murder. Aylie never knew who among the local traders and property owners had swung that vote in her husband’s favour, but she was eternally grateful.
The judge actually looked disappointed. It was obvious that his fingers had been itching to place the black cap on his tightly curled wig but he was not going to be thwarted too badly. The gypsy had to be made an example of.
‘I sentence you to ten years’ transportation,’ he intoned and as his words boomed sonorously out over the hushed court, Aylie fainted.
‘Don’t look at me, Aylie, don’t look at me!’
Hugh’s voice rang out loud and clear as the hustling knot of men came out of the iron-studded door under the round arch that marked the entrance to Jedburgh’s Bridewell Jail. Aylie, standing with her mother on the other side of the square, covered her eyes with her hands because she knew his pride was crying out to her. He did not want her to see him being led away in chains. His call however came only a few seconds too late for she had already caught a fleeting glimpse, a glimpse that was to haunt her dreams. His shackled feet could only shuffle along for they were joined together by massive iron links and a third chain led from them up to his manacled hands. At the sight of him, the silent crowd drew in their breath, resentfully angry that one of their own kind was being taken away like that. Shackled, he would travel across oceans to a place from which only horrific tales came back.
Aylie’s last sight of her husband was his dark head held high and overtopping the warders in the open cart that was to carry him to Perth prison. She had been told that he would be kept there for about a year, then if he was passed fit, he would be transferred to the prison hulks moored in the Thames estuary at Woolwich. From there his journey to Australia would begin.
Jane tenderly put a hand on Aylie’s arm and guided her slowly down Jedburgh’s High Street, only too aware of the curious glances of local people who knew that Aylie was the gypsy’s wife.
At the corner of the square they were accosted by a spitting black hag who pointed a skinny finger into Aylie’s face and hissed, ‘It was your fault, you got your hands on my laddie. It was because of you he wanted money. It was to give you silk gowns that he went smuggling…’ Hugh’s gypsy mother, wrapped in a tattered black shawl and incandescent with hatred, cursed and spat on the ground at Aylie’s feet and was about to say more before Jane stepped between them.
‘Go away, woman, leave her alone. She’s brokenhearted, can’t you see that?’
The gypsy shouted, ‘She’ll be worse before this is done, you mark my words,’ but it was obvious that, like so many other people, even she was afraid of Jane and she hurried off, still hissing as she went.
Though she knew the gypsy’s accusation was untrue, for Hugh had been smuggling before he married her, the meeting shook the girl’s fragile composure. Heedless of the watching people she now allowed her tears to flow and she clung to her mother like a child again. ‘What’ll they do to him, Mam? What’ll they do to him?’ she sobbed.
‘You’ve just got to have faith in him. He said he’d come back and he’s the sort that will, you mark my words, you’ll see him again,’ said her mother consolingly.
Aylie was to treasure those words like a talisman. Her mother had never let her down, everything Jane had ever told her was true.
* * *
The lonely house in the valley was empty and threatening now. Every room held bitter-sweet memories that wrenched her heart as she walked through them. She realized with a shock that in her absence someone had been in and cleared away anything of value, even the loft was empty of the contraband whisky they’d had to leave behind when they set out fully loaded for Boulmer. She did not know whether Hugh’s friends or the excise men had taken it and of course she could not ask. She grubbed with her hands in the corner of the kitchen floor where she hid her crock of money and, miraculously, it was still there. Digging it up, she tip
ped out the coins and without counting them tied them up safely in her petticoat.
Only one horse was left in the stable, her grey mare with the flowing white tail that Hugh had bought for her and which carried her so well over the midnight moors when she fled from the excise men. Someone had given it food and cleaned its bedding while she was away and she stroked the horse’s velvet muzzle.
It whickered softly at the feel of her hand and the pain in her heart broke fully. Leaning her head against its soft neck, she wept racking tears which hurt so badly that she thought her very heart would break. When the agony was wept out, however, she felt strangely cleansed and began to saddle up the mare.
She was leading the horse out of the stable, bolting the door behind her for the last time, when a man stepped forward from the shadows of the hay shed.
His face was solemn as he said, ‘I heard your man was sent away yesterday.’
She stared at Daniel Fleury and asked, ‘Have you been here long?’
‘I heard you crying. I didn’t think I should interrupt you. It’s good to cry sometimes.’ His voice was sympathetic.
‘What do you want?’
‘I came to ask how you’ll manage now that he’s gone. Have you any money?’
She frowned. ‘Someone’s taken away everything I had. But at least they left me this horse. I’ll manage.’
‘Have you any children?’ asked Fleury.
She shook her head. The painful memory of the aborted child had been overlaid by her anguish about Hugh.
‘What will you do?’ he persisted.
Angrily she turned on him. ‘I’ll work like all the other lonely women in this countryside. I’ll put on my bondager’s hat and stand at the hiring fair and then I’ll work, day after day, week after week and year after year till he comes back again.’
‘Not many transported convicts get back. I’ve known a few and none of them got back,’ Fleury told her.
‘My Hugh’ll get back,’ said Aylie firmly. ‘Hugh said he’ll come back for me and he will. What do you want anyway? Why have you come here? Was it you who took my whisky?’
He looked disappointed that she should think such a thing of him. ‘Of course not, the place was empty when I got here about two hours ago. I was waiting for you. I wanted to ask you to come with me.’
She stared in open astonishment. ‘What did you say?’
‘I want you to come away with me. You and I would go along together very well, I know.’
‘But that’s a terrible thing to ask. My man’s been sent to prison yesterday and you expect me to pack up and go with you?’
Fleury looked grim. ‘I thought you might if you’re sensible. He’s gone for good, you know. You’ll have a lonely and terrible life. I could offer you something better. You deserve it.’
All Aylie’s anger disappeared. There was indeed an understanding between this man and herself. She felt no resentment any longer at his offer. Turning her back on him, she pulled tight at the girths of the mare’s saddle.
When she turned back again she said in a cool voice, ‘Thank you very much for the offer, Captain Fleury, but I’ll never leave the Borders till Hugh comes back – and I know he will. Nothing anyone tells me makes me doubt that. I love him and I’ll wait for him.’
‘I was afraid you’d say that but I had to try,’ said Fleury, and walked over to help her on to her horse. As she gathered up the reins he said, ‘We’ll never meet again, smuggler lady, but I won’t forget you. Remember that.’ Then he reached into the pocket of his coat and brought out a little bag of jingling coins which he pressed into her hand. ‘Take this, you’ll need it.’
She withdrew her hand. ‘It’s kind, but no. I’ll manage. I’ve got some money. Goodbye, Captain Midnight.’
And with that she cantered out of the yard, leaving behind the house where she and Hugh had been so happy.
She went to see Gilbert. ‘You must sell this mare for me, but make sure it goes to a good home. It’s a good horse,’ she told him.
He took the reins from her hands, his dark eyes mournful, and he too asked, ‘What’ll you do now, lass?’
‘I’m going back to work, back to the land. What else is there for me to do? I’ll wait for Hugh like he told me to.’
Gilbert also doubted whether he or Aylie would ever see his son again, for he knew that men who were shipped out to Australia usually stayed there and their families rarely heard from them again. They never knew even whether they were alive or dead. But he was careful not to show his doubts to Aylie, for he saw she needed hope to cling to.
It was difficult for her not to despair. She went back to her mother in the abbey, where she helped to make up potions and medicines and delivered them to the cottages of Jane’s patients. Everyone greeted her with grave sympathy but a few of them were not too tactful in what they told her. Tales of horrific floggings handed out to transportees; of attempts at escape being punished by hanging; accounts of the privations of the sea voyage; and, worst of all, of the harridans of women prisoners, all prostitutes according to local lore, were recounted to her.
One kindly woman however told her about a relative who had been transported for stealing a sheep and his wife travelled out to Australia to be with him.
‘Can women go out on their own?’ Aylie asked, wide-eyed.
‘If you have the price of a passage,’ she was told. ‘But they say it’s not a place for a decent woman.’
When Aylie told Jane this story, her mother instantly knew what was in her daughter’s mind and her face seemed old and frightened.
‘But it’s so far away, it’s a long and dangerous voyage. How do you know Hugh would want you to go out there among all those convicts?’ she protested.
Aylie set out for Perth and when the coach arrived at the Salutation Hotel in the middle of the town, she was grey with dust and tiredness but, fortunately, the prison was only a short walk away. Of course the guards refused to let her in.
‘I want to send a message to my man,’ she explained. ‘I want to ask him if I should pay my own way to Australia to be with him when he’s transported.’
One of the jailers laughed. ‘Dinna waste your money, lassie, just go out and steal some rich man’s purse and you’ll get there quick enough for free.’
She flashed a pleading look at him. ‘Please take that message to Hugh Kennedy. I’ll wait here for his reply.’
She held out a few coins towards him and as he looked at the girl, noticing her youth and tired beauty, sympathy stirred in his heart.
‘Keep your money. Wait here and I’ll take your message in,’ he told her.
After a long time, he came back and told her, ‘I’ve spoken to him. Go and stand under that window over there…’ He indicated a barred window high on the wall beside the portcullis gate.
When she heard Hugh’s voice she felt for a moment as if it had all been a dream and that she would waken up to find him beside her in their deep bed again.
He sounded urgent. ‘Aylie, Aylie, don’t leave the Borders. Don’t go to Australia. Stay near the Eildons and I’ll come back for you, my dearest. I promise I’ll come back.’
She knew she had to do as he said and without a backward glance she turned on her heel and walked away.
All Jock Hepburn’s years of hard work were paying benefits now. He had sold his smallholding and bought a larger farm with a solid red sandstone house and a collection of snug outbuildings sitting in the middle of three hundred acres of good land. He and Sandy worked from early morning till late at night and made such a good living from Harestanes Farm that envious neighbours said he must have found a cache of gold hidden in his fields.
He extended the farmhouse, adding a front wing with a plaster-ceilinged drawing room to house the piano. Then he built a stableyard for hunters and carriage horses. Jock Hepburn, the bondager’s bairn, was on his way to becoming a gentleman farmer.
Aylie spent most of the summer helping him, but when November began she knew she could presu
me on his kindness no longer and told her mother she was going back to Earlston hiring fair to find herself a place.
The hiring day was fine, and early in the morning Aylie sat on the step of her mother’s little cell rubbing a high shine into her working boots. As she polished she remembered how Hugh had once told her that her days as a farm labourer were finished. But fortune had turned and, once again, she was back in the striped skirt and canvas apron of the bondager.
She stood up, pinning the straw hat on top of her crown of hair and called over her shoulder into the dimness behind her, ‘How do I look, Mam, do you think someone’ll hire me?’
Jane came out carrying Blaize’s coat over one arm. ‘I’m going to give you something for luck,’ she said. ‘Hand me over the scissors till I cut off one of your father’s buttons for you.’
‘Oh, don’t cut his coat. You’ve kept it so fine all these years. Don’t cut it for me now.’
‘But I want to. I want something of him to go with you. I can’t give you the coat but I’ll give you one of these braw buttons.’
They polished it proudly and threaded it through a cord to hang around Aylie’s neck.
‘It’ll take care of you,’ Jane told her.
* * *
‘Pride is a sin,’ Aylie told herself as she stood alone outside Earlston’s Corn Exchange trying not to notice the strolling crowds of men evaluating her with their eyes. Some of them were only interested in her capacity as a worker but others looked at her more lasciviously for she was in the full flower of womanhood and the old-fashioned bondager costume made her an eye-catching sight.
They began approaching her as soon as she took up her stance and after an hour she had three definite offers of work. The men who wanted to hire her as their bondager were all young and offered wages over the normal – elevenpence a day for her if she would go with them.
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