John Burnet of Barns: A Romance

In a little we heard the roaring of water and came to the banks of the stream, which, swollen by the melting snows, was raving wildly between the barriers of the banks. At the edge was a piece of short turf, some hundred yards square, and drier than the rest of the ground which we had traversed. Here Gilbert stopped and bade me get ready. I had little to do save cast my coat, and stand stripped and shivering, waiting while my enemy took his ground.

The next I know is that I was in the thick of a deadly encounter, with blows rattling on my blade as thick as hail. My cousin's eyes glared into mine, mad with anger and regret, with all the unrequited love and aimless scheming of months concentrated in one fiery passion. I put forth my best skill, but it was all I could do to keep death from me. As it was I was scratched and grazed in a dozen places, and there was a great hole in my shirt which the other's blade had ripped. The sweat began to trickle over my eyes with the exertion, and my sight was half dazed by the rapid play.

Now it so happened that I had my back to the stream. This was the cause of my opponent's sudden violence, for he sought to drive me backwards, that, when I found myself near the water, I might grow bewildered. But I had been brought up to this very trick, for in the old days in Tweeddale, Tam Todd would have taken his stand near the Tweed and striven to force me back into the great pool. In my present danger these old memories came back to me in a flood, and in a second I was calm again. This, after all, was only what I had done a thousand times for sport. Could I not do it once for grim earnest?

In a very little I saw that my cousin's policy of putting all his strength out at the commencement was like to be his ruin. He was not a man built for long endurance, being too full in blood and heavy of body. Soon his breath came thick and painfully; he yielded a step, then another, and still a third; his thrusts lacked force, and his guards were feeble. He had changed even from that tough antagonist whom I had aforetime encountered, and who taxed my mettle to the utmost. Had it not been that my anger still held my heart, and admitted no room for other thoughts, I would even have felt some compunction in thrusting at him. But now I had no pity in me. A terrible desire to do to him as he had done to my friends gripped me like a man's hand. The excitement of the struggle, and, perhaps, the peril to my own life, roused my dormant hate into a storm of fury. I know not what I did, but shrieking curses and anathemas, I slashed blindly before me like a man killing bees. Before my sword point I saw his face growing greyer and greyer with each passing minute. He was a brave man, this I have always said for him; and if any other in a like position, with an enemy at his throat and the awful cognisance of guilt, still keeps his stand and does not flee, him also I call brave.

Suddenly his defence ceased. His arm seemed to numb and his blade was lowered. I checked my cut, and waited with raised point. An awful delight was in my heart, which now I hate and shudder to think on. I waited, torturing him. He tried to speak, but his mouth was parched and I heard the rattle of his tongue. Still I delayed, for all my heat seemed turned into deadly malice.

Then his eyes left my face and looked over my shoulders. I saw a new shade of terror enter them. I chuckled, for now, thought I, my revenge has come. Of a sudden he crouched with a quick movement, bringing his hands to his face. I was in the act of striking, when from behind came a crack, and something whistled past my ear. Then I saw my cousin fall, groaning, with a bullet through his neck.

In a trice my rage was turned from him to the unknown enemy behind. With that one shot all rancour had gone from my heart. I turned, and there, running through the trees up the river bank, I saw a man. At the first look I recognised him, though he was bent well-nigh double, and the air was thick with fog. It was the fellow Jan Hamman.

I ran after him at top speed, though he was many yards ahead of me. I have never felt such lightness in my limbs. I tore through thicket and bramble, and leaped the brooks as easily as if I were not spent with fighting and weak from the toils of months. My whole being was concentrated into one fierce attempt, for a thousand complex passions were tearing at my heart. This man had dared to come between us; this man had dared to slay one of my house. No sound escaped my lips, but silently, swiftly, I sped after the fleeing figure.

He ran straight up stream, and at every step I gained. Somewhere at the beginning he dropped his pistol; soon he cast away his cap and cloak; and when already he heard my hot breathing behind him he cried out in despair and flung his belt aside. We were climbing a higher ridge beneath which ran the stream. I was so near that I clutched at him once and twice, but each time he eluded me. Soon we gained the top, and I half-stumbled while he gained a yard. Then I gathered myself together for a great effort. In three paces I was on him, and had him by the hair; but my clutch was uncertain with my faintness, and, with a wrench, he was free. Before I knew his purpose he swerved quickly to the side, and leaped clean over the cliff into the churning torrent below.

I stood giddy on the edge, looking down. There was nothing but a foam of yellow and white and brown from bank to bank. No man could live in such a stream. I turned and hastened back to my cousin.

I found him lying as I had left him, with his head bent over to the side and the blood oozing from his neck-wound. When I came near he raised his eyes and saw me. A gleam of something came into them; it may have been mere recognition, but I thought it pleasure.

I kneeled beside him with no feelings other than kindness. The sight of him lying so helpless and still drove all anger from me. He was my cousin, one of my own family, and, with it all, a gentleman and a soldier.

He spoke very hoarsely and small.

"I am done for, John. My ill-doing has come back on my own head. That man – "

"Yes," I said, for I did not wish to trouble a man so near his end with idle confessions, "I know, I have heard, but that is all past and done with."

"God forgive me," he said, "I did him a wrong, but I have repaid it. Did you kill him, John?"

"No," I said; "he leaped from a steep into the stream. He will be no more heard of."

"Ah," and his breath came painfully, "it is well. Yet I could have wished that one of the family had done the work. But it is no time to think of such things. I am going fast, John."

Then his speech failed for a little and he lay back with a whitening face.

"I have done many ill deeds to you, for which I crave your forgiveness."

"You have mine with all my heart," I said, hastily. "But there is the forgiveness of a greater, which we all need alike. You would do well to seek it."

He spoke nothing for a little. "I have lived a headstrong, evil life," said he, "which God forgive. Yet it is not meet to go canting to your end, when in your health you have crossed His will."

Once again there was silence for a little space. Then he reached out his hand for mine.

"I have been a fool all my days. Let us think no more of the lass, John. We are men of the same house, who should have lived in friendship. It was a small thing to come between us."

A wind had risen and brought with it a small, chill rain. A gust swept past us and carried my cast-off cloak into the bushes. "Ease my head," he gasped, and when I hasted to do it, I was even forestalled. For another at that moment laid His hand on him, and with a little shudder his spirit passed to the great and only judge of man's heart.

I walked off for help with all speed, and my thoughts were sober and melancholy. Shame had taken me for my passion and my hot-fit of revenge; ay, and pity and kindness for my dead opponent. The old days when we played together by Tweed, a thousand faint, fragrant memories came back to me, and in this light the last shades of bitterness disappeared. Also the great truth came home to me as I went, how little the happiness of man hangs on gifts and graces, and how there is naught in the world so great as the plain virtues of honour and heart.

CHAPTER VII

OF A VOICE IN THE EVENTIDE

Of the events of the time following there is little need to give an exact account. There was some law business to be gone through in connection with my cousin's death and the disposing of the estate, which went to an East country laird, a Whig of the Whigs, and one like to make good and provident use of it. Then, when I would have returned to Tweeddale, I received a post from my good kinsman, Dr. Gilbert Burnet, which led me first to Edinburgh and then so far afield as London itself. For it was necessary, in the great confusion of affairs, that I should set myself right with the law and gain some reparation for my some-time forfeited lands.

So to the great city I went, posting by the main road from Edinburgh, and seeing a hundred things which were new and entertaining. I abode there most all the winter, during the months of December, January, February, and March, for there was much to do and see. My lodging was in my kinsman's house near the village of Kensington, and there I met a great concourse of remarkable folk whose names I had heard of and have heard of since. Notably, there were Master John Dryden, the excellent poet, my Lord Sandwich, and a very brisk, pleasing gentleman, one Mr. Pepys, of the Admiralty. I had great opportunity of gratifying my taste for books and learned society, for my kinsman's library was an excellent one, and his cellars so good that they attracted all conditions of folk to his house. Also I had many chances of meeting with gentlemen of like degree with myself, and many entertaining diversions we had together. Nor did I neglect those in Tweeddale, for I sent news by near every post that went to the North.

But when the spring came, and there was no further need for tarrying in the South, with a light heart I net off homewards once more. I journeyed by Peterborough and York in the company of one Sir C. Cotterell, a gentleman of Northumberland, and abode two days at his house in the moors, where there was excellent fishing. Then I came northwards by the great Northumberland road by the towns of Newcastle and Morpeth, and crossed the Cheviot Hills, which minded me much of my own glen. At Coldstream I crossed the Tweed, which is there grown a very broad, noble river, and then rode with all speed over the Lammermoors to Edinburgh. I stayed there no longer than my duty demanded; and when all was settled, one bright spring day, just after midday, set out for Barns.

The day, I remember, was one of surprising brightness, clear, sunshiny, and soft as midsummer. There are few ways I know better than that from the capital to my home – the bare, windy moorlands for one half, and the green glens and pleasant waters of the other. It was by this road that I had come to Leith to ship for Holland; by this road that I had ridden on that wild night ride to Dawyck. Each spot of the wayside was imprinted on my memory, and now that my wanderings were over, and I was returning to peace and quiet, all things were invested with a new delight. Yet my pleasure was not of the brisk, boisterous order, for my many misfortunes had made me a graver man, and chastened my natural spirits to a mellow and abiding cheerfulness.

At Leadburn was the inn where I had first met my servant Nicol, my trusty comrade through so many varying fates. I drank a glass of wine at the place for no other cause than a sentimental remembrance. The old landlord was still there, and the idle ostlers hung around the stable doors, as when I had passed before. Down in the bog-meadow the marsh-marigolds were beginning to open, and the lambs from the hillside bleated about their mothers. The blue, shell-like sky overhead arched without a cloud to the green, distant hills.

When I came to the place on the Tweedside road, called the Mount Bog, I dismounted and lay down on the grass. For there the view opens to the hills of my own countryside. A great barrier of blue, seamed with glens, all scarred in spots with rock and shingle, lifting serene brows from the little ridges to the wide expanse of the heavens. I named them one by one from east to west – Minchmoor, though it was hidden from sight, where fled the great Montrose after the fatal rout of Philiphaugh; the broad foreheads of the Glenrath heights above my own vale of Manor, Dollar Law, Scrape, the Drummelzier fells, the rugged Wormel, and, fronting me, the great Caerdon, with snow still lining its crannies. Beyond, still further and fainter lines of mountain, till like a great tableland the monstrous mass of the Broad Law barred the distance. It was all so calm and fragrant, with not a sound on the ear but the plash of little streams and the boom of nesting snipe. And above all there was the thought that now all peril had gone, and I was free to live as I listed and enjoy life as a man is born to do, and skulk no more at dyke-sides, and be torn no longer by hopeless passion.

When I rode through the village of Broughton and came to the turn of the hill at Dreva, the sun was already westering. The goodly valley, all golden with evening light, lay beneath me. Tweed was one belt of pure brightness, flashing and shimmering by its silver shores and green, mossy banks. Every wood waved and sparkled in a fairy glow, and the hills above caught the radiance on their broad bosoms. I have never seen such a sight, and for me at that hour it seemed the presage of my home-coming. I have rarely felt a more serene enjoyment, for it put me at peace with all the earth, and gilded even the nightmare of the past with a remembered romance. To crown it there was that melodious concert of birds, which one may hear only on such a night in this sweet time o' year. Throstles and linnets and the shriller mountain larks sang in the setting daylight, till I felt like some prince in an eastern tale who has found the talisman and opened the portals of the Golden Land.

Down the long, winding hill-path I rode, watching the shadows flit before me, and thinking strange thoughts. Fronting me over the broad belt of woodland, I saw the grey towers of Dawyck, and the green avenues of grass running straight to the hill.

By and by the road took me under the trees, among the cool shades and the smell of pine and budding leaves. There was a great crooning of wood-doves, and the sighing of the tenderest breezes. Shafts of light still crept among the trunks, but the soft darkness of spring was almost at hand. My heart was filled with a great exaltation. The shadow of the past seemed to slip from me like an old garment.

Suddenly I stopped, for somewhere I heard a faint melody, the voice of a girl singing. 'Twas that voice I would know among ten thousand, the only one in all the world for me. I pulled up my horse and listened as the notes grew clearer, and this was what she sang:

"First shall the heavens want starry light,
The seas be robbèd of their waves;
The day want sun, the sun want bright,
The night want shade, and dead men graves;
The April, flowers and leaf and tree,
Before I false my faith to thee.
To thee, to thee."

There came a pause, and then again, in the fragrant gloaming, the air went on:

"First shall the tops of highest hills
By humble plains be overpry'd;
And poets scorn the Muses' quills,
And fish forsake the water-glide;
And Iris lose her coloured weed
Before I fail thee at thy need."

I stood in shadow and watched her as she came in sight, sauntering up the little, green glade, with a basket of spring flowers swinging on her arm. Her hat of white satin hung loose over her hair, and as she walked lightly, now in the twilight, now in a sudden shaft of the western sun, she looked fairer than aught I had ever seen. Once more she sang with her clear voice:

"First direful Hate shall turn to Peace,
And Love relent in deep disdain;
And Death his fatal stroke shall cease,
And Envy pity every pain;