Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 03

by Unknown

"Throw thy cord over the buttress, there," cried one of the nobles; "give the noose mouth enough to tell its own tale, and I will answer for it bringing out his."

The man proceeded forward to a buttress of the castle completely exposed to the eyes of Marjory, by the gleams that flared from the torches; and she saw him deliberately go through the operation of making the projection available for the purpose of a gallows, by binding the cord to it, and suspending a running noose, which seemed to gape in grim gesture for its victim. The moment the rope was suspended, James pointed to it, and asked the warder to proceed and answer his questions. The terrified man cast a wild eye on the relentless crowd around him, and then on the engine of death that dangled before him, and, with faltering tongue, told the king that Cockburn had gone on a midnight raid against Adam Scott of Tushielaw, who, some time before, had made an assault on Henderland, and carried off twenty head of cattle, besides wounding several of Cockburn's men; he stated, farther, that there had been many raids of late in Liddesdale; but that his master had had, until Tushielaw roused him, scarcely any share in these struggles, preferring the society of his lady, the fairest and the kindest woman of the Borders, to the pleasures of rieving. This statement was received as evidence against Cockburn.

All these transactions had been narrowly watched by Marjory, who was now more and more satisfied that the doom of her husband was sealed, if he made his appearance before the king in the humour he now exhibited. She saw them bind the warder with ropes until their trial was over, that he might remain in pledge for the truth of his statements; and the heads again held counsel on the next step they should take in the unexpected event of the "traitor," as they called him, not being found at home, notwithstanding of their attempted surprise by a night visit. These doings had occupied as much time as allowed the glimmer of early dawn to pass into a grey light, that, while it did not render the torches unnecessary, exhibited in strange and grotesque shades the group of dark figures, their changing faces, moving heads, and inauspicious gestures, on which the gleams of the torches flickered faintly, in struggles with the rising morn. Above them, the dangling noose claimed her averted eye, and sent through her nerves shivers that seemed to make the blood run back in the veins, and stagnate about the heart. In any other position but that in which she was placed, she would have made the castle ring with involuntary screams; and it was only the intense anxiety with which she watched every sound in the distance, in the struggling hope that Cockburn would not make his appearance, that bound her down in the silent, breathless mood which she now exhibited. Neither could she have borne the extraordinary spectacle below her casement, had it not been that her wish to watch every indication in the direction of Tushielaw, overcame the feelings inspired by the moving tumult of fierce men that waited there for the blood of her husband. Sometimes the thought found its way through her anxiety—why did they not call for or visit her? But the solution was not difficult; for she knew that men bent on purposes of cruelty, do not court the mediation of women. And then again she meditated, for a moment, a descent to them, and an attempt, by throwing herself at the feet of the king, to secure, by anticipation, mercy to her husband, when he might, if ever he should, be found. This last thought was passing through her mind, and she had intuitively drawn her clothes around her bosom, as a preparation for her rising resolution, when her husband's horn, in all its well-known windings, struck her ear. That sound had hitherto inspired the pulses of a living heart, and sent through her veins the delightful tumult of a gratified hope; it had been the prelude to the close embrace of affection; the flourish of joy on the meeting again of separated hearts. It was now the death-knell of both. She would have sunk to the ground as the sound fell on her ear, but that the recess of the casement sustained her powerless frame. After a few moments of insensibility, she again opened her eyes; and the first vision that presented itself to her, was her husband marching into the castle between two rows of the king's troops. He came nobly forward, with a free, erect carriage, and a look undaunted by the scowls that fell on him from every side. On coming up to the king, who stood in a haughty, indignant attitude, he was prepared to throw himself at his feet, when his eye caught the rope, with the noose at the end of it, hanging from the buttress. He started, and threw a hurried look up to the casement, where Marjory sat watching his every movement; but his fortitude returned again, and making a step forward, he threw himself at the feet of the king.

"Here doth an humble subject," he said, "deposit the loyalty he oweth to his lawful king."

"On the eve, or in the midst of rebellion," cried James, in ironical anger. "Seize the rebel! One caught in the act, maketh a good beginning. Four reigns of Jameses have been merely borne or suffered, by beggarly tolerance, by these Border sovereigns, and the best part of a kingdom made an arena for the strife of the contention of petty kings, who rob, and steal, and kill on all hands, heedless whether the victim be king or knave. This shall be ended—by the faith of Scotland's king it shall! 'Habit and repute,' is good evidence by our old law against common thieves; and I ask my nobles, too good a jury for such caitiffs, what a common thief deserves?"

"To be strung up to the buttress," replied several voices, in deep hollow sounds, that rung fearfully round the recesses of the ballium, and reached the ear of Marjory.

"Parys Cockburn of Henderland," cried James, "hath, by a jury of our nobles, been deemed worthy to die the death of a thief, and a rebel against our authority. Let him be forthwith hanged till he be dead, on the buttress of his own tower, as an example to evil doers in time to come."

A quick movement of simultaneous, and, in many cases, intuitive agitation, followed this order. Two men seized the unfortunate gentleman, and proceeded to bind his hands behind his back, while the executioner proceeded to let go the end of the rope, so as to bring within his reach the noose, which had previously been purposely elevated, so as to be more exposed to the eyes of the beholders. Every step of these proceedings was observed by Marjory from her seat at the window; and it was not till she saw the men lay hold of her husband, and the executioner proceed to adjust the rope, that she ceased to be able to watch the details of this extraordinary mock trial and real condemnation. At that moment she uttered a loud scream, and fell on the floor in a state of insensibility, from which she was roused by her little daughter, Helen, who had come from her bed to ascertain her mother's illness. Rising in a state of frenzy, she sought the door of the apartment, with a view to throw herself between the king and her husband; but the door was locked in the outside—a precaution, doubtless, taken by the king's orders, to prevent a scene of a woman's unavailing grief. The prospect, now, of being forced to remain in a chamber a few feet above the gallows on which her husband, and the object of her strongest and softest affections, was to be suspended, and hanged like a common malefactor, rose on her bewildered view. Though she might place her hands over her eyes, the sound of his death would reach her ear—the jerk of the fatal cord, the struggle of the choking breath, the last sigh of her beloved Parys, would come to her, and reason might remain to bear it. If she could close up both eyes and ears, her fancy would exaggerate the acts performing around her, and fill her mind with shapes and forms, if possible more hideous than the dread spectres of the waking sense. Breaking loose from Helen, and also from Hector—who had joined his sister, and had from the window got some glimpse of the dire operations in progress in the court, and thus ascertained the cause of his mother's scream—she ran round the apartment, in the way of unfortunate maniacs, till her brain became dizzy with the quick circumgyrations, and then stood ready to fall, staring wildly at her children, who had followed her in her progress with loud screams. Meanwhile, the buzz of the preparations for the execution fell on her ear, and, running to the window, she held forth her extended arms, and implored the king, in wildly pathetic words and moans, to spare her husband. The king never moved his head; but many of the men turned up their grim, embrowned faces, fixed their eyes on her beautiful countenance, and saw her white arms wildly sawing the air, without showing any indications of being moved. Cockburn himself, who stood with his arms bound behind his back, his armour off, and the neck of his doublet rolled down on his shoulders, could not trust his eye in the direction of his wife and children, but stood with a look fixed on the grey walls of his tower. The voice of the king was now heard, crying, "Is everything prepared?" and, "Yes, my liege," rolled forth from the mouth of the rough-toned executioner. The unfortunate Marjory, in this extremity, turned from the window, and rushed into a neighbouring room, from which a few steps of descent led to a window not so far removed from a broken part of the wall as to prevent her getting to the ground. In this, by a mighty effort, she succeeded, hearing, as she hastened away, the shrill cries of her children following her, and imploring her to return. Her brain was fired beyond the capability of sane thought. The soldiers, who saw her fall on the ground, lifted her up, and then pushed her rudely away from the ground they were ordered to guard, confronting her otherwise impossible efforts to get forward by their swords, and threatening to do her bodily injury if she dared to resist their authority.

At this moment she heard a voice commanding some one to seize and confine the wife of the culprit; and, getting more confused by the occurrence of new and more harrowing incidents—the cries of her children sounding from the window—the noise of those forwarding the execution, if not at that very time, binding her husband to the gallows, filling all the air with a confused buzz—and the coming of the men to seize and secure her—she sprang forward out of a postern, and, with the rapid step of flying despair, endeavoured to get beyond the dreadful sounds which haunted her ear. In her flight—the consequence of the spur of frenzy, as much as of a wish to lessen pain which was insufferable—she came to the Henderland Linn, a mountain stream, that falls rolling down the heights with a loud noise. It was much swelled, and the waters were gushing and roaring over a ledge of rock that crosses its course, and forms in that quarter a cascade—beautiful in certain states of the river, but frightful when the spirit of the storms has sent down the red stream to dash over the height. The noise was welcome to her; and, exhausted, she threw herself down on a seat by the side of the linn;[4] yet, so quick is the ear to catch, through other sounds, that of the cause of a pregnant grief, that she heard the increased noise of the crowd at the Castle, consequent on the execution of the sentence of condemnation of her husband—a swelling shout, as of a completed triumph, came on the wind; and, unable to bear this consummation of all her woes, she ran forward, and threw herself down with her head in the line of the cascade, that the roar of the waters might drown the dreadful sound.

How long she lay in that extraordinary predicament, she was never able to tell; but the sound of the roaring waters rang in her ear for many an after day. When she ventured to raise her head, everything seemed quiet at Henderland Tower; and the silence now appeared to her more dreadful than the former excitement. The storm, which had been gradually ceasing, was lulled, and the morn had now attained to a grey daylight. She knew not what step to pursue. She would remain, and she would not remain; she would return to the Tower, and she trembled at the thought. Starting up, she began to retrace her steps slowly back through the wood, stopping at every interval of a few moments, to listen if she could hear any sound. Looking around, she saw, disappearing from an old road that led away to Tushielaw, the last of the king's troops; and she omened sadly that they had completed their work. She hesitated again, whether she should proceed to a place where she would inevitably behold a sight that might unsettle her reason. But whether could she fly? What could she do? Her little children were there; it was still her home, and the dead body of her beloved husband was also there. But judgment might vacillate according to its laws; her feet had an impulse forward, which philosophy might not explain. She was hastening towards the Castle, and she scarcely knew that she was occupied in that act, in the absence of distinct volition. Looking up, she saw an old domestic running towards her; who, on coming up, wished her to relinquish her determination to go towards the Castle, and requested her to sojourn for a time in the woods, or wait till she sent for a jennet, to carry her to some house. She would give no explanation of her reasons for this advice; but looked terrified and confused when Marjory put to her some broken words of interrogation. Marjory could abide no parley, and, gently pushing the old attendant aside, hurried forward to the Castle, and entered the postern. The ballium was empty; the retainers of her husband had been marched off before the forces of the king; and any domestics that were left had fled to the woods in terror. She lifted her eye to the buttress, and saw suspended there the dead body of her husband. At the window of her apartment were her children, looking on the dreadful spectacle. The two elder had cried till their throats were dried and paralysed; and the youngest, who understood nothing of these proceedings, laughed when it saw its mother, and clapped its little hands for joy.