CHAPTER XVII.

THE GUISARDS.

O mother, thus to fret is vain-- My loss must needs be borne; Death, death is now mine only gain-- Would I had ne'er been born. God's mercies cease to flow-- Woe to me, poor one, woe! BURGER'S LEONORA.

Walter had now been absent many weeks, and the constant fears expressed by Lady Grisel, with all the querulous and tedious prolixity of age, in no way tended to soothe the anxiety of Lilian. She was excessively superstitious, though guileless, kind, and simple, and daily saw terrible omens of impending ill. Black corbies flapped their wings incessantly on the steep gables, and the dead-bell was never done ringing in the cranies of the old house. Strange sounds rumbled behind the wainscoting, shrouds guttered in the candles, coffins fell out of the embers, and the indefatigable death-watch rang the live-long night in the recesses of her old tester bed. Her kindly-meant, but ominous insinuations, and her dreams of stricken fields and riderless horses, nearly drove Lilian to distraction, while old Elsie Elshender, who had been admitted to her confidence, failed not to make matters worse by shaking her palsied head mysteriously, and saying--

"It boded ill-luck to be betrothit wi' a dead woman's ring."

So passed the first weeks of their separation in tears and dark forboding, save when Lilian was with Annie Laurie, whose joyous buoyancy of spirit banished care and fear together. Of Lord Clermistonlee she had seen nothing of late, save on one occasion, when he had followed her from the Abbey porch to the Bowhead; but as she was attended by Drouthy, the butler, and another liveryman, well armed with swords, and pistols in their girdles, she was under no apprehension.

The state of Edinburgh was daily becoming more and more alarming.

As yet there had been no tidings of William's landing; but his friends were on the alert. Under Sir George Munro, a strong division of militia occupied the city; but on the march of the regular troops, these failed to prevent the disaffected from making the capital the focus of their operations. No sooner had the Scottish army crossed the borders, than the Presbyterians, and all revolutionary spirits, crowded to Edinburgh well armed, and there held secret and seditious meetings, which were attended by the Earls of Dundonald, Crauford, Glencairn, and others.

The subtle Mersington, the proud Earl of Perth, the reckless Lord Clermistonlee, and others of the haughty council, were made aware of all this by their numerous spies; but the formidable tribunal which had so long ruled the land by the sword and gibbet, was now completely paralysed by the appearance of many "sulky blue bonnets" crowding the streets; they failed to arrest a single individual, though treason, like a hundred-headed hydra, stalked in daylight through their thoroughfares, and declaimed in their public places. The lords had no tidings of events in the south; all their dispatches from the King being effectually intercepted by Sir James Montgomery, a revolutionist.

And now came hoary Christmas; but it seemed not as of old. It was a dreary one to poor Lilian; and the forebodings that hung over bolder hearts, chilled hers with apprehension. Old Arthur's bare ridge and rocky cone, the great chain of the Pentlands, and all the lesser hills that lie around them, were mantled with shining snow; the deep glens were impassable, and many flocks had perished in them. The cold norlan blast howled over the bleak Burghmuir, then a wide and frozen heath, save where, in some places, a venerable oak spread its glistening branches in the sparkling air. Above the lofty city to the north, that towered afar off on its ridgy hill, the dun smoke of a myriad winter fires ascended into the clear mid-air, and overhung its spires and fortress like a thunder-cloud, portentious of the storm that was brewing among its denizens. The great loch of the burgh lay frozen like a sheet of shining crystal; and there a few jovial curlers, forgetful of the desperate game of politics, shot the ponderous stones along their slippery rinks.

The great Yule-logs crackled and blazed merrily, as in other days, in the wide stone fire-place of the dining-hall, and old familiar objects and beloved faces glowed in its light; but Lilian's heart and thoughts were far away, and she seemed wholly intent on watching the sparks as they flew up the broad-tunnelled chimney.

The eve of Christmas was dark and gloomy. The moon was enveloped in clouds, and not a star was visible; but the frozen snow that covered the whole ground gave, by its whiteness, a reflected light. The hollow wind blustered in the bare copsewood and rumbled in the chimnies, and a very social but hum-drum party of old friends formed a circle round the fire-place in the chamber-of-dais.

Old Lady Grisel occupied her great-cushioned chair, with her spinning-wheel on one hand, and her cup of milk posset on a tripod table at the other. The neighbouring Laird of Drumdryan, a plain, hard-featured man, in an unlaced coat and hideous wig; Sir Thomas Dalyell, in a gala suit of laced buff, rather cross and irritable with a lumbago contracted in Muscovy; and the dowager Lady Drumsturdy, all stomacher, starch, and black satin, with Mistress Priscilla, her daughter and exact counterpart, occupied the foreground; while honest Syme of the Greenhill, in his plain hodden-gray coat, a flaming red vest, with ribbed galligaskins rolled over his knees, and his fat, comely dame, with her serge gown, laced coif, and bunch of household keys, sat respectfully a little behind.

While the two lairds were accommodated with silver tankards, which Mr. Drouthy replenished again and again with the burnt sack, then so much in vogue, the bluff ground baillie, in virtue of his humbler station, drank nut-brown ale from plain pewter. Every thing in the apartment was trimmed with green holly branches, and a mistletoe bough hung from the great dormont-tree of the ceiling, under which the long-bearded old cavalier saluted Lady Grisel's faded cheek with much good humour and courtesy.

"Yes, Simeon, it was the case," continued the latter, who was engaged in some prosy reminiscence of King Charles the First's days. "A fiery dragon _was_ seen in the west, and it flew owre the Muirfute hills, towards the castle of Dunbar; and, that day month, a mournful field was fought and lost there."

"I weel mind the time, your ladyship," replied Simeon, scratching his galligaskins where he had received a thrust from a Puritan's pike; "but the fleeing dragon, wi' its fiery tail, was thought to portend----"

"Just such things, Simeon, as the bright lights in the north hae portended this month past. And ye ken, Sir Thomas, that the miraculous shower of Highland bannets whilk preceded the irruption of the ill-faured Redshanks into the west, in the December of '84, was another wonderful and terrible omen."

"True, Lady Grisel," replied Dalyell, taking a sip from his tankard; "but ane partaking owre mickle o' the leaven o' the auld Covenant (d--n it!) for an auld cavalier like myself to believe; unless auld Mahoud was the merchant that made sae free wi' his gear. He has owre lang been poking his neb in our Scottish affairs."

"O' which my late lord (rest him!) had most ocular proof," said Lady Drumsturdy, in a low impressive voice--"when he saw him, wi' horns and tail, dancing on the walls o' Blackness, in the hoar o' its upblawin', in the year 1652."*

* See Nicol's _Diary_.

"Cocksnails!" muttered Drumdryan, "here's the snow coming down the lum," and he shook the flakes from his wig.

"You are sitting owre far ben the ingle, laird."

"We'll hae a storm this night, sirs," said Simeon. "I ken by the sough o' the norlan wind--its gey driech and eerie."

"'Sdeath! I hope not," said Drumdryan. "I've a score o' braw bell-wethers owre the muir at the Buckstane; and I lost enough at Martinmas-tide, when twa hundred black faces were smoored in the Glen o' Braid."

"And there has been no word from England since the snow fell--six weeks?" said Lilian sighing.

"Some say the roads are deep, sweet mistress," said General Dalyell; "and others say the Orangemen are deeper: but the deil a scrap hath reached the Council since that rinawa' loon Craigdarroch arrived; and gude kens wha's hand maybe strongest by this time. But God bless the King and the gude auld cause!" continued the old cavalier, draining his tankard.

Drumdryan did the same, adding cautiously,--"The King, whae'er he be!"

"Out upon ye, Laird!" exclaimed Lady Grisel with great asperity. "Wha could he be but his sacred Majesty King James VII., whom I pray the blessed God to counsel wisely and protect."

"'Live and let live' has ever been my maxim, Lady Grisel; but such words may cost ye dear, if the next news frae Berwick be such as I expect," replied the sly laird, drinking with quiet composure.

Rage bristled in every hair of Dalyell's beard, and his eyes glistened like those of a rattlesnake. He could not speak; but the old lady, whose loyalty, fostered by that of the umquhile baronet, was tickled by these observations, brought her chair sharply round, and, striking her long cane emphatically on the floor, said to the shrinking delinquent--

"Shame on ye, Drumdryan!--is your blood turning to water, or what? Gif ye expect bad tidings, it is time that ye donned your buff coat and bandoliers, and had your steed in stall wi' garnissing and holsters. And mair let me tell thee, Sir Laird----but what is that I hear?--singing and mumming, eh? What is it, Simeon?"

"Guisards!" exclaimed Lilian, looking from the window down the snow-covered avenue--"guisards with links glinting and ribbons flaunting. A braw band, in sooth!"

At that moment a faint but merry chorus was heard upon the night wind that rumbled in the wide stone chimney, and a loud knocking rung on the barbican gate.

"Drouthy," said Lady Grisel, "away with ye to the buttery, and get some cogues of ale ready for the loons; and bid Elsie prepare some farls of bannock and cheese, while John the gardener lets them into the barbican, where we will hear them sing. Let twa men keep the door with partisans, that none may cross our threshold. In my time I heard of some foul treachery done by masked faces. Wow but the knaves are impatient," she added, as the knocking was energetically renewed at the outer gate. "And, Drouthy, d'ye hear, take a gude survey of them through the vizzy-hole."

The butler trotted off.

"Lady Grisel," said the General, rubbing his hands, "ye speak like a prudent dame; and a usefu' helpmate meet Sir Archibald maun hae found ye, for he saw hot work in his time."

"Kittle times mak' cautious folk," said the malecontent Drumdryan slowly; "but wi' a that, General, had I feared snow, my braw bell-wethers----"

"D--n you, and your bell-wethers to boot!" growled the fierce old Royalist. "Here come the guisards," and, save him, all rushed to the windows; the veteran cavalier, whose lumbago chained him to his bolstered chair, fidgetted and stroked his beard with a most vinegar expression of face.

Lilian clapped her hands with delight at the merry scene below.

From time immemorial, it has been the custom in Scotland for young people of the lower class, in the evenings of the last days of the old year, to go about from house to house in their neighbourhood, disguised in fantastic dresses, whence their name, guisards. The usual practice was to present them with refreshment; but that custom has departed with the other hospitalities of the olden time. They dance and sing a doggrel rhyme, adapted to the occasion or the person they visit; but, while the Catholic faith was the established one of Scotland, in their songs, the guisards were wont to proclaim the birth of Christ and the approach of the three kings who were to worship him; and some trace of this ancient religious ditty was discernible in the song sung by the visitors at Bruntisfield.

There were ten or more men, all stout, athletic fellows, each bearing a blazing torch, the united lustre of which lit up the deepest recesses of the old façade, under which they performed a fantastic morrice dance to their own music. They were all furnished with enormous masks, of the most grotesque fashion; from these rose head-dresses like sugar-loaves, covered with belis, beads, and pieces of mirror. Their attire was equally _outré_.

One was clad in the skin of a cow, having its horns fixed to the crown of his head, and the long tail trailing behind him in the snow. Another was furnished with an enormous nose, from which ever and anon a red carbuncle exploded with a loud report; and a third had nearly his whole body encased in an enormous head, which had a face expressive of the most exquisite drollery. Under this prodigious caput the diminished legs appeared to totter, while the jaunty waggery of its aspect was increased by a little hat and feather which surmounted it.

But the principal figure was a tall, fierce, and brawny, but very graceful man, clad in a fantastic robe of scarlet, with his legs curiously cased in shining metal scales: he had a black face of dreadful aspect, from three hideous red gashes, in which the blood was constantly dropping. He wore a crown of green ivy-leaves and scarlet hollyberries, wreathed among the sable masses of a voluminous beard and shock head of coarse hair. Through the openings of his scarlet robe, close observers might have observed a corslet glint at times. All were accoutred with swords and daggers.

Dancing in front, the red masker brandished his sputtering torch, and chanted in a deep bass voice the following rhyme:

"Trip and goe, heave and hoe, Up and down, and to and fro; By firth and fell, by tower and grove, Merrily, merrily let us rove!"

Then the whole choristers struck in while whirling round, they brandished their torches and jangled their bells.

"Hogmenay! Hogmenay! Trois Rois la! Homme est ne!

Never before had so droll and jovial a band of guisards been seen; and Lady Grisel, preceding all her guests, came cane in hand to the doorway to see their grotesque morrice-dance, and listen to their rhymes; and while the servitors were busy regaling them with ale, cheese, and bannocks, Lilian brought a cup of wine, which, in courtesy, she tendered to their leader. As he approached, she could not repress a shudder, so formidable was his aspect--so tall his stature--so large and dark the eyes with which he regarded her through that terrible mask, down the gaping lips of which he poured the ruddy Burgundy, and again tendered the cup to the fair Hebe who brought it.

As Lilian received it, his strong arm was thrown around her.

"_Homme est ne!_" he shouted, in a voice like a trumpet. There was a confused discharge of pistols--swords were seen to flash, and in an instant all the torches were extinguished. There was a stifled shriek; and the whole party were seen rushing down the avenue, leaving the barbican gate locked behind them.

"Clermistonlee!" exclaimed Lady Grisel, and swooned away in the arms of her people.

"Boot and saddle!--Horse and spear!--Ride and rescue!" exclaimed old Dalyell, forgetful of his lumbago and everything but the danger of Lilian. Rushing to the hall, no readier weapon than the poker was at hand; but, alas! it was chained to the stone pillar of the chimney-piece. Shrieks and outcries filled the mansion. Old Simeon the baillie, John Leekie the gardener, and others, snatched such weapons as came to hand; and, headed by Dalyell, who was now armed with his great Muscovite sabre, sallied forth to find themselves _within_ the barbican, the strong iron gate of which defied all their attempts. The fierce old soldier rent his beard, and swore some terrible oaths in the Tartar, Russ, and Scottish tongues, till ladders were procured and the walls scaled.

They rushed down the avenue to find only the traces of many feet in the snow, the extinguished torches strewn about, the marks of horse-hoofs and coach-wheels, which, instead of going towards the city, wound over the Burghmuir towards the Castle of Merchiston; and, after many turnings and windings--made evidently to mislead pursuers, were lost altogether among the soft furzy heath at the Harestone, the standard-stone of the old Scottish muster-place.