Flower o' the Heather: A Story of the Killing Times

  *CHAPTER XXVII*

  *ON THE ROAD TO DUMFRIES*

  We drank our ale, and leaving the Inn turned into the precincts of theAbbey, where for the first time I had an opportunity of gazing upon itsruined splendour. Rarely have I seen such beauty in decay--the mellowlight of the evening lending to the red sandstone of the aisles, thechoir and the great square tower a rosy hue that made them singularlybeautiful. The packman led the way and halted before a richly ornatestone that rested on a pedestal below the great Gothic window. He tookhis bonnet off reverently and I followed suit, and together we stood insilence. "She lies here," he said, with a break in his voice, and whenI looked at him there were tears in his eyes. He sighed as though thestone covered the remains of someone very dear to him. I knew what wasin his mind. This brave follower of the open road, this deliverer ofmaidens in distress, this egotistical packman, and self-styled scholarwas an incorrigible sentimentalist. He was thinking, I knew, ofDevorgilla's beautiful devotion to her husband, but the widow atLocharbriggs was in his thoughts as well. He turned and laid a handupon my arm as he donned his bonnet.

  "Whaur are ye sleepin' the nicht?" he asked.

  The question surprised me, for I had taken it for granted that we shouldstay at the village inn. "I suppose," I said, "that I can get a bed inthe tavern."

  "Nae doot, nae doot," he said, "if so you like, but I never sleep in abed when I'm oot on the road. It's safer to sleep in the open,especially when ye wear a wooden leg that ye dinna exactly need. Folksare inquisitive. Come awa back to the inn wi' me. You can sleep thereif ye like, but I'll come back here. It'll no' be the first time I ha'eslept by the graveside o' Devorgilla."

  We returned to the inn where I had no difficulty in procuring a bed.Hector shouldered his pack and took his way back to the Abbey, but hewas up betimes and was hammering at my door with his heavy-headed stickbefore I was awake. We breakfasted and set out for Dumfries.

  Hector had lit his pipe and trudged along beside me in silence. Left tomy own thoughts, I began to study him. Since we had joined company, hehad shown several phases of character difficult to reconcile. In thepresence of Sir Thomas Dalzell he had seemed to be an avowed enemy ofthe Covenanters, yet, when Dalzell and his troopers were at a safedistance, he had displayed contempt and bitter hatred for them. Thenthere was the attack on the soldiers in the little copse by the roadsideon our way to New Abbey. What was he? Was the calling of a packman,like his false beard and his unnecessary wooden-leg, merely a mask? Iwas puzzled, but I determined that ere our journey should come to an endI would do my utmost to unravel his secret.

  When the packman's pipe was empty he returned it to his pocket and brokeinto song. The mood of sentiment was upon him, and he sang a quaint oldsong of unrequited love. I failed to make out the words; but I heardenough to know that he was thinking, as always, of the widow.

  About an hour after leaving the village we came to the end of a longascent.

  "It's been a stiff clim'," said the packman, "we'd better sit doon andrest a wee." He threw off his pack and we sat down upon some risingground by the roadside. For a time I sat and drank in the beauty whichspread itself before me, but my reverie was disturbed by Hector, wholaid his hand upon my knee and said, "I want to talk to you." Allattention, I turned towards him, but he was slow to begin. Patiently Iwaited, and then, half turning so that he looked me straight in the facewith his piercing right eye wide open, his left half shut, he said:

  "Nae doot ye're puzzled aboot me." I wondered whether he had been ableto read the thoughts that had flitted through my mind as we climbed thehill from New Abbey. "I think it is only richt," he continued, "thatbefore we gang ony further, I should mak' masel' clear to you. Maybewhen I ha'e opened my heart to you, you'll tell me something abootyersel' for, if I ha'e kept my counsel, so ha'e you. Rale frien'shipmaun be built on mutual confidence; withoot that, frien'ship is naethingmair than a hoose o' cairds. Ye ken already that I am no' a'thegitherwhat I seem. I'd better begin at the beginnin'. I'm an Ayrshire man,articled in my youth to the Law and at ae time a student o' GlasgowCollege; an' lang syne, when my blood was hot and I was fu' o' ideals, Ithrew in my lot wi' the Covenanters. And I've suffered for it." Hepushed down the rig-and-fur stocking on his left leg. "Look at that,"he said. I looked, and saw, where the skin ran over the bone, a long,ugly brown scar. "Ye'll no' ken what that means?" I shook my head."Weel," he said, "that's what the persecutors did for me. I've had 'theboot' on that leg, and until my dying day I'll carry the mark. But I'mno' what they ca' a guid Covenanter. I'm a queer mixture, as maybe youyersel' ha'e already noticed. I canna say that I'm a religious man, andthough my heart is wi' the lads that are ready to dee for the Covenant,I fear that I masel' lack grace. Hooever, that's by the way. Langyears sin' I cam' to this country-side whaur naebody knew me, as apackman wi' a tree-leg, and as such I am kent to maist o' myacquaintances. Wi' my pack on my shoulder I wander through thecountry-side back and forrit frae Dumfries to Portpatrick, and fraePortpatrick back again to the Nith, wi' chap-books, and ribbons, andpots o' salve, but a' the while I keep my e'en and my ears open. I getto ken the movements o' the troopers, and I hear tell in the hooses o'the Covenanters o' comin' hill-meetings and sic-like, and mony a time Iha'e been able to drop a hint in the richt place that has brocht tonought some crafty scheme o' the persecutors and saved the life o' mairthan ane hill-man. If ye like to put it that way, I rin wi' the hareand hunt wi' the hounds. I'm hand in glove, to a' ootward seeming, wi'the persecutors themselves. I foregather wi' sodgers in roadside inns,and it's marvellous hoo a pint or twa o' 'tippenny' and a truss o'Virginia weed will loosen their tongues and gaur them talk. I'velistened quately, and mony a time I've let fa' a remark that mak's thembelieve that a' my sympathies are wi' them and that I'm no' in wi' theCovenanters ava. As a matter o' solid fact, I am sae weel thocht o' bymen sic as Sir Robert Grier, Dalzell himsel' and Claver'se, that mairthan aince I ha'e been sent by them on special commissions to findthings oot; and I've come back and I've tellt them what they wanted token, and riding hell for leather they've gane off wi' their dragoons tosome wee thackit cottage on the moors. But they've never caught thebird they were after. Somebody--maybe it was me, I'm no' sayin'--haddrapped a timely warnin'; and though I tellt the persecutors nae lee, Iha'e mair than aince gi'en them cause to remember that truth lies at thebottom o' a very deep well. That's my story. I'm a spy, if ye like--anugly word, but I ha'e na man's blood upon my haun's or on my conscience.And it's dangerous wark, as you may weel ken. Some day ane or other o'my schemes will gang agley, and the heid and haun's, and maybe thetree-leg as weel, o' Hector the packman will decorate a spike onDevorgilla's brig at Dumfries. I wadna muckle mind; for life issometimes a weary darg, but I'd like, afore that day comes, tae ha'efeenished my _magnum opus_. I maun really lay masel' on and get itbegun. It would be a monument by which I micht be remembered.

  "Sometimes as I walk my lane alang the roads I think o' things. Hereand there I come across a wee mound on the moorland, or maybe by theroadside, and I ken it covers the body o' some brave man wha has diedfor his faith. Desolate, lonely, and scattered cairns they are. Andthen I think, that though this is the day o' the persecutors, and thoughthey be set in great power, a day is comin' when a' their glory will bebrocht to naething. By and by Grier o' Lag, Dalzell and Claver'se, anda' the rest o' them will pay the debt to Nature, and nae doot they willbe buried wi' muckle pomp and circumstance, and great monuments o'carved stane will be set abune them. But in time to come, I'm thinkin',it will no' be their tombs that will be held in reverence, but thelonely graves scattered aboot the purple moors and the blue hills. It'sthem that will be treasured for ever as a precious heritage. We're areligious folk in Scotland, or at least we get that name--but religionor no', we love liberty wi' every fibre o' oor being, and in days tocome, generations yet unborn, wha may be unable to understaun the faithfor which the hill-men died, will honour th
em because they were ready tolay doon their lives in defiance o' a tyrant king. Noo," he said,letting his eyes fall, "ye ken a' aboot me that there's ony need to ken,and it's for ye to say whether we pairt company here or whether we gangon thegither." He drew out his pipe and proceeded to fill it.

  For a moment I was at a loss. Was he seeking to entrap me into an opendeclaration of sympathy with the Covenanters; or was he telling thetruth? His confession had been an absolutely open one, so open that ifmy sympathies were with the persecutors he had placed himself completelyin my hands. He had looked me straight in the face with one piercingeye as though to read my soul, while the other was half veiled as thoughto hide his own. But his voice had rung with fervour as he spoke of thelone graves of the hill-men, and I remembered the fight in the wood. Hemust have spoken the truth; so I took courage and without further delaytold him my story. He listened attentively, and when I had finished hesaid:

  "Ay, the auld packman is richt again. I thocht aboot ye last nicht.Man, I can read fowk like a coont on a slate, and I'm richt gled to hearfrae your ain lips, what I had already guessed, that you're for theCause. If I had thocht onything else, I wu'd ha'e held my tongue."