CHAPTER 20

I have been a skipper in my time,

And something more. Anon, I’ll tell it you.

Ogilvie

‘It is nae worth the name of a story that,’ said Tam Craik; ‘for, in the first place, it is a lang story; in the second place, it is a confused story; and, in the third place, it ends ower abruptly, and rather looks like half a dozen o’ stories linkit to ane anither’s tails.’

The poet was by this time on his feet, and, coming forward to Charlie, he looked him sublimely in the face, stretched out his hand, and spoke as follows: ‘There is some being, wheresoe’er he dwells, that watches o’ er the fates of mortal men: now do I know it. Yea, and that same being has spirits of all casts at his command, that run, and fly, and trim, and trim, and trim about this world. And it is even true that I have seen of these, yet knew them not. Look here, brave hero, man of heart and hand! and see if thou canst note thy mark once seen? Thy spur; thy A without the crossing stroke; thy V with the wrong end upmost – is it here?’

The poet bowed his breast, and exposed it to Charlie’s eye, which, at the first scrutinizing look, discerned the mark he had formerly seen – the mark of the spur of Ravensworth. Charlie’s visage altered into lengthened amazement. It could scarcely have been more strongly marked when he was visited by the white lady on Tersit moor, even when he was glad to hide his face in the moss, and hold by the heather with both his hands.

‘And are you really the chap that I threw out at the window in the castle of Ravensworth,’ said he, ‘and boarded wi’ auld lady Lawder? The creature that had a ghaist for its guardian, and a witch for its nurse? But what need I spier? My ain een convinces me. Gude faith but we are a queer set that are prickit up on the top o’ this tower thegither! I am amaist terrified to enquire where you have been since the white lady took you away; for ye must have been in the fairy land, or the country o’ the gruesome ghaists, or perhaps in a waur place than either.’

‘We are a queerer set than you are thinking of,’ said Tam; ‘for here am I standing, Tam Craik, liege man and true to the brave Scottish Warden, and I carena wha kens it now; but I am neither less nor mair a man than just Marion’s Jock o’ the Dod-Shiel, that sliced the fat bacon, ate the pet lamb, and killed the auld miser, Goodman Niddery. Here’s the same whittle yet, and ready at the service of ony ane that requires it for the same end. Od, we seem to ken mair about ane anither than ony ane o’ us kens about ourselves.’

‘The day wears on apace,’ said the Master; ‘and I foresee that there is relief approaching from more quarters than one.’ (This made all the party spring to the windows to look –.) ‘It is not yet visible to your eyes, but it will come time enough. In the meanwhile, it would be as well to get through with the stories, that we may know and fix on our victim, for, perhaps, we may need a mart this night. And, it being now your turn, liegeman Thomas, or John, by right of seniority, if you know of nothing better, I should like much to hear the adventures of such a promising youth, from the day that you made away with the farmer to this present time.’

‘Better, Master Michael Scott?’ said Tam. ‘Better, does your honour say? Nay, by my sooth I ken o’ naething half sae good. I hae been an ill-guided chap a’ my life; but, as you will hear, I hae guided others at times but in a middling way.’

Tam Craik’s Tale

My friend, the laird, has given you my early history, perhaps better than I could hae done myself, but that is to judge of. He hath added and diminished – but yet he told his story wi’ some life, and a’ the better that he didna ken wha heard him. In one thing he was wrong informed, for I was not seen on Kirtle-common that night I fled from the slaughter of the old inveterate wretch. I ran in a contrary direction, and slept that night in a moss-hagg, at the head of a water called Lanshaw Burn. Many a hard night I have had, but that was one of the bitterest of them all. I did not rue having killed the goodman, for I rejoiced at having let out his dirty miserable life and saved my own – but then I was sure to be taken up and hanged for a murderer; and I was chased away from my mother and my country, and durst not face a human being. I saw some goats and some sheep, and would gladly have killed one to have eaten, for I saw hunger staring me in the face; but they would not let me come near them. I likewise saw a shepherd’s or forester’s house, but kept aloof; and going up into a wild bushy glen, I cried myself asleep, half naked as I was, and slept till about the break of day. When I awakened, starving with hunger and cold, I had no shift but to pull rashes and eat the white ends of them, which I continued to do all that day whenever I came to a rash bush. The next night I came to a solitary house, where I ventured to go in, and there I first gave myself the name of Tam Craik, telling abundance of lies as to my origin. The master of the house was a wealthy vassal, and had great numbers of fat oxen, with cows and calves, besides a few sheep, and he kept me to help him to herd these, promising me a grey coat if I attended to his satisfaction. He was a most extraordinary man, and none of the best – for his words and actions were at variance: Though he conversed with me, or any one, with the utmost familiarity, I never found out that he had told me one word of truth. The first friend that came to visit him after my arrival, he overloaded so with kindness, professions of friendship, and respect, that I believed he loved him as his own soul; and, after he was gone, as my master and I went out to the fields, I observed what a treasure it was to have so good and so valued a friend as he had in that neighbour of his. What was my astonishment to hear from the same tongue that had lauded him to the skies, that he was a cheat, a liar, and a scoundrel; – a greedy sordid wretch that robbed his own hinds, and such wandering pedlars as came by that road, not daring to venture on higher game; one who seduced men’s wives and daughters indiscriminately; and was, in short, a perfect demon, and a pest to the whole neighbourhood. ‘But, master, why did you caress and commend him so much to his face?’ ‘O! that is all very well; that goes all for nothing. He is to be sure a vile scoundrel!’ ‘There are queer people in this world,’ thought I: ‘There is nothing for it, I see, but, Tam, mind yoursel.’

The farmer continued very kind to me in his own deceitful way; but the meat that we got was very bad. It consisted of lean beef, and venison as black as soot, with plenty of milk; but as for bread we had none of any description. So, from the day that I entered to his service, I determined to kill a lamb, or a sheep of any sort, the first time I could get one; but I never could get the least chance, and might as well have tried to get hold of a deer. I could not help thinking of the delicious feasting that I had in my little shieling, dear as it had like to have cost me; and every day my appetite for fat flesh became more insufferable, till at last, by a grand expedient, I got satisfaction of it. I had thirty fat stots in my herd, and I observed that, in hurrying them through a bog, they sunk, and stuck quite fast: so, having no other resource, I drove a few of them one day, when I was very hungry, into a mire in a wood, and rushing forward on them while they were struggling, I sticked the fattest among them to the heart, so that he floundered and bled to death in the slough. ‘Well done again, Marion’s Jock!’ said I to myself. ‘Here is feasting for you now! Here is a feast that will last you a twelve month at odd times, if you can but preserve it.’ I declare when I began to cut up that huge animal, I almost trembled at my atrocity; but these kind of feelings soon wear off. I was obliged to eat some collops that day without any cooking, and never relished ought better; I wish we saw such a meal again! My thin yellow beard was a little discoloured to be sure, but that was nothing; I washed it, and went home as boldly among the rest as if nothing wrong had been done.

When I returned to my prey, I found to my great grief that the foxes, dogs, ravens, and every savage beast and hind on these mountains, were determined to share with me; they had actually eaten more in that one night than would have served me a week; – so the next day I employed myself in cutting off all the good, fat, and savoury pieces, and secreted them in well-springs, covering them up with stones; this I did to preserve them from the beasts and from putrefaction; and that day I am sure I had at least ten stones weight of excellent beef – the white and red were so beautifully mixed, it did one’s heart good to look at it.

Pleasures are of short date, and the greatest pleasures have the shortest! My master went over the lake next day to look at my herd, and I knew the ox would be missed. Had it not been for my beloved beef I would have made my escape forthwith; but my heart was knit to it, and for my life I could not leave it. I went home at night in great terror, but to my joy I never saw my master half so kind. He told me I had suffered one of my stots to be stolen, but what could the like of me help it: he had a rough guess who had taken him, and would perhaps make him repent it. I was perfectly overjoyed at this construction, and resolved to revel in feasting and gladness; but next day when I went back to my ox, the hide was neatly taken off him, so also was the head, and both were taken away. This was perfectly unaccountable to me; and I saw the marks of men’s feet in the mire, confirming the fact that some body had been there stealing the head and the skin of my ox, which were in my eyes not worth half the labour of taking them off. I knew not what to make of this, but it was evident that my prey had been discovered by some one; and all that I could calculate farther on was, that the hide had been stolen by some body who stood in need of it for shoes, and the head by one who wanted bugle-horns. It was all one to me, as I grew more and more a favourite with my master, who now began to caress me more than his own sons. No young lad in the land could be more thrifty about meat than I was. Being anxious to have the remainder of my bullock out of sight, I stole salt and a small barrel, and salted my stuff in a hole below ground; then, when no very good meat was going by day at my master’s house, I often fasted the greater part of it, and then taking a coal by night, I stole away into the wood, and roasted, and boiled, and feasted the whole night. The beef was delicious, and it was amazing what great quantities I sometimes snapped up at once; for even after I thought I could eat no more, there was a part of white marrowy substance about the joints, and the sides of the bones, that I could not give over – no man could give it over. Marry, how delicious it was! I account that fine meat mixed with white, that lies wedged in along the doublings and shelves of the bones, as the most glorious species of man’s food; – round the broad shoulder-bone, for instance, the spoolbone – that through which we look for the storms. Think but of the layers of the red and the white that lie bedded around that. Peatstacknowe, let me feel your shoulder. I suppose a man has no spool-bone – ah no! – none! Blessed Virgin! when shall I again shire the long crooked slices of the red meat, mixed with white, from the flats and the hollows of a broad spool-bone!

‘He is hungering and yearning to pick my bones, the cannibal dog,’ said Gibby. ‘But it brings me in mind of a good saying and a true: The swine that is most eager to feed itself is the first slaughtered to feed others.’

‘The horse-leach hath drawn thee aside from thy onward relation, thou froward and voracious one,’ said the friar: ‘Verily, it is better for thee that thou return to thy tale, before thy strength be consumed within thee.’

The loss of this sturdy ox of my master’s gave rise to strange matters; matters which quite confounded my judgment, and which to this day I do not comprehend. My master went away to the sheriff, and the lord of the manor, and made a complaint that his neighbour before-mentioned had stolen one of his cattle, the best that he had on his farm. This was the man that he caressed so much, yet knew to be a scoundrel. The complaint was attended to, and the injury deeply resented. My master returned with a strong body of men, and orders to seize Glendairg, and search all his premises; and if evidence appeared against him, he was to be carried before Lord William, called the Severe, and there imprisoned in the dungeon till time should be given him to clear himself, which, if he failed to do in a certain period, he was to be swung. All my master’s servants, men and women, were ordered to proceed with the party; I went among the rest, and certainly never witnessed so curious a scene. Glendairg came out and met the party with all the consciousness of innocence; and even when he was seized and bound, he still appeared to doubt of the sincerity of the men, especially when they told him it was at the instance of my master.

‘If that is all, it is well,’ said he; ‘I am sure my kind friend and neighbour can mean me no ill by it.’

My master took him aside, and said to him in the kindest and most soothing manner, ‘Do not be the least disheartened, my dear friend: You know how far I would be from injuring you. I would not do it for all the cows in my byre. I ken weel wha has the ox. There is little doubt but he is in our neighbour Bauldy’s beef stand. I have long suspected him, and many is the good beast I have lost. You little know how many good beasts I have lost, and was still so loth to make it public. But I can suffer it no longer. Let the skaith fall upon the skaither. In the mean time I know you are quite innocent, but I instituted this search as a blind to him: You must just submit and never mind it.’

‘O, very well, neighbour, very well,’ said Glendairg; ‘I knew you could not intend me any ill – search all out and in, and welcome.’

They did so; they searched all out and in, and at last, when about to give up, they found the individual ox’s hide that I slew in the bog, lying hid deep below some hay and corn in the corner of a barn. In another place still more unfeasible, they found the ox’s head. They were both laid upon the green, and my master and all his servants, myself included, swore to their identity, as we could not do otherwise. Glendairg looked like one bewildered, and said there was a plot laid against his life, which he neither understood, suspected, nor merited. The shrieve’s officers laughed him to scorn, and proposed to hang him up on the nearest tree; and I believed they would have done it, had it not been for the kindness of my master, who came forward with tears in his eyes, and addressed them somewhat thus:

‘Alas, my masters, this is a heavy and a sorrowful sight for me! This is the bitterest day of my life! I have lost many and many good cattle, and yet I would not – I could not, let myself suspect my intimate friend. Think how I am grieved to see these proofs. Yet perhaps he may be innocent, and this may be some vile plot laid against his life. I beg, therefore, that he may be set at liberty, and the whole business hushed up.’

‘You are a good man and a kind,’ said the men; ‘but this thing must not be. With our lord and master, justice must have sway; but we will report your goodness and generosity to him, and be sure it will not go unrewarded. We can assure you, that this man has not only forfeited his life, but all his farms, as well as his stock of cattle and sheep to yourself.’

For all this my master refused to be comforted, but wept and followed after the men, pleading for the life and the freedom of his friend, but he pleaded in vain; the men bound him on a horse, and carried him away with them to the dungeon of the castle of Coombe. I marvelled greatly at the great kindness and generosity of my master, knowing, as he did, that the man was a scoundrel; but I wondered far more what could induce the man to steal the hide and the head from off my ox.

My master was a married man, and had four children; and though he was apparently a kind husband, his wife seemed quite unhappy and discontented, which I thought highly unreasonable on her part. She knew more, however, than I did; and there are some small matters that women never patiently put up with. He had a number of servant-maids for the purpose of milking cows, making hay, and cheeses, and such things; and among them there was a very pretty one named Kelly, with whom he had fallen in love; and, after long toying and courting, he had seduced her. I knew nothing about these sorts of concerns; but I thought Kell, as we called her, the most beautiful, sprightly, and innocent being that lived, and I liked to look at her and hear her speak; and whenever she came near me, I was like to fall atrembling. She slept with a little child in a large open loft, above the room where my master and mistress slept; and it so happened that something came by night and frightened her, and she refused to sleep there any longer without some one beside her. I slept by myself in one of the outhouses; and it was immediately proposed by my master that my bed should be removed, and put up in the loft beside Kell’s. I was drunken with delight at hearing this intelligence; yet I pretended to be very averse to the plan, hanging my head, and turning about my back, when any one spoke of it, nor would I answer a word to one of them but ‘Tutt,’ or ‘tutts.’

‘Tam Nosey, it seems ye’re gaun to be bedded wi’ bonny Kell the night?’

‘Tutt!’

‘Ye’re gaun up to sleep beside her, and do ye think ye’ll never brik lair?’

‘Tutt!’

‘She’s a bonny burd yon, Tam, ye maun tak care.’

‘Tutts!’

Well, up I went the next night to sleep in a bed that stood side by side, or rather end by end, with that of Kell. Oh I was so terrified for her, or for having any communication with her, that I would not speak a word even when she spoke to me, but covered myself over the head with the bed-clothes, and lay puffing till I was like to choak for want of breath. I did not sleep well at all. I could not sleep, for she was always yawning, and then saying, ‘Heigh-ho!’ and then hushing the child to sleep. The next night I ventured to lye with my head out from beneath the clothes, unless when she spoke, which alarmed me exceedingly; and so I did the next night again, behaving myself with great magnanimity. At length I came to that pass, that when she spake to me I did not creep down beneath the bed-clothes, but only made a great bustle and flinging as if I had been hiding myself. This practice of deception I continued for several nights, always making more and more pouncing and scraping every time she addressed me. She laughed at me, and seemed highly amused, which made me still the worse. At length she said one night, ‘Pray do not creep through the house for fright; what makes you so afraid of me? what ill do you think I will do to you? Heigh-ho, Nosey! I wish the bogle may not come to-night. I am afraid it will come, for I thought I heard it. Look that it do not rise at the back of your bed, for that is a very dangerous place. If it come, Nosey, I must either come in beside you, or you must come in beside me –.’ ‘Tutts!’ said I, and that was my first word of courting; the first syllable that I spoke to Kell in that luckless loft. I said, ‘Tutts!’

I suspected no evil intention on the part of my kind and indulgent master, and far less on that of Kell; indeed, how could I suspect either? One day he said to me in the fields, ‘I do not know what to do about you and that wench Kell: for both your sakes I believe I must separate you. She is fallen in love with you, quite over head and ears, and has been complaining to our dame of your unkindness to her. We have a great regard for the girl, and cannot part with her – but, out of respect for you both, you must be separated. I will, however trust you together until next week; and if she do not complain any more, you may remain where you are; but I suppose I will be obliged to part with you then, though against my will.’

This was a terrible stound to my heart, and shewed my master’s masterly policy; for, notwithstanding of all my pretended aversion to the company of women, and to that of pretty Kell in particular, I would not have been parted from her at that time for all the world, not even for all the beef and bacon that was in it. I did not know well how to make up matters with her so as to retain my place, but I thought I would try. So that night I sat down on my own bed-side with my clothes on, and scratched my head, and beat with my bare heel against the loft; but she had lost all hope of gaining me to the measures agreed on between her and her master, and took no heed of me till I was obliged to speak first myself, when the following highly interesting dialogue passed between us:

‘I’m unco feared the bogle come the night, Kell.’

‘So am I!’

‘I wasna sure, but I thought I heard it yestreen!’

‘I aince thought that I heard it a wee too!’

‘How does it play when it is gaun to rise?’

‘It begins a scart, scarting, like a rattan, making holes, I fancy, to come out and take us away.’

‘Aih! then it has just been it that I heard!’

‘Oh! I’se warrant it was, and that I heard too!’

‘Ay; O it’s terrible! we’re ill, ill set here! but I’ll watch a’ night, and keep it aff you, Kelly.’

With that I came and sat down on the side of her bed, to keep the invidious scratching bogle away from her; but I soon became drowsy, and was like to fall down. She begged me to lay down my head on her pillow, but I would not hear of that. Oh! no, no, I durst not lie down there; so I stretched me on the loft at her bed-side, and fell asleep. Awakening before day, the first thing I heard was the bogle scratching. Kell had stretched her arm below the bed, on the side opposite to me, and was scratching slowly and fearfully; then, pretending to awake, she hid herself among the bed-clothes, muttered prayers, and cried, ‘Heigh-ho!’ I groaned; and, stretching my hand round the corner, scratched on the other side even more solemnly, and at more awful intervals than she had affected; so that we lay in great tribulation till the dawning of the day.

Afraid that I had still been too slightly obliging, and that I run the risk of being separated from her, I studied the whole day on the most becoming way of conducting myself, and entered on several most amorous resolutions; but the higher my resolves were, the more pusillanimous was my behaviour when put to the test. I durst not even touch the side of her bed that night; but the wicked unsonsy bogle still continued its scratchings, sometimes on the one side of the bed, and sometimes on the other, I was therefore obliged once more to sit down on her bed side, to guard her from its inroads. In sitting there I dropt asleep, and my head fell down on her pillow – it was impossible I could help that; and then she kindly laid the uppermost coverlet over me for fear of my catching cold; but I was by far too sound asleep to perceive it. She had to pull the covering from below me, in order that she might lay it above me – for all that I did not awake, which was a great pity, but always as she made the greatest stir, I sniffed the louder. A while after, I turned myself about, and gave my head a ketch toward the back of the bed, till my cheek came in contact with something soft; but it was in my sleep – and I was in one so profound, that I could not possibly know what that thing was. What a fright I got next morning on perceiving my situation! I sprung from the bed, and ran away to the hills to my charge, without speaking a word.

I was, however, quite intoxicated with delight, and endeavoured to ingratiate myself with my master, by paying every possible attention to his behests, lest I should lose so delightful a place both for stolen meat and approaching pleasures, which I perceived would still grow more and more sublime, and was glad when he said to me one day that Kell had given over complaining of my rudeness and incivility, and he would trust me as her companion for a little while longer. In the mean while, I was to take care and do nothing improper; but he had such trust to put in me, he was not afraid of that.

He was informed every day by this subservient beauty how matters proceeded; so he let them go on by degrees till they arrived at such a crisis as he desired, which was no more than a boy lying on a girl’s bed-side with his clothes on. He then came up with a light one night at midnight to see how his child was resting, pretending that he thought her ill, and found me lying sound asleep, where perhaps I should not have been, though I was as innocent and as free of his mistress as the child that lay in her bosom. He was in great wrath, and pulled me over the bed, giving me two or three gentle thwacks with his open hand: he also rebuked her very sharply, but said to us before going away: ‘Keep your own secret. For both your sakes I will conceal what I have seen, although you have acted so very improperly; but let me never catch you in the like fault again. If the church get hold of you, you are both undone.’

I was dreadfully ashamed; and thenceforward felt my heart quite reckless and desperate, disregardful of all danger or propriety; and my master made me still worse by telling me that I was to part from Kell in a few days, but that he did not like to put me away just then, for fear of awakening suspicions against us, for he had a great regard for us both! I laid all these things to heart, and could not then have staid from Kell’s bed-side a night, if my head had been to answer for it next day. One night we were informed that some strangers had come to the house and were making merry, and before we went to bed our master sent us something to eat and drink. I thought there was something going on that night, for I heard a great deal of muttering and saying of paternosters till a late hour. However, I took up my old birth, and after a while fell sound asleep. About midnight we were awaked by four or five gruff looking fellows, with long beards, and staves in their hands, who ordered us both to get up and dress ourselves. Our master made a speech to them, lamenting our guilt, and, with tears in his eyes, beseeching their clemency toward us; but at the same time said, that he could not suffer such immoralities under his roof: he had a family of his own coming up, and bad example was pernicious. Then he related what strict injunctions he had given us, yet we had continued to persist in our wicked unlawful courses; that, therefore, he had been obliged to give us up as lawless and irreclaimable delinquents.

All that he could now do was to intreat theirs and the holy fathers’ merciful clemency towards the youthful offenders; for that, although we had both mocked and set at defiance the statutes of holy church, he had hopes of our repentance and amendment: And with that he delivered us over to the officers of the church, whom he had trysted and suborned for that purpose. They said he was a good man, but that the offenders must needs suffer a heavy penance, in order that they might be again rendered pure and without blame, in the eyes of their fostering and protecting parent.

When Kell saw that she was betrayed and abandoned, her grief and despair knew no bounds, and she would doubtless have accused her master to his face had she been able to articulate aught distinctly – but she fell into fits, and they hurried her away. We were confined to cells in different religious houses, but both in the same ward. It is well known what tyranny prevails here, and what vengeance is wreaked against all those guilty of breaches of morality, especially if those possessed of riches or power desire it; but it is nothing to that which predominates over the west country, where I then was. They fed me on bread and water, though I asked for fat flesh, and longed for it every hour of the day: and always when the people assembled to worship, I was put in the juggs; that is, I was chained to the kirk wall with an iron collar about my neck, and every boy brought a rotten egg, or some filth, and threw at me, till I was all over bedaubed and plastered like a rough stone wall. The men gave me a kick, and the old maids spit upon me as they passed, but the young women looked on me with pity; and the old wives, before my time of penance was expired, espoused my cause, and defended me from the rabble. I heard them saying to one another, ‘Poor fellow, somebody may be the better o’him yet. What wad the mother that bore him say if she saw him standing in that guise? Surely she wad think the punishment far outwent the crime.’

One day, just when I was about to be set at liberty, I saw my kind master speaking to some of the holy brethren, and was glad when I saw him, thinking I saw the face of the only man on earth that cared for me. But he came with a different intent from what I supposed, namely, with the benevolent one of getting me hanged. He said he had missed some money out of his house ever since I came away; and though he should be sorry indeed to find any part of it on me, for his own satisfaction he requested to search my clothes in their presence, to which I submitted without reluctance, being conscious of my innocence. But he that hides knows best where to seek. It was not long before my kind master took out from between several of the button-holes in the breast of my grey coat, two gold moudiwarts, three silver merks, and several placks and bodles. In vain did I protest that I knew nothing about them; the brethren pronounced me the most incorrigible wretch and vagabond that traversed the face of the earth; and, as their jurisdiction extended not to such crimes as this, they sent me off with the proofs of my guilt to Lord William for judgment and execution. I shall never forget the figure I cut that day when brought before Lord William, and accused. I was in a wretched state as to clothes, having stood so long in the juggs. I had been hungered almost to death, and maltreated in every way, and altogether looked extremely ill. He asked them to go over the charges against me, when one of the brethren came forward and spoke to him as follows:

‘My noble Lord and benefactor, a worthy gentleman within our bounds of censure and controul, lodged a complaint with us against two of his servants that had been tempted by the devil to fall into lawless and sinful communication; and notwithstanding of all his admonitions and threatenings of church discipline, they not only continued in their mal-practices, but every day grew worse and more abandoned. He therefore prayed us to take cognizance of the offence, which, for the sake of their souls, and the general benefit of our community, we undertook. Accordingly, my lord, as he suggested, we went disguised as strangers, and at midnight we found this same young gentleman lying snugly in bed beside our friend’s principal maid-servant, the very maiden to whom he had entrusted the care of his children, one of whom lay in the bed with them. Think of the atrocity of this my lord, and look at the man!’

The judge did so, and could not help smiling.

‘What do you say to that master?’ said he, ‘Is it truth?’

‘Yes,’ said I.

This answer made him burst out a laughing. ‘Upon my word,’ said he, ‘you are a most extraordinary youth! Was the girl pretty, say you, monk?’

‘The woman was indeed very beautiful, my lord.’

‘She has been blessed, however, with a singular taste. I think the stripling may almost be excused for this crime.’

The monk then related the circumstances of the stolen money having been found on me, at which the judge shook his head, and said, ‘Alak, it is all over with him. He is unfit to live. What do you say to this, sirrah? Is it true?’

‘Yes,’ said I.

‘True that you stole your master’s money?’ said he.

‘No, I never stole it, but it is true that it was there.’

‘What? you found it I suppose? Tell me the truth, did not you find it?’

‘No, I never found it, nor ever saw it till it was taken out of my coat yesterday. I never had either gold or silver in my hand in my life.’

‘Your woman took it and sewed it in for you, then, I suppose?’

‘I do not know who took it, or how it came there, but there it certainly was.’

‘Did you ever part with your coat to your sweetheart? Did you ever lend her it to mend, or leave it at home with her?’

‘I have often on warm weather left my coat at home for three or four days rinning.’

‘But you declare you did not take the money?’

‘I never saw the money, nor heard of it till yesterday.’

When I said this, he looked stedfastly on me as if he had discovered something he saw not before. There was no man on earth could discover truth like Lord William. ‘Who is this youth’s accuser?’ said he. They told him it was sleeky Tam.

‘I have observed of late,’ said he, ‘that that gentleman never searches that he does not find, and never accuses that he does not bring proof. I have caused several to be executed on the evidences raised by him, and have always remarked that he is the only profiter by their being put down. We must move with more caution. Let that wench be brought before me, and stop the execution of Jock’s Sandy, whom I ordered to be hanged to-morrow.’

My late benevolent master was watching the course of these events with punctuality, and was terribly chagrined when he heard that his neighbour Jock’s Sandy was reprieved. He was almost beside himself; but, having great influence with the holy brethren, he persuaded them to retain Kell under their jurisdiction, and not give her up to Lord William. In the course of his scrutiny he had likewise discovered some of his gold pieces on her, and had doomed her to destruction with the rest; yet, at the same time, he told the holy fathers to be lenient, and altogether to overlook that fault, which had originated from the first, and that was one to which youth was liable. He conjured them not to give her up to William the Severe, who would infallibly doom her to an ignominious death. If she had deserved that, he said, it was much better that she should die privately, in which case he would pay seventy merks annually to the church for the securing of her soul. He was frightened for the meeting of so many criminals before Lord William, wicked as we were; and so high was the influence of the convent, of which this was a branch, that the brethren refused to give up the offender to Lord William’s officers.

After my first examination was over, I was thrust into a dungeon beside Jock’s Sandy, who had been cast to die for stealing the ox which I myself slew; and, when we began to converse freely together, what a tissue of deceit was unraveled! He asked me if I knew any thing about that ox for which he was to lose his life! I said I knew very well about the ox, for I had killed him myself: ‘And what a great fool you were,’ said I, ‘to incur so much danger for the sake of a nout’s hide and a pair of horns, for these you certainly did steal.’

The man was perfectly amazed when I told him all the truth, and promised to procure me as much fat flesh as I could eat every day, if I would tell the truth of the story to Lord William. I catched at the offer, for I had suffered so much in my stomach of late, that I would have done far more than he required of me for such an advantage. Indeed I would have done any thing, or said any thing in the world, that I might once more enjoy my beloved mess. He proved as good as his word, for before night the keeper brought me a whole apron full of bits and scraps of the fattest meat that I ever saw – beef, mutton, and pork. There were some square pieces of perfect, pure white fat, that I sliced down like cheese! They were from the flanks of fat beeves, the briskets of wedders, and the ribs of fatted hogs; and I could not but admire the want of good taste among the gentles who had left these savoury bits to their slaves and prisoners. I was so delighted that I could not sleep by night, but always awakened from my straw and fell a-munching. I wish we saw such a feast again; but, indeed I saw nothing, for our house was in utter darkness; but it was a good meat house, and I could have been content to have lived in it all my life.

In a few days I was once more carried above ground for examination, where I told the whole truth boldly, but was not believed. No one would give credit to the tale, that I had slain one of my master’s fattest oxen for the sake of good cheer; such a thing, they said, would never come into a stripling’s head, and I had been suborned to my evidence by my fellow prisoner. Lord William asked if there was any proof remaining that I could produce in support of my assertion? I said I had a part of the beef remaining, well salted up in a barrel below ground, and covered with a moss divot; and that I had likewise some hid for fresh meat in some cold well springs, and I would shew them these if they liked. I was sent with a guard, and shewed them the remains of my ox; and when this was reported to Lord William, he called me a rogue and a glutton, and caused them to tie a rope about my neck and lead me through the streets of the town naked, lashing me with a whip all the way. He then bade me make off with myself, for if I was found within twenty miles of that place where I stood, he would cause me to be hewed in pieces.

My late master was taken up, and examined face to face with those he had accused; but how he contrived to elude justice I never knew: ten years after, one informed me that the dame Kelly had accused him before Lord William of having seduced her, and that in the most disgraceful way, and then of forcing me into the situation in which I was caught, for a screen to his own guilt and shame. For all that, it seems poor Kell was returned to the convent, and never more heard of, and sleeky Tam possesses both his own and his neighbour’s farm at this day.

I had begun to think that ill deeds throve best; but I now conceived that I had paid very dearly indeed for my late pleasures of feasting and love, being almost flayed alive. I cried bitterly as I fled, and cursed Lord William and his ragamuffins that had scourged me, and vowed to myself, if I lived to be a man, that I would be revenged on them. I likewise cursed my deceitful master, but I did not curse poor Kell; indeed I found that it was for her I wept most bitterly, thinking myself the cause of all her shame and suffering.

I fled next into a country called Galloway, a place which some of you may have heard of by chance; but I found it the worst meat country, and the worst country altogether, that I had ever seen. I lived there for a number of years, leading a sort of vagabond life, but quite an honourable one. I learned naturally among them to be a great thief, and an acute liar; but I never stole any thing but fat flesh, nor do I account any thing else worthy of running the risk for – from that no danger ever could, or ever shall debar me. I care not much what sort it be, provided it be juicy, and a layer of white next the bone. I wonder whether men’s flesh is likest to beef, or mutton, or venison?

‘I wish ye wadna always turn your green een on me that gate when you speak about your fat flesh,’ said Gibbie. ‘I assure you, mine is neither like beef, nor mutton, nor venison; and, what is more, you shall never taste it. I appeal to you all, masters and friends, if this man has not fairly fallen through his tale.’

‘I suppose it must be very like veal, then,’ continued Tam; ‘and if so, I have seen a joint of cold veal very excellent meat, more especially that adjoining the white gristly part; with a little salt, a man can eat a great deal of that without being any thing the worse.’

‘My masters, I do protest against these carnivorous looks of the story-teller,’ rejoined Gibbie; ‘they make ane feel so queerly. It is as if he were tearing my flesh quick from the banes with his teeth. And I call you to note that he has sticked a story, which, from the beginning, is no story.’

‘Stay till it be done, an you please,’ said Tam; ‘the best of my tale is yet to come; and any man may be allowed a breathing space and a little refreshment.’

At Castle-Fern I fell in with an old man called the Gorb, an itinerant fencer, who travelled the country teaching the art of the sword. To him I attached myself, somewhat against his will; for I saw that, though he was not everywhere a welcome guest, he was nevertheless a privileged one, and always admitted. He was six feet high, with a beard that hung to his middle, and his frame was entirely composed of bones and sinews. The feats that he described to me of warrior prowess first raised in me a desire to learn his noble art; and as soon as I began to manifest a partiality for his profession, he began to attach himself to me, but in a manner so ungracious, that if I had not been a being quite desperate, I never could have borne it. We moved on from place to place; the young men of the country assembled in parties, as we passed, to attend his lessons; and at night we had free-quarters wherever we went; that is, the Gorb was a free man – but many pointed inuendos were thrown out against my introduction as an additional burden. These people had better have let the matter pass over, for he did not fail to pay them back with interest in bitter and sarcastic retorts. On some of these occasions he gave me a terrible character of the country and its inhabitants.

‘You are come, poor man, to sojourn in the worst country under the cope of heaven,’ said he, ‘into a place where there is no faith, no honour, no money, and very little meat.’

‘What do they live on in general?’ said I.

‘On some wretched roots, pulse, and black corn,’ said he; ‘some lean unhealthy fish, and still more lean and sapless cattle.’

‘I like the country a great deal the worse,’ said I. ‘Is the flesh here so very lean?’

‘Why ask?’ said he; ‘have you not witnessed it?’

‘No, I am very sorry I have not,’ said I. ‘I supposed it had been lent in this country. As for their faith or honour I care not a pin. Their money is of little avail to me; but I hate to stay in a country where there is no meat: and how they can transact business without money is beyond my comprehension.’

‘They have none, however,’ said he, ‘nor was there ever any in this country. They transact all their business on a thing called credit, which commonly attaches itself to a man for a number of years, sometimes for a long, and sometimes a very short term. This enables him to cheat his neighbours for a time, and all his exertions tend only to this, namely, how many he can take in, and to what amount; and when he has gone as far as this ideal quality of his can carry him, he takes to the bent, and leaves them all in the lurch. This is the exact state of this blessed country called Galloway, and will be its state as long as it continues to exist. The only rational hope concerning it is, that, as it is a sort of butt-end of the creation, it will perhaps sink in the ocean, and mankind will be rid of it.’

He then took a hearty fiendish laugh at the conceit of the country being sunk, and went on –.

‘After all, I cannot help being amazed at the rascally crew. Do you not see how suspicion and distrust are stamped on every countenance? Every man makes a bargain with apparent reluctance, and with a dread that his neighbour is going to cheat him; and he is never mistaken. Such is the country, and such are the people to whom you have now come, and such must they ever continue to remain. It is in their nature to be so, and they cannot be otherwise. Here am I, their master and benefactor, who have spent my life in teaching them the noblest of all sciences, without which they could not have defended their country. I have taught every chief in the country, and every one of their vassals, and how am I requited? Ill-clothed, worse fed, and not a bodle in my purse. All my recompense is the freedom of living a life of fatigue and wretchedness.’

‘I will not stay another night in the country of such a parcel of rogues,’ said I.

‘You are wrong,’ answered he: ‘It is the best country you can be in. You have nothing to lose, and you may gain much. Experience is a man’s greatest riches; and of that you will gain abundance. You will here learn hourly how to oppose cunning to cunning; and I will teach you the noble art of opposing masterly skill to brutal force, until you may haply be established as my assistant and successor.’

‘I would rather dispense with the honour,’ said I: ‘You are too lean for me to think of being your successor. Were you a fat full-fed man, I would not say what I might do to attain the distinction; but I have made up my mind to one thing, which is, always to have my meat, honestly if I can, but at all events to have it.’

‘You are so far right in your principle,’ said he: ‘For when we consider of it, a man can have very little more than his meat in this world, for all the struggling and strife there is in it. But since you set so high a value on good living, I can, if I please, assist you to it; for, poor and wretched as I appear, and as I am, I have a right to call for and command the best in every house. I could likewise take their clothes, for money they have none; but it would be like tearing the hearts out of the dogs – so I content myself with the meanest fare, rather than humble myself to ask ought of them.’

‘You are an extraordinary man,’ said I: ‘But when I look at you, I cannot conceive this privilege of yours to exist in aught but in theory.’

‘You shall see,’ said he. ‘What sort of meat would you prefer?’

‘Fat flesh at all times and all seasons,’ said I: ‘There is nothing like that. Whether it be the flesh of bullock, hog, or wedder, the fattest is always the best.’

‘What a kite! What a raven! What a dog!’ exclaimed he: ‘Well, you shall have it, if it were but to kill you of a surfeit.’

We were lying in a barn when this discourse occurred, and I could not but wonder what the old fellow would do. It was customary for us to take our breakfast at the place where we lodged, and if I might judge from our supper, the place where we then were gave no prospect of very rich fare.

The breakfast was produced; a quantity of black brochen and lentiles. The master of defence wist not how to break the ice by introducing a refusal of the proffered meal! but he considered himself as pledged to me, and his haughty spirit would not succumb. His looks were particularly embarrassed and amusing, and I saw that he would gladly have been free of his engagement, as he began a long palaver of general remarks. I kept up my good hopes, and gave him always an expecting look now and then, to make him hold to his resolution. The people of the house paid little attention to his harangue, till at length he concluded with these words:

‘Such being the case, and such the state of the country, I am obliged now to claim all my rights, privileges, and dues from every vassal of my lord of Galloway, as well as from every subject of our liege lord the king, whose commission I bear. Goodman Latchie, I accept no more of black croudy and lentiles for breakfast: I claim, order, and command the best that is in this house. In place of that hog’s meat, let us have a rasher on the coals, if you so please.’

‘The muckle fiend be atween your teeth, then, to choak you wi’ the first bite!’ said the goodwife.

‘Farmer Latchie, I contend not with women,’ said the man of the sword: ‘Are you aware of my rights, or do you know and dispute them?’

‘I consider yours as merely a nominal right,’ said he, ‘which no man is bound to fulfil, because no man does it. All my lord’s vassals treat you with common fare. Why should I do more?’

With that a raw-boned young man stepped forward, with a black beard and a ruffian look. He was the farmer’s eldest son, and his name was John.

‘What is all this din about,’ said he: ‘Let me speak, will ye, Master Gorb? Either take that which is set before you, or go away without it. I say that.’

‘You say that? Do you, sir?’ said my master.

‘Yes; sure I do,’ said he: ‘I says that, and I’ll say it again too, to be sure I will.’

‘Then there is my gage, sir. Do you know to what you have subjected yourself?’ said my master, pulling out his sword, and laying it on the board: ‘You have given the king’s ordained swordsman the denial; you must fight him, or find one on the instant to do it for you. If he kills you, he is entitled to take off your head and send it to the king; and if you kill him, you lose your head, and all the goods and chattels of your house are to be confiscate. Rescue or no rescue? Draw, craven! or yield me up the keys of your pantry, your chest, and your sunken cellar, you dog.’

‘I does nae see the sense o’ that, Master Gorb,’ said John, with a countenance right sorely altered: ‘that a man maunna say his awn’s his awn, or what’s his father’s is his father’s, but that he maun tak up sword and swordsman. I does nae fear thee. It’s no to say that I fears thee; but I winna be bullied intil aught; and I just tells thee, that I’ll neither fight thee nor suffer thee to get a scrap o’aught better than is set afore thee; and gang and seek thy mends. Now I says that.’

‘Thou art a craven and a nincompoop,’ said my master, with the highest indignation; ‘and I lift my pledge, and will report thee to thy betters.’

‘Do if thou mayest,’ cried old Latchie, running to an armour chest, and taking from thence a sword and buckler. ‘Disgrace of my house! To give the challenge, and then to flinch. Have with thee, Bellwether! I will give you to know, that old masons are the best barrowmen.’

‘I ground my pledge again, and I take thee,’ said my master. But now the old woman came running between them, crying out, ‘Deil be i’your teeth! deil be i’ your teeth! Tak a’ that’s i’ the house an’ haud you wi’t: there are the keys; there are the keys! deil be i’ your teeth, take a’ – and let us alane o’ your din.’ The Gorb waved the keys aside with his arm in high indignation; but the wife clung to her point. ‘I take you a’ witnesses,’ cried she, ‘I take you a’ witnesses, I have offered him the keys, and he has refused them. Here, young Gorb; young hing-by-the-gut, take ye them, take ye them. Deil be i’ your teeth, take a’ that’s i’ the house.’

I took the keys lest they should be forgot in the hurry; the two old fellows took to the field with sword and buckler, while both the old dame and her son John strove to interfere; but the old yeoman silenced them both with a word, and I thought he would have struck his son down with the sword, so much was he enraged at his behaviour.

I had seen much sword play by this time in the way of amusement, or lesson-taking; but I had never seen two men meet in deadly foil, and I trembled for the event; for I judged, that if the old Gorb was killed, it would fare hardly with me, being conscious that I was the moving cause of the combat. My master’s demeanour was altogether inimitable. He went through every thing as if it had been a matter of mere ceremony, first slipping gracefully to one side, crossing his hands on his breast, bowing profoundly, and then shaking hands with Latchie: then swimming gracefully to the other side, and repeating the same manoeuvre. Last of all, he wheeled about, cut some wild flourishes with his sword, and took his distance. The yeoman bit his lip, and appeared to be viewing all these things with disdain; but he set himself firm on his legs with his left foot foremost, and setting up his broad bonnet before, waited the onset. The Gorb on the contrary advanced with his right foot foremost; and, instead of availing himself of the buckler as the former did, he came forward bearing it up behind him as high as his head. He seemed to wear it merely because the other did, but he was too proud to make any use of it. Nothing ever did, or ever will exceed the singularity of that combat: the figures of the men, and their manner of fighting, being so different. Latchie was short and squat, the Gorb somewhat like the skeleton of a giant. The art of fighting which the former pursued was to shield himself behind his broad buckler, peep over it, and now and then make dreadful blows around it with the full swing of his body, as if he meant to cut my master through the middle, or shear off both his thighs. On such occasions the Gorb, beside parrying the stroke, made such tremendous springs off at a side, that he rather appeared like a spirit than any thing of bones, sinews, and blood, for as to flesh there was none on him; and at every one of these leaps he uttered a loud ‘Hoh!’ as if he had been mortally wounded, or in great danger of having been so; yet all the while his face was so sublimely grave and serious as if every movement were to have been his last. He never attempted to hit the yeoman, and had apparently no other aim in fighting, than merely to show his dexterity in fencing, retreating, and advancing. I deemed that all was over with him, and began to be mortally afraid of myself; and any man would have acknowledged what good reason I had, if he had witnessed with what looks the wife and son regarded me. Every one of them thought the Gorb had the worst of it, and that the farmer was sure of the day. Indeed by this time there was little doubt of it. The old wife thrice clapped her hands, and screamed out, ‘Weel proven, goodman! that gars him scamper! Weel proven, Daniel Maclatchie! Lie to the breastleather.’ At these words I began to look over my shoulder, and meditate a most strenuous flight. But now the most novel scene of all occurred: my master still continued to change his ground, and to skip and fly about, until at length the yeoman, encouraged by his wife’s words, came hard upon him, and, heaving up his shield a little, he came with a deadly stroke round below it, ettling to cut off both my master’s legs. ‘Hoh!’ cried the Gorb, as loud as he could vociferate; and as the little squat yeoman stooped to the stroke, he made such a spring into the air that he leaped fairly over his head; and as he passed like a meteor over above him, he gave him such a slap with the broad side of his sword on the hind cants of the head, that it made the farmer run forward and fall with his nose on the ground. He was again on his feet, however, in an instant, and faced about, while his eyes streamed with water from the sharpness of the stroke. This feat astonished the Latchies; but the wife cried out, ‘A barley! a barley! foul play! – he’s fighting on springs.’

‘Emblem true of thy accursed country!’ cried the Gorb, and kicking off his sandals at her head, he took his ground on his bare soles. The combatants set to it again; but the yeoman was now on his guard, and fought shy, standing on the defensive. My master soon grew tired of this way of fighting; and, after two or three flying feints at an attack, in a moment he wrenched Latchie’s sword from his grasp, and threw it into the air like a sling-stone. The lookers on gazed in amazement – and the astonished yeoman traced the course of his erratic weapon, which, after forming an arch like a rainbow, lighted at the distance of forty yards. John, the farmer’s son, was the first who ventured a remark on the phenomenon, which he did with his accustomed shrewdness, and in the Cumberland brogue, which he had learned by living some years in that district.

‘Feyther, I thinks thou hast thrown away thee swoard.’

‘Ay,’ said his father, biting his lip, and looking after it.

By this time the Gorb had his sword at Latchie’s throat, crying, ‘Rescue, or no rescue, I say? Yield, traitor, or die.’

Latchie paid no regard to him. He only bit his lip, looked after his sword, and stood his ground firm without moving, showing a most unyielding and dauntless spirit.

The Gorb repeated his threat, but the yeoman paid no further attention to it than before.

‘What an unlucky accident!’ said he. ‘Had I not thrown away my sword, I would have humbled you.’

‘Do you regret the loss of your sword so much?’ said the Gorb. ‘Will you promise, on the honour of a good yeoman, not to throw it away in like manner again?’

‘Promise?’ said the other: ‘I will swear on it, and by it, never to part with it in like manner again.’

‘Young man,’ said my master to me, ‘run and bring me this brave yeoman’s sword.’

I brought it, and he took it by the point, and delivered it back to the owner with all manner of courtesy. Latchie took it in his hand, and let the point of it slant towards the ground in token of submission.

‘Nay, nay, I deliver it,’ cried my master. ‘I would not see such a man show fear or pusillanimity for any thing. Exchange me three times three, and no more; and God stand by the right. I counsel thee, moreover, to assume thy best defence, as I propose to do thee all manner of injury.’

‘So be it. I defy you still,’ said Latchie, and took his ground a second time. His wife and son spoke a great deal by way of interference, but were totally disregarded. The combat began again with more fury than ever; but at the second or third time of crossing their weapons, Daniel Maclatchie’s sword betook itself again into the firmament, and after tracing nearly the same course as formerly, alighted on the same spot.

‘You are the devil and none else,’ said Latchie, ‘and I yield to my conqueror. I am at your disposal.’

‘And I will use my advantage, as in duty and in honour bound,’ said the Gorb: ‘Rise up my friend and brother; you are a man of true genuine spirit. I honour you, and I estimate your country more this morning, for your sake, than I have hitherto done. I claim your friendship as a brother in arms. You shall not have cause to repent this spirited encounter.’

The farmer was greatly flattered by this speech. I gave up the keys; and there was no end of kindness and endearment between the two old fellows. We had our rasher on the coals; and I think I have scarcely risen from a better diet than I did that day. I got the greater part to myself, for the rest were all so busy talking and drinking cold ale, that they hardly thought of the bacon. It was nicely toasted, and the fat stood on it like small drops of honey. But I must not dwell on the recollection else I shall faint.

At our meal the yeoman offered my master a new war cloak, with belts, bands, and haversack, if he would tell him by what means he disarmed him with such ease, and in so extraordinary a manner; but the other absolutely refused.

‘It is allowable in chivalry,’ said he, ‘to learn and practice any mode of manual defence, and to keep that mode a secret till you prove it on your opponent. That is my secret, and by that mode I would forfeit my life, nay my character itself, to disarm any man that ever pointed a two-edged sword at my breast.’

‘I should have liked very much to have known that secret of his,’ said Charlie Scott.

‘I found it out privately with the most perfect certainty,’ continued Tam; ‘but durst never let him know that I understood aught of the matter. It was owing to his sword’s handle, which was made for the purpose. It had an inner shell of steel polished like glass; then an outer one of basket-work, formed with rounded bars in such a manner that, by turning his hand in a slight degree to humour the position of the opponent’s sword, and dashing his hilt against the point of it, that entered between those of the cross-bars, and, running up the polished steel within, bent and fixed itself; then by a sudden wrench against his opponent’s thumb, of which he was a perfect master, he not only disarmed him to a certainty, but generally left his arm powerless. After I had discovered it, I went by myself to try the experiment, fixed my own sword, and taking my master’s in my hand, I pushed the basket of that slightly against the point of the other, and behold it fixed in it so close, that with all my might, and all my art, I could not extricate it without breaking it in two, and, in that case, I saw I would leave the point sticking where it was, which I durst not do for my life. At length it came into my head to do as my master did. This had the effect at once; the vibration in the blade caused by the swing and jerk, made it loosen, and it flew away through the air like a fiery dragon.’

‘Master Michael Scott,’ said Gibbie, ‘and my friends, I again appeal to you all if this man has not fallen through his tale. It is turning out no tale at all, but merely an offputting of time, till we shall all perish of hunger.’

‘The story of the hapless maiden Kell, and of our hero’s first essays in love, I did admire and prize,’ said the poet.

‘Od help your crazed head,’ said Charlie: ‘I wadna gie that duel atween the twa auld chaps for a creelfu’ o’ love stories.’

‘Lo, the tale is good,’ said the friar; ‘but it goeth here and there, without bound or limit; and wherefore should not a man relate all that befalleth unto him. I suppose it behoveth our friend to go on, without turning aside to the right hand or to the left.’

‘My tale is indeed long, but to me it is momentous. I should stop here pleasantly; but life is sweet – and, to give me a fair chance for mine, I beg to be permitted to relate one adventure more.’ This, after some demur, was granted, and Tam went on:

After spending several years among the hills of Galloway, and being approved of by the Gorb (as he was called by every body, though his name was Macdougald) for a good swordsman, I tired of the country, being persuaded that the ground did not fatten the cattle properly; and from the moment I began to suspect that, I had no more satisfaction in the place, but utterly despised it. I perceived that their beef was never above an inch thick in the ribs, and what was worse, it was not properly mixed with white layers of fat; even the doubles in the broad bone of the shoulder were nothing but pure red lire. This will never do, thought I. How I despise the people that can put up with such a country as this!

‘Master,’ says I, one day, ‘I am quite tired of this country, and am going to leave it.’

‘Wherefore are you going to leave it, Thomas? Have not I been better and kinder to you than to myself?’

‘For all that, master, I am resolved not to sojourn another week in it.’

‘I warned you that they were a deceitful people before,’ said he; ‘but we must take them as they are. We cannot make mankind as we would wish to have them.’

‘It is not for the men, nor for the women either, that I dislike the country so much,’ said I.

‘What is it then for?’ said he.

‘It is,’ said I, ‘because I suspect that their grass is not of a good quality.’

I will never forget the look that the Gorb turned on me. He was walking somewhat before me, but when he heard my reason for disliking Galloway he wheeled about, and, taking one of his most striking upright positions, with his lean shoulders set up like two pins, he stared at me with his mouth wide open; and then put the following questions to me at long intervals.

‘Grass! eh! How do you mean?’

‘Look at it,’ said I; ‘What substance is in that wiry stuff, and on these hills of black heather!’

The Gorb’s jaws fell down with dismay. He visibly thought that I was deranged, but he answered me mildly to humour my malady.

‘True, the grass is not good; it never was, and never will be so. But I have not observed that you ever eat much of it; nor can I see how a man’s happiness any way depends upon the quality of the grass of a country.’

‘If that be all the sense that you have,’ thought I, ‘I will disdain for my part to exchange another word with you on the subject. Since you think that a man’s happiness can depend on any thing else but good grass, you shall be followed no longer by me.’

‘Well,’ continued he, after waiting a while for an answer, ‘I see you are sulky about this whim, but I will humour it. I have nearly finished my terms among the mountains, and we shall descend upon the shores, where there is as good grass as any in Scotland, and I promise you full liberty to go into every field that you chuse, and take your bellyful of it. I have likewise many things to teach you, which will amuse you in the highest degree, and which belong to the sublime art of legerdemain.’

‘What is that?’ said I.

‘It is the art,’ said he ‘that enables us to see things and people as they really are. There is scarcely any thing on this earth really what it appears to be; and this art I have yet to teach you.’

From that day forward he began and performed feats that entirely bewildered my senses, but which furnished, wherever we were, a great fund of amusement; all the young people believed him to be in compact with the devil. I have forgot them all but one, which I will remember as long as I live.

We came to a wealthy yeoman’s house on the river Urr, where we were to remain several days; and while he exercised the farmer’s sons in fencing, I kept the young peasants in exercise – and then in the hall in the evenings he went on with his cantrips. There was a delicious shoulder of bacon hanging up on the farmer’s brace, among many meaner hams and pieces of wretched dried flesh. I believe I had fixed my eyes on it, and perhaps my heart a little too. Whether the Gorb noticed this and dreaded the consequences or not, I cannot tell, but he began a speech about things not being what they appeared to be, and offered to give us a striking instance.

‘Take down the choicest and best ham among all these above the fire,’ said he. I did so, taking down the shoulder of bacon with great alacrity.

‘Take down the worst,’ said he. I did so; it was one of venison dried like a crooked stick.

‘Which do you account the best?’ said he. I told him. ‘Well, you are mistaken,’ said he; ‘and I’ll convince you of it. Roll them both neatly up in straw, or as you will.’

I did so.

‘Now, do you know the one from the other?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very well: heave them up again that you may not be mistaken in the weight. Now, cross your hands, and heave them with different hands. Quite sensible they are the same?’

‘Quite sensible.’

‘Very well. Take them aside by yourself and look at them. You will now see them as they really are, not as they appeared to your eyes.’

I hastened and opened out the shoulder of bacon. It was nothing but three dried bones, hanging together by tendons, and stuffed up into the shape of an overgrown shoulder of bacon with brawn, which was covered round with a piece of sow’s hide. I shed some tears at this blighting discovery; for though the bacon was not mine, I felt in my heart that I did not know how matters were to come about. I hung the two hams up as they were, and was cured of my itching eye; but no man can tell how things will come round to the advantage of an acute and clever fellow.

While we were at that house, the country was raised to follow the Lord of Galloway into Cumberland. It was a great rising, the utmost quota being demanded of every yeoman in the country, in terms of his villanage. Our landlord got a charge to find five, whereas he had none to send save three, unless he and his eldest son both went, which would have been grievously against him at that time; so he applied to my master and me to go on his behoof, offering large conditions, which were soon accepted. The principal, if not the sole thing that induced me to go out on that raide, was the stipulation that I was to have my choice of all the meat in the house, to the amount of what I could conveniently carry on my back in a march. After a great deal of choosing, I fixed on a small beef-ham, because it was solid, and no bones in it, and blest my master’s ingenuity that had let me into the secret of the deceitful shoulder of bacon. The next that came after me was a blade of endless frolic and humour, named Harestanes. He instantly snapped at the bacon-ham, and popped it into his goatskin wallet, nodding his head, and twisting his mouth at me, as much as if he had said, ‘What a taste you have! I am glad you had not the sense to take this.’ I could easily have prevented him, by revealing the secret; but he had always been trying to make a fool of me, therefore I could scarcely contain my mirth at his mistake; and resolved to enjoy his disappointment in full. He was a sprightly handsome youth, and had such a forward and impertinent manner that he contrived to make friends in every family that we passed by, particularly with the women, so that he lacked nothing that he desired; and tho’ I watched him night and day for fear of losing the sport, he never took out his bacon to break it up till the fourth day after our departure. My beef-ham was by that time more than half done. It was a most wretched piece of meat, being as hard as wood, and bitter as gall; but I was still comforted with this, that it was so much better than my comrade’s.

It was about eight o’clock on a morning, on the English side of the Border, that Harestanes first loosed out his wallet to make a breakfast of his bacon; and he being very hungry, I sat down beside him to enjoy the sport, taking out my black beef likewise. All that I could do I could not retain my gravity while he was loosening the cords, and taking the straw from his ham, which made him look wistfully at me, and ask what the fool meant? But when I saw him look seriously and greedily at it, and then take out his knife to cut off a great slice, I lost all power, and fell on the ground in a convulsion of laughter, while my voice went away to a perfect wheezle. He could not comprehend me in the least degree, and actually began to cut! yes, he actually began to cut through the bristly skin, while I lay spurring the ground, and screaming with anticipation of the grand joke that was to ensue. Before I could recover my sight from amid the tears of extravagant mirth, the scene was changed; and I shall never forget the position in which the puppy sat, when my eyes cleared. No, it is impossible I ever can forget it! Conceive a wicked impertinent frolicksome whelp of a tailor, for he was nothing better, who had been with Sir Robert Graham’s maids all the night, and was so hungry that you might almost have cast a knot on him, sit down to take a hearty luncheon of his bacon ham; and then conceive his looks when he found he had nothing but rubbish and dry bones. If you conceive these, you will conceive the very scene that I saw, at least that I conceived and saw in my mind’s eye. How could I but laugh? No! It was impossible I could abstain from laughter; – but yet, for all that, things turned out quite the reverse. He had actually sliced off a rasher of bacon, the fattest, the whitest, and the most beautiful rasher of bacon ever I had seen in my life! There were three distinct layers of lire and fat, curving alternately through it like quarter moons. No man ever beheld such a sight! He sliced out another piece, which was still more perfectly beautiful than the preceeding one. My eyes darkened. I had seen enough to shew me the enormity of my folly, and my irreparable loss! He roasted his rashers on the fire. The fat fried out of them, and flamed among the embers; and when he laid them on his bread, they soaked it all with pure liquid fat. And there was I sitting beside him, gnawing at my piece of infernal beef, the sinewy hip of some hateful Galloway stott that had died of the blackleg, and, having been unfit for ought else, had been dried till the hateful substance was out of it. Yet I had my choice of both, and took this. I shall never wish any friend of mine to suffer such pangs as I did that morning; for all that I had suffered in my dangers and disappointments was nothing to them. I would fain have slain the Gorb privately; but not daring to do that, I resolved never to see his face again, after the vile trick he had played. All my hopes and all my enjoyments of the foray being now ended, I resolved on taking my departure, and that by the time my enemy had the first slice of bacon eaten.

We had orders to halt all that day, for the Johnstons and the Jardines were a day’s march before us. Their advanced columns had fallen back; and as the troops were sleeping or straggling about, I prepared for my departure. My comrade having been with the knight’s women all the night, a set of creatures madder than himself, he was quite worn out; and as soon as he got his inside lined with the salutary beverage, he fell fast asleep. An inward light now began to dawn on my heart, brighter than the sun at noon day, and lighting my steps forward to future felicity. My breath cut short with ecstatic delight, and my knees trembled as I formed the resolution of changing hams with my hopeful comrade. His wallet was lying open – not so the tailor’s eyes: I might have exchanged coats, and shoes too, for him. The great work was done in an instant. I whipped out his shoulder of bacon, and put my piece of black timber in its place. ‘Take you that, honest man,’ said I to myself: ‘Time about is fair play. I have given you something that will exercise your jaws for a while.’

When I found that I had this most delicious of all morsels on my back, I was so light that I scarcely felt my feet touch the ground; and there being no time now to lose, I made straight away into England; for I durst not turn towards Scotland, the sentinels being so very thick on that quarter. Our advanced guard was composed of the Gordons from the Ken – a set of desperate raggamuffins whom I durst not have gone among had it not been fair forenoon. I had my wallet on my back and my sword by my side; and when I saw any of them eyeing me, I went up to them and asked how far the Johnstons were before us?

‘What the devil was I wanting with the Johnstons?’

‘O, I was afraid there might be a battle fought before I saw it, which I would not should happen for any thing in the world.’

‘Hear to the coulter-nibbit piper,’ said one.

‘He is as like supping a pint o’ fat brose as killing an Englishman,’ said another.

‘I wadna trust him wi’ ought beyond a litter o’ English pigs,’ said a third.

‘Let him gang forrit, and fiend that he get his chafts clawn the first sword that’s drawn! I wadna that his name were Gordon for a hunder civis.’

Accordingly I got liberty to pass; but as soon as I got out of sight, I turned to the left, and escaped to the moors of Bewcastle. I had now found out the invaluable art of flint and frizzle, and could kindle a fire whenever I pleased. So I sought out a lonely wild dell, and lighting a fire of birns and strong heather, roasted two slashing slices of my shoulder of bacon. I also took a good shave of bread from my friend the tailor’s hearth-bannock; but after all I could not think of adulterating the savoury delicious fare by any unnatural intermixture – so I ate up the dry bread by itself, and then smacked up the bacon afterwards. I cannot describe my sensations of delight, not only in my meal, but in contemplating the beauty of the object. I sat long feasting my eyes on the beauty of the slices before I committed them to the coals. They were curved so beautifully in semi-circles, the fat and the lire time about, that, unless for such an object, the term beauty would have no meaning. They lay alternately, as if it were this way, and this way, and this way.

‘I protest against your drawing of your pictures on my shoulder,’ cried Gibbie; ‘and also against the party being any longer mocked with such fulsome trash in place of a story. Do you not perceive, Sir Master, and do you not all perceive, that he is havering and speaking without end or aim? He is sensible that he has failed in his story; and that a dismal fate awaits him, and all that he is now intent on is driving of time.’

‘I confess that I am sick of the bacon and other fat things,’ said Charlie.

‘My soul disdains the abject theme,’ said the poet: ‘Its tantalizing sight is like the marshfire’s vacant gleam to the bewildered wight. ’Tis throwing meat to hungry souls, with fainting sore opprest; or drink unto the parched lips, whereof they may not taste.’

‘Let us show some spirit, wretched as we are,’ said Gibbie, ‘and protest with one assent against being farther sickened, as well as mocked by such loathsome stuff.’

‘This is unfair, and using undue influence,’ cried Tam. ‘None of you were thus interrupted, but got time to finish your stories as you liked. Mine is not done; the best part of it is yet to come, and I say it is unfair. Great Master, you sit as judge; I appeal to you. My life has been varied. Let them chuse what sort of a theme they want, and I will fit them, only suffer me to relate one other exploit.’

The Master, on whom hunger seemed to make no impression, thought the request was reasonable; but in making choice, every one of them, young and old, pitched on a different subject, so that Tam could not get proceeded; neither can this chapter, as an extraordinary incident befel, which naturally brings it to an end.