The Tapestried Chamber, by Sir Walter Scott
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Sir Walter Scott >> The Tapestried Chamber, by Sir Walter Scott
"But I was roused by the castle clock striking one, so loud that
it seemed as if it were in the very room. It was some time
before I dared open my eyes, lest they should again encounter the
horrible spectacle. When, however, I summoned courage to look
up, she was no longer visible. My first idea was to pull my
bell, wake the servants, and remove to a garret or a hay-loft, to
be ensured against a second visitation. Nay, I will confess the
truth that my resolution was altered, not by the shame of
exposing myself, but by the fear that, as the bell-cord hung by
the chimney, I might, in making my way to it, be again crossed by
the fiendish hag, who, I figured to myself, might be still
lurking about some corner of the apartment.
"I will not pretend to describe what hot and cold fever-fits
tormented me for the rest of the night, through broken sleep,
weary vigils, and that dubious state which forms the neutral
ground between them. A hundred terrible objects appeared to
haunt me; but there was the great difference betwixt the vision
which I have described, and those which followed, that I knew the
last to be deceptions of my own fancy and over-excited nerves.
"Day at last appeared, and I rose from my bed ill in health and
humiliated in mind. I was ashamed of myself as a man and a
soldier, and still more so at feeling my own extreme desire to
escape from the haunted apartment, which, however, conquered all
other considerations; so that, huddling on my clothes with the
most careless haste, I made my escape from your lordship's
mansion, to seek in the open air some relief to my nervous
system, shaken as it was by this horrible rencounter with a
visitant, for such I must believe her, from the other world.
Your lordship has now heard the cause of my discomposure, and of
my sudden desire to leave your hospitable castle. In other
places I trust we may often meet, but God protect me from ever
spending a second night under that roof!"
Strange as the General's tale was, he spoke with such a deep air
of conviction that it cut short all the usual commentaries which
are made on such stories. Lord Woodville never once asked him if
he was sure he did not dream of the apparition, or suggested any
of the possibilities by which it is fashionable to explain
supernatural appearances as wild vagaries of the fancy, or
deceptions of the optic nerves, On the contrary, he seemed deeply
impressed with the truth and reality of what he had heard; and,
after a considerable pause regretted, with much appearance of
sincerity, that his early friend should in his house have
suffered so severely.
"I am the more sorry for your pain, my dear Browne," he
continued, "that it is the unhappy, though most unexpected,
result of an experiment of my own. You must know that, for my
father and grandfather's time, at least, the apartment which was
assigned to you last night had been shut on account of reports
that it was disturbed by supernatural sights and noises. When I
came, a few weeks since, into possession of the estate, I thought
the accommodation which the castle afforded for my friends was
not extensive enough to permit the inhabitants of the invisible
world to retain possession of a comfortable sleeping apartment.
I therefore caused the Tapestried Chamber, as we call it, to be
opened, and, without destroying its air of antiquity, I had such
new articles of furniture placed in it as became the modern
times. Yet, as the opinion that the room was haunted very
strongly prevailed among the domestics, and was also known in the
neighbourhood and to many of my friends, I feared some prejudice
might be entertained by the first occupant of the Tapestried
Chamber, which might tend to revive the evil report which it had
laboured under, and so disappoint my purpose of rendering it a
useful part or the house. I must confess, my dear Browne, that
your arrival yesterday, agreeable to me for a thousand reasons
besides, seemed the most favourable opportunity of removing the
unpleasant rumours which attached to the room, since your courage
was indubitable, and your mind free of any preoccupation on the
subject. I could not, therefore, have chosen a more fitting
subject for my experiment."
"Upon my life," said General Browne, somewhat hastily, "I am
infinitely obliged to your lordship--very particularly indebted
indeed. I am likely to remember for some time the consequences
of the experiment, as your lordship is pleased to call it."
"Nay, now you are unjust, my dear friend," said Lord Woodville.
"You have only to reflect for a single moment, in order to be
convinced that I could not augur the possibility of the pain to
which you have been so unhappily exposed. I was yesterday
morning a complete sceptic on the subject of supernatural
appearances. Nay, I am sure that, had I told you what was said
about that room, those very reports would have induced you, by
your own choice, to select it for your accommodation. It was my
misfortune, perhaps my error, but really cannot be termed my
fault, that you have been afflicted so strangely."
"Strangely indeed!" said the General, resuming his good temper;
"and I acknowledge that I have no right to be offended with your
lordship for treating me like what I used to think myself--a man
of some firmness and courage. But I see my post horses are
arrived, and I must not detain your lordship from your
amusement."
"Nay, my old friend," said Lord Woodville, "since you cannot stay
with us another day--which, indeed, I can no longer urge--give me
at least half an hour more. You used to love pictures, and I
have a gallery of portraits, some of them by Vandyke,
representing ancestry to whom this property and castle formerly
belonged. I think that several of them will strike you as
possessing merit."
General Browne accepted the invitation, though somewhat
unwillingly. It was evident he was not to breathe freely or at
ease till he left Woodville Castle far behind him. He could not
refuse his friend's invitation, however; and the less so, that he
was a little ashamed of the peevishness which he had displayed
towards his well-meaning entertainer.
The General, therefore, followed Lord Woodville through several
rooms into a long gallery hung with pictures, which the latter
pointed out to his guest, telling the names, and giving some
account of the personages whose portraits presented themselves in
progression. General Browne was but little interested in the
details which these accounts conveyed to him. They were, indeed,
of the kind which are usually found in an old family gallery.
Here was a Cavalier who had ruined the estate in the royal cause;
there a fine lady who had reinstated it by contracting a match
with a wealthy Roundhead. There hung a gallant who had been in
danger for corresponding with the exiled Court at Saint
Germain's; here one who had taken arms for William at the
Revolution; and there a third that had thrown his weight
alternately into the scale of Whig and Tory.
While lord Woodville was cramming these words into his guest's
ear, "against the stomach of his sense," they gained the middle
of the gallery, when he beheld General Browne suddenly start, and
assume an attitude of the utmost surprise, not unmixed with fear,
as his eyes were suddenly caught and riveted by a portrait of an
old lady in a sacque, the fashionable dress of the end of the
seventeenth century.
"There she is!" he exclaimed--"there she is, in form and
features, though Inferior in demoniac expression to the accursed
hag who visited me last night!"
"If that be the case," said the young nobleman, "there can remain
no longer any doubt of the horrible reality of your apparition.
That is the picture of a wretched ancestress of mine, of whose
crimes a black and fearful catalogue is recorded in a family
history in my charter-chest. The recital of them would be too
horrible; it is enough to say, that in yon fatal apartment incest
and unnatural murder were committed. I will restore it to the
solitude to which the better judgment of those who preceded me
had consigned it; and never shall any one, so long as I can
prevent it, be exposed to a repetition of the supernatural
horrors which could shake such courage as yours."
Thus the friends, who had met with such glee, parted in a very
different mood--Lord Woodville to command the Tapestried Chamber
to be unmantled, and the door built up; and General Browne to
seek in some less beautiful country, and with some less dignified
friend, forgetfulness of the painful night which he had passed in
Woodville Castle.
END OF THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER.
*
DEATH OF THE LAIRD'S JOCK by Sir Walter Scott.
[The manner in which this trifle was introduced at the time to
Mr. F. M. Reynolds, editor of The Keepsake of 1828, leaves no
occasion for a preface.]
AUGUST 1831.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE KEEPSAKE.
You have asked me, sir, to point out a subject for the pencil,
and I feel the difficulty of complying with your request,
although I am not certainly unaccustomed to literary composition,
or a total stranger to the stores of history and tradition, which
afford the best copies for the painter's art. But although SICUT
PICTURA POESIS is an ancient and undisputed axiom--although
poetry and painting both address themselves to the same object of
exciting the human imagination, by presenting to it pleasing or
sublime images of ideal scenes--yet the one conveying itself
through the ears to the understanding, and the other applying
itself only to the eyes, the subjects which are best suited to
the bard or tale-teller are often totally unfit for painting,
where the artist must present in a single glance all that his art
has power to tell us. The artist can neither recapitulate the
past nor intimate the future. The single NOW is all which he can
present; and hence, unquestionably, many subjects which delight
us in poetry or in narrative, whether real or fictitious, cannot
with advantage be transferred to the canvas.
Being in some degree aware of these difficulties, though
doubtless unacquainted both with their extent and the means by
which they may be modified or surmounted, I have, nevertheless,
ventured to draw up the following traditional narrative as a
story in which, when the general details are known, the interest
is so much concentrated in one strong moment of agonizing
passion, that it can be understood and sympathized with at a
single glance. I therefore presume that it may be acceptable as
a hint to some one among the numerous artists who have of late
years distinguished themselves as rearing up and supporting the
British school.
Enough has been said and sung about
"The well-contested ground,
The warlike Border-land,"
to render the habits of the tribes who inhabited it before the
union of England and Scotland familiar to most of your readers.
The rougher and sterner features of their character were softened
by their attachment to the fine arts, from which has arisen the
saying that on the frontiers every dale had its battle, and every
river its song. A rude species of chivalry was in constant use,
and single combats were practised as the amusement of the few
intervals of truce which suspended the exercise of war. The
inveteracy of this custom may be inferred from the following
incident:--
Bernard Gilpin, the apostle of the north, the first who undertook
to preach the Protestant doctrines to the Border dalesmen, was
surprised, on entering one of their churches, to see a gauntlet
or mail-glove hanging above the altar. Upon inquiring; the
meaning of a symbol so indecorous being displayed in that sacred
place, he was informed by the clerk that the glove was that of a
famous swordsman, who hung it there as an emblem of a general
challenge and gage of battle to any who should dare to take the
fatal token down. "Reach it to me," said the reverend churchman.
The clerk and the sexton equally declined the perilous office,
and the good Bernard Gilpin was obliged to remove the glove with
his own hands, desiring those who were present to inform the
champion that he, and no other, had possessed himself of the gage
of defiance. But the champion was as much ashamed to face
Bernard Gilpin as the officials of the church had been to
displace his pledge of combat.
The date of the following story is about the latter years of
Queen Elizabeth's reign; and the events took place in Liddesdale,
a hilly and pastoral district of Roxburghshire, which, on a part
of its boundary, is divided from England only by a small river.
During the good old times of RUGGING AND RIVING--that is, tugging
and tearing--under which term the disorderly doings of the
warlike age are affectionately remembered, this valley was
principally cultivated by the sept or clan of the Armstrongs.
The chief of this warlike race was the Laird of Mangerton. At
the period of which I speak, the estate of Mangerton, with the
power and dignity of chief, was possessed by John Armstrong, a
man of great size, strength, and courage. While his father was
alive, he was distinguished from others of his clan who bore the
same name, by the epithet of the LAIRD'S JOCK--that is to say,
the Laird's son Jock, or Jack. This name he distinguished by so
many bold and desperate achievements, that he retained it even
after his father's death, and is mentioned under it both in
authentic records and in tradition. Some of his feats are
recorded in the minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and others are
mentioned in contemporary chronicles.
At the species of singular combat which we have described the
Laird's Jock was unrivalled, and no champion of Cumberland,
Westmoreland, or Northumberland could endure the sway of the huge
two-handed sword which he wielded, and which few others could
even lift. This "awful sword," as the common people term it, was
as dear to him as Durindana or Fushberta to their respective
masters, and was nearly as formidable to his enemies as those
renowned falchions proved to the foes of Christendom. The weapon
had been bequeathed to him by a celebrated English outlaw named
Hobbie Noble, who, having committed some deed for which he was in
danger from justice, fled to Liddesdale, and became a follower,
or rather a brother-in-arms, to the renowned Laird's Jock; till,
venturing into England with a small escort, a faithless guide,
and with a light single-handed sword instead of his ponderous
brand, Hobbie Noble, attacked by superior numbers, was made
prisoner and executed.
With this weapon, and by means of his own strength and address,
the Laird's Jock maintained the reputation of the best swordsman
on the Border side, and defeated or slew many who ventured to
dispute with him the formidable title.
But years pass on with the strong and the brave as with the
feeble and the timid. In process of time the Laird's Jock grew
incapable of wielding his weapons, and finally of all active
exertion, even of the most ordinary kind. The disabled champion
became at length totally bedridden, and entirely dependent for
his comfort on the pious duties of an only daughter, his
perpetual attendant and companion.
Besides this dutiful child, the Laird's Jock had an only son,
upon whom devolved the perilous task of leading the clan to
battle, and maintaining the warlike renown of his native country,
which was now disputed by the English upon many occasions. The
young Armstrong was active, brave, and strong, and brought home
from dangerous adventures many tokens of decided success. Still,
the ancient chief conceived, as it would seem, that his son was
scarce yet entitled by age and experience to be entrusted with
the two-handed sword, by the use of which he had himself been so
dreadfully distinguished.
At length an English champion, one of the name of Foster (if I
rightly recollect), had the audacity to send a challenge to the
best swordsman in Liddesdale; and young Armstrong, burning for
chivalrous distinction, accepted the challenge.
The heart of the disabled old man swelled with joy when he heard
that the challenge was passed and accepted, and the meeting fixed
at a neutral spot, used as the place of rencontre upon such
occasions, and which he himself had distinguished by numerous
victories. He exulted so much in the conquest which he
anticipated, that, to nerve his son to still bolder exertions, he
conferred upon him, as champion of his clan and province, the
celebrated weapon which he had hitherto retained in his own
custody.
This was not all. When the day of combat arrived, the Laird's
Jock, in spite of his daughter's affectionate remonstrances,
determined, though he had not left his bed for two years, to be a
personal witness of the duel. His will was still a law to his
people, who bore him on their shoulders, wrapped in plaids and
blankets, to the spot where the combat was to take place, and
seated him on a fragment of rock, which is still called the
Laird's Jock's stone. There he remained with eyes fixed on the
lists or barrier, within which the champions were about to meet.
His daughter, having done all she could for his accommodation,
stood motionless beside him, divided between anxiety for his
health, and for the event of the combat to her beloved brother.
Ere yet the fight began, the old men gazed on their chief, now
seen for the first time after several years, and sadly compared
his altered features and wasted frame with the paragon of
strength and manly beauty which they once remembered. The young
men gazed on his large form and powerful make as upon some
antediluvian giant who had survived the destruction of the Flood.
But the sound of the trumpets on both sides recalled the
attention of every one to the lists, surrounded as they were by
numbers of both nations eager to witness the event of the day.
The combatants met in the lists. It is needless to describe the
struggle: the Scottish champion fell. Foster, placing his foot
on his antagonist, seized on the redoubted sword, so precious in
the eyes of its aged owner, and brandished it over his head as a
trophy of his conquest. The English shouted in triumph. But the
despairing cry of the aged champion, who saw his country
dishonoured, and his sword, long the terror of their race, in the
possession of an Englishman, was heard high above the
acclamations of victory. He seemed for an instant animated by
all his wonted power; for he started from the rock on which he
sat, and while the garments with which he had been invested fell
from his wasted frame, and showed the ruins of his strength, he
tossed his arms wildly to heaven, and uttered a cry of
indignation, horror, and despair, which, tradition says, was
heard to a preternatural distance, and resembled the cry of a
dying lion more than a human sound.
His friends received him in their arms as he sank utterly
exhausted by the effort, and bore him back to his castle in mute
sorrow; while his daughter at once wept for her brother, and
endeavoured to mitigate and soothe the despair of her father.
But this was impossible; the old man's only tie to life was rent
rudely asunder, and his heart had broken with it. The death of
his son had no part in his sorrow. If he thought of him at all,
it was as the degenerate boy through whom the honour of his
country and clan had been lost; and he died in the course of
three days, never even mentioning his name, but pouring out
unintermitted lamentations for the loss of his noble sword.
I conceive that the moment when the disabled chief was roused
into a last exertion by the agony of the moment is favourable to
the object of a painter. He might obtain the full advantage of
contrasting the form of the rugged old man, in the extremity of
furious despair, with the softness and beauty of the female form.
The fatal field might be thrown into perspective, so as to give
full effect to these two principal figures, and with the single
explanation that the piece represented a soldier beholding his
son slain, and the honour of his country lost, the picture would
be sufficiently intelligible at the first glance. If it was
thought necessary to show more clearly the nature of the
conflict, it might be indicated by the pennon of Saint George
being displayed at one end of the lists, and that of Saint Andrew
at the other.
I remain, sir,
Your obedient servant,
THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.
End of