"I snuff up the smell of a corse from afar—
Whither goest thou, wild steed? Whither fliest, cavalier?
Does the warrior seek for the pathway of war?
Does the wild steed seek for pasture here?
The wind of the desert here battles alone—
None but serpents inhabit the wilderness stone—
None but skeletons slumber upon the ground,
And the vultures in solitude hover around."
From the Polish of Mickiewics.
The gun which was fired from the Yellow Frigate before she sailed from her moorings at Dundee attracted the attention of many in the town, and among others Hew Borthwick, who, at a bench outside the gate, had been teaching the constables men-at-arms, who loitered about the king's lodging (as St. Margaret's Palace was sometimes named), various tricks with cards and dice. Hurrying down St. Clement's Wynd with others, to the beach, he saw the frigate under full sail, standing down the river.
"What the devil's i' the wind now?" was his first thought; "if Sir Andrew encounters Howard on the high seas, our special plan will assuredly be blown up like a soap-bubble! Can Gair have suspected us? Impossible! the fellow knew nothing, save that we boarded a ship—and what of that? Well, well, let those laugh who win this desperate game. But it looks ill, yonder old grampus putting to sea in such haste," he continued, after a pause; "I must een hie me to Broughty, and see Sir Patrick."
In those days there were but two hostelries in Dundee, and as neither of these had confidence enough in human virtue to entrust our worshipful knight with a horse, he was obliged to depart on foot for Broughty, passing out of the town by the shore instead of the Seagate and market-place, for which he had a decided aversion; and, indeed, wretch as he was, he could never pass through the latter without a shudder, as it recalled certain passages in the history of his family, with which we may now acquaint the reader.
In many ancient records, but chiefly that old and quaint chronicle of Scotland written by Robert Lindesay, Laird of Pitscottie, we are informed, that about thirty-eight years before the time of our story, there was a strange being named Ewain Gavelrigg, who dwelt among the Sidlaw hills in Angus, and who with his whole family was accused of the strange and horrible crime of eating human flesh!
At the foot of the mountains, he occupied a small hut, walled with turf and thatched with heather, at a place called Uach-dair Tir—now Auchtertyre; but his chief haunt was that savage pass in the Sidlaws, known as the Glack of Newtyle, where he waylaid, robbed, and slew the solitary travellers who chanced to be benighted in that wild and lonely district, which then lay between Dundee and Strathmore. Several who had escaped him, and reached either the Castle of Bailie-Craig, which was close by, or that of the Constable of Dundee, related how they had been encountered by a man of frightful aspect and vast stature, armed with a great mace and poniard. All accounts of him were similar. He was entirely clad in homespun grey, with rough deer-skin shoes and galligaskins; a broad belt of cowhide encircled his waist, and his head, which was ever destitute of bonnet, was protected by a forest of matted black hair. A blow from his clenched hand was sufficient to brain a mountain bull, or smite a charger to the earth; and those who escaped from him, averred that they saw him sucking the blood from the wounds of those he had slain, and rending asunder their limbs like the branches of a withered bush, while he picked their bones, as a marmoset might pick those of a chicken.
In that age of credulity and marvel, such stories made a terrible impression on the people. The whole of Angus rang with them—and others were constantly being added, each more startling than the last. The men of Strathmore, the light Lindesays, the vassals of Glammis, and even the valiant Sutors of Forfar, never ventured abroad alter night-fall, save in parties of three or four, and always well armed with their quarter staves or two-handed swords.
Twice had men of undoubted valour and veracity averred that they had slain him; one an arrow-maker of Dundee, by a wound he had given him in the throat; another who was a sword-slipper of Banff, by a thrust he had given him in the breast; but they were taunted as bootless boasters, for this strange and uncouth being was still haunting the pass of the Sidlaws.
A succession of these incredible stories excited the wonder and kindled the chivalry of Sir James Scrimegeour of Dudhope, the young constable of Dundee; and attended only by Lord Drummond—then Sir John of that ilk—well mounted and in full armour, on St. John's night in the year 1440, he rode to the Glack of Newtyle, and there, like a paladin of old, blew three blasts with his bugle-horn. The night was unusually dark, and the broad sheet lightning was reddening the sky behind the black peak of Kinpurnie, which is eleven-hundred feet in height, and is the highest of the Sidlaw range. The narrow-bridle path which led through the Glack was buried in obscurity, and clumps of stunted firs which grew in the morasses waved mournfully in the wind that sang down the mountain pass and through their wiry foliage.
With their chargers shod with felt, the knights rode softly on, and as challenger, Scrimegeour, the royal standard-bearer, was a bowshot in front of Sir John Drummond.