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 gallowclapper 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 b
ailiff, 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 Elwood1 lances on the crest at your back, or played cat-and-mouse wi’ Armstrongs in the dark on the Black Lyne —”