John Burnet of Barns: A Romance. Buchan John
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Rant," and firmly shutting my mind against thoughts of home. I scarce delayed in Eddleston, but pushed on up the valley, expecting to get dinner at the inn at Leadburn, which stands at the watershed, just where the county of Edinburgh touches our shire of Tweeddale. The way, which is a paradise in summer, was rugged and cold at this season. The banks of the stream were crusted with ice, and every now and then, as I passed, I raised a string of wild duck, who fled noisily to the high wildernesses.
I came to Leadburn about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, somewhat cold in body, but brisk and comforted in spirit. I had Maisie stabled, and myself went into the hostel and bade them get ready dinner. The inn is the most villainous, bleak place that I have ever seen, and I who write this have seen many. The rooms are damp and mouldy, and the chimney-stacks threaten hourly to come down about the heads of the inmates. It stands in the middle of a black peat-bog, which stretches nigh to the Pentland Hills; and if there be a more forsaken countryside on earth, I do not know it. The landlord, nevertheless, was an active, civil man, not spoiled by his surroundings; and he fetched me an excellent dinner – a brace of wild-fowl and a piece of salted beef, washed down with very tolerable wine.
I had just finished, and was resting a little before ordering my horse, when the most discordant noise arose in the inn-yard; and, going to the window, I beheld two great, strong serving-men pulling a collie by a rope tied around the animal's neck. It was a fine, shaggy black-and-white dog, and I know not what it could have done to merit such treatment. But its captors had not an easy task, for it struggled and thrawed at the rope, and snarled savagely, and every now and then made desperate sallies upon the hinder-parts of its leaders. They cursed it, not unnaturally, for an ill-conditioned whelp, and some of the idlers, who are usually found about an inn, flung stones or beat it with sticks from behind. Now I hate, above all things, to see a beast suffer, no matter how it may have deserved it; so I had it in my mind to go down and put a stop to the cruelty, when some one else came before me.
This was a very long, thin man, with a shock of black hair, and a sunburnt face, attired in a disorder of different clothes – a fine, though tarnished coat, stout, serviceable small-clothes, and the coarsest of shoes and stockings. He darted forward like a hawk from a corner of the yard, and, ere I could guess his intentions, had caught the rope and let the dog go free. The beast ran howling to seek shelter, and its preserver stood up to face the disappointed rascals. They glared at him fiercely, and were on the point of rushing on him, had not something in his demeanour deterred them.
"Oh," said he, in a scornful voice, "ye're fine folk, you Leidburn folk. Braw and kindly folk. Graund at hangin' dowgs and tormentin' dumb beasts, but like a wheen skelpit puppies when ye see a man."
"Ye meddlin' deevil," said one, "whae askit ye to come here? The dowg was an ill, useless beast, and it was time it was hangit."
"And what d'ye ca' yoursel?" said the stranger. "I ken ye fine, Tam Tiddup, for a thievin', idle vaigabond, and if every useless beast was hangit, there wadna be yin o' ye here."
This made them grumble, and a stone was thrown, but still something in the easy, dauntless air of their enemy kept them back.
"But I'm no the man to let a dowg gang free wi'oot giein' some kind o' return. Ye're a' brave men, dour warlike men, and I've nae doot unco keen o' a fecht. Is there no some kind o' green bit hereaways whaur I could hae a fling wi' yin o' ye? I'll try ye a' in turn, but no to mak ill-feelin', I'll tak the biggest yin first. Will ye come, ye muckle hash?" he said suddenly, addressing the tallest of the number.
Now the man addressed had clearly no stomach for fight, but he was tall and stout, and stood in fear of the ridicule of his companions, and further, he doubtless thought that he would have an easy victory over the lean stranger, so he accepted with as good a show of readiness as he could muster.
"Come on, ye flee-up-i'-the-air, and I'll see if I canna pit thae fushionless airms o' yours oot o' joint."
I heard them appoint a flat place beside the burn, just on the edge of the bog, and watched them trooping out of the yard. The rabble went first, with a great semblance of valour, and the brown-faced stranger, with a sardonic grin on his countenance, stepped jauntily behind. Now I dearly love a fight, but yet I scarce thought fit to go and look on with the rest; so I had Maisie saddled, and rode after them, that I might look like some chance passer-by stopping to witness the encounter.
When I came up to the place, there were already some thirty men collected. It was a green spot by the side of the Hawes burn, with the frost not lifted from the grass; and in the burn itself the ice lay thick, for it flows sluggishly like all bogland waters, The place was beaten down as if folk were used to go there, and here the men made a ring about their champion, some helping him to unbuckle his belt, some giving advice about how to close with his adversary. The adversary himself stood waiting their pleasure with the most unconcerned air, whistling "The Green Holms o' Linton," and stamping his feet on the ground to keep himself warm.
In a little the two were ready, and stood facing each other on the cold moor. A whistling wind came in short blasts from the hills, and made their ears tingle, and mine also, till I wished that I were one of the two to have some chance of warming my blood. But when once the fight began, I thought little more of the cold.
The countryman gripped the stranger round the middle and tugged desperately to throw him. Up and down, backwards and forwards they went, kicking up in their struggle pieces of turf and little stones. Once they were all but in the water, but the stranger, seeing his peril, made a bold leap back and dragged the other with him. And now I feared that it was going to go hard with the succourer of distressed dogs; for his unwieldy opponent was pressing so heavily upon him that I expected every moment to see him go down. Once I caught sight of his face, and, to my surprise, it was calm as ever; the very straw he had been chewing before being still between his teeth.
Now the fight took another turn; for my friend, by an adroit movement, slipped below the other's arms, flung himself backwards, just as I have seen a tumbler do at a fair at Peebles, and before the other knew his design, stood smiling before him. The man's astonishment was so great that he stood staring, and if the stranger had used his advantage, he might have thrown him there and then. By and by he recovered and came on, swearing and wrathful. "Ye've slippit awa' yince, ye ether, but I'll see that ye'll no dae't again;" and with his sluggish blood roused to some heat, he flung himself on his foe, who received him much as a complacent maid receives the caresses of a traveller. The fellow thought his victory certain, and put out all his strength; but now, of a sudden, my friend woke up. He twisted his long arms round his adversary, and a mighty struggle began. The great, fat-bellied man was swaying to and fro like a basket on a pack-horse; his face grew purple and pale at the lips, and his body grew limper and weaker. I expected to see a good fight, but I was disappointed; for before I knew, they were on the edge of the pool, tottered a second, and then, with a mighty crunching and splashing, bounded through the thin ice into the frosty water.
A great brown face, with draggled, black hair, followed closely by a red and round one, appeared above the surface, and two dripping human beings dragged themselves to the bank. The teeth of both chattered like a smith's shop, but in the mouth of one I espied a yellowish thing, sorely bitten and crumbled. It was the piece of straw. A loud shout greeted their appearance, and much laughter. The one slunk away with his comrades, in no very high fettle, leaving the other shaking himself like a water-dog on the grass.
I found the stranger looking up at me, as I sat my horse, with a glance half-quizzical and half-deprecatory. The water ran down his odd clothes and formed in pools in the bare places of the ground. He shivered in the cold wind, and removed little fragments of ice from his coat. Then he spoke.
"Ye'll be the Laird o' Barns settin' oot on your traivels?"
"Good Lord! What do you know of my business?" I asked, and, as I looked at him, I knew that I had seen the face before. Of a sudden he lifted his arm to rub his eyebrows, and the motion brought back to me at once a vision of excited players and a dry, parched land, and a man perplexedly seeking to convince them of something; and I remembered him for the man who had brought the news to Peebles of the rising of Tweed.
"I know you," I said. "You are the man who came down with news of the great flood. But what do you here?"
"Bide a wee and I'll tell ye. Ye'll mind that ye