Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 08

by Unknown

"And forfeit the five pledges," replied she, laughing. "But, Wat, had we not better measure Gilmanscleugh first, before we quarrel about its proportions."

"I have driven too many of his cattle over it to Harden Glen, not to know the breadth of it," said he, keeping up the humour. "But come, my boys, we shall take a better gauge of its dimensions to-day. Harden never rieves by day; but the light of the sun tells us best what the moon may light us to."

And having breakfasted on something more substantial than the dish of spurs, the old laird, and his sons were prepared to sally forth to take a survey of Gilmanscleugh's flock, with a view to those ulterior operations which might have the effect of precipitating its unlucky proprietor into such a quarrel with his sturdy superior as might afford the latter a pretext for carrying his object of ambition into effect. To cover their proceedings, they took with them their hunting-graith, without forgetting the stirrup-cup, or rather without being allowed, by the provident solicitude of the spirited dame, to forget that essential preparative to a Borderer's forth-going, whether he was bent on hunting, rieving, or wooing. Mounted on their strong shaggy garrons, with bows slung over their shoulders, swords by their sides, and the accompaniment of two wolf-dogs of great size and strength, and a number of stag-hounds, all yelling around, till their voices awakened the sleeping echoes of the glen, and formed a rugged harmony with the long shrill winding of the hunter-horns, they presented in the features of the group, that mixture of the war and the chase, sport and spoliation, which marked all the roving parties of that extraordinary period and still more extraordinary place. The mother of six such sons had presented to her a fair subject of exultation in the party that stood before her; and her eye, which still retained the blue light of that of the Flower of Yarrow, spoke the pride which swelled her bosom, as it passed, in laughing intelligence, from one fair face and manly person to another.

"It was as a hunter I first saw you, Walter, from Dryhope Tower," said she; "and he who hunted for a wife, may well hunt for a portion to her children."

"If I bring down Gilmanscleugh," replied Wat, laughing, "it will be a higher quarry than the Flower of Yarrow."

"You thought not so then, Wat," rejoined she, in the same spirit; "but love giveth way to ambition. That day thou callest Gilmanscleugh thine own, I will busk me again, as I once busked thy bonny bride, and put thy once-cherished Flower of Yarrow in fair competition with the broad acres of Gilmanscleugh. By my troth, thou wouldst be a bold man to prefer the new love to the old."

"I would not give thee, woman," rejoined he, "for all Branxholm's wide domains, with the whole of Ettrick Forest to boot; so hold thy peace, and apply thee to thy hussyskep; for, by my sword, we will come home hungry men."

And old Wat's horn sounded again among the hills. The signal for starting was well known, and away they dashed down the steep, with that speed which the Borderers always exhibited—a consequence, perhaps, of the habit of getting off with their booty in the fear of a rescue. They were soon out of the sight of the fond dame, who long afterwards sat at the small window on the east side of the tower, listening to the notes of the horn, as they reverberated among the heights, and died away like the parting notes of mountain spirits that seek their dark recesses in the opening morn. A true Borderer's wife, she never feared for the result of an expedition of either hunting or harrying; and, as yet, a prosperous fate, by saving her husband and her six sons from the dangers to which their mode of life exposed them, had visited her with no cause of a wife's sorrow or a mother's affliction. But such was her heroic spirit, that, much as she loved these objects of her affection, she could have acted the Spartan dame over the dead body of the dearest among them, and quelled the bursting heart with the thought that he had died nobly in the vocation to which his fate had called him. It was not that habit had worn out the ordinary solicitude of the female heart; for, if custom had recognised the actions of a rieving female in the

affair of moveable property as well as of moveable hearts, we dare to be bold enough to say that Mary Scott would have been as famous as an amazon scaumer, as she was as the Flower of Yarrow. Many an expedition she had planned; and it was often more easy for Harden to satisfy himself as to the number of good cattle he might lodge in the glen, than it was to come up to the expectations of his better half, who, as the ballad says, if he had brought her less than ten, would not have "roosed his braverie." Nor was Harden's wife singular in the possession of these unfeminine feelings of Border heroism; for, as women are generally seen to take on the hues and complexions of the minds of their lords, the Border dames were generally remarkable for the spirit with which they applauded the deeds of their husbands, and the fortitude with which they bore the consequences, often lamentably tragic, which resulted from the wild life they were habituated to lead. In her present situation, Mary Scott thought only of the fair property of Gilmanscleugh, which she conceived so well suited for the heirloom of her two sons that still wanted provisions; and she had already in her mind's eye the bickering flame that was to consume the parchment rights, and roast the oxen that would serve for the celebration of the new acquisition to the wealth and property of Harden.

Meanwhile the hunting troop spread through the surrounding woods, sounding their horns, but caring less for the dun deer of the Scotch hills than for the black cattle of Gilmanscleugh. They had not proceeded far, being still within the limits of Harden's lands, when they heard the hunting-horn of some party in the distance; and the old chief immediately despatched one of his sons—whom he styled the Forester, from his love of the sports of woodcraft—to prick his garron forward, and ascertain who it was that had the hardihood to drive the dun deer so near to Harden's glen. The young man obeyed, and as he proceeded, he found that the huntsman, whoever he was, had, probably from hearing the sounds of the approaching chief, retired to the westward, with a view to avoid the coming party. This construction on his conduct was the first thought that arose on the mind of young Harden, and it came with the suspicion that the sound of the stranger's horn indicated no other a visitor to the Harden woods than that very Gilmanscleugh against whom his father and mother had been nourishing the schemes which might contribute to the gratification of their ambition. With these thoughts came another—viz., that he, the young Harden, who was one of the unprovided sons for whom Gilmanscleugh was intended, would contribute to the satisfaction of both his father and mother, if he made short work of the projected scheme, and, by urging the proprietor of the envied property to a quarrel and battle, got quit of him by a bilbo thrust, and thus settle in an instant an affair which apparently occupied a great deal more thought than it was entitled to. The idea brought a whole train of the most delightful cogitations that had ever yet fired his young fancy. He would anticipate the views of his father; set off by contrast the simplicity of his own act—a simple extension of the sword-arm—with the intricate machinery of his parents' scheme of ambition; enjoy the surprise of his father and the wonder of his mother when he told them that he had, by an unlucky quarrel, killed Gilmanscleugh, and asked, with affected simplicity, what would become of the property? show himself the best of the six sons of Harden, and worthy of the best smile of the Flower of Yarrow. The accumulation of rising thoughts and stirring feelings inflamed his mind; and, striking deep the rowels into his garron's side, he pricked forward at the rate of a quick gallop, with the wolf-dog Grim bounding before him, baying forth a deep yell, and his tongue hanging half-a-foot over his bloodthirsty jaws. He kept his pace for a considerable time, and was already far from his father's party, when he saw Gilmanscleugh's dog, also a wolf-hound, and known to him by the peculiarity of his colour, being almost white, bounding away to the left—in the track, doubtless, of his master. The moment the dogs perceived each other in the breathless, foaming condition into which their race had inflamed them, they closed in a fell struggle, and made the wood ring with the sounds of their wrath. Gilmanscleugh heard the affray, and returned to save his favourite hound from the jaws of Harden's, which was so famous throughout the forest, that no animal of its species, or indeed of any other in the wood, could stand before it. Coming up, he struck the fierce animal of his chief; and young Harden, coming from behind, upbraided him for assaulting his dog, in such terms of galling abuse that the insulted man turned and laid his hand on his sword. The act was followed by a similar movement on the part of the Forester—in another moment they were engaged in fight, and the period of a minute did not pass away before the young and beautiful son of Harden lay upon the ground, a bleeding corpse!