The day was beautiful, the welkin pure as the brow of childhood, and the earth robed in all the flowery freshness of the merry month of May. The heart of the exile was lightened of its brooding despondency by the sweet influences of Nature, and seemed to beat in unison with the summer joy. But the relief was transient. Gloomy thoughts returned, like dark clouds over a sunny sky, imparting a sadness to his countenance, which, his fellow-traveller observing, he sought to divert his mind by singing legendary ballads, and telling tales of haunted ruins, fairies, and general diablerie—all which, if failing in their true object, served to beguile the tedium of the way.
Travelling leisurely, our wayfarers, in a few hours, approached the scene of the judicial meeting. A company of troopers and footmen, with the Sheriff at their head, marched past, showing that the appointed hour was drawing nigh. Our travellers, on reaching a sparse wood, halted in the cool shade, and partook of refreshments from the gaberlunzie’s wallet, which, being well stored, furnished a “feast of good things,” and their drink was supplied by a slender streamlet that flowed murmuring among the trees, and sparkling in the broken sunbeams that glinted through the foliage overhead. After satisfying their appetite, they pursued their route, and, having ascended an eminence, descried a dark tower with turrets in the distance, which the gaberlunzie said was the Keep of Ballinshaw, near which stretched a wide expanse of level moorland, yellow with the broom and whin.
They quickened their pace, and soon heard an occasional winding of horns and the loud voices of men, which directed their steps to a broad hollow, or holm, on the verge of the moor farthest from the tower of Ballinshaw, and traversed by a burn, the banks of which were lined with aged saughs. There a considerable concourse of men had assembled, partly armed, retainers and partly peasantry, straggled about on both sides of the water, some of the former trotting up and down on horseback, some lounging on the grass casting dice, whilst their steeds grazed at random. In the midst of a well-appointed band of jackmen appeared a knight in half-armour, Sir Robert Home, the Sheriff, a man of middle age, with a grey beard. A young page attended him, bearing aloft a spear with a gauntlet or glove on the point of it, as the well-known border emblem of peace and amity. Behind their superior stood the footmen of the party, some six Sheriff Officers or “Serjeants,” as they are distinctively termed in the old Acts of the Scottish Parliament. Their status was denoted by white wands in their hands; blazons, or medallions of brass, charged with the royal arms, displayed upon their breasts; and horns (for denouncing rebels) hanging from their necks by iron chains; while, for greater security in those troublous times, when law was so often defied, each officer was armed with a sword, and wore an iron bascinet cap, and gloves of mail.
[Chapter VI.]
The times are wild; contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.
King Henry IV., Part Second.