Part 3

And hurrying away, she mounted the stair, leaving the man even more amazed than he was heart-broken and miserable. Nor will we be far wrong in supposing that Patrick Guthrie sought the White Horse probably not to sleep, but if to sleep, as probably to dream. As for guidwife Christian, she was soon on that side so propitious to her snoring; and as for her dreams, they were not more of seraphim, nor of Urim and Thummim, than they were on that night when she was the disembodied spirit of her who had lain so long in the bed with green curtains. Yet, no doubt, Geordie was just as certain that she slept as he was on that same night when he saw the said disembodied spirit; and as for himself, there could be little doubt that, sleeping or waking, his mind was occupied in tracing the marked resemblance of the stranger to the picture on the wall, which would lead him again to the beautiful lady, and which, again, would remind him of the bones below the red coverlet; and then there is as little doubt as there is about all these wonderful things, that he would fancy himself beridden with a terrible nightmare. Oppressed and tortured by thoughts which he could not bring to bear on any probable event, he turned and turned; but all his restlessness would produce no effect on guidwife Christian, who seemed as dead asleep as ever was he of the Cretan cave in the middle of the seventy years. Nor could he understand this: heretofore a slight cough, even slighter than that which brought the Doctor in the "Devil on Two Sticks," used to awaken the faithful wife; and now nothing would awaken her. He dodged, he cried; but she wouldn't help to take off the nightmare, which, with its old characteristic of tailor-folded legs and grinning aspect, sat upon his chest, as it heaved, but could not throw off the imp. But what was more extraordinary, this strange conduct of Christian was the continuation of--nay, a climax to--her inexplicable conduct since ever that night when he caught up in his mind, as in a prism, that midnight vision which he had seen, and the fiery coruscations of which still careered through his brain. Honest Geordie had no guile; and if he had had any, the new birth he had undergone, with the consequent baptism, would have taken it clean away, so that there was no chance of a suspicion of the part which guidwife Christian had played on the said occasion. Yet, wonder as he might, if he had known all, he would have wondered more how any woman, even with the advantage of a "New Light," could have snored under the purpose she had revolved in her mind, and which she had so darkly revealed to her old master. Ah yes, that female member, of which so much has been said--even that it contains on the subtle point thereof a little nerve which anatomists cannot find in the corresponding organ in man--can swim lightly _tanquam suber_, and yet never give an indication of the depths below. But Geordie became wild;--was she dead outright? Dead people do not snore, but the dying do in apoplexy. He took her by the shoulders, and shook her.

"Christian, woman, will ye no speak, when I can get nae rest? Wha was that man wha called here yestreen?"

No, she wouldn't.

"And did I no see you look at him as ye never looked at man before?"

No avail.

"And what took ye out so soon after he was awa'?"

No reply.

"And what's mair"--the murder was now out,--"did ye no meet him secretly at the stair-foot, and stand and speak to him in strange words and strange signs?"

Not yet.

"And what, in the name o' Heaven, and a' the ither powers up and down and round and round, was the aith that ye swore to him?"

Another pause.

"And what money-bribe was it ye spak o' sae secretly and darkly?"

All in vain. At length the knurr of the clock, and the most solemn of all the hours, "one," sounded hoarsely. Wearied, exhausted, and sorely troubled, Geordie fell asleep, greatly aided thereto by the eternal oscillation of that little tongue at the back of the greater and mute one, the sound of which ceased when the blacksmith was fairly and certainly over, just as if its services had been no longer needed that night.

Surely the next of these eventful days was destined, either by the Furies or the good goddess, to be that day that "would try a'." Even these words Geordie had heard, if he had not caught up many other broken sentences, which showed to his distracted mind that guidwife Christian was in some mysterious way mixed up with the events and things of the charmed house. The comparatively sleepless night induced a later than usual rising; but with what wonder did Geordie Gourlay ascertain, that late as Christian had been out on the previous night, she was already again forth of the house, leaving him to the bachelor work of making his own breakfast! Where she had gone he could not even venture to suppose; but certain he was that her absence was in some way connected with that stranger with whom he had seen her in communication the night before. The business did not admit of his waiting; so he took his morning meal of porridge and milk, and with thoughts anxious and deep, yet deeper in mere feeling than portrayment of outward coming events, he sallied forth for the Luckenbooths. On descending the stair, he found to his dire amazement the door of the portentous flat--that grave above ground of so many things that should have been either under the earth, in the sinless regions of mortality, or in the mendicant bag of Time, rolled away beyond the ken of mortal--open. Yes, that door, with the rusty padlock, and the creaking hinge, and the worm-eaten panels, was open. He shuddered: yet he looked ben into the old dark lobby, where he had groped and so nearly lost himself; and what did he see? His wife, guidwife Christian, standing in the middle thereof in her white short-gown, so like, to his imperfect vision, that spirit he had encountered in that house before! There seemed to be others there also; for he heard inside doors creaking, and by and by saw come out of the far-end door that very man--yea, the very man. The reflection of a light shone out upon him. To escape observation, he slipt to a side; and when he peered in again, no one was to be seen. They had passed together into some of the rooms, probably that bedroom where stood the bed with the green curtains. Resolved as he had been never to enter that door-way again, he would have rushed forward, had not a hand been laid on his shoulder.

"George Gourlay," said a voice behind him.

"Ay, nae doubt I'm weel kenned."

"You are in the meantime my prisoner," said an officer, with the indispensable blue coat, and the red collar, and the cocked hat.

"For what?" said Geordie.

"Ye'll ken that by and by," replied the officer; "the fiscal will tell ye. Awa' wi' me to the office."

"Humph! for picking a lock," said the blacksmith. "The deil put my left fingers between my hammer and the stiddy when I meddle again wi' rusty padlocks."

"There's naething dune on earth but what is seen," said the man, as with something like a smile on his left cheek, the other retaining its gravity, he held up his finger as if pointing to heaven.

"Ay, ay, there's an e'e there."

"And to break open a house," continued the officer, "is death en the wuddy up yonder at the 'Auld Heart.'"

"But wha, in God's name, is the witness against me?"

"Guidwife Christian," said the officer again, seriously enough at least for Geordie's belief of his sincerity.

"And the woman has turned against her husband! This is the warst blow ava. But, Lord, man, I stowe naething."

"Thieves are no generally at the trouble of picking locks, rummaging a house, and going away empty-handed, as if out o' a kirk. But come, you can tell the Lord Advocate's deputy a' that."

And George Gourlay was taken away, muttering to himself, as he went, "This explains a'. Nae wonder she wadna speak to the man she intended to hang. Woman, woman, verily from the beginning hae ye been we to man, and will be to the end."

Led up the High Street, yet in such a way as to avoid any suspicion that he was in the hands of an officer, George Gourlay was placed safely in the room of Mr. B----, the procurator-fiscal of that time, for reasons unknown to us, in the Old Tolbooth. The entry through the thick iron-knobbed door to the inside of this dark and dreary pile, which borrowed its light only through openings left by the irregularities of the high masses of St. Giles, and the parallel rows of overshadowing houses, flanked by the booths and the Crames, was enough to vanquish the heart of the strongest and the most innocent. Nor was it the darkness and the squalor alone that were so formidable. Thick air, loaded with the breath and exhalations from unhealthiness and disease itself, had made livid faces and bloodshot eyes; drunken, uproarious voices, and bacchanalian songs, oaths, denunciations, and peals of laughter, mixed with groans. Only awanting that inscription seen by the Hermet shadow who led the Florentine. Up a stair--through the midst of these children of evil or victims of misfortune, the innocent rendered guilty by infection, the condemned to death made drearily jolly by despair, imitating the recklessness of mirth,--and now the unfortunate George Gourlay is before his examinator.

"Mr. Gourlay," said the officer.

"Sit down, sir," said Mr. B----, "and wait till the others come. We cannot want Mrs. Gourlay, though no doubt you can swear to the man. In the meantime, hold your peace, lest you commit yourself. Say nothing till you are asked. Most strange affair."

Thus at once doomed to silence, George sat and listened to the mixed buzz of this misery become ludibund. Nor was his unhappiness thus limited: a fearful conviction seized him, that long before he was hanged he would take on the likeness of the wretches he had passed through;--he would become sleazy; his eyes would be red, fiery, or bleared with tears, dried up in the heat of his fevered blood; his cheeks would be pale-yellow or blue, his voice husky, and his nose red; he would sing, swear, dance--ay, douce Geordie would sing even as they. Better be hanged at once than sent hence thus deteriorated,--an unpleasant customer in the other world. Nay, one half of them had greasy, furzy, red nightcaps; and the chance was therefore a half that he would be thrown off in one of these, to the eternal disgrace of the Gourlays of Gersholm, from whom he was descended.

A full hour passed, bringing no comfort on its heavy wings. At length another red-necked official entered, and introduced guidwife Christian herself, and--Patrick Guthrie.

When these parties entered, Geordie's eyes and mouth had relapsed into that condition they presented on that occasion when he saw the wraith by the bed with the green curtains.

"Mrs. Gourlay," said Mr. B----, "you are the wife of George Gourlay, blacksmith?"

"Ay, and have been for nine years, come the time, the day, and the hour."

"Please throw your mind back twenty years."

"It ower aften gaes back to that time o' its ain accord, sir."

"Well, tell us where you lived, and what you did about that time."

"I was servant to Mr. Patrick Guthrie,--this gentleman sitting at my right hand."

"Was Mr. Guthrie a married man?"

"Ay, sir, he was married to a young lady, whose maiden name was Henrietta Douglas, ane o' the Brigstons, as I hae heard."

"What kind of woman was she?"

"Bonny, sir, as ony that ever walked the High Street or the Canongate; and the mair wae, sir. Cheerfu', too, and light-hearted and merry as the lavrock when it rises in the morning; ay, and the mair wae!"

"Why do you add these words?" continued Mr. B----. "What do you mean?"

"Because thae things brought gay gallants about the house when master was awa' in Angus, whaur he had a property near Gaigie; but he was nane, I think, o' the four Guthries."

"Then you knew that they came without the knowledge and against the wishes of your master?"

"Ower weel, sir, for my peace these twenty years bygane."

"Then you think there was more than indiscretion in Mrs. Guthrie?"

"Muckle mair, I doubt."

"Do you recollect the names of any of these gay gallants?"

"There was Lord Spynie, a wild dare-the-deil; but sae merry, and jovial, and pleasant, that his very een were nets to catch women's hearts."

"Do you remember anything happening when Lord Spynie was in the house in Bell's Wynd?"

"Ay; on the last day o' my service, yea, the last day o' my leddie's life. My maister had gane to Gaigie, as I thought; but I aye doubted if he had been farther than the White Horse. He wouldna return for a week, not he; and so my leddie thought, for the next day she ordered me to get a goose, and roast it on the spit; and weel I kenned wha the goose was for. But I didna like the business, for I had my pirns to finish--no, gude forgie me, that I was against this deception o' my master. The goose was bought, and plucket, and singed, and put to the fire. The dinner was to be at twa o'clock, and Lord Spynie was there by ane. In half an hour after, wha comes rushing in but my master? And the moment he saw Spynie, he drew his sword, and so did his lordship his. My mistress screamed, and ran between them; and oh! sir, the sword that was thrust at Spynie gaed clean through my mistress's fair body. She was dead. Then Lord Spynie lost a' his courage, and flew out o' the house; and just as he was passing through the door, my master thrust at him, and his bluidy sword snapt and was broken clean through. He came back and looked on my leddy, and kissed her, ay, and grat like a bairn; but oh! he was composed too. 'Christy,' said he, 'lay your mistress on the green bed.' And so I did, and streeked her, and drew the coverlet over her, and put a mutch upon her head. Oh how fair she was in death! 'Christy,' said master, 'come hither.' I obeyed. 'Get the Bible,' he said. I got it. 'Get on your knees,' he said. I knelt. 'Here,' said he, 'is twenty gowden guineas; and now swear upon the Laws and the Prophets, and the four Gospels, that you will never, by word, or look, or pen, reveal to man, or woman, or wean what has been done--in this house this day.' I swore. 'Now go,' said he; 'for I am to lock up the house, and go far away, where no man can know me.' So I took my little trunk, and went away sobbing. Nor was he a moment after me. I saw him shut the shutters and lock the door, and walk quickly away. Nor was he ever heard of more till yesterday; and there he is."

"Is all this true, Mr. Guthrie?"

"All true as God's word."

"And all this happened twenty years ago?"

"Yes."

"Then by the law of Scotland you are a free man, even were this murder or homicide; for twenty years is the period of our prescription. You may all go."

Then they rose to depart.

"Mr. Guthrie," cried Mr. B----, "bury your wife. And, hark ye, the goose has been at the fire for twenty years, and must now, I think, be roasted."

THE PRODIGAL SON.

The early sun was melting away the coronets of grey clouds on the brows of the mountains, and the lark, as if proud of its plumage, and surveying itself in an illuminated mirror, carolled over the bright water of Keswick, when two strangers met upon the side of the lofty Skiddaw. Each carried a small bag and a hammer, betokening that their common errand was to search for objects of geological interest. The one appeared about fifty, the other some twenty years younger. There is something in the solitude of the everlasting hills, which makes men who are strangers to each other despise the ceremonious introductions of the drawing-room. So it was with our geologists--their place of meeting, their common pursuit, produced an instantaneous familiarity. They spent the day, and dined on the mountain-side together. They shared the contents of their flasks with each other; and, ere they began to descend the hill, they felt, the one towards the other, as though they had been old friends. They had begun to take the road towards Keswick, when the elder said to the younger, "My meeting with you to-day recalls to my recollection a singular meeting which took place between a friend of mine and a stranger, about seven years ago, upon the same mountain. But, sir, I will relate to you the circumstances connected with it; and they might be called the History of the Prodigal Son."

He paused for a few moments, and proceeded:--About thirty years ago a Mr. Fen-wick was possessed of property in Bamboroughshire worth about three hundred per annum. He had married while young, and seven fair children cheered the hearth of a glad father and a happy mother. Many years of joy and of peace had flown over them, when Death visited their domestic circle, and passed his icy hand over the cheek of the first-born; and, for five successive years, as their children opened into manhood and womanhood, the unwelcome visitor entered their dwelling, till of their little flock there was but one, the youngest, left. And O, sir, in the leaving of that one, lay the cruelty of Death--to have taken him, too, would have been an act of mercy. His name was Edward; and the love, the fondness, and the care which his parents had borne for all their children, were concentrated on him. His father, whose soul was stricken with affliction, yielded to his every wish; and his poor mother

"Would not permit The winds of heaven to visit his cheek too roughly."

But you shall hear how cruelly he repaid their love--how murderously he returned their kindness. He was headstrong and wayward; and though the small still voice of affection was never wholly silent in his breast, it was stifled by the storm of his passions and propensities. His first manifestation of open viciousness was a delight in the brutal practice of cock-fighting; and he became a constant attender at every "_main_" that took place at Northumberland. He was a habitual "_bettor_," and his losses were frequent; but hitherto his father, partly through fear, and partly from a too tender affection, had supplied him with money. A "main" was to take place in the neighbourhood of Morpeth, and he was present. Two noble birds were disfigured, the savage instruments of death were fixed upon them, and they were pitted against each other. "A hundred to one on the Felton Grey!" shouted Fen-wick. "Done! for guineas!" replied another. "Done! for guineas!--done!" repeated the prodigal--and the next moment the Felton Grey lay dead on the ground, pierced through the skull with the spur of the other. He rushed out of the cockpit--"I shall expect payment to-morrow, Fen-wick," cried the other. The prodigal mounted his horse, and rode homeward with the fury of a madman. Kind as his father was, and had been, he feared to meet him or tell him the amount of his loss. His mother perceived his agony, and strove to soothe him.

"What is't that troubles thee, my bird?" inquired she. "Come, tell thy mother, darling."

With an oath he cursed the mention of birds, and threatened to destroy himself.

"O Edward, love! thou wilt kill thy poor mother. What can I do for thee?"

"Do for me!" he exclaimed, wildly tearing his hair as he spoke--"do for me, mother. Get me a hundred pounds, or my heart's blood shall flow at your feet."

"Child! child!" said she, "thou hast been at thy black trade of betting again. Thou wilt ruin thy father, Edward, and break thy mother's heart. But give me thy hand on't, dear, that thou'lt bet no more, and I'll get thy father to give thee the money."

"My father must not know," he exclaimed; "I will die rather."

"Love! love!" replied she; "but, without asking thy father, where could I get thee a hundred pounds?"

"You have some money, mother," added he; "and you have trinkets--jewellery!" he gasped, and hid his face as he spoke.

"Thou shalt have them!--thou shalt have them, child!" said she, "and all the money thy mother has--only say thou wilt bet no more. Dost thou promise, Edward--oh, dost thou promise thy poor mother this?"

"Yes, yes!" he cried. And he burst into tears as he spoke.

He received the money, and the trinkets, which his mother had not worn for thirty years, and hurried from the house, and with them discharged a portion of his dishonourable debt.

He, however, did bet again; and I might tell you how he became a horse-racer also; but you shall hear that too. He was now about two-and-twenty, and for several years he had been acquainted with Eleanor Robinson--a fair being, made up of gentleness and love, if ever woman was. She was an orphan, and had a fortune at her own disposal of three thousand pounds. Her friends had often warned her against the dangerous habits of Edward Fen-wick. But she had given him her young heart--to him she had plighted her first vow--and, though she beheld his follies, she trusted that time and affection would wean him from them; and, with a heart full of hope and love, she bestowed on him her hand and fortune. Poor Eleanor! her hopes were vain, her love unworthily bestowed. Marriage produced no change on the habits of the prodigal son and thoughtless husband. For weeks he was absent from his own house, betting and carousing with his companions of the turf; while one vice led the way to another, and, by almost imperceptible degrees, he unconsciously sunk into all the habits of a profligate.

It was about four years after his marriage, when, according to his custom, he took leave of his wife for a few days, to attend the meeting at Doncaster.

"Good-bye, Eleanor, dear," he said gaily, as he rose to depart, and kissed her cheek; "I shall be back within five days."

"Well, Edward," said she, tenderly, "if you will go, you must; but think of me, and think of these our little ones." And, with a tear in her eye, she desired a lovely boy and girl to kiss their father. "Now, think of us, Edward," she added; "and do not bet, dearest, do not bet!"

"Nonsense, duck! nonsense!" said he; "did you ever see me lose?--do you suppose that Ned Fen-wick is not 'wide awake?' I know my horse, and its rider too--Barrymore's Highlander can distance everything. But, if it could not, I have it from a sure hand--the other horses are all '_safe_.' Do you understand that--eh?"

"No, I do not understand it, Edward, nor do I wish to understand it," added she; "but, dearest, as you love me--as you love our children--risk nothing."

"Love you, little gipsy! you know I'd die for you," said he--and, with all his sins, the prodigal spoke the truth. "Come, Nell, kiss me again, my dear--no long faces--don't take a leaf out of my old mother's book; you know the saying, 'Never venture, never win--faint heart never won fair ladye!' Good-bye, love--'bye, Ned--good-bye, mother's darling," said he, addressing the children as he left the house.