by John Galt
CHAPTER XLIX
The testimony of the regard and respect which we showed to Mr Swinton infollowing him to the prison-door, was wickedly reported against us as atumult and a riot, wearing the aspect of rebellion; and accordingly, onthe second day after he was sent from Irvine to Glasgow, a gang ofTurner's worst troopers came to live at heck and manger among us. Nonesuffered more from those ruthless men than did my brother's house andmine; for our name was honoured among the true and faithful, and we hadcommitted the unpardonable sin against the prelacy of harbouring ourminister and his destitute family, when they were driven from their homein a wild and wintry night.
We were both together, with old Zachariah Smylie, fined each in a heavysum.
Thinking that by paying the money down we should rid ourselves and ourneighbours of the presence and burden of the devouring soldiery, ourfriends, to enable us, made a gathering among them, and brought us themeans, for we had not a sufficiency of our own. But this, instead ofmitigating the oppression, became a reason with the officer set over usto persecute us still more; for he pretended to see in thatneighbourliness the evidences of a treasonous combination; so that henot only took the money, but made a pretext of the readiness with whichit was paid to double his severity. Sixteen domineering camp reprobateswere quartered on four honest families, and five of them were on mine.
What an example their conduct and conversation was at my sober hearth Ineed not attempt to describe. For some days they rampaged as if we hadbeen barbarians, and the best in the house was not good enough for theirravenous wastrie;--but I was resolved to keep a uniform and steadyabstinence from all cause of offence. So seeing they were passing frominsolence into a strain of familiarity towards my wife and her twoservant-lasses, we gave up the house and made our abode in the barn.
This silent rebuke for some time was not without a wholesome effect; andin the end they were so far tamed into civility by our blameless andpeaceful demeanour that I could discern more than one of them beginningto be touched with the humanity of respect for our unmerited punishment.But their officer, Lieutenant Swaby, an Englisher by birth, and a sinnerby education, was of an incorrigible depravity of heart. He happened tocast his eye on Martha Swinton, the minister's eldest daughter, then butin her sixteenth year, and notwithstanding the sore affliction that shewas in, with her mother, on account of her godly father's uncertainfate, he spared no stratagem to lure her to his wicked will. She was,however, strengthened against his arts and machinations; but herfortitude, instead of repressing the rigour of his persecutions, onlymade him more audacious, in so much that she was terrified to trustherself unguarded out of the house,--and the ire of every man and womanwas rising against the sensual Swaby, who was so destitute of grace andhuman charity. But out of this a mean was raised, that in the end madehim fain to be removed from among us.
For all the immoral bravery of the rampant soldiery, and especially oftheir libertine commander, they had not been long among us till it wasdiscerned that they were as much under the common fears andsuperstitions as the most credulous of our simple country folk, in somuch that what with our family devotions and the tales of witches andwarlocks with which every one, as if by concert, delighted to awe them,they were loth to stir out of their quarters after the gloaming. Swaby,however, though less under those influences than his men, neverthelesspartook largely of them, and would not at the King's commands, it wasthought, have crossed the kirk-stile at midnight.
But though he was thus infirm with the dread of evil spirits, he was notdaunted thereby from ill purposes; and having one day fallen in with oldMysie Gilmour on the road, a pawkie carlin of a jocose nature, heentered into a blethering discourse with her anent divers things, andfrom less to more, propounded to honest Mysie that she should lend acast of her skill to bring about a secret meeting between him and thebonny, defenceless Martha Swinton.
Mysie Gilmour was a Christian woman, and her soul was troubled with theproposal to herself, and for the peril with which she saw her minister'sdaughter environed. But she put on the mask of a light hypocrisy, andsaid she would maybe do something if he fee'd her well, making a trystwith him for the day following; purposing in the meanwhile, instead offurthering his wicked ends, to devise, with the counselling of some ofher acquaintances, in what manner she could take revenge upon theprofligate prodigal for having thought so little of her principle,merely because she was a lanerly widow bent with age and poortith.
Among others that she conferred with was one Robin Finnie, a lad who,when a callan, had been drummer to the host that Nahum Chapelrig led inthe times of the civil war to the raid of Dunse-hill. He was sib toherself, had a spice of her pawkrie, and was moreover, though notwithout a leavening of religion, a fellow fain at any time for a spree;besides which he had, from the campaigns of his youth, brought home aheart-hatred and a derisive opinion of the cavaliers, taking all seasonsand occasions to give vent to the same, and he never called Swaby by anyother name than the cavalier.
Between Mysie and Robin, with some of his companions, a paction was madethat she should keep her tryst with Swaby, and settle on a time andplace for him to come to the delusion of expecting to find MarthaSwinton; Robin covenanting that between him and his friends thecavalier should meet with a lemane worthy of his love. Accordingly, atthe time appointed, when she met Swaby on the road where they hadforegathered the day before, she trysted him to come to her house onHallowe'en, which happened to be then at hand, and to be sure no tobring his sword, or any weapon that might breed mischief.
After parting from him, the cavalier going one way and the carlin theother, Robin Finnie threw himself in his way, and going up to him with aseeming respectfulness, said,--
"Ye were speaking, sir, to yon auld wife; I hope ye hae gi'en her naeoffence?"
The look with which Robin looked at Swaby, as he said this, dismayed thegallant cavalier, who cried, gazing back at Mysie, who was hirplinghomeward--"The devil! is she one of that sort?"
"I'll no say what she is, nor what others say o' her," replied Robinwith solemnity; "but ye'll no fare the waur that ye stand weel in herliking."
Swaby halted, and again looked towards the old woman, who was thennearly out of sight. Robin at the same time moved onward.
"Friend!" cried the cavalier, "stop. I must have some talk with youabout the old--"
"Whisht!" exclaimed Robin, "she's deevilish gleg o' the hearing. I wouldna for twenty merks she jealoused that I had telt you to take tent o'her cantrips."
"Do you mean to say that she's a witch?" said Swaby in a low andapprehensive voice.
"I would na say sic a thing o' her for the world," replied Robin veryseriously; "I would ne'er expek to hae a prosperous hour in this worldwere I to ca' honest Mysie Gilmour onything sae uncanny. She's a piouswife, sir,--deed is she. Me ca' her a witch! She would deserve to behang'd if she was a witch,--an' it could be proven upon her."
But these assurances gave no heartening to the gallant cavalier; on thecontrary, he looked like one that was perplexed, and said, "Devil takeher, I wish I had had nothing to do with her."
"Do," cried Robin; "sir, she's an auld withered hag, would spean a foal.Surely she did na sae beglamour your senses as to appear like a winsomeyoung lass? But I hae heard o' sic morphosings. I'll no say, howsever,that honest Mysie ever tried her art sae far;--and what I hae heard tellof was done in the cruelty of jealously. But it's no possible, captain,that ye were making up to auld Mysie. For the love o' peace, an ye weresae deluded, say nothing about it; for either the parish will say thatye hae an unco taste, or that Mysie has cast her cantrips o'er yourjudgment,--the whilk would either make you a laughing-stock, or, gin yecould prove that she kithed afore you like a blooming damsel, bring herto the wuddy. So I redde ye, captain, to let this story gang naefarther. But mind what I hae been saying, keep weel wi' her, as yerespek yoursel."
In saying these words Robin turned hastily into the wynd that led to theclachan, laughing in his sleeve, leaving the brave cavalier in a sorestate o' dread
and wonderment.