The Men of the Moss-Hags

I lay in my naked bed and listened all the night with unshut eye. I could hear in my mother's room the boards creak as she rose every quarter hour and looked out into the rayless dark. Maisie Lennox of the Duchrae, old Anton's daughter, now a well grown lass, lay with her. And Sandy's young wife, Jean Hamilton, with her sucking bairn, was in the little angled chamber that opens off the turret stair near by.

It befell at the back of one, or mayhap betwixt that and two, that there came a sound at the nether door that affrighted us all.

"Rise, William! Haste ye," cried my mother with great eagerness in her voice, coming to my door in the dark. "Your father is at the nether door, new lichted doon from off Gay Garland. Rise an' let him in!"

And as I sat up on my elbow and hearkened, I heard as clearly as now I hear the clock strike, the knocking of my father's riding-boots on the step of the outer door. For it was ever his wont, when he came that way, to knap his toes on the edge of the step, that the room floorings might not be defiled with the black peat soil which is commonest about the Earlstoun. I have heard my father tell it a thousand times in his pleasantry, how it was when my mother was a bride but newly come home and notionate, that she learned him these tricks. For otherwise his ways were not dainty, but rather careless – and it might be, even rough.

So, as I listened, I heard very clear outside the house the knocking of my father's feet, and the little hoast he always gave before he tirled at the pin to be let in, when he rode home late from Kirkcudbright. Hearing which we were greatly rejoiced, and I hasted to draw on my knee-breeks, crying "Bide a wee, faither, an' briskly I'll be wi' ye to let ye in!"

For I was a little lame, halting on one foot ever since the affair of Tinkler Marshall, though I think not to any noticeable extent.

My mother at the door of her chamber cried, "Haste ye, William, or I must run mysel'!"

For my father had made her promise that she would not go out of her chamber to meet him at the return, being easily touched in her breast with the night air.

So I hasted and ran down as I was, with my points all untied, and set wide open the door.

"Faither!" I cried as I undid the bolt and pushed the leaves of the door abroad, "Faither, ye are welcome hame!" And I could hear my mother listening above, for his foot over the threshold. Yet he came not within, which was a wonder to me. So I went out upon the step of the nether door, but my father was not there. Only the same strange chill wind went round the house, soughing and moaning blindly as before, and a smoor of white fog blew like muirburn past the door.

Then my hair rose upon my head and the skin of my brow pricked, because I knew that strange portents were abroad that night.

"What for does your faither no come ben the hoose to me?" cried my mother impatiently from the stairhead. I could hear her clasping and unclasping her hands, for my ears are quick at taking sounds.

"I think he must be gone to the stable with Gay Garland, to stall him beside Philiphaugh," I answered, for so my father's old white horse was named, because in his young days my father had been at that place on the day when Montrose and his Highlandmen got their settling. This is what I said to my mother, but indeed my thought was far other.

I lifted a loaded pistol that lay ever in the aumrie by the door-cheek and went off in the direction of the stable. The door was shut, but I undid the pin and went within. My father was not there. The horses were moving restlessly and lifting their feet uneasily as they do on ice or other kittle footing. Then of a truth I knew there was something more than canny abroad about Earlstoun that night, and that we should hear ill news or the morning. And when a bundle of reins slipped from the shelf and fell on my shoulder like a man's hand clapping on me unaware, I cried out like a frighted fowl and dropped almost to the ground. Yet though I am delicate and not overly well grown in my body, I do not count myself a coward; even though my brother Sandy's courage be not mine. "Blind-eye, hard-head" was ever his sort, but I love to take my danger open-eyed and standing up – and as little of it as possible.

As I went back – which I did instantly, leaving the stable door swinging open – I heard my mother's voice again. She was calling aloud and the sound of her voice was yearning and full like that of a young woman.

"William!" she called, and again "William!"

Now though that is my name I knew full well that it was not to me, her son, that she called. For that is the voice a woman only uses to him who has been her man, and with her has drunk of the fountain of the joy of youth. Once on a time I shot an eagle on the Millyea, and his mate came and called him even thus, with a voice that was as soft as that of a cushie dove crooning in the tall trees in the early summer, till I could have wept for sorrow at my deed.

Then as I went in, I came upon my mother a step or two from the open door, groping with her arms wide in the darkness.

"Oh," she cried, "William, my William, the Lord be thankit!" and she clasped me to her heart.

But in a moment she flung me from her.

"Oh! it's you," she said bitterly, and went within without another word, her harshness jangling on my heart.

Yet I understood, for my mother was always greatly set on my father. And once when in jest we teased her to try her, telling her the story of the pious Æneas, and asking her to prophesy to us which one of us she would lift, if so it was that the house of Earlstoun were in a lowe.

"Faith," said my mother, "I wad tak' your faither on my back, gin a' the lave o' ye had to bide and burn!"

So it was ever with my mother. She was my father's sweetheart to her latest hour.

But when I went in I found her sitting, sheet-white and trembling on the settle.

"What's ta'en ye, mither?" I said to her, putting a shawl about her.

"O my man, my bonny man," she said, "there's nane to steek your e'en the nicht! An' Mary Gordon maun lie her leesome lane for evermair!"

"Hoot, mither," I said, "speak not so. My faither will come his ways hame i' the mornin' nae doot, wi' a' the lads o' the Kenside clatterin' ahint him. Sandy is wi' him, ye ken."

"Na," she said calmly enough, but as one who has other informations, "Sandy is no wi' him. Sandy gaed through the battle wi' his heid doon and his sword rinnin' reed. I see them a' broken – a' the pride o' the West, an' the dragoons are riding here an' there amang them, an' haggin' them doon. But your faither I canna see – I canna see my man – "

"Mither," I said, mostly, I think, for something to say, "Mind the Guid Cause!"

She flung her hands abroad with a fine gesture as of scorn. "What cause is guid that twines a woman frae her ain man – an' we had been thegither three-an'-thirty year!"

In a little I got her to lie down, but the most simple may understand how much more sleep there was in Earlstoun that night. Yet though we listened with all our ears, we heard no other sound than just that blind and unkindly wind reestling and soughing about the house, groping at the doors and trying the lattices. Not a footstep went across the courtyard, not the cry of a bird came over the moors, till behind the barren ridges of the east the morning broke.

Then when in the grey and growing light I went down and again opened the door, lo! there with his nose against the latchet hasp was Gay Garland, my father's war-horse. He stood and trembled in every limb. He was covered with the lair of the moss-hags, wherein he had sunk to the girths. But on his saddle leather, towards the left side, there was a broad splash of blood which had run down to the stirrup iron; and in the holster on that side, where the great pistol ought to have been, a thing yet more fearsome – a man's bloody forefinger, taken off above the second joint with a clean drawing cut.

My mother came down the turret stair, fully dressed, and with her company gown upon her. Yet when she saw Gay Garland standing there at the door with his head between his knees, she did not seem to be astonished or afraid, as she had been during the night. She came near to him and laid a hand on his neck.

"Puir beast," she said, "ye have had sore travel. Take him to the stable for water and corn, and bid Jock o' the Garpel rise."

The dark shades of the night were flown away, and my mother now spoke quietly and firmly as was her wont. Much in times bygone had we spoken about sufferings in the House of Earlstoun, and, lo! now they were come home to our own door.

CHAPTER IV.

SANDY GORDON COMES OVER THE HILL ALL ALONE

The House of Earlstoun sits bonny above the water-side, and there are few fairer waters in this land than the Ken water. Also it looks its bonniest in the early morning when the dew is on all sides, and a stillness like the peace of God lies on the place. I do not expect the Kingdom of Heaven very much to surpass Earlstoun on a Sabbath morning in June when the bees are in the roses. And, indeed, I shall be well content with that.

But there was no peace in Earlstoun that morning – no, nor for many a morning to come. I was at the door watching for their coming, before ever a grouse cock stirred among the short brown heather on the side of Ardoch Hill. I told my mother over and over that without doubt Sandy was bringing father home.

"Gay Garland was aye a reesty beast!" I said. "Doubtless he started when my faither had his foot in the stirrup, and has come hame by himsel'!"

But I said nothing about the finger in the holster.

"Anither beast micht," said my mother, looking wistfully from the little window on the stair, from which she did not stir, "but never Gay Garland!"

And right well I knew she spake the truth. Gay Garland had carried my father over long to reest with him at the hinderend.

"Can ye no see them?" cried my mother again, from the room where ordinarily she sat.

Even Jean Hamilton, who had been but three years a wife, was not as restless that fair morning of midsummer as my mother, for she had her babe at her breast. In which she was the happier, because when he cried, at least she had something to think about.

Three weeks before, in the midst of the sunny days of that noble June, my father, William Gordon of Airds and Earlstoun, and my elder brother Alexander had ridden away to fight against King Charles. It took a long arm in those days to strive with the Stuarts. And as I saw them ride over the brae with thirty Glenkens blue bonnets at their tail, I knew that I was looking upon the beginning of the ruin of our house. Yet I went and hid my face and raged, because I was not permitted to ride along with them, nor to carry the Banner of Blue which my mother the Lady of Earlstoun, and Jean Hamilton, Sandy's wife, had broidered for them – with words that stirred the heart lettered fair upon it in threads of gold, and an Andrew's cross of white laid on the bonny blue of its folds.

My mother would have added an open Bible on the division beneath, but my father forbade.

"A sword, gin ye like, but no Bible!" he said.

So they rode away, and I, that was called William Gordon for my father, clenched hands and wept because that I was not counted worthy to ride with them. But I was never strong, ever since Maisie Lennox and I rode home from the Tinklers' Loup; and my mother said always that she had more trouble at the rearing of me than with all her cleckin'. By which she meant, as one might say, her brood of chickens.

To me my father cried out as he rode out of the yard:

"Abide, William, and look to your mother – and see that the beasts get their fodder, for you are the master of Earlstoun till I return."

"An' ye can help Jean to sew her bairn-clouts!" cried my brother Sandy, whom we called the Bull, in that great voice of his which could cry from Ardoch to Lochinvar over leagues of heather.

And I, who heard him with the water standing in my eyes because they were going out in their war-gear while I had to bide at home, – could have clouted him with a stone as he sat his horse, smiling and shaving the back of his hand with his Andrea Ferrara to try its edge.

O well ken I that he was a great fighter and Covenant man, and did ten times greater things than I, an ill-grown crowl, can ever lay my name to. But nevertheless, such was the hatred I felt at the time towards him, being my brother and thus flouting me.

But with us, as I have said, there abode our cousin Maisie Lennox from the Duchrae, grown now into a douce and sonsy lass, with hair that was like spun gold when the sun shone upon it. For the rest, her face rather wanted colour, not having in it – by reason of her anxiety for her father, and it may be also by the nature of her complexion – so much of red as the faces of Jean Hamilton and other of our country lasses. But because she was my comrade, I saw naught awanting, nor thought of red or pale, since she was indeed Maisie Lennox and my friend and gossip of these many years.

Also in some sort she had become a companion for my mother, for she had a sedate and dependable way with her, solate and wise beyond her years.

"She is not like a flichty young body aboot a hoose," said my mother.

But in this I differed, yet said nothing. For no one could have been to me what young Maisie of the Duchrae was.

After Sandy and my father had ridden away, and I that was left to keep the house, went about with a hanging head because I had not ridden also, Maisie Lennox grew more than ordinarily kind. Never had a feckless lad like me, such a friend as Maisie of the Duchrae. It was far beyond that love which the maids chatter about, and run out to the stackyard in the gloaming to find – oft to their sorrow, poor silly hempies.

Yet Maisie May and I greeted in the morning without observance, but rather as brothers whom night has not parted. In the day we spoke but seldom, save to ask what might be needful, as the day's darg and duty drifted us together. But at even, standing silent, we watched the light fade from the hills of the west and gather behind those of the east. And I knew that without speech her heart was trying to comfort mine, because I had not been judged worthy to ride for the Covenants with her father and mine, and in especial because Sandy had openly flouted me before her. This was very precious to me and kept up my manhood in mine own eyes – a service far above rubies.

Thus they rode away and left the house of the Earlstoun as empty and unfriendly as a barn in hay harvest. From that day forward we spent as much time looking out over the moor from the house, as we did at our appointed tasks. I have already told of the happenings of the night of the twenty-second of June, and of my mother's strange behaviour – which, indeed, was very far from her wont. For she seldom showed her heart to my father, but rather faulted him and kept him at a stick's end, especially when he came heedlessly into her clean-swept rooms with his great moss-splashed riding-boots.

Of this time I have one thing more to tell. It was between the hours of ten and eleven of the day following this strange night, that my mother, having set all her house maidens to their tasks with her ordinary care and discretion, took down the bake-board and hung the girdle above a clear red fire of peat. Sometimes she did this herself, especially when my father was from home. For she was a master baker, and my father often vowed that he would have her made the deacon of the trade in Dumfries, where he had a house. He was indeed mortally fond of her girdle-cakes, and had wheaten flour ground fine at a distant mill for the purpose of making them.

"Mary Hope," he used to say to her in his daffing way, "your scones are better than your father's law. I wonder wha learned ye to bake aboot Craigieha' – tho', I grant, mony's the puir man the faither o' ye has keepit braw and het on a girdle, while he stirred him aboot wi' his tongue."

This he said because my mother was a daughter of my Lord Hope of Craigiehall, who had been President of the Court of Session in his time, and a very notable greatman in the State.

So, as I say, this day she set to the baking early, and it went to my heart when I saw she was making the wheaten cakes raised with sour buttermilk that were my father's favourites.

She had not been at it long before in came Jock o' the Garpel, hot-foot from the hill.

"Maister Alexander!" he cried, panting and broken-winded with haste, "Maister Alexander is comin' ower the Brae!"

There was silence in the wide kitchen for a moment, only the sound of my mother's roller being heard, "dunt-dunting" on the dough.

"Is he by his lane?" asked my mother without raising her head from the bake-board.

"Ay," said Jock o' the Garpel, "a' by his lane. No a man rides ahint him."

And again there was silence in the wide house of Earlstoun.

My mother went to the girdle to turn the wheaten cakes that were my father's favourites, and as she bent over the fire, there was a sound as if rain-drops were falling and birsling upon the hot girdle. But it was only the water running down my mother's cheeks for the love of her youth, because now her last hope was fairly gone.

Then in the middle of her turning she drew the girdle off the fire, not hastily, but with care and composedness.

"I'll bake nae mair," she cried, "Sandy has come ower the hill his lane!"

And I caught my mother in my arms.

CHAPTER V.

THE CLASH OF WORDS

A doubtful dawn had grown into a chosen day when I saddled in Earlstoun courtyard, to ride past the house of our kinswoman at Lochinvar on a sad and heavy errand. Sandy has betaken himself to his great oak on the border of the policies, where with his skill in forest craft he had built himself a platform among the solidest masses of the leaves. There he abode during the day, with a watch set on the Tod Hill and another on the White Hill above the wood of Barskeoch. Only at the even, when all things were quiet, would he venture to slip down and mix with us about the fire. But he swung himself swiftly back again to his tree by a rope, if any of the dragoons were to be heard of in the neighbourhood.

During all this time it comes back to me how much we grew to depend on Maisie Lennox. From being but "Anton Lennox's dochter" she came to be "Meysie, lass" to my mother, and indeed almost a daughter to her. Once, going to the chamber-door at night to cry ben some message to my mother, I was startled and afraid to hear the sound of sobbing within – as of one crying like a young lass or a bairn, exceedingly painful to hear. I thought that it had been Maisie speaking of her sorrow, and my mother comforting her. But when I listened, though indeed that was not my custom, I perceived that it was my mother who grat and refused to be comforted.

"O my William!" she cried, moaning like a child that would sob itself to sleep, "I ken, O I ken, I shall never see him mair. He's lyin' cauld and still at the dyke back that yince my airms keepit fast. O thae weary Covenants, thae weary, weary Covenants!"

"Hush thee, my dawtie, say not so!" I heard the voice of my cousin Maisie – I could not help but hear it, "The Lord calls us to do little for Him oursels, for we are feckless women, an' what can we do? But He bids us gie Him our men-folk, the desire o' our hearts. Brithers hae I gie'n, twa and three, and my last is my father that lies noo amang the moss-hags, as ye ken!"

But again I heard my mother's voice breaking through in a querulous anger.

"What ken ye, lassie? Brithers and faither, guids and gear, they arena muckle to loose. Ye never lost the man for wha's sake ye left faither an' mither, only just to follow him through the warl'!"

And in the darkness I could hear my mother wail, and Maisie the young lass hushing and clapping her. So, shamed and shaken at heart, I stole away a-tiptoe lest any should hear me, for it was like a crime to listen to what I had heard. But I am forgetting to tell of our riding away.

It was a morning so buoyant that we seemed verily up-borne by the flood of sunlight, like the small birds that glided and sang in our Earlstoun woods. Yet I had small time to think of the beauty of the summer tide, when our father lay unburied at a dyke back, and some one must ride and lay him reverently in the earth.

Sandy could not go – that was plain. He was now head of the house and name. Besides the pursuit was hot upon him. So at my mother's word, I took a pair of decent serving men and wended my way over the hill. And as I went my heart was sore for my mother, who stood at the door to see us go. She had supplied with her own hands all the decent wrappings wherewith to bury my father. Sandy further judged it not prudent to attempt to bring him home. He had gotten a staw of the red soldiers, he said, and wished for that time to see no more of them.

But I that had seen none of them, was hot upon bringing my father to the door to lie among his kin.

"The driving is like to be brisk enough without that!" said Sandy.

And my mother never said a word, for now Sandy was the laird, and the head of the house. She even offered to give up the keys to Jean Hamilton, my brother's wife. But for all her peevishness Jean Hamilton knew her place, and put aside her hand kindly.

"No, mother," she said. "These be yours so long as it pleases God to keep you in the House of Earlstoun."

For which I shall ever owe Jean Hamilton a good word and kindly thought.

The names of the two men that went with me were Hugh Kerr and John Meiklewood. They were both decent men with families of their own, and had been excused from following my father and brother on that account.

Now as we went up the hill a sound followed us that made us turn and listen. It was a sweet and charming noise of singing. There, at the door of Earlstoun were my mother and her maidens, gathered to bid us farewell upon our sad journey. It made a solemn melody on the caller morning air, for it was the sound of the burying psalm, and they sang it sweetly. So up the Deuch Water we rode, the little birds making a choir about us, and young tailless thrushes of the year's nesting pulling at reluctant worms on the short dewy knowes. All this I saw and more. For the Lord that made me weak of arm, at least, did not stint me as to glegness of eye.

When we came to where the burn wimples down from Garryhorn, we found a picket of the King's dragoons drawn across the road, who challenged us and made us to stand. Their commander was one Cornet Inglis, a rough and roystering blade. They were in hold at Garryhorn, a hill farm-town belonging to Grier of Lag, whence they could command all the headend of the Kells.

"Where away so briskly?" the Cornet cried, as we came riding up the road. "Where away, Whigs, without the leave of the King and Peter Inglis?"

I told him civilly that I rode to Carsphairn to do my needs.

"And what need may you have in Carsphairn, that you cannot fit in Saint John's Clachan of Dalry as well, and a deal nearer to your hand?"

I told him that I went to bury my father.

"Ay," he said, cocking his head quickly aslant like a questing cat that listens at a mouse-hole; "and of what quick complaint do fathers die under every green tree on the road to Bothwell? Who might the father of you be, if ye happen to be so wise as to ken?"

"My father's name was Gordon," I said, with much quietness of manner – for, circumstanced as I was, I could none other.

Cornet Inglis laughed a loud vacant laugh when I told him my father's name, which indeed was no name to laugh at when he that owned it was alive. Neither Peter Inglis not yet his uncle had laughed in the face of William Gordon of Earlstoun – ay, though they had been riding forth with a troop behind them.

"Gordon," quoth he, "Gordon – a man canna spit in the Glenkens without sploiting on a Gordon – and every Jack o' them a cantin' rebel!"

"You lie, Peter Inglis – lie in your throat!" cried a voice from the hillside, quick as an echo. Inglis, who had been hectoring it hand on hip, turned at the word. His black brows drew together and his hand fell slowly till it rested on his sword-hilt. He who spoke so boldly was a lad of twenty, straight as a lance shaft is straight, who rode slowly down from the Garryhorn to join us on the main road where the picket was posted.

It was my cousin and kinsman, Wat Gordon of Lochinvar – a spark of mettle, who in the hour of choosing paths had stood for the King and the mother of him (who was a Douglas of Morton) against the sterner way of his father and forebears.