Chronicles of the Canongate

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"Enlisted! Were you mad or drunk? You must buy yourself off. I
can lend you twenty notes, and twenty to that, if the drove
sell."

"I thank you--thank ye, Hughie; but I go with good-will the gate
that I am going. So the dirk, the dirk!"

"There it is for you then, since less wunna serve. But think on
what I was saying. Waes me, it will be sair news in the braes of
Balquidder that Robin Oig M'Combich should have run an ill gate,
and ta'en on."

"Ill news in Balquidder, indeed!" echoed poor Robin. "But Cot
speed you, Hughie, and send you good marcats. Ye winna meet with
Robin Oig again, either at tryste or fair."

So saying, he shook hastily the hand of his acquaintance, and set
out in the direction from which he had advanced, with the spirit
of his former pace.

"There is something wrang with the lad," muttered the Morrison to
himself; "but we will maybe see better into it the morn's
morning."

But long ere the morning dawned, the catastrophe of our tale had
taken place. It was two hours after the affray had happened, and
it was totally forgotten by almost every one, when Robin Oig
returned to Heskett's inn. The place was filled at once by
various sorts of men, and with noises corresponding to their
character. There were the grave low sounds of men engaged in
busy traffic, with the laugh, the song, and the riotous jest of
those who had nothing to do but to enjoy themselves. Among the
last was Harry Wakefield, who, amidst a grinning group of smock-
frocks, hobnailed shoes, and jolly English physiognomies, was
trolling forth the old ditty,--

"What though my name be Roger,
Who drives the plough and cart--"

when he was interrupted by a well-known voice saying in a high
and stern voice, marked by the sharp Highland accent, "Harry
Waakfelt--if you be a man stand up!"

"What is the matter?--what is it?" the guests demanded of each
other.

"It is only a d--d Scotsman," said Fleecebumpkin, who was by this
time very drunk, "whom Harry Wakefield helped to his broth to-
day, who is now come to have HIS CAULD KAIL het again."

"Harry Waakfelt," repeated the same ominous summons, "stand up,
if you be a man!"

There is something in the tone of deep and concentrated passion,
which attracts attention and imposes awe, even by the very sound.
The guests shrunk back on every side, and gazed at the Highlander
as he stood in the middle of them, his brows bent, and his
features rigid with resolution.

"I will stand up with all my heart, Robin, my boy, but it shall
be to shake hands with you, and drink down all unkindness. It is
not the fault of your heart, man, that you don't know how to
clench your hands."

By this time he stood opposite to his antagonist, his open and
unsuspecting look strangely contrasted with the stern purpose,
which gleamed wild, dark, and vindictive in the eyes of the
Highlander.

"'Tis not thy fault, man, that, not having the luck to be an
Englishman, thou canst not fight more than a school-girl."

"I can fight," answered Robin Oig sternly, but calmly, "and you
shall know it. You, Harry Waakfelt, showed me to-day how the
Saxon churls fight; I show you now how the Highland Dunnie-wassel
fights."

He seconded the word with the action, and plunged the dagger,
which he suddenly displayed, into the broad breast of the English
yeoman, with such fatal certainty and force that the hilt made a
hollow sound against the breast-bone, and the double-edged point
split the very heart of his victim. Harry Wakefield fell and
expired with a single groan. His assassin next seized the
bailiff by the collar, and offered the bloody poniard to his
throat, whilst dread and surprise rendered the man incapable of
defence.

"It were very just to lay you peside him," he said, "but the
blood of a pase pickthank shall never mix on my father's dirk,
with that of a brave man."

As he spoke, he cast the man from him with so much force that he
fell on the floor, while Robin, with his other hand, threw the
fatal weapon into the blazing turf-fire.

"There," he said, "take me who likes--and let fire cleanse blood
if it can."

The pause of astonishment still continuing, Robin Oig asked for a
peace-officer, and a constable having stepped out, he surrendered
himself to his custody.

"A bloody night's work you have made of it," said the constable.

"Your own fault," said the Highlander. "Had you kept his hands
off me twa hours since, he would have been now as well and merry
as he was twa minutes since."

"It must be sorely answered," said the peace-officer.

"Never you mind that--death pays all debts; it will pay that
too."

The horror of the bystanders began now to give way to
indignation, and the sight of a favourite companion murdered in
the midst of them, the provocation being, in their opinion, so
utterly inadequate to the excess of vengeance, might have induced
them to kill the perpetrator of the deed even upon the very spot.
The constable, however, did his duty on this occasion, and with
the assistance of some of the more reasonable persons present,
procured horses to guard the prisoner to Carlisle, to abide his
doom at the next assizes. While the escort was preparing, the
prisoner neither expressed the least interest, nor attempted the
slightest reply. Only, before he was carried from the fatal
apartment, he desired to look at the dead body, which, raised
from the floor, had been deposited upon the large table (at the
head of which Harry Wakefield had presided but a few minutes
before, full of life, vigour, and animation), until the surgeons
should examine the mortal wound. The face of the corpse was
decently covered with a napkin. To the surprise and horror of
the bystanders, which displayed itself in a general AH! drawn
through clenched teeth and half-shut lips, Robin Oig removed the
cloth, and gazed with a mournful but steady eye on the lifeless
visage, which had been so lately animated that the smile of good-
humoured confidence in his own strength, of conciliation at once
and contempt towards his enemy, still curled his lip. While
those present expected that the wound, which had so lately
flooded the apartment with gore, would send forth fresh streams
at the touch of the homicide, Robin Oig replaced the covering
with the brief exclamation, "He was a pretty man!"

My story is nearly ended. The unfortunate Highlander stood his
trial at Carlisle. I was myself present, and as a young Scottish
lawyer, or barrister at least, and reputed a man of some quality,
the politeness of the Sheriff of Cumberland offered me a place on
the bench. The facts of the case were proved in the manner I
have related them; and whatever might be at first the prejudice
of the audience against a crime so un-English as that of
assassination from revenge, yet when the rooted national
prejudices of the prisoner had been explained, which made him
consider himself as stained with indelible dishonour, when
subjected to personal violence--when his previous patience,
moderation, and endurance were considered--the generosity of the
English audience was inclined to regard his crime as the wayward
aberration of a false idea of honour rather than as flowing from
a heart naturally savage, or perverted by habitual vice. I shall
never forget the charge of the venerable judge to the jury,
although not at that time liable to be much affected either by
that which was eloquent or pathetic.

"We have had," he said, "in the previous part of our duty"
(alluding to some former trials), "to discuss crimes which infer
disgust and abhorrence, while they call down the well-merited
vengeance of the law. It is now our still more melancholy task
to apply its salutary though severe enactments to a case of a
very singular character, in which the crime (for a crime it is,
and a deep one) arose less out of the malevolence of the heart,
than the error of the understanding--less from any idea of
committing wrong, than from an unhappily perverted notion of that
which is right. Here we have two men, highly esteemed, it has
been stated, in their rank of life, and attached, it seems, to
each other as friends, one of whose lives has been already
sacrificed to a punctilio, and the other is about to prove the
vengeance of the offended laws; and yet both may claim our
commiseration at least, as men acting in ignorance of each
other's national prejudices, and unhappily misguided rather than
voluntarily erring from the path of right conduct.

"In the original cause of the misunderstanding, we must in
justice give the right to the prisoner at the bar. He had
acquired possession of the enclosure, which was the object of
competition, by a legal contract with the proprietor, Mr. Ireby;
and yet, when accosted with reproaches undeserved in themselves,
and galling, doubtless, to a temper at least sufficiently
susceptible of passion, he offered notwithstanding, to yield up
half his acquisition, for the sake of peace and good
neighbourhood, and his amicable proposal was rejected with scorn.
Then follows the scene at Mr. Heskett the publican's, and you
will observe how the stranger was treated by the deceased, and, I
am sorry to observe, by those around, who seem to have urged him
in a manner which was aggravating in the highest degree. While
he asked for peace and for composition, and offered submission to
a magistrate, or to a mutual arbiter, the prisoner was insulted
by a whole company, who seem on this occasion to have forgotten
the national maxim of 'fair play;' and while attempting to escape
from the place in peace, he was intercepted, struck down, and
beaten to the effusion of his blood.

"Gentlemen of the jury, it was with some impatience that I heard
my learned brother who opened the case for the crown give an
unfavourable turn to the prisoner's conduct on this occasion. He
said the prisoner was afraid to encounter his antagonist in fair
fight, or to submit to the laws of the ring; and that therefore,
like a cowardly Italian, he had recourse to his fatal stiletto,
to murder the man whom he dared not meet in manly encounter. I
observed the prisoner shrink from this part of the accusation
with the abhorrence natural to a brave man; and as I would wish
to make my words impressive when I point his real crime, I must
secure his opinion of my impartiality by rebutting everything
that seems to me a false accusation. There can be no doubt that
the prisoner is a man of resolution--too much resolution. I wish
to Heaven that he had less--or, rather that he had had a better
education to regulate it.

"Gentlemen, as to the laws my brother talks of, they may be known
in the bull-ring, or the bear-garden, or the cock-pit, but they
are not known here. Or, if they should be so far admitted as
furnishing a species of proof that no malice was intended in this
sort of combat, from which fatal accidents do sometimes arise, it
can only be so admitted when both parties are IN PARI CASU,
equally acquainted with, and equally willing to refer themselves
to, that species of arbitrament. But will it be contended that a
man of superior rank and education is to be subjected, or is
obliged to subject himself, to this coarse and brutal strife,
perhaps in opposition to a younger, stronger, or more skilful
opponent? Certainly even the pugilistic code, if founded upon
the fair play of Merry Old England, as my brother alleges it to
be, can contain nothing so preposterous. And, gentlemen of the
jury, if the laws would support an English gentleman, wearing, we
will suppose, his sword, in defending himself by force against a
violent personal aggression of the nature offered to this
prisoner, they will not less protect a foreigner and a stranger,
involved in the same unpleasing circumstances. If, therefore,
gentlemen of the jury, when thus pressed by a VIS MAJOR, the
object of obloquy to a whole company, and of direct violence from
one at least, and, as he might reasonably apprehend, from more,
the panel had produced the weapon which his countrymen, as we are
informed, generally carry about their persons, and the same
unhappy circumstance had ensued which you have heard detailed in
evidence, I could not in my conscience have asked from you a
verdict of murder. The prisoner's personal defence might indeed,
even in that case, have gone more or less beyond the MODERAMEN
INCULPATAE TUTELAE, spoken of by lawyers; but the punishment
incurred would have been that of manslaughter, not of murder. I
beg leave to add that I should have thought this milder species
of charge was demanded in the case supposed, notwithstanding the
statute of James I. cap. 8, which takes the case of slaughter by
stabbing with a short weapon, even without MALICE PREPENSE, out
of the benefit of clergy. For this statute of stabbing, as it is
termed, arose out of a temporary cause; and as the real guilt is
the same, whether the slaughter be committed by the dagger, or by
sword or pistol, the benignity of the modern law places them all
on the same, or nearly the same, footing.

"But, gentlemen of the jury, the pinch of the case lies in the
interval of two hours interposed betwixt the reception of the
injury and the fatal retaliation. In the heat of affray and
CHAUDE MELEE, law, compassionating the infirmities of humanity,
makes allowance for the passions which rule such a stormy moment
--for the sense of present pain, for the apprehension of further
injury, for the difficulty of ascertaining with due accuracy the
precise degree of violence which is necessary to protect the
person of the individual, without annoying or injuring the
assailant more than is absolutely necessary. But the time
necessary to walk twelve miles, however speedily performed, was
an interval sufficient for the prisoner to have recollected
himself; and the violence with which he carried his purpose into
effect, with so many circumstances of deliberate determination,
could neither be induced by the passion of anger, nor that of
fear. It was the purpose and the act of predetermined revenge,
for which law neither can, will, nor ought to have sympathy or
allowance.

"It is true, we may repeat to ourselves, in alleviation of this
poor man's unhappy action, that his case is a very peculiar one.
The country which he inhabits was, in the days of many now alive,
inaccessible to the laws, not only of England, which have not
even yet penetrated thither, but to those to which our neighbours
of Scotland are subjected, and which must be supposed to be, and
no doubt actually are, founded upon the general principles of
justice and equity which pervade every civilized country.
Amongst their mountains, as among the North American Indians, the
various tribes were wont to make war upon each other, so that
each man was obliged to go armed for his own protection. These
men, from the ideas which they entertained of their own descent
and of their own consequence, regarded themselves as so many
cavaliers or men-at-arms, rather than as the peasantry of a
peaceful country. Those laws of the ring, as my brother terms
them, were unknown to the race of warlike mountaineers; that
decision of quarrels by no other weapons than those which nature
has given every man must to them have seemed as vulgar and as
preposterous as to the NOBLESSE of France. Revenge, on the other
hand, must have been as familiar to their habits of society as to
those of the Cherokees or Mohawks. It is indeed, as described by
Bacon, at bottom a kind of wild untutored justice; for the fear
of retaliation must withhold the hands of the oppressor where
there is no regular law to check daring violence. But though all
this may be granted, and though we may allow that, such having
been the case of the Highlands in the days of the prisoner's
fathers, many of the opinions and sentiments must still continue
to influence the present generation, it cannot, and ought not,
even in this most painful case, to alter the administration of
the law, either in your hands, gentlemen of the jury, or in mine.
The first object of civilisation is to place the general
protection of the law, equally administered, in the room of that
wild justice which every man cut and carved for himself,
according to the length of his sword and the strength of his arm.
The law says to the subjects, with a voice only inferior to that
of the Deity, 'Vengeance is mine.' The instant that there is time
for passion to cool, and reason to interpose, an injured party
must become aware that the law assumes the exclusive cognisance
of the right and wrong betwixt the parties, and opposes her
inviolable buckler to every attempt of the private party to right
himself. I repeat that this unhappy man ought personally to be
the object rather of our pity than our abhorrence, for he failed
in his ignorance, and from mistaken notions of honour. But his
crime is not the less that of murder, gentlemen, and, in your
high and important office, it is your duty so to find.
Englishmen have their angry passions as well as Scots; and should
this man's action remain unpunished, you may unsheath, under
various pretences, a thousand daggers betwixt the Land's-End and
the Orkneys."

The venerable Judge thus ended what, to judge by his apparent
emotion, and by the tears which filled his eyes, was really a
painful task. The jury, according to his instructions, brought
in a verdict of Guilty; and Robin Oig M'Combich, ALIAS McGregor,
was sentenced to death, and left for execution, which took place
accordingly. He met his fate with great firmness, and
acknowledged the justice of his sentence. But he repelled
indignantly the observations of those who accused him of
attacking an unarmed man. "I give a life for the life I took,"
he said, "and what can I do more?" [See Note 11.--Robert Donn's
Poems.]

*

NOTES.

NOTES TO CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.

Note 1.--HOLYROOD.

The reader may be gratified with Hector Boece's narrative of the
original foundation of the famous abbey of Holyrood, or the Holy
Cross, as given in Bellenden's translation:--

"Eftir death of Alexander the first, his brothir David come out
of Ingland, and wes crownit at Scone, the yeir of God MCXXIV
yeiris, and did gret justice, eftir his coronation, in all partis
of his realme. He had na weris during the time of King Hary; and
wes so pietuous, that he sat daylie in judgement, to caus his
pure commonis to have justice; and causit the actionis of his
noblis to be decidit be his othir jugis. He gart ilk juge redres
the skaithis that come to the party be his wrang sentence; throw
quhilk, he decorit his realm with mony nobil actis, and ejeckit
the vennomus custome of riotus cheir, quhilk wes inducit afore be
Inglismen, quhen thay com with Quene Margaret; for the samin wes
noisum to al gud maneris, makand his pepil tender and effeminat.

"In the fourt yeir of his regne, this nobill prince come to visie
the madin Castell of Edinburgh. At this time, all the boundis of
Scotland were ful of woddis, lesouris, and medois; for the
countre wes more gevin to store of bestiall, than ony productioun
of cornis; and about this castell was ane gret forest, full of
haris, hindis, toddis, and siclike maner of beistis. Now was the
Rude Day cumin, called the Exaltation of the Croce; and, becaus
the samin wes ane hie solempne day, the king past to his
contemplation. Eftir the messis wer done with maist solempnitie
and reverence, comperit afore him mony young and insolent baronis
of Scotland, richt desirus to haif sum plesur and solace, be
chace of hundis in the said forest. At this time wes with the
king ane man of singulare and devoit life, namit Alkwine, channon
eftir the ordour of Sanct Augustine, quhilk well lang time
confessoure, afore, to King David in Ingland, the time that he
wes Erle of Huntingtoun and Northumbirland. This religious man
dissuadit the king, be mony reasonis, to pas to this huntis; and
allegit the day wes so solempne, be reverence of the haly croce,
that he suld gif him erar, for that day, to contemplation, than
ony othir exersition. Nochtheles, his dissuasion is litill
avalit; for the king wes finallie so provokit, be inoportune
solicitatioun of his baronis, that he past, nochtwithstanding the
solempnite of this day, to his hountis. At last, quhen he wes
cumin throw the vail that lyis to the gret eist fra the said
castell, quhare now lyis the Canongait, the staik past throw the
wod with sic noyis and din of rachis and bugillis, that all the
bestis were rasit fra thair dennis. Now wes the king cumin to
the fute of the crag, and all his nobilis severit, heir and
thair, fra him, at thair game and solace; quhen suddenlie apperit
to his sicht the fairist hart that evir wes sene afore with
levand creature. The noyis and din of this hart rinnand, as
apperit, with awful and braid tindis, maid the kingis hors so
effrayit, that na renzeis micht hald him, bot ran, perforce, ouir
mire and mossis, away with the king. Nochtheles, the hart
followit so fast, that he dang baith the king and his hors to the
ground. Than the king kest abak his handis betwix the tindis of
this hart, to haif savit him fra the strak thairof; and the haly
croce slaid, incontinent, in his handis. The hart fled away with
gret violence, and evanist in the same place quhare now springis
the Rude Well. The pepil richt affrayitly, returnit to him out
of all partis of the wod, to comfort him efter his trubill; and
fell on kneis, devotly adoring the haly croce; for it was not
cumin but sum hevinly providence, as weill apperis; for thair is
na man can schaw of quhat mater it is of, metal or tre. Sone
eftir, the king returnit to his castell; and in the nicht
following, he was admonist, be ane vision in his sleip, to big
ane abbay of channonis regular in the same place quhare he gat
the croce. Als sone as he was awalkinnit, he schew his visione
to Alkwine, his confessoure; and he na thing suspended his gud
mind, bot erar inflammit him with maist fervent devotion thairto.
The king, incontinent, send his traist servandis in France and
Flanderis, and brocht richt crafty masonis to big this abbay;
syne dedicat it in the honour of this haly croce. The croce
remanit continewally in the said abbay, to the time of King David
Bruce; quhilk was unhappily tane with it at Durame, quhare it is
haldin yit in gret veneration."--BOECE, BOOK 12, CH. 16.

It is by no means clear what Scottish prince first built a
palace, properly so called, in the precincts of this renowned
seat of sanctity. The abbey, endowed by successive sovereigns
and many powerful nobles with munificent gifts of lands and
tithes, came, in process of time, to be one of the most important
of the ecclesiastical corporations of Scotland; and as early as
the days of Robert Bruce, parliaments were held occasionally
within its buildings. We have evidence that James IV. had a
royal lodging adjoining to the cloister; but it is generally
agreed that the first considerable edifice for the accommodation
of the royal family erected here was that of James V., anno 1525,
great part of which still remains, and forms the north-western
side of the existing palace. The more modern buildings which
complete the quadrangle were erected by King Charles II. The
name of the old conventual church was used as the parish church
of the Canongate from the period of the Reformation, until James
II. claimed it for his chapel royal, and had it fitted up
accordingly in a style of splendour which grievously outraged the
feelings of his Presbyterian subjects. The roof of this fragment
of a once magnificent church fell in in the year 1768, and it has
remained ever since in a state of desolation. For fuller
particulars, see the PROVINCIAL ANTIQUITIES OF SCOTLAND, or the
HISTORY OF HOLYROOD, BY MR. CHARLES MACKIE.

The greater part of this ancient palace is now again occupied by
his Majesty Charles the Tenth of France, and the rest of that
illustrious family, which, in former ages so closely connected by
marriage and alliance with the house of Stewart, seems to have
been destined to run a similar career of misfortune. REQUIESCANT
IN PACE!

Note 2.--STEELE, A COVENANTER, SHOT BY CAPTAIN CREICHTON.

The following extract from Swift's Life of Creichton gives the
particulars of the bloody scene alluded to in the text:--

"Having drank hard one night, I (Creichton) dreamed that I had
found Captain David Steele, a notorious rebel, in one of the five
farmers' houses on a mountain in the shire of Clydesdale, and
parish of Lismahago, within eight miles of Hamilton, a place that
I was well acquainted with. This man was head of the rebels
since the affair of Airs-Moss, having succeeded to Hackston, who
had been there taken, and afterward hanged, as the reader has
already heard; for, as to Robert Hamilton, who was then
Commander-in-chief at Bothwell Bridge, he appeared no more among
them, but fled, as it was believed, to Holland.

"Steele, and his father before him, held a farm in the estate of
Hamilton, within two or three miles of that town. When he betook
himself to arms, the farm lay waste, and the Duke could find no
other person who would venture to take it; whereupon his Grace
sent several messages to Steele, to know the reason why he kept
the farm waste. The Duke received no other answer than that he
would keep it waste, in spite of him and the king too; whereupon
his Grace, at whose table I had always the honour to be a welcome
guest, desired I would use my endeavours to destroy that rogue,
and I would oblige him for ever.

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