Young Bruntfield saw that his mother’s wishes had only imposed upon her reason, but he made no attempt to break the charm by which she was actuated, being glad, upon any terms, to obtain her sanction for that adventure to which he was himself impelled by feelings considerably different. He therefore began, in the most deliberate manner, to take measures for bringing on the combat with Moubray. The same legal objections which had stood against the second duel were maintained against the third; but public feeling was too favourable to the object to be easily withstood. The laird of Barnbougle, though somewhat past the bloom of life, was still a powerful and active man, and instead of expressing any fear to meet this third and more redoubted warrior, rather longed for a combat which promised, if successful, to make him one of the most renowned swordsmen of his time. He had also heard of the attachment which subsisted between Bruntfield and his niece; and in the contemplation of an alliance which might give some force to the claims of that lady upon his estate, found a deeper and more selfish reason for accepting the challenge of his youthful enemy. King James himself protested against stretching the law of the per duellum so far; but, sensible that there would be no peace between either the parties or their adherents till it should be decided in a fair combat, he was fain to grant the required licence.
The fight was appointed to take place on Cramond Inch, a low grassy island in the Frith of Forth, near the Castle of Barnbougle. All the preparations were made in the most approved manner by the young Duke of Lennox, who had been the friend of Bruntfield in France. On a level spot, close to the northern beach of the islet, a space was marked off, and strongly secured by a paling. The spectators, who were almost exclusively gentlemen (the rabble not being permitted to approach), sat upon a rising ground beside the enclosure, while the space towards the sea was quite clear. At one end, surrounded by his friends, stood the laird of Barnbougle, a huge and ungainly figure, whose features displayed a mixture of ferocity and hypocrisy, in the highest degree unpleasing. At the other, also attended by a host of family allies and friends, stood the gallant Harry Bruntfield, who, if divested of his armour, might have realised the idea of a winged Mercury. A seat was erected close beside the barras for the Duke of Lennox and other courtiers, who were to act as judges; and at a little distance upon the sea lay a small decked vessel, with a single female figure on board. After all the proper ceremonies which attended this strange legal custom had been gone through, the combatants advanced into the centre, and planting foot to foot, each with his heavy sword in his hand, waited the command which should let them loose against each other, in a combat which both knew would only be closed with the death of one or other. The word being given, the fight commenced. Moubray almost at the first pass gave his adversary a cut in the right limb, from which the blood was seen to flow profusely. But Bruntfield was enabled by this mishap to perceive the trick upon which his adversary chiefly depended, and, by taking care to avoid it, put Moubray nearly hors de combat. The fight then proceeded for a few minutes, without either gaining the least advantage over the other. Moubray was able to defend himself pretty successfully from the cuts and thrusts of his antagonist, but he could make no impression in return. The question then became one of time. It was evident that, if no lucky stroke should take effect beforehand, he who first became fatigued with the exertion would be the victim. Moubray felt his disadvantage as the elder and bulkier man, and began to fight desperately and with less caution. One tremendous blow, for which he seemed to have gathered his last strength, took effect upon Bruntfield, and brought him upon his knee, in a half-stupified state, but the elder combatant had no strength to follow up the effort. He reeled towards his youthful and sinking enemy, and stood for a few moments over him, vainly endeavouring to raise his weapon for another and final blow. Ere he could accomplish his wish, Bruntfield recovered sufficient strength to draw his dagger, and thrust it up to the hilt beneath the breastplate of his exhausted foe. The murderer of his race instantly lay dead beside him, and a shout of joy from the spectators hailed him as the victor. At the same instant a scream of more than earthly note arose from the vessel anchored near the island; a lady descended from its side into a boat, and, rowing to the land, rushed up to the bloody scene, where she fell upon the neck of the conqueror, and pressed him with the most frantic eagerness to her bosom. The widow of Stephen Bruntfield at length found the yearnings of twenty years fulfilled,—she saw the murderer of her husband, the slayer of her two sons, dead on the sward before her, while there still survived to her as noble a child as ever blessed a mother’s arms. But the revulsion of feeling produced by the event was too much for her strength; or, rather, Providence, in its righteous judgement, had resolved that so unholy a feeling as that of revenge should not be too signally gratified. She expired in the arms of her son, murmuring Nunc dimittis, Domine, with her latest breath.
The remainder of the tale of Bruntfield may be easily told. After a decent interval, the young laird of Craighouse married Catherine Moubray; and as the king saw it right to restore that young lady to a property originally forfeited for service to his mother, the happiness of the parties might be considered as complete. A long life of prosperity and peace was granted to them by the kindness of Heaven; and at their death they had the satisfaction of enjoying that greatest of all earthly blessings, the love and respect of a numerous and virtuous family.—Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, 1832.[[1]]
[1]. The tale of Bruntfield is founded upon facts alluded to in “Birrel’s Diary,” “Anderson’s History of Scotland” (MS., Advocates’ Library), &c.
SUNSET AND SUNRISE.
By Professor Wilson.
“This is the evening on which, a few days ago, we agreed to walk to the bower at the waterfall, and look at the perfection of a Scottish sunset. Everything on earth and heaven seems at this hour as beautiful as our souls could desire. Come then, my sweet Anna, come along, for by the time we have reached the bower, with your gentle steps, the great bright orb will be nearly resting its rim on what you call the Ruby Mountain. Come along, and we can return before the dew has softened a single ringlet on your fair forehead.” With these words, the happy husband locked kindly within his own the arm of his young English wife; and even in the solitude of his unfrequented groves, where no eye but his own now beheld her, looked with pride on the gracefulness and beauty that seemed so congenial with the singleness and simplicity of her soul.
They reached the bower just as the western heaven was in all its glory. To them, while they stood together gazing on that glow of fire that burns without consuming, and in whose mighty furnace the clouds and the mountaintops are but as embers, there seemed to exist no sky but that region of it in which their spirits were entranced. Their eyes saw it—their souls felt it; but what their eyes saw or their souls felt they knew not in the mystery of that magnificence. The vast black bars, the piled-up masses of burnished gold, the beds of softest saffron and richest purple, lying surrounded with continually fluctuating dyes of crimson, till the very sun himself was for moments unheeded in the gorgeousness his light had created; the show of storm, but the feeling of calm, over all that tumultuous, yet settled world of cloud, that had come floating silently and majestically together, and yet in one little hour was to be no more;—what might not beings endowed with a sense of beauty, and greatness, and love, and fear, and terror, and eternity, feel when drawing their breath together, and turning their steadfast eyes on each other’s faces, in such a scene as this?
But from these high and bewildering imaginations, their souls returned insensibly to the real world in which their life lay; and, still feeling the presence of that splendid sunset, although now they looked not towards it, they let their eyes glide, in mere human happiness, over the surface of the inhabited earth. The green fields, that in all varieties of form lay stretching out before them, the hedgerows of hawthorn and sweetbrier, the humble coppices, the stately groves, and, in the distance, the dark pine-forest loading the mountain side, were all their own—and so, too, were a hundred cottages, on height or hollow, shelterless or buried in shelter, and all alike dear to their humble inmates, on account of their cheerfulness or their repose. God had given to them this bright and beautiful portion of the earth, and he had given them along with it hearts and souls to feel and understand in what lay the worth of the gift, and to enjoy it with a deep and thoughtful gratitude.
“All hearts bless you, Anna; and do you know that the Shepherd Poet, whom we once visited in his shieling, has composed a Gaelic song on our marriage, and it is now sung by many a pretty Highland girl, both in cottage and on hill-side? They wondered, it is said, why I should have brought them an English lady; but that was before they saw your face, or heard how sweet may be an English voice even to a Highland ear. They love you, Anna—they would die for you, Anna; for they have seen you with your sweet body in silk and satin, with a jewel on your forehead and pearls in your hair, moving to music in your husband’s hereditary hall; and they have seen you, too, in russet garb and ringlets unadorned, in their own smoky cottages, blithe and free as some native shepherdess of the hills. To the joyful and the sorrowful art thou alike dear; and all my tenantry are rejoiced when you appear, whether on your palfrey on the heather, or walking through the hay or harvest-field, or sitting by the bed of sickness, or welcoming, with a gentle stateliness, the old withered mountaineer to his chieftain’s gate.”