Part 3

Night was gathering around me when I left London, on the road leading to St. Alban's. But I will not go through the stages of my tedious journey; it is sufficient to say, that I allowed myself but little time for sleep or rest, and, on the eighth day after my leaving London, I found myself, after an absence of eighteen years, again upon the grounds of my ancestors. Foot-sore, fatigued, and broken down, my appearance bespoke way-worn dejection. I rather halted than walked along, turning my face aside from every passenger, and blushing at the thought of recognition. It was mid-day when I reached an eminence, covered with elm trees, and skirted by a hedge of hawthorn. It commanded a view of what was called the Priory, the house in which I was born, and which was situated within a mile from where I stood. The village church, surrounded by a clump of dreary yews, lay immediately at the foot of the hill to my right, and the road leading from thence to the Priory crossed before me. It was a raw and dismal day; the birds sat shivering on the leafless branches, and the cold, black clouds, seemed wedged together in a solid mass, ready to fall upon the earth and crush it; and the wind moaned over the bare fields. Yet, disconsolate as the scene appeared, it was the soil of childhood on which I trod. The fields, the woods, the river, the mountains, the home of infancy, were before me; and I felt their remembered sunshine rekindling in my bosom the feelings that make a patriot. A thousand recollections flashed before me. Already did fancy hear the congratulations of my mother's voice, welcoming her prodigal--feel the warm pressure of her hand, and her joyous tears falling on my cheek. But again I hesitated, and feared that I might be received as an outcast. The wind howled around me--I felt impatient and benumbed--and, as I stood irresolute, with a moaning chime the church bell knelled upon my ear. A trembling and foreboding fell upon my heart; and, before the first echo of the dull sound died in the distance, a muffled peal from the tower of the Priory answered back the invitation of the house of death, announcing that the earth would receive its sacrifice. A veil came over my eyes, the ground swam beneath my feet; and again and again did the church bell issue forth its slow, funeral tone, and again was it answered from the Priory.

Emerging from the thick elms that spread around the Priory and stretched to the gate, appeared a long and melancholy cavalcade. My eyes became dim with a presentiment of dread, and they were strained to torture. Slowly and silently the sable retinue approached. The waving plumes of the hearse became visible. Every joint in my body trembled with agony, as though agony had become a thing of life. I turned aside to watch it as it passed, and concealed myself behind the hedge. The measured and grating sound of the carriages, the cautious trampling of the horses' feet, and the solemn pace of the poorer followers, became more and more audible on my ear. The air of heaven felt substantial in my throat, and the breathing I endeavoured to suppress became audible, while the cold sweat dropt as icicles from my brow. Sadly, with faces of grief, unlike the expression of hired sorrow, passed the solitary mutes; and, in the countenance of each, I recognised one of our tenantry. Onward moved the hearse and its dismal pageantry. My heart fell, as with a blow, within my bosom. For a moment I would have fancied it a dream; but the train of carriages passed on, their grating roused me from my insensibility, and, rushing from the hedge towards one who for forty years had been a servant in our house--

'Robert!--Robert!' I exclaimed, 'whose funeral is this?'

'Alack! Master Edward!' he cried, 'is it you? It is the funeral of my good lady--your mother!'

The earth swam round with me--the funeral procession, with a sailing motion, seemed to circle me--and I fell with my face upon the ground.

Dejected, way-worn as I was, I accompanied the body of my mother to its last resting-place. I wept over her grave, and returned with the chief mourners to the house of my birth; and there I was all but denied admission. I heard the will read, and in it my name was not once mentioned. I rushed from the house--I knew not, and I cared not where I ran--misery was before, behind, and around me. I thought of my Catherine and my child, and groaned with the tortures of a lost spirit.

But, as I best could, I returned to London, to fling myself at the feet of my wife, to confess my sins and my follies, to beg her forgiveness, yea, to labour for her with my hands. I approached my own door as a criminal. I shrank from the very gaze of the servant that ushered me in, and I imagined that he looked on me with contempt. But now, Lewis, I come to the last act of my drama, and my hand trembles that it cannot write--my soul is convulsed within me. I thought my Catherine pure, sinless as a spirit of heaven--you thought so--all who beheld her must have thought as I did. But, oh! friend of my youth! mark what follows. I reached her chamber. I entered it--silently I entered it, as one who has guilt following his footsteps. And there, the first object that met my sight--that blasted it--was the man I hated, my former rival, he who held my fortunes in his hand--Sir Peter Blakely! My wife, my Catherine, my spotless Catherine, held him by the arm. O heaven! I heard him say--'_Dear Catherine!_' and she answered him, 'Stay!--stay, my best, my only friend--do not leave me!'

Lewis! I could see, I could hear no more.

'Wretch!--villain!' I exclaimed. They started at my voice. My sword, that had done service in other lands, I still carried with me.

'Draw! miscreant!' I cried, almost unconscious of what I said or what I did. He spoke to me, but I heard him not. I sprang upon him, and plunged my sword in his body. My wife rushed towards me. She screamed. I heard the words--'Dear Edward!' but I dashed her from me as an unclean thing, and fled from the house.

Every tie that had bound me to existence was severed asunder. Catherine had snapped in twain the last cord that linked me with happiness. I sought the solitude of the wilderness, and there shouted her name, and now blessed her, and again----but I will go no farther. I long wandered a fugitive throughout the land, and, at length perceiving an apartment in a rock, the base of which Tweed washes with its waters, in it I resolved to bury myself from the world. In it I still am, and mankind fear me.

Here abruptly ended the manuscript of the Solitary.

A few years after the manuscript had been found, a party, consisting of three gentlemen, a lady, and two children, came to visit the King's Cove, and to them the individual who had found the papers related the story of the hermit.

"But your manuscript is imperfect," said one of them, "and I shall supply its deficiency. The Solitary mentions having found Sir Peter Blakely in the presence of his wife, and he speaks of words that passed between them. But you shall hear all:--"

The wife of Edward Fleming was sitting weeping for his absence, when Sir Peter Blakely was announced. He shook as he entered. She started as she beheld him. She bent her head to conceal her tears, and sorrowfully extended her hand to welcome him.

'Catherine,' said he--and he paused, as though he would have called her by the name of her husband--'I have come to speak with you respecting your father's estate. I was brought up upon it; and there is not a tree, a bush, or a brae within miles, but to me has a tale of happiness and langsyne printed upon it, in the heart's own alphabet. But now the charm that gave music to their whispers is changed. Forgive me, Catherine, but it was you that, as the spirit of the scene, converted everything into a paradise where ye trod, that made it dear to me. It was the hope, the prayer, and the joy of many years, that I should call you mine--it was this that made the breath of Heaven sweet, and caused sleep to fall upon my eyelids as honey on the lips. But the thought has perished. I was wrong to think that the primrose would flourish on the harvest-field. But, Catherine, your father was my guardian--I was deeply in his debt, for he was to me as a father, and for his sake, and your sake, I have redeemed his property, and it shall be--it is yours.'

Lost in wonder, Catherine was for a few moments silent; but she at length said--

'Generous man, it must not--it shall not be. Bury me not--crush me not beneath a weight of generosity which from you I have been the last to deserve. I could not love, but I have ever esteemed you. I still do. But let not your feelings hurry you into an act of rashness. Time will heal, if it do not efface the wounds which now bleed; and you may still find a heart more worthy of your own, with whom to share the fortune of which you would deprive yourself.'

'Never! never!' cried he; 'little do you understand me. Your image and yours only was stamped where the pulse of life throbs in my heart. The dream that I once cherished is dead now--my grey hairs have awoke me from it. But I shall still be your friend--yea, I will be your husband's friend; and, in memory of the past, your children shall be as my children. Your husband's property is encumbered--throw these in the fire and it is again his.' And, as he spoke, he placed the deeds of the mortgage on a table before her.

'Hear me, noblest and best of friends!' cried Catherine--'hear me as in the presence of our Great Judge. Think not that I feel the less grateful for your generosity, that I solemnly refuse your offers, and adjure you to mention them not in my presence. As the wife of Edward Fleming, I will not accept what he would spurn. Rather would I toil with the sweat of my brow for the bare crust that furnished us with a scanty meal; and if I thought that, rather than share it with me, he would sigh after the luxuries he has lost, I would say unto him--'Go, you are free!' and, hiding myself from the world, weary Heaven with prayers for his prosperity.'

'Ye talk in vain--as I have said, so it is and shall be,' added he. 'And now, farewell, dear Catherine.'

'Stay! stay!--leave me not thus!' she exclaimed, and grasped his arm. At that moment her husband returned and entered the room--and you know the rest. But, Sir Peter Blakely was not mortally wounded, as the Solitary believed. In a few months he recovered, and what he had promised to do he accomplished.

"That is something new," said the fisherman who had found the manuscript; "and who told ye, or how do ye know?--if it be a fair question."

"I," replied he who had spoken, "am the Lewis to whom the paper was addressed."

"You! you!" exclaimed the fisherman; "well, that beats a'--the like o' that I never heard before."

"And I," said another, "am Sir Peter Blakely--the grey-haired dreamer--who expected the April lily to bloom beneath an October sun." And he put a crown into the hand of the fisherman.

"And I," added the third, "am the Solitary himself--this my Catherine, and these my children. He whom I thought dead--dead by my own hand--the man whom I had wronged--sought for me for years, and in this my hermitage that was, he at length found me. It was the grey dawn when I beheld him, and I thought that the ghost of the murdered stood before me. But he spoke--he uttered words that entered my soul. I trembled in his presence. The load of my guiltiness fell as a weight upon me. I was unable to speak, almost to move. He took my hand and led me forth as a child. In my confusion the papers which you found were left behind me. And now, when happiness has shed its light around me, I have come with my benefactor, my friend, my Catherine, and my children, to view the cell of my penitence."

THE MAIDEN FEAST OF CAIRNKIBBIE.

He who has been present at a real Maiden, or Scotch feast of harvest-home, if it should happen that he belongs to the caste that makes the light fantastic toe the fulcrum of the elegant motions of the quadrille, and Hogarth's line of beauty the test of the evolutions of modern grace, might wish that the three sisters had long ago resigned their patronage of the art of dancing, and left the limbs of man, and their motions, to the sole power of the spirit of fun and good humour. Centuries have passed away since first the Maiden called forth the salient energies of the harvest-weary hinds and rosy-cheeked damsels of Scotland. We have only now amongst us the ghost of the old spirit-stirring genius of "the farmer's ha'." The modern vintage feast is only a shadow of the old _Cerealia_--the festival of festivals, as it has been called--at which the young and the old of ancient Greece and Rome resigned themselves to the power of the rosy god, and the _nil placet sine fructu_ was seen in every bright eye, heard in every glad voice, and listened to in every tripping measure. The Scotch Maiden was once what the vintage feasts of the Continent were, and still are. The hinds and maids of one "town" were present at the harvest-home of another; reciprocal visits kept up the spirit of the enjoyment; the fields and farmers' ha's resounded with the merry pipe; the whirling reel mixed up the dancers in its "uniform confusion," the flowing bicker was "filled and kept fou;" kisses, "long and loud," vindicated a place in the world of musical sound; and the Genius of Pleasure ran away with heart and soul to her happy regions--declaring that, for one solitary night in the year, the power of sorrow should have no authority over mournful man. The Maiden of Cairnkibbie, a farm on the property of Faulden--too long ago for the mention of a specific period, but while Maidens (to descend to a pun) were still in the height of their beauty and bloom--was one of the most joyous scenes that ever graced the green, or made the rafters of the barn ring with "hey and how rohumbelow." The farmer, William Hume--some far-off friend of the Paxton family--was rich, as things went in those days; and a gaucy dame, and a fair daughter, Lilly, blessed him with affection and duty. No lass ever graced a Maiden like Lilly Hume; and no free farmer's wife ever extended so hearty a patronage to the feast of fun as did the sleek and comfortable guidwife of Cairnkibbie. The pretty "damysell" was as jimp as "gillie"--

"As ony rose her rude was red, Her lire was like the lillie."

and far and near she defied all manner of bold competition in those charms that go to deck the blooming maids of Scotland. Natural affection made her the pride of her parents; and a simplicity that did not seem to have art enough to tell her of her own beauty, endeared her to those who might have been expected to have been smitten with envy, or crossed with a hopeless passion.

There was many a lass "as myld as meid" at the Maiden of Cairnkibbie, and many a Jock, and Steenie, and Robyne, as braw as yellow locks brushed bolt upright in the face of heaven could make any of God's creatures. But many of the merry-makers did not trust to such ornaments of nature: for Steenie Thornton, from the town of Kelton, the gay lover of Jess Swan from the same town, had his locks tied behind with a yellow ribbon got from her fair hand, and his "pumps" boasted the same decoration; the sprightly Will Aitken, the best hand at a morris-dance in all the Merse, had his jacket "browden" with "fowth o' roses" stuck into the button-holes by Jean Gillies from Westertown; the fiercest wrestler of the Borders, Jock Hedderick, who cherished Bess Gibson, pushed forward his bold breast, to exhibit to the goggle eyes of wondering admiration a vest sewed by her delicate fingers at intervals stolen from cheese-making; and Pat Birrel, the noted scaumer, who was accounted more than "twa hen clokkis" by Kirsty Glen the henwife's daughter of Earlston, lifted his feet high in mid-air, to shew the gushets in his hose wrought by her lily hands. Nor did the screechin gilpies lack ornaments to set off their fair persons. Some had bright yellow gloves of "raffal right;" and many, with kirtles of "Lincome light, weel prest wi' mony plaits," pulled the trains in most menacing bundles through the pocket-holes, to shew at once how bright were their colours, and how many a "breid" was wasted in their amplitude. Many had ornaments that tongue could not describe--because they were the first of their kind, and required a new vocabulary to do justice to their beauties. But, ornamented or plain, the revellers were all alike filled with the spirit of the Maiden; and, if their "Tam Lutar," the piper, did not skirl them up to the point of enjoyment to which they all struggled, and danced, and drank, and screamed to get, sure it was that no fault was attributable to the merry-makers themselves: nor was the guidman's daughter, Lilly Hume, less joyous than the merriest. Although at her father's harvest-feast she was accounted a lady, she was the humblest of the "hail menyie;" and never refused to draw up through her pocket-holes the ends of her falling yellow kirtle, as a preparation for another reel, at the supplicatory bend or bow of the humblest hind, albeit he was adorned with neither bright crimson nor ochre yellow.

The "Tam Lutar" of the feast--a blind piper, who began to play when he first felt the incipient effects of the first bicker, blew stronger as the fumes of the potations rose higher, declined as the liquid impulse fell, and even stopped when the drink entirely sunk--was well supplied with the "piper's coig," a girded vessel of jolly good ale, that lay beside him, and was ever and anon filled, as the dancers felt the music beginning to lag in spirit. Away they flew, to the airs of "Gillquhisker," "Brum on tul," "Tortee Solee Lemendow," and other good old tunes, now forgotten, though their names are mentioned by Sir James Ingles; the resilent heels spurned the earth; the fore part of the foot, where the spring lies, dealt out those tremendous thuds on the suffering floor which heretofore were reckoned the true and legitimate soul of dancing, and now, alas! displaced by the sickly _slip_ of the French grace; the "dancing whoop" rung around, inspired every soul, and lightened every heel; Jock Splaefut "bobbit up wi' bends;" and Jenny set to him, and "beckit," and set again, and turned, and away glided through the mazes of the reel--

"For reeling there micht nae wench rest;"

and came back, and set and "beckit" again; till, "forfochtin faynt" with pure dancing toil, the reelers gave place to the country dancers, who toiled and _swat_ in the same degree for the period of their sweet labours. Then was the breathing time in the far corners appropriated to the cooling tankard, the dew of which left on the panting lips ran a considerable risk of being dried up by the heat of love, elicited from the kiss that smacked of love and ale.

At a corner in the end of the room, a crowd had collected; and some high words were passing between Will Aitken and Jock Hedderick, on a question that seemed to interest the dancers. Those standing about were washing down large mouthfuls of bannocks by draughts of strong beer, while they wiped the sweat from their brows, and listened to the subject in dispute. At intervals some one was heard at the door, playing and singing.

"He played sae schill, an' sang sae sweet,"

that Lilly Hume felt interested in the musician. He was a beggar, who boldly claimed admittance to the Maiden, by what he called the "auld rights o' the gaberlunzies of Scotland," who were declared entitled to enter into the feast of the harvest home, to dance thereat, and drink thereat, and kiss the "damysells" thereat, with as much freedom as the gayest guest. This demand was resisted by Jock Hedderick, who besides disputed the authority of the ancient custom; which, on the other hand, was upheld by Will Aitken, whose supple tongue was so powerful over his opponents that

"He muddelt them down like ony mice;"

and, notwithstanding the terror of the scaumer's arm, prevailed upon the guidman and the company to hold sacred the rights of hospitality of the land, and admit the "pauky auld carle," with his pipes and his wallets. As soon as the decision was given, Lilly ran to the door, and, taking the gaberlunzie by the hand, brought him in. A loud laugh resounded throughout the room, to the profit of the proud and merry dancers, and at the expense of the jolly beggar, who, young and stalwart, and borne down by sundry appendages, containing doubtless meal and bread, "cauk and keil," "spindles and quhorles," and all the et-ceteras of the wallet, stood before them, and raised in return such a ranting, roaring laugh, as well apparently at himself as his company, that, by that one effort of his lungs, he made more friends than many a laughter-loving pot companion might make in a year. Then in an instant he struck this merry-maker on the back, and slapped that on the shoulder, and kissed the skirling kitties with such a jolly and hearty spirit of free salutation, that he even added flame to the already burning passion of frolic, and raised again the rafter-shaking laugh, till it drowned all the energies of Lutar himself, albeit his coig had that instant been filled.

But this was only vanity, while the stomach of the jolly gaberlunzie was as yet empty. A large stoup was brought to him by Will Carr, a good-looking young man of gentle demeanour, the only person who in that pairing assembly seemed to want his "dow." A shade of melancholy was on his cheek, and, as he offered the gaberlunzie the stoup, he cast an eye on Lilly, the meaning of which seemed to be read in an instant by the beggar.

"Ha! ha!" cried the latter; "ye are the true welcomer, my braw youth. Thae wild chiels an' their glaiket hizzies wad fill the beggar wi' the sound o' his ain laugh, as if he were a pair o' walking bagpipes. But, ho, man, this is sour yill.

The bridegroom brought a pint of ale, And bade the piper drink it. 'Drink it?' quoth he, 'and it so staile; Ashrew me, if I think it!'

Ye've anither barrel in the corner yonder--awa!--the beggar maun hae the best.

This Maiden nicht it is his right, And, faith he winna blink it."

And so he cadgily ranted and sang, swearing that the best ale and the prettiest lips in the whole house should that night be at his command.

While Will Carr brought him ale out of another cask, Lilly Hume took away his wallets, and laid them in a window-sole at his back. Having taken a waught of the ale so long that the bystanders looked on with fear, lest he might never recover his breath again, he returned the stoup empty to Will, telling him to fill it again, as he intended to assist the legitimate Lutar in blowing up the spirits of the company--a work which would require "fowth o' yill." Without farther preface, he blew up his bags with a skirl that seemed to shake the house, and, dashing fearlessly into the time, poured so much joyous sound into the thick air of the heated apartment, that the weary-limbed dancers threw off their languor, and fell to it again with a spirit that equalled that of their first off-set. But his musical occupation did not prevent his attention to the looks and actions of Lilly Hume and Will Carr.

"How dinna ye dance, hinny?" said he, in a low voice to Lilly. "How dinna ye dance, man?" he repeated, as he turned his head to Will. "Think ye yer sittin there's a compliment to me, wha am blawing awa my lungs here, for the very purpose o' makin ye dance?"

The two young people looked at each other, and then at the guidman, who sat at a little distance.

"Tell me the reason, my bonny hinny," he added; and, as he blew again, leant his ear to hear the answer. "Eh! come now, my white lily," he persisted. "I'm a safe carle, and can spae fortunes as well as blaw up thae green bags wi' thriftless wind. I may tell ye o' a braw lot, if ye'll only open yer lips and gie me some o' yer secrets."