“Ah! Mary,” said he, “last night we looked forward to long and happy years—how joyful were our hopes! but they are all blasted at once. Be comforted, my dearest, dearest heart!—God bless you!—Farewell forever.”
The soldiers then dragged her backward, mocking her with indelicate remarks, and while she was yet scarcely two paces removed, and still stretching out her hands towards him, six balls were lodged in his heart in a moment, and he fell dead at her feet. Deformed and bloody as he was, she pressed the corpse to her bosom, moaning and sobbing in such a way as if every throb would have been her last, and in that condition the soldiers marched merrily off and left them. For this doughty and noble deed, for which Serjeant Douglas deserved to have been hanged and quartered, he shortly after got a cornetcy in Sir Thomas Livingston’s troop of horse.
Two of the prisoners made their escape that morning, owing to the drunkenness of their guards, on which account the remainder being blamed, were more haughtily and cruelly treated than ever. It is necessary to mention all these, as they were afterwards canvassed at Walter’s trial, the account of which formed one of his winter evening tales as long as he lived. Indeed, all such diffuse and miscellaneous matter as is contained in this chapter, is a great incumbrance in the right onward progress of a tale; but we have done with it, and shall now haste to the end of our narrative in a direct uninterrupted line.
CHAPTER XII.
The sudden departure of Katharine from home, after the extraordinary adventure of the curate Clerk in the Old Room, at the crowing of the cock, was a great relief to him, as it freed him from the embarrassment of her company, and gave him an opportunity of telling his own story to the goodwife without interruption, of the success he had in freeing her daughter from the power and fellowship of evil spirits. That story was fitted admirably to suit her weak and superstitious mind; it accorded with any thing nearer than the truth, and perhaps this finished hypocrite never appeared so great a character in the eyes of Maron Linton as he did that day. He spoke of going away to Henderland in the evening, but she entreated him so earnestly to stay and protect her from the power of the spirits that haunted the place, that he deemed it proper to acquiesce, for without the countenance of the family of Chapelhope he was nothing—he could not have lived in his puny cure. She depended on him, she said, to rid the town of these audacious (or, as she called them, misleared) beings altogether, for without his interference the family would be ruined. Their servants had all left them—the work remained unwrought, and every thing was going to confusion—she had given Brownie his accustomed wages again and again, and still he refused to leave the house; and without the holy man’s assistance in expelling him and his train, their prospects in life were hopeless.
The curate promised to use his highest interest with Heaven, and assured her that no further evil should come nigh unto her, at least while he remained under her roof; “for were it not,” said he, “for the conjunction which they are in with one of the family, they should have been expelled long ere now. That unnatural bond, I hope, by a course of secret conferences, to be able to break asunder, but be not thou afraid, for no evil shall come nigh thy dwelling.” He talked with the goodwife in the style that pleased her; flattered her high and pure notions of religion, as well as her piety and benevolence; said evening prayers in the family with zeal and devotion; but how was he startled when informed that he was to sleep again in the Old Room! He indeed knew not that it was haunted more than any other part of the house, or that it was the favourite nightly resort of the Brownie of Bodsbeck, but the apparition that he had seen, and the unaccountable rescue that he had witnessed the night before, preyed on his mind, and he hinted to the goodwife, that he had expected to be preferred to her daughter’s room and bed that night, as she was absent; but Maron, too, was selfish; for who is without that great ruling motive? She expected that Brownie would appear; that Mass John would speak to it; and thenceforward to be freed from its unwelcome intrusions. To the Old Room he was shown at a late hour, where the lamp, the Bible, and the sand–glass were placed on the little table, at the bed’s head, as usual.
It was past eleven when the curate went to sleep. Old Nanny, who was dressed more neatly than usual, sat still at the kitchen fire, expecting every minute the two covenant–men, whom her young mistress had promised to send to her privily, as her companions and protectors through the dark and silent watches of the night until her return. Still nothing of them appeared; but, confident that they would appear, she stirred the embers of the fire, and continued to keep watch with patient anxiety. When it drew towards midnight, as she judged, she heard a noise without, as of some people entering, or trying to enter, by the outer door of the Old Room. Concluding that it was her expected companions, and alarmed at the wrong direction they had taken, she ran out, and round the west end of the house, to warn them of their mistake, and bring them in by the kitchen door. As she proceeded, she heard two or three loud and half–stifled howls from the interior of the Old Room. The door was shut, but, perceiving by the seam in the window–shutters that the light within was still burning, she ran to the window, which directly faced the curate’s bed; and there being a small aperture broken in one of the panes, she edged back the shutter, so as to see and hear the most part of what was going on within. She saw four or five figures standing at the bed, resembling human figures in some small degree—their backs towards her; but she saw a half–face of one that held the lamp in its hand, and it was of the hue of a smoked wall. In the midst of them stood the deformed little Brownie, that has often been mentioned and described in the foregoing part of this tale. In his right hand he brandished a weapon, resembling a dirk or carving–knife. The other hand he stretched out, half–raised over the curate’s face, as if to command attention. “Peace!” said he, “thou child of the bottomless pit, and minister of unrighteousness; another such sound from these polluted lips of thine, and I plunge this weapon into thy heart. We would shed thy blood without any reluctance—nay, know thou that we would rejoice to do it, as thereby we would render our master acceptable service. Not for that intent or purpose are we now come; yet thy abominations shall not altogether pass unpunished. Thou knowest thy own heart—its hypocrisy, and licentiousness—Thou knowest, that last night, at this same hour, thou didst attempt, by brutal force, to pollute the purest and most angelic of the human race—we rescued her from thy hellish clutch, for we are her servants, and attend upon her steps. Thou knowest, that still thou art cherishing the hope of succeeding in thy cursed scheme. Thou art a stain to thy profession, and a blot upon the cheek of nature, enough to make thy race and thy nation stink in the nose of their Creator!—To what thou deservest, thy doom is a lenient one—but it is fixed and irrevocable!”
There was something in that mis–shapen creature’s voice that chilled Nanny’s very soul while it spoke these words, especially its pronunciation of some of them; it sounded like something she had heard before, perhaps in a dream, but it was horrible, and not to be brooked. The rest now laid violent hold of Mass John, and she heard him mumbling in a supplicating voice, but knew not what he said. As they stooped forward, the lamp shone on the floor, and she saw the appearance of a coffin standing behind them. Nanny was astonished, but not yet overcome; for, cruel were the scenes that she had beheld, and many the trials she had undergone!—but at that instant the deformed and grizly being turned round, as if looking for something that it wanted—the lamp shone full on its face, the lineaments of which when Nanny beheld, her eyes at once were darkened, and she saw no more that night. How she spent the remainder of it, or by what means she got to her bed in the kitchen, she never knew; but next morning when the goodwife and her sons arose, poor old Nanny was lying in the kitchen bed delirious, and talking of dreadful and incomprehensible things. All that could be gathered from her frenzy was, that some terrible catastrophe had happened in the Old Room, and that Clerk, the curate, was implicated in it. The goodwife, judging that her favourite had been at war with the spirits, and that Heaven had been of course triumphant, hasted to the Old Room to bless and pay the honour due to such a divine character; she called his name as she entered, but no one made answer; she hasted to the bed, but behold there was no one there! The goodwife’s sole spiritual guide had vanished away.
The curate Clerk was never more seen nor heard of in these bounds; but it may not be improper here to relate a circumstance that happened some time thereafter, as it comes no more within the range of this story.