Part 19

When the tyranny and bigotry of the last James drove his subjects to take up arms against him, one of the most formidable enemies to his dangerous usurpations was Sir John Cochrane, ancestor of the present Earl of Dundonald. He was one of the most prominent actors in Argyle's rebellion, and for ages a destructive doom seemed to have hung over the house of Campbell, enveloping in a common ruin all who united their fortunes to the cause of its chieftains. The same doom encompassed Sir John Cochrane. He was surrounded by the king's troops--long, deadly, and desperate was his resistance; but at length, overpowered by numbers, he was taken prisoner, tried, and condemned to die upon the scaffold. He had but a few days to live, and his jailer waited but the arrival of his death-warrant to lead him forth to execution. His family and his friends had visited him in prison, and exchanged with him the last, the long, the heart-yearning farewell. But there was one who came not with the rest to receive his blessing--one who was the pride of his eyes, and of his house--even Grizel, the daughter of his love. Twilight was casting a deeper gloom over the gratings of his prison-house, he was mourning for a last look of his favourite child, and his head was pressed against the cold damp walls of his cell, to cool the feverish pulsations that shot through it like stings of fire, when the door of his apartment turned slowly on its unwilling hinges, and his keeper entered, followed by a young and beautiful lady. Her person was tall and commanding, her eyes dark, bright, and tearless; but their very brightness spoke of sorrow--of sorrow too deep to be wept away; and her raven tresses were parted over an open brow, clear and pure as the polished marble. The unhappy captive raised his head as they entered--

"My child! my own Grizel!" he exclaimed, and she fell upon his bosom.

"My father! my dear father!" sobbed the miserable maiden, and she dashed away the tear that accompanied the words.

"Your interview must be short--very short,", said the jailer, as he turned and left them for a few minutes together.

"God help and comfort thee, my daughter!" added the unhappy father, as he held her to his breast, and printed a kiss upon her brow. "I had feared that I should die without bestowing my blessing on the head of my own child, and that stung me more than death. But thou art come, my love--thou art come! and the last blessing of thy wretched father----"

"Nay! forbear! forbear!" she exclaimed; "not thy last blessing!--not thy last! My father shall not die!"

"Be calm! be calm, my child!" returned he; "would to Heaven that I could comfort thee!--my own! my own! But there is no hope--within three days, and thou and all my little ones will be----"

Fatherless--he would have said, but the words died on his tongue.

"Three days!" repeated she, raising her head from his breast, but eagerly pressing his hand--"three days! Then there _is_ hope--my father _shall_ live! Is not my grandfather the friend of Father Petre, the confessor and the master of the king? From him he shall beg the life of his son, and my father shall not die."

"Nay! nay, my Grizel," returned he; "be not deceived--there is no hope--already my doom is sealed--already the king has signed the order for my execution, and the messenger of death is now on the way."

"Yet my father SHALL not!--SHALL not die!" she repeated, emphatically, and, clasping her hands together. "Heaven speed a daughter's purpose!" she exclaimed; and, turning to her father, said, calmly--"We part now, but we shall meet again."

"What would my child?" inquired he eagerly, gazing anxiously on her face.

"Ask not now," she replied, "my father--ask not now; but pray for me and bless me--but not with thy _last_ blessing."

He again pressed her to his heart, and wept upon her neck. In a few moments the jailer entered, and they were torn from the arms of each other.

On the evening of the second day after the interview we have mentioned, a wayfaring man crossed the drawbridge at Berwick, from the north, and proceeding down Marygate, sat down to rest upon a bench by the door of an hostelry on the south side of the street, nearly fronting where what was called the "Main-guard" then stood. He did not enter the inn; for it was above his apparent condition, being that which Oliver Cromwell had made his head-quarters a few years before, and where, at a somewhat earlier period, James the Sixth had taken up his residence when on his way to enter on the sovereignty of England. The traveller wore a coarse jerkin fastened round his body by a leathern girdle, and over it a short cloak, composed of equally plain materials. He was evidently a young man; but his beaver was drawn down, so as almost to conceal his features. In the one hand he carried a small bundle, and in the other a pilgrim's staff. Having called for a glass of wine, he took a crust of bread from his bundle, and, after resting for a few minutes, rose to depart. The shades of night were setting in, and it threatened to be a night of storms. The heavens were gathering black, the clouds rushing from the sea, sudden gusts of wind were moaning along the streets, accompanied by heavy drops of rain, and the face of the Tweed was troubled.

"Heaven help thee, if thou intendest to travel far in such a night as this!" said the sentinel at the English gate, as the traveller passed him and proceeded to cross the bridge.

In a few minutes, he was upon the borders of the wide, desolate, and dreary muir of Tweedmouth, which, for miles, presented a desert of whins, fern, and stunted heath, with here and there a dingle covered with thick brushwood. He slowly toiled over the steep hill, braving the storm, which now raged in wildest fury. The rain fell in torrents, and the wind howled as a legion of famished wolves, hurling its doleful and angry echoes over the heath. Still the stranger pushed onward, until he had proceeded about two or three miles from Berwick, when, as if unable longer to brave the storm, he sought shelter amidst some crab and bramble bushes by the wayside. Nearly an hour had passed since he sought this imperfect refuge, and the darkness of the night and the storm had increased together, when the sound of a horse's feet was heard, hurriedly plashing along the road. The rider bent his head to the blast. Suddenly his horse was grasped by the bridle, the rider raised his head, and the traveller stood before him, holding a pistol to his breast.

"Dismount!" cried the stranger, sternly.

The horseman, benumbed, and stricken with fear, made an effort to reach his arms; but, in a moment, the hand of the robber, quitting the bridle, grasped the breast of the rider, and dragged him to the ground. He fell heavily on his face, and for several minutes remained senseless. The stranger seized the leathern bag which contained the mail for the north, and flinging it on his shoulder, rushed across the heath.

Early on the following morning, the inhabitants of Berwick were seen hurrying in groups to the spot where the robbery had been committed, and were scattered in every direction around the muir; but no trace of the robber could be obtained.

Three days had passed, and Sir John Cochrane yet lived. The mail which contained his death-warrant had been robbed; and, before another order for his execution could be given, the intercession of his father, the Earl of Dundonald, with the king's confessor, might be successful. Grizel now became almost his constant companion in prison, and spoke to him words of comfort. Nearly fourteen days had passed since the robbery of the mail had been committed, and protracted hope in the bosom of the prisoner became more bitter than his first despair. But even that hope, bitter as it was, perished. The intercession of his father had been unsuccessful--and a second time the bigoted and would-be despotic monarch had signed the warrant for his death, and within little more than another day that warrant would reach his prison.

"The will of Heaven be done!" groaned the captive.

"Amen!" returned Grizel, with wild vehemence; "but my father _shall_ not die!"

Again the rider with the mail had reached the muir of Tweedmouth, and a second time he bore with him the doom of Cochrane. He spurred his horse to its utmost speed, he looked cautiously before, behind, and around him; and in his right hand he carried a pistol ready to defend himself. The moon shed a ghostly light across the heath, rendering desolation visible, and giving a spiritual embodiment to every shrub. He was turning the angle of a straggling copse, when his horse reared at the report of a pistol, the fire of which seemed to dash into its very eyes. At the same moment, his own pistol flashed, and the horse rearing more violently, he was driven from the saddle. In a moment, the foot of the robber was upon his breast, who, bending over him, and brandishing a short dagger in his hand, said--

"Give me thine arms, or die!"

The heart of the king's servant failed within him, and, without venturing to reply, he did as he was commanded.

"Now, go thy way," said the robber, sternly, "but leave with me the horse, and leave with me the mail--lest a worse thing come upon thee."

The man therefore arose, and proceeded towards Berwick, trembling; and the robber, mounting the horse which he had left, rode rapidly across the heath.

Preparations were making for the execution of Sir John Cochrane, and the officers of the law waited only for the arrival of the mail with his second death-warrant, to lead him forth to the scaffold, when the tidings arrived that the mail had again been robbed. For yet fourteen days, and the life of the prisoner would be again prolonged. He again fell on the neck of his daughter, and wept, and said--

"It is good--the hand of Heaven is in this!"

"Said I not," replied the maiden--and for the first time she wept aloud--"that my father should not die."

The fourteen days were not yet past, when the prison-doors flew open, and the old Earl of Dundonald rushed to the arms of his son. His intercession with the confessor had been at length successful; and, after twice signing the warrant for the execution of Sir John, which had as often failed in reaching its destination, the king had sealed his pardon. He had hurried with his father from the prison to his own house--his family were clinging around him shedding tears of joy--and they were marvelling with gratitude at the mysterious providence that had twice intercepted the mail, and saved his life, when a stranger craved an audience. Sir John desired him to be admitted--and the robber entered. He was habited, as we have before described, with the coarse cloak and coarser jerkin; but his bearing was above his condition. On entering, he slightly touched his beaver, but remained Covered.

"When you have perused these," said he, taking two papers from his bosom, "cast them into the fire!"

Sir John glanced on them, started, and became pale--they were his death-warrants.

"My deliverer," exclaimed he, "how shall I thank thee--how repay the saviour of my life! My father--my children--thank him for me!"

The old earl grasped the hand of the stranger; the children embraced his knees; and he burst into tears.

"By what name," eagerly inquired Sir John, "shall I thank my deliverer?"

The stranger wept aloud; and raising his beaver, the raven tresses of Grizel Cochrane fell upon the coarse cloak.

"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed the astonished and enraptured father--"my own child!--my saviour!--my own Grizel!"

It is unnecessary to add more--the imagination of the reader can supply the rest; and, we may only add, that Grizel Cochrane, whose heroism and noble affection we have here hurriedly and imperfectly sketched, was, tradition says, the grandmother of the late Sir John Stuart of Allanbank, and great-great-grandmother of Mr Coutts, the celebrated banker.[2]

[Footnote 2: Since the author of the "Tales of the Borders" first published the tale of "Grizel Cochrane," a slightly different version of it appeared in "Chambers' Journal." There is no reason to doubt the fact of her heroism; but we believe it is incorrect, as is generally affirmed, to say that she was the grandmother of the late Sir John Stuart of Allanbank. We may state that the author of these tales received a letter from Sir Hugh Stuart, son of Sir John referred to, stating that his family would be glad to have such a heroine as Grizel connected with their genealogy, but that they were unable to prove such connection.]

SQUIRE BEN.

Before introducing my readers to the narrative of Squire Ben, it may be proper to inform them who Squire Ben was. In the year 1816, when the piping times of peace had begun, and our heroes, like Othello, "found their occupation gone," a thickset, bluff, burly-headed little man, whose every word and look reminded you of Incledon's "_Cease, rude Boreas_," and bespoke him to be one of those who had "sailed with noble Jervis," or,

"In gallant Duncan's fleet Had sung out, yo heave ho!"--

purchased a small estate in Northumberland, a few miles from the banks of the Coquet. He might be fifty years of age; but his weatherbeaten countenance gave him the appearance of a man of sixty. Around the collar of a Newfoundland dog, which followed him more faithfully than his shadow, were engraved the words, "Captain Benjamin Cookson;" but, after he had purchased the estate to which I have alluded, his poorer neighbours called him Squire Ben. He was a strange mixture of enthusiasm, shrewdness, courage, comicality, generosity, and humanity. Ben, on becoming a country gentleman, became a keen fisher; and, as it is said, "a fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind," I also, being fond of the sport, became a mighty favourite with the bluff-faced squire. It was on a fine bracing day in March, after a tolerable day's fishing, we went to dine and spend the afternoon in the Angler's Inn, which stands at the north end of the bridge over the Coquet, at the foot of the hill leading up to Longframlington. Observing that Ben was in good sailing trim, I dropped a hint that an account of his voyages and cruises on the ocean of life would be interesting.

Ah, my boy (said Ben), you are there with your soundings, are you? Well, you shall have a long story by the shortest tack. Somebody was my father (continued he), but whom I know not. This much I know about my mother: she was cook in a gentleman's family in this county, and being a fat, portly body--something of the build of her son, I take it--no one suspected that she was in a certain delicate situation, until within a few days before I was born. Then, with very grief and shame, the poor thing became delirious; and, as an old servant of the family has since told me, you could see the very flesh melting off her bones. While she continued in a state of delirium, your humble servant, poor Benjamin, was born; and without recovering her senses, she died within an hour after my birth, leaving me--a beautiful orphan, as you see me now--a legacy to the workhouse and the world. Benjamin was my mother's family name--from which I suppose they had something of the Jew in their blood; though, Heaven knows, I have none in my composition. So they who had the christening of me gave me my mother's name of Benjamin, as my Christian name: and from her occupation as _cook_, they surnamed me Cookson--that is, "Benjamin the Cook's son," simply Benjamin Cookson, more simply, Squire Ben. Well, you see, my boy, I was born beneath the roof of an English squire, and before I was three hours old was handed over to the workhouse. This was the beginning of my life. The first thing I remember was hating the workhouse--the second was loving the sea. Yes, sir, before I was seven years old, I used to steal away in the noble company of my own good self, and sit down upon a rock on the solitary beach, watching the ships, the waves, and the sea-birds--wishing to be a wave, a ship, or a bird--ay, sir, wishing to be anything but poor orphan Ben. The sea was to me what my parents should have been--a thing I delighted to look upon. I loved the very music of its maddest storms; though, quietly, I have since had enough of them. I began my career before I was ten years of age, as cabin-boy in a collier. My skipper was a dare-devil, tear-away sort of fellow, who cared no more for running down one of your coasting craft than for turning a quid in his mouth. But he was a good, honest, kindhearted sort of a chap, for all that--barring that the rope's-end was too often in his hand.

"Ben," says he to me one misty day, when we were taking coals across the herring pond to the Dutchmen, and the man at the helm could not see half-way to the mast-head--"Ben, my little fellow, can you cipher?"

"Yes, sir," says I.

"The deuce you can!" says he; "then you're just the lad for me. And do you understand logarithms?"

"No, sir," says I; "what sort of wood be they?"

"Wood be hanged! you blockhead!" said he, raising his foot in a passion, but a smile on the corners of his mouth shoved it to the deck again before it reached me. "But come, Ben, you can cipher, you say; well, I know all about the radius and tangents, and them sort of things, and stating the question; but blow me if I have a multiplication-table on board--my fingers are of no use at a long number, and I am always getting out of it counting by chalks;--so come below, Ben, and look over the question, and let us find where we are. I know I have made a mistake some way; and mark ye, Ben, if you don't find it out--ye that can cipher--there's a rope's-end to your supper, and that's all."

Howsever, sir, I did find it out, and I was regarded as a prodigy in the ship ever after. The year before I was out of my apprenticeship, our vessel was laid up for four months, and the skipper sent me to school during the time, at his own expense, saying--

"Get navigation, Ben, my boy, and you will one day be a commodore--by Jupiter, you'll be an honour to the navy."

I got as far as "_Dead Reckoning_" and there, I reckon, I made a dead stand, or rather, I ceased to do anything but study "_Lunar Observations_." Our owner had a daughter, my own age to a day. I can't describe her, sir; I haven't enough of what I suppose you would call poetry about me for that, but, upon the word of a sailor, her hair was like night rendered transparent--black, jet black; her neck white as the spray on the bosom of a billow; her face was lovelier than a rainbow; and her figure handsome as a frigate in full sail. But she had twenty thousand pounds--she was no bargain for orphan Ben! However, I saw her, and that was enough--learning and I shook hands. Her father had a small yacht--he proposed taking a pleasure party to the Coquet. Jess--for that was her name--was one of the passengers, and the management of the yacht was intrusted to me. In spite of myself, I gazed upon her by the hour--I was intoxicated with passion--my heart swelled as if it would burst from my bosom. I saw a titled puppy touch her fingers--I heard him prattle love in her ears. My first impulse was to dash him overboard. I wished the sea which I loved might rise and swallow us. I thought it would be happiness to die in her company--perhaps to sink with her arm clinging round my neck for protection. The wish of my madness was verified. We were returning. We were five miles from the shore. A squall, then a hurricane, came on--every sail was reefed--the mast was snapped as I would snap that pipe between my fingers (here the old squire, suiting the action to the word, broke the end off his pipe)--the sea rose--the hurricane increased, the yacht capsised, as a feather twirls in the wind. Every soul that had been on board was now struggling for life--buffeting the billows. At that moment I had but one thought, and that was of Jess; but one wish, and that was to die with her. I saw my fellow-creatures in their death agonies, but I looked only for her. At the moment we were upset, she was clinging to the arm of the titled puppy for protection; and now I saw her within five yards of me still clinging to the skirts of his coat, calling on him and on her father to save her; and I saw him--yes, sir, I saw the monster, while struggling with one hand, raise the other to strike her on the face, that he might extricate himself from her grasp.

"Brute!--monster!" I exclaimed; and the next moment I had fixed my clenched hands in the hair of his head. Then, with one hand, I grasped the arm of her I loved; and, with the other, uttering a fiendish yell, I endeavoured to hurl the coward to the bottom of the sea. The yacht still lay bottom up, but was now a hundred yards from us; however, getting my arm round the waist of my adored Jess--I laughed at the sea--I defied the hurricane. We reached the yacht. Her keel was not three feet out of the water; and with my right hand I managed to obtain a hold of it. I saw two of the crew and six of the passengers perish; but her father, and the coward who had struck her from him, still struggled with the waves. They were borne far from us. Within half-an-hour I saw a vessel pick them up. It tried to reach us, but could not. Two hours more had passed, and night was coming on--my strength gave way--my hold loosened. I made one more desperate effort; I fixed my teeth in the keel--but the burden under my left arm was still sacred--I felt her breath upon my cheek--it inspired me with a lion's strength, and for another hour I clung to the keel. Then the fury of the storm slackened;--a boat from the vessel that had picked up her father reached us--we were taken on board. She was senseless, but still breathed--my arm seemed glued round her waist. I was almost unconscious of everything, but an attempt to take her from me. My teeth gnashed when they touched my hand to do so. As we approached the vessel, those on board hailed us with three cheers. We were lifted on deck. She was conveyed to the cabin. In a few minutes I became fully conscious of our situation. Some one gave me brandy--my brain became on fire.

"Where is she?" I exclaimed--"did I not save her?--save her from the coward who would have murdered her?"

I rushed to the cabin--she was recovering--her father stood over her--strangers were rubbing her bosom. Her father took my hand to thank me; but I was frantic--I rushed towards her--I bent over her--I pressed my lips to hers--I called her mine. Her father grasped me by the collar.

"Boy, beggar, bastard!" he exclaimed.

With his last word, half of my frenzy vanished; for a moment I seized him by the throat--I cried, "Repeat the word!"

I groaned in the agony of shame and madness. I rushed upon the deck--we were then within a quarter-of-a-mile from the shore--I plunged overboard--I swam to the beach--I reached it.

I became interested in the narrative of the squire, and I begged he would continue it with less rapidity.