The Brownie of Bodsbeck (Volume 1&2). James Hogg

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СКАЧАТЬ and he on aboon it. The tither, wi’ his sma’ spear, durstna come on, but ran for it; I followed, and was mettler o’ foot than he, but I durstna grip him, for fear he had run his bit spit through my sma–fairns i’ the struggle, for it was as sharp as a lance, but I keepit a little back till I gat the end o’ my stick just i’ the how o’ his neck, and then I gae him a push that soon gart him plew the flow with his nose. On aboon him I gets, and the first thing I did was to fling away his bit twig of a sword—I gart it shine through the air like a fiery dragon—then I took him by the cuff o’ the neck, and lugged him back to his neighbour, wha was lying graning in the hag. ‘Now, billies,’ says I, ‘ye shall answer face to face, it wad hae been as good soon as syne; tell me directly wha ye are, and what’s your business here, or, d’ye hear me, I’ll tye ye thegither like twa tikes, and tak ye to them that will gar ye speak.’

      ‘Ah! lack–a–day, lack–a–day!’ said the wounded man, ‘ye’re a rash, foolish, passionate man, whaever ye be.’

      ‘Ye’re maybe no very far wrang there,’ quo’ I; ‘but for aince, I trow, I had gude reason. Ye thought to kill me wi’ your bits o’ shabbles o’ swords!’

      ‘In the first place then,’ said he, ‘ken that we wadna hae shed ae drap o’ your blood, nor wranged a hair o’ your head—all that we wanted was to get quit of ye, to keep ye out o’ danger an’ scaith. Ye hae made a bonny day’s wark on’t truly, we had naething in view but your ain safety—but sin’ ye will ken ye maun ken; we belang to a poor proscribed remnant, that hae fled from the face of a bloody persecution. We have left all, and lost all, for the cause of our religion, and are driven into this dismal wilderness, the only miserable retreat left us in our native land.’

      ‘Od, sir! he hadna weel begun to speak till the light o’ the truth began to dawn within me like the brek o’ the day–sky, an’ I grew as red too, for the devil needna hae envied me my feelings at that time. I couldna help saying to mysel, ‘Whow, whow, Wat Laidlaw! but ye hae made a bonny job o’t this morning!—Here’s twa puir creatures, worn out wi’ famine and watching, come to seek a last refuge amang your hags and mosses, and ye maun fa’ to and be pelting and threshing on them like an incarnate devil as ye are.—Oh, wae’s me! wae’s me!’—Lord, sir, I thought my heart wad burst—There was a kind o’ yuke came into my een that I could hardly bruke; but at length the muckle tears wan out wi’ a sair faught, and down they came down ower my beard, dribble for dribble. The men saw the pliskie that I was in, and there was a kind o’ ruefu’ benevolence i’ their looks, I never saw ony thing like it.’

      ‘Dinna be wae for us, honest man,’ said they; ‘we hae learned to suffer—we hae kend nought else for this mony a lang and bloody year, an’ we look for nought else for the wee while we hae to sojourn in this weary world—we hae learned to suffer patiently, and to welcome our sufferings as mercies.’

      ‘Ye’ve won a gude length, man,’ quo’ I; ‘but they’re mercies that I’m never very fond o’—I wish ye had suffered under ony hand but mine, sin’ it be your lot.’

      ‘Dinna be sorry for us, honest man; there never was an act o’ mair justice than this that ye hae inflicted. Last night there were fifteen o’ us met at evening worship—we hadna tasted meat for days and nights; to preserve our miserable lives, we stole a sheep, dressed, and ate it; and wi’ this very arm that you hae disabled, did I grip and kill that sheep. It was a great sin, nae doubt, but the necessity was also great—I am sae far punished, and I hope the Lord will forgie the rest.’

      ‘If he dinna,’ quo’ I, ‘he’s no what I think him.’ Then he began a lang serious harangue about the riches o’ free grace, and about the wickedness o’ our nature; and said, that we could do naething o’ oursells but sin. I said it was a hard construction, but I couldna argy the point ava wi’ him—I never was a dab at these lang–winded stories. Then they cam on about prelacy and heresies, and something they ca’d the act of abjuration. I couldna follow him out at nae rate; but I says, I pit nae doubt, callants, but ye’re right, for ye hae proven to a’ the warld that ye think sae; and when a man feels conscious that he’s right, I never believe he can be far wrang in sic matters. But that’s no the point in question; let us consider what can be done for ye e’en now—Poor souls! God kens, my heart’s sair for ye; but this land’s mine, an’ a’ the sheep around ye, an’ ye’re welcome to half–a–dozen o’ the best o’ them in sic a case.’

      ‘Ah! lack–a–day, lack–a–day! If ye be the gudeman o’ the Chapelhope, ye’ll rue the day that ever ye saw us. If it’s kend that ye countenanced us in word or deed, ye’re a ruined man; for the blood–hounds are near at hand, and they’ll herry ye out and in, but and ben—Lack–a–day! lack–a–day! in a wee while we may gang and come by the Chapelhope, and nouther see a lum reek nor hear a cock craw; for Clavers is on the one hand and Lag on the other, and they’re coming nearer and nearer us every day, and hemming us in sairer and sairer—renounce us and deny us, as ye wish to thrive.’

      ‘Na, na, lads, let them come—let them come their ways! Gin they should take a’ the ewes and kye on the Chapelhope, I can stock it o’er again. I dinna gie a bawbee about your leagues, and covenants, and associations, for I think aye there’s a good deal o’ faction and dourness in them; but or I’ll desert a fellow–creature that’s oppressed, if he’s an honest man, and lippens to me, od, I’ll gie them the last drap o’ my heart’s bluid.’

      “When they heard that, they took me out to the tap of a knowe, and began to whistle like plovers—nae herd alive could hae kend but they were plovers—and or ever I wist, ilka hag, and den, and tod–hole round about, seemed to be fu’ o’ plovers, for they fell a’ to the whistling an’ answering ane another at the same time. I had often been wondering how they staid sae lang on the heights that year, for I heard them aye whewing e’en an’ morn; but little trowed I they were a’ twa–handed plovers that I heard. In half an hour they had sic a squad gathered thegither as e’e never glimed on. There ye might hae seen auld gray–bearded ministers, lairds, weavers, and poor hinds, a’ sharing the same hard fate. They were pale, ragged, and hungry, and several o’ them lame and wounded; and they had athegither sic a haggard severity i’ their demeaner. Lord forgie me, gin I wasna feared to look at them! There was ane o’ them a doctor blade, wha soon set the poor chield’s arm; and he said, that after a’ it wasna broken, but only dislockit and sair brizzed. That doctor was the gabbiest body ever I met wi’; he spake for them a’, and I whiles feared that he sclented a wee. He tried a’ that he could to make me a Cameronian, but I wadna grip; and when I was coming away to leave him, ‘Laidlaw,’ quo’ he, ‘we ken ye to be an honest, honourable man; here you see a remnant of poor, forlorn, misrepresented creatures, who have thrown themselves on your mercy; if ye betray us, it will be the worse for ye both here and hereafter; if you save and protect us, the prayers of the just win their way to Heaven, though fiends should be standing by to oppose them—Ay, there’s naething can stop theirjourney, Laidlaw!—The winds canna blaw them aside, the clouds canna drown them, and the lights o’ Heaven canna burn them; and your name will stand at that bar where there’s nae cruel and partial judge—What you gie to us, ye gie to your Maker, and he will repay you seven fold.’ Od, the body was like to gar me play the bairn and greet even out. Weel, I canna mind the half that he said, but he endit wi’ this:—‘We have seen our friends all bound, banished, and destroyed; they have died on the field, on the scaffold, and at the stake; but the reek o’ their blood shall drive the cruel Stuarts frae the land they have disgraced, and out of it a church of truth and liberty shall spring. There is still a handfu’ remaining in Israel that have not yet bowed the knee to Baal, nor yet kissed him—That remnant has fled here to escape the cruelty of man; but a worse fate threatens us now—we are all of us perishing with famine—For these three days we have tasted nothing but the green moss, save a few wretched trouts, eels, and adders.’ ‘Ethers, man!’ quo’ I,—‘For the love o’ God take care how ye eat the ethers—ye may as weel СКАЧАТЬ