The Men of the Moss-Hags

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  THE TESTING OF THE TYKE.

  At the head of the high natural wood which fringes about all the mansionhouse of Balmaghie, we held down to the right through the copses, tillwe came to the green policies that ring in the great house of McGhies.As we went linking down this green pleasaunce, there met us one who cametowards us with his hands behind his back, stooping a little from theshoulders down. He had on him a rich dress of dark stuff a good dealworn, being that of a fashion one or two removes from the present. Butthis rather, as it seemed, from habit and preference than fromneed--like one that deigns not to go too fine.

  "Where away, Heather Jock?" he cried as we made to go by, and turnedtoward us.

  "Whom have we here?" he asked, so soon as he saw me.

  "A cousin o' mine from the hill country, laird," said Wat, with thegruff courtesy of the gardener.

  "Hoot, hoot--another! This will never do. Has he taken the Test?" saidthe laird.

  "I doubt he cannot read it even," said Wat, standing sheepishly beforehim.

  "That is all the better," said the tall grey man, shaking his headgently and a little reproachfully. "It is easier gotten over that way."

  "Have not you read it, sir?" asked Wat, glancing up at him curiously ashe stood and swung his cane.

  "Faith no," he answered quickly; "for if I had read it, Heather Jock, Imight never have taken it. I could not run the risks."

  "My friend will e'en take the Test the way that the Heriot's hospitaldog took it," said Wat, again smiling, "with a little butter and libertyto spit it out."

  "How now, Heather Jock, thou art a great fellow! Where didst thou getall the stories of the city? The whaups do not tell them about theGlenkens."

  "Why, an it please your honour, I was half a year in the town with theLady Gordon, and gat the chapman's fly sheets that were hawked about thecauseways," answered Wat readily enough, making him an awkward bow.

  "Tell me the story, rascal," said the tall man, whom I now knew forRoger McGhie of Balmaghie. "I love a story, so that it be not too oftentold."

  Now I wondered to hear Wat Gordon of Lochinvar take the word "rascal" someekly, standing there on the road. It was, indeed, very far from beinghis wont.

  However, he began obediently enough to tell the story which Roger McGhieasked of him.

  For a Kate of the Black Eyebrows in the plot makes many a mightydifference to the delicateness of a man's stomach.

  "The story was only a bairn's ploy that I heard tell of, when I was intown with my lady," he said, "nothing worth your honour's attention, yetwill I tell it from the printed sheet which for a bodle I bought."

  "Let me be the judge of that," said the other.

  "Well then, laird, there was in the hospital of George Heriot, latejeweller to the King, a wheen loon scholar lads who had an ill-will at amastiff tyke, that lived in a barrel in the yard and keeped theoutermost gate. They suspected this dog of treason against the person ofhis Majesty, and especially of treasonable opinions as to the successionof the Duke of York. And, indeed, they had some ground for theirsuspicion, for the mastiff growled one day at the King's HighCommissioner when he passed that way, and even bit a piece out of thecalf of one of the Duke of York's servitors that wore his Highness'livery, at the time when his Grace was an indweller in Holyrood House."

  The eye of the tall grave man changed. A look of humorous severity cameinto it.

  "Be cautious how you speak of dignities!" he said to Wat.

  "Well," said Wat, "at any rate, this evil-minded tyke held an office oftrust, patently within the meaning of the act, and these loon lads ofHeriot's ordained him duly to take the Test, or be turned out of hisplace of dignity and profit.

  "So they formed a Summary Court, and the tyke was called andinterrogated in due form. The silly cur answered all their questionswith silence, which was held as a sign of a guilty conscience. And thiswould have been registered as a direct refusal, but that one of theloons, taking it upon him to be the tyke's advocate, argued that silencecommonly gave consent, and that the Test had not been presented to hisclient in the form most plausible and agreeable to his tender stomach.

  "The debate lasted long, but at last it was agreed that a printed copyof the Test should be made into as little bulk as possible, smoothedwith butter, tallow, or whatever should be most tempting to his doggishappetite. This being done, Tyke readily took it, and made a shift byrowing it up and down his mouth, to separate what was pleasant to hispalate. When all seemed over and the dog appearingly well tested, theloons saw somewhat, as it were one piece after another, drop from theside of his mouth. Whereupon it was argued, as in the case of my LordArgyle, that this was much worse than a refusal, because it was aseparating of that which was pleasant from what was irksome. And thatthis therefore, rightly interpreted, was no less than High Treason.

  "But the tyke's advocate urged that his enemies had had the rowing up ofthe paper, and very likely they had put some crooked pin or otherforeign object, unpleasant to a honest tyke's palate, within. So heasked for a fair trial before his peers for his client.

  "Then the Court being constitute and the assize set, there fell out agreat debate concerning this tyke dog. Some said that his chaming andchirking of the paper was very ill-done of him, that he was overmalapert and took too much upon him. For his office being a lowly one,it was no business of his to do other than bolt the Test at once.

  "But his advocate urged that he had done his best, and that if one partof the oath fell to hindering the other and fighting in his hass, it wasnot his fault, but the fault of them that framed such-like. Also, thatif it had not hindered itself in going down, he would have taken itgladly and willingly, as he had taken down many other untoothsomemorsels before, to the certain knowledge of the Court--such as deadcats, old hosen and shoes, and a bit of the leg of one of the masters inthe hospital, who was known to be exceedingly unsavoury in his person.

  "But all this did not save the poor tyke, for his action in mauling andbeslavering his Majesty's printing and paper was held to be, at least,Interpretive Treason. And so he was ordered to close prison till such atime as the Court should call him forth to be hanged like a dog. Whichwas pronounced for doom."

  Roger McGhie laughed at the tale's end with a gentle, inward laughter,and tapped Wat with his cane.

  "Thou art indeed a merry wag, and speak over well for a gardener," hesaid; "but I know not if John Graham would not put a charge of lead intothee, if he heard thy way of talking. But go thy ways. Tell me quicklywhat befel the poor tyke."

  "None so evil was his fate," said Wat, "for in the midst of the greatdebate that the surprising verdict raised, the tyke drew on a fox'sskin, laid hold of the tail of another tyke, and so passed unobservedout of the prison. At which many were glad. For, said they, he was agood tyke that would not sup kail with the Pope nor yet the deil, and sohad no need of his long spoon. And others said that it were a pity tohang so logical a tyke, for that he was surely no Aberdeen man, everready to cant and recant again."

  Roger McGhie laughed aloud and knocked his cane on the ground, for rightwell he understood the meaning of all these things, being versed inparties and politics, which I never was.

  "It is mighty merry wit," he said, "and these colleginers are blythesomeblades. I wonder what John Graham will say to this. But go to thebothies of the bachelor foresters, and get that which may comfort theinner parts of your cousin from the hills--who, from the hang of hishead, seems not so ready of tongue as thou."

  For, indeed, I had been most discreetly silent.

  So the tall, grey-headed gentleman went away from us, tapping gentlywith his fine cane on the ground, and often stopping to look curiouslyat some knot on a tree or some chance puddock or grasshopper on theroadside.

  Then Wat told me that because of his quaint wit and great loyalty, RogerMcGhie of Balmaghie was in high favour with the ruling party, and thatnone on his estates were ever molested. Also that Claverhouse frequentedthe house greatly, often riding from Du
mfries for a single night only tohave the pleasure of his society. He never quartered his men near by thehouse of Balmaghie, but rode over alone or with but one attendant in theforenights--perhaps to get away from roystering Lidderdale of the Isle,red roaring Baldoon, drinking Winram, and the rest of the booncompanions.

  "The laird of Claverhouse will come hither," said Wat, "with a proud setface, stern and dark as Lucifer's, in the evening. And in the morningride away with so fresh a countenance and so pleasing an expression thatone might think him a spirit unfallen. For, as he says, Roger McGhiedoes his heart good like medicine."