RECOLLECTIONS. No IV. MARK MACRABIN, the Cameronian. (Continued from Last Number.) Adventure with the Gypsies. MINE honest and ancient friend, the Cameronian, having forsaken the gentle lady of Lagghill, and her kind and enthusiastic followers, thus continued his narrative. "Truly, Miles Cameron, wise was he who rendered into rhyme that famous maxim of circumspection and prudence, Ay keep something to yoursel', you scarcely tell to ony, and wiser still would men be could they practise it. My next adventure was a strange one, and happened among a people of unstable residence, infirm faith, and imperfect morality. When I promised to relate my history, I might have held, by mental reservation, the right of exercising my own judgment on indiscreet or unseemly circumstances; and truly, my adventure with the hopeful progeny of Black-at-the-bane is a thing not to be proclaimed in the public places. The profane songs and profaner conduct of a moving camp of roving gypsies will sound unseemly after the enthusiastic hymns and hosannahs of my excellent friends the Buchanites. And yet there is a kind of pleasure in speaking of conduct and relating conversation, of which prudence cannot wholly approve-it relieves the monotony of sedate thought, brings the sunny morning of youth upon us again-it is a joy that the gravest indulge in-and so, with the quiet attention of my friend, and the inspiring aid of this potent peat reek, I shall proceed. "Leaving Lagghill and Lagg's ruined tower behind me, I ascended a green eminence on the opposite side, and, looking back from its summit, saw the camp of our lady descending into the plain towards the stream of Dalgonar. It was conducted with all the precision, and much of the pomp, of a regular march. Four men bearing green boughs marched in fronttwo others followed, blowing at intervals on harvest horns-then came our lady, mounted on a white poney, a present from the minister's wife of Kipplekimmer-a handmaiden on either side accompanied her on foot, and four men, bearing green branches, followed. The procession was closed by the congregation marching in mass, conducting a cavalcade of horses loaded with the travelling equipage of the establishment. The men and the women sung, alternately, verses of a wild hymn-between every verse the four men winded their horns, and thus they pursued their journey till they passed from my sight among the woods of the vale of Dalgonar. "From gazing on those respectable enthusiasts, I turned my face towards the river Nith, my forlorn condition began to claim my concern, and I resolved to pass into the moorland part of the parish of Closeburn, and seek employment as a shepherd. I was acquainted with several opulent Cameronian moorland farmers, and I had a love for their patriarchal calling. I had acquired, from tale and from song, a great liking to shepherds' pipes, well replenished scrips, kilted damsels, and kitted whey. I thought, too, it was assuredly a pleasant thing to lie in the sun, on the green side of a high hill, with all my flocks around me, listening to the lilting o' the laverocks, and daun'er with them down the green margin of a burn among the flowers and the primroses. Resolving to prove the charms of this primitive vocation, I hastened on my way, making the uplands ring with the charming old Nithsdale song of the Wakerife Minnie.' "I soon found myself on the borders of the old forest, which covers the eastern side of the hills of the Keir, and reaching down to the Nith, lines its margin with stately groves of ash, elm, and oak, the whole thickly interwoven with hazel, mountain-ash, sloethorn, and green holly. Through these ancient groves, and chiefly on the river bank, the laird had cut many ty of the place, called it the " Fairy Knowe." But the folly of man had profaned the haunt of the 'Good Folk;' the spade and the axe had cut their way through many a thicket of honeysuckle and holly, to the foot of this beautiful hillock, and two lodges, floored and thatched with ivy, seemed to promise centinels to watch the sacred ground. Into this winding path it was my fortune to fall, as I endeavoured to force my way round the enclosure of holly, and I obtained a sight, for the first time, of the famous Fairy Knowe, reposing in the silent splendour of moonlight. The folly of the laird had not halted at the foot of the hillock; it had found its way to the summit. In the very centre of the Fairy ring a square tower of masonry had been constructing for many years, and had already reached the height of forty feet, with buttress, pathways, and as no one ever accused him of an aim in his improvements, his roads had singular terminations. One greensward winding-way led, with a kind of Will-o'-wisp wandering, to the sheer brink of one of the deepest pools in the river-another pathway pursued its course to the verge of an impassable thicket-and one, more beautiful still, chose to stop at the base of a steep rock, where the wild cats reared their young, and the eagle found a resting-place when he chose his first spring lamb from the flocks of Nithsdale. It was full three miles of rough road round, to go by either the eastern or western extremity of the wood-and as the night was calm and unclouded, I leaped over the fence which defined, but did not defend, the limit of the forest, and setting my face for the green mountain of Queensberry, went fearlessly forward. The way at first was exceedingly pleasant-loop-hole, and embrazure. The laird the forest was portioned out into clumps of trees, the tall, and the dwarf, and the shrub all intermixed, and among them green knolls and green sward plats were thick and delightful. The moon poured full on my path her slant and softened light, and showed the ring-doves and the rooks sitting in pairs abreast among the thickest branches. I crossed one or two of the laird's roads, and rested myself on several of his hermitages, or rude lodges of dry stone, matted over floor, and wall, and roof, with a thick and trailing mass of green ivy. Proceeding onward, I entered the dark and untrodden bosom of the wood, nor did I enter it without awe. The trees, over-arching high above me, formed a roof thick and verdant, through which the moon could visit me with little of her cheering light, and the woodpigeons, having forsaken this thick and gloomy grove, left it to the undisturbed possession of the gleds and the hooded ravens. These birds of prey and evil omen sat visible on the upper boughs, evidently enjoying the luxury of the sweet evening. "My progress was at last impeded by a natural barrier of thick green holly, which, sloping upwards from the forest-sward, formed a rampart fifteen feet high, as close and impassable as a wall of stone. Nature had woven this verdant tracery round a large green knoll in the centre of the wood: the peasants, from the seclusion and beau had some hopes of finding a use for it. He had long hesitated about a suitable name. When his masons were weary with building houses, whose ponderous roofs and impending battlements scared away all tenants-with raising stone walls round fields which lacked nourishment for a thistle-and with rearing buttresses of mortar and stone on scaurs and burn-banks, to preserve trees from falling that were not worth tenpence-when they had finished all these, away they marched with trowel and hammer, to the Fairy Knowe, to add another annual yard to the altitude of this new Babel. "I stood and looked on this mass of mortar and rock, which encumbered this romantic hillock, but I soon found another subject for contemplation. Advancing through an arch-way, cut out of the holly rampart by the removal of a dwarf-bush, I observed the building, unfinished though it was, was inhabited, for a thin blue smoke curled slowly towards the moon, and a light glimmered from all the lower loop-holes. The character of those who had thus chosen to themselves an habitation, and entered as tenants at will, required little waste of thought. A dozen of asses, all tethered and reposing round the building, were to me as sure a sign of a troop of gypsies, as the personal assurance of the patriarch of the tribe himself; and this assurance was not long wanting. Advancing with a rash cagerness to reconnoitre, my foot touched one of the wires which those wary nocturnal visitants had placed in the path, and connected with a cracked bell behind the seat of their leader. I felt the touch, and heard a kind of riven clang; when out started to the door the hoary leader of the horde himself, even as a spider runs forth when a fly touches the extremest thread of her mesh. I longed to fly, but I knew flight was vain, and certainly dangerous; and so I stood unconcerned, and still gazing on the tree-tops and the unfinished tower, like any youth smitten with the desire of verse-making. The ancient gypsey looked forth on me in silence, and with caution; several round bullet heads, covered with a profusion of sooty and curled locks, soon came as auxiliaries in the scrutiny, and I had hopes they would let me depart in peace, for I heard something like a suppressed voice of command and admonition, but I was soon undeceived. In a moment a young powerful man freed himself from the grasp of the patriarch, and came darting forward on me, making bounds something like the springs of a wild cat. I saw the gleam of a dagger or a knife under the long loose sleeve of his coat. He accosted me in a harsh rough voice. 'Rab Spoolpin, deevil are ye doing here, sae far frae yere heddles;' mistaking me for the son of a Cameronian weaver, who volunteered his gift of prayer to sick and despairing maidens, and often was seen by the gypsies returning from these nocturnal visits of consolation. Out came the gypsey's dagger as he spoke, and I lifted my staff and fronted him firmly. God, sir, cast away your kibling, or may I be whuppet through the burning pit wi' the gray tail of my auld ass, if I disnae gie ye red sowen for yere wab, and that frae 'neath yere fifth rib.' I assured him I came for no harm; that I had lost my way, and was sorry for disturbing him. His wrath abated nothing. Cast down yere rung,' said he, in a voice choking with fury, ‘or by the stars I'se shaw ye what kind o' scarlet yere best bleede's of.' I still held my staff; and he made a spring at me with his naked dagger. Though I was but seventeen I was both stout and stubborn. I presented the long and sharp iron socket of my oak staff against my assailant's naked bosom, and kept him off. The patriarch, fol lowed by two more of the tribe, now came up; and the old man, throwing himself between us, said to my adversary in red and keen wrath, Curse yere madness-ye wad breed discord atween twa bosom banes-ye aye gang atween the sappy bark and the sweet tree-if ye gang on i' thae reckless gates, there'll no be a blade o' grass for our beasts, or a gray stone to lay our ain heads on, i' the wide worldClod down yere knife, or I'll burn powder under yere nose.' With a growling voice and a stormy brow, the young desperado disposed of his knife. The patriarch, looking on me for a moment, took me kindly by the hand, and said, I vow by the banes o' my forefathers-by a' my sowdering irons and ram-horn spoons, no forgetting twelve as good asses as ever pu'd grass, that this stripling is nae scent-the-sod, nae track-the-dewand thread-the-wood to that auld donard justice, Cursan Collieson-but a sonsie and sure acquaintance, even young Mark Macrabin, turned out o' haddin and hame for singing the sweet tune o' Stroudwater-Lord, lad, ye may sing what ye like for me-I'm no religious.' With this comforting assurance he led me, silent and loath, to the door of his tenement, followed by his comrades, murmuring a kind of hoarse welcome to their new associate. "Alarmed and sorrowful as I was, I could not avoid remarking the care and circumspection with which this establishment was guarded against surprise, and prepared for resistance or retreat. Not only were wires, connecting themselves with a small bell in the house, placed double across the avenue, but on the other side of the hillock an opening was made in the rampart of thick holly, large enough to allow a loaded ass to march through, and the boughs were tied back with small cords, so that, by cutting the bands, the hedge assumed in a moment its natural and impenetrable appearance. This verdant archway opened into the thickest and most inaccessible part of the forest, and in a minute all commodities likely to be reclaimed by their late owners, namely, the produce of the fold, the furrow, or the henroost, could be removed into the wood, together with two or three of the most warlike of the tribe, reducing the roving camp to a domestic look-from the hostile aspect of war, to the harmless posture of a peace establishment. The asses, too, lay all ready, with panniers bound on their backs, ready to receive the domestic wealth of the tribe, should hasty measures be necessary. "The patriarch conducted me into the very middle of his establishment; and there I beheld a scene of a new and a singular kind. A large fire flamed and glowed in the bottom of a turret destined to contain the future stair, and though the hour was late, wood had been heaped on with unsparing hand. The skin of a sheep, lately separated from the fat carcase, and which bore the mark and birn of Cursan Collieson fair and legibly upon it, was hung on the wall; the skins of several hares were hung beside it; nor did I fail to observe a brace of fat turkeys, and half-a-dozen plump pullets, which but the evening before graced the innumerable roosts of the laird of Caponcrapia, a neighbouring gentleman, eminently skilled in the whole domestic mystery of hatching, feeding, fattening, strangling, dressing and finally devouring, all denominations of carcasses that carried feathers, with the exception, I have heard, of the raven and the owl. On the floor, elevated by layers of boughs and sheaves of straw, out of which the barnman's flail had not removed the corn, for they were abstracted from a new-shorn field, were made six or eight beds, plentifully heaped with blankets, and covered with those thick and ample wool quilts, for which the moorland looms of the Sanquhar were once so celebrated. From beneath these peeped out a variety of heads, large and little, and their thick masses of sooty and curling locks were not incommoded by caps or any kind of restraint. The shining and swarthy glances, and the tawned looks, told of an uncorrupted race of gypsies; a laugh at my consternation circulated speedily from lair to lair, the lesser heads all ducking below the covers, or peeping out, as the mirth rose or subsided. The rest of the establishment presented no objects of repose, and it appeared to me that the portion of the tribe who dedicated their labours to sunshine were now in their places of slumber, while the minions of the moon were exercising their calling under the beams of their patron planets. Two brawny VOL. VII. and smoky personages sat beside a reeking cauldron of water, pursuing the art and calling of manufacturing ram-horn spoons. Nor did they confine their labours to the wrinkled and crooked horns of the ram; the green and transparent horns of the heifer, and the huge and darker daggers of the bull, alike demanded the application of their craft. Nor were their produc tions confined to the tables of the farmer and the peasant, they appeared in their most laboured and delicate shapes on the sideboards of country lairds, and even barons. Others of the tribe polished and ornamented the shafts and the mouths of the spoons, but the chieftain himself was the only person present who could inlay them with silver ornaments, make a clear toned whistle in the shaft of a punch ladle, or fashion a horn into a harvest bugle. Indeed my appearance had interrupted his labours at a long and very beautiful horn which he was preparing as a present to the daughter of a neighbouring laird; it was to have a band and a mouth-piece of silver, and the name of the rural heroine was promised in addition to these embellishments. This was no common hornit was shed from the head of a living bull-no ordinary occurrence (and it is currently credited, that a living cow's horn can cure sundry diseases); I have since heard the damsel wind it long and loudly myself; with the same horn she cracked the collar-bone of a lad when he first made love to her, and said, "Him that marries me shall blaw o' his horn"-and what woman prophecies of that kind, she commonly brings to pass. On the other side of the fire, appeared others of the fraternity, pursuing a more noisy occupation-repairing fractured kettles, and copper sauce pans, and cementing and clasping glass and china. Nor did they lack tools for defence, as well as for trade. Against the wall lay several long and rusty swords, five or six dirks or knives, and a couple of good firelocks. Gins, and traps, nets, and fish-spears, were in abundance. Each man was armed with a long cut and thrust knife, sheathed in his coat sleeves when he went abroad. A dagger of this description, with a brace of old fashioned silver mounted pistols, depended from the girdle of the chieftain. They amounted to fifteen in all-seven men, three women, and five children. G With a face of mustered courage and resignation I sat down on an ass's old pannier beside the chieftain, and submitted with silence and fear to the sharp scrutiny of many members of the tribe, and which continued for several minutes. One fellow, with a sinister cast of face, affected to measure me over with the scrupulous attention of a hunter after the bumps and knobs which men have discovered indicative of an evil genius. "I'll haud a horn spoon," said he, " to a handful of meal," uniting in his wager his past and present professions, for he had begged meal down the water of Kinnel, and baked bread up the water of Scaur, "that this younker comes like a hoodie craw before a flock of ravens he'll lilt up a psalm, and a dozen of gullies will come and sneg our thrapples."-" D'ye think sae, Sandy Macfen," said the brawny desperado, who had drawn his knife on me before" Dash it, dy'e think saeby a' the bells o' Gotterbeg, and there were ance seventeen o' them, I'll slit his weazon, if he sings a sang or a psalm here or opens a lip, save for a horn spoon-dom me if I disnae”and he half unsheathed his knife, to show his sincerity. "Hoot, hoot, Jamie," said a gypsie, whose dialect announced a stark Galwegian, laying aside, at the same time, a most intractable ram-horn he was straightening" od yere aye sae fear'd-faith ye'll quarrel with the very mools, because mools makes graves, and may make yours, if ye dinna glower through hemp, and gang for dissection-od ye'll die ere yere day comes through nought but fear."-Gypsie Jamie, who was a fiery man of Annandale, and long a companion in the famous horde of the Kennedies of the Hightae, stared on the Galwegian at this sally, the redness of wrath rising triumphant o'er his dusky complexion. The Galwegian, however, bearing the name, and boasting of a share in the blood of the potent, and ancient family of the Macgrabs, returned the stare of the borderer, nothing daunted-and said—" Let me tell ye, man, I've sauld mony a spoon, and got mony a bite and soup frae the name of Macrabinand by the dunnerin Troughs o' Tongland, if ye touch this bairn wi' a harmfu' hand, I'll make a cart-road for the worms through amang yere ribs." In the midst of this unexpected altercation, a ripe and handsome young woman, the grand-daughter of the chieftain, made her appearance from the remotest end of the hall.-She drew a sanquhar mantle, or rather, a counterpane, from her shoulders, as she advanced, leaving her person arrayed in the extreme simplicity of her tribe. Hooly, hooly," said the damsel, stepping between the contending dependants of her tribe, holding the mantle in her hand, ready to cast upon the daggers, which were expected to be drawn. Her stature was rather above the middle size-her whole person shaped like the most perfect production of a statuary-firm, full, and elegant-and her carriage erect, wild, and unconstrained. Her locks, long and curling, flowed freely on her shoulders-and her large dark eyes sat shining under a close mass of raven curls, with which nature had striven to conceal a high and polished forehead. "Hooly, hooly, said the fearless damsel-folly has been and will be the downfall of our race. The hard hand o' the law, with a halter in't, cares for neither yere red anger, nor yere sharp dirks-drap yere wrath— will ye be fierce with ane anither, and fear'd for a' beside yere just like twa corbies, pyking out ane anither's een o'er a dead lamb, when the gun o' the shepherd's cocked at their crapins.Weel may I say, the days o' our might are gane-and Kate Marshall maun be wife to some soulless coof, wha wants the courage to cock a pistol, and sense to haud his hands from folk's hen bawks-she'll be brided in a mortclaith sooner.' All applauded this speech of the young heroine, and their wrath had a brief truce. The Annandale desperado named "Jamie o' the dub o' Dryfe," threw his knife at his feet, and cried aloud," Weel said, ye bonny chicken o' the bauld blue hen. By the best haft to a steel blade, and that's a strang shackle-bane-and by the best sheath for a sharp gully, and that's an enemy's wame, ye're a bauld lass, and a bonny-dome me, if thou isnae. By a' the tup horns o' Dryfe, I wish auld Daddie Clinkkettle would sowder us together, and cry, The Bridal's done-bairns to bed." The fierce dignity with which the offended heroine greeted this audacious proposal from a dependant, might have become a queen of the Amazons. She drew |