Redgauntlet [106]
mine, said, 'Let us go to meet them manfully; we have done nothing to be ashamed of.--Friends,' he said, raising his voice as we approached them, 'who and what are you, and with what purpose are you here on my property?'
A loud cheer was the answer returned, and a brace of fiddlers who occupied the front of the march immediately struck up the insulting air, the words of which begin--
Merrily danced the Quaker's wife, And merrily danced the Quaker.
Even at that moment of alarm, I think I recognized the tones of the blind fiddler, Will, known by the name of Wandering Willie, from his itinerant habits. They continued to advance swiftly and in great order, in their front
The fiery fiddlers playing martial airs;
when, coming close up, they surrounded us by a single movement, and there was a universal cry, 'Whoop, Quaker--whoop, Quaker! Here have we them both, the wet Quaker and the dry one.'
'Hang up the wet Quaker to dry, and wet the dry one with a ducking,' answered another voice.
'Where is the sea-otter, John Davies, that destroyed more fish than any sealch upon Ailsa Craig?' exclaimed a third voice. 'I have an old crow to pluck with him, and a pock to put the feathers in.'
We stood perfectly passive; for, to have attempted resistance
against more than a hundred men, armed with guns, fish-spears, iron-crows, spades, and bludgeons, would have been an act of utter insanity. Mr. Geddes, with his strong sonorous voice, answered the question about the superintendent in a manner the manly indifference of which compelled them to attend to him.
'John Davies,' he said, 'will, I trust, soon be at Dumfries'--
'To fetch down redcoats and dragoons against us, you canting old villain!'
A blow was, at the same time, levelled at my friend, which I parried by interposing the stick I had in my hand. I was instantly struck down, and have a faint recollection of hearing some crying, 'Kill the young spy!' and others, as I thought, interposing on my behalf. But a second blow on the head, received in the scuffle, soon deprived me of sense and consciousness, and threw me into it state of insensibility, from which I did not recover immediately. When I did come to myself, I was lying on the bed from which I had just risen before the fray, and my poor companion, the Newfoundland puppy, its courage entirely cowed by the tumult of the riot, had crept as close to me as it could, and lay trembling and whining, as if under the most dreadful terror. I doubted at first whether I had not dreamed of the tumult, until, as I attempted to rise, a feeling of pain and dizziness assured me that the injury I had sustained was but too real. I gathered together my senses listened--and heard at a distance the shouts of the rioters, busy, doubtless, in their work of devastation. I made a second effort to rise, or at least to turn myself, for I lay with my face to the wall of the cottage, but I found that my limbs were secured, and my motions effectually prevented--not indeed by cords, but by linen or cloth bandages swathed around my ankles, and securing my arms to my sides. Aware of my utterly captive condition, I groaned betwixt bodily pain and mental distress,
A voice by my bedside whispered, in a whining tone, 'Whisht a-ye, hinnie--Whisht a-ye; haud your tongue, like a gude bairn--ye have cost us dear aneugh already. My hinnie's clean gane now.'
Knowing, as I thought, the phraseology of the wife of the itinerant musician, I asked her where her husband was, and whether he had been hurt.
'Broken,' answered the dame, 'all broken to pieces; fit for naught but to be made spunks of--the best blood that was in Scotland.'
'Broken?--blood?--is your husband wounded; has there been bloodshed broken limbs?'
'Broken limbs I wish,' answered the beldam, 'that my hinnie had broken the best bane in his body, before he had broken his fiddle, that was the best blood in Scotland--it was a Cremony, for aught that I ken.'
'Pshaw--only his fiddle?' said I.
'I dinna ken what waur your honour could have wished him
A loud cheer was the answer returned, and a brace of fiddlers who occupied the front of the march immediately struck up the insulting air, the words of which begin--
Merrily danced the Quaker's wife, And merrily danced the Quaker.
Even at that moment of alarm, I think I recognized the tones of the blind fiddler, Will, known by the name of Wandering Willie, from his itinerant habits. They continued to advance swiftly and in great order, in their front
The fiery fiddlers playing martial airs;
when, coming close up, they surrounded us by a single movement, and there was a universal cry, 'Whoop, Quaker--whoop, Quaker! Here have we them both, the wet Quaker and the dry one.'
'Hang up the wet Quaker to dry, and wet the dry one with a ducking,' answered another voice.
'Where is the sea-otter, John Davies, that destroyed more fish than any sealch upon Ailsa Craig?' exclaimed a third voice. 'I have an old crow to pluck with him, and a pock to put the feathers in.'
We stood perfectly passive; for, to have attempted resistance
against more than a hundred men, armed with guns, fish-spears, iron-crows, spades, and bludgeons, would have been an act of utter insanity. Mr. Geddes, with his strong sonorous voice, answered the question about the superintendent in a manner the manly indifference of which compelled them to attend to him.
'John Davies,' he said, 'will, I trust, soon be at Dumfries'--
'To fetch down redcoats and dragoons against us, you canting old villain!'
A blow was, at the same time, levelled at my friend, which I parried by interposing the stick I had in my hand. I was instantly struck down, and have a faint recollection of hearing some crying, 'Kill the young spy!' and others, as I thought, interposing on my behalf. But a second blow on the head, received in the scuffle, soon deprived me of sense and consciousness, and threw me into it state of insensibility, from which I did not recover immediately. When I did come to myself, I was lying on the bed from which I had just risen before the fray, and my poor companion, the Newfoundland puppy, its courage entirely cowed by the tumult of the riot, had crept as close to me as it could, and lay trembling and whining, as if under the most dreadful terror. I doubted at first whether I had not dreamed of the tumult, until, as I attempted to rise, a feeling of pain and dizziness assured me that the injury I had sustained was but too real. I gathered together my senses listened--and heard at a distance the shouts of the rioters, busy, doubtless, in their work of devastation. I made a second effort to rise, or at least to turn myself, for I lay with my face to the wall of the cottage, but I found that my limbs were secured, and my motions effectually prevented--not indeed by cords, but by linen or cloth bandages swathed around my ankles, and securing my arms to my sides. Aware of my utterly captive condition, I groaned betwixt bodily pain and mental distress,
A voice by my bedside whispered, in a whining tone, 'Whisht a-ye, hinnie--Whisht a-ye; haud your tongue, like a gude bairn--ye have cost us dear aneugh already. My hinnie's clean gane now.'
Knowing, as I thought, the phraseology of the wife of the itinerant musician, I asked her where her husband was, and whether he had been hurt.
'Broken,' answered the dame, 'all broken to pieces; fit for naught but to be made spunks of--the best blood that was in Scotland.'
'Broken?--blood?--is your husband wounded; has there been bloodshed broken limbs?'
'Broken limbs I wish,' answered the beldam, 'that my hinnie had broken the best bane in his body, before he had broken his fiddle, that was the best blood in Scotland--it was a Cremony, for aught that I ken.'
'Pshaw--only his fiddle?' said I.
'I dinna ken what waur your honour could have wished him