“I dinna ken how it is,” said the old man, “but I am nicer about my quarters this night than ever I mind having been in my life. I think, having seen a’ the braws yonder, and finding out ane may be happier without them, has made me proud o’ my ain lot—But I wuss it bode me gude, for pride goeth before destruction. At ony rate, the warst barn e’er man lay in wad be a pleasanter abode than Glenallan House, wi’ a’ the pictures and black velvet, and silver bonny-wawlies belonging to it— Sae I’ll e’en settle at ance, and put in for Ailie Sims.”
As the old man descended the hill above the little hamlet to which he was bending his course, the setting sun had relieved its inmates from their labour, and the young men, availing themselves of the fine evening, were engaged in the sport of long-bowls on a patch of common, while the women and elders looked on. The shout, the laugh, the exclamations of winners and losers, came in blended chorus up the path which Ochiltree was descending, and awakened in his recollection the days when he himself had been a keen competitor, and frequently victor, in games of strength and agility. These remembrances seldom fail to excite a sigh, even when the evening of life is cheered by brighter prospects than those of our poor mendicant. “At that time of day,” was his natural reflection, “I would have thought as little about ony auld palmering body that was coming down the edge of Kinblythemont, as ony o’ thae stalwart young chiels does e’enow about auld Edie Ochiltree.”
He was, however, presently cheered, by finding that more importance was attached to his arrival than his modesty had anticipated. A disputed cast had occurred between the bands of players, and as the gauger favoured the one party, and the schoolmaster the other, the matter might be said to be taken up by the higher powers. The miller and smith, also, had espoused different sides, and, considering the vivacity of two such disputants, there was reason to doubt whether the strife might be amicably terminated. But the first person who caught a sight of the mendicant exclaimed, “Ah! here comes auld Edie, that kens the rules of a’ country games better than ony man that ever drave a bowl, or threw an axle-tree, or putted a stane either;—let’s hae nae quarrelling, callants—we’ll stand by auld Edie’s judgment.”
Edie was accordingly welcomed, and installed as umpire, with a general shout of gratulation. With all the modesty of a Bishop to whom the mitre is proffered, or of a new Speaker called to the chair, the old man declined the high trust and responsibility with which it was proposed to invest him, and, in requital for his self-denial and humility, had the pleasure of receiving the reiterated assurances of young, old, and middle-aged, that he was simply the best qualified person for the office of arbiter “in the haill country-side.” Thus encouraged, he proceeded gravely to the execution of his duty, and, strictly forbidding all aggravating expressions on either side, he heard the smith and gauger on one side, the miller and schoolmaster on the other, as junior and senior counsel. Edie’s mind, however, was fully made up on the subject before the pleading began; like that of many a judge, who must nevertheless go through all the forms, and endure in its full extent the eloquence and argumentation of the Bar. For when all had been said on both sides, and much of it said over oftener than once, our senior, being well and ripely advised, pronounced the moderate and healing judgment, that the disputed cast was a drawn one, and should therefore count to neither party. This judicious decision restored concord to the field of players; they began anew to arrange their match and their bets, with the clamorous mirth usual on such occasions of village sport, and the more eager were already stripping their jackets, and committing them, with their coloured handkerchiefs, to the care of wives, sisters, and mistresses. But their mirth was singularly interrupted.
On the outside of the group of players began to arise sounds of a description very different from those of sport—that sort of suppressed sigh and exclamation, with which the first news of calamity is received by the hearers, began to be heard indistinctly. A buzz went about among the women of “Eh, sirs! sae young and sae suddenly summoned!”—It then extended itself among the men, and silenced the sounds of sportive mirth.
All understood at once that some disaster had happened in the country, and each inquired the cause at his neighbour, who knew as little as the querist. At length the rumour reached, in a distinct shape, the ears of Edie Ochiltree, who was in the very centre of the assembly. The boat of Mucklebackit, the fisherman whom we have so often mentioned, had been swamped at sea, and four men had perished, it was affirmed, including Mucklebackit and his son. Rumour had in this, however, as in other cases, gone beyond the truth. The boat had indeed been overset; but Stephen, or, as he was called, Steenie Mucklebackit, was the only man who had been drowned. Although the place of his residence and his mode of life removed the young man from the society of the country folks, yet they failed not to pause in their rustic mirth to pay that tribute to sudden calamity which it seldom fails to receive in cases of infrequent occurrence. To Ochiltree, in particular, the news came like a knell, the rather that he had so lately engaged this young man’s assistance in an affair of sportive mischief; and though neither loss nor injury was designed to the German adept, yet the work was not precisely one in which the latter hours of life ought to be occupied.
Misfortunes never come alone. While Ochiltree, pensively leaning upon his staff, added his regrets to those of the hamlet which bewailed the young man’s sudden death, and internally blamed himself for the transaction in which he had so lately engaged him, the old man’s collar was seized by a peace-officer, who displayed his baton in his right hand, and exclaimed, “In the king’s name.”
The gauger and schoolmaster united their rhetoric, to prove to the constable and his assistant that he had no right to arrest the king’s bedesman as a vagrant; and the mute eloquence of the miller and smith, which was vested in their clenched fists, was prepared to give Highland bail for their arbiter; his blue gown, they said, was his warrant for travelling the country.
“But his blue gown,” answered the officer, “is nae protection for assault, robbery, and murder; and my warrant is against him for these crimes.”
“Murder!” said Edie, “murder! wha did I e’er murder?”