George MacDonald Fraser
THE CANDLEMASS ROAD

Dedication

IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF JOSEPH BAIN EDITOR OF THE CALENDAR OF BORDER PAPERS

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Historical postscript

Glossary

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

Copyright

About Publisher Page

Chapter 1

A FELLOW OF CLARE HALL, being in that state where another hour’s tippling should render him swine drunk, asked me, if I had a choice of all mankind that ever lived, which would I choose to sit by me as a guest at the next college feast. I made excuse that I was not of his learned society, but he said all was one for that, and I must choose or be fined in stoupes for the company. Still I would have put him off, for I longed to be quiet in my corner by the fire, away from the babble and ass-laughter of him and his companions, and have no part in their silly conceits designed to show off their wit and learning (and little they had of either) in their cups. They (and I) had been at the great masque “Ignoramus” given before his majesty, to his seeming content if not mine, but it may be that his Latin was better than I knew, or that he laughed out of courtesy, for a windier piece of dullness I never saw than that masque, that was well titled for them that applauded it, being men of the colleges. His majesty clapped patiently, so I clapped too.

It put them in a learning mood afterwards that were in the buttery, with such follies as what folk lived on the stars, and what part of the anatomy was the seat of mirth, and anon to debating what cup companion they would choose for their feast. One said Julius Caesar, and another St Francis, and others Aristotle and Ptolemy and Roger Bacon, their vanity supposing they could have held equal discourse with these champions and sages, and then seeing me that sat withdrawn, cried out that the old Portingale should speak his mind, “for he hath travelled in his time, and been a priest, too, so sure he is ignorant enough.” Seeing their canary humour, I begged again to be let be.

“Nay, but ye shall answer, or be fined!” said they. “And after we’ll have the breeches off thee for a sullen old rascal that hops of his left foot. Choose, now, or pay forfeit!”

Seeing no help, I said if one must sit by me at any feast of theirs, it should be Attila the Hun, so should I be spared their rudeness and intrusion. Some accounted it a good answer, and laughed, but he that had speered at me scowled and said they had none at their feasts but those they might have good of, and I must name another, since Attila was a monstrous beast that none could have any good of, being curst and altogether abominable.

At this, I, being part drunk myself, said he lied, for good might be had of the worst that ever were, in certain cases. At this he swore that if I could not prove it by logic, I should pay double forfeit and swim in the Cam for my impudence, so let me say how one could have good of Attila or any like him. His fellows grinned and gleeked about me, and some cried, “At him, old Papist!” but others “Confound the Jesuit, he mocks us, to the river with him!” and bade me make good mine argument.

First, I told them, they should name any two from whom they might hope to have the greatest good (other than Our Lord, for it was not fit to name Him in such a question). They that had named Aristotle and St Francis as their chosen guests again cried out their names, and with those I was content, saying that against them I would justify Attila and another like him, as Chingis Khan or Hulagu (of whom I doubt these scholars had heard, though they cried aye to him). I would do it, I said, on an hypothesis, as thus:

“Here is anyone of you, in a lonely place, as a little cabin in the wilderness, with no neighbours or friends by, and ye are sick and feeble, and with you your wife and two fair daughters.”

Hereon they cried that being young they had no daughters, and would other men’s daughters do, to give them solace in that lonely place, whereof they doubted not they would soon be enfeebled if not sick! I let them bray it out, and when they were quiet, continued:

“As ye lie there helpless, there approach three great thieves and murderers that ye know to be crueller than any devils, who will surely torment and slay you and ravish your wife and fair daughters, and take and burn all besides. There is no help for you at all, being at their mercy if they come in, but as ye lie in terror for what is to come, a knock falls on the nether door of your poor cabin, as it may be some wayfarer seeking lodging or refreshment. Aye, and it may be he will lend you aid against your enemies approaching! You bid your wife open in haste. Now tell me, scholars, what men do you hope to see there when she opens? The learned, gentle Aristotle and St Francis the meek, or Attila the great Hun armed cap-a-pie with Chingis at his elbow? From which pair, in your sore need, shall you hope to have the greater good, the saintly philosophers or the lusty men of war?”

They cried out with scorn that between the enemies before and Attila at their back, it was all one, they should have nothing but evil at the hands of either.

“Not so,” says I, and bade them look in the chronicles, “for there you shall read that the Scythian and the Mungul both, though in their conquests they were monsters of cruelty that put whole nations to the sword, yet in their private and domestic ways were zealous for good order and discipline of law, being such as would not suffer weak or poor folk to be despoiled or hurt by thieves and ravishers. Aye, of that Chingis was it said that while he carpeted all Asia with bones, yet might a virgin with a bag of gold walk the length of his dominions without harm, so perfect was his governance. So, again I say, who shall better serve you in time of peril, the philosophers who wish you well but cannot front the murderers save with words, or the bloody ravagers of empires who are yet ready to turn their weapons against common spoilers?”

At this they fell to babbling and dispute, and one fell down drunk crying “Paradox! Paradox!” while another said that for all he knew Aristotle might be a right swashing boy when it came to a fray. I asked would he wager on him with sword and buckler against my two savages, let roaring Francis give what aid he might, and he said, no, not at any odds. And while a few of them held that such as Attila and Chingis would do no good service to any, the more held that I had made my case, and should not be fined or insulted, but pressed more drink upon me that I durst not refuse for fear of their rough merriment, and called me a jolly old Pope, and how I came home I know not, for they found me sodden among the cabbages in the almshouse garden, and I was two weeks abed thereafter with the sciatica.

And lying there, and not able to read more than a little for the infirmity of mine eyes that are worn with looking on the world’s wickedness four score years, I fell to meditating on the good that evil men may do, by design or more commonly by chance, and was vexed that I had not told the Clare fellows how this same Attila, through his ravaging of Lombardy, had caused the folk to flee to those lagoons where they made the town of Venice, which is now surely a great state that hath given much of commerce and art to mankind, and all because of Attila his wickedness! Which I doubt not would have confused their debate that was confused enough already with their bowsing. Howbeit, I say, I thought on the good of evildoers, and concluded to my satisfaction that it is not one-thousandth of the evil that good and wise men do with their blundering, well as they intend.

Thinking on this wise, and looking to mine own past, I remembered sundry instances that I had seen, and in especial the man Waitabout, that I knew only for a little season, yet it changed my life’s course, and indeed had been like to lose my poor life for me, yet was I spared, “by God’s grace”, a phrase I speak now but by habit and long use, for if He hath any grace (or indeed any being at all save in men’s minds only) I have long been removed from it. Which is a blasphemy, as they say, yet I have known worse. No, I am no priest, nor ever was except to the outer eye, for what priest ever doubted, and with long doubting, gave over his belief at last?

As to the Waitabout, he was no Attila yet had done ill enough in his time, and if he did good it was upon compulsion and for a brief hour only, and still I know not whether it was good or no. But certain it is he was no common man, though common seeming, a robber and slayer and broken wanderer that had in him, I think, the making of a sage if not a saint. He read me a lesson, aye, and so too did my Lady Dacre, though what it was I can hardly tell even now. Yet I would tell of them both that have been out of my mind these many years, saving that visit my lady paid me five years agone, fair and smiling still and brought me a gift of candles of fine Italian wax, though not scented, “for we shall burn no incense between us, nor make graven images neither,” as she said, which was an old jest between us. “A remembrance of Candlemass,” says she, “aye, of the Candlemass road,” and told me they had made a ballad of it, and of what befell betwixt the fires at Triermain, which I marvelled to hear her speak of so lightly. But of Waitabout she spake not at all.

If I am to tell of that road, I cannot come to it direct, for that would be to begin in medias res, as we clerks say when we mean in the midst of things but wish to awe the commonalty with our learning (give us a fourth tassel, good Lord, for vanity!), but must needs give some preamble, about myself, and then come in proper order to Waitabout, or Archie Noble as his name was, called Lang Archie, or Wait-about-him, or Master Noble as my lady styled him once or twice, I think to his content, for broken men are not used to such courtesies. Of myself first then, not out of pride, but for your better understanding of that which follows. And it is right, too, that the gown should take precedence of the renegado.

I, Luis Guevara, once a priest and ever a sinner, was born in Portugal, and came to England by a long road which it would weary you as much to hear as me to travel. It took me to the Americas, and the coasts of Barbary and Africa, in the service of God, and at last to London, no matter why, in the twenty-fourth year of the old Queen’s reign, where chance took me in the way of Ralph, Lord Dacre. We were as little like as could be, he the great noble, favoured of the Queen, with the honours of soldiery upon him and all trappings of wealth and power, which he carried like a conqueror, for he was a terrible man – and I, the little foreign priest that feared for my very life in a land where priests were welcome as the plague. It was the time of the great bill against the Jesuits, when to be a Roman priest was treason, and the harbouring of us a felony; there were many then burned for the Faith.

“A poor candle you would make,” says my lord. “Why, man, ye would not light me up the stair!” And laughed at me, a great bull of a man as he was, all in crimson save for the blue charge upon his breast that bare a bull indeed, the red bull of his house, and stood on legs like tree trunks, grinning from a face great as a ham, bald of crown with white hair to his shoulders. “Aye, we are tonsured, the two of us, but you can say Mass and I cannot nor would not, but since the half of my folk are recusant and will not be turned, needs must I a priest, go to!”

I told him it was treason, and that if he sheltered me, let alone gave employ, he would be liable before the law.

“The law! Pish on the law!” and put his head on one side. “Have ye heard o’ the Leges Marchiarum, priest – the Law of the Marches? No? It is the only law in my whereabouts, and says naught of religion. Let be, I make my own law, and if I take the Pope himself into my house to minister to my silly poor folk, not the Queen’s Grace herself shall say cheep! No, nor all the bishops. For I am Dacre. Will fifty shillings a year content you?”

I trembled to hear him, but asked sixty shillings and a chapel decently kept, whereon he laughed till he shook and said I should have them for my boldness. And gripped my hand in a hard clasp, looking narrowly on me, and said we would do well together being of a middle age and not loth to speak our minds one to the other, “but not of your old faith, for I’ll none of it. Keep it for my vassals.” Which I did and have ever done, without fear of the law, for all that he said was true. He had done such service against Scotch invaders and English rebels, and was in such fair regard of my Lord Burleigh and the Queen, who called him “cousin Dacre” and “my red steer”, there being some kinship through the Grays, I believe, that he might do as he pleased in his barony far off on the border. They had need of him yonder, and my Lord Cecil was wont to jest on the words of the King of France, that the Scotch frontier was worth a Mass so it was said quietly.

My Lord Ralph was down to London only to put his grandchild into the Court as ward of Her Grace. I saw the little maid but once, a sweet pretty child of four years, proper and toward and well grown, straight in her petty gown and proud of her kerchief of French point. “See my kercher,” says she. “’Tis white, and I keep it clean. You are my grandad’s Italian man, but you must not sing at me.” To her all Romans were Italians. She passed by with her head in air, playing with her kerchief.

So my lord went north to his estate in Cumberland hard by the border line, taking in his train his “Portingale preacher”, as he pleased to call me.

Now I have been about the world, as I said, and travelled far for the Faith in my nonage “and after. I was with those Spaniards who sought the Strait of Anian which men say lies beyond the Americas, and suffered shipwreck on that arid coast beneath Guaymas where I was captive of the wild Indians. I have been among their savage brethren of Mexico, and undergone the torments with which they afflict their prisoners before the great step-temples of the forest which rise higher than Salisbury spire, and so far forgot my vows to take part against them when Mendoza the Good defended the silver mines on the Compostela road. I have journeyed in the black lands of Lower Africa where the people cut their faces for adornment, and make sacrifice of their enemies and eat their flesh for meat. And for a time I was a slave of the Algerines, and saw such horrors as would blast the sight, of men ‘impaled and torn asunder and flung upon great hooks. All this I have seen among the heathen, but I have yet to see such savages as were in the Marches of England and Scotland when first I went there with my Lord Dacre.

You may think I have an old man’s memories that swell up with age, but you do not know, you who live in this green quiet country with its fair pleasaunces by the Cam, and the little towns and hamlets where they cry alarm if a deer is potched or a schoolboy robs an orchard. You may journey now, from York to the Kingdom of Fife, through what you have been taught to call the Middle Shires, and meet with nothing more fierce than a beggar crying for alms by the roadside. You forget, if you ever knew, that a bare five and twenty years since there were three realms in this country that we call Great Britain: there was England and Scotland – and the Borderland between. Two realms at peace, civil and quiet under their native laws, with good governance from London and Edinborough, the folk giving glad allegiance (for the most part) to royal Elizabeth and royal James – and where they joined, a land neglected and cursed, peopled by two-legged beasts who lived by robbery and feud and murder and terror, a country where reprisal followed raid by the clock, where every nightfall brought its toll of men butchered and dwellings burned and cattle reft and hostages carried away. It was spoil, spoil, spoil, from Tweed mouth to Sark; never a moment but there were thieves in the saddle, Scot against Englishman, Englishman against Scot, and both together against each and every, and no peace any way. I have gone a-horse-back one day east from Carlisle town, and seen thirty churches in ruin, and great abbeys tumbled down on the Scotch side, and the conies running through what had been fair hamlets a week before, and now all black and smoking, and bodies unburied on every hand, and women and babes wandering in the desolation.

And this was no war. It was, they said, the custom of the country, and no help for it. The laws of England and Scotland were clean withdrawn, and only the Leges Marchiarum, of which my lord spoke, that Border law, under which a great thief might compound for the most horrid crime with a fine and interest, and assurance of good behaviour, but no other punishment – and so to the next riding and slaughter. And this in Christendom, only a score of years ago.

When first I went there, I was told of a traveller who had inquired of the people, where the Christians dwelt, to which they made answer, “No Christians, sir, we are Elliots and Armstrongs.” I thought it a blasphemous jest, but it was true. God had forgotten the Borderland, or turned away from its wickedness in His despair.

You may wonder why my Lord Dacre, who had fair lands in the far south, such as this where I live out the winter of my time, should keep his home in such a den of strife and iniquity. But he was one who craved a hard life, and must be doing; it was in him to dare, and if there had been no Cumberland I believe he would have made his bed in Tartary. Moreover, his house had held their own on that stark border three hundred years, through the bitter Scotch wars in which the people of the Marches had their tempering – and this, I am assured, was why they must continue to live like warring nomads, for it was bred in their nature. He would not shrink from it, not for all the gold and quiet of the south country, which he might have had in plenty. “For I am Dacre,” he would say. “Shift me an ye can.”

It was as though the fiend had taken him at his word, for his estate of Askerton lay in the worst part of all the border, where the baddest of the thieves were wont to run their roads – for so they called their forays, raid and road being all one to them; in the same sort they called their going forth in any number a “gang”. He had broad acres, and many fat cattle, and fifteen score tenants in petty villages and farms about, all in that pretty land that lies fifteen miles or so north and east of Carlisle, where the rich champain ground runs to the foot of the fells. So close to Carlisle, the strongest hold in all the Marches, and the seat of what government there was on the English side, should have been safe enough, but it was not so. To the east lay the great Waste, the highway of the robbers, and beyond, Tynedale, a great haunt of English thieves, Charltons and Milburns and Robsons and the like, for they robbed as families, calling themselves “riding surnames”. To the west was the country of the Grahams, a barbarous nation, Scotch or English for all that any man knew, but mostly English. There too was the Debatable Land, that had been of neither country, and only lately divided between them jealously, and a great nest of outlaws. Yet to the north was worst of all, a scant ten miles away, for there on the very rim of the frontier lay the valleys of the most feared Scotch robbers, the Nixons and Armstrongs and Crosiers and Elliots, who dwelt in Liddesdale, and if there be a Hell, and it hath a mouth, then it gapes at the foot of that dark and terrible glen, and those within are devils incarnate.

When a man has such neighbours he goes to bed late and lies not long in the morning, but my lord throve on it as it were sport. And being an expert borderer and skilly soldier, he gave so much better than he took that in his last years we began to have some quiet in the lands about Askerton, though the rest of the frontier corrupted by the day. Even the hardiest freebooters, Armstrongs of Mangerton and Whithaugh, Elliots of Stobs and the Park, and Grahams of Brackenhill and Eden, began to look for their living otherwhere than on Dacre’s ground, and rode wide of the Red Bull’s pen. It was a grisly A.B.C. that he learned them. I have seen his great gallows beyond the barnekin, four ells high and four across the beam, loaded with such a cargo of dead thieves as would have gorged me every crow from Kelso to Caldbeck, and not a day but there was fresh fodder for them, swinging in the cold fell wind.

And if the meanest of his tenants was spoiled of so much as a hen, then out from Askerton’s gate would come the red steer banner, and my lord in his silver-studded jack, lance on thigh, and his grey locks streaming in the wind, and at his back fifty, aye, or a hundred riders, every man in his steel cap with sword or Jedburgh axe, and the turf of hot trod smoking on his esquire’s point. They would ride Liddesdale to Riccarton and back, to Smailholm Tower or the Rede banks, leaving red ruin behind them, and there would be widows crying in Teviotdale for their men on the Askerton gallows. And when those he had despoiled and punished cried to the Wardens to summons him to answer at the next truce day, he would give the officer who brought the bill such entertainment as would have contented an ambassador, and when he had eaten and drunk his fill Ralph Dacre would press the bill back in his hand, wrapped in a glove, and say:

“Bid Lord Scroop at Carlisle (or Carmichael at Dumfries, or the Keepers of Liddesdale or Tynedale, as it might be) good cheer, and tell them they may foul their bill against me, and who will collect their double and sawfey?” Which is to say, the threefold penalty of restitution imposed on one found guilty of offence. “I ride against none, nor never did, that has done me no hurt. Let the Wardens keep their border – but not ’twixt Hethersgill and Triermain, for that is my charge, and mine alone.”

And the Wardens, who had grief enough, were glad to let his bill be continued, or adjourned. They were driven lords, with not money nor equipment nor men enough to do any good in all that frontier of decay; they were content that one so rich and strong, that had the Queen’s ear, should stand as a rock of order in a sea of misrule.

You would suppose, in such a parish, that I was seldom idle, but for the most I was occupied with my lord’s tenants, the simple folk of the estate who clung to the faith of their fathers. They were few enough, the others taking their lead in the new religion from their lord, and in his household I was forbidden to meddle.

So for seventeen years I dwelt in Askerton Hall, doing my duty with a failing heart, for I saw nothing but the wickedness of the world about me, and knowing a dripping on my soul that wears away faith, more even than I had known in the pagan places. I was weary with the weight of evil and my more than three score years, but without the will to go elsewhere.

Then on a summer’s day my lord took him to the races at Carlisle, where one of his troopers won the Bell on my lord’s grey, Sandeman, wherefore he was in great fettle, as they say here, and gave entertainment at the Apple Tree on the Drover’s Lane to my lords Scroop, and Willoughby of the East March, and that good man Carmichael, and others less good, such as Hutcheon Graham the brigand, and Kerr of Cessford that they called “Fyrebrande”, and the young Buccleuch who had broken open Carlisle Castle but three years before – for the strangeness of these people is how they make company together, the lord and the peasant, the Scotch thief and the English constable, men that were at handstrokes o’ Thursday drinking together on the Saturday. I have seen that Kinmont Will, the bloodiest rogue on the West border, cheek by jowl with my Lord Hunsdon, who held the English Mid-March as the Queen’s Warden, as they made wagers on Hunsdon’s son, young Robin Carey who was his father’s deputy, when he played at football on the Bitts, whether he would win one goal or two. The thief and the catcher at game together, content each in company of the other. But it is their way, unless feud should fall between them, which it may as easily for a broken cup as for a broken head, and yet they forgive each other grievous wrongs, too. But deadly feud they pursue to the death, not only of the enemy but of all his kinsfolk. They take joy of their difference from mankind, Scot and English together, for though they are of both realms, they are first and last of the Border.

But I wander, in my dotage. My Lord Ralph won the Bell, and parted in the evening from his foe-friends, and rode out by the Rickergate with two grooms for company, to fare home to Askerton. They were waiting for him on the Brampton road, men in visors, well-horsed, and they shot him through with calivers, nine balls in his body, and he let die by the roadside. They killed the grooms with their swords, and made away. Who they were was not found out. Some suspected Hutcheon Graham, but he made oath on his father’s stone in St Cuthbert’s churchyard of Carlisle, so he was clean, and I believe it, for in all my time yonder I never knew a word broken, for all their other faults. Sundry were named, Lance Carleton and Black Ogle and Stark Jack Charlton of Tynedale on the English side, and on the Scottish, Will Kang, that was a notable murderer for hire, and the Scotts of Teviotdale, and as for the Liddesdales, why, who you will. The truth was, my lord had more ill-willers than hairs on his head; he was a terrible man, but a good friend to me-ward, and while he lived his folk slept secure, and his cattle grazed untroubled even on the lion’s lip.

He was buried at Arthuret, before a great company, and my lord Bishop himself came from Carlisle to say his solemns, with staff and mitre and many attendants and a singing choir within. There were many lords there, and I marvelled to see so many notable thieves there also, of both sides. Some said, in scandalous jest, that they came to see him well delved under, but I think otherwise, for I have seen that affinity that grows betwixt enemies, who while they hate lustily in life, yet sorrow when death parts them. They are a strange folk. I heard one say, “Now he is at peace,” and another made answer saying he wished his soul no peace, but great action wheresoever it had gone, for that he had loved above all. My lords Scroop and Willoughby and the Scots Warden Carmichael bore his bier, and among the others that Scott of Harden whom they called Auld Wat, a principal reiver, and the young Buccleuch and John Carey, who were no friends to each other elsewhere.

In all this I had no part, being what they styled a recusant, but came hooded and cloaked to give no offence, which they overlooked, knowing well what I was. I gave back, thinking I had never seen so much costly stuff and apparel mingled with such a deal of leather and steel by a graveside, and as I stood at the church door I saw that which lessoned me even more what a contrary country is this, for as the Lord Bishop led them in prayers, all standing sodden in the rain, there in the church porch sat Long Tom Hetherington, a great villain that they called “the Merchant”, casting the accounts of blackmail that he and his fellow-robber Richie Graham had wrung from the poor folk thereabouts. Now this blackmail, or black rent, is an extortion much practised by the thieves, who come to a man, or a village, and say, pay us such-and-such and you and your possessions will be safe, for we shall see to it, but if ye pay not, look to it, for sundry reivers will doubtless ride upon you (by which they mean their wicked selves). And the poor folk are wont to pay to be left in peace. It is a protection money and one of the principal curses of the frontier in those days. Because of my old lord’s zeal and care of his people, none on Dacre ground had paid this black rent to any for a half-score years, but this was in Arthuret that lay beyond our bounds. Yet it took me by the throat to see this vile money-changer at his practices in the House of God, and my lord not cold in the ground.

“Have ye no shame,” I asked him, “that ye count your blood money in the church, and the bell yet tolling for the dead?”

He looked at me astonied, saying there was none of Dacre’s folk on his books “and where else should I keep them for safety but in the kirk where the clients come to pay, and this the day? Would ye have us run about the country, chapping at gates, for our black rent?”

I could have struck him, for all he had his sword naked by his books, but it was no place or time and I a priest. “Keep them in your thieves’ den at Brackenhill Tower, with your vile confederate Richie Graham,” I bade him, and he laughed.

“Thinkst thou I’d trust them within Richie’s reach? Go to, man, y’are wandered! Get thysel’ back to Askerton, confess thy young maids, and I’ll help thee penance them!”

And sat there taking his extortion, which is crime the world over, but here it was open, and the lords at the grave and the Warden officers and constables marked him not, for that it was but lightly regarded and, as they say, the custom of the country!

Now I see that the preambulation to my tale has taken longer than I would it had, yet my excuse is that I had need tell you of my poor self and my old lord, and of my being at Askerton, and not only that but to lay open to you the ways of the frontier and the godless folk therein, at some length, with illustration of their manners, that you may understand perfectly all that befell on that Candlemass that I spoke of, which I shall now come to before long, I do assure you.

It was in the summer time that my lord departed this life, and all through the back end and winter unto the February following we that had served him lived a-tiptoe in Askerton Hall, wondering when the thieves would ride on our goodly land and livestock, now that the Red Bull was no more. For his armed following were all dispersed to seek other employs, having no mind to bide at Askerton without him to lead them, and we were but a household reduced, the bailiff and myself and the servitors, with no security for the tenants and farms. Yet they rode not against us that winter, such was the shadow of his name, and also because in the cold months the herds were away at softer pasturing in the deep vales by the lakes, in which hard time the riding surnames were wont to rest them in their towers and bastels, and the outlaws in the mosses. Yet was there rumour that with the mastiff dead the foxes soon would prowl, and word of Liddesdale spears spying below the Lyne rivers against the coming of spring, when the great thieves would burst forth of their lairs and, in their barbarous phrase, shake loose the border.

So were we in apprehension, but took comfort from word that had reached us at Christmas, that my Lady Dacre that was grand-daughter to old Lord Ralph as I told you I met her when a little maid, was to come up into the country from London, she being his only kin and heiress to all his great wealth and estates. Whereof we were right glad, for we doubted not that her advisers would take order for the security of the Askerton demesne. Indeed I wondered that she should come in her own person, being but a young woman and long away from that fierce country, when her men of affairs could have been sent, and she continued in her enjoyment of southern pleasantry. But it hath been whispered in mine ear since, that the Queen herself willed it so, for a reason, to wit, that my Lady Margaret having been in waiting on the Queen, had given her offence by her temper, which was as proud, and her stomach as high, as even Her Grace’s, and that was not small, God knows.

Also there had been talk of my Lady Margaret’s commerce with certain young lords at the Court having given displeasure to Her Grace, for she’ was none of your lily maids, but free and frank in her manner, as I had seen when she was little, and I doubt not she smiled whither she pleased, caring not if it misliked Her Grace or no. This may be scandal of the sort they love to tattle after in London, but the long and short was that the Queen commanded her away. So we had great heave and ho at Askerton against her coming, and myself much perturbed, wondering would she tolerate me, the Portingale priest, as her grandsire had done, he being careless in such matters, as I have shown, but she, coming from the Court, it was not to be doubted that she was strong for the reformed church, and like to turn me away, or worse. And at my time of life I knew not whither to go if she dismissed me.

Candlemass was the day pricked for her coming in, and though we knew it not, it was to be the day of Archie Noble Waitabout’s coming also. She was looked for by open day, but he that was not looked for came like a thief in the night while the house slept, and none sounder than I.

Chapter 2

BEING THEN IN that state of years when the aches of my limbs and back cured not with resting, and the great scaur on my leg that I had of the Mexican savages troubling most of all, sleep was a sweet relief, and I was wont to drowse abed in the mornings, like any sluggard, but comfortable. None in that household seeking my offices, I had fallen into neglect of all duty, and was seldom abroad before prime. But that Candlemass I was afoot early, it being the day of my lady’s coming in, and we having word that she had lain the night at Naworth, only a short way off, which, thinks I, will have done little for her temper. It had been a fair priory before the old King worked his will on such places, but fallen into neglect lately, and little apt to furnish entertainment for gentle folk. I trembled, too, for our condition at Askerton, for old Lord Ralph had lived somewhat rough, and neglected the comforts of the house, which had not bettered since his death, and was, to tell truth, sadly decayed, for the slatterns swept it but idly, and nothing was clean.

I had remonstrated with Master Hodgson, who was the bailiff, but had no satisfaction there. He was an honest man enough, stout and hearty, but of that choleric temper which makes for tyranny in one when he is given rule over others and hath himself no very quick understanding. A good and honest steward to my lord, knowing then his duties within their limits, but now all the care and management was on him, and it was beyond him, so that he made great stir and noise among the tenants, bidding them this and that, but all to no purpose, and for the household he never ceased to complain and carp, with “Godamercy, the fire’s out!” and “Where the devil are those lackbrain men got to?”, and swearing he must do all himself – but nothing ever done. He was in a great taking for my lady’s arrival, sending the boys up the hill to spy her carriage, and hindering the wenches with his bustling and roaring in the kitchen, and fearful, I think, for his shortcomings over the estate, with rents not properly reckoned or accounts made, for he wrote but poorly, and for figuring commend me to the village dunce. I had offered my help, but he waved me away, saying affairs were not for priests, and more ink on his elbows than on the page. Yet he was an honest man, and meant well, but without my old lord to direct him he was adrift in confusion.

Thinking it well that some things at least should be in order for my lady, I bade the wenches scour and polish in my lord’s old bedroom, and put out the best linen, with lavender between the sheets, and make all as pretty as might be, and myself set to with broom and dusters in the hall, so that there should be one chamber fit for her reception. I raised dust enough for a mill, and with the help of the kitchen loon, Wattie, a great lubber that could have stood billy to Callaban in the play, made shift to remove all the holly and bay and rosemary hung for Christmas, Candlemass being the time when it is taken down. I would have had it away and burned before, but Master Hodgson nayed me, saying it must wait for the day, as in my lord’s time.

We made what order we could in the hall, with fresh rushes and green stuff in a pot, and took away the mouldiest of the tapestry, but we could no way hide the cracked leather of the chairs, or the scaurs on the table, or the moth in the bit carpet that covered it, or the sad neglect of the walls where the damp had come in. Wattie put wood on the great fire, but it was green and bubbled and stank with smoke like the pit, which was of a piece, for he fouled more than he cleaned. Welcome home, my lady, thinks I, to this draughty dirty barn, to the wind and the rain and the bare hillside and the company of animals and Cumbrians, and if ye tarry longer than to change your shoon and rest your cotchman, I shall be the more amazed.

I said as much, comparing our appointments with that she had known at Court, and was rebuked for my pains by the lurden Wat (for there is no respect in these people), who doubted not she would take joy to be home again, and find all to her liking. I took leave to doubt it, and was told, with a great sniff of his scabby nose, and sidelong nods, that I did not know her.

“And you do, to be sure,” said I, and was taken at my word.

“I did,” says he, grown solemn, “when she was a little bit lass, afore she went doon tae London, alack the day! I was in’t stable then – aye, I put her on her first pony. Little Lady Madge, we ca’d her, and she ca’d me Wattie boy, that she did. ‘Help us up, clumsy Wat!’ Hey, hey, a grand wee lass! I mind when she fell in’t Ghyll Beck and cam’ hame blubberin’ wi’ a girt scratch on her arm, and I lapped it wi’ a clout and dried her eyes and took her to’t buttery, and old Granny Sowerby gi’d her dandelion and burdock, and the la’l soul supped it and cried for mair. Hey, hey, a grand wee lass!”

It moved me to see this churl so devoted, and I asked him, would she still be the same little lass, seventeen long years after? Time, I told him, might have wrought a change.

“Never!” cries he. “She’s a Dacre, aye, and a Cumberland lass, ever and a’!”

I told him she had been maid in waiting on the Queen’s Grace, “and it may be that she no longer falls in streams or drinks dandelion. Your little playmate will be a great lady now, Master Wat.”

“She was a great leddy when she was four year old and put vinegar in her grandad’s beer,” says he, with a great laugh. “Aye, and ‘Whee’s pissed in this pot?’ cries my old lord. And the wee lass supped her milk and cries: ‘And whee’s pissed in this pot, an’ a‘?’ Hey, but my lord laughed till he cried! Aye, aye, a grand la’l lass!”

I saw there was no waking him from his dream of bygone, and bade him mend the fire with dry logs from the cellar, but at this he made three great O’s with his eyes and mouth and swore he could not go to the cellar without the bailiff’s leave, “for they have the broken man bound there”.

I asked him, what broken man, and he said, why, the vagrant fellow Archie Waitabout, that had been taken in the hind-night pilfering from the kitchen of bread and cheese, and the grooms waking had seized and bound him and cast him in the cellar at the bailiff’s bidding.

So now I am come at last to Archie Noble Wait-about-him, for this was the first I ever heard of him, and little enough it seemed but a petty filching matter. I asked what they would do with him, and Wattie said they would hold him for the Warden’s men, who should take him to Carlisle, there to be hung up for a broken man and thief.

“What, for bread and cheese?” said I, and Wattie said for that and other things, for it seemed he was well-known thereabouts (though not to me) for a wandering, lifting rascal of the sort that is ever under suspicion. I would have made naught of this, but for a phrase that the loon Wattie dropped among his babbling.

“Master Hodgson calls him a drawlatch and a gallow-clapper and I know not what,” says he. “Aye, and a great talker, seest thou, father, so Master Hodgson says let him chatter his Latin to the Warden’s men and see how it shall serve him.”

Now at this my curiosity was on edge, that had thought little before, for you must know that a broken man is beneath all others mean in the borderland, the term “broken” signifying one that hath no loyalty or allegiance to any lord or leader, as most men do, but is an outcast, of the sort that are wont to band themselves together as outlaws, or, as seemed with this Waitabout, do wander solitary getting what they can. That such should break into our kitchen to steal was no wonder, but if, as Wattie said, he had Latin, then it was a portent, for I should as soon look for learning in a Barbary ape. Wherefore I inquired closely of Wattie what manner of man was this Archie Waitabout, and learned enough for my pains, for Wat was one that would sooner talk than drink so it kept him from his work.

Thus, he told me, this Waitabout was ever on the edge of all mischiefs, and had been whipped the length of the Marches for little offences, and lain in Haddock’s Hole that is a verminous prison to Berwick, and was dross to honest folk. And yet, said my Wattie, warming to his tale, it was said that in his time he had been an approved man, and done good service to my lord Hunsdon in the War of the Bankrupt Earls, and fought stoutly for the Laird Johnstone in the Lockerbie battle with the Maxwells, yet had declined in fame and fortune, no man knew how, till now he was of no account and broken, scratching for a living as he could, and thieving out of our larder in the night.

“They say he was a clerk, an’ a’, an’ reads an’ writes, but I know nowt o’ that,” says Wattie, all a-grin. “He’s a daft ’un, I reckon, but Master Hodgson says they’ll hang him for the horse.”

I asked, what horse, and learned that they had come on a pretty mare out by the barnekin that dawn, and this the beast on which Waitabout had come to our kitchen door, “and a bonny hobby it is, father, wi’ Spanish leather an’ silver snaffle, as I saw meself. Master Hodgson reckons trash like Archie Noble never came honest by sic a mount as yon. ‘The Warden’s men can speer what gentleman’s left his stable-door off the sneck lately,’ says he, ‘and then, goodnight, Archie Waitabout!”’

To this simpleton it seemed a great jest that a broken man should hang, and indeed it was nothing out of the common, save that this was a broken man with a difference, by his account, if indeed what he prattled was true, which I something doubted. Howbeit, on Master Hodgson’s coming in and sending Wattie, with cuffs and curses, about some errand, I asked him if it was true that this Waitabout should to Carlisle to be hanged on suspicion of a horse, and if so I might do him some good by my office.

At this he flew into a taking, begging me plague him not about a petty villain that was naught and would soon be less. He had, he vowed, more to think on than a mere sneak-bait, aye, marry, had he! He paced about the hall, snapping his fingers and his great red face a-shake, like one beset with care and doubt that he wills not to speak of, lest it sound worse in the telling and so frights him the more. I asked him what was the matter, and he scratched his head and rolled his eyes, and at last made answer with that which put all thought of Waitabout clean out of my head.

But an hour since, that very morning, had come to him one George Bell of Triermain, a village at the easter end of my lord’s land, with his head broke and his shirt bloody and a great tale of woe how five stout men of the Nixons, Scotch thieves of Liddesdale, had come to his place in the night and beaten him full sore because, they said, he had not paid his blackmail. They had made free of his house and meat and ale, put all his folk of Triermain in fear, and vowed if they were not paid to come the next night and do worse.

“Blackmail? How can that be?” I asked him, for as I told you it was a thing unheard of these many years on Dacre land, so perfect had been my lord’s care of his folk. Hodgson answered me with oaths that Bell had confessed to paying the Nixons in years past, but secretly for dread of my lord’s anger “who had he known would ha’ whipped Bell’s arse frae here to Hexham, aye, and run the Nixons ragged too!” Then for a season the Nixons had let him alone, doubtless for fear my lord should get wind of their extortion, but now, my lord being dead, they made bold to revive it, “and when Bell crieth that he hath not money to pay lawful white rent to the Dacres and black rent to Liddesdale – a thing he did privily for years, God kens! – the Nixons rattle his head to learn him better and swear to burn his thatches and carry his beasts and himself into Scotland! And Bell, sheep that he is, comes whining to me for protection!” He stamped and was like to tear his hair in vexation. “Here’s grand news for my lady when she comes in! And who’ll she blame for it? Her poor bailiff, owd Robby Hodgson!”

I asked him how he had answered Bell, and what was to be done for him.

“I bade him seek the Land Sergeant at Gilsland. ‘What,’ says he, ‘go to Tom Carleton that’s in the pocket of every reiver of England and Scotland both? I’ll no justice of him!’ I asked him what then, and the lousy sneakbill says he’ll bear plaint to my lady when she comes in, for that she is his landlord now, and bound to keep him safe!” On this he was at a loss to speak further, grinding his teeth, and when I asked how he had answered said he had put his boot to Bell’s backside and sent him packing.

“And yet,” says he, all chapfallen, “I fear me he will find occasion to clatter at my lady’s ear, and mow and girn for his cracked pate to move her pity – and seest thou, father, it will look ill for me, a tenant oppressed crying Justice! and I can do nowt for him, wanting power at hand, and but the bailiff.” He called Bell an earwig and a bastard and worse, that had not the wit to pay his blackmail as in the past, so all would have been quiet.

It seemed to me he was more greatly wroth against the victim than the thief, and more sorry for himself than for the harried tenants. Here you see the cancer of the frontier at work, a poor soul put to extortion, and his superior, for peace and appearance, would have him pay the blackmail, for all that it is a crime to pay as to take. This winking at evil, for convenience, is the root of half the mischief of the world, yet men will always wish to be quiet.

My heart was sore for that poor lady soon to come in to this world of bloody faction and decay, from a Queen’s Court where they played and sang and made their petty intrigues on what young lord smiled on what young lady, and cried Oh! if Her Majesty frowned. That is the worst she knows, thinks I, and how shall she believe that such folk as the Nixons can be?

Hodgson doubted but she would find out fast enough, and fell to bewailing my lord his death, in whose time the thieves dare not say Bo! to Askerton. “For this attempt of the Nixons is but a pinprick!” cries he and trembled. “Let it go unanswered we shall have such roads ridden upon us, what of Liddesdale, what of Tynedale, what of the broken bands, as we have not seen this ten year. The thieves will bristle up and spur! I know it, I know them!”

When I said this was for the future, and the Wardens should take order to prevent it, he turned on me nigh weeping.

“Aye, but who shall answer the Nixons now, this very night, when they ride on Triermain? Not Tommy Carleton, nor his jack-snippet deputy, nor yet Jack Musgrave that’s captain o’ Bewcastle Fort and has lain swine drunk since Martinmass and stirreth not from his bed but for another flask and so back to his strumpet! For truth it is as Bell says that they have policy with the thieves and would not offend them for such a trifle.”

I rebuked him that the officers named were duty bound to see Bell secure, and he gave a great crack of his thumb in my face for scorn, and brayed that they would make excuse that Askerton was beyond their charge, and since my old lord had made it all his own business, so Askerton must answer Askerton’s foes.

“So who must guard Triermain? The landlord! What’s he? A slip of a lass, go to! And if the thieves ride in earnest, where will her tenants be and her rents withal?” He fell to damning Bell most grossly that was the cause of it all, to his mind, for not paying his black rent. And finding no remedy in raving turned his wrath on the lout Wattie, crying that the fire was out and my lady expected hourly.

Myself kept counsel, yet did share his fears that if this attempt of the Nixons in a little matter was not met, other evildoers would take example, and Askerton ridden to ruin. And as I paced about the withery orchard thinking we had been so tranquil, and now all upside down, what of thieves riding and a loose fellow in the cellar and my lady to come in, poor soul, that I was troubled for, in to me comes that same Thomas Carleton, Land Sergeant of Gilsland (which is a potent office, like to a petty Warden), and his deputy Yarrow, that had ridden over from Gilsland to give welcome to my lady, as befitted them. This Carleton was a tall smooth man with a sheep’s face, easy and affable enough but cold in the eye, reckoned an expert borderer that knew the hinder-end of all things and how the world wagged, a stout man at war but a politician foremost, that for all his assurance I would have trusted no farther than I might throw Hermitage Keep. He passed for gentry, being of a known family, and discoursed with the nobility or cracked with the commonalty. His underling Yarrow was a border callant with a noisy laugh and an empty head, yet proper in his gait and a fine figure, with much sense of his little office.

“God send you find the cares of the Church less than I find those of the state, sir priest,” was the Land Sergeant’s greeting to me, whereon I told him that if my cares were less than his, still mine lasted longer, going beyond the grave, to which he answered pleasantly that if I pursued my duties so far I would have hot work of it. So having stropped his wit, he inquired when my lady was expected. “An occasion,” says he, “for ’tis not every day a Dacre comes home.”

At which Master Hodgson coming out to us said he minded those that had come home other wise, slung like a peddlar’s pack over a saddle-bow, and stiffer than January washing, aye, and with a hole in them made by the Land Sergeant himself, and winked at me.

“Unseasonable chat,” says Carleton. “Times change, and if every family that I have touched with a sword were still mine enemies, I’d have few friends to count. In the way of business I let daylight in and blood out of Crookback Leonard Dacre in years past, and the land was the better for it. But that’s by-with. Ralph Dacre was a worthy man, we sorted well, and it befits that I give handsel to his grand-daughter, as officer and friend, offering what service I may.”

I said this was good hearing, since his service was like to be needed, looking keenly on Hodgson as I said it, and he then spoke of the Nixons’ attempt, but reluctantly, it seemed to me. Carleton said he had heard something of this, but it was a scratching affair, a pucker in a corner, and Bell a malcontent whining fellow. “If he has complaint at the Nixons, let him bear it to the Wardens for the next truce day, and get redress. If that likes him not, let him pay his blackmail or face the Nixons sword in hand.” And this was a March officer, bound to keep the peace! But it was “the custom of the country”, so I held my peace, and Hodgson would likewise but that Yarrow made some sneer at him for his fears. “You, bailiff, ye would light the beacon if a reiver let fart within twenty miles,” says he, at which Hodgson in a fine rage called him dandyprat and baboon and I know not what, that knew naught of his office but drink and wenches, and was fit for no more than to cry “Give way!” at Carleton’s elbow. The Land Sergeant stayed their bickering, calling it heat to no purpose.

“Give my lady a week,” says he, “and if she has half her grandsire’s wit she will whip Geordie Bell and such plaint-mongerers out of the parish.”

Thus was Bell’s business put by, as of no account, but when Hodgson came to speak of Archie Noble, that lay bound below stairs for pilfering, and suspicion of the horse that he rode, then were the officers all zeal, and Carleton wagged his head very knowing.

“Wait-about-him Noble,” says he, “a petty trafficker and broken man. I have had my hand near his neck this five year, but never cause to grip him. The horse shall be looked to, there may be others, there may be more. Follow the reek and you’ll find the fire. We have small matters about Gilsland that await answer; he has been about there, he may fit.”

This incensed me, to hear him so eager after a petty thing that overlooked a greater mischief. “Almost I hear you say ‘He will fit’,” I told him.

“And if he fits a halter, Father Lewis, it will be of his deserving,” said he. “We know such sturdy rogues, that will neither work nor want, so shall I bear him to Carlisle.”

“And there he can be borne higher yet,” cries Yarrow, at which callous mockery I turned away from them, yet heard Hodgson, to his credit, intercede again with the Land Sergeant on the matter of the Bells, saying that if he would but send word into Scotland, to them that he knew of, the Nixons might be quieted. But Carleton put him off, saying his word had no weight in Scotland, which was surely a lie, for he was one that had policy and acquaintance everywhere.

I passed into the house, and presently followed the others, for it was ten o’clock and my lady still stayed for, so the bailiff, to refresh the officers, had wine brought in and a few fruits pitted and wizened with keeping. Master Carleton looked askance with a Heigh-ho and sat him down out of patience, slapping his gloves on his thigh, and spoke crossly of her late coming, for the affairs of the March could not wait, for a lady ever so noble, and “it is the curse of their light living down yonder that they think others have no greater care. Time beats a swifter measure with us than they keep in Greenwich Palace. Aye, well, my masters, she may learn, she may learn.”

I was so nettled to hear his talk of care, from one that cared not for that he should have cared for, that I said boldly she had much to learn indeed, and the border was like to prove a hard school, where officers turned a blind eye on wrongs done a poor man, with not so much counsel as should stand him in small stead, and little justice save for the rich and strong, and that my heart smote me for her in her inheritance. To which he said but “Chut!” and withered me with his eye. Not so the braggart Yarrow.

“Gin I had her acres I’d learn me fast enough,” quo’ he. “Devil the broken man or family rider should set hoof on my ground.”

“Fine talk in Askerton Hall,” says Hodgson, that could nowise abide the deputy. “Wait thou, till thou’st ta’en a trod over Hermitage water, and seen Elwood* lances on the crest at your back, or played cat-and-mouse wi’ Armstrongs in the dark on the Black Lyne—”

“Sitha, blubberguts,” cries young Yarrow, “I’ve ridden trods enow, and sweated mair blood than thou hast fat, thou tunbelly, thou, and seen your Elwoods and Armstrongs, aye, and seen their backs, too!”

“Aye, and broke eggs wi’ a stick,” says Hodgson, all a-grin. “Good health, Anton, when next Ewesdale rides your way. By, we’ll see grand things!”

They might have breathed themselves in such windy exchange, but now came the boy Wattie, flying: “The cotch! The cotch’s coming! Father Lewis, my leddy’s on the hill!” and more, in joyous frenzy, to quiet which I bade him see to the fire, it being near gone out again.

So we went out to meet her, Yarrow brushing his beard and setting his baldric so, and steel bonnet on his arm, and Hodgson in some trepidation, and myself, but Master Carleton last to rise, most leisurely patient, yet contrived to be ahead of us all, standing forth of the door. And here a great cotch, with postillions but no riders, and the kitchen folk come and the children squeaking, and all on tiptoe to see the great lady from London, with hollering of “A red bull! A red bull!” as though it had been a foray, and not my lady come into her own. Yet it seemed to me she came with no great state, but the one cotch and two postillions, and so through the gate, and Master Carleton ready to doff and be first at the cotch door, and the bailiff coughing at my elbow, hem-hem, and scratching with his feet, and Yarrow all smiles and standing high, and myself afire to see this prodigy so long expected, and yet in the moment, that should have been so glad, felt an oppression of the spirit, I knew not why, unless it was with my contemplating of the sorry condition of all that she came into there. Howbeit, I remembered my office so long neglected, and was a priest again for the time being, though little worthy of that name. And so I fell a-praying for her, and all about me the cry of “A Dacre! A Dacre! A red bull! A red bull!”

* One of the many spellings of “Elliot”

Chapter 3

NOW, IF MASTER CARLETON hoped to puff his consequence to my lady and the world, by making show to hand her down and conduct her, he had little good of his ambition, for ere he had his bonnet off the cotch door was wide and she was by him and indoors in the blink of an eye, so that we had barely but the whisk of her cloak, and he with his hand out, into which her waiting woman a stout dame that followed after was like to give her basket, but that he made haste to withdraw in some snuff. So we must all in again, not a little abashed, and wondering at her suddenness, so that none put himself first, and ’twas myself, with Hodgson twitching at my sleeve, that led into the hall, and Master Carleton aloof behind, with, as they say here, his nose out of joint.

My lady stood before the fire, which was all but out and reeking, in which it matched her mood, as I soon saw. Yet was I mum at first, in awe of her appearance, which I had not seen such for many a year. She was of a middle height but lordly carriage, very straight and slender, and, as I thought at first, of a mould to beguile Solomon himself, so fair and pale of face like an angel in a picture, with great eyes of darkest blue, and for her hair, it was white shining gold like an infant’s, which in their elders is commonly artifice, but I think hers was not. A seeming beauty, though on looking narrowly at my more time, her nose was long and her chin something pointed, yet was she handsome enough for all that, and could smile right prettily, having excellent teeth, though her wonted mien was cold and very proud, as now, with thunder between her brows. For her attire, it would have sat upon a queen, being of rare richness, to wit, a long mulberry coat with gold buttons, open at the throat, for she wore a little ruff all sewn with pearls, and above a fur beaver, daintily cocked, and on her hands a muff of like fur sable, and beneath a fine green gown shotten with gold flames that was like to set our country ladies a-gape. So was I mum, staring at such a portent female, in awe not only of her person and apparel but of that high spirit that shone from her as would have overborne the boldest, young and slight though she was. We had a taste of her salt when, I having remembered myself and bade her welcome, she gave me but a glance and cut me short with:

“Which of you is my bailiff, Hodgkin?”

At that the bailiff, dismayed to hear himself singled so bodefully, answered haltingly that his name was Hodgson, at her service, at which she demanded coldly, had he care of her tenants, to which he assenting, she let drive such an angry blast as set his teeth a-chatter, nor minded the boy Wattie then coming in with logs, who dropped them clattering at her feet, and swore, and scrambled there before her, so much was she moved.

“And will you tell me, bailiff,” quo’ she, “what care you have, when I find myself petitioned on the road by a poor clown with a bloodied head, got of Scotch robbers, that came to you for help, whereon you set about him cruelly, and drove him forth with kicks? Well, sirrah – aye or no?”

Hodgson, seeing that George Bell had been beforehand with his grievance and kindled her to a fine rage, fell a-tremble, and mumbled that if she would hear him – and there his courage failed and he stood shuffling.

“What I would hear,” says she, dangerously soft and her finger tapping, “when you have done shuffling and got your tongue, is aye or no. ‘Aye, but’, you say? It is very well. We shall talk anon, Hodgson or Hodkin – nay, never stir, shuffle yet a while.” And to Wat, at her feet: “Your logs will not get up of themselves, fellow! Gather them, boy, to it!”

Then she threw off her back cloak and muff, and looked about, while her maid unbuttoned her long coat, but gave no heed to us who stood dumb, and seemed in no great delight of what she saw, playing with her gloves the while.

“This is all your charge, Susan,” says she. “Wine and water, and marchpane, and bid Master Lightfoot in to me. See that this lout mends the fire without putting the house alight, bid the grooms look to Angel and Lycidas, for these roads are fit to kill poor beasts, and Angel limps o’ the right forefoot.” And then of a sudden to Wat, that was dropping timbers broadcast, “Oh, try again, boy, and if you drop ’em on yon Hodgson’s toes it skills not, he shall skip of his own accord presently! ‘Aye, madam, but’, forsooth! Susan, bring mine own cup, and others for these gentlemen, for I doubt if there is a pot uncracked this side of York. Has this place been aired in a twelvemonth? If we are not to suffocate, put some sweet herbs on the fire, we had as well be in a stable!”

All this in a rush of words, when, seeing my amaze, she said more civilly: “Oh, sir, you wonder that I seem to take your welcome amiss, but I am in a rare fury, to see a poor man hurt, and a fat rogue blinking that gives no remedy, or even excuse, oh, it makes me mad! I thank you kindly, and these gentlemen, we shall know each other anon.” And at once falls railing at Wattie, for his handlessness. “Oh, fellow, kick them before you like a football, so shall you be done sooner! Susan, bid one help him, afore he does a mischief! Now, sirs, we shall have order presently, I dare say. You, sir (this to me), by your habit should be my grandsire’s papist priest. Give you good day, sir, for I will not call you father, but thank you for your courtesy. You may make these gentlemen known to me.”

So I did, first Master Carleton, who with a fine bow would have come forward at leisure to address her, but she marred it for him by turning aside to Susan, which may have been by design, for it took him in his preamble, so must he start again, while my lady gave sweet apology. And then Yarrow, who smiled on her boldly and preened himself, whereat she began to eat her marchpane and bade Susan give refreshment to all of us there, and to Master Lightfoot, her man of affairs, who was come in, one of your portly sleek flat-caps with a wealth of words on both sides, not aye, not no, but mayhap, of which we had surfeit when she put to him the matter of Bell, for she seemed to set that before all, that had not yet changed her shoon, but sat forward in her great chair, cup in hand, while they strove to make all clear to her.

Now, you have heard it and need not that I weary you with it again, but I, taking no part, yet lightly marked how each spoke his side in it, save Yarrow, who was silent and left off not gaping at her like a clown at the fair when he sees the tricksters. Hodgson made poor shift to defend himself, and Master Carleton must needs instruct her, but in a lofty sort that I could see had her teeth on edge, and Master Lightfoot confirmed him on blackmail, how, albeit it was an unlawful and hateful thing, yet were poor men wont to pay, at which she cried out on them, was this how the law was kept, and Master Carleton pointed to redress before the Wardens, and that it was no great matter, and “the custom of the country”, and no fault of any, save Bell himself, that looked to move my lady’s pity. But ever she kept to the point, a very Portia, that here were fell thieves harassing a tenant of hers to his hurt and ruin, and how was it possible that a creature of the Dacres should pay criminal rent to such leeches, and no help at law or any way. And through all my poor bailiff knuckled his head and nay-but-madamed her, and the Land Sergeant’s head higher by the moment, and Lightfoot wagging on to try the patience of a saint, and she no saint that sat there, but a lady justly moved, that I was right glad to see, yet sorry to see her at such a rough education as she could hardly believe, that here were Queen’s officers of the peace, but no help from them. For Carleton budged not from saying it was not in his charge, which was for Gilsland only, not Triermain, at which the bailiff shot me a great wink of the eye, as he would say “Said I not so?”

So we had to and fro of “Nay, will my lady but hear me, she doth me wrong” and “Peace, rogue, you kicked him black and blue, go shuffle again!” and “Under correction, madam, here is great ado for a snivelling arrant fellow that hath brought the mischief on himself” and “a God’s name, sir, are people of mine in thrall to Scotch thieves?” and “I did not invent blackmail, lady, nor the sorry state of the world”, and “in truth, my lady, the Land Sergeant has the right of it, ’tis matter for the Wardens”, and on that conclusion they fell silent, my lady a-weary and small of a sudden, and bade them bring in Bell that she would answer him.

While we waited, she said, “Susan, this chair likes me not, I had better be on the rack. Nay, let it be, the others look no better. And for dust, my barn at Blackheath is cleaner! Are there no maids in this house?” But Bell coming in, and a sorry snail he was in his rags and bloody bandage, she left off and spake him kindly, asking for his head.

“Poorly, my good lady,” says he, and cringed. “But poorly. I am not young, I cannot take these knocks, please you, my lady.”

She compassioned his ill-usage, and said the gentlemen had heard of it, and the Warden would see justice done on the Nixons. But at this he raised a great cry of terror that he looked not for justice, but security. “’Tis not what they’ve done, my lady, but what they’ll do yet! They have sworn to ride on me again, and my folk and our poor beasts, aye, this night! They’ll take and burn all, because I cannot pay Ill Will’s tribute! Oh, my lady, I fear for my life!”

Now it was news to her that peril threatened him so close, so up starts she at Carleton, demanding was this so, and where were his watches and troopers, or was this the nether side of Russia, that a man’s life and goods could be torn away? The whiles Bell pawed at her shoe, crying, “Ill Will will have us, lady, oh, sweet lady! Liddesdale never promised but performed! He’ll have us! I’m Dacre’s man, and served your grandsire,” and the like. The Land Sergeant said again ’twas not his charge, and if he rode to every hamlet that feared a raid o’ the Scots, he would never be done, and this being so, it behoved men to pay or fend for themselves.

“For themselves?” cries my lady, white as the wall. “Look at him, sir, can he fend for himself or anything? Or do you mean that I, his landlord, must take the field and fight, because your law cannot or will not?” She swore the Queen should know of it, and Carleton said, curtly enough, that Her Grace knew already. Lightfoot interposed that there was much ill, and much wrong, on the border, but it must be looked to, aye, and redress made, given time and much labour to perfection, and anon and anon, until she cried him down, and stood biting her lip to find herself at a loss what to do, and vented her rage on poor Wattie, who was at the fire, bidding him go clatter elsewhere. Then she turned on Carleton, speaking more composed, but still moved inwardly.

“Master Carleton, you cannot aid me with your office, it seems. Yet you were my grandfather’s friend, and you have a name as a stout gentleman. Will you, then, not aid me as a friend, that am in sore need? I ask not the Land Sergeant, but your own self, sir.”

He would need a heart of stone that resisted her (for she was fair, and brave in her distress), and then I saw Tom Carleton as near out of countenance as ever I saw, for he was a proud man, and a valiant, and but for his own policy I believe had offered his sword. To do him right, I believe he weighed in his mind what might come of fronting the Nixons, and what mischief would follow, and would have seen Bell and Triermain in Hades that put him to the choice. But a politician always, he said he might not, for it lay not in his charge, and would have spake more but she turned straight to Anton Yarrow and asked of him the same. And he stood dumb, and looked askance at Carleton, and said he might not, for he was bound by his office likewise. It choked him to say it, for he would fain have said Aye.

To my astoniment, she turned to me, and said something could be done, surely. “You are a priest,” says she, “no matter what persuasion, and were these pillagers as cruel and wanton as demons, they will hardly strike where the Church protects.” She said it so piteous, and her so proud, that I was near to tears to nay-say her.

“For when I was first in this country, I did such a thing, offering myself as a sacrifice, even, for the Lord’s sake. And, lady, they laughed and rode by, crying ‘Bless us, father’, and when I cursed them, they laughed again. Oh, good lady, if you have seen the baited bear snap his chain and rush among the mastiffs, ravening, you would as well reason with him as with Ill Will Nixon and his folk, when they have a foray before them.”

She made no answer, but sat her down, and fingered the crumbs upon her plate, and then called up Bell again.

“I am but lately come, and all at sea here, Master Bell,” says she. “But this I tell you: you shall have security of me, your liege lord. So go up now to your place, and none shall harm you. Go.” And when Bell had slobbered his thanks, and blessed her, and her grandsire, and all else that came to his mind, and gone away in wonder, rejoicing, she looked about full calm, and when Carleton and Lightfoot would have remonstrated at her, told the latter to confer with the bailiff, and give her news of the estate anon. To Carleton she inclined her head and said:

“Master Carleton and Master Yarrow, we thank you for your courteous welcome, and look to see you again. Susan, take away my plate, and see that all is ready overstairs, for I would rest awhile. And bid our ragged Prometheus see to the fire, and build it up, for it is shrewd weather.” And gave a dainty little yawn behind her hand, and fell to looking on her nails, but negligently. Carleton, being in dudgeon to find himself thus dismissed, yet kept his countenance, and giving her his leg would have gone forth silent, but the bailiff saying he had business with the Land Sergeant, by her leave, she gave him joy of it, adding that so it was business that required him not to do his duty, he should prove helpful indeed.

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