John Burnet of Barns: A Romance

They brought me supper, a wild duck roasted and coarse home-made bread, and a bottle of very tolerable wine, got I know not whence unless from the cellars of some churlish laird. I ate it heartily, for I had fasted long in my sickness, and now that I was recovered I had much to make up.

Then the woman returned and asked me how I did. I told her, "Well," and thanked her for her care, asking her how I had been rescued and where I was. And this was the tale she told me.

She was of the clan of the Baillies, the great gipsies of Tweeddale and Clydesdale, offshoots of the house of Lamington, and proud as the devil or John Faa himself. They had been encamped in the little haugh at the foot of the Wormel on the night of my chase. They had heard a cry, and a man with a face like death had staggered in among them and fainted at their feet. Captain William Baillie, their leader, of whom more anon, had often been well-entreated at Barns in my father's time, and had heard of my misfortunes. He made a guess as to who I was and ordered that I should be well looked after. Meantime the two companies of soldiers passed by, suspecting nothing, and not troubling to look for the object of their search, who all the while was lying senseless beneath a gipsy tent. When all was safe they looked to my condition, and found that I was in a raging fever with cold and fatigue. Now the gipsies, especially those of our own countryside, are great adepts in medicine, and they speedily had all remedies applied to me. For three weeks I lay ill, delirious most of the time, and they bore me with them in a litter in all their wanderings. I have heard of many strange pieces of generosity, but of none more strange than this – to carry with much difficulty a helpless stranger over some of the roughest land in Scotland, and all for no other motive than sheer kindliness to a house which had befriended them of old. With them I travelled over the wild uplands of Eskdale and Ettrick, and with them I now returned to the confines of Tweeddale.

"The Captain's awa' just noo," added she, "but he'll be back the morn, and blithe he'll be to see ye so weel."

And she left me and I slept again till daybreak.

When I awoke again it was morning, just such a day as the last, frosty and clear and bright. I saw by the bustle that the camp was making preparations for starting, and I was so well recovered that I felt fit to join them. I no longer needed to be borne like a child in a litter, but could mount horse and ride with the best of them.

I had risen and gone out to the encampment and was watching the activity of man and beast, when one advanced from the throng toward me. He was a very tall, handsome man, dark in face as a Spaniard, with fine curling moustachios. He wore a broad blue bonnet on his head, his coat was of good green cloth and his small-clothes of black. At his side he carried a sword and in his belt a brace of pistols, and save for a certain foreign air in his appearance he seemed as fine a gentleman as one could see in the land. He advanced to me and made me a very courtly bow, which I returned as well as my still-aching back permitted me.

"I am glad you are recovered, Master John Burnet," said he, speaking excellent English, though with the broad accent which is customary to our Scots lowlands. "Permit me to make myself known to you. I have the honour to be Captain William Baillie at your service, captain of the ragged regiment and the Egyptian guards." All this he said with as fine an air as if he were His Majesty's first general.

At the mention of his name I called to mind all I had heard of this extraordinary man, the chief of all the south-country gipsies, and a character as famous in those days and in those parts as Claverhouse or my lord the King. He claimed to be a bastard of the house of Lamington, and through his mother he traced descent, also by the wrong side of the blanket, to the Gay Gordons themselves. Something of his assumed gentrice showed in his air and manner, which was haughty and lofty as any lord's in the land. But in his face, among wild passions and unbridled desires, I read such shrewd kindliness that I found it in my heart to like him. Indeed, while the tales of his crimes are hawked at every fair, the tales of his many deeds of kindness are remembered in lonely places by folk who have cause to bless the name of Baillie. This same captain had indeed the manners of a prince, for when he bought anything he was wont to give his purse in payment, and indignantly refuse to receive change of any kind. It is only fair to add that the money was not got by honest means, but by the plunder of the rich and churlish. Yet though his ways were roguish his acts were often most Christian-like and courteous, and there were worse men in higher places that this William Baillie. More, he was reputed the best swordsman in all Scotland, though, as being barred from the society of men of birth and education, his marvellous talent was seldom seen. He was of the most indomitable courage and self-possession, and even in the court, when on his trial, he spoke fearlessly to his judges. I do not seek to defend him; but to me and mine he did a good deed and I would seek to be grateful. When long afterwards he was killed in a brawl in the alehouse of Newarthill, I heard the tidings with some sorrow, for he died bravely, though in an ignoble quarrel.

He now informed me with great civility of the incidents of my escape and sickness. When I thanked him he waved me off with a great air.

"Tut, tut," said he, "that is a small matter between gentlefolk. I have often had kindness from your father, and it is only seemly that I should do my best for the son. Besides, it is not in my nature to see a man so sore pressed by the soldiery and not seek to deliver him. It is a predicament I have so often been in myself."

A horse was brought for me, a little wiry animal, well suited for hills and sure-footed as a goat. When I felt myself in the saddle once again, even though it were but a gipsy hallion, I was glad; for to one who has scrambled on his own feet for so many days, a horse is something like an earnest of better times. Captain Baillie bade me come with him to another place, where he showed me a heap of gipsy garments. "It is necessary," said he, "if you would ride with us that you change your appearance. One of your figure riding among us would be too kenspeckle to escape folk's notice. You must let me stain your face, too, with the juice which we make for our bairns' cheeks. It will wash off when you want it, but till that time it will be as fast as sunburn." So taking a crow's feather and dipping it in a little phial, he with much skill passed it over my whole face and hands. Then he held a mirror for me to look, and lo and behold, I was as brown as a gipsy or a Barbary Moor. I laughed loud and long at my appearance, and when I was bidden put on a long green coat, the neighbour of the captain's, and a pair of stout untanned riding-boots, I swear my appearance was as truculent as the roughest tinker's.

Thus accoutred we set out, the men riding in front in pairs and threes, the women behind with donkeys and baggage shelties. It was a queer picture, for the clothing of all was bright-coloured, and formed a strange contrast with the clear, chilly skies and the dim moor. There was no fear of detection, for apart from the company that I was with, my disguise was so complete that not even the most vigilant dragoon could spy me out. Our road was that which I had already travelled often to my own great weariness – down Tweed by Rachan and the Mossfennan haughs. I had no guess at our destination; so when at Broughton we turned to the westward and headed through the moss towards the town of Biggar, I was not surprised. Nay, I was glad, for it brought me nearer to the west country and Smitwood, whither I desired to go with the utmost speed. For with my returning health my sorrows and cares came back to me more fiercely than ever. It could not be that my cousin should find out Marjory's dwelling-place at once, for in the letter there was no clear information; only indefinite hints, which in time would bring him there. The hope of my life was to reach the house before him and rescue my love, though I had no fixed plan in my mind and would have been at a sore loss for aid. Nevertheless, I was quieter in spirit, and more hopeful. For, after all, thought I, though Gilbert get my lass, he yet has me to deal with, and I will follow him to the world's end ere I let him be.

CHAPTER XVI

HOW THREE MEN HELD A TOWN IN TERROR

It was towards evening, a dark November evening, that we came near the little town of Biggar. The place lies on a sandy bank raised from the wide moss which extends for miles by the edge of the sluggish stream. It is a black, desolate spot, where whaups and snipe whistle in the back streets, and a lane, which begins from the causeway, may end in a pool of dark moss-water. But the street is marvellous broad, and there, at the tail of the autumn, is held one of the greatest fairs in the lowlands of Scotland, whither hawkers and tinkers come in hordes, not to speak of serving-men and serving-lasses who seek hire. For three days the thing goes on, and for racket and babble it is unmatched in the countryside.

We halted before the entrance to the town on a square of dry in the midst of the water-way. The weather had begun to draw to storm, and from the east, great masses of rolling cloud came up, tinged red and yellow with the dying sun. I know not how many the gipsies were, but, with women and children, they were not less in number than ninety or a hundred. They had with them a great quantity of gear of all kinds, and their animals were infinite. Forbye their horses and asses, they had dogs and fowls, and many tamed birds which travelled in their company. One sight I yet remember as most curious. A great long man, who rode on a little donkey, had throughout the march kept an ugly raven before him, which he treated with much kindness; and on dismounting lifted off with assiduous care. And yet the bird had no beauty or accomplishment to merit his good-will. It is a trait of these strange people that they must ever have something on which to expend their affection; and while the women have their children, the men have their pets. The most grim and quarrelsome tinker will tend some beast or bird and share with it his last meal.

When the camp was made, the fire lit, and the evening meal prepared, the men got out their violins and bagpipes, and set themselves to enliven the night with music. There in the clear space in front of the fire they danced to the tunes with great glee and skill. I sat beside the captain and watched the picture, and in very truth it was a pleasing one. The men, as I have said, were for the most part lithe and tall, and they danced with grace. The gipsy women, after the age of twenty, grow too harsh-featured for beauty, and too manly in stature for elegance. But before that age they are uniformly pretty. The free, open-air life and the healthy fare make them strong in body and extraordinarily graceful in movement. Their well-formed features, their keen, laughing black eyes, their rich complexions, and, above all, their masses of coal-black hair become them choicely well. So there in the ruddy firelight they danced to the quavering music, and peace for once in a while lay among them.

Meanwhile I sat apart with William Baillie, and talked of many things. He filled for me a pipe of tobacco, and I essayed a practice which I had often heard of before but never made trial of. I found it very soothing, and we sat there in the bield of the tent and discoursed of our several wanderings. I heard from him wild tales of doings in the hills from the Pentlands to the Cumberland fells, for his habits took him far and wide in the country. He told all with the greatest indifference, affecting the air of an ancient Stoic, to whom all things, good and evil alike, were the same. Every now and then he would break in with a piece of moralising, which he delivered with complete gravity, but which seemed to me matter for laughter, coming, as it did, after some racy narrative of how he vanquished Moss Marshall at the shieling of Kippertree, or cheated the ale-wife at Newbigging out of her score.

On the morrow all went off to the fair save myself, and I was left with the children and the dogs. The captain had judged it better that I should stay, since there would be folk there from around Barns and Dawyck, who might penetrate my disguise and spread the tidings. Besides, I knew naught of the tinker trade, and should have been sorely out of place. So I stayed at home and pondered over many things, notably my present predicament. I thought of all my old hopes and plans – to be a scholar and a gentleman of spirit, to look well to my lands and have a great name in the countryside, to study and make books, maybe even to engage in Parliament and State business. And what did I now? Travelling in disguise among tinkers, a branded man, with my love and my lands in danger, nay all but lost. It was this accursed thought that made the bitterest part of my wanderings.

I was in such a mood when a servant came from a farmhouse near to get one of the gipsies to come and mend the kitchen pot. As I was the only one left, there was nothing for it but to go. The adventure cheered me, for its whimsicality made me laugh, and laughter is the best antidote to despair. But I fared very badly, for, when I tried my 'prentice hand at the pot, I was so manifestly incapable that the good-wife drove me from the place, calling me an idle sorner, and a lazy vagabond, and many other well-deserved names. I returned to the camp with my ears still ringing from her cuff, but in a more wholesome temper of mind.

The greater part of the others returned at the darkening, most with well-filled pockets, though I fear it was not all come by honestly; and a special feast was prepared. That gipsy meal was of the strangest yet most excellent quality. There was a savoury soup made of all kinds of stewed game and poultry, and after that the flesh of pigs and game roasted and broiled. There was no seasoning to the food save a kind of very bitter vinegar; for these people care little for salt or any condiment. Moreover, they had the strange practice of grating some hard substance into their wine, which gave it a flavour as if it had been burned in the mulling.

The meal was over and I was thinking of lying down for the night, when William Baillie came back. I noted that in the firelight his face was black with anger. I heard him speak to several of his men, and his tone was the tone of one who was mastering some passion. By and by he came to where I sat and lay down beside me.

"Do you wish to pleasure me?" he said, shortly.

"Why, yes," I answered; "you have saved my life and I would do all in my power to oblige you, though I fear that just now my power is little."

"It's a' I want," said he, leaving his more correct speech for the broad Scots of the countryside. "Listen, and I'll tell ye what happened the day at the fair. We tinker-folk went aboot our business, daein' ill to nane, and behavin' like dacent, peaceable, quiet-mainnered men and women. The place was in a gey steer, for a heap o' Wast-country trash was there frae the backs o' Straven and Douglasdale, and since a' the godly and reputable folk thereaways hae ta'en to the hills, nane but the rabble are left. So as we were gaun on canny, and sellin' our bits o' things and daein' our bits o' jobs, the drucken folk were dancin' and cairryin' on at the ither end. By and by doun the Fair come a drucken gairdener, one John Cree. I ken him weel, a fosy, black-hertit scoondrel as ever I saw. My wife, whom ye know, for it was her that lookit after ye when ye were sick, was standin' at the side when the man sees her. He comes up to her wi' his leerin', blackgairdly face, and misca's her for a tinkler and a' that was bad, as if the warst in our tribe wasna better than him.

"Mary, she stands back, and bids him get out or she wad learn him mainners.

"But he wadna take a tellin'. 'Oh, ho, my bawbee joe,' says he, 'ye're braw and high the day. Whae are you to despise an honest man? A wheen tinkler doxies!' And he took up a stane and struck her on the face.

"At this a' our folk were for pittin' an end to him there and then. But I keepit them back and bade them let the drucken ful be. Syne he gaed awa', but the folk o' the Fair took him up, and we've got nocht but ill-words and ill-tongue a' day. But, by God! they'll pay for it the morn." And the captain looked long and fiercely into the embers.

"I hae a plan," said he, after a little, "and, Master Burnet, I want ye to help me. The folk of the fair are just a wheen scum and riddlings. There are three o' us here, proper men, you and myself and my son Matthew. If ye will agree to it we three will mount horse the morn and clear oot that fair, and frichten the folk o' Biggar for the next twalmonth."

"What would you do?" said I.

"I hae three suits," he said, "o' guid crimson cloth, which I got frae my grandfather and have never worn. I have three braw horses, which cam oot o' England three year syne. If the three o' us mount and ride through the fair there will be sic a scattering as was never heard tell o' afore i' the auld toun. And, by God, if that gairdener-body doesna gang wud wi' fricht, my name's no William Baillie."

Now, I do not know what madness prompted me to join in this freak. For certain it was a most unbecoming thing for a man of birth to be perched on horseback in the company of two reckless tinkers to break the king's peace and terrify His Majesty's lieges of Biggar. But a dare-devil spirit – the recoil from the morning's despondency – now held me. Besides, the romance of the thing took me captive; it was as well that a man should play all the parts he could in the world; and to my foolish mind it seemed a fine thing that one who was a man of birth and learning should not scruple to cast in his lot with the rough gipsies.

So I agreed readily enough, and soon after went to sleep with weariness, and knew nothing till the stormy dawn woke the camp.

Then the three of us dressed in the crimson suits, and monstrously fine we looked. The day was dull, cloudy, and with a threat of snow; and the massing of clouds which we had marked on the day before was now a thousandfold greater. We trotted out over the green borders of the bog to the town, where the riot and hilarity were audible. The sight of the three to any chance spectator must have been fearsome beyond the common. William Baillie, not to speak of his great height and strange dress, had long black hair which hung far below his shoulders, and his scarlet hat and plume made him look like the devil in person. Matthew, his son, was something smaller, but broad and sinewy, and he sat his horse with an admirable grace. As for myself, my face was tanned with sun and air and the gipsy dye, my hair hung loosely on my shoulders in the fashion I have always worn it, and I could sit a horse with the best of them.

When we came near the head of the street we halted and consulted. The captain bade us obey him in all and follow wherever he went, and above all let no word come from our mouth. Then we turned up our sleeves above the elbows, drew our swords and rode into the town.

At the first sight of the three strange men who rode abreast a great cry of amazement arose, and the miscellaneous rabble was hushed. Then, in a voice of thunder, the captain cried out that they had despised the gipsies the day before, and that now was the time of revenge. Suiting the action to the word he held his naked sword before him, and we followed at a canter.

I have never seen so complete a rout in my life. Stalls, booths, tables were overturned, and the crowd flew wildly in all directions. The others of the tribe, who had come to see the show, looked on from the back, and to the terrified people seemed like fresh assailants. I have never heard such a hubbub as rose from the fleeing men and screaming women. Farmers, country-folk, plowmen mingled with fat burgesses and the craftsmen of the town in one wild rush for safety. And yet we touched no one, but kept on our way to the foot of the street, with our drawn swords held stark upright in our hands. Then we turned and came back; and lo! the great fair was empty, and wild, fearful faces looked at us from window and lane.

Then, on our second ride, appeared at the church gate the minister of the parish, a valiant man, who bade us halt.

"Stop," saul he, "you men of blood, and cease from disturbing the town, or I will have you all clapt in the stocks for a week."

Then the captain spoke up and told him of the wrong and insult of the day before.

At this the worthy man looked grave. "Go back to your place," he said, "and it shall be seen to. I am wae that the folk of this town, who have the benefit of my ministrations, set no better example to puir heathen Egyptians. But give up the quarrel at my bidding. 'Vengeance is mine, and I will repay,' saith the Lord."

"But haply, sir," said I, "as Augustine saith, we may be the Lord's executors." And with this we turned and rode off, leaving the man staring in open-mouthed wonder.

CHAPTER XVII

OF THE FIGHT IN THE MOSS OF BIGGAR

When we came to the camping-place it was almost deserted. The people had all gone to the fair, and nothing was to be seen save the baggage and the children. The morning had grown wilder and a thin snow was falling, the earnest of a storm. The mist was drawing closer and creeping over the boglands. I minded an old saying of Tam Todd's, "Rouk's snaw's wraith," and I looked for a wild storm with gladness, for it would keep the dragoon gentry at home and prohibit their ill-doing.

But just in front at the border of the fog and at the extremity of the dry land, the captain saw something which made him draw up his horse sharply and stare. Then he turned to Matthew, and I saw that his face was flushed. "Ride a' your pith, man," he said, "ride like the wind to the toun, and bid our folk hurry back. Nae words and be off." And the obedient son galloped away to do his bidding.

He gripped me by the arm and pulled me to the side. "Ye've guid een," he said. "D'ye see that ower by the laigh trees?" I looked and looked again and saw nothing.

"Maybe no," he said, "ye haena gipsy een; but in half an' oor we'll a' ken what it means. It's the Ruthvens wi' the Yerl o' Hell. I ken by their red-stripit breeks and their lang scythe-sticks. Ye maun ken that for lang we've had a bluid-feud wi' that clan, for the Baillies are aye gentrice and hae nae trokins wi' sic blaggard tinklers. We've focht them yince and twice and aye gotten the better, and noo I hear that little Will Ruthven, that's him that they ca' the Yerl o' Hell for his deevilry, has sworn to fecht us till there's no a Baillie left to keep up the name. And noo they've come. 'Faith there'll be guid bluid spilt afore thae wratches learn their lesson."

The news struck me with vast astonishment and a little dismay. I had often longed to see a battle and now I was to be gratified. But what a battle! A fight between two bloodthirsty gipsy clans, both as wild as peat-reek, and armed with no more becoming weapons than bludgeons, cutlasses, and scythe-blades. More, the event would place me in a hard position. I could not fight. It would be too absurd for words that I should be mixed up in their mellays. But the man at my side expected me to aid him. I owed my life to him, and with these folk gratitude is reckoned one of the first of the virtues. To refuse William Baillie my help would be to offer him the deepest unkindness. Yet I dismissed the thought at once as preposterous. I could no more join the fight than I could engage in a pothouse or stable brawl. There was nothing for it but to keep back and watch the thing as a silent spectator.