Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Legends -- England -- Yorkshire; Yorkshire (England) -- Miscellanea
On Monday night the woman of the house went to the door to carry
provisions as usual, when the captain said to her, "I am determined to
come out, let the consequence be what it may; for I will not die like a
dog in this hole." But she begged that he would bear this confinement
until the next night, and she would adopt some plan to effect his
escape. She accordingly consulted an old carpenter who was true to the
Hanoverian cause, and he came the following night when the room was
vacant, removed the dresser, and liberated the captain. They proceeded
down-stairs in the dark to the woman's apartment, where she made tea
whilst the carpenter and captain concerted their plan of operation. They
dressed him in a plaid and brogues, and put on him a black wig. The
captain had only ten guineas about him (having left his cash with his
lieutenant, Mr. Crofts), eight of which he gave to the woman who had so
faithfully preserved him, and two to the carpenter; who, to secrete
them, put them into his mouth along with his tobacco, fearful of a
search by the Highlanders, who would have suspected him had they found
more than a shilling.
Everything being ready, they set out, the captain, with a bag of tools,
following his supposed master. On coming into the crowd, the old
carpenter looked about and was rather dismayed, for although in
disguise, the captain did not look like a common workman. This made the
old man dread discovery, so he called out to him: "Come alang, ye filthy
loon; ye have had half a bannock and a mutchkin of drink in your wame:
we shall be o'er late for our day's wark." Whether this artifice served
him or not is uncertain; but they got safe through the throng, and
leaving the high road, pursued their journey across the country. Having
come to a rising ground, the captain took a view of Falkirk Moor, and
said, "Yonder's the place where such a sad piece of work was made last
Friday." The old man at the same time looking the other way saw about
300 Highlanders, who had been on plunder, coming down a lane which led
from Callander House (Lord Kilmarnock's seat) into the main road; and
being desirous of passing the end of this lane before they came up, in
order to avoid them, said, "We shall have a worse piece of wark of it
than we had on Friday if ye do not hasten your pace," and begged the
captain to come forward, which he did; but walking briskly up a hill, he
suddenly stopped, and said, "I am very sick." However they gained their
point, and passed the Highlanders; for had they come up with them, the
captain's speech or appearance might have led to suspicion, and he would
have been shot or led back to Falkirk as a prisoner. On going two miles
farther, they arrived at a house belonging to a friend of the
carpenter's, and which had been plundered. There the old man got an egg,
but not being able to find a pan to boil it in, he roasted it in peat
ashes, and gave it to the captain to put in his wame or stomach.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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