CHAPTER L.
THE BREAKING OF THE THIEVES' HOLE.
So on the morrow, early in the morning, we fared on into the hills; andwhen we came to Tonskeen in the wilds, we found my mother and Katethere. They were both well in health and glad to greet us, though mymother was doleful because of the news of Sandy's taking, which had justbeen brought to her. Yet all of us did our best endeavours to becheerful, as was the custom in Galloway at that time, when there washardly a family that had not some cause of mourning and sorrow. Though Ido think that there was not one so deep in the mire as our unfortunatehouse of Earlstoun.
At Tonskeen also we found Thomas Wilson, brother of our sweet littleMargaret. He brought us sad news of her. She had been separated fromMaisie and her father after the capture, and taken to Wigtown instead ofaccompanying them toward Edinburgh.
The lad told us that his sister was now confined in the Thieves' Hole atWigtown. He told us of her sham trial, and, spite of our sore hearts, healmost made us laugh with his account of the indictment which Winram andColtran--in their cups, as I presume--had laid against her. Along withour Margaret had been tried her little sister of thirteen named Agnes.Both these young things had been most barbarously treated by the noblejudges of Wigtown--Sheriff Davie Graham, Lag, Strachan, and Winram.Worst of all was Davie Graham, for having his hands upon the fines, hedesired above all to amerce Gilbert Wilson, the tenant of Glen Vernockin the parish of Peninghame. Gilbert was a man well to do, keeping agood stock both of nolt and sheep upon a large ground, and so the moreapt to be fined. He was a quiet, thewless, pleasantly conforming man,that was willing to let his hearing of the curates keep his head. But hecould not help his children, as alas! who can? For years he was harassedwith having to go to Wigtown every court day. He was near eaten out ofhouse and home with having soldiers constantly quartered upon him. Andall because his children had chosen to endure hardship cheerfully forthe good cause, and to serve under the blue banner that has the crossupon it--at least so far as young bairns may. So from a child MargaretWilson had companied with those that spoke and loved the truth. She hadspent much of her time, ever since she was a lassie of ten, with mysober Maisie Lennox at the Duchrae. And afterwards, when she grew to beof age when lassies think of the lads, Margaret, for the sake of herfaith and for naught else, lived on the wild mountains, in the bogs andcaves of the hillsides.
To me Margaret Wilson ever seemed the stillest of quiet maids; but, asour Maisie used to say, she was terribly set in her opinions when onceshe had taken her stand. Now at eighteen she was grown to a tall maid,with a great blowing mass of lint white hair that shone like gold withthe sun on it. Well might she have been spared to be some man's delight,had she not been (as she said when the lads speered her) trysted toanother lot. The first party of soldiers to whom she was delivered,pitying her youth, let her go to her own home from the crossing of thewater at Cree. But by misadventure she travelled on to the town ofWigtown--where with the little lass Agnes in her hand, she was restingin a friend's house, when drunken Winram, ever keen of scent for anill-conditioned deed, got track of her being in the town. He sentsoldiers to take her on the spot, together with her sister of thirteenyears, and bade thrust them into the Thieves' Hole that was in theTolbooth of Wigtown, where they put only the most notorious malefactors.
All this and more Thomas Wilson told us--how that his sisters and anaged woman were confined there and guarded by most brutal soldiers--yea,had already been doomed to be drowned within the tide mark in a veryshort space of time--though the day of their death as yet he knew not.
Whereat our brave Maisie Lennox was eager to go down to Wigtown and tryfor a rescue, if we could raise those that would help us. But we couldnot suffer her to go, though most ready to adventure ourselves. The goodfolk of Tonskeen were very willing to let my mother and the maids abidewith them; for since the taking of Anton Lennox no soldiers had beenseen in the district. And the slaying of wicked Mardrochat had fearedthe ill-set informing people greatly, so that for a long season therewas no more of that.
It seemed strange, yet so it was, that Maisie Lennox, who had seen herfather pass, as it were, to his death without a tear, wept constantlyfor her friend and gossip, Margaret of Glen Vernock.
"They cannot condemn Margaret. They will not condemn little Margaret!"she said over and over, as women use.
"Ay, but condemned her they have!" said her brother Thomas, "for theylibel it against her and Agnes that they were guilty of rebellion atBothwell Brig and Ayrsmoss----"
"'Tis plainly impossible," I said; "the judges cannot mean aught totheir hurt. Why, at Bothwell, Margaret was but twelve, and little Agnesa paidling bairn of seven years. And as for Ayrsmoss, the poor bairnswere never within twenty miles of the place in their lives."
But Thomas Wilson, a quiet, plainfaced lad, only mistrustfully shook hishead.
"It is even true," he said, "they mean to make them suffer if they can.But we will hae a thraw at it, to see if we canna break through theThieves' Hole and draw the lassies forth."
So it was set for the following night, that we should make the attemptto break the Thieves' Hole. The morrow, when it came, proved to be aclear day and fine overhead, which augured not well for our attempt. Wewould rather have had the blackest and wildest night for our venture.But we had little time, and so we set off to travel by the road theweary miles to Wigtown. We hid all the afternoon in a wood atMachermore, and laid our plans. It was about eleven of the clock that wewent down into Wigtown, with the breaking tools which Thomas had gottenfrom his father's farm, as we passed down through Peninghame.
At the door of the little hostelry in the town we heard a great riotingand crying, which was, as we understood, the soldiers of Winram and someof Strachan's officers drinking late with the Wigtown lawyers, as wastheir custom. A big, important-looking man went by us, swaying a littleunsteadily. He made a great work with his elbows as he went, workingthem backward and forward at his sides as though he was oaring a boat.This, Thomas Wilson whispered, was Provost Coltran, going home to histown house, after he and David Graham had had their nightcap together.Very evidently the Provost was carrying his full load. For in the midstof the ill-kept square of Wigtown, where certain tall trees grow, hepaused and looked upward among the leaves to where the crows werechattering late among their younglings.
"Crawin' and splartin' deils," he said, shaking one fist up at them, andholding to a tree with the other. "I'll hae ye brocht afore the ToonCooncil and fined--aye, an' a' your goods and gear shall be escheat tothe Crown. Blood me gin I dinna, or my name is no Provost Cowtran! DavidGraham will be glad to hear o' this!"
So saying, he staggered away homeward, there to underlie the ill tongueof his wife for coming home in such a condition--albeit not much worsethan was usual with him.
About the Tolbooth it was very quiet, and all was still also in Lag'slodging, whose windows looked down upon it. We got close to the windowof the Hole, and crouched to wait for the deepest darkening behind somelow ill-smelling sheds, in which pigs were grunting and snoring.
But even at this time of year it is very light at night, and especiallyin such a place as Wigtown--which sits not among the hills, but as itwere on a knowe under a wide arch of sky, making it little and lonelyunder all that vastness.
Thomas Wilson was to gather a few trusty lads (for there were still suchabout the place), who should attempt to burn down the door of the Hole.While Wat and I with our crowbars or gellecks, our mallets and chisels,were to try our best with the window. What galled us most was the lightin the west, which remained strangely lucid and even, as though the skyitself were shining clear in the midst of the night--a thing which I hadnever seen in my own hill lands, but often upon the flats of Wigtown.
Our hearts were beating, I warrant, when we stole out to make ourattempt. This we did at eleven by the town clock, and there was nobetter or more kindly darkness to be looked for. It was silent in theSquare of Wigtown, save for the crows that Provost Coltran had shakenhis fist at. As we s
tole to the window, which indeed was no more than ahole wide enough, the bars being removed, to allow a man's body to passthrough, we heard the praying of the prisoners within. It was the voiceof our little Margaret Wilson. When last I heard that voice, it was insweet and womanly converse with Maisie Lennox, concerning the lightmatters of which women love to speak, but are immediately silent aboutwhen a man comes by--aye, even if that man be their nearest. For this isthe nature of woman.
At the first rasp of the chisel, there was silence within, for theprisoners knew well that only friends would try to enter in that way. Wecould hear the lads piling faggots at the outer door, as had been doneonce before with great success, when the bars were burnt through withinhalf an hour. But, since the fire would assuredly bring the soldiers, itwas put off till we had made our attempt upon the window.
Wat was stronger than I when it came to the forcing aside of the bars,and he it was that set his strength to mine, and with the long ironimpelled out of its binding mortar the great central bar. Then after wehad broken the lesser one above and below with much less stress, thewindow lay open. It seemed a practical enough breach. It came my time tomount and enter to see if I could help the women out, an enterprisewhich needed much caution.
Wat had scaled the roof to see if there was aught there that might beadvantageous. I was up and scrambling with my toes against the roughwall, half of my body within, when I heard a scuffle and a sudden cry ofwarning from the other side of the tower. I heard Wat leap down with ashout, and I would have followed, but I received a mighty push whichsent me headlong through the prison window into the Thieves' Hole. HereI sat, very astonished and dazed, with my head having taken the wall,till the door was opened and a figure, booted and spurred, cloaked alsofrom head to heel, came in, and with a lantern bearer behind him, stoodlooking at us. The two young lassies, Margaret and Agnes, sat in acorner clasping one another's hands, and a very old woman sat near mewith her head clasped in her hands. She never looked up so long as I sawher, and seemed to have quite lost both interest and hope.
I knew that the big man with the cloak was the Laird of Lag, for oncewith my father I had seen him on the street at Kirkcudbright, when hespoke us fairly enough--the matter one of cattle and crops belike.
"Whom have we here," he said, "coming so late by the window to see thelassies? Young Whiggie, this is not proper wark; but who may you be?"
I sat and said nothing.
"Stell him up," he said, "and let us see what like this breaker ofmaidens' chambers may be."
But I stood up of my own accord, with my hand on the prison wall.
Then he appeared to recognise me, for he said sourly:
"Ye'll be an Earlstoun Gordon, nae doot--ye favour the breed--thoughthere's mair of the lawyer Hope nor the fechtin' Gordon aboot you. Ihadna thocht ye had as muckle spunk."
Then he ordered two soldiers to stand guard over the hole on theoutside, and, setting a double guard on the Tolbooth, he cried, "Haveyoung Gordon forth to my quarters." Which when they did, he entertainedhimself for several hours telling me how he would send me with theutmost care to Edinburgh, and of the newly imported tortures that wouldbe inflicted on Sandy and myself. He said that Sandy was to be torturedand that he had seen the precept from London with the order.
"So ye'll juist be in time to try on the new 'boot.' There's a fine brawnew-fangled pattern wi' spikes, and I hear that the new thumbikins areexcellently persuasive. Faith, they hae widened many a Whig's thrapplealready, and made it braw and wide in the swallow!"
Then, adding all the time cup to cup, he fell to cursing me and all ourhouse, not letting even my mother alone, till I said to him:
"John Graham had not treated a prisoner so. Nor you, Robert Grierson, ifyou thought that my kinsman Kenmure was at hand to strike his swordthrough your body--as once he came near doing in the street ofKirkcudbright in the matter of bell of Whiteside!"
Now this (as I knew) was a saying which angered him exceedingly, and hewas for having out a file of soldiers and shooting me there and then.But luckily Winram came in to say that the other assailants of theTolbooth had gotten cleanly off, and that a soldier was invalided with asword-thrust through and through his shoulder, in which very clearly Irecognised Wat's handicraft.