# Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry/Allan-a-Maut

ALLAN-A-MAUT.
Good Allan-a-Maut lay on the rigg, One called him bear, one called him bigg; An old dame slipped on her glasses: "Aha! He'll waken," quoth she, "with joy to us a'." The sun shone out, down dropped the rain, He laughed as he came to life again; And carles and carlins sung who saw 't, Good luck to your rising, Allan-a-Maut.
Good Allan-a-Maut grew green and rank, With a golden beard and a shapely shank, And rose sae steeve, and waxed sae stark. He whomelt the maid, and coupit the dark; The sick and lame leaped hale and weel, The faint of heart grew firm as steel, The douce nae mair called mirth a faut, Such charms are mine, quoth Allan-a-Maut.
The person who chanted this famous border bousing-rhyme was a tall young man, whose shaggy greatcoat, brass-headed riding whip, and long sharp spurs projecting from behind his massy and iron-heeled boots, might denote him to be a dealer in horses, accoutred for Rosley Hill or Dumfries Fairs. But his inner coat, lined with silk, and studded with silver buttons, a small gold chain round his neck, from which depended a heart of rock crystal, enclosing a tress of nut-brown hair, and half concealed among ruffles of the finest cambric, edged with rich lace, might belong to an opulent and fantastic youth fond of finery, proud of a handsome person, and vain of his influence among the border maidens.
His singular song and remarkable dress attracted instant attention. His character was thus hit off by a demure old dame in a whisper to me, during the applause which followed his song. "He's a frank and a conceited youth, sir; the owner of a fair estate, and well known among the merry maids of Cumberland and Dumfriesshire at fairs and dancings, when his patrimony is showered down among the gay and ​the cherry-lipped, in the shape of snoods, and ribbons, and gloves. Nor will ye hinder him to reign the chief of chaps in the change-house, when the tale and the strong drink circulate together: who like Lacie Dacre, I should be glad to know, for chanting bousing-ballads and telling merry adventures? He's the wildest of all our border spirits, and his exploits with the brandy-cup and the ale-flagon have obtained him the name of Allan-a-Maut—a scrap of an old-world song, sir, with which young Spend-pelf ever commences and concludes his merriment. I have said my worst of the lad—I believe he's a kind-hearted chield, and as true to his word as the cup is to his lip. And now listen to his story, for I'll warrant it a queer one." And as she concluded, he commenced.
"That song," said the youth, "rude and uncouth though it seems, pitches, as a musician would say, the natural tone or key of the tale I have to tell; it was far from unwise in me to sing it; and so, with this explanation, I will proceed, it happened some summers ago, as I was returning, during the grey of the morning, from a love tryste in a green glen on the banks of Annan water, I fell into a kind of reverie; and what should the subject of it be but the many attachments my heart had formed among the maidens, and the very limited requital the law allows one to make to so many sweet and gentle creatures. My spirit was greatly perturbed, as ye may guess, with this sorrowful subject; and a thick mist, which the coming sun seemed unable to dispel, aided me in totally mistaking my way; and I could not well mistake it further, for I found myself in a region with which I had formed no previous acquaintance: I had wandered into a brown and desolate heath, the mist rolled away in heavy wreaths before me, and followed close on my heels, with the diligence of an evil spirit.
"All hill and woodland mark, our usual country guides, were obscured, and I strayed on till I came to the banks of a moorland brook, stained by the soil through which it passed, till it flowed the colour of the brownest brandy. The tenants of this desert stream partook of the congenial nature of the region; they were not of that swift and silver-speckled sort described by the pastoral verse-makers, but of a dull and dark mottled kind, and so lean and haggard as to be wholly unworthy of a fisher's bait. I caught one under the mossy bank, and returned it again to the stream as unfit for food. ​I saw no living thing in my course across this desert; the heron, that beautiful and solitary bird, rejected it for a haunt; and even the wild moor-fowl, which in the fowler's proverb feeds on the heather-top, sought neither food nor shelter amid the brown and dreary wilderness.
"I came at last to a thick and gloomy plantation of Scotch firs, which, varying the bleak desolation of the moor, gave me the assurance that, some thirty years before, the hand of man had been busied in the region. A fence of loose stone, surmounted by a rude cope or cornice of rough sharp rock, presented an effectual barrier to sheep and even deer. The latter animals will overleap a high wall of firm masonry, but turn back from a very slender impediment which threatens insecure footing.
"The soil had in many places proved ungenial to Scotch firs, the hardiest of all forest trees; they grew in dwarfish and stunted clumps, and exceeded not the altitude of ordinary shrubs. In passing along the side of the fence, I came to a hollow, where the masses of high green bracken betokened a richer soil. Here the trees, striking deep into the mossy loam, towered up into a beautiful and extensive grove, relieved in their gloomy appearance by the wild cherry and mountain ash, at that time covered with bloom. Behind me the moor spread out high and uneven, full of quagmires and pits, out of which the peasants of Annan Vale cut peats for fuel.
"I observed, winding through the field of bracken, a kind of trodden way, resembling a hare-road, which, passing over the fence, by the removal of the cope-stones, dived directly into the bosom of the wood. The path, too, seemed marked with men's feet; and, with the hope of its leading me to some human abode, I entered the plantation. The wood, fair and open at first, became thick and difficult; the road, too, grew sinuous and perplexing; and I was compelled to pull aside the thick masses of boughs, and, gliding gently into the aperture, make the best of my way by sleight and stratagem.
"I had proceeded in this way nearly half a mile, when I came to the foot of one of those vast rocks which tower up so abrupt and unexpectedly on many of the Scottish heaths. It semeed a pile of prodigious stones huddled rudely together in the careless haste of creation, rather than a regular rock. Deep chasms, and openings resembling caves, were ​visible in many places, shagged round the entrance with heath-berry; and, where the plant that bears this delicious fruit failed to grow, the hardier ivy took root, and with little nourishment shot up into small round masses, called fairy-seats by the peasantry. At the foot of the precipice, some hundreds of high and shivered stones stood on end, like a Druidic grove, but in sevenfold confusion, and here and there a fir inserted in the clefts of the rock struggled for life; while the ivy, shooting its stems to the summit of the crag, shook down a profusion of green tendrils, and crawled along the ground again, till the mossy soil, which bubbled up water at every step, arrested the march of the beautiful evergreen. Around the crag, a circle of spruce firs was planted; while high over the whole the rock rose savage and grey, and gave the eagles, which not infrequently visited its summit, a view over some of the fairest pasture lands in Annandale.
"The desolation of the place was heightened by the absence of living water—the voice of the brook, which lends the tongue of life to many a dreary place. A little puddle of brown moorish water supplied the place of a fountain; around its margin the bones of hares and fowls were strewn; while in a recess in the rock the fox had sought a lair, and heaped it high with wool and feathers. But the proverbial lord of craft and cunning had for some time forsaken this once favourite abode; the presence of man had intruded on his wild domain, and driven him to the neighbouring mountains.
"I climbed to the summit of the rock, and gazed down the vale of Annan as far as the sea of Solway, and westward as far as the green hills of Nithsdale. To enable me more pleasantly to enjoy the beauty of a scene which Turner, or Callcott, or Dewint would love to consecrate, I proceeded to discuss the merits of some ewe-milk cheese, made for me by the lily-white hand of Jessie Johnstone, of Snipeflosh; and the gift of the maiden began to vanish before the sharp-set perseverance of youth. The sun too, dispelling the fog, gleamed over the green heads of the groves in all his summer glory, and I proceeded to examine how I might find out the way to Ae Water, to the dwelling of bonnie Bess Dinwoodie.
"While I sat gazing about me, I observed a thin and curling line of smoke ascending from the base of the crag; it rose up thicker and blacker, and, wafted by the wind, gushed ​against my face; I never felt a vapour so strange and offensive. As I proceeded to consider the various kinds of exhalations which arise from forest or fen, I saw a large and hungry dog come out of the wood. It uttered a cry of discovery, half howl and half bark, and, coming near, seemed willing to leap at my throat. I threw it a piece of cheese; it caught and devoured it, and renewed its clamour. It was soon joined, to my utter dismay, by a human being. I never beheld a man with a look so startled and threatening. He was tall and strong-built, with hair long and matted, the colour of ashes, while his eyes, large and staring and raw, looked, as Lancie Lauborde the tailor said, 'like scored collops bordered with red plush.'
"He addressed me in a tone that in nowise redeemed his savage appearance. 'Weel met, quoth the wolf to the fox; weel met, my crafty lad. So ye have found out the bonnie bee-byke at last, as the boy said when he thrust his hand into the adder's den. I maun ken more about ye, my lad; so tell me thy tale cleverly; else, I swear by the metal worm through which my precious drink dribbles, I will feast the fox and her five cubs on thy spool-bane. On my conscience, lad, as ye brew, so shall ye drink; and that's o'er fair a law for a gauger.' What this depraved being meant by his mysterious language, and what calling he followed, were alike matters of conjecture; his manner was certainly hostile and threatening. I told him I was passing towards the vale of Ae, and had lost my way in the mist. 'Lost your way in the mist, and found the way ye were seeking for, my wylie lad, I'll warrant; but I shall come at the bare truth presently.' So saying, he laid the flap of his shaggy coat aside, and, showing me a brace of pistols, and the hilt of a dirk stuck in a belt of rough leather, motioned me to follow him.
"Resistance was hopeless; we descended from the rock by a winding and secret way, concealed among the ivy, and the branches of a spreading spruce fir. This brought us to a rude structure, resembling a shepherd's shed, half cavern and half building, and nearly hidden under the involving branches of two luxuriant firs. My guide half pushed me into this unpromising abode; a miserable hovel, loathsome and foul, and filled with a thick and noisome vapour. I was greeted on my entrance by a squat, thick-set, and squalid being, who, starting up from a couch of straw, ​exclaimed, 'Wha in the fiend's name's this ye have driven into our bit den of refuge in the desert, as ane wad drive a ratton into a trap? Deil drown me in a strong distillation, and that's an enviable death, if this lad's no a stripling exciseman, whelped in our unhappy land by the evil spirits of the government. If he's a gauger, take ye the spade and dig, and I'll take the sword and strike; for he shall never craw day again, else my name's nae mair Jock Mackleg.' And the wretch, as he spoke, proceeded to sharpen an old sword on the strake of a scythe.
"'Hooly, man, hooly with thy bit of rusty airn,' said his companion, 'ye're no sae handy with it when its warse needed, Jock, ye ken. I shall allow the young lad to live, be he devil, or be he gauger, and that's meikle waur, were it only that he might partake of that glorious spirit which I call "stupefy," but which wiser Jock Mackleg christened "heart's blood," and learn of what a princely beverage he would deprive this poor taxed and bleeding land.' It happened well for me that these two wretches, though born for each other's society, like bosom bones, and necessary to each other in their detestable pursuits as the bark is to the bush, chose to be of different opinions respecting the mode of managing me, and thus John Mackleg expressed his dissent from his more moderate as well as powerful associate. 'And so he's to live and to taste of the "heart's blood!" Deil turn him into our distilling-worm first, that the liquid consolation the gauger tribe seek to deprive us of may run reeking through him. Ah, Mungo Macubin, ye're soft, ye're soft; ye would give the supervisor himself our hain'd drops of distillery dew; and for fear he should drop into a ditch, ye would carry him hame. I'll tell ye what—were ye Mungo Macubin seven times told, I will cease to be longer conjunct and several with you; else may I be whipt through the lang burgh of Lochmaben, with the halter of a gauger's horse.' And still growling out anger, which he dared not more openly express, he threw himself down on a litter bed, while his companion, with a look of scorn, answered: 'Thou predestined blockhead, am I a blind stabber behind backs in the dark, like thyself? Am I to harm the white skin of this young raw haspen of a lad, unless I ken why and wherefore? Spill his sweet life indeed! Faith, if this lad threatened ye with six inches of cauld steel in his hand, though water five fathoms deep and ​seven mile wide divided ye, ye would be less free of your threats. So lie still there, and put thy bonnet on thy bald scalp, from which whisky has scalded the hair. Ay, that will do. Now sit down, my wandering man of the mist, let me have a look at thee; but first hold this cup of "stupefy" to thy head. Faith, my birkie, if I thought ye kenn'd the might of whisky by mathematical measuring, or any other dangerous government mode of ascertaining spirituous strength, I'd make ye swallow yere gauging sticks. So sit down; else, by the spirit of malt and the heart of corn, I will make thee obedient.'
"I sat down on an empty cask, and holding in my hand a cup full of the hot and untaken-down liquor, which my entertainers were busied in preparing, I could not but give a few hurried glances round this wretched lodge in the wilderness. The cabin itself seemed more the creation of distempered or intoxicated intellects than the work of consideration and sobriety. At the entrance of a kind of cavern in the rock a rude enclosure of stone was raised, the whole covered over with boughs and turf, with an opening in the side capable of admitting one person at a time. The floor was bedded with rushes and bracken, but trodden into mire, and moistened with a liquor of a flavour so detestable that I felt half suffocated; while the steam of a boiling caldron, mingling with the bitter smoke of green fir-wood, eddied round and round, and then gushed out into the morning air through the aperture by which I entered. In the cavern itself I observed a fire glimmering, and something of the shape, of a human being stretched motionless before it. This personage was clad in a garb of rough sheepskin, the wool shorn, or rather singed close, and an old fur-cap slouched over his ears, while his feet, wholly bare, and nearly soot-black, were heated among the warm ashes which he raked from the caldron fire. He lay on his belly, supporting his head with his hands; and about all his person nothing was white but the white of his eye. Beside him stood what seemed an old tobacco-box; he dipped it frequently into a pail of liquor, and each time he carried it to his head a strong smell of whisky was diffused over the place.
"On the right hand of this menial drudge lay the person of John Mackleg: an old Sanquhar rug interposed between him and the foul litter below; a small cask, the spigot of ​which was worn by frequent use, stood within reach; while a new-drained cup lay at his head, with a crust of bread beside it. On the other side sat Mungo Macubin, on a seat covered with a sheepskin; and compared to his debased and brutish companions he seemed a spirit of light. In spite of his disordered locks, and the habitual intoxication in which his eyes swam, his look was inviting, and even commanding. Something of better days and brighter hopes appeared about him. But in his eye frequently glimmered that transient and equivocal light, suspicious and fierce, which, influenced by drink and inflamed by contradiction, rendered him an insecure companion. A sword lay on a shelf beside him, with several tattered books, a fish-spear, a fishing-rod, and a fowling-piece; and a fiddle, tuned perhaps during the delirium of drink, hung there with its disordered strings. I observed, too, the machinery of a wooden clock, the labour, I afterwards learned, of his knife; together with several spoons and cups of sycamore, which he wanted the patience rather than the skill to finish. The notice which I took of this part of the establishment seemed far from displeasing to the proprietor.
"Around the shealing stood kegs and vessels for containing liquor, all of portable dimensions, such as a man might readily carry; and I wanted not this to convince me that a whisky-still of considerable magnitude was busy in the bosom of this wilderness. In the middle of the floor stood a rude table, the top of which had belonged to some neighbouring orchard, and still threatened in large letters the penalties of traps and guns to nightly depredators. It was swimming with liquor, and strewn with broken cups; and in the midst of the whole lay several of those popular publications which preach up the equality of human intellect and estate, and recommend, along with a general division of worldly goods, a more tolerant system of intercourse between the sexes. No doubt the excellent authors of those works would regard this appearance of their labours amid the Caledonian desert as a certain proof of fame; they would seek more than ever to attract men's affections to a more flexible system of morality; to awaken a kind of devotion which affords more scope to the natural passions of the multitude, and to wean human regard from that austere doctrine which inculcates self-denial, and sundry other such unreasonable matters. On a paper which contained a printed ​list of rewards given by government to men who had laboured for the good of their country, I observed a calculation of the proceeds of illicit distillations; while on the floor lay the skin of a fat wether recently killed, which still bore the mark of a neighbouring farmer, whose consent to this appropriation my companions, in the full relish of liberty, had not thought it necessary to obtain.
"During this examination the eye of John Mackleg dwelt upon all my motions with increasing jealousy and distrust. At length, when my glance settled on the sheepskin, he exclaimed, in a tone reproving and harsh, 'Deil be in ye, Mungo Macubin; will ye let that fiend's baited hook of a gauger sit quietly there, and take an inventory of the only world's goods the oppression of man has left us? Take tent, lad, take tent; ye think him a bird that means nae mischief in his sang; bide ye a bit, ye may find him worse than a water-adder, and as cunning as lang Sandie Frizel the sautman, who praised the tone of your fiddle and your skill in cup-making, and having proven the excellence of our distillation, sent auld Wylie Metestick, the gauger, to look at our cavern of curiosities!' 'I'll tell ye what, John,' said his companion; 'guide your tongue in a less graceless manner, else it may bring your foreteeth and my right-hand knuckles acquainted. Gauger! What puts it into thy gowk's head that the lad's a gauger? Thinkest thou that a single excise man, and ane both soft and slim, would have dropped down into the adder's den? But where's the profit of carousing with such a clod of the valley as thee?' Here the chief manager of this illicit establishment rose, and looked out into the wood; returned to his seat; and thus he resumed his conversation.
"'But where's the profit of putting trust in such a capon as thee? When the day comes that we have long looked for, you will put your hand to the full tankard rather than to the sharpened steel. And such a desirable day is not far distant, else let man believe no longer in white paper and black print. What says Ringan Alarum, of the Cowgate, in his strong paper called "Liberty's Lighted Match," which auld Davie Dustyhause, the west-country skin-man, gave us when we sold him our cannily-come-by skins of three mug ewes. Does he not say as much as that the sceptre will soon be more harmless than a shepherd's staff; the mitre as little reverenced as grey hairs or a scone-bonnet; a coronet ​as empty as a drunkard's drained cup; and that Sunday shall be as Saturday, and Saturday as Sunday; that a silken gown, flounced and furbelowed, will rustle as common in a peasant's sheal as the plaiden kirtle of maid Margery; and that Meg Milligan, in her linsey-woolsey, will be as good and as lordly as our madames with their perfumes and pearlins? Now John, my man, should all these pleasant things come to pass, I will build a whisky-still as big as Wamphray-kirk, with a distillation-pipe large enough to pour a flood of pure spirit over the land, in which we might float a revenue cutter.'
"Flooded as the brain of John Mackleg seemed to be with the spirit which his own industry had produced, he had intellect enough remaining to appear visibly delighted with this promised picture of enjoyment. But his natural want of courage withheld him from indulging in his comrade's strain of unguarded rapture. 'O Lord, send it soon and sudden, Mungo! O man, soon and sudden! But I conjure ye, by the pith and power of malt, to speak lowne; O man, speak lowne.' 'Then,' said his comrade, 'await the coming of the blessed time in silence. When it comes we shall have whisky-stills in every kirk, and he that drinks longest shall rule and reign among us. I 'will choose myself out a warm home in a fertile land. The justice of the peace shall be dumb, and the gauger silent, and his measuring rods regarded no more. Our young men shall drink, and our young maidens dance; the minister of the parish shall fill our cups, and the pulpit and repentance-stool shall hold flagons and mutchkin stoups. I will go to bed with six pint stoups placed at my feet and six at my head; and when I grow doited and dizzy, the sweetest lass in the country-side shall sit and hold my head.' 'And I,' said John Mackleg, in a low and cautious tone, 'shall be the first laird of my whole kin; whisky-brose shall be my breakfast, and my supper shall be the untaken-down spirit, with strength enough to float a pistol-bullet. I shall be the first of the name of Mackleg who owned more land than they measured in the dowie kirkyard.'
"His companion eyed him with a look particularly merry and ironical. 'Oh, thou ambitious knave,' said Mungo Macubin, 'dost thou long to be lord of all the land which thou hast measured with thy drunken carcass? Why, man, thou hast meted out with that genealogical ell-wand half the land 'tween the sea-sand of Caerlaverock and the brown ​heathy hills of Durisdeer. And so thou thinkest a drunkard's fall on the earth has given thee possession of it? Plague take me, if I give my consent to such a dangerous monopoly.' The perverse being to whom this speech was addressed made light of its irony, and seizing a large two-eared quaigh, stooped his face into it till nothing remained above the brim save a fleece of sooty uncombed locks, and drained out the liquor at a breath. He hurled the empty cup to the figure before the fire, and, though opposed by violent hiccupings, exclaimed, 'More! bring me more! that was delicious. Jock, Jenny Mason's Jock, fill that cog, my man, and hear ye me: come hither and haud it to my head, for I am no sae sicker as I should be, and that whin-stone rock seems as if it would whomble aboon me. And d'ye hear me, Jock Laggengird, let me have none of the dyke-water additions which Mungo Macubin makes to the prime spirit which he drinks. Taxes and stents have made Scotland's crowdie thin, and turned her warm brose into cauld steerie. If ye covet the present length of your lugs, let me have none of your penitential potations.'
"While Jenny Mason's descendant crawled to a cask, and turned a pin from which a pure liquid dribbled drop by drop into the cup, Mungo Macubin took down his fiddle, arranged the disordered strings, played a pleasant air, and accompanied it by singing the following rustic verses, which I have since learned were of his own composition.
MUNGO MACUBIN'S SONG.
Come toom the stoup! Let the merry sun shine On sculptured cups and the merry man's wine; Come toom the stoup! From the bearded bear, And the heart of corn, comes this life-drink dear. The reap-hook, the sheaf, and the flail for me; Away with the drink of the slave's vine tree. The spirit of malt sae free and sae frank, Is my minted money and bonds in the bank.
Come toom up the stoup! What must be must, I'm cauld and cankered, and dry as dust; A simmering stoup of this glorious weet Gives soaring plumes to Time's leaden feet. Let yon stately madam, so mim and so shy, Arch her white neck proud, and sail prouder by; The spirit of maut, so frank and so free, Is daintier than midnight madam to me.
​Drink fills us with joy and gladness, and soon Hangs cankered care on the horns of the moon; Is bed and bedding; and love and mirth Dip their wings in drink ere they mount from the earth. Come toom the stoup—it's delightful to see The world run round, fit to whomel on me; And yon bonnie bright star, by my sooth it's a shiner, Ilka drop that I drink it seems glowing diviner.
Away with your lordships of mosses and mools, With your women, the plague and the plaything of fools; Away with your crowns, and your sceptres, and mitres; Lay the parson's back bare to the rod of the smiters; For wisdom wastes time, and reflection is folly, Let learning descend to the score and the tally. Lo! the floor's running round, the roof's swimming in glory,
"The arch, and something of a drunken gravity, with which this rhyme was chanted, with the accompanying 'thrum, thrum' on the fiddle, rendered it far from unpleasant. John Mackleg, whether desirous of emulating his companion, or smitten, perhaps, with a wayward desire of song, raised himself up from his lair, and improved the melody of a wild and indecorous rhyme by the hollow sound extracted by means of his drinking quaigh from the head of an empty barrel. I can trust myself with repeating four of the verses only; the others, when the drink is at home and the understanding gone out, may be endured at midnight by the lee-side of a bowl of punch; but I see by the gathering storm in the brow of that sedate dame that I have said enough about the graceless song, yet she will endure a specimen, I have some suspicion.
JOHN MACKLEG'S SONG.
Good evening to thee, madam moon, Sing brown barley bree, Good evening to thee, madam moon, Sing bree; So gladsomely ye're glowering down, Fu' loth am I to part so soon, But all the world is running roun' With me.
A fair good morrow to thee, sun, Sing brown barley bree; A fair good morrow to thee, sun, Sing bree; ​Ye laugh and glory in the fun— But look, my stoup is nearly run, And, 'las! my cash is mair than done, With me.
Good morrow to thee, lovesome lass, Sing brown barley bree, Good morrow to thee, lovesome lass, Sing bree; Who wooes thee on the gowany grass, Ere he has cooled him with the tass, Should through a threefold penance pass, For me.
Oh, fair's the falcon in his flight, Sing brown barley bree; And sweet's a maiden at midnight, Sing bree: And welcome is the sweet sunlight, But here's a sweeter, blither sight, The blood of barley pouring bright,
"Such was a part of the song, and the better part of it. As soon as he had ended his unmelodious chant, he silently raised the quaigh of liquor to his lips, and, laying his head back, the liquid descended into the crevice, as water drops into the chink of a rock. In a moment he started up, with curses murmuring on his lips, and hurling the quaigh, half full of liquor, at the head of the son of Janet Mason, exclaimed: 'Sinner that thou art, thou hast filled my cup out of the barrel of reduced spirit prepared for Andrew Erngrey, the Cameronian. It is as cauld and fizzenless as snow-water, though good enough to cheer the saints at a mountain preaching. I tell ye, my man, if you indulge yourself in such unsonsie pranks, I shall bait Mungo Macubin's fox-trap with your left lug.'
"The drunkard's missile was hurled by a hand which it had helped to render unsteady; it flew over the prostrate descendant of Janet Mason, and, striking against the furnace, poured its contents into the fire. Such was the strength of the liquid, that, subdued as it was for a devout person's use, the moment it touched the fire a sudden and bright flame gushed up to the roof of the shealing, and, kindling the dried grassy turf, flashed along it like gunpowder. I started up, and, seizing the raw sheepskin, fairly smothered and struck out the flame, which would soon have consumed the whole ​illicit establishment. As I resumed my seat, Mungo Macubin seized my hand, and, nearly wringing it from my wrist, in joy exclaimed, 'By my faith, lad, ye are a rid-handed one, and well do ye deserve a share in the profits of our distillation. Who would have thought that a stolen sheepskin, or rather the skin of a stolen sheep, could have quenched such a furious flame? And now, let me tell you, John Mackleg, if you touch whisky or let whisky touch you, for these four-and-twenty hours, I will surely measure out your inheritance with that scoundrel carcass of yours.' And with a stamp of his foot, and a lour of his brow, he awed his companion into fear and submission.
"I could see that the chief conductor of this wild establishment no longer regarded me with distrust or suspicion. He seated himself between his fiercer comrade and me, as if he dreaded outrage; and, pulling a soiled book from his bosom, appeared to examine it with some attention. It was one of those political labours of the London press, where the author, addressing himself to the multitude, had called in the powerful aid of engraving to render the obscurity of language intelligible. Our southern peasantry, with that love of the simplicity of ancient days which regards instruction as a trick of state, and wishes to reduce the tyranny of learning to the primitive score and tally, have maintained their natural condition in such entire purity, that literature in addressing them is fain to make use of sensible signs and tokens. Of these this book was full; but its owner turned over the leaves with a dissatisfied and disdainful eye, and at last threw it in contempt into the caldron fire. He took up his fiddle again, and, after playing snatches of several serious airs, sang some verses with a tone of bitter sorrow which showed little sympathy with the poetry. I remember several stanzas.
MY MIND TO ME MY KINGDOM IS.
Full thirty winter snows, last yule, Have fallen on me mid pine and dool; My clothing scant, my living spare, I've reckoned kin with woe and care; I count my days and mete my grave; While Fortune to some brainless knave Holds up her strumpet cheek to kiss: My mind to me my kingdom is.
​For faded friendship need I sigh, Or love's warm raptures long flown by, When fancy sits and fondly frames Her angels out of soulless dames? Sick of ripe lips and sagemen's rules, The faith of knaves and fash of fools; And scorning that, and loathing this, My mind to me my kingdom is.
The Muse with laureled brow in vain Sweeps by me with her visioned train; I've bowed my head and ruled my hand Too long beneath her magic wand. Shall I go shrouded to my hearse, Full of the folly of vain verse? I'll court some soberer, surer bliss;
"Something in the song of Mungo Macubin had awakened a train of thought of a nature too soft for his present hazardous calling; his looks darkened down in a kind of moody sorrow, and I could imagine that retrospection was busy with him. He observed the interest which my looks testified I took in his fate, took me by the hand with much kindness, and said, in a mingled tone of bitterness and sorrow: 'I have often thought that we have less control over our fate than we ought, and that an evil destiny dogs us through life, and pursues us to perdition. Take counsel, I beseech ye, from my words, and warning from my conduct; this shealing contains a being whose fate may be a text for you to preach from till these black locks grow grey. Listen, and then say with the Word, "Surely one vessel is made for honour, and another for dishonour." All I have cherished, or loved, or looked with kindness upon, have passed away, departed, and sunk to death or dishonour; and all I have saved from the stream of destiny is the wretched wreck on which you look. I beheld men of dull and untutorable intellects blessed and doubly blessed. I saw the portion of folly growing as lordly as the inheritance of wisdom, and I said, in the vanity of my heart, shall I not also be beloved and happy? But man's success is not of his own shaping: my cattle died, my crops failed, my means perished, and one I loved dearly forgot me; I could have forgiven that—she forgot herself. I have nothing now to solace or cheer me; I look forward without hope, and the present moment is so miserable that I seek to forget myself in the company ​of two wretches who are not disturbed with those forebodings which are as a demon to me. This stringed instrument, the carving of these cups, and the making of that wooden timepiece, with that caldron brimful to me of the liquor of oblivion, form the sum of all existing enjoyment. But from them, from this sodded sheal, from this barren spot, and this lonesome desert I shall soon be dragged or driven; for, sorrowful and miserable as I am, my lot is far too happy to last.'
"Never were words more ominously true than the last words of poor Mungo Macubin. Even as he spoke a human shadow darkened the door, another succeeded, and a third and a fourth followed close behind; he saw all this with a composure of face and an alacrity of resource truly surprising. He drew his pistol, he bared his sword, and, at the motion of his hand, the silent and prostrate being at the caldron snatched a piece of blazing fir from the fire, and sought counsel from the conduct or motions of his leader. I heard a sort of suppressed parley at the door, and presently several armed men made a dash through the aperture, exchanging blow and shot with Macubin, who, overthrowing one of the boldest of the officers, forced his way unhurt through all opposition, and disappeared in the thick wood. Meanwhile, his companion applying the fir-torch to the roof, the shealing was filled with smoke, and flame, and human outcry. The fire seized the combustible wood, touched the inflammable spirit, and, wrapping all in a flame, ascended in a high and bright column above the green forest. I escaped into the wood, and never saw that wild spot, nor one of those men, more."