The Candlemass Road
But I wander, in my dotage. My Lord Ralph won the Bell, and parted in the evening from his foe-friends, and rode out by the Rickergate with two grooms for company, to fare home to Askerton. They were waiting for him on the Brampton road, men in visors, well-horsed, and they shot him through with calivers, nine balls in his body, and he let die by the roadside. They killed the grooms with their swords, and made away. Who they were was not found out. Some suspected Hutcheon Graham, but he made oath on his father’s stone in St Cuthbert’s churchyard of Carlisle, so he was clean, and I believe it, for in all my time yonder I never knew a word broken, for all their other faults. Sundry were named, Lance Carleton and Black Ogle and Stark Jack Charlton of Tynedale on the English side, and on the Scottish, Will Kang, that was a notable murderer for hire, and the Scotts of Teviotdale, and as for the Liddesdales, why, who you will. The truth was, my lord had more ill-willers than hairs on his head; he was a terrible man, but a good friend to me-ward, and while he lived his folk slept secure, and his cattle grazed untroubled even on the lion’s lip.
He was buried at Arthuret, before a great company, and my lord Bishop himself came from Carlisle to say his solemns, with staff and mitre and many attendants and a singing choir within. There were many lords there, and I marvelled to see so many notable thieves there also, of both sides. Some said, in scandalous jest, that they came to see him well delved under, but I think otherwise, for I have seen that affinity that grows betwixt enemies, who while they hate lustily in life, yet sorrow when death parts them. They are a strange folk. I heard one say, “Now he is at peace,” and another made answer saying he wished his soul no peace, but great action wheresoever it had gone, for that he had loved above all. My lords Scroop and Willoughby and the Scots Warden Carmichael bore his bier, and among the others that Scott of Harden whom they called Auld Wat, a principal reiver, and the young Buccleuch and John Carey, who were no friends to each other elsewhere.
In all this I had no part, being what they styled a recusant, but came hooded and cloaked to give no offence, which they overlooked, knowing well what I was. I gave back, thinking I had never seen so much costly stuff and apparel mingled with such a deal of leather and steel by a graveside, and as I stood at the church door I saw that which lessoned me even more what a contrary country is this, for as the Lord Bishop led them in prayers, all standing sodden in the rain, there in the church porch sat Long Tom Hetherington, a great villain that they called “the Merchant”, casting the accounts of blackmail that he and his fellow-robber Richie Graham had wrung from the poor folk thereabouts. Now this blackmail, or black rent, is an extortion much practised by the thieves, who come to a man, or a village, and say, pay us such-and-such and you and your possessions will be safe, for we shall see to it, but if ye pay not, look to it, for sundry reivers will doubtless ride upon you (by which they mean their wicked selves). And the poor folk are wont to pay to be left in peace. It is a protection money and one of the principal curses of the frontier in those days. Because of my old lord’s zeal and care of his people, none on Dacre ground had paid this black rent to any for a half-score years, but this was in Arthuret that lay beyond our bounds. Yet it took me by the throat to see this vile money-changer at his practices in the House of God, and my lord not cold in the ground.
“Have ye no shame,” I asked him, “that ye count your blood money in the church, and the bell yet tolling for the dead?”
He looked at me astonied, saying there was none of Dacre’s folk on his books “and where else should I keep them for safety but in the kirk where the clients come to pay, and this the day? Would ye have us run about the country, chapping at gates, for our black rent?”
I could have struck him, for all he had his sword naked by his books, but it was no place or time and I a priest. “Keep them in your thieves’ den at Brackenhill Tower, with your vile confederate Richie Graham,” I bade him, and he laughed.
“Thinkst thou I’d trust them within Richie’s reach? Go to, man, y’are wandered! Get thysel’ back to Askerton, confess thy young maids, and I’ll help thee penance them!”
And sat there taking his extortion, which is crime the world over, but here it was open, and the lords at the grave and the Warden officers and constables marked him not, for that it was but lightly regarded and, as they say, the custom of the country!
Now I see that the preambulation to my tale has taken longer than I would it had, yet my excuse is that I had need tell you of my poor self and my old lord, and of my being at Askerton, and not only that but to lay open to you the ways of the frontier and the godless folk therein, at some length, with illustration of their manners, that you may understand perfectly all that befell on that Candlemass that I spoke of, which I shall now come to before long, I do assure you.
It was in the summer time that my lord departed this life, and all through the back end and winter unto the February following we that had served him lived a-tiptoe in Askerton Hall, wondering when the thieves would ride on our goodly land and livestock, now that the Red Bull was no more. For his armed following were all dispersed to seek other employs, having no mind to bide at Askerton without him to lead them, and we were but a household reduced, the bailiff and myself and the servitors, with no security for the tenants and farms. Yet they rode not against us that winter, such was the shadow of his name, and also because in the cold months the herds were away at softer pasturing in the deep vales by the lakes, in which hard time the riding surnames were wont to rest them in their towers and bastels, and the outlaws in the mosses. Yet was there rumour that with the mastiff dead the foxes soon would prowl, and word of Liddesdale spears spying below the Lyne rivers against the coming of spring, when the great thieves would burst forth of their lairs and, in their barbarous phrase, shake loose the border.
So were we in apprehension, but took comfort from word that had reached us at Christmas, that my Lady Dacre that was grand-daughter to old Lord Ralph as I told you I met her when a little maid, was to come up into the country from London, she being his only kin and heiress to all his great wealth and estates. Whereof we were right glad, for we doubted not that her advisers would take order for the security of the Askerton demesne. Indeed I wondered that she should come in her own person, being but a young woman and long away from that fierce country, when her men of affairs could have been sent, and she continued in her enjoyment of southern pleasantry. But it hath been whispered in mine ear since, that the Queen herself willed it so, for a reason, to wit, that my Lady Margaret having been in waiting on the Queen, had given her offence by her temper, which was as proud, and her stomach as high, as even Her Grace’s, and that was not small, God knows.
Also there had been talk of my Lady Margaret’s commerce with certain young lords at the Court having given displeasure to Her Grace, for she’ was none of your lily maids, but free and frank in her manner, as I had seen when she was little, and I doubt not she smiled whither she pleased, caring not if it misliked Her Grace or no. This may be scandal of the sort they love to tattle after in London, but the long and short was that the Queen commanded her away. So we had great heave and ho at Askerton against her coming, and myself much perturbed, wondering would she tolerate me, the Portingale priest, as her grandsire had done, he being careless in such matters, as I have shown, but she, coming from the Court, it was not to be doubted that she was strong for the reformed church, and like to turn me away, or worse. And at my time of life I knew not whither to go if she dismissed me.
Candlemass was the day pricked for her coming in, and though we knew it not, it was to be the day of Archie Noble Waitabout’s coming also. She was looked for by open day, but he that was not looked for came like a thief in the night while the house slept, and none sounder than I.
Chapter 2
BEING THEN IN that state of years when the aches of my limbs and back cured not with resting, and the great scaur on my leg that I had of the Mexican savages troubling most of all, sleep was a sweet relief, and I was wont to drowse abed in the mornings, like any sluggard, but comfortable. None in that household seeking my offices, I had fallen into neglect of all duty, and was seldom abroad before prime. But that Candlemass I was afoot early, it being the day of my lady’s coming in, and we having word that she had lain the night at Naworth, only a short way off, which, thinks I, will have done little for her temper. It had been a fair priory before the old King worked his will on such places, but fallen into neglect lately, and little apt to furnish entertainment for gentle folk. I trembled, too, for our condition at Askerton, for old Lord Ralph had lived somewhat rough, and neglected the comforts of the house, which had not bettered since his death, and was, to tell truth, sadly decayed, for the slatterns swept it but idly, and nothing was clean.
I had remonstrated with Master Hodgson, who was the bailiff, but had no satisfaction there. He was an honest man enough, stout and hearty, but of that choleric temper which makes for tyranny in one when he is given rule over others and hath himself no very quick understanding. A good and honest steward to my lord, knowing then his duties within their limits, but now all the care and management was on him, and it was beyond him, so that he made great stir and noise among the tenants, bidding them this and that, but all to no purpose, and for the household he never ceased to complain and carp, with “Godamercy, the fire’s out!” and “Where the devil are those lackbrain men got to?”, and swearing he must do all himself – but nothing ever done. He was in a great taking for my lady’s arrival, sending the boys up the hill to spy her carriage, and hindering the wenches with his bustling and roaring in the kitchen, and fearful, I think, for his shortcomings over the estate, with rents not properly reckoned or accounts made, for he wrote but poorly, and for figuring commend me to the village dunce. I had offered my help, but he waved me away, saying affairs were not for priests, and more ink on his elbows than on the page. Yet he was an honest man, and meant well, but without my old lord to direct him he was adrift in confusion.
Thinking it well that some things at least should be in order for my lady, I bade the wenches scour and polish in my lord’s old bedroom, and put out the best linen, with lavender between the sheets, and make all as pretty as might be, and myself set to with broom and dusters in the hall, so that there should be one chamber fit for her reception. I raised dust enough for a mill, and with the help of the kitchen loon, Wattie, a great lubber that could have stood billy to Callaban in the play, made shift to remove all the holly and bay and rosemary hung for Christmas, Candlemass being the time when it is taken down. I would have had it away and burned before, but Master Hodgson nayed me, saying it must wait for the day, as in my lord’s time.
We made what order we could in the hall, with fresh rushes and green stuff in a pot, and took away the mouldiest of the tapestry, but we could no way hide the cracked leather of the chairs, or the scaurs on the table, or the moth in the bit carpet that covered it, or the sad neglect of the walls where the damp had come in. Wattie put wood on the great fire, but it was green and bubbled and stank with smoke like the pit, which was of a piece, for he fouled more than he cleaned. Welcome home, my lady, thinks I, to this draughty dirty barn, to the wind and the rain and the bare hillside and the company of animals and Cumbrians, and if ye tarry longer than to change your shoon and rest your cotchman, I shall be the more amazed.
I said as much, comparing our appointments with that she had known at Court, and was rebuked for my pains by the lurden Wat (for there is no respect in these people), who doubted not she would take joy to be home again, and find all to her liking. I took leave to doubt it, and was told, with a great sniff of his scabby nose, and sidelong nods, that I did not know her.
“And you do, to be sure,” said I, and was taken at my word.
“I did,” says he, grown solemn, “when she was a little bit lass, afore she went doon tae London, alack the day! I was in’t stable then – aye, I put her on her first pony. Little Lady Madge, we ca’d her, and she ca’d me Wattie boy, that she did. ‘Help us up, clumsy Wat!’ Hey, hey, a grand wee lass! I mind when she fell in’t Ghyll Beck and cam’ hame blubberin’ wi’ a girt scratch on her arm, and I lapped it wi’ a clout and dried her eyes and took her to’t buttery, and old Granny Sowerby gi’d her dandelion and burdock, and the la’l soul supped it and cried for mair. Hey, hey, a grand wee lass!”
It moved me to see this churl so devoted, and I asked him, would she still be the same little lass, seventeen long years after? Time, I told him, might have wrought a change.
“Never!” cries he. “She’s a Dacre, aye, and a Cumberland lass, ever and a’!”
I told him she had been maid in waiting on the Queen’s Grace, “and it may be that she no longer falls in streams or drinks dandelion. Your little playmate will be a great lady now, Master Wat.”
“She was a great leddy when she was four year old and put vinegar in her grandad’s beer,” says he, with a great laugh. “Aye, and ‘Whee’s pissed in this pot?’ cries my old lord. And the wee lass supped her milk and cries: ‘And whee’s pissed in this pot, an’ a‘?’ Hey, but my lord laughed till he cried! Aye, aye, a grand la’l lass!”
I saw there was no waking him from his dream of bygone, and bade him mend the fire with dry logs from the cellar, but at this he made three great O’s with his eyes and mouth and swore he could not go to the cellar without the bailiff’s leave, “for they have the broken man bound there”.
I asked him, what broken man, and he said, why, the vagrant fellow Archie Waitabout, that had been taken in the hind-night pilfering from the kitchen of bread and cheese, and the grooms waking had seized and bound him and cast him in the cellar at the bailiff’s bidding.
So now I am come at last to Archie Noble Wait-about-him, for this was the first I ever heard of him, and little enough it seemed but a petty filching matter. I asked what they would do with him, and Wattie said they would hold him for the Warden’s men, who should take him to Carlisle, there to be hung up for a broken man and thief.
“What, for bread and cheese?” said I, and Wattie said for that and other things, for it seemed he was well-known thereabouts (though not to me) for a wandering, lifting rascal of the sort that is ever under suspicion. I would have made naught of this, but for a phrase that the loon Wattie dropped among his babbling.
“Master Hodgson calls him a drawlatch and a gallow-clapper and I know not what,” says he. “Aye, and a great talker, seest thou, father, so Master Hodgson says let him chatter his Latin to the Warden’s men and see how it shall serve him.”
Now at this my curiosity was on edge, that had thought little before, for you must know that a broken man is beneath all others mean in the borderland, the term “broken” signifying one that hath no loyalty or allegiance to any lord or leader, as most men do, but is an outcast, of the sort that are wont to band themselves together as outlaws, or, as seemed with this Waitabout, do wander solitary getting what they can. That such should break into our kitchen to steal was no wonder, but if, as Wattie said, he had Latin, then it was a portent, for I should as soon look for learning in a Barbary ape. Wherefore I inquired closely of Wattie what manner of man was this Archie Waitabout, and learned enough for my pains, for Wat was one that would sooner talk than drink so it kept him from his work.
Thus, he told me, this Waitabout was ever on the edge of all mischiefs, and had been whipped the length of the Marches for little offences, and lain in Haddock’s Hole that is a verminous prison to Berwick, and was dross to honest folk. And yet, said my Wattie, warming to his tale, it was said that in his time he had been an approved man, and done good service to my lord Hunsdon in the War of the Bankrupt Earls, and fought stoutly for the Laird Johnstone in the Lockerbie battle with the Maxwells, yet had declined in fame and fortune, no man knew how, till now he was of no account and broken, scratching for a living as he could, and thieving out of our larder in the night.
“They say he was a clerk, an’ a’, an’ reads an’ writes, but I know nowt o’ that,” says Wattie, all a-grin. “He’s a daft ’un, I reckon, but Master Hodgson says they’ll hang him for the horse.”
I asked, what horse, and learned that they had come on a pretty mare out by the barnekin that dawn, and this the beast on which Waitabout had come to our kitchen door, “and a bonny hobby it is, father, wi’ Spanish leather an’ silver snaffle, as I saw meself. Master Hodgson reckons trash like Archie Noble never came honest by sic a mount as yon. ‘The Warden’s men can speer what gentleman’s left his stable-door off the sneck lately,’ says he, ‘and then, goodnight, Archie Waitabout!”’
To this simpleton it seemed a great jest that a broken man should hang, and indeed it was nothing out of the common, save that this was a broken man with a difference, by his account, if indeed what he prattled was true, which I something doubted. Howbeit, on Master Hodgson’s coming in and sending Wattie, with cuffs and curses, about some errand, I asked him if it was true that this Waitabout should to Carlisle to be hanged on suspicion of a horse, and if so I might do him some good by my office.
At this he flew into a taking, begging me plague him not about a petty villain that was naught and would soon be less. He had, he vowed, more to think on than a mere sneak-bait, aye, marry, had he! He paced about the hall, snapping his fingers and his great red face a-shake, like one beset with care and doubt that he wills not to speak of, lest it sound worse in the telling and so frights him the more. I asked him what was the matter, and he scratched his head and rolled his eyes, and at last made answer with that which put all thought of Waitabout clean out of my head.
But an hour since, that very morning, had come to him one George Bell of Triermain, a village at the easter end of my lord’s land, with his head broke and his shirt bloody and a great tale of woe how five stout men of the Nixons, Scotch thieves of Liddesdale, had come to his place in the night and beaten him full sore because, they said, he had not paid his blackmail. They had made free of his house and meat and ale, put all his folk of Triermain in fear, and vowed if they were not paid to come the next night and do worse.
“Blackmail? How can that be?” I asked him, for as I told you it was a thing unheard of these many years on Dacre land, so perfect had been my lord’s care of his folk. Hodgson answered me with oaths that Bell had confessed to paying the Nixons in years past, but secretly for dread of my lord’s anger “who had he known would ha’ whipped Bell’s arse frae here to Hexham, aye, and run the Nixons ragged too!” Then for a season the Nixons had let him alone, doubtless for fear my lord should get wind of their extortion, but now, my lord being dead, they made bold to revive it, “and when Bell crieth that he hath not money to pay lawful white rent to the Dacres and black rent to Liddesdale – a thing he did privily for years, God kens! – the Nixons rattle his head to learn him better and swear to burn his thatches and carry his beasts and himself into Scotland! And Bell, sheep that he is, comes whining to me for protection!” He stamped and was like to tear his hair in vexation. “Here’s grand news for my lady when she comes in! And who’ll she blame for it? Her poor bailiff, owd Robby Hodgson!”
I asked him how he had answered Bell, and what was to be done for him.
“I bade him seek the Land Sergeant at Gilsland. ‘What,’ says he, ‘go to Tom Carleton that’s in the pocket of every reiver of England and Scotland both? I’ll no justice of him!’ I asked him what then, and the lousy sneakbill says he’ll bear plaint to my lady when she comes in, for that she is his landlord now, and bound to keep him safe!” On this he was at a loss to speak further, grinding his teeth, and when I asked how he had answered said he had put his boot to Bell’s backside and sent him packing.
“And yet,” says he, all chapfallen, “I fear me he will find occasion to clatter at my lady’s ear, and mow and girn for his cracked pate to move her pity – and seest thou, father, it will look ill for me, a tenant oppressed crying Justice! and I can do nowt for him, wanting power at hand, and but the bailiff.” He called Bell an earwig and a bastard and worse, that had not the wit to pay his blackmail as in the past, so all would have been quiet.
It seemed to me he was more greatly wroth against the victim than the thief, and more sorry for himself than for the harried tenants. Here you see the cancer of the frontier at work, a poor soul put to extortion, and his superior, for peace and appearance, would have him pay the blackmail, for all that it is a crime to pay as to take. This winking at evil, for convenience, is the root of half the mischief of the world, yet men will always wish to be quiet.
My heart was sore for that poor lady soon to come in to this world of bloody faction and decay, from a Queen’s Court where they played and sang and made their petty intrigues on what young lord smiled on what young lady, and cried Oh! if Her Majesty frowned. That is the worst she knows, thinks I, and how shall she believe that such folk as the Nixons can be?
Hodgson doubted but she would find out fast enough, and fell to bewailing my lord his death, in whose time the thieves dare not say Bo! to Askerton. “For this attempt of the Nixons is but a pinprick!” cries he and trembled. “Let it go unanswered we shall have such roads ridden upon us, what of Liddesdale, what of Tynedale, what of the broken bands, as we have not seen this ten year. The thieves will bristle up and spur! I know it, I know them!”
When I said this was for the future, and the Wardens should take order to prevent it, he turned on me nigh weeping.
“Aye, but who shall answer the Nixons now, this very night, when they ride on Triermain? Not Tommy Carleton, nor his jack-snippet deputy, nor yet Jack Musgrave that’s captain o’ Bewcastle Fort and has lain swine drunk since Martinmass and stirreth not from his bed but for another flask and so back to his strumpet! For truth it is as Bell says that they have policy with the thieves and would not offend them for such a trifle.”
I rebuked him that the officers named were duty bound to see Bell secure, and he gave a great crack of his thumb in my face for scorn, and brayed that they would make excuse that Askerton was beyond their charge, and since my old lord had made it all his own business, so Askerton must answer Askerton’s foes.
“So who must guard Triermain? The landlord! What’s he? A slip of a lass, go to! And if the thieves ride in earnest, where will her tenants be and her rents withal?” He fell to damning Bell most grossly that was the cause of it all, to his mind, for not paying his black rent. And finding no remedy in raving turned his wrath on the lout Wattie, crying that the fire was out and my lady expected hourly.
Myself kept counsel, yet did share his fears that if this attempt of the Nixons in a little matter was not met, other evildoers would take example, and Askerton ridden to ruin. And as I paced about the withery orchard thinking we had been so tranquil, and now all upside down, what of thieves riding and a loose fellow in the cellar and my lady to come in, poor soul, that I was troubled for, in to me comes that same Thomas Carleton, Land Sergeant of Gilsland (which is a potent office, like to a petty Warden), and his deputy Yarrow, that had ridden over from Gilsland to give welcome to my lady, as befitted them. This Carleton was a tall smooth man with a sheep’s face, easy and affable enough but cold in the eye, reckoned an expert borderer that knew the hinder-end of all things and how the world wagged, a stout man at war but a politician foremost, that for all his assurance I would have trusted no farther than I might throw Hermitage Keep. He passed for gentry, being of a known family, and discoursed with the nobility or cracked with the commonalty. His underling Yarrow was a border callant with a noisy laugh and an empty head, yet proper in his gait and a fine figure, with much sense of his little office.