Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 09

by Unknown

The house of Kirconnel stood on "fair Kirconnel Lee;" a term implying that the wood, which in those days encompassed every baronial residence, had been, to a certain extent, cleared away, to allow the daisy-covered lawn to rejoice in the beams of the generally excluded sun. But, at a little distance, the empire of the forest was again resumed, on the condition exacted by nature, of allowing the winding Kirtle to enjoy her grassy bank, covered with the wild rose and the eglantine; and to roll playfully along her pebbly bed, unimpeded by the neighbouring trees, which, as if in amatory dalliance, sent down their straggling lips to kiss her as she went. The wood bower—in early times a species of rural retreat in much greater fashion than now-a-days—was, in repetition of itself, seen rearing its ornamented walls, round which the native parasite plants were entwined in close embrace in various parts of the shady retreat. Some of these had been carefully looked to by the lady of Kirconnel herself, who, anxious to confirm her husband's resolution against engaging in the wars of the times, left no energy unemployed to render their residence, not only within the walls of the house, but in the bowers and gardens, as pleasant to the eye as the fruits of her heart and mind were delightful to the rational and loving soul of her appreciating and grateful lord. As Sir Owain says:—

Fair were her erbers with flowers—
Rose and lili divers colours,
Primrol and parvink;
Mint, feverfoy, and eglantine,
Colimbin, and mo there were,
Than ani man mocht think."

True; the Graces had, as yet, but small influence in Scotland; but the Genius of Chivalry, a cognate spirit, was busy in effecting a great revolution in the minds of the inhabitants; and though there was little to humanise, there was much to elevate and beautify. Traces of this power might already be seen about the bowers and shades of Kirconnel, where some rude figures of knights in various positions—one rescuing a damsel from her enemies—one in the combat at outrance—one striking the palisades of an armed city—placed, as they were, in the retreats of peace and domestic happiness by a former warlike possessor of the property, served the purpose of ornamenting the sequestered walks, and supplying to the peaceful and happy inhabitants a contrast between the pursuits of war and the pleasures of home, and home's blessed enjoyments.

At a little distance from the mansion or castle—for every house, in those days, had a castellated character—was, and still is, the burying-ground of Kirconnel; a spot which, from the peculiarity of its situation, as well as from its own mournful associations, impressed the mind of the visiter with feelings which startled him, as much from their novelty as from their intensity. There is a small stone there, that would, if deciphered and communicated to our readers, anticipate our story, and claim the ready tear before our own sympathies are relieved by our recital. We pass it by at present, to give some idea of the extraordinary spot where it lies. This ground of the dead, or "Death's Mailing," as it has sometimes been called, is invested with all the charms of a sublimed melancholy, which contemplates nature as a whole, and looks to those high purposes of her great author in visiting poor mortals with their heart-chastening woes. At the time of which we speak, this place of the dead was entirely surrounded with high oaks and spreading elms, except where the silvery Kirtle embraced the hallowed spot, as she rolled slowly along—more slowly, it might almost appear, at this spot than elsewhere—and murmured a soft threnody in the ears of the guardian spirits, that there tended the clay forms which they once animated. A few very rude stones, whose rudeness was their greatest recommendation to the sentimental mind, told, in the quaint "old Inglis" of that day, their simple tale. "Here lyethe the race of ye sons of Kirconnelle," might have been seen on a rude freestone that has long since disappeared. "Terraughtie did choose to lie her," appeared upon another old relic; and some exhibited more simple tokens—still pointing out nothing more than name and surname, yet more eloquent in that brevity than the most "storied urn." "Jon Kirkpatrycke," "Andrew Welles," "Heln Johnston," "Mary of the Le'," without one word more to say what they were, where they lived, when they visited this scene of sorrow, and when they departed from it, possessed an eloquence in their simple brevity that moved the heart of the visiter with a power now little felt and less appreciated. The swelling green tumuli, with these simple-speaking, grey-headed stones, standing, yet leaning to a side, as if themselves bent by the hands of time, how humbly might they appear, encircled as they were, with the proud monarch of the wood, the primeval oak, that had seen the sires and grandsires of the lowly inhabitants of "Death's Mailing" rise and fall, and become dust, as man contemplates the day-fly wing forth in the morning, live out its day, and die. Such was the romantic burying-place of Kirconnel at the time of which we speak; and even now, when the oak has fallen before the axe of civilisation, and Fame's trump has sounded even over the tomb, the place has a hallowed and romantic character (the Kirtle is still there) not exhibited by other burying-grounds in Scotland.

In those retreats, the members of the family of Kirconnel passed the greater part of their time. Helen, though a lover of home, was fond of gratifying a fancy pregnant of beautiful images, and a taste for what is lovely in nature, by sitting by the banks of the Kirtle, and supplying her mind with the pabulum of the old Scottish romances. "Raf Coilyear and his Cross-bow," and "Gilbert with the White Hand," though soon superseded by the continental romances, were then the legitimate fountains of amusement to the fair maids of Scotland; and those who aimed at sublimer flights, might have had recourse to "Fyn Maccowl," or "Gret Gow Macmorne;" but there was in none of the works as yet circulated in Scotland, what might gratify the intense yearnings of the female heart for those poetical images which subsequently sprang up with the more mature growth of chivalry. The loves of warriors are not the loves of everyday life, far less the loves of the inspired poet; and Helen, as she read these old legendary romances, might find in them the amusement that afforded a relaxing alternative to her own poetical communings with the oldest bard of all—Nature; but for the inspiration of love itself she required the talisman—man—in that high aspect she had prefigured of the noblest of God's creatures, to rouse her heart from nature to the lover's dream.

As yet the Maid of Kirconnel had not seen any one that realised the idea she had formed, by the banks of the Kirtle, of the individual who could call up in her young bosom those extraordinary emotions which constitute "love's young dream." The secluded mode of life adopted by her parents was unfavourable to a choice of the talismanic objects; and it even appeared to be her father and mother's wish that such choice should be excluded, that her heart might, in the absence of many forms, learn to be pleased with the man whom their love or policy might point out to her adoption. A second cousin of her own, Walter Bell of Blacket House, had a free passport to the hall of Kirconnel, as well as to the bowers that were enshrined in Kirconnel woods. The laird saw in the young man his nearest heir, in the event of his Helen being taken from him by fate; and the lady could detect, as she thought, in Bell's quiet and sombre manner, some assimilation to her own love of retirement and ease, and a consequent disrelish of the warlike and sanguinary customs of the times. Yet it was known that the young laird of Blacket House had been engaged in secret frays between the Johnstones and Crightons; while, for some purpose not generally known, though, from what we have said, not difficult to be surmised, he had fought in disguise, and disclaimed the glory of having hewn off the heads of many Johnstones, whose deaths might have brought him renown, if not wealth. He had fought from a spirit of animosity and a thirst of blood that lay deep buried in his heart, but which, along with its noisome fruits, he had striven to conceal, from the knowledge he possessed of the pacific disposition of his friends the Kirconnels, whose good-will he had a motive to cultivate more powerful than that of wealth or glory. He wished to recommend himself to the fair Helen, by acquiring the love and esteem of her father and mother; and he doubted not that, by his own personal accomplishments—neither few nor unimportant—aided by the advice or power of parental love and authority, he would succeed in changing in her the old habitual feelings of ordinary friendship into the higher and purer sentiments of affection.

And sure it was that no one who ever aimed to acquire a "ladye's love," made his attempt with more advantages on his side than Walter Bell of Blacket House. The gay lover in the old romance, who cried that, with the advantage of making love in a wood, and by the side of a silver stream, he would gain the heart of the fairest woman of Christendom, though his face were as black as the coal slave's, and his lineage no better than the knave-child's, spoke more of human nature than he himself perhaps knew. But he spoke of women in the aggregate; and it is not unlikely that such a woman as fair Helen of Kirconnel had never come under the trial of his skill. The truth of the statement fell to be tested by one who, besides the advantages stated by the gay knight, could boast the consent of a father, old friendship, and a face and a lineage against which no exception could be taken by the admirers of graces and genealogy. Bell was aware of the advantages he possessed; but he could calculate the strength of these better than he could fathom the mysteries of woman's heart. Although the greater part of his time was passed at Kirconnel, where he took every opportunity of threading the mazes of the oak woods, or sitting by the side of the Kirtle, with the object of his affections, it is doubtful if he ever ascertained, by the passing indications she exhibited, that her thoughts and feelings were pitched much beyond the grade of those which nature had awarded to himself. She saw and felt beauties in the scenery of Kirconnel, which to her lover were but as the "sear leaf." Every object in nature—from the planet to the plant, from the shining levin of heaven to the phosphoric beam on the margin of the Kirtle—had some intelligence for her inquiring eye. Every power in operation around her—from the general sympathy of nature's highest elements, to the loves of the little forest birds that sung their love-song in her bower—had some charm to elevate her thoughts and sublime her sentiments. She, therefore, who could search for intelligence where others saw nothing but inert matter, or, at least, the uninteresting indications of everyday nature, might probably have been an unfortunate object on whom our said romantic knight might try the effect of his extraneous charms of wood and water. Nor was she at all fitted for being acted upon by the love intrigues of her cousin of Blacket House, who, coming far short of a knowledge of the elevated sentiments by which she was inspired, could neither yield her that sympathy which she required as a sine qua non of affection, nor stand the investigation of the shrewd wisdom or the high philosophy of the heart of an elevated woman. While he simply sued and used the ordinary words of love, she analysed, and found that, where she never could be understood, she never could dispose of her affections.

The mind of Helen had long been made up on the question of her cousin's suit. It had begun early; and the innumerable walks he had enjoyed with her along the banks of the Kirtle had afforded him a thousand opportunities of declaring his feelings. By the natural tact of women, she had always contrived to evade the question, and contented herself, even in the midst of extravagant declarations, with negative indications of her inability to return his passion. These he understood not; and, unfortunately, he acted upon the principle that has driven many a fond lover to despair—that the mistress who appears to listen without displeasure is presumed to give a tacit consent. They know little of the heart of woman who trust their happiness or their lives to the frail bark of such a fond and dangerous delusion. A woman will seldom put an end to the adulation that supports her pride; but the Maid of Kirconnel, who had no pride to gratify, acted as many a single-hearted female has done and will do, who receives without a frown that her nature detests, but without a satisfaction that her honesty will not allow her to assume, the fond speeches of an old friend, couched in terms of an admiration which is only her due. The native sensibility of her soul shrank at the thought of first construing harshly her relative's professions of affection, and then telling him that he was not the individual who was qualified to win her heart. Yet, in justice to her, it requires to be stated, that she often communed with herself, in her solitary walks, on the necessity of checking her cousin's fond and unfortunate delusion, lest evil might come out of gentleness so nearly allied to good.

This unfortunate connection between Blacket House and his fair cousin, fated as it was to continue, assumed daily a more critical aspect. The young man, overwhelmed by a passion that was daily and hourly fed by the contemplation of a beauty and qualities seldom before witnessed in a Scottish maiden, was not only intoxicated by the violence of his love, but satisfied that his cousin, in return loved him with an affection only more chastely expressed, though, of course, not less powerful than his own. Her parents, too, who had lent a fond and willing ear to his statements of their daughter's love for him, had made up their minds upon a point which presented all the appearances of being sealed and settled by her who had the greatest interest in its truth. She was always to be found by him in her solitary walks among Kirconnel woods. Their meetings were favoured by their parents; their walks were uninterrupted; the current of his passion flowed without check, and his expressions only varied in becoming more animated. The absence of a harsh denial filled the measure of a deluding, blending hope; and while the courses of their two minds were in directions entirely opposite—his along the rose-strewed valley of a requited affection; hers in a channel that led to objects too brilliant for his dull eye to scan, and too sublime for his unfledged fancy to reach—he conceived that a mutual sympathy of congenial feeling animated both their hearts.

It was at this extraordinary state of the domestic affairs of Kirconnel that an extraneous cause gave a new current to the feelings of the young maiden, without having the effect of changing that of her lover, or of opening the eyes of her father and mother to the true fact, that she could not love the man they intended as her husband. A gallant, high-spirited youth, one of the Flemings of Kirkpatrick, had followed a doe up to within a very short space of Kirconnel House. The timid creature had taken to the water, and, springing on the opposite bank, fled past a bower in which Helen was at the time sitting reading "Sir Tristam," then in the hands of every young lady in Scotland and England. She started as the creature shot past her, and, putting her head timidly forward, to get a better view of the fleet inhabitant of the forest, saw before her, with cap in hand, bowing, in knightly guise, Adam Fleming of Kirkpatrick. Neither of the two had before seen the other; but the fame of the one's noble mien, high mind, and martial virtues, and of the other's incomparable beauty and elevation of sentiment, had reached reciprocally their willing ears.