The Mosstrooper: A Legend of the Scottish Border

“But, husband,” entreated the gentle-hearted lady, “resolve upon nothing until your passion has cooled down. Your spirits are flushed at this moment. There is no knightly virtue so brilliant as that of compassion for the vanquished foe.”

“But what a foe this is, Alice,” said the knight, “a mosstrooper – an outlawed and broken man – a miscreant who lives upon spoliation and rapine. He can claim no compassion.”

“Still, to put him to death, miscreant as he is, may bring the vengeance of his confederates on the Scottish side upon you, husband. Consider this: his death may add another to the many grounds of feud and fray which the turbulent Scottish chiefs have against you. And we have suffered much from the hatred of the Border Scots.”

“It does not move my compassion for this ruffian,” returned the knight, with a dark gloom on his brow, “thus to rake up the memories of our past wrongs and sorrows. Can I forget that, through the fell hatred of some caitiff-Scot, we are this day childless and heirless?”

“Childless, indeed!” sighed the lady, as, with a burst of grief, she sank on her husband’s shoulder and wept aloud.

Sir Dacre was equally affected, but he forbore all signs of woe. He essayed to soothe his weeping wife, and laid her gently into a chair.

“Ay,” said the knight, as he moodily perambulated the room, “Scottish hatred has struck at the root of our house, and will behold its extinction in a few short years. The house of De Ermstein traces its long descent from the chivalrous Norman who followed the Conqueror, and shared in the perils and glories of the field of Hastings. And shall this long line terminate with me? Alas! my name shall be erased for ever from the princely roll of English nobles.”

“O, that child – that lost, lost child!” sobbed the weeping lady. “Twenty years have deepened the sad wound of my soul!”

“Childless, heirless,” resumed Sir Dacre. “And this old house to close with me? One of my ancestors received the praise of King Edward on the field of Falkirk, where the Scottish rebels were scattered; another did his devoir gallantly under bold King Hall at Agincourt; and a third stabbed down the hump-backed Richard on Bosworth. We have all our ancient baronial honours about us. But oblivion is destined to swallow up all!”

“Let this outlaw live,” cried the lady, starting from the chair, and clasping her husband’s hands. “Shed no blood that may cry from the ground against us. Vengeance is the prerogative of Heaven alone. We who are in the midst of sorrow, who have no prospects but dark ones, we should excel in deeds of mercy. Let him live, keep him captive all his days, but shed no blood. I implore his life, husband; I implore it from the bottom of my heart.”

The knight beheld her with amazement.

“Alice,” he said calmly, “your feelings overpower you. This outlaw must suffer. I am here in the stead of the minister of Justice, who shall perform my duty.”

Chapter X

But young Beichan was a Christian born,And still a Christian was he,Which made them put him in prison strang,And cauld and hunger sair to dree,And fed on nocht but bread and water,Until the day that he mot dee.– Lord Beichan.

ON being taken from the courtyard, Ruthven Somervil was, without delay, committed to close ward in the Donjon-keep. The armourer of the castle brought a pair of heavy chains, which he rivetted upon the prisoner’s wrists and ankles, and secured the ends to a ring in the wall. The prison cell was low, small, and dark; two narrow loop-holes scarcely admitted the feeblest light. The captive heard, with a shudder, the bolts and bars drawn upon the door, and hammers driving them securely into their staples, and chains fastened across the door as an additional security.

Oppressed with the weight of his fetters, and more so by the insupportable weight of his disaster and despair, the outlaw sank down upon the floor of the cell, and lay for a long period silent and inert in body and soul. Consciousness scarce seemed within him. To look upon his motionless figure one would have thought him dead.

Almost involuntarily he raised his hand to his breast and felt, with a thrill of joy and sadness, the little reliquary found on his neck when left at the gate of Hawksglen, which still hung at his heart. For many years Elliot kept this mysterious trinket carefully locked up in his cabinet, and had refused to part with it even upon the urgent solicitations of Ruthven previous to his quitting the castle. But, after he joined the band of Hunterspath, Lady Eleanor contrived to gain possession of the trinket, unknown to her father, and, at an interview which she granted to her outlaw lover on the banks of the lake, she delivered it into his hands. Around his neck he had worn it ever since, and he was resolved to go to the grave with it. He now drew forth the little trinket, and, surveying it for a moment in the dim light, pressed it to his lips, for the sweet memory of her from whose hands he had received it as a love-gift. How his soul, as it roamed through the memories of the past, dwelt upon that meeting near the lake, as a weary traveller of the desert lingers long on the bosom of the green, shady oasis, with its glancing springs and flowing waters.

And this was an oasis in his life; before, behind, around it was all the desert in its barrenness. His soul recalled that autumn eve, with all its beauty and sweetness. Yonder shone the lake in the fading glories of the western sky. Eleanor was standing beneath the whispering shade of hazel, and he stood by her side, gazing on the fair young face that drooped with emotion; the mantling blush on the smooth cheek, the drooping of the eyelids, the bosom that heaved with sad and joyful thoughts, the lovely being whose heart was his, whose hand was pledged to him.

The captivity, the prison, the chains, the prospect of death, all were forgotten in the vision which the golden reliquary called magically into being.

But the “visioned scene” fled, like a delusive mirage, and, as it dissipated, it left the dungeon and the chains revealed and felt. The captive had left the oasis for ever, and was now in the midst of the waste, howling desert, horrors behind, and before, and around! Pent up within the four grim walls, only to be led forth to hear his doom, and thence to the place of death – a chained and powerless victim, prostrate beneath the uplifted, menacing hand of Destiny. Plunged in deepest despair, not a ray of hope could penetrate such a dungeon or such a despairing heart. The last sands of a troubled life were running out fast. And this was to be the end of him who was nursed in the lap of luxury, on whose career the crimes of others had cast a baleful influence. This the end of him who had gained fair Eleanor’s heart. Alas for Eleanor!

The mental stupor returned, he lay sluggish on the ground; the little golden reliquary had lost its magic power. Like him who languished in the vaults of Chillon, he could have said —

“I had not strength to stir or strive,But felt that I was still alive.”

And there was freedom on the green heights of Cheviot, on the wide Border which he rode so long, in the halls of Hunterspath, where he had defied all power and every enemy. But he was a captive, chained to the wall like a dog. The time wore by unheeded; a ray of sunlight trembled into the cell, and vanished, and the wind began to blow – the wind that sounded high on Cheviot. The captive still sat grovelling on the ground.

He had a fancy that the door of the dungeon was hammered open, that a glare of torchlight illuminated the place, that voices arose, that forms passed before him.

“He is in despair,” said one voice; and another answered: “He well may be so, for on the third morning he dies.”

And then something like a laugh echoed through the cell.

“I will leave the food for him,” said a voice again. “He will wake and be glad of it.”

And the other voice said:

“Pity that so comely a youth should have followed the lawless career of a robber. In his King’s service he might now have been a knight, and they say of him that he comes of noble blood.”

“That is why our good lady pleads so strongly for his life.”

“But she pleads in vain,” said the other voice. “Sir Dacre’s purpose is fixed. Noble or ignoble, this robber leader shall die; and the Border will be quiet after it. I will leave the bread and water.”

And there was a drawing and hammering of bolts, and the clanking of chains, and then silence. And the captive awoke as from a dream, and saw the bread and water on the cold floor, near where he lay. The bitterness of his captivity was coming.

Chapter XI

“When purposed vengeance I forego,Term me a wretch, nor deem me foe;And when an insult I forgive,Then brand me as a slave, and live.”– Rokeby.

ON the following forenoon the captive outlaw was brought up from his cell to be confronted with De Ermstein, in the great hall of the castle. When the myrmidons intimated this to Somervil all his dejection and helplessness left him; he scorned that, in this his trying hour, an enemy should behold him cast down by misfortune, or in despair at the apprehension of a speedy death. Summoning all his daring courage, he became indifferent to whatever fate might await him; and he followed his keepers with a firm step and a flashing eye.

In an antique chair, set upon the dais or elevation at the upper end of the spacious hall, sat the stern knight of Warkcliff, attended by an imposing array of armed retainers. The deepest stillness prevailed when the prisoner appeared and was led up to the foot of the dais. Those who anticipated exultation at the sight of his misery were greatly deceived; they were startled on beholding his fearless mien and deportment. His face was calm but stern; and his eye met that of De Ermstein, but never quailed. He could not have displayed more bravery had he then stood upon the battlements of Hunterspath, with all his wild band around him. Not all the power of De Ermstein – not all the horrors of approaching death – could daunt him in a moment when faint-heartedness would have been deep disgrace.

“You have dragged me hither,” began the outlaw, in a firm, measured tone, “to speak the doom which you are impatient to utter.”

“You are here,” answered Sir Dacre, standing up, “to receive that doom which your life of rapine makes justice. The sufferings of my vassals, whom you so frequently have despoiled, call for redress at my hands, and upon your head. I gratify no private malice, no private feud, in pronouncing judgment of death upon a villain who stands outlawed by both kingdoms. And the terror of such a judgment may have a salutary effect upon the many lawless ruffians who infest the marches, and, by their depredations, give constant causes for disturbing the peace of these kingdoms.”

“By destroying my life,” replied the outlaw – “a life placed at your mercy by an act of the foulest treachery – you shall gratify your own malice more than redress the sufferings of your dependants. To you, Sir Dacre, I have long been a personal and detested foe. The defeat at Hawksglen can never be obliterated from your memory; the disgraceful rout of the predatory forces, under your command, rankles yet in your breast, and has stained your escutcheon, which has been still more indelibly stained by the deed of treachery and ruffian guile which threw me into your power – ”

He was here interrupted by the clamour of the attendants; the jailor even placed his hand upon his mouth to stop his speech; and some cried out to dash his brains against the wall for such insolence to such a knight. Sir Dacre himself was confounded by the audacity of the mosstrooper’s speech; but his high pride conquered his indignant emotions, and, affecting to smile, he imposed silence upon his retainers, and forbade any one to interfere, either by word or deed, in what should follow.

“I thank you, Sir Dacre,” cried the captive, “for silencing the empty clamour of your armed serfs. I have much to say, and I will not be overborne by insolent tumult. On you, Sir Dacre de Ermstein, I charge treachery and fraud unworthy of the last scion of the noble house of Warkcliff. I have defied you behind the battlements of Hawksglen, on the field of your defeat – defied you as a soldier and a freeman should – but never did I stoop to treachery and fraud to gain an advantage over my foe.”

“How, churl! of what fraud speak you?” demanded Sir Dacre.

“The fraud which rivetted these chains on my limbs,” answered Somervil, elevating his fettered hands. “It was fraud so dastardly and so base that it will ever cover you with shame, and expose you to the deep scorn of all whose hearts are warmed by feelings of honour.”

“Thou art beyond the pale of honour as well as of law,” retorted De Ermstein, with a blush on his hard face. “To what code of honour, observed by thyself, canst thou appeal? Wretch, this insolence, this show of frontless audacity, will avail thee nothing save to hasten thy doom. It is my sentence that upon the third morning hence thou shalt hang at the cross of Warkcliff!”

An approving hum and murmur broke from the attendant soldiery, and there came a momentary palor over the captive’s face; but it was the result of a mere evanescent emotion, and soon passed away.

“Hear me, Sir Dacre,” he exclaimed, with passionate ardour. “You have pronounced my doom, and that doom I am ready to meet. The prospect of the speedy approach of death has terrors in it for those only who have found life pleasant, and who bask under the smile of fortune, and stand high and fair in the world, who have kindred and loving friends, who have wealth and luxury to leave behind them. To such the fear of death is terrible. But I, who, from my ill-fated birth, have been the sport of destiny, I have nothing to fear from the repose of the grave; and there was mercy with Heaven even for the thief who hung quivering in his death-agony on the cross. But flatter not yourself, noble knight, that, by my murder, you shall relieve yourself of a stern and unbending foe. I never was your foe until patriotism called me to the field to oppose your inroad upon the Border. And my enmity to the enemy of my country shall live after me. My followers will deeply revenge my death. Hang me upon a gallows high as Haman’s if you will; and each night your lady shall set her hood by the blaze of your burning villages. From one end of the wide domains of Warkcliff to the other shall ravage and destruction spread. And when, in the midst of ruth, and rapine, and bloodshed, you shall stand aghast, powerless against foes whose power you can neither break nor resist, you will then think on the evil day when Ruthven Somervil died!”

Lost in thought, De Ermstein waved his hand involuntarily; and the jailor, taking that to be a sign for the removal of the prisoner, hurried him away.

The attendants hovered about for some minutes, and then noiselessly left the hall, leaving their lord standing solitary on the dais.

A light footstep approached, and, looking up, Sir Dacre beheld his lady. She was in great agitation, and came up to his chair, and, taking him by the hand, said:

“Have you doomed the outlaw to death?”

“I have,” answered Sir Dacre. “I could, in justice, pronounce no other doom.”

“I beheld him through yonder window,” she said, “and never did I behold a nobler-looking youth. With what grace and courage he confronted you; what emotion in his countenance; what defiance in his tone. Such a youth must not die so shameful a death. I thought, as I looked upon him, of our own boy.”

“Peace, Alice; you kindle afresh the embers of pain,” cried Sir Dacre. “Recall not the memory of that one dread sorrow which has for ever destroyed our happiness.”

“Grant me this captive’s life,” she cried passionately.

“Do you plead for him?”

“I plead and pray that he may be spared to forsake his evil career, and seek his fortune in some honourable path. It is hard that so young and so noble a stranger should die, and by our hands. Give him life, husband, though you may not give him liberty. His life is the boon I crave. Deny me not.”

“I would deny it, Alice, to the mother that bore him,” said De Ermstein, with stern composure, “though she pled for him on her bended knees. I dare not suffer such a villain to live. Did I spare him, I might be accused of participation in his crimes. Plead for him no more; I am inexorable. I am steeled against pity.”

Chapter XII

“The last, the fatal hour is comeThat bears my love from me;I hear the death-note of the drum,I mark the gallows tree.The bell has toll’d; it shakes my heart;The trumpet speaks thy name;And must my Gilderoy departTo bear a death of shame?”– Campbell.

THE watery sun of the third morning slowly dispelled the mists that filled the vale of Warkcliff. Although the day was only yet in its infancy, one would have thought, from seeing the crowd, that all the denizens of the village and all the peasantry from the surrounding domains had gathered in the open market place. Great numbers of the rustics were armed; and parties of troopers, in De Ermstein’s pay, pranced up and down, quelling disturbance, and maintaining order.

That concourse had assembled to behold the mosstrooper die. The busy hammer of the artisan was heard sounding on the gibbet, which was in course of erection in the centre of the market. It was finished after much labour, and the workmen sat down at the foot of it, and, throwing by their tools, partook heartily of bread and ale, which they shared with some few notorious topers of the village who gathered round them. Healths were drunk, and jests bandied about from mouth to mouth, as if at some merry festival; troops of urchins romped around the gibbet; mothers held up children in their arms to see it; and every window was open and filled with eager faces. The armed men began to gather in close ranks around the scene of death, and the crowd increased.

And now the bell in the old steeple began to toll, announcing the hour of death. The sound of trumpets from the castle denoted that the prisoner had been brought up from his cell. The gates were flung open, and the cavalcade of death issued forth. Every murmur of the crowd was hushed. Every eye was turned toward that grim procession. Amidst a strong force of horsemen and footmen, under the personal leadership of Sir Dacre, appeared the condemned outlaw. A cart, covered with black cloth, and drawn by a sorry nag, stood near the gate. The hangman sat at the head of it, in a grim dress, and having his face hidden by a black vizard. The captive ascended the cart with the assistance of a tall monk, who also followed him into it, and seemed preparing him for death.

Somervil’s chains were away, but his hands were bound at his back by a thick cord. His head was bare, and his long tresses flowed on his shoulders, or blew in the gale. Not a shade of fear was perceptible upon his calm countenance; his step never faltered; not a tremor ran through a limb. He rose superior to his cruel doom. This fearful end to his career had lost its usual terrors, and nothing could shake his stoical courage and defiant haughtiness.

The bell still tolled! The sandglass of the outlaw’s life was fast running out. If he had one painful emotion, it was when he thought of Eleanor and the hopes of his heart, which were now withered and destroyed. She would hear of his sad fate, and mourn long without consolation; but she would never behold his grave.

The bell tolled! And he who had striven for years to pierce the dark mystery of his lineage was to die, and the secret to be impenetrable. What frightful iniquity lay on the head of those who had reft him from his parents’ arms, and brought him to a death like this. The hope of his whole life was to discover his parentage, and to assume his own just rank; but how had such a hope been crushed! And he would die, ignorant of the mother at whose breast he hung.

The bell tolled! And when he beheld the crowd, and the armed men, and the tall gibbet, and the open windows, fierce thoughts rushed like furies through his heart. His death-scene was to be a holiday spectacle; he was to be butchered, like the Gladiator of the Colosseum, to make a holiday. O, how he thought of some grim night, of rain and storm and darkness, when the wild bands of Cheviot would burst upon Warkcliff and make it blaze to heaven!

The bell tolled! The shade of Eleanor again! The memory of the gentle being who loved him! His thoughts could not forsake her! And how his death would break her heart!

On with the procession! On to the spot of death. Let the bell toll, and the trumpets blow, and the crowd shout. The prisoner was still undaunted. Not all the triumph and the malice of his foes could shake his stern composure.

He sat down in the cart beside the monk, who, with his missal open, was muttering in a low tone, indistinctly heard by the prisoner, but unheeded by him. The hangman sat watching them twain. But the monk was so tall, so darkly cowled, so gaunt, and so repulsive. What he read, or what he muttered, no one knew. He might have been muttering fiendish spells.

The horsemen in front cleared away the crowd before the slowly-rolling cart. The murmuring of the crowd broke out afresh, and men pressed and fought forward, and children were held high up to look at him; and women gazed keenly, and, turning to each other, said how handsome he was, and so noble was his look. A sound of pity here and there was drowned in the general noise; the guards called out for open room, and horses pranced and bore back the eager spectators. And swords and spears flashed, and feathers waved and danced, and the cart slowly rolled on, bearing its doomed burden.

It rolled on slowly, and then stopped beneath the gibbet. The place of death was reached. The rope hung dangling to and fro, and swaying in the wind. The hangman rose and put forth his hand to seize it, but the wind was so strong that he could not come near it for many minutes, and this little incident furnished food for jest and laughter. He at length caught it and made a noose.

The outlaw stood up lightly and looked around with an unmoved countenance. Some seemed to be of the belief that he meant to address the crowd; but it was not so. The bell ceased. Far down the valley the old battle still waged between the morning mist and the sun and wind, and the outlaw cast a long glance down the valley to descry the distant hills of Cheviot; but, until the sun and wind had vanquished their enemy, the blue hills of Cheviot could not be seen.

The hangman now approached the captive with the noosed rope in his hand. Somervil involuntarily shuddered at the approach of that dingy-looking, vizarded miscreant; but by that hideous miscreant’s hands he must die.

Chapter XIII

“I curse the hand that did the deed,The heart that thocht the ill;The feet that bore me wi’ sic speedThe comely youth to kill.”– Gil Morice.

DIE! Not while there was a hand to save! Not while there was keen steel unsheathing to break the captive’s bonds! Not while there was a power to control evil destiny, and blast the malice of the remorseless De Ermstein. Die? The star of Ruthven Somervil was in the ascendant, swiftly culminating.

What sound was that which rose from the swaying concourse? What sight was that which startled the grim executioner? The blast of a horn, and the drawing of a dagger by the priest. Somervil was no less startled. The priest had thrown down his missal and drawn a dagger, and, with deadly spring, he struck the dagger through the executioner, who, with a piercing howl, fell heavily on his face in the cart. To recover his steel from the body of the howling hound, and to cut the outlaw’s bonds asunder was, to the intrepid priest, but the work of an instant, and Somervil was free. Free, and thus environed by the armed bands of De Ermstein? Yes; for from every side dashed forward numbers of mounted rustics, well armed, who, trampling down all in their way, reached and surrounded the cart, whilst shouts of “Cheviot! Cheviot!” rent the heavens.

All was the wildest riot; but in that wild riot was Ruthven Somervil’s safety. He and the priest vanished from the cart, and it seemed that the armed strangers mounted them both on steeds, and put swords in their hands.

And the victim was rent from between the very fangs of the destroyer! It was indeed so. All the power of Warkcliff could not bring that victim to the doom which the relentless knight had pronounced in his pride. He had flattered himself that he would cause that doom to be executed in the open face of day, and at his own market cross, that it might be a spectacle of his vengeance, and a terror to his foes. He had made a Gordian knot which he vainly imagined no one could or dared unloose – but the sword of the mosstrooper had severed it at a blow – and he must now fight to retrieve his stained honour, else that stain would disgrace him for ever.