"And now, sir, ere you go, I shall have the pleasure of presenting you to the Queen of Scotland. I trust her majesty's noonday nap is over by this time."
The young man felt his eyes and heart fill at these words, for the loyalty of the olden time was a passion, strong and enthusiastic as that of a lover for his love.
Mary of Lorraine, with her white hand, drew back the tapestry, and revealed the inner apartment, the walls of which were hung with yellow Spanish leather stamped with crowns and thistles, and the oak floor of which was covered by what was then a very unusual luxury—a Persian carpet. Passing in, Florence found himself in the royal nursery.
In a cradle of oak, profusely carved, and having a little canopy surmounted by a crown, lay a child—a little white-skinned and golden-haired girl, in her fifth year, asleep, with her dark lashes reposing on a cheek that bore the pink tint we see at times in a white rose-leaf.
This child was Mary Queen of Scots!
The nurse, Janet Sinclair, wife of John Kemp, a burgess of Haddington, arose at their entrance.
The young man knelt down, and, with reverence and affection, pressed his lips to the child's dimpled hands, which were folded together above its little lace coverlet. The emotions of his heart would be difficult alike to analyze or portray.
How little could those four persons who stood by the cradle of that beloved and beautiful little one, foresee the dark shadows which enveloped her future!
"The little bride of the son of France!" said Mary of Lorraine; "she sleeps, alike oblivious of crowns and kingdoms."
At that moment the child opened her dark-grey eyes, and smiled to her mother.
"If this should be, how strange shall be her destiny!" said the countess thoughtfully.
"How?" reiterated the queen-mother anxiously.
"Yes—for what said True Thomas of Ercildoun more than three hundred years ago?"
"What said he?"
Then the countess replied,—
"A queen of France shall bear a son,Britain to brook from sea to sea;And she of Bruce's blood shall come,As near as to the ninth degree."
"I pray that Heaven may so shape out the future that your verse shall prove better than an idle rhyme," said Mary of Lorraine, clasping her delicate hands; "for the royal child of my dead husband is theninthin descent from the hero of Bannockburn."
Future events, in the birth of James VI., fulfilled this old prophecy, which, in the days of our story, was in the mouths of all the people.
"And now, until I have the honour of again paying my devotion to your majesty, perhaps at Stirling, farewell," said Fawside.
"Adieu, monsieur—may God keep you!"
A glance full of sad meaning from the countess was all the adieu he received from her; and next moment he found himself in the narrow alley, where a soldier in the livery of the queen's guard held his grey horse by its bridle.
Oh what a tangled web we weave,When first we practise to deceive.Scott.
In a preceding chapter we left two right honourable lords—to wit, the earls of Bothwell and Glencairn—in search of Master Patten, the scribe or secretary to Edward Shelly, the captain of the Boulogners. These gentlemen, as supposed followers of the house of Glencairn, resided in a quaint old-fashioned stone house, then known as Cunninghame's Land, which had been galleried and fronted with timber in the time of James IV. It was situated above the Upper Bow Porte, and there they were found readily enough by the two nobles, who had free entrance at all times. On this occasion, however, the earls, on coming in, hurriedly and unannounced, found the Englishmen seated at a table, immersed among letters, dockets of papers, maps, and manuscripts: they were both busy writing. Glencairn, who had a supreme contempt for such work, gave a hasty and impatient glance at Bothwell, whose only literary efforts had been to make his mark or fix his seal to a notary's deed; for, like Bell-the-Cat, of whom we read in "Marmion," or his majesty King Cole of the popular ditty, this untutored lord
"Quite scorn'd the fetters of four-and-twenty letters,And it saved him avast deal of trouble."
On their abrupt entrance, Patten and Shelly started in alarm from their work. The former spread his hands over the papers, as if to protect them; but the valiant captain of the Boulogners drew his sword, with the first instinct of a soldier, to protect his compatriot and himself.
"Uds daggers! what new plot art thou hatching, worthy scribe, to put men's weasons in peril?" asked Glencairn; "how many human souls are bartered in these piles of scribbled paper—eh?"
"Up with thy sword, Master Shelly," said Bothwell, laughing, and twisting up his large black moustache. "Did you think we were the provost halberds or the queen's guard come to arrest you?"
"Either had found me ready, my lord. But I knew not what to think," replied Shelly with some displeasure, as he dropped his long straight sword into its scabbard, swept the papers into a drawer, and locked it. "Master Patten and I were deeply engaged——"
"Plotting—eh?"
"Nay, my Lord of Bothwell; I have had enough of that," replied the soldier coldly. "We were simply reducing the bulk of our correspondence to suit the compass of our cloak-bags, committing some papers to the flames, and selecting others for conveyance to England, for whither we set out——"
"Not before the convention at Stirling, I hope?"
"No."
"When?"
"Immediately after. Our work will then be completed, for peace or for war—for good or for evil."
"But time presses, and our man is not yet gone," said Glencairn, glancing anxiously from the window.
"What would your lordships with us?" asked Shelly; "and to what do we owe the honour of this visit?"
"To our lack of skill in the perilous art of clerking like worthy Master Patten," replied Glencairn.
"And to our zeal in the young king your master's service," added Bothwell, with his quiet mocking smile.
"To the point, my lords!" said Shelly haughtily, while he drew tighter, by a hole or two, the silver buckle of his sword-belt.
"Florence Fawside, the French envoy, spy, or what you will, is even now with Mary of Lorraine!"
"Art sure of this?" asked Shelly in a low voice, full of interest, as he gazed through the barred window.
"Sure as my name is Patrick Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell; we both saw him enter her residence; and a soldier of her guard holds the bridle of his grey horse at the door—a soldier, who says he departs thereafter for Cadzow—dost thou see,for Cadzow!"
"To the lord regent. This must not be!" said Master Patten, starting up.
"Let us follow and cut him off—'tis the simplest plan," said Shelly.
"Nay—nay!"
"Why, thou, Bothwell, art not wont to be wary!"
"Our trains are scattered abroad throughout the city, and if we fared ill——"
"Four to one?"
"He might still cut his way through us; and, if once he reaches Arran, with promises of French succour, the Hamiltons in the west and Huntly in the north will take the field at once against all malcontents: thus, the sooner we begin ourMiserere mei Dominus, and commit our neckverse to memory, the better."
"If a long sword will not keep me from having a long neck, or my head from rolling among the sawdust, I shall e'en submit; I were not my father's son else!" said the grim Earl of Glencairn, frowning till his black eyebrows met over his fierce nose.
"But what can I do in this matter, my lords?" asked Shelly with impatience.
"Simply this. Desire Master Patten to write, with all speed, a note to a friend of mine. This note Champfleurie, captain of the queen's guard, a gentleman in our interest, will prevail upon Fawside to deliver, as he rides westward, to a friend of mine, mark you; and this friend will place him in sure ward till we arrive. Then, after investigating his cloak-bags and pockets to our hearts' content, if we do not find what will satisfy us, we can roast him over the potcruicks and baste him well with grease till his tongue tells us all he knows of the Guises and their desperate game."
"Agreed!" said Shelly, with a disdainful smile. "And this friend——"
"Is Allan Duthie, laird of Millheugh, whose tower, a strong but sequestered place, standeth near the highway that leads through Cadzow Forest. Quick!—indite me this note. We have no time to lose, for every moment I expect to see him come forth and betake him to horse, and then our plot will fail."
Patten with great deliberation selected a sheet of the coarse brown-tinted paper then used, and dipping his quill in the ink-horn, wrote to Bothwell's dictation the following note:—
"RIGHT TRUSTY FRIEND,—I greet you well and heartillie. It will be for the furtherance of our great cause if the bearer hereof, a spy of the Guises, who is on his way to Cadzow, be detained at your house until such time as I and my friends arrive. These with my hand at the pen,
"BOITHWELLE."
"For the Right Hon. the Laird of Millheugh.These."
"Can your friend read?" asked Shelly.
"Like Duns Scotus himself," replied Bothwell; adding, "Master Patten, I thank you. When I am the husband of Katharine Willoughby, I will requite this and other services as they deserve. And now for our messenger, who must receive this from the hand of Champfleurie to lull all suspicion."
"Fawside is quite unsuspecting," said Glencairn.
"And therefore, the more open to guile and to attack, poor fellow!" added Shelly with some commiseration, though not much afflicted with tender scruples at any time.
My lord hath sent you this note; and by me this farther charge, that you swerve not from the smallest article of it, neither in time, matter, or circumstance.—Measure for Measure.
Florence, with his heart beating wildly, from the conflicting revelations of his late interview, had placed his foot in the silver stirrup of his saddle, and was in the act of grasping his horse's flowing mane preparatory to mounting, when a gauntleted hand was laid bluntly on his shoulder, and on turning he met the dark and handsome, but somewhat crafty, face of John Livingstone of Champfleurie, captain of the queen's guard, a man who had been long enough about courts and among Scottish and French courtiers to acquire the habit of veiling every emotion of life under a bland and well-bred smile, from which nothing could be gathered. Though faithful enough to the queen, as faith went at court, he was also disposed to be not unfriendly to his kinsman the Earl of Bothwell, and, heedless whether the missive given him by the latter purported good or evil to the bearer, he undertook that Fawside should deliver it. It was a favourite proverb of this time-serving soldier, "as long as one is in the fox's service, one must bear up his tail."
"Under favour," said he, "I would speak with you, laird."
"Then speak quickly, for I am in haste," replied the young man, gathering up his reins.
"Pardon me, sir, but 'tis said that a traveller should carry two bags,—one of patience and one of crowns."
"I carry neither; so to the point, sir."
"I believe I have the honour of being known to you."
"Yes; John Livingstone of Champfleurie, captain of the queen's guard," replied Florence, bowing.
"'Tis said you ride westward."
"True. But how know you that?"
"My sentinels overheard it from the pages of the queen."
"Well?"
"Pass you by the tower of Millheugh, in Cadzow Wood?"
"Perhaps; but the country thereabout is strange and new to me," said Florence impatiently.
"There are wild bulls, broken men, sloughs, pitfalls, and swamps in plenty. But will you do a fair lady of the court a favour?"
"That will I blithely," replied Fawside, whose heart beat quicker at the request.
"She is in sore trouble, and lacks a messenger to her kinsman, the laird of Millheugh. As you pass his tower, will you please to deliver this little letter, and tarry a moment to refresh?"
"And the lady?—her name?—who is she?"
"Inquire not, as a gallant man."
"Mystery again!" thought Florence, as he took the note, and his mind immediately reverted to the lady he had just left.
Who was this fair woman, so beautiful, so graceful, so gentle in breeding and manner, that avowed herself his enemy, and yet admitted that she loved him; who gave him an opal ring in token of that love, and yet repelled further advances; and who now, he fondly believed, intrusted him with a letter?
"Champfleurie," said he, "I presume you know all the great people about the queen-mother's court?"
"Ay, from the great Earl of Huntly down to yonder little foot-page, who is clanking his spurs at the Close-head; for your court page is a great man too."
"Then pray tell me who are the queen's ladies?"
The captain smiled; for, if court scandal could be trusted, he stood high in favour with more than one of them; so he said evasively,—
"You seek to discover of whose letter you are bearer?"
"Nay, on my honour I do not!"
"Her ladies?" queried the cunning captain, pausing for a reply.
"Yes, what countesses has she about her?"
"There are the countesses of Huntly, Monteith, Mar, and Crawford."
"Pshaw! all these are old, or well up in years."
"Well, I said not otherwise," replied the arquebusier, laughing.
"The young and beautiful?"
"Are Errol, Orkney, and Argyle."
"Nay, 'tis none of these I ask for. I am assured, Laird of Champfleurie, that you are a most discreet man; but fare you well, sir—so now for Cadzow ho!" and putting his Ripon spurs to his impatient horse, he rode hastily off.
Champfleurie looked after the fated young man, who trotted his grey charger through the time-blackened arch of the Upper Bow Porte, and disappeared down the winding descent of the ancient street which lay beyond, and athwart the picturesque mansions of which the meridian sun was pouring its broad flakes of hazy light, that varied its mass of shadows.
"Poor fool!" said the captain of the guard with his crafty smile; "he rides on hisdeath-errand."
* * * * * *
The dawn of the next day was breaking, when a mounted man reined up his horse at the turnpike-stair, which gave access to a quaint tenement on the Castle-hill, known as theBothwell Lodging(not far from where Master Posset's dried aligator swung daily in the wind), and demanded, at once to see his lordship on business of importance. In a scarlet gown trimmed with black fur, under which he carried his unsheathed dagger as a safeguard, the earl, who had just sprung from bed, appeared in his chamber of dais before the messenger, who was a rough and weather-beaten fellow, in a morion and plated jack, and who seemed half-trooper, half-brigand, and wholly desperado.
"Well, varlet," said the earl angrily, "you rouse us betimes! What the devil is astir? Have the English taken my castle of Hermitage, or are the Lord Clinton's war-ships off Dunbar Sands—eh?"
"Neither, lord earl," replied the man, in a strong Clydesdale accent; "I hae come in frae the west country, and been in my stirrups since twa past midnight."
"From Millheugh?"
"Direct."
"The spy——"
"Bound hand and foot, is safely lodged in Millheugh Tower, where the laird bade me say he shall bide in sure ward until ye come west; or if ye wished it, he would bind him to the pot-cruicks ower the low in the kitchen, and smeik his secret out o' him by dint o' green-wood boughs, and wet bog peats."
"Right—I shall reward him for this, and thee too," said the earl, with fierce triumph. "Thank St. Bryde of Bothwell, or the devil more likely, we have nailed this knavish messenger at last. Get thee a horn of Flemish wine, my man, a fresh horse, and order all my train; I shall ride for Millheugh, and leave the West Porte behind me, ere the sun be up!"
Bothwell made such expedition, that in reality, ere the sun rose above Arthur's Seat, he and Glencairn, with Millheugh's messenger and a train of twenty well-armed horsemen, had galloped through the western gate of the city, skirted the hill of Craiglockart, the ancient manors of Meggatland and Red Hall, and taken the old Lanark road, direct to the country of the Hamiltons.
Meanwhile, let us see how fared it with the solitary messenger of Mary of Lorraine.
Mightiest of the beasts of chase,That roam in woody Caledon,Crashing the forest in his race,The mountain bull comes thundering on!Scott.
The evening of the day on which he left the metropolis was closing, when, after a ride of many miles, Florence found himself, with a sorely jaded horse, on the borders of the ancient forest of Cadzow, in that district which was named of old Machinshire, from the chapel of St. Machin.
The nature of the roads, which in those days were mere bridle-paths, narrow, rough, and stony, being carried straight over hill and through valley, irrespective of all local obstacles, and were rendered dangerous by the uncultivated morasses and lonely wastes they traversed, and by the fords or deep and bridgeless torrents which intersected them—the nature of such paths for travelling from Lothian to Lanarkshire, had impaired the energies of the fine charger which had been the gift of Mary of Lorraine; and, in a wild and solitary place, near which no dwelling could be perceived, and where, on all sides, nothing was visible but the great gnarled stems of the oak forest, Florence dismounted, just as the solemn gloaming drew on; and while his foam-flaked horse cropped the herbage that grew deep and rich under the shade of the trees, he sat down for a time, to consider in which direction he should seek the Tower of Millheugh, where he was to deliver the pretended court lady's letter, and wherein he mentally proposed to remain until the morrow, when he could choose a more fitting time to appear before the Regent of Scotland, one of whose country residences, the Castle of Cadzow, was but a few miles distant.
At this time the town habitation of the Hamilton family was in the Kirk-of-field Wynd at Edinburgh, a steep, narrow, and ancient street, the name of which has since been changed.
A sensation of lassitude came upon Florence, who felt weary after his long and rough ride; and as the red flush of the August sun faded away behind the purple hills, and its warm tints grew cold on the rugged stems and crisping leaves of the Druid oaks of Cadzow, his mind became impressed by the sylvan beauty and intense solitude of the scenery, and reverted to those whose faces he had that morning left behind him; and, like all who have travelled, far and rapidly, he felt the difficulty of realizing the extent of distance that actually lay between him and them. With the last light of evening lingering on his glittering coat of mail, and the bridle of his white horse drooping over his right arm, he sat under a shady oak, like a knight errant of old, waiting for adventures; but though witches and fairies remained in Scotland, the age of giants and dwarfs and genii had passed away.
He thought of his mother, pale, austere, and reproachful; loving him well, fondly,—yea, madly,—and yet, withal, so ready to peril his life in maintaining her old hereditary feud, in the fulfilment of her savage vow, and for the gratification of her morbid vengeance—a life which might yet be useful to her queen and country—a young life, which the possessor of it had suddenly found to be invested with a new charm, a hitherto unknown value; and here, drawing off his long glove, he gazed on the opal ring of Madeline—Madelinewho?
"Oh, perplexity!" he exclaimed; "'tis a romance with which our coquettish French queen is amusing herself, and of which she wishes to make me and this beloved girl the hero and heroine."
And, sunk in one of those reveries so natural to a lover, when he seems to talk to, and have responses from, the object beloved; when a thousand things are said that were omitted when last with her,—for when the heart is full, thoughts come quicker than language, Fawside remained in the twilight and in the forest, with the gloaming deepening around him, heedless alike of the outlaws who were averred to make their haunt there, and of the ferocious white bulls (Bos sylvestris), the famous red-eyed, black-horned, black-hoofed, and snowy-maned mountain bison of old Caledonia, herds of which have frequented the Forest of Cadzow from pre-historic days, long anterior to the Roman invasion, down to the present time.
On every hand spread the vast wilderness of oaks, some of which still measure twenty-five and twenty-eight feet in circumference, and are of an antiquity so great that they must have witnessed the rites of the Druids; being the last remains of that immense forest which anciently covered all the south of Scotland, from the waves of the Atlantic to those of the German Ocean.
In the wildest part of this wild wood—the Caledonia Sylva—stood the tower of Allan Duthie of Millheugh, in a little dell near a ruined and mossgrown mill, the fragments of which were overshadowed by an oak of stupendous dimensions, known as King Malcolm's Tree, from the following little legend, which (as we dearly love all that pertained to Scotland "in the brave days of old") we will take the liberty of inserting here.
A few years after the fall of Macbeth and the destruction of his castle of Dunsinane, Queen Margaret, Evan, the chancellor and Christian bishop of Galloway, revealed to King Malcolm III. a design which Duthac, one of his thanes, on whom he had bestowed many favours, had formed against his life, and which he resolved to put in execution as soon as he came to court.
"Be silent," said the king, "and leave me to deal with this matter in my own way."
Ere long, the accused noble came to court with a numerous train of half-savage warriors, barelegged and barearmed, from the wilds of Galloway, and on the day thereafter, Malcolm, who was residing in the Castle of Stirling, proclaimed a great hunting-match, and set forth for Cadzow Forest to hunt the mountain bull. In the most secluded part of the wood, he contrived to separate Duthac from the rest of the royal party, and drawing him into a gloomy little dell, under the shadow of a mighty oak, he leaped from his saddle and said,—
"Thane, dismount!"
Duthac at once alighted from his saddle, which, like his bridle, was hung with little silver bells.
"Draw!" said the king sternly; but Duthac hesitated.
"Draw, lest I kill thee, by the holy St. Kessoge!—kill thee defenceless!" exclaimed the brave king, unsheathing his long cross-hilted and double-edged broadsword, which was of a fashion then, and for long after, worn by the Scots, and the guards of which were turned down for the purpose of locking in and breaking an adversary's blade.
Duthac grew pale on hearing the vow of Malcolm; for St. Kessoge was then in great repute, so much so that in the sixth century his name was the war-cry of the Scots and Irish. Casting on the ground his green hunting-mantle, which had been embroidered by the white hands of his Saxon queen, St. Margaret, the king exclaimed,—
"Thane!—behold, we are here alone, and armed alike, with none to give one aid against the other. No ear can hear, nor eye can see us, save those of God! If you are still the brave man you have approved yourself in battle against the English and the Normans, and have the courage to essay your secret purpose, attempt it now! If you deem me deserving of death, where can you deal it better, more manfully, or more opportunely, thanhere, in this secluded forest? You linger—you falter—you, Duthac the Thane! Hast thou prepared a poison for me?" demanded the king, with increasing energy;—"that were the treason of a woman. Wouldst thou murder me in my sleep, as Malcolm II. was slain at Glammis?—an adultress might do that. Hast thou a hidden dagger, to stab me in secret?—'twere the deed of a coward and slave; and, Duthac, I hold thee to be neither. Fight me here, hand to hand, like a soldier—like a true Scottish man, that your treason at least may be freed from a baseness that will consign you and your race to future infamy!"
Struck to the soul by this valiant and magnanimous spirit, Duthac presented his sword-hilt to Malcolm, and, kneeling before him (as Mathew Paris relates), implored pardon.
"Fear nothing, Thane," said Malcolm III., taking his hand; "for, by the Black Rood of Scotland, thou shalt suffer no evil from me. Henceforward we are comrades—we are friends, as in other days we were soothfast fellow-soldiers."
From that hour Duthac became a most faithful subject. He received from Malcolm the land whereon they stood, and in confirmation thereof his charter was touched by the silver battle-axe which our kings carried before sceptres were known (and which was long preserved in the Castle of Dunstaffnage); and from this episode the vast oak by the brook was named King Malcolm's Tree.
Duthac was slain by his side at the siege of Alnwick, and was buried in the chapel of St. Machin; but his descendants, bearing the name of Duthie, inherited the lands of Millheugh, in Cadzow, for long after the period of our story: but to resume——
The reverie of Fawside was broken by a sudden shout that rose from the dingles of the forest.
It was evidently a cry for succour; there was a rushing sound, and a riderless horse came galloping wildly past, but stopped near the grey of Fawside, who adroitly caught the bridle which was trailing on the ground, and thus arrested the steed, by skilfully securing the rein to one of its fore legs.
Again he heard the cry, and it had a strange weird sound, being like that of a man in terror or in mortal agony. Florence hastened towards the place from whence it seemed to come, and by the dim twilight, which the thick foliage of the oaks rendered yet more dusky, he perceived a man stretched on the ground, and one of the wild bulls of the district plunging at him with his wide-spread horns, which the victim strove to elude, by rolling from side to side, so that the bull beat his armed head against the earth or the roots of the trees.
"Help! for God's love and St. Mary's sake—help!" cried the dismounted man.
On seeing Florence approach, the bull, which was of vast height and bulk, and of milk-white colour, with its muzzle, horns, and hoofs of the deepest jet-black, uttered a species of grunting roar, and tossing his lion-like mane, which was white as the foam on the crest of a wave, lowered his broad head to attack this new enemy. Like that bull which bore away the fair Europa,—
"Large rolls of fat about his shoulders hung,And to his neck the double dewlap clung;His skin was whiter than the snow that liesUnsullied by the breath of southern skies;Huge shining horns on his curled forhead stand,As polish'd and turn'd by the workman's hand."
This formidable enemy turned all his wrath on Florence; but the latter unhooked the wheel-lock petronel from his girdle, and, by a well-directed bullet shot right into the curly forehead of this king of the forest, laid him bleeding and powerless on the turf, where he lolled out his long red tongue, beat the air wildly with his hoofs for a moment, and then stretching his great bony limbs with a convulsive shudder, lay still and lifeless.
"Kind Heaven sent you just in time, fair sir; by my father's bones, 'tis the narrowest of all narrow escapes!" said the rescued man, staggering up. "That foreign firework engine of thine hath done me gude service."
Florence could now perceive that the speaker was a gentleman, apparently well up in years. His face was partly concealed by the aventayle of his helmet, which had become twisted or wedged, as he stated, by his horse having stumbled on seeing the bull, and thus thrown him against the root of a tree; but this protection for the face being partly open, Florence could perceive that his eyes were keen and fiery, and that his beard and moustache were white as winter frost.
Like all who travelled or went to any distance, however short from their own doors, in these ticklish times, he wore a suit of half-armour that reached to the knees, below which his legs were encased in long black riding-boots, which were ribbed with tempered iron.
"In the wood I outrode and missed my train, of nearly a score of horsemen," he continued; "and as the neighbourhood has an indifferent reputation for honesty, I shall be glad to remain with you, sir, till we find a place of shelter for the night; but may I ask your name?"
"You may," replied Florence, "but under favour, sir, in these times of feud and mistrust, is it safe for me, a stranger, who has no friend near but his single sword, to mentionhisname to one who speaks so freely of having some twenty horse or so within call?"
"You have somewhat of a foreign accent?"
"Perhaps so—I have been these seven years past in France."
"France—umph! Hence your mistrust."
"Exactly so. The land of Catholics and Huguenots, bastiles and gendarmerie, was exactly the place to teach prudence to the tongue and patience to the hand."
"Then I claim the same right to mistrust and reserve," said the stranger haughtily; "though when only man to man I see but little reason for it, especially as I am an auld carle, and thou art lithe and young."
Florence felt a glow of anger at this remark; but he thought of his letters, his recent wounds, of Bothwell, Glencairn, &c., and merely replied evasively,—
"Your horse awaits you here—so let us mount."
"Whither go you; or is that a secret too?"
"Nay—I ride for Cadzow."
"To the house of my lord regent?"——"Yes."
The stranger muttered something in the hollow of his helmet, and it was to this purpose,—
"From France, and for Cadzow! Cogsbones! can this be the Guise messenger our party wot of?"
"Go you so far?" asked Florence.
"Nay, I am only on my way to visit the house of a remote kinsman—the Laird of Millheugh."
"Indeed! I am bound for the same mansion, could I but find it. We may proceed together, and I shall trust me to your guidance."
"With pleasure."
"I have a letter for the laird from a kinsman of his, a great lady at court, and I propose to leave it at the tower to-night, that I may reach Cadzow at a more suitable hour on the morrow."
"Now, this sounds passing strange to me," said the old gentleman, peering keenly at Fawside under the peak of his helmet, and endeavouring to scan his features closely. "Millheugh hath no kinswoman at court. From whom had you the billet?"
"Champfleurie, captain of the queen's guard."
"Hah! A master in the art of intrigue, I warrant him! Let me see this note, if it please you?"
Florence placed it in the right hand of the stranger, whose left now grasped his horse's bridle.
"It bears on the seal the anchor and chevrons of Bothwell."
"Of Earl Patrick?" exclaimed Florence, changing colour.
"Yea; and his coronet, as I can see plainly enough, even by this twilight. Herein lies some mystery, but no evil, I trust; for the Lord Bothwell is my assured friend. So let us forward, for yonder are the lights in Millheugh Towershining, about a mile distant."
"Amystery, say you, sir?" reiterated Florence angrily. "I have nothing to do with court secrets; and if this laird of Champfleurie has trepanned me into one, I shall read him a severe lesson, were he the last Livingstone in Scotland. And now, sir, as I have no intention of further concealing my name, know that I am Florence Fawside of Fawside and that ilk in Lothian, and fear no man breathing!"
The stranger, with a startled air, drew back a pace, and after a pause said, in a low and changed voice,—
"I have heard of you, and of your old feud with Claude Hamilton of Preston anent the right of pasturage and forestry."
"Then you have only heard that which all in Scotland know, and that I am under vow to slay him!"
"Has this old man—for he is old, this Claude of Preston, ever given you personal cause for hatred?"
"Personally none," said Florence, with hesitation.
"And yet you hate him?"
"Yea, with an impulse that fiends alone might comprehend!" was the impetuous reply.
"Wherefore?"
"Ask my suffering mother, who reared me from infancy in this deadly hate! Ask my dead father, and ask my dead brother, who sleep together in the old aisle of Tranent Kirk, and they might tell you why! They died—those two brave and faithful ones—by Preston's bloody hands, bequeathing to me, as the chief part of mine inheritance, hatred—and well have I treasured it! This sword was my father's; this dagger was poor Willie's; and in Preston's blood I am bound by a hundred vows to dye them both!"
"He is old," said the other gravely; "I tell thee, old."
"Then Scotland can the better spare him," was the stern response.
"Enough of this," said the stranger haughtily. "I am a Hamilton; and here in Cadzow Wood, in the heart of the country of the Hamiltons, bethink you that your words are alike unwary and unwise. Here is your letter for Millheugh; and now let us proceed. I have quarrels enough of my own, without adding yours to my care."
The elderly stranger restored the sealed note to Florence, and on mounting was about to speak again, when his horse, which was still restive and unruly after the late occurrence and report of the pistol-shot, on being touched by the spur reared wildly back, and snorted as it cowered twice upon its haunches and tossed up its head; then throwing forward its fore feet, it sprang away like an arrow from a bow, and vanished with its rider in the darkened vista of the forest. Fawside's first impulse was to hallo aloud, and, for a time, to search after his new acquaintance; but this proved unavailing, for the echo of each far-stretching dingle alone replied.
"This stranger spoke truth," thought he. "I have been both unwary and unwise in disclosing my name and my feud to one I knew not—to one who proves to be a Hamilton,—and here in Cadzow Wood, too! So-ho for Millheugh; fortunately yonder are the tower lights still glinting through the foliage."
Directing his horse's steps by the red stripes of vertical light which shone through the narrow windows of the tower that had been indicated by the stranger as the fortalice of Millheugh, Florence threaded his way along the narrow dell the leafy monarch of which was the giant oak of King Malcolm, and soon reached the outer gate of the barbican.
"Without principle, talent, or intelligence, he is ungracious as a hog, greedy as a vulture, and thievish as a jackdaw."—Humphrey Clinker.
Such, indeed, was the character of the person upon whose rustic privacy Fawside now intruded himself. The tower, though built four centuries before, by Duthac the Thane, was indicative of the character of Allan, his descendant. It was grim, narrow, and massively constructed. The walls were enormously thick; the windows were small, placed far from the floors of the chambers they lighted, and were thickly grated without and within. The stone sill of each was perforated, to permit the emission of arrows or arquebuse shot for defence; and these perforations, when not required, were, as usual in Scotland, closed temporarily by wooden plugs. A high barbican wall enclosed the court of the tower on all sides save towards the brook, the waters of which were collected to form a moat that was crossed by a drawbridge directly under the base of the keep.
The laird was coarse in manner, rough and unlettered, but subtle in spirit, strong of limb, hardy by nature, keen-eyed, and heartless. In his time he had perpetrated many outrages, but always in form of raid; and secluded in the fastnesses of Cadzow Wood, under the wing and authority of the House of Hamilton, to whom—though a fierce tyrant to others—he was a pretended slave, and (while in the pay of its enemies) a most obsequious and useful vassal, he had long eluded and braved the feeble power of the newly-created courts of law,—Scotland's last and best gift from James V. He had barbarously treated, for years, a poor girl to whom he had been handfasted, and to be rid of her, had her accused of sorcery and drowned in the Avon; nor had he even pity for her children, whom he was accused of bestowing on Anthony Gavino, chief of the Egyptians, to be made vagrants and thieves. But the greatest outrage in which he was concerned was the assassination of the gentle priest and poet, Sir James Inglis of Culross. When his accomplices fled to the Hill of Refuge at Torphichen, and claimed the sanctuary of the Preceptor and Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, he sought a safer shelter in his own barred tower, where he lurked night and day, surrounded by pikes and arquebuses, until the clamour occasioned by the sacrilege died away, or some new outrage in other quarters attracted the attention of the people.
His gatekeeper and butler, his valets and stablers, had all the aspect of brigands, gypsies, or broken troopers. Their manners were coarse and sullen, or boisterous; patched visages, blackened eyes, and broken noses, were common to them all; and when Florence, in his rich suit of half-mail, with his jewelled poniard, his inlaid petronel, and glittering spurs, was ushered into the dimly-lighted hall, they surveyed him askance, with unpleasant but meaning looks that seemed to say,—"If time and place fitted, by St. Paul, we would soon ease thee of all this bravery!"
The stone walls of the hall were lighted by four large and coarse yellow candles, that flared and sputtered in sconces of brass; but more fully by an ample fire of pine-roots and turf that blazed on the hearth under a wide-arched mantelpiece, from whence the flames cast along the paved floor a lurid glow, as from the mouth of an opened furnace. The grated windows of this hall were arched, and sunk in recesses whose depth was lost in shadow. Several old weapons, covered with rust and cobwebs, with a few tin and wooden trenchers of the plainest description, were the only ornaments or appurtenances on the walls of this rude old dwelling, while the furniture, which consisted of a table, a few forms and tripod stools, was all of common wood. The floor was strewn with dried rushes, and eight or ten men, retainers of the tower,—fellows rough, unshaven, and uncombed in aspect, clad in shabby doublets, were lounging around two who were engaged in a game of tric-trac.
They started up at the entrance of a stranger, and two others who had been asleep on the stone seats within the glowing fireplace now came forward, and cast aside the grey border plaids in which they had been muffled.
They—the latter—wore gorgets of black iron, with pyne doublets, swords, and Tyndale knives. Their steel caps and bucklers lay near. They were hardy and weatherbeaten men, but of brutal aspect; and one whose visage was rosy-red, and whose nose was like a thick cluster of red currants, proved to be no other than Symon Brodie, the drunken butler of Preston Tower, while his companion was Mungo Tenant, the warden of the same distinguished establishment. Some recollection of their faces—for Florence, when a boy, had once been unmercifully beaten by this same butler,—or of their livery and badges, caused him to be at once upon his guard, and to beware of what might ensue.
"Laird—laird Millheugh! a stranger would speak wi' ye," said several voices officiously; and on one of the tric-trac players rising up, with an oath and a growl on the interruption, Fawside found himself confronted, rather than received, by the master of this free-and-easy mansion.
"God save you, sir," said he, with a blunt country nod, and a leer in his eye, as he surveyed the bright arms and gay apparel of his visitor with an expression in which contempt and covetousness were curiously blended; "whence come you?"
"From Edinburgh——"
"Ay, ay, I thought sae; a braw gallant—one of the galliards o' Holyrood or Falkland Green—or of the regent, eh? I have seen muckle bravery o' this kind about Arran's house in the Kirk o' field Wynd."
"Nay, sir, you mistake," was the haughty reply of Florence, to whom this bearing proved very offensive; "I have no connection with the court, neither have I the honour to hold any post or place about the person of the regent, but am a plain country gentleman of Lothian; and being on my way to Cadzow, the captain of the queen's guard asked me to deliver this letter here, where he was pleased to add, I should be welcome to tarry and refresh."
"Welcome you are, and welcome are a' who like better to byde in Millheugh than in the forest for a night; but what, in the black devil's name, can the captain of the queen's guard, a painted and scented loon like Champfleurie, have to say to me?"
"'Tis from a lady of the queen dowager's court."
"Whew!" said the laird, with a roar of laughter; "let me see the letter, friend."
As Florence presented the note, the laird rudely and impatiently snatched it from his hand, broke the seal, and proceeded to make himself master of its contents. But this mastery was a process by no means speedily accomplished by this country gentleman of the year 1547. He drew close to one of the wall-sconces, scratched his head, viewed the writing from various points, and, after much delay, perplexity, and muttering, under his ragged moustaches, many maledictions on the writer and himself, he succeeded in deciphering the few lines it contained. On this, a smile of mingled cunning and ferocity spread over his massive and vulgar face.
During this delay, Fawside, whom he had permitted to stand, had an ample opportunity of observing him.
He was tall and, we have said, strongly formed. His complexion was pale and sallow, though his hair was black as jet. His dark eyes had ever a malicious twinkle, and a villanous expression was impressed on his whole face by a wound received at the battle of Linlithgow, where the sword of the bastard of Arran—the same ignoble steel that slew the good and gentle Earl of Lennox—had laid his left cheek open, at the same moment completely demolishing the bridge of his nose, which had never at any time been very handsome. His attire consisted of a dirty and greasy doublet, formed of what had once been peach-coloured velvet, discoloured in several places by perspiration, slops of wine, and the rust of his armour. It was rent under the arms, torn at the slashes, and, in lieu of buttons, was tied by faded ribbons, and, where these had failed, by plain twine. His russet sarcenet trunk hose were in the same condition. He wore cuarans of rough hide on his feet, and had a long horn-hafted dagger of butcherly aspect in his calfskin girdle. Add to all this black masses of elf-lock hair, a shaggy beard and moustache, and we hope that the reader sees before him Allan Duthie of the Millheugh.
A deep quiet laugh stole over his features on making himself master of the contents of this letter, with the purport of which our seventeenth chapter has made the reader familiar. He gave a meaning glance at his ruffianly and unscrupulous retainers, who were intently eyeing the stranger as a prize or prey. Then he surveyed the latter, the aspect of whose lithe, stalwart, and well-armed figure made him resolve that a little policy would be wiser than an open and unprovoked assault, before securing him. Moreover, he feared that in a scuffle the gay suit of French plate armour, which he meant to appropriate, and which, he flattered himself, would exactly fit his burly figure, might suffer damage; and this he by no means desired, especially when this unsuspicious visitor, who had brought his own death-warrant, might be much more easily killed or captured without it. All this passed through his subtle mind in a moment. Then he turned to Florence, saying with an artful smile,—
"Ye are right welcome, fair sir, to the poor cheer o' Millheugh Ha'; but will ye no unstrap this braw harness, and draw nearer the ingle; for though the month be August, the cauld wind soughs at the lumheid, as if some wrinkled hag were byding there, on her way hame frae the moon or the warlock-sabbath."
"I thank you," replied the young man; "and if one of your servitors will so fer favour me as to undo the straps of this steel casing——"
"That will I, mysel', do blythely, Fawside," said the laird, who with great readiness unfastened the various buckles of some portions of the beautiful suit of mail, and removed them, with the shining and embossed coursing-hat, to a side buffet, muttering while doing so,—"By the deil's horns, he has a pyne doublet under a'; but a dab wi a dirk may soon make a hole in that. Look weel to this harness, lads,—as if it were mine ain," he added aloud, with a wink to some of his people, who seemed quite to understand the hint. "And so ye have come from Edinburgh——"
"Last," said Florence, laughing; "but a month since I was in Paris."
"Oho!—and what new plots are the bloody Guises hatching—for they are aye up to some develrie anent us, eh?"
"I know of none, laird," said Florence with reserve; "I have come from France certainly, but I have not the honour to be ranked either as a friend or confidant of the Cardinal de Guise or the Duc de Mayenne. Indeed, I never saw them but once, for a few minutes, in the gallery of the Louvre."
"Yet Bothwell styles you a spy of the Guises!" thought Millheugh. "Well, well, sir," he added aloud; "'tis no matter o' mine. Serve up the supper quick; but, ere sitting down, sir, would ye take off your braw belt and sword?"
"Nay, Millheugh," said Florence smiling, though certain undefined suspicions occurred to him; "I am never unarmed even in my own house; and you, I see, wear your belt and Tynedale knife."
"Oh, it matters nocht to me," said the laird with a cunning laugh; "but I thocht ye might sup the easier without your lang iron spit and braw baldrick."
A repast of the plainest kind, but great in quantity, consisting mainly of brose, haggis, sowons, and porridge with prunes in it, was now served up, with cold beef, and venison hams; and, while the two retainers of Claude Hamilton sat somewhat apart, darting covert scowls from under their shaggy brows at their master's feudal enemy, they, as well as Millheugh's hungry foresters, made great havock among the contents of the piled platters and ample cogies with which the table was furnished—viands which were washed down by a river of ruddy-brown ale, flowing from a large cask set upon a bin, in a stone recess, the Gothic canopy of which showed that in the days of the present proprietor's father therein had stood a crucifix and holy-water font, wherein all were wont to dip their fingers before sitting down to meals;—but the times were changing fast, and the minds, manners, and morals of the people were changing with them.
When supper was over, Florence, weary with his long and rough ride of so many miles, and heartily sick of the laird's coarse, if not brutal conversation, retired to rest; and believing himself in perfect security, divested himself of his attire, and was soon in a profound and dreamless slumber—so profound, that he heard not at midnight three very decided attempts which were made by certain parties without to force his door, the many locks and bars of which, however, fortunately stood firm and were his friends. Soundly he slept, though his couch was made only of soft heather, packed closely in on an oblong frame, with the points uppermost, and a sheet spread over it, in the old Scottish fashion. But towards morning—all unconscious that he was a prisoner—sounds of distant merriment came floating to his ear, and awoke him for a time.
That night, and for hours after midnight had passed, Millheugh and his men drank deeply in the rude and ancient hall, and their songs and boisterous laughter, came to the ear of Florence by fits, upon the weird howling of the morning wind. One drunken ditty, composed by some West Lothian (and long forgotten) song-writer, on Preston's never sober butler, seemed an especial favourite, and a score of voices made its chorus shake the vaulted roof of the old tower. It ran thus:—
"Symon Brodie had a cow:When she was lost, he couldna find her;But he did a' that man could do,Till she cam' hame wi her tail behind her.Honest bald Symon Brodie,Stupid auld doitit bodie!Gin ye pass by Preston Tower,Birl the stoup wi Preston Brodie.
"Symon Brodie had a wife,And wow! but she was braw and bonnie;A clout she tuik frae off the buik,And preened it on her cockernonie.Honest bald Symon Brodie,Stupid auld drunken bodie!For Claude, the laird o' Preston Tower,Has kiss'd the wife o' Symon Brodie."
Florence awoke late—at least,latefor 1547; the time-dial indicated the hour of eleven; when he rose, dressed himself, and descended to the hall, with his purse in his hand to scatter a largess among the servants, to breakfast, and then begone with all speed.
By various pretexts, the laird procrastinated the time for his departure, till Fawside was at last compelled to order his horse peremptorily. Then Allan Duthie threw aside all disguise, and laughed outright at him.
Florence started from the table, and with his hand on his sword approached the door of the hall.
Then the laird snatched up an arquebuse with a lighted match, and at the head of several domestics, variously armed, prepared to dispute his exit, by completely barring the way; at this critical stage of their proceedings the sound of a hunting-horn, blown loudly at the gate, made even the most forward of the brawlers pause to a time.
"Is that thy master's horn, Symon?" asked the treacherous laird.
"I dinna ken, Millheugh," replied Symon, arming his right hand with a tankard, the contents of which he had just drained, and the creamy froth of which covered all his Bardolph nose and grizzly-grey moustache; "but he must be here ere midday pass."!
"Claude Hamilton here!" thought Florence, as the blood rushed back upon his heart; "one house can never hold us—with these people, too! Oh, mother! to-morrow you may say your mass-prayers for my butchery. Millheugh must know of our feud, and yet he told me not he was expected here!"
"If he come not speedily," continued the jesting ruffian, "woe worth all the breakfast he is likely to get; but the loss o' it will be a just punishment, as I ken he eats beef and mutton in Lenten-time, instead of kail and green herbs, for the gude o' his soul."
"What the deil hae our souls to do wi' kail, or beef, or mutton, Millheugh, whate'er our appetites may?" asked Symon Brodie; "a gude appetite is a sign o' a gude conscience. There sounds the horn again!"
"A Lollard, hey?" exclaimed Millheugh; "thou hast heard Friar Forest preach, I warrant."
"I heard him preach, and saw him burned at a stake on the Castle Hill."
"Take ye care then, Symon, for there are faggots for those who speak like thee; and a butler will burn as well as a friar."
"Indubitably."
"Make way, fellows!" exclaimed Florence, lunging at Millheugh with his sword; "make me way, or your lives are not worth a dog's ransom. 'Tis well for thee, and such as thee, Symon Brodie, that the terror of the scoffer and the impious, Cardinal Beaton, is in his grave!"
"His eminence," said Millheugh, "aye deemed himself on better terms with Heaven than other men."
"Weel, weel," said the impudent butler, "he hath since, peradventure, discovered his mistake in that matter."
"Thou saucy varlet," exclaimed Fawside, making at him a blow, which he eluded by leaping on one side, "darest thou speak of him so in the presence of a loyal gentleman?"
"Peace, I command you," cried Millheugh; "for, by the hoof of Mahoun, here come more visitors!"
As he spoke the jangle of spurs was heard on the stair that gave access to the upper stories of the tower. Several gentlemen, well armed, and richly clad in riding-coats, with long boots of Spanish leather, and having, mostly, helmets, cuirasses, and gorgets, hurriedly thronged into the hall; and Fawside felt a momentary emotion of alarm on recognizing among them the voices and figures of Patrick Earl of Bothwell, the Earl of Glencairn, and the sinister visage of his son, the Lord Kilmaurs.
Yet might not Aquilante's spirit fail,Though shivered was his shield, and gashed his mail!Cautious but firm he struck; no sign of dread,His aspect or his manly port displayed.Roncesvalles.
With a burst of laughter these turbulent nobles and their armed followers, who were numerous, unsheathed their swords; and Florence boldly confronted them all, while his heart beat rapidly,—-for he knew that entreaty or concession would avail him nothing. He knew, too, that he had been foully ensnared. He found himself in a perilous predicament, for he soon recognized the voices, if not the faces, of nearly all the same men by whom he had been so sorely beset on the first night of his landing from the galley of M. de Villegaignon.
"So, so! Our worthy Millheugh has brought the boar to bay!" exclaimed Kilmaurs, the wound on whose sinister visage grew purple in his excitement as he pressed forward.
"Ha-ha! Fawside, most worthy messenger," added Bothwell; "thou art quite alone, eh!"
"Alone; but not as St. John was, in the Isle of Patmos; for he is with his betters and much good company," said Glencairn.
"Do cease with this irreverence, Glencairn," said Bothwell, who, like all that still adhered to Rome, was nervously sensitive of all that appertained to the faith of his forefathers.
"Ye haver, my lord," was the surly rejoinder. "That whilk our forbears of auld deemed reverence we now term but rank idolatry, and an abomination in the nostrils of the Lord."
"Like loyalty to the crown and faith to our country—folly, eh? But enough of this," said the selfish and blood-thirsty Kilmaurs. "And now for the matter in hand. Worthy Master Florence Fawside——"
"A spruce young cock o' the game, my masters!" said Symon Brodie. "I warrant ye will find him tough enough."
"We should keep him for fighting on Fasterns e'en," added Millheugh, who was not quite sober.
"Silence!" cried Kilmaurs. "We have other ends in view for him, and need not this ribaldry."
"What am I to understand by all this studied insolence, and by my being thus beset?" demanded Florence, standing on his guard, sternly eyeing them all, and waving his sword in a circle around him. "Speak, sirs, lest I slay the most silent man among you."
"You have brought letters," began Kilmaurs.
"One to the laird of Millheugh, most certainly. That letter I delivered."
"Oh, yes; of a verity we doubt not that," continued his chief tormentor Kilmaurs;—"the letter from a fair court lady—a countess, at least, who was in sore trouble, and lacked a messenger to her dear kinsman here. We mean not that. Ha-ha! Champfleurie played his cards well!"
"I have been snared and deluded!" said the poor youth, while his heart beat like lightning; and he glanced round him vainly for means of escape, or, at least, for a desperate and protracted resistance.
"Precisely so; you have been deluded. Champfleurie——"
"Like each one of you, is a villain, whom, will God, I shall yet unmask and slay!" exclaimed their victim.
"By St. Bride! poor devil, I almost pity thee!" said Bothwell. "Thou'lt fare hardly enough at the hands of Millheugh and his ragged Robins."
"Florence Fawside," said Kilmaurs, "we know thee to be a spy of the Guises and bearer of their letters to Mary of Lorraine and the Regent Arran. We can easily slay thee, and obtain such papers as may be concealed in secret pockets; but we care not, by cracking the nut, to gain the kernel so hastily. Ye may be the custodier of other and more important secrets than men care to commit to paper, especially such men as the Cardinal de Guise and Monseigneur the Duc de Mayenne: and these secrets we must have!"
"Sirs, I swear to you, as a gentleman and a true Scottish man, I am the depositary of no such secrets as you suppose," said the unfortunate youth, with great earnestness; for though brave, even to temerity, he thought of his old mother and his young love, while all their swords seemed to glitter death before him, and his sinking heart grew sad.
"A cock-laird like thee may swear to anything," said Kilmaurs insolently.
"Thou, Kilmaurs, art an empty boaster, and a coward. My race is among the oldest in the land."
"Being descended, in the male line, direct from Adam."
"Despite this insolence, I repeat, my lords, that I tell you—truth!"
"Knave, thou dost not tell the truth," exclaimed Kilmaurs, who became pallid with fury; "so, beware, lest we have thy tongue torn out by the roots and nailed on Hamilton cross, to feed the gleds and hoodicrows. I have seen such done ere this."
"If he lieth, the event shall prove," said Glencairn; "let him be disarmed, and bound to the iron cruick above the hall fire; then pile on wetted wood and green boughs, till we smoke the secrets out of him."
A shout of fierce and derisive acclamation greeted this suggestion of an impromptu mode of torture not uncommon in those old lawless times; and the tone of defiance assumed by the victim was lost amid the bantering laughter and insults of more than thirty voices. Surrounded on all hands, he had only power left to run one assailant through the body, and before he could withdraw his sword to repeat the thrust, a score of heavy hands were laid upon him, those of his host, Allan of Millheugh, being among the most active. His sword and poniard were at once rent away, and he was dragged over the blood-stained floor towards the large arched fireplace. In the lust of blood, the feudal, or political, or religious rancour which animated those at whose mercy he was now so completely cast, they struggled with each other for who should give him a blow or a buffet, and contended vehemently for the office of binding him to the iron beam that swung over the blazing fire.
Florence struggled also—but in vain. The united strength and the iron hands of his numerous enemies, noble and ignoble, were irresistible and overpowering.
He strove to cry aloud, but whether for mercy or in defiance, in his bewilderment, he knew not; his voice was gone, and he could scarcely gasp for breath: then how much less was he able to articulate.
"A rope—a rope!" cried Millheugh; "weel wetted, too, lest it burn when we birsel him. Quick, ye loons, quick!"
"Heap damp boughs and green peats on the fire," said Glencairn. "Quick—lest instead of onlysmokingthe secret out of him, we roast him before the right time."
Bruised, bleeding, pale, and powerless, Florence now found himself under the rough arch of the yawning fireplace and the flame of the large pile of blazing fuel that lay heaped on the hearth was already scorching him to the quick! Above his head swung the smoke-blackened bar of the cruick whereon occasionally large pots and cauldrons were hung, and which moved outward or inward, in sockets, like a crane.
His hands were roughly forced behind him by the united strength of several men, and held thus while Mungo Tennant, the warder of Preston, proceeded to tie them. Meantime others were piling green boughs on the flame, partially to quench its heat, and to fill the vast tunnel-like chimney with black smoke, amid which they seemed like demons superintending infernal orgies. While this was proceeding, there was a snaky glare in the glistening and triumphant eyes of Kilmaurs. This fierce young lord was popularly believed to possess anevil eye, and that his gaze had the power of blighting whatever it fell upon. Friend or foe, horse or sheep, were averred to wither away. In Cunninghame, it was said that corn died in the ear, and the leaves of a tree shrivelled and dropped off, if he looked at them fixedly; and this dangerous attribute made him a source of terror to all—even to the irreverend Reformer, his father.
All was nearly complete: the fire, half suppressed by the damp fuel, now emitted a dense column of black smoke, and a well-wetted rope was already made fast to the iron bar.
"Up wi' him, now, to the cruick, by craig and heels," said Glencairn; "and then let him sneeze in the reek, like a carlin in the mist."
"God have mercy on me; for men will have none!" was the mental prayer of Florence, with a half-stifled groan, as he felt himself lifted off the floor and held over the smoke:—but ere the principal cord was made fast, a powerful man burst through the crowd around the vast fireplace, and, forcing them asunder, commanded all, "on pain of death, to hold their hands!"
"A Bothwell! a Bothwell!" cried Earl Patrick, in a voice of thunder. "Who dares cry hold, when I command to strike?"
Chieftains, forego!I hold the first who strikes, my foe.Madmen forbear your frantic jar!Lady of the Lake.
"Hold all your hands," exclaimed the new comer; "or by Heaven's vengeance, I will run the foremost of you through the body!"
"Who dares to lift his voice thus under my roof-tree?" demanded Millheugh savagely, forcing a passage, dagger in hand, through the throng.
"I dare!—I, Claude Hamilton of Preston," replied the stranger, in whom Florence (now released, and though reclining faint and feebly on a bench) recognized, to his astonishment, the grey-bearded man whom, in Cadzow Forest, he had rescued from mutilation and a dreadful death.
"And think you, carle, that we will obey you?" demanded the Earl of Bothwell contemptuously.
"Perhaps not, were I alone; but when I tell you, lord earl, that I have now a train of thirty horsemen, armed with jack and spear, in the tower court, and that I have but to sound this horn to bring every man to my aid, the face of affairs may be changed. I lost my train in the forest; but fortunately, it would appear, we have reached this place together at a very critical time."
"Hark you, Laird of Preston," said Glencairn angrily; "what are we to understand by all this? Would you attempt to deprive us of a lawful prisoner, whom we have captured at last, and after no small trouble, too? He—this Fawside—is your feudal enemy, and our political opponent, being an emissary of the bloody-minded Guises. Will you, then, dare to befriend him?"
"Ay, even he will I befriend," replied the old man sternly.
"This is rank insanity," exclaimed the Earl of Bothwell; "does one of our own party turn against us thus? And have we ridden five-and-thirty miles or more to find ourselves defrauded of our prey by the mere bullying of an auld carle like this? Forward! again, my men, and string me yonder poppinjay up to the cruick with the rope—not at his waist, but round his knavish neck! Or, if you will make still shorter work, let two take him by the hands, and two by the heels, and by one fell swing dash out his brains against the stone wall! I have seen such done in Venice ere this. I am Patrick Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, and high sheriff of Haddington—who shall dare to gainsay me?"
"Stand back, I command you," thundered the resolute old laird of Preston, grasping his silver-mounted bugle with one hand, while menacing all with one of those long and ponderous two-handed swords then worn by the Scots;—"back, I say; or, by the arm of St. Giles and all that is holy in heaven, I will make hawks' meat of the first man who advances! 'Tis scarcely twelve hours since, when in Cadzow Wood, this youth, though mine enemy, saved me from a frantic white bull, when lying half stunned by a fall from my horse; and blessed be God, who hath enabled me to come hither in time to prevent a deed so foul as you, my lords, contemplate. And now I tell ye, sirs, that were he laden with a horse-load of letters from the Guises, from the Cardinal, the Duke de Mayenne, and from Henry of Valois to boot, he shall ride forth on his way, sakeless and free, escorted by my own followers; and if thou, Allan o' Millheugh, (for weel do I ken thee for a bully and a knave of auld, man!) restore not to him all of which he has been deprived, I will light such a fire in Millheugh Tower as Cadzow Wood hath never seen since its tallest oaks were acorns!"
All present knew that Hamilton of Preston was a resolute man, who would adhere to his word. Defrauded of their prey, the three lords muttered vengeance, and sheathing their swords, retired sullenly into a corner of the hall. The laird of Millheugh attempted to string together a few awkward and absurd apologies, while restoring to Fawside his much-coveted arms and armour, which he hastily put on in silence, and with the sombre fury that filled his heart expressed in every lineament of his agitated face, which was now deathly pale, and marked by more than one wound or bruise, received in the recent struggle.
"Drink, sir; you look faint and ill, after all this rough handling," said Claude of Preston, handing a cup of wine to his young feudal enemy, whose handsome features he scrutinized with an expression of sadness and interest,—for Florence was said to be the living image of his father Sir John, whom Preston slew.
The youth drank the wine, and returned the cup, saying briefly,—
"Sir, I thank you: you, at least, are an honourable enemy—and brave and humane as honourable."