第77章 HEATHERCAT(1)

I -TRAQUAIRS OF MONTROYMONT

THE period of this tale is in the heat of the KILLING-TIME;the scene laid for the most part in solitary hills and morasses,haunted only by the so-called Mountain Wanderers,the dragoons that came in chase of them,the women that wept on their dead bodies,and the wild birds of the moorland that have cried there since the beginning.It is a land of many rain-clouds;a land of much mute history,written there in prehistoric symbols.Strange green raths are to be seen commonly in the country,above all by the kirkyards;barrows of the dead,standing stones;beside these,the faint,durable footprints and handmarks of the Roman;and an antiquity older perhaps than any,and still living and active -a complete Celtic nomenclature and a scarce-mingled Celtic population.These rugged and grey hills were once included in the boundaries of the Caledonian Forest.Merlin sat here below his apple-tree and lamented Gwendolen;here spoke with Kentigern;here fell into his enchanted trance.And the legend of his slumber seems to body forth the story of that Celtic race,deprived for so many centuries of their authentic speech,surviving with their ancestral inheritance of melancholy perversity and patient,unfortunate courage.

The Traquairs of Montroymont (MONS ROMANUS,as the erudite expound it)had long held their seat about the head-waters of the Dule and in the back parts of the moorland parish of Balweary.For two hundred years they had enjoyed in these upland quarters a certain decency (almost to be named distinction)of repute;and the annals of their house,or what is remembered of them,were obscure and bloody.Ninian Traquair was 'cruallie slochtered'by the Crozers at the kirk-door of Balweary,anno 1482.Francis killed Simon Ruthven of Drumshoreland,anno 1540;bought letters of slayers at the widow and heir,and,by a barbarous form of compounding,married (without tocher)Simon's daughter Grizzel,which is the way the Traquairs and Ruthvens came first to an intermarriage.About the last Traquair and Ruthven marriage,it is the business of this book,among many other things,to tell.

The Traquairs were always strong for the Covenant;for the King also,but the Covenant first;and it began to be ill days for Montroymont when the Bishops came in and the dragoons at the heels of them.Ninian (then laird)was an anxious husband of himself and the property,as the times required,and it may be said of him,that he lost both.He was heavily suspected of the Pentland Hills rebellion.When it came the length of Bothwell Brig,he stood his trial before the Secret Council,and was convicted of talking with some insurgents by the wayside,the subject of the conversation not very clearly appearing,and of the reset and maintenance of one Gale,a gardener man,who was seen before Bothwell with a musket,and afterwards,for a continuance of months,delved the garden at Montroymont.Matters went very ill with Ninian at the Council;some of the lords were clear for treason;and even the boot was talked of.But he was spared that torture;and at last,having pretty good friendship among great men,he came off with a fine of seven thousand marks,that caused the estate to groan.In this case,as in so many others,it was the wife that made the trouble.She was a great keeper of conventicles;would ride ten miles to one,and when she was fined,rejoiced greatly to suffer for the Kirk;but it was rather her husband that suffered.She had their only son,Francis,baptized privately by the hands of Mr.Kidd;there was that much the more to pay for!She could neither be driven nor wiled into the parish kirk;as for taking the sacrament at the hands of any Episcopalian curate,and tenfold more at those of Curate Haddo,there was nothing further from her purposes;and Montroymont had to put his hand in his pocket month by month and year by year.Once,indeed,the little lady was cast in prison,and the laird,worthy,heavy,uninterested man,had to ride up and take her place;from which he was not discharged under nine months and a sharp fine.It scarce seemed she had any gratitude to him;she came out of gaol herself,and plunged immediately deeper in conventicles,resetting recusants,and all her old,expensive folly,only with greater vigour and openness,because Montroymont was safe in the Tolbooth and she had no witness to consider.