Volume Iii Part 2 (2/2)
Many this night shall hearken and heed thee.
Hie abroad, DemiG.o.d!
Who shall defame thee?
King of the Elements! how shall we name thee?
As the imps concluded their song, our prisoners on the top of the castle perceived a large rough watch-dog jogging out at the gate of the castle, and following in the direction of the fugitives. When the brute saw that he was perceived he turned round, set up his snout toward the battlements, and uttered a loud bow-wow-wow, which, when the great Master heard, he started to his feet, and, with wild staring looks, and his hair standing on end, took shelter behind the friar.”
”Behold thou, and see with thine eyes, that it is only a watch-dog come from the camp of our captain,” said the friar. ”Lo, thy very nature is changed since first I saw thee.”
”Then, would to the G.o.ds that I had never seen thee, or that I had seen thee sooner,” said the Master; and strode away to discourage any farther reply. The dog followed the fugitives, and bent his course toward the mill.
That being the next inhabited house to the eastward, Dan Chisholm and his yeomen landed all there; and in full a.s.sembly he related, to their terror and astonishment, how he had seen the devil himself and several of his monstrous agents, who had chased him from the castle, spuing fire and brimstone on him like a cataract. The rest said, that though they had not seen the devil, they had seen and heard enough to put any rational being out of his senses, and as much as to teach them never to go there again. Dan swore that they were not to be taught any such thing; for, said he, ”Our captain's friends, and our own brethren in arms, are most unwarrantably, and I must also say unaccountably, confined there,--and we will either free them or perish in the attempt. I can find plenty of holy men that, with book and candle, can withstand the devil, and shall make him flee from his stronghold like fire from the flint. If I had the gospel friar on the one side of him, and Father Brand, or Capuchin Cairnabie, on the other, I shall gar him skip.” While Dan was in the middle of this speech, in comes the great rough watch-dog; who, after fawning on some of the warriors as on old acquaintances, took his station in a dark corner of the miller's thronged hall, and began a licking his feet, but at the same time taking good heed to all that pa.s.sed. It was finally agreed that Dan and a companion should ride straight to Melrose, and represent their case to the holy abbot there, who was devoted to the interests of their captain, and who, it was not doubted, would devise means of expelling the old demon from his guards.h.i.+p, and letting free their friends, who were all baptised men and good Christians. As they formed these sapient devices, many hard things were said of the devil; and our warriors seemed rather inclined to make a laughing-stock of him, till the miller's maid interrupted them with the following question:
”Wha o' you trooper chaps does this maskis dog belang to?”
”To nane o' us,” was answered by several at the same time.
”I wish ye wad tent him, then,” said she, ”for, this wee while bygane, his een hae been glentin like twa blue burnin candles: I wish he be nae a mad ane.”
”Sneck doors, and out swords,” cried the miller: ”We'll hae him proven.”
The doors were shut, and the yeomen surrounded the dog with their drawn weapons. The poor beast lay as harmless-like as a lamb, with his head upon his fore feet so as to hide them, turning up his eyes from below his s.h.a.ggy brows in a beseeching manner, and wagging his tail till it played thump, thump, on the floor. But this did not hinder the miller from reconnoitring, though it gave him rather a favourable opinion of his s.h.a.ggy guest. ”Poor fellow,” said the miller, ”wha's dog may ye be?” The dog forgot himself; he lifted up his head in a kind acknowledging manner to the miller, who, looking narrowly at him, cried out: ”A marvel! a marvel! saw ever ony mortal man the like o'
this? Here's a tyke wi' cloven cloots like a gait, fairney cloots and a' thegither. The Holy Virgin be wi' us! I believe we hae gotten the----”
Here the miller was interrupted, without getting the sentence concluded. The dog sprung to his feet, appearing twice as big as when he entered. ”Bow-wow-wow!” roared he in the miller's face with the voice of an enraged lion; ”Bow-wow-wow!” And as he bayed from side to side on the warrior circle, they all retreated backward till the wall stopped them. Well might they,--for they perceived, by his open mouth, the same appearance that Dan had before witnessed, namely, a stomach and chest of burning flame. ”Bow-wow-wow!” reiterated he: ”Youph, youph, youph.” All fled back aghast; but the attack was of short duration. The miller had a huge fire of seeds, above a burning log of wood, which he had heaped on for the comfort of his guests. When the dog reached that, he broke into it, appearing to bury himself in the coil of fiery dust. It flashed upwards in millions of burning atoms, and in the midst of them up flew the dog out at the top of the lum, with a tremendous ”Bow-wow-wow!”
All was silence for a few seconds, while our yeomen stood in a circle, with their weapons drawn, and their backs at the wall, gaping with affright, and staring on one another. ”By Saint Thomas, we are haunted!” cried Dan, breaking silence; ”That is the same chap I forgathered wi' afore in the staircase of the castle, I ken him by his lowin lungs, though he has changed his shape.” He was interrupted by a loud laugh on the top of the house, and a voice that said, in a jeering tone, ”Ha, ha, ha! Andrew Chisholm is that you? I have found out a' your plans,--and ride you to Melrose, or ride you to Dryburgh, I'll be there afore you to lend you a lift. Ay, and I'll keep Aikwood castle in spite o' you and a' your master's men.”
Dan could not contain his indignation on hearing this brag. He ran forward to the brace, put his neck under it, and turning his nose up the lum (or rustic chimney) answered, ”Deil o' that ye're fit to do, auld tyke. Ye're but a liar at best and the father o' liars. Gang and toast heathen bacon in your ain het hame. What seek ye here amang leel men?”
”Weel answered, and like yoursel, Dan!” said one of the yeomen, and slapped him on the shoulder, which rousing his spirit still farther, he added, ”Confound you Robin's Geordie o' Feindhope-haugh, what for didna ye strike when the foul thief set up his gousty gab at your nose wi' his impudent bow-wow-wow; I see nae right ony o' G.o.d's creatures hae to be hurlbarrowed out o' their standing wi' him.”
As he finished the remark, there was something came to the door, and gave two or three rude impatient scratches, exactly in the same manner that a strong dog does that wants to be in. This instantly changed the cheer of our st.u.r.dy group, that with one involuntary movement closed round the hearth, as the point the most distant from the door.
”That's him again,” said the miller's la.s.s.
”The Lord forbid,” said the miller: ”I wonder what multure he wants frae me. Though I live on the lands of a Master of Arts, I had nae inkling that I was thirl to h.e.l.l. Brave lads, can nane of you rhame a ma.s.s, a credo, or a paternoster? He is but a coward at best; I hae kend a monk, wi' his crosier and his cowl, chace him like a rabbit.”
”I fear we'll prove but lame hands at that,” said Dan, ”and think we had better sally out on him sword in hand, and see what he can either say or do for himself. But, Chryste, I needna say that, considering that I ken sae weel what his lining's made of.”
”I hae a cross and chain in the house,” said the miller, ”that was consecrated at the shrine of St Bothan; whoever will be our leader shall bear that before him, and we'll bang the auld thief away frae our bigging.”
The scratching was renewed with redoubled fury. Our yeomen crowded closer around the fire, till all at once their ears were saluted by a furious ”bow-wow-wow” down the lum, which, in spite of their utmost resolution, scattered them like a covey of heath-fowl over which the hawk is hovering, when every one endeavours to s.h.i.+ft for itself, and hide in its own heather bush.
Their faces were by this time flushed with shame as well as fear, that they should be thus cuffed about by ”the auld thief,” as they styled him. Resolved, therefore, to make one great and strenuous effort, the miller brought out his consecrated cross, some tied sticks, and others horn spoons across, till all were armed with the same irresistible symbol, and then they marshalled up before the fire, uncovered their heads, and with the ensigns reared before them, waited for a moment the word of command to march out to the grand attack. The arch fiend, not choosing to wait the issue, raised such a horse laugh on the top of the lum that their ears were deafened with the noise; and clapping his paws that sounded like the strokes of battering ram's horns, he laughed till the upper and nether millstones chattered against each other, and away he bounded through the clouds of the night, apparently in an agony of laughter.
”Aha! there he goes!” said Dan: ”There's nae guidance to be had o'
him, and as little mense in meddling wi' him.”
”Ay, let him e'en gang,” said the miller; ”he's the warst mouse o' the mill. Ane had better tine the blind b.i.t.c.h's litter than hae the mill singed wi' brimstone. I lurd rather deal wi' the thankless maltster, that neither gi'es coup, neivefu', nor lippie, than wi' him. I have no part of the breviary but a glorious preamble; kneel till I repeat it.”
The troopers kneeled round the miller, who, lifting up his hands, said, with great fervour, ”O semper timidum scelus! Obstupui, steteruntque comae et vox faucibus haesit. O Deus; nusquam tuta fides!
Amen.” ”Amen!” repeated all the group, and arose greatly strengthened and encouraged by the miller's _preamble_.
They spent that night around the miller's hearth, and had a cog of good brose to their supper. The next morning Dan and two a.s.sociates rode off for Melrose, to lay their case before the friendly abbot, and to beg a.s.sistance; which, notwithstanding the devil's brag, they were not afraid of obtaining. But the important events that followed must be related in course, while we return to those friends in their elevated confinement, to whom that night the poet related the following tale.
CHAPTER II.
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