CHAPTER LII.
THE MADNESS OF THE BULL OF EARLSTOUN.
How they carried me to Edinburgh I cannot stop to tell, though themanner of it was grievous enough. But in my heart all the way thereremained the fear that while I was laid up in Edinburgh, RobertGrierson, the wild beast of Galloway, might come and take my mother andMaisie. And do so with them even as he had done with Margaret Lauchlisonand our little Margaret of Glen Vernock. And this vexed me more thantorments.
In Edinburgh they cast me into an inner den of the prison, where in theirons there were ten men already. Then when my name was made known,through the darkness and the fearsome stench of the place, where nofresh air had come for years, what was my joy to hear the voice of AntonLennox bidding me be of good cheer--for that our Lord was a strong Lord,and would see me win with credit from off the stage of life.
At this I took heart of grace at the kenned voice and face, and we fellto discoursing about Maisie Lennox and how she did. He told me that tothe honour of the King's service the soldiers had treated him kindly,and had given him the repute of being a man honourable above most.Nevertheless, the warrant for his execution was daily expected fromLondon. He told me also that my brother Sandy was in Blackness Castle,but that it was reported again that he was soon to be examined bytorture. Indeed there was a talk among the guard that I was to sharethis with him, which made them the more careful of me, as one whom theCouncil had an eye upon.
But it was not long before this matter was brought to a probation. Aboutthree of the clock on the following day, there came officers to theTolbooth Port and cried my name, to which I answered with a quakingheart--not for death, but for torture. So they took me out and deliveredme to the guard, who haled me by back ways and closes to a little doorlet into the side of a great hulk of grey wall.
Along stone passages very many, all dripping with damp like a cellar,they dragged me, till beside three doors hung with red cloth theystopped. Then instead of swearing and jesting as they had done before,the officers talked in whispers.
Presently a door swung open very silently to admit me, and I set my feetupon a soft carpet. Then, also without noise, the door swung to again. Ifound myself alone in a cage, barriered like the cage of a wild beast.It was at one end of a vast room with black oaken ceiling, carven andpanelled. Before me there was a strong breastwork of oak, and an ironbar across, chin high. Beside me and on either hand were rangedstrange-looking engines, some of which I knew to be the "boots" for thetorture of the legs, and the pilniewinks for the bruising of the thumbs.Also there stood at each side of the platform a man habited in black andwhite and with a black mask over his face. These men stood with theirarms folded, and looked across the narrow space at one another as thoughthey had been carven statues.
The rest of the great room was occupied by a table, and at the tablethere sat a dignified company. Then I understood that I stood in thepresence of the Privy Council of Scotland, which for twenty-five yearshad bent the land to the King's will. At the head sat cruel Queensberry,with a face louring with hate and guile--or so it seemed, seen throughbars of oak and underneath gauds of iron.
Still more black and forbidding was the face of the "Bluidy Advocate,"Sir George Mackenzie, who sat at the table-foot, and wrote incessantlyin his books. I knew none other there, save the fox face of Tarbet,called the Timeserver.
When I was brought in, they were talking over some slight matterconcerning a laird who had been complaining that certain ill-set personswere carrying away sea tangle from his foreshore. And I was not pleasedthat they should have other thoughts in their minds, when I was beforethem in peril of my life.
At last Sir George Mackenzie turned him about and said, "Officer, whomhave we here?"
The officer of the court made answer very shortly and formally, "WilliamGordon, son of umquhile William Gordon of Earlstoun in Galloway, andbrother of the aforementioned Alexander Gordon, condemned traitor fromthe prison of Blackness, presently to be examined."
"Ah!" said Mackenzie, picking up his pen again, "the Glenkens messan!We'll wait for the muckle hound and take both the lowsy tykesthegether!"
But Queensberry, as was his custom at Council, ran counter to theadvocate in his desire, and commanded presently to interrogate me.
The Duke asked me first if I had been at the wounding of the DukeWellwood.
I answered him plainly that I had. But that it was a fair fight, andthat the Duke and his men had made the first onslaught.
"You have proof of that at your hand, no doubt," said he, and passed onas though that had been a thing of little import--as indeed, in thelight of my succeeding admissions, it was.
"You were at Sanquhar town on the day of the Declaration?" he said,looking sharply at me, no doubt expecting a denial or equivocation.
Now it seemed to me that I must most certainly die, so I cared not if Idid it with some credit. For the whiner got even less mercy from thesemen, than he that defied and outfaced them.
"I was at Sanquhar, and with this hand I raised the Banner of Blue!" Isaid.
"Note that, advocate," said Tarbet, smiling foxily. "The King hath aspecial interest in all that took his name in vain at Sanquhar."
Mackenzie glanced with a black, side-cocking look of interest at thehand I held up, as if to say, "I shall know that again when I see it onthe Netherbow!"
"You were at Ayrsmoss, and won clear?" was the next interrogatory.
"I was one of two that broke through both lines of the troops when wecame to the charge!" I said, with perhaps more of the braggart than Icare now to think on.
Then all the Council looked up, and there was a sudden stir of interest.
"Blood of St. Crispin!" said Queensberry, "but ye do not look like it.Yet I suppose it must be so."
"It is so," said Sir George the Advocate shortly, flicking a parchmentwith the feather of his quill pen. He had the record before him.
"Is there anything more that ye were in? Being as good as headedalready, a little more will not matter. It will be to your credit whenthe saints come to put up your tomb, and scribe your testimony on it."
"I am no saint," said I, "though I love not Charles Stuart. Neither,saving your honourable presences, do I love the way that this realm isguided. But if it please you to ken, I have been in all that has chancedsince Bothwell. I was at Enterkin the day we reft the prisoners fromyou. I was in the ranks of the Seven Thousand when, at the Conventicleat Shalloch-on-Minnoch, the hillmen made Clavers and Strachan draw off.I was taken at the Tolbooth of Wigtown trying to deliver a prisoner,whom ye had reprieved. And had there been anything else done, I shouldhave been in it."
The Council leaned back in their chairs almost to a man, and smilinglylooked at one another. The President spoke after a moment of silence.
"Ye are a brisk lad and ill to content, but your sheet is gallantlyfilled. So that I think ye deserve heading instead of hanging, which iscertainly a great remission. I shall e'en take the liberty of shakinghands with you and wishing you a speedy passage and a sharp axe.Officer, the prisoner is in your care till his warrant comes fromLondon."
And to my astonishment Queensbury turned round and very ceremoniouslyheld out his hand to me, which I took through the bars.
"I shall never again deny that Gordon blood is very good blood," hesaid.
Then they brought in Sandy, looming up like a tower between the warders.He had a strange, dazed look about him, and his hair had grown till hepeered out of the hassock, like to an owl out of an ivy bush, as theproverb says.
They asked a few questions of him, to which he gave but mumbled replies.If he saw me he never showed it. But I knew him of old, and a sly todwas Sandy.
Then Sir George Mackenzie rose, and turning to him, read the King'smandate, which declared that, in spite of his underlying sentence ofdeath, he was to be tortured, to make him declare the truth in thematter of Fergusson the plotter, and the treason anent the King's life.
Then, the black wrath of his long prisonment suddenly boiling over,Sa
ndy took hold on the great iron bar before him and bent his strengthto it--which, when he was roused, was like the strength of Samson. Withone rive he tore it from its fastenings, roaring all the while with thatterrible voice of his, which used to set the cattle wild with fear whenthey heard it, and which even affrighted men grown and bearded. The twomen in masks sprang upon him, but he seized them one in each hand andcuffed and buffeted them against the wall, till I thought he hadsplattered their brains on the stones. Indeed, I looked to see. Butthough there was blood enough, there were no brains to speak of.
Then very hastily some of the Council rose to their feet to call theguard, but the door had been locked during the meeting, and none for amoment could open it. It was fearsome to see Sandy. His form seemed totower to the ceiling. A yellow foam, like spume of the sea, dropped fromhis lips. He roared at the Council with open mouth, and twirled the barover his head. With one leap he sprang over the barrier, and at this allthe councillors drew their gowns about them and rushed pell-mell for thedoor, with Sandy thundering at their heels with his iron bar. It was allwonderfully fine to see. For Sandy, with more sense than might have beenexpected of him, being so raised, lundered them about the broadest oftheir gowns with the bar, till the building was filled with the cries ofthe mighty Privy Council of Scotland. I declare I laughed heartily,though under sentence of death, and felt that well as I thought I hadborne myself, Sandy the Bull had done a thousand times better.
Then from several doors the soldiery came rushing in, and in short spaceSandy, after levelling a file with his gaud of iron, was overpowered bynumbers. Nevertheless, he continued to struggle till they twined himhelpless in coils of rope. In spite of all, it furnished work for thebest part of a company to take him to the Castle, whither, "for a changeof air," and to relieve his madness he was remanded, by order of theCouncil when next they met. But there was no more heard of examiningSandy by torture.
And it was a tale in the city for many a day how Sandy Gordon clearedthe chamber of the Privy Council. So not for the first time in my life Iwas proud of my brother, and would have given all the sense I had, whichis no little, for the thews and bones to have done likewise.