John Burnet of Barns: A Romance

by John Buchan

"I do not think you know me, Master Burnet," said he; "but I knew your father well, and our houses used to be well acquaint. I am one o' the Carnwath Lockharts, that ye may hae heard o'. My name is Francis Lockhart o' the Beltyne."

I knew him when he uttered the words, for I had often heard tell of him for a gallant gentleman who had seen service under Gustavus and in many Low Country wars. I complimented myself on his acquaintance, which kindness he proceeded to repay. So we fell to discussing many things—men I had known in Leyden, men I had known in Tweeddale, together with the more momentous question of the future of each of us. I gave him a full account of my recent fortunes, that he might have wherewith to contradict any rumours as to my reasons for taking to the hills. He in turn spoke to me of his life, and his sorrow at the fate of his land. The man spoke in such unfeigned grief, and likewise with such a gentleman-like note of fairness, that I felt myself drawn to him. It was while thus engaged that he spoke a word which brought upon him the condemnation of one of the ethers.

"Oh," said he, "I would that some way might be found to redd up thae weary times and set the king richt on his throne, for I canna but believe that in this matter loyalty and religion go hand in hand; and that were James Stewart but free from his wanchancy advisers there would be less talk of persecuting."

At this one of the others, a dark man from the West, spoke up sharply. "What do I hear, Maister Lockhart? It's no by ony goodwill to James Stewart that we can hope to set things richt in thae dark times. Rather let our mouths be filled with psalms and our hands with the sword-hilt, and let us teach the wanton and the scorner what manner o' men are bred by the Covenant and the Word."

The speech was hateful to me, and yet as I looked in the dark, rugged face of the man I could not keep from liking it. Here, at any rate, was a soul of iron. My heart stirred at his words, and I could have found it in me to cast in my lot even with such as these, and bide the bent with naught but a good sword and faith in God. Howbeit, it was well I made no such decision, for I was never meant for one of them. I ever saw things too clearly, both the evil and the good; and whereas this quality hinders from swift and resolute action, it yet leads more plainly to a happy life.

Then the old man, him whom I have spoken of, beckoned to me with his staff and bade me come and sit by him. He looked so kinglike even in his affliction that I thought on the old blind king Oedipus in the Greek play.

"Ye kenna me, John Burnet, but weel ken I you. Often in the auld days your father and me had gey ploys hunting and fechting roond a' the muirs o' Tweed. He was a guid man, was Gilbert, and I hear he had glimpses o' grace in the hinner end."

"Maybe," said I, being in perplexity, for from the grace that he spoke of, my father had ever been far.

"Ay, and I was sair vexed I saw him so little. For he had to bide at hame for the last years, and I was aye busied wi' other work. Yeddie o' the Linns was never an idle man, and less than ever in thae days."

At the mention of his name a flood of recollection came in upon me. I minded how I had heard of the son of Lord Fairley, a great soldier who had won high renown in the wars abroad: and how he had returned a melancholy man, weighed down with the grave cares of religion, and gone to the wilds of Tweed to a hut just above the Linns of Talla, where he spent his days in prayer and meditation. The name of Yeddie o' the Linns, as he was called among the shepherds and folk of these parts, became an equivalent for high-hearted devotion. Then when the wars began tales of him grew over the countryside. In stature he was all but gigantic, famed over half the towns of France for feats of strength, and no evil living had impaired his might. So at the outbreak of the persecution he had been a terror to the soldiers who harried these parts. The tale ran of the four men whom he slew single-handed at the Linns, hemming them in a nook of rocks, and how often he had succoured fugitives and prisoners, coming like an old lion from the hills and returning no one knew whither. There was also the tale of his blinding by a chance splinter from a bullet-shot, and how he had lived among the caves and hills, dangerous even in his affliction. Had I but known it, this cave was his finding, and half the retreats in Tweeddale and Clydesdale were known to him. But now he was an old man, who had long left his youth, and his strength had all but gone from him. He sat alone in his great darkness, speaking little to the inmates or the chance comers, save when he knew them for gentlemen of birth; for though he might risk his life for the common people, he had no care to associate with them, being of the old Kirkpatricks of that ilk, as proud a house as is to be found in the land.