Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
brandy, took each a draught, and gave a third to Lintstock.
"Hallo!" cried Roland, to a horseman who came up at a rough trot, and
whose grey plaid, blue bonnet, and white Galloway doublet, as well as
his gambadoes, or riding boots of rough calf-skin, declared him a
plain countryman; "a good day, friend. Wilt thou have a tass of
brandy?"
"God keep you, my captain--wi' mony gude thanks," replied the
horseman, pulling up his nag, which was a strong Flanders mare.
"Health to ye baith, sirs," said he, pulling his bonnet well forward,
instead of raising it, as he nodded to each knight, and drained the
vessel. "By my faith, but that's braw stuff!"
"Ay, I daresay. 'Tis not often the burnt wine of Languedoc runs over
thy Lanarkshire throat," said Roland, laughing; "dost thou travel our
way?"
"Sir knicht, that just depends upon which way yours may be," replied
the fellow, dryly, drawing his plaid well over his face.
"We are going to the Barmkyn Cairntable," said Roland, looking keenly
at him under his helmet.
"And so am I, sir."
"Well, thy nag seems fresh, and thou art not, as we are, cased in
armour; so ride fast, I pray you, and inform the gudeman of the
Barmkyn that a party of the king's soldiers will halt there about
dinner-time--say a hundred men or so--and that we will thank the
gudewife to look well to her larder and kitchen----"
"To kill the fatted calf, and set her best casks a-broach," said
Leslie, laughing.
"To select the hens that roost next the cock--the most delicate
pullets----"
"To examine her eel-arks--ha! ha!"
"To prepare the most dainty pasties, and highly-seasoned patties--ha!
ha! ha!" continued Roland, in the same merry tone; "for as both
gudewife and gudeman are friends of the good and amiable lord
advocate, they cannot but rejoice to make welcome those who come
among them on the king's service."
"And in whose name shall I give the message?"
"In the name of Sir Roland Vipont, master of the ordnance."
"Without fail," replied the horseman, putting spurs to his nag and
galloping off; "but may the devil ryve the saul out of thee (and me
too), if thou gettest not a reception as warm as auld Bauldy Fleming
can give thee!" added Nichol the brodder, for the stranger was no
other than he.
"That fellow's laugh bespeaks him a rascal," said Leslie, who had
been narrowly observing all that could be seen of Birrel's face; "how
different it was from the broad grin of an honest yeoman."
"Dost think so?" said Roland, looking after him as he galloped over
an adjacent brae, and disappeared; "dost thou think he will play us
false after our kindness?"
"No, perhaps--but the committal of thy message to a stranger in these
times, and in this place, is, to say the least of it, rather unwary.
We might be entrapped and cut off."
"A hundred chosen soldiers, with two pieces of cannon--bah! I should
like to see any one attempt it, Leslie. We should sell our lives
dearly; and yet my mind misgives me sorely, that it was for no other
purpose that subtle villain Redhall sent so small a force into this
wild and hostile district."
"Eh, gentle sirs! Gude guide us, your horses are eating a' my corn!"
cried the cottager, running to her quern, which she had left for a
moment; "shoo! shoo! awa' wi' ye!"
"Well, thou old devil," said Leslie, "may not soldiers' horses eat
what they like?"
Roland threw a few pence into the quern; and then, both putting spurs
to their horses, hurried after their soldiers, who were now some
distance in advance.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE BARMKYN OF CAIRNTABLE.
"Dark grew the sky, the wind was still,
The sun in blood arose;
But oh! how many a gallant man
Ne'er saw that evening close!"--HOGG.
A few hours' march among the knolls and hollows, which exhibited here
and there a solitary square tower, or an old thatched sheep farm,
shaded by ash trees, and nestling on the holm land of the strath
through which the Douglas winds, brought the soldiers of Vipont to
the base of the Cairntable, a beautiful green mountain, sixteen
hundred feet in height. One half was darkly rounded into shadow, on
the other shone the bright splendour of the meridian sun, which lit
up all the windings of the various little pastoral glens, through
which the Peniel, the Glespin, the Kinnox, and other mountain
tributaries, flowed to feed the Douglas at its base.
On a small spot of table-land, a shoulder of the hill, and sheltered
by its giant ridge from the south-west wind, which usually prevails
there, stood the fortified grange, or barmkyn, of Baldwin Fleming.
Boasting of his lineal descent from Theobald le Fleming, who is said
to have possessed all that country before the rise of the Douglases,
and their gradual acquisition of the whole district, this sturdy
retainer of the encroaching Lords of Angus, though neither laird nor
lesser baron, but merely a goodman, who held his feu of a feudal
chief, and followed his banner in battle, had procured (through the
good offices of his kinsman Redhall) a crown charter, empowering him
to fortify his farm, which he had done with a strength that made it
second only to Castle Douglas, and the envy of all the fierce barons
in that warlike district.
This vast building formed an exact square, and had four square towers
on each of its four faces. These were all strongly vaulted for
holding grain, while the great yard within served for securing
cattle. The twelve towers, and the curtain walls between them, were
battlemented on the top, studded with loopholes below, and all
strongly, though roughly, built with stone quarried from the adjacent
rocks.
The most perfect example of a similar edifice now in Scotland, is the
fortified grange of Sir John Seton of Barns, which crowns a height
southward of Haddington, where its ruined towers resemble the remains
of an ancient city, from their strength and extent.
Within the barmkyn, on one side, stood the strong and substantial,
but thatched, dwelling of the farmer; along the other three sides
were barns, stables, and houses for his men. At a certain distance
round the whole, a deep ditch was drawn; the margin was used as a
kitchen garden, and was stocked with common potherbs, and a few small
fruit trees, sheltered by boor-tree hedges and stockades.
The bridge was up; and opposite the gate stood a clump of large oak
trees; and on a branch of one, which was conspicuous for its size and
foliage, the dead body of a man was hanging by the neck, with the
gleds flying about it.
"Oho!" said Roland, as a turn of the glen brought him suddenly in
view of this goodly farm; "so the goodman of this grange hath a power
of pit and gallows! His oaks bear other fruit than acorns."
"A peasant rascal!" replied Leslie; "and yet he tieth a tassel to his
tree, like the best feudal lord in the land."
While approaching this formidable edifice, they had heard the distant
blowing of bugle-horns, the springing of wooden rattles, and the
incessant jangle of a large bell. These notes of alarm, together
with the appearance of armed horsemen, galloping in various
directions over the green hill sides, lessened the surprise of Vipont
and his soldiers, when, on coming in view of the grange of
Cairntable, they saw the whole line of its walls glistening with
pike-heads and glittering with steel caps; while a scarlet banner,
bearing the chevron of the Flemings within its flowering and
counterflowering fleurs-de-lys, was unfurled in defiance; for (thanks
to the cunning and amiable intentions of Nichol Birrel) such was the
dinner prepared by the sturdy proprietor for his unwelcome visitors.
What the tenor of Birrel's falsehoods and misinformation may have
been, we have now no means of ascertaining; but they were such, that
the gudeman had all his horses secured in stall; his vast herds of
cattle in their pens, his stacks of grain stowed away in vault and
barn; while all the men over whom he had authority, to the number of
three hundred, with their families, were in garrison, and stood to
their arms, with the intention of resolutely obeying his orders,
whatever they might be.
A brownie, in the shape of a little rough man, with a broad bonnet
and long beard, attended the family of Fleming. He rocked the
cradles of the infants, and performed various other kind and domestic
services; especially foddering the horses and cattle, sweeping the
kitchen floor, and filling the water-stoups for the servant girls;
all of which self-imposed duties were performed by this goodnatured
imp in the night, for the brownie was a being unseen by day; and to
propitiate him, a libation of milk and wort were nightly poured into
a rude font in the yard, called the _broonie's stane_--for in those
days every thrifty housewife set apart a portion of food for the
brownie, that his favour and protection, as well as his future
services, might be thereby ensured. If a piece of money were left,
an eldritch yell announced that the insulted brownie had found it,
and fled in resentment--for from that moment he invariably abandoned
the family and for ever. This familiar and usually amiable spirit,
with which Scottish superstition furnished the household of every old
race, was pacific, generous, and unvarying in his services; but if
once offended, implacable in his revenge.
On the night preceding this eventful day, the brownie of Cairntable
had been heard to utter the most doleful lamentations, and "the wee
manikin with his lang beard and braid bannet," had been seen (as
several of the servitors averred) to pass round the towers of the
barmkyn, wringing his hands and weeping piteously, which had caused
the gudeman to look well to his defences, and to his horses and
armour. Thus in two hours after the arrival of his kinsman's
follower, Nichol Birrel, everything was in fighting order within the
grange when the king's troops approached it.
"Halt!" cried Roland Vipont.
"By my faith!" said Leslie, "we shall have no dinner here to-day,
which I regret exceedingly, as this hath all the aspect and
reputation of being an exceedingly well-stocked grange."
"There is some mistake here. They surely have not seen the royal
standard," said Vipont, angrily, as he shaded his eyes with his hand,
which was cased in a glove of steel.
"Ah! you wished for some fighting!"
"Just now I wish most for dinner; and so, Balquhan, ride thou forward
with a white flag, and make open door for us."
"Dost think I am another St. Colm, to make bolts unbar and doors open
by simply signing the cross?"
"No; but by threatening them with cannon shot."
Leslie tied a white handkerchief to the point of his long sword, and
galloped fearlessly forward to the edge of the ditch, from whence he
could distinctly see the grim faces that, from under battered
morions, peered at him between the embrasures of the wall above;
while from the deep-mouthed loopholes below peeped forth the keen
pike-heads and the iron muzzle of many an arquebuse and pistol.
"Art thou the gudeman of the Cairntable?" asked Leslie of a stout man
of great stature, whose polished coat of mail betokened a superiority
over the others around him.
"At your service, my braw gallant," he replied, bending over the
tower; "but what may your errand be here?"
"To learn wherefore ye receive the king's soldiers in this fashion,
with closed gates, and your helmets on?"
"Gif gaff makes gude friends," replied the other, surlily; "but I
trow, gif gaff shall make you none here; so, in God's name, pass on
in peace. Here ilka man must just ride the ford as he finds it."
"Dost think we will burn thy house after it hath lodged us, poor
devil!" said Leslie, with a lofty and patronizing air.
The buirdly farmer laughed hoarsely, as he looked to the right and