Sad airs like those she heard in infancy,Fell on her soul and filled her eyes with tears;And recollections came of happier years,Thronging from all the cells of memory.Barry Cornwall.
More than a year had elapsed since the terrible scene with which the preceding chapter has closed.
It was the sweet season of summer. A soft wind was passing over the pastoral uplands of Galloway, and rippling the black water of the Dee where it swept round the green islet on which stands the great feudal fortress of Thrave. It rippled, in some places, the growing cornfields, in others, the greener wild grass, bearing with it the freshness of the dew that loaded the leaves of the wayside flowers (for a shower had just fallen), with the perfume of the honeycomb, of the mountain bee that hummed over the yellow broom or purple heather-bells, on the rugged braes of Balmaghie; or over the crimson cups of the wild roses overhanging the brawling burn that rushed through bank and scaur to Woodhall Loch.
It was a summer noon; the sunny shower had passed away, and the rose-linnet, the wild mavis, and the gold-spink sang merrily on every bush and bank; and the bright sun cast the great shadow of the castle of Thrave upon the Dee, which moats it round.
There now dwelt Murielle, and others who have borne a part in our story, though a change had come over their position in life.
The Lord Chancellor Crichton had scarcely foreseen the immediate consequences of that "black dinour" in the castle of Edinburgh—a deed of detestable cruelty, though deemed politic in the spirit of the time. It naturally excited the deep-rooted hatred and fierce indignation of the numerous vassalage and powerful friends of the house of Douglas; while the youth of the noble victims on one hand, with the age and valour of Sir Malcolm Fleming on the other, together with the cold-blooded treachery which lured them all to a doom so disastrous—a mock trial and execution in the young king's presence, despite his tears and entreaties—all conduced to excite a strong sympathy among the people, who only remembered the worth and loyalty of their ancestors, and forgot those excesses, or were ignorant of that mad ambition, which had filled with jealousy the ministers of James the Second.
But while treasuring this deed of blood in their resentful hearts, and scheming for the downfall of the regent and chancellor, the Douglases were too wary now to trust themselves out of their own fastnesses, or to take immediate revenge.
The dukedom of Touraine and the county of Longueville had reverted to the crown of France; but James the Gross, earl of Abercorn and Avondale, through whose connivance the trial and execution of his kinsmen took place, succeeded quietly to all their Scottish estates. Then, to prevent the dismemberment of a territory so princely, and to preserve to the house of Douglas the Countess Margaret's portion, which comprehended Galloway, Wigton, Balvenie, Ormond, and Annandale, on the promise of obtaining a papal dispensation, through the good offices of the abbot of Tongland, she consented to espouse Earl James, that they might the better plot their vengeance and unite their power against the regent and chancellor, who, by this unexpected consolidation, saw their views baffled, and the family of Douglas, within six months, restored to its former strength and splendour.
Thus, twice before her twentieth year, had the Fair Maid of Galloway worn a wreath of roses and lucky four-leaved clover, which formed then the bridal chaplet. The young lord of her great fortress by the Dee had passed away; yet it seemed strange he had left no vacancy of heart or hearth behind him: for his place had been rapidly filled by another; and none knew Margaret's secret thoughts.
In the vast but solitary castle of Thrave, Murielle had long wept for her lover, and mourned him as one who was dead. Whether he had been slain outright, or been simply but barbarously mutilated, she had no means of ascertaining, as the countess and her armed train had taken their departure from Edinburgh within an hour after the fatal conflict; and since then she had resided in Thrave, the most remote and strong of all her many fortresses.
Since that fatal day, Murielle had felt as if her little heart had been crushed by a hand of steel; while the society of the stern, malevolent, and gloomy Earl James, who was now lord of all their heritage, and as such assumed to be the master ofherhand and destiny—a mastery in which he was joined by her proud, fiery, and, at times, cruel sister—made her long for a refuge among the Benedictine nuns of Lincluden; and she as often wished, in the sorrow and bitterness of her soul, that she were at rest among the graves of her forefathers, in Melrose or Dundrennan. She never saw the earl without experiencing a shudder of horror and aversion, for the memory of that terrible day in Edinburgh was ever before her; her lover's upturned face, with its despairing eyes, imploring pity from the fierce noble who smote him down with his bloody ghisarma, as he would have done a reptile.
In that age there were no newspapers; no posts or telegraphs; no books or printing, for it was twenty years before Caxton set hisfirsttypes for Raoul le Fevre; thus the library of the great countess was limited to her missal, and a little whity-brown volume in which she engrossed recipes and so forth. Save a few games of hazard, there were no in-door amusements, or food for the mind. How wearily and drearily must the days have been passed by the dwellers in those old Scottish castles, secluded in roadless and mountain districts, when there was peace (which was seldom), and no fighting, burning, or hanging going on!
No tidings came from the court or capital to Thrave, save the strange and floating rumours brought by a passing harper on his way towards Ireland or the south; or by a cunning pardoner, travelling with his holy wares and relics to Tongland, Dundrennan, or St. Mary Isle; or by an armed mosstrooper, in his steel cap and vambraces; or a bein-bonnet laird, or gudeman (i.e.one who holds his land from a baron), on his Galloway cob, passing to or from the next burgh town, who, after bartering his beef, butter, and eggs, for a bilbo or suit of harness, tarried at lordly Thrave, belated or storm-stayed.
Men travelled little then by night in Scotland. Vast districts were almost roadless; and deep rivers, the fabled abode of the mischievous kelpie and dreadful water-horse, were bridgeless, and the fords were few and precarious. Lawless moss-troopers, broken men, and wandering gipsies rendered the paths insecure; nor were supernatural terrors wanting, in the shapes of bogles, spunkies, wraiths, and fairies, to render the ingle-lum of the nearest farm, the refectory of a monastery, or the hall of a baron or landholder an acceptable refuge after dark.
Of the old abbot of Tongland the inhabitants of Thrave had seen little. He had secluded himself in his abbey, which lay in a deep and woody hollow formed by the Dee, and adjoining theclachanwhich slopes down to the verge of the stream—for so they named their villages in Celtic Galloway. There he spent day after day entrenched among illuminated manuscripts and yellow parchments, searching, writing, quoting, collating, and preparing anew his application to Pope Eugene, that the Prince of Darkness might be forgiven, so that evil and discord in the world might cease for ever.
On the eccentric, but kind old abbot, Murielle rested all her hope for succour, information, advice, and assistance; but he failed to obtain authentic tidings of her lover's fate. Thus, in that great castle, which was crowded by armed men, she pined and sorrowed in secret, without a friend.
Meanwhile quantities of armour, helmets, corslets, spurs, and bridles, that came in hampers by ships from Holland, bundles of arrows and spears brought on horseback from Dumfries to the arsenal in the barbican, indicated the events that were on the tapis. Many couriers, such as Pompherston, Glendoning, Achanna, and Sir Alan Lauder, were dispatched in all directions under cloud of night, while others were arriving with secret parchments, and slips of paper concealed in the lining of their doublets, the sheaths of their daggers, and the tops of their gambadoes; missives from the turbulent John, earl of Ross, lord of the isles; from Sir Magnus Redmain, the English governor of Berwick; from Robert, the exiled and intriguing duke of Albany; from John Garm Stewart, of Athole; from Christian I., count of Oldenburg and king of Norway: and all these signs filled Murielle with anxiety and alarm, as they indicated the magnitude of the schemes and intrigues in which the fierce and subtle Earl James and her bold and ambitious sister were engaged, and the designs they were forming against the regent, the chancellor, the unfortunate people, and the young and innocent king.
The summer brook flows in the bedThe winter torrent tore asunder;The skylark's gentle wings are spreadWhere walk'd the lightning and the thunder:And thus you'll find the sternest soul,The gayest tenderness concealing;And minds that seem to mock controlAre order'd by some fairy feeling.Poems by Thomas Davis.
It was, as related, a summer noon.
Earl James of Douglas, whilom of Abercorn and Avondale, still in half rebellion against a king and court from both of which he kept sullenly aloof, was hawking on the bank of the Carlinwark Loch, with Sir Alan Lauder, Achanna, and other friends, while the countess was in her bower-chamber with Murielle and other ladies of her household.
As a reward for his services, Achanna, that worthy Scottish liberal and utilitarian of the year of grace 1441, had received a purse of gold from the chancellor, and from Abercorn the office of seneschal of Thrave. Like many of his countrymen in more modern times, master James Achanna was a noisy professor of religion, and never missed a mass or service of his church; he wore an enormous rosary, and crossed himself at least a hundred times daily when any one was present. Scotland has always been peculiarly unfortunate in producing such pretenders; and doubtless, had James Achanna lived now, the same cunning and coldness of heart, the same selfishness of purpose and anti-nationality which he possessed, would have brought him fortune, place, or power, political, and assuredly provincial fame; but, under James II., he was merely a hireling swordsman, a smooth-tongued intriguer, and occasionally a "rowdy" in a suit of armour.
The windows of the bower chamber were open, and afforded an ample view of the far-stretching pastoral landscape, through which the Dee, between banks shrouded by groves of beech and willow, the fragrant hawthorn, or those old oaks which, ages ago, had echoed to the horn of the great crusader, Alan, lord of Galloway, wound to pour its waters in the Solway Firth. Through the deep and arched embayments in the old castle wall, the summer sunshine shed a flood of radiance upon the arched necks, the white hands, and glossy tresses of the group of handsome girls who drew their tabourettes around the chair of the Countess Margaret, who had just entered; for, with few exceptions, these damoiselles in silk and costly attire were the same who had attended her on that unhappy visit to Edinburgh in the November of 1440.
They were all the daughters of barons and knights—Maud Douglas of Pompherston, a lovely girl with black hair, dark hazel eyes, and a queenly bearing; Mariota Douglas of Glendoning, whose auburn hair won her the name of theCaillean Ruaamong the Galwegians; Lady Jean of the Cairnglas, and the three daughters of Sir Alan of the Bass, all lassies with "lint white locks," and others, to the number of twelve, were plying their needles busily; but Murielle sat apart, and, with her cheek resting on the palm of her hand, gazed listlessly upon the hazy landscape that spread in the summer sunshine far away from below the castle wall.
The work on which those ladies were busy was one of those huge pieces of tapestry in the manufacture of which the fair ones of those days delighted, and, when completed, it was to be a donation to the abbot of Tongland on New Year's Day, 1442, as it represented the life and miracles of St. Bryde (or Bridget), the patron of the house of Douglas; and this great web spread over all the knees and daintily-slippered feet of the fair workers, as it fell in waves along the floor of polished oak.
Therein their needles had depicted the saint in her little cell under a large oak at Kildara, in Munster, where the wild ducks that swam in the Bog of Allen and the birds that flew over the Curragh, alike obeyed her voice, and went and came at her command; and there, too, was shown how, at her desire, the milk of the cows on the Wicklow hills became butter, and how, when she prayed, it was multiplied threefold for the use of the poor; and other miracles long since forgotten.
This year had been memorable for prodigies. On the 17th of March, says Sir James Balfour, there appeared "three suns in the firmament at the noontyde of the day; and in Auguste a fearfull comett, having a crowned sword hanging from it." Where one sun is seldom seen,threemust have produced an unusual effect; so these and similar matters formed the staple topics for discussion among the ladies of the countess, who unanimously came to the conclusion that "something terrible and startling would certainly ensue; butwhatthat might be none could say—a murrain among the cattle, a famine in the Merse, a royal raid into Galloway, an invasion by the English—perhaps the death of the chancellor!"
"The last is not likely," said Maud of Pompherston, throwing back her heavy black braided hair behind the whitest and smallest of ears.
"Why?" asked all.
"I mean, if the tidings be true which my father heard yesterday at the cross of Dumfries."
"What did he hear?" asked the countess sharply, while the workers paused, and all their eyes were bent on Maud.
"That the heralds had proclaimed at the crosses of Edinburgh, Stirling, and Scone, that—that the king—"
The poor girl hesitated, for the bold flashing eye of the countess fell darkly on her, and its expression at times was rather bewildering.
"A boy of thirteen years," said Margaret bitterly. "Well, that the king——"
"Has been pleased——"
"Deluded, you mean."
"To create the chancellor Lord Crichton of Crichton in Lothian. Rumour added that his youngest son, George, would soon be made earl of Caithness, in place of the forfeited Earl Alan, who was killed ten years ago at the battle of Inverlochie."
"Anything more?" asked Margaret, beating the floor with her foot.
"The regent is to be Lord Livingstone of Callendar."
"Did the heralds not add that he granted them a coat of augmentation to their arms?" said Margaret, with hate in her eye, and the smile of a devil on her lovely lip;—"a headsman's axe and block, all bloody and proper! Well, well; so be it. We'll powder these new-fangled coronets with tears and the dust of death ere another yule be past—please Heaven, we shall!"
"'Tis said, too, that the king is about to be married to a fair lady of Flanders."
"This child!—who—who?" asked the ladies together.
"I wot not," said Maud; and the girls laughed loudly.
"Little Maggie Lauder of the Bass would suit him better, in years at least," said the countess, as she caressed the lint white locks of Sir Alan's youngest daughter, a girl of some nine years or so. "In sooth, cousin, you have a rare stock of news."
"Countess, I have more still."
"More?"
"The heritable sheriff of Perth, Sir William Ruthven of that ilk, accompanied by a party of the king's guard, have marched into Athole, and there captured John Gorm Stewart."
"A friend and ally of my husband, who had a message from him not ten days ago—he captured him, say you?"
"Ay, and slew him."
"John of Athole slain?"
"Yes, on the north Inch of Perth, with thirty of his followers; but Ruthven was also killed, and MacLellan and Gray, the commanders of the King's Guard, were wounded."
"The fools! to fight each other, when both were allies of ours; for this sheriff of Perth has a daughter wedded to George Douglas, of Leswalt, here in Galloway. So Gray was wounded—and the jesting MacLellan, too?"
On first hearing these names, the hitherto listless Murielle started, and turned to Maud Douglas; but feared to ask the question that seemed to burn her tongue.
"Is aught wrong, sister, that you start thus?" asked Margaret, half contemptuously.
"No—why do you ask?" said Murielle timidly.
"I thought a gnat had stung you."
"Oh, it was Andrew Gray, of Balgarno, who was wounded," said Maud good-naturedly, as she turned in haste to Murielle, whose anxiety she wished to relieve.
"Was your father sure of this?" asked the countess.
"The Provost of Dumfries had the surest tidings."
Margaret smiled bitterly at her pale sister.
"Alas!" thought the latter, in her heart, "heis not spoken of. Oh, can he be dead, that others have led where he was wont to lead?"
After a pause,
"Murielle," said the countess, with some asperity, "if you will not work with us, take your harp, and sing. Occupation will at times divert the mind, even from its most bitter thoughts. Please to give us the ballad of 'Sir Hugh le Blonde.'"
The ladies urged her to do so, but she replied briefly and wearily,—
"Under favour, I cannot sing."
"You cannot sing?" reiterated the countess, pausing in her work, and gazing at Murielle with her full black eyes, above which hung the wavy fringe of her absurdly lofty horned head-dress.
"I cannot sing that ballad—at least, just now."
"And wherefore?"
"I have forgotten it," said she, turning to the window.
"Do you remember when last you sang it?" asked Maud Douglas kindly, in a low voice.
"Oh yes, dear Maud," said Murielle, as her soft eyes filled with tears at the recollection of that night in the house of the abbot at Edinburgh, where—outwardly, at least—they all seemed so happy, and where her lover hung over her, as she played and sangfor him, and him only.
The impetuous young countess, a little despot in her own household, grew weary of her sister's silence and reserve, for Murielle's attachment was no secret to the family; she tossed aside the tapestry, and desired Mariota, theCaillean Rua, to summon her pages and a musician, that they might dance and practise thepavan, which was a slow and stately measure then in fashion, and which took its name from the peacock, because it was danced by knights in their mantles and ladies in their trains; but Murielle said gently, but firmly, as she withdrew to a corbelled stone balcony, upon which the windows of the bower-chamber opened,—
"Excuse me, dear Maggie, I pray you; but I am not in the mood either to dance or sing."
Irritated still more by this, Margaret followed, and found her with her face bowed upon the parapet, and weeping bitterly.
The nymph must lose her female friend,If more admired than she;But where will fierce contention end,If flowers can disagree?—Cowper.
"Is it so with you?" said the countess, roughly grasping her arm; "is it so—still mourning for that scurvy captain of the king's morris-pikes?"
"Morris-pikes! Oh, sister, can you compare to mummers, the men who formed the van at Piperden?"
"Ay, where a Douglas routed Piercy—a service, like others, committed to oblivion now," was the bitter response.
Murielle wept in silence, while her haughty sister continued to regard her with an expression in her eyes very much akin to disdain.
The poor girl had frequently been fretted and galled by hearing a much-loved name—alas! it might only be a much-reveredmemory—reviled; yet she bore it meekly, hoping daily for a change. But weeks became months, and months became seasons, yet no change came in the bearing of her sister; which, always haughty, turned at times violent and tempestuous.
The proud Margaret felt that she had done a wrong action by her second espousal, which had raised doubts in her mind that even the papal dispensation might fail to dispel; and while she writhed under this conviction, and longed for vengeance on the slayers of that handsome lover and boy-husband—whom she secretly mourned, even when in the arms of the subtle Earl James, she felt—she knew not why—irritated, and at times exasperated, by the meek, quiet, and passive tenor of Murielle's existence.
"Tears still," she resumed, "always tears; but beware how the earl finds you thus."
"Oh, Margaret, I have studied to conceal my living sorrow from him—from you—from all."
"But in vain, forallhave seen it. There is not a trencher-boy in the kitchen, or a groom in the stables, but knows of it as well as I do."
"Have you never considered, sister, what a terrible thing it is to have to forget—to strive at crushing all memory of the past—all hope for the future; to rend from the heart a love it has cherished for years?"
"Years!" reiterated Margaret, with an angry laugh; "you are but eighteen, Murielle."
"And you not twenty."
"Yet I have wept for a dead husband."
"And been consoled," was the unwise reply.
Margaret's cheek grew white with suppressed passion at the inference which might be drawn from this casual remark; but she said, emphatically,—
"Enough of this; my husband, to strengthen his house, has resolved that you shall become the bride of one who is second to none in Scotland; and he has sworn it on the cross of his sword, by God and St. Bryde, that it shall be so, even should he chain you to the altar-steps, in Tongland Abbey kirk."
"Oh, Maggie," said Murielle, in a piercing voice, "do not talk to me thus. I have given my heart into the keeping of Patrick Gray, and death itself cannot restore it to me, or rend it from him. Trustingly I gave it, dear sister, yonder—yonder, at the three auld thorns of the Carlinwark; so be merciful to me, for no better, fonder, or purer love than his, was ever offered up to woman."
"A king's minion!" said the countess, spitefully; "but it is the will of God you shall never be this."
"Never! Say not so; it sounds like a prophecy. Never——"
"But as the earl, my husband, has sworn——"
"Oh, impiety!"
"The bride of a nobler and better."
"A better, say you?" exclaimed Murielle, with an angry laugh.
"Dispute it if you can—Robert, duke of Albany."
"An outlawed traitor," said Murielle, warming in her turn; "is this your husband's scheme?"
"Yes, a scheme formed for your honour."
"It is a bold one."
"Most of his schemes are so," replied Margaret, quietly.
"Duke Robert is contracted to a daughter of Charles VII. of France," said Murielle, taking courage.
"The same power that permittedmysecond marriage, can annul his contract, and give him back his troth, from Mademoiselle Radegonde."
"Well, rather thanbreakmine, and be his bride, sister, you shall see me stretched in Tongland Abbey kirk, as cold as the marble tombs that lie there!"
"We shall see," replied Margaret, biting her cherry-like nether lip, and stamping her foot in growing wrath; but Murielle threw her white arms round her neck, and said plaintively,—
"You do not, you cannot mean all you say, Maggie. Ah, do not scold, when you should guide and aid me."
"Is it not my desire to see you happy?"
"Yes," sobbed Murielle; "I know, I hope that it is."
"And my husband's?"
"My kinsman, the earl, is a fearsome man!" said Murielle, with an ill-repressed shudder.
"Have I not striven for years to be your guide, your friend, your comforter, and now——"
"You would undo all the past, by making me the wife of the exiled Albany, that your husband's terrible aims and ends may be furthered, his feudal power and splendour increased."
"By raising you, perhaps, to"—the countess paused—"to a throne, little fool!"
"A throne?" reiterated Murielle, in absolute bewilderment.
"Yes, a throne," said Margaret, in a low voice, as she bent her black flashing eyes close to her startled sister's face; "where can all this leaguing and combination with Henry of England, Christian of Oldenburg, John of the Isles, and with so many discontented barons, end, but in the destruction of Livingstone, of Crichton, and of that boy-king, in whose name they slew the earl of Douglas?"
"Saint Mary keep us, sister; but this is murder, treason, regicide!" said Murielle, in terror and incredulity.
"I am speaking in our castle of Thrave," said the countess, significantly, as she patted the strong rampart with her white jewelled hand; "but I am unwise in talking to you of schemes, the magnitude of which you cannot comprehend, and the daring of which appals you."
"Oh, Maggie, all this can end but in one way."
"How?"
"Destruction, forfeiture, and death!"
"We shall see," replied the countess, calmly smoothing back her silky hair; "but to resume about this Patrick Gray—whois he, that he should aspire to love my sister, the daughter of a line of powerful earls?"
"He is a gentleman of stainless reputation, the trusted subject of the late king and of his son; a loyal soldier, whom, if I choose, I might marry to-morrow, and defy you all!" said Murielle, angrily.
Margaret now laughed in good earnest at her sister.
"Defy us?" she exclaimed; "lassie, you have gone crazy! I speak not of Ormond, of Pompherston, of Glendoning; but know you not that the smallest laird who bears our name could muster lances enough to harry his father's nest at Foulis, level his tower to the ground-stone, and swing his whole generation on the nearest tree?"
Murielle knew fully the truth of this, but she felt an increasing emotion of anger at the injustice and control to which she was so bluntly subjected, and now her haughty sister spoke again.
"Bear this in mind, that thrice has Earl James sworn by his most sacred oath, God, and his father's bones 'that our heather lintie, Murielle, shall be the bride of Albany, and sib to the throne, if not one dayuponit;' so cease to think more of this lover of yours, who, by the bye, I believe, once lovedme."
"Loved you!" exclaimed Murielle, in a breathless voice; "you, Margaret?"
"Yes," continued the imperious beauty, with confidence.
"He ever admired you, and asmysister, felt a friendship for you; but be assured that his dear heart never wandered from me," was the equally confident reply.
"You are a child!" retorted the countess.
"Perhaps I am, to endure all this petty tyranny; but a day may come—there are times when even a poor worm may turn."
"But think no more of him, I command you, for he is better as he is, dead, than living to be the rival of Robert, duke of Albany."
"Do not tell me, sister, that he was slain," said Murielle, in an imploring voice, while, her tears again fell fast; "he is not dead. I know that he isnotdead!"
"Youknow?" said Margaret, changing colour.
"Yes."
"Indeed—how?"
"Because I am living still!" replied Murielle, with divine confidence and hope.
And joy is mineWhen the strong castles besieged shake,And walls uprooted, totter and quake,And I see the foemen join,On the moated shore all compass'd roundWith palisade and guarded mound.Lays of the Minnesingers.
The result of this conversation, the wild and daring schemes of ambition and revenge it unfolded,—schemes of which she was to be made the tool and the victim, filled Murielle with alarm, and made her more than ever resolve to seek refuge in a convent; but an escape from the guarded castle of Thrave was not a matter to be easily accomplished, as its garrison, formed of the earl's most faithful "retainers, was (as we are told in the third of volume of 'Caledonia'), never less thanone thousand armed men."
A recent writer says, "in Scotland, but a hundred years ago, the head of a family was paramount, and household discipline was wielded without mercy." If such was the case a hundred years ago, it was exercised with greater rigour in the days of the second James.
So poor little Murielle found Thrave with all its splendour, a veritable prison, and the earl, her brother-in-law, a haughty and exacting tyrant.
Thrave, his greatest stronghold, was built upon an island of twenty acres in extent, formed by the rough and rapid Dee, situated about ten miles above its estuary, and thirty from its source, which is among the wooded hills of Minnigaff.
There on that islet the crusader Alan IV., lord of Galloway and constable of Scotland, had a fortress, and thereon, in after times, the Black Knight of Liddesdale, the comrade of Wallace and Bruce, reared the present castle of Thrave, a vast pile, the donjon of which is yet seventy feet in height, with walls eight feet in thickness, built of common stone from the adjacent moors.
The first story of this great pile consisted of the larder, the arsenals, and the dungeon, where many a chained wretch has wept during the hours that intervened between time and eternity.
In the second story were the apartments of the men-at-arms, the warders, grooms, and pages.
The third contained the apartments of the baron, his family, their guests, and the ladies' bower-chamber, with one apartment long secluded, that in which Archibald, earl of Douglas and lord of Galloway,—he whose second son won by his valour the titles of duke of Spruce and prince of Dantzig, died on the 3rd of February, 1400. Small Gothic windows gave light to these upper chambers, and narrow slits and loopholes to the lower.
A square barbican and four round flanking towers, with a deep fosse and drawbridge, formed the external barrier. After passing these, the only entrance to the keep was by a door placed so high in the wall that it opened on thesecondfloor, and this strange mode of access was farther secured by a small portcullis, grooved into the solid stone, the work of "the Brawny MacKim," the hereditary smith of the family.
To victual this stronghold each of the twenty-eight parishes which form the stewardry of Kirkcudbright had to contribute aLardner-mart-cowat Martinmas, for winter provisions; and the last attempt to levy these twenty-eight cattle was made in 1747, by William Maxwell, of Nithsdale.
In the front wall of the great tower, and immediately above the gateway, which bore all the armorial achievements of the proud and lordly owners, there still projects a large granite block, named thegallows knob, or hanging-stone, which, in the olden time, was seldom without itstassel, as the moss-troopers phrased it.
"Lest this barbarous emblem of feudal power should be minus its usual decoration," says a local historian, "when putrefaction became offensive before the corpse was cut down, if a malefactor was not in custody to be tucked up, it was replenished by some unoffending vassal. The charnel into which these victims were thrown is to this day named the 'gallows slot,' and notwithstanding the time that has elapsed since the downfall of the house of Douglas in Galloway, human bones in abundance were turned up when the present highway was made through it there in the year 1800."
Such was the grim feudal dwelling where now Murielle Douglas found herself an inmate,—almost a prisoner,—foredoomed to be the tool, perhaps the victim, of the dark plots and of the ambition and pride of its lord and owner, whose general character the following anecdote will amply illustrate.
As Steward of Kirkcudbright and Lord Warden of the Western Marches, he ordered James Achanna, with a strong and well-armed band, to apprehend Sir Herbert Herries of Terregles, a gentleman of ancient family, who had large possessions in the stewardry, and bring him prisoner to Thrave, despite the tears of his daughter, Lady Maxwell, of Carlaveroc, and the entreaties of his youngest son, who was rector of Kirkpatrick.
He was oddly charged with "daring to recover a portion of hisownproperty, which had been appropriated by Achanna and other lawless followers of the house of Douglas, and further, of resisting them in arms."
Sir Herbert was a man of high courage and probity, who had given himself as a hostage to England for the ransom of James I. He had been a commissioner for the trial of Murdoch, duke of Albany, father of that Duke Robert who was now thebête noirof Murielle; and he had lately been one of the ambassadors who had gone to France to arrange the marriage of the gentle and unfortunate Margaret of Scotland with the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI, the French Nero, of terrible memory.
When brought before Douglas, in the hall, he was surveyed with stern and haughty malevolence.
"Your little blockhouse of Terregles," said the earl, mockingly, as he lounged in his canopied chair, "in common with other fortlets of the petty barons of Galloway, is only occasionally decked with a dangling villain, whereas our gallows knob of Thrave has not been withouta tassel for fifty years, and so it shall be while Dalbeattie wood grows and the Urr water runs!"
"True," replied Terregles; "and one who was my henchman, my foster-brother, and my most faithful friend, taken by your ruthless wretch Achanna, is hanging there at this moment."
"And having hung the usual time, he shall now be removed to make way for his master."
"Earl Douglas, you dare not!" exclaimed Sir Herbert, starting forward.
"Dare not! ha! ha! and why?"
"I am the king's liege man, and a baron of parliament!"
"Is that all you can urge?" asked Douglas, still mocking.
"No——"
"What more?"
"Even now a royal herald is at the gate, with an express order for my release."
"Mahoun! its coming has sealed your doom. Achanna, tear off his ruff, and replace it with a hempen cravat," was the stern order of Douglas; so the unfortunate Sir Herbert was instantly hanged in his armour from the gallows knob, while the king's herald was ignominiously expelled.
Yet this fierce and unscrupulous lord paid large sums to the Church for masses for the souls of his ancestors, and had periodical fits of prayer and fasting, which were very troublesome, alike to his cooks and hungry retainers. At times he trembled for bad news if he saw a crow in his path, and crossed himself if he saw the new moon for the first time through a window. He smeared himself, like Achanna, with ashes on Ash Wednesday, and ate hot cross-buns with due reverence on Good Friday; and to him the abbot of Tongland, as keeper of the avenue to heaven, or theotherplace, was alternately a demigod to worship or a bugbear to avoid. Yet, withal, he had connived with Crichton and the regent in the destruction of his kinsmen, and wedded the wealthy widow of Earl William, but consoled himself with the solemn dispensation of Pope Eugene IV., who, however, was thendeposedby the Council of Basle.
Of this great voyage which you undertake,Much by his skill and much by my adviceHath he foreknown, and welcome for my sakeYou both shall be, the man is kind and wise.Fairfax's Tasso.
Though left by the Douglases as dead upon the street, Sir Patrick Gray survived the horrors of the tumult at the Abbot's Gate; and though covered with severe wounds, inflicted by swords, daggers, and pikes, he grew well and hale again; but only after a year of suffering, convalescence, and confinement to a sick chamber, during which his fiery and energetic spirit writhed in inactivity—for there are some men whom it is alike difficult to subdue or kill.
Death long disputed with life and youth for the victim; but men did not die easily in these old times of brawl and battle; yet he had upon his person, as the abbot of Tongland records, "three and twentye woundis," and recovered them all.
"Men," says some one, "are unaware what toil, pain, or suffering they are capable of until they have been put to the test."
The wound inflicted by the ghisarma of Earl James was not his least annoyance, as it had laid open both cheeks; thus a cicatrized slash traversed his face, which so completely altered its expression, that after a little difference in the trimming of his hair and beard, few would have recognized him; but the lady of the chancellor, like all the thrifty dames of those turbulent and homely days, was a famous leech, and by the lotions and cosmetics she prepared for him, and applied daily with her own hands, was not without hope that within "a year and a day, or perhaps within a few months more," it would be obliterated; and all the young ladies about the young king's court, even the charming princesses his sisters, had an interest in this process, and the progress of his recovery, for the Captain of the Guard was one of the handsomest men of the time, and a favourite with them all.
He had been conveyed to the chancellor's apartments in St. Margaret's Tower, within the castle of Edinburgh, and there for many months he had been tended with every care, till the period at which we now return to him.
The wily chancellor was not unjust. He felt that Sir Patrick Gray had suffered much in the king's service; loss of health, almost of life, and the loss perhaps of a beautiful mistress, were hard things to encounter, for he knew that the bloody events of the 23rd and 24th of November had opened up an impassable chasm between Gray and the family of Douglas.
Crichton loved all who loved the king, and this was the great tie between him and Gray, whose friendship he strove sedulously to cultivate and preserve, though the more open soldier detested the mode by which the regent and chancellor had striven, so futilely, to crush the mighty house of Douglas.
Gray's weak state after his many wounds, combined with his grief, at what he deemed the loss for ever of Murielle, affected him so much, that during the severe winter of 1440 he nearly sank under his sufferings. He rallied, however, by youth and inborn strength, though good St. Giles, of Edinburgh, to whose altar, in the spirit of the times, he devoted several pounds of wax and silver, got the whole credit of the change.
Lady Agnes of Crichton and the courtiers said he was "dying of love." The chancellor could believe in a stout man-at-arms dying of a slash from Earl James's battle-axe, butnotof love for Murielle, his kinswoman, however beautiful and gentle she might be; so he only smiled at their surmises, and when Gray was able to ride a little every day on a quiet horse led by his page, Crichton resolved to find him some active employment so soon as he was stronger.
So Gray, as we have said, writhed in inactivity when his friends and kinsmen, MacLellan and Andrew Gray, of Balgarno, had marched from Stirling to Athole to capture the great freebooter, John Gorm Stewart. He had heard from Andrew Gray of the conflict on the north Inch of Perth, where the sheriff had been cloven down by the two-handed sword of Stewart, who, in turn, had been slain by MacLellan, but not until he had so severely wounded the latter, that he had been compelled to return for a time to his castle of Raeberry, on the shore of the Solway Firth.
And during this long period of seclusion and inactivity Gray had longed with all a lover's restless longing for some tidings of Murielle; but those about the chancellor were either unwilling or unable to afford him any.
So the time rolled wearily on.
One afternoon he was sitting dreamily in the recess of a window of St. Margaret's Tower, which stood upon the western verge of the castle rock, but was demolished during the long siege of 1573.
It was a somewhat gloomy apartment (it wasthenthree hundred and eighty years old), built in the Saxon style, with grotesquely-carved heads and zig-zag mouldings round the arches, and hung with long russet-coloured tapestry, which had been worked by the hands of Annabella, the queen of Robert III., to hide the bare, rough walls. This tapestry was old now; its tenter-hooks were rusty, and it swayed in the currents of wind, which passed through the fireplace, on the shelf of which, in memory of the good queen who once dwelt there, was inscribed the pious request,—
ora pro nobis
Sancta Margarita, ora pro nobis.
Beneath the windows was the verdant slope whereon three mounds, of solemn aspect, were traceable. The coarse dog-grass, the white gowan, and pink witch-thimbles (or foxglove), grew there in rank luxuriance now, and as they swayed in the evening wind, were all that marked where lay the three victims of that terrible vigil of St. Catharine.
The autumnal sun was sinking. The vast and fertile plain of wood and wold which stretches from the foot of the castle rock for fifty miles to the westward, was steeped in warm light; and the sun's diverging rays of ruddy gold, as he sank behind the rugged ridges of Corstorphine, filled all the western sky with a shining glory, which threw forward, in strong, black outline, the intervening woods and rocks, hills and knolls.
Gray's eyes were apparently fixed upon the dark mountains and the beautiful plain, all brightness and fertility; but they dwelt on vacancy, for he saw, instead, a graceful head, with a mass of wavy hair, long-lashed, gentle eyes, of a violet blue, a soft face, with a brilliant complexion, and a slightly rose-tinted cheek.
There was a sound in his ear too.
It was the voice of Murielle, conjured up with all a lover's memory in an age of poetry, romance, and enthusiasm, when knightly faith and purity, and even somewhat of fading chivalry, were lingering in the northern land.
A hand was laid on his shoulder; he started, and on turning met the keen eyes, the thoughtful face, and tall thin figure of the chancellor, who was clad in his fur-trimmed gown, which was girt at the waist by an embroidered girdle, whereat hung, as usual, his tablets, pouch, and dagger.
"You did not hear the servitor announce me, Sir Patrick," said he; "were you dreaming of Elf-land, or some far-off day of happiness?"
"Your pardon!—though not much given to flights of fancy," replied Sir Patrick, starting, "Iwasin a dreamy mood."
"Nay, do not rise, but rest—and say how fare you,"
"Ill enough, my lord," replied the captain, passing a thin wan hand across his pale brow with a troubled air; "ill enough, and weary too."
"In body?"
"Yes—and in spirit."
"That is a matter beyond the skill of such a leech even as my good wife Agnes."
"Her kindness and care are only equalled by my gratitude; and see," added Sir Patrick, smiling, "she has hung at my neck her own miraculous pomander-ball, lest the plague that rages now in Fife might here infect me. But I am weary of resting and of idleness; yet alas! and alake! Sir William, I fear me this arm will never curb a horse's head again; and as for handling my sword, a child might twitch it from me at the third pass! Here an arrow-head was wedged between the bones of the right forearm; but I gave the archer a notch on the knuckles that will mar his shooting for life."
"Well, there is some comfort in that," replied the chancellor, "and greater had there been, could you have notched the head of Abercorn, or Douglas as he is entitled now."
A hectic flush crossed the face of Sir Patrick, who replied, huskily: "After what had taken place on the preceding day, I would not have struck a blow atherkinsman, even to save my life!"
"Afterwhathad taken place?" reiterated the chancellor, gloomily.
"Ay, on the vigil of St. Catharine," continued Gray with firmness, and something of reproach in his tone.
"Enough of that," said the other, hastily, as he passed his handkerchief over his brow, and replaced it in his embroidered pouch; "I have other things to speak of than those which are past and beyond all human remedy. But was it not a cruel act and merciless deed in Earl James to smite down a poor gentleman, who clung to him, bleeding, faint, and despairing——"
"It matters not, Sir William—it matters not; I have made up my mind to leave Scotland."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Crichton, with astonishment.
"For some—it may be for many, many years,—perchance I may return no more."
"How—what mean you?"
"That Charles VII. of France wants soldiers to aid him in his wars against the English and Burgundians, and I shall seek his camp for knight-service; or it may be, that I shall go further off, to the distant East, where the Greek empire, under the Emperor Constantine, is now threatened by the accursed pagans of the Sultan Mahomet, and where brave hearts and sharp swords are wanted to defend Christian women and the altars of God from desecration; and so there are times, chancellor, when I think I shall even find a stranger's grave on the banks of the Bosphorus."
The chancellor, who had no wish that the king should lose so faithful and valiant a soldier as Sir Patrick Gray, whom he knew to be resolute, and somewhat obstinate in purpose, listened to this bitter outburst with some concern; but, patting him on the shoulder as he might have done a restive horse, he replied, smiling, "Leave Greek and Turk to fight their own battles; abide you by your king; and when the time comes, as come it must, let your grave be dug, not in the land of the sun-burned and God-abandoned pagans, but in the old kirk of Foulis, where your Scottish forefathers lie. Moreover, can it be, that you have forgotten your promise to King James—that you would be a faithful friend and mentor to his son?"
"True—true—I have," replied Gray, biting his nether lip till the wound in his face made him wince; "but you know, chancellor, that I am pledged to Murielle Douglas, and that I cannot bide in Scotland without her."
"I may find a way to let you leave it, and yet preserve your promise to King James,—a way that shall suit your restless humour; but speak no more to me of Murielle Douglas," said the chancellor, as his brows knit and his eyes loured. "Listen: I have other views for you; it may be a royal alliance itself."
"Royal?" was the perplexed reiteration.
"Yes."
Here Sir Patrick Gray, who knew that he was really loved by this unscrupulous statesman, gazed at him with a curiously-mingled expression of surprise, amusement, and grim disdain; but being a poor soldier and loyal gentleman, with no heritage but his sword and spurs, he felt himself compelled to listen, though almost degraded by having to do so.
"You are aware, Sir Patrick, that the king has several fair sisters?" began the chancellor.
Sir Patrick bowed.
"Each is lovely, though still in girlhood—and, under favour, lovelier, it may be, than the little lady who dwells among the king's rebels in Thrave—for rebels are they to the heart's-core, though not yet in arms."
Gray's pale face flushed, and for a moment the scar upon his face grew nearly black; but he merely said, "Well;" and the chancellor, while playing with his pouch and dagger, resumed, in an easy conversational tone.
"All the crown-lands, the king's rents, castles, baronies, mills, mails, and fishings, cannot find dowers royal enough of these six dames, his sisters, at present. Do you understand me?"
"Not exactly. You must be more plain, my lord chancellor."
"'Tis not the first time that a king's daughter has wedded a simple knight."
"In old ballads, Sir William; and I would be asimpleknight indeed to cast my eyes so high."
"The queen-mother is now the wife of the Black Knight of Lorn," said Crichton, with the air of one who finds a convincing argument.
"But he is a different man from the poor captain of the king's paid pikemen! St. Mary! a sorry figure would I cut, riding up to my father's tower-gate, with my princess behind me on a pillion, and settling there to become a scrape-trencher, while she assisted my mother in brewhouse and bakery! Take heed, chancellor; I need not be dazzled thus, to keep me faithful to my king. So, enough of this! I am not ignorant that all these princesses are promised, not to simple knights, but to foreign princes."
"Notall," said the chancellor, with an air of annoyance; "the Princess Margaret is, I know, contracted to Louis, the dauphin of France."
"A troublesome brother-in-law he might prove to the younger son of the laird of Foulis," replied Gray, laughing outright.
"The Lady Elizabeth——"
"Is contracted to the duke of Brittany; and in a month Eleonora will be the bride of Sigismund le Debonnair, archduke of Austria, and duke of all the dukes in Almaynie; while the Lady Mary will be wedded to the lord of Campvere."
"I knew not that you were so well versed in state secrets," said the chancellor coldly, with an affected smile.
"You forget, my dear Sir William, that your good lady has been my nurse."
"There is the Lady Annabelle."
"A child," said Sir Patrick, laughing louder to conceal the annoyance that rankled in his heart; "oh! oh! Sir William, I should have to wait ten years at least till my wife grew up. Dost take me for a fool, a very mooncalf, though I have listened to you? But to the point: say what service you seek of me, as I have made up my mind to leave Scotland in a month. Believe me, I need no bribe for faith and service to my king; and, as to Murielle Douglas, the wealth of Prester John of the Indies, if such a man there be, with the love of an empress, would not win me from her, though it may be that, with this gash on my face, she—she might shrink from me now."
"Did I not say that I might suit your humour and also serve the king?" asked the chancellor.
"How?"
"Hearken," said Crichton, placing a hand on the arm of Gray.
"Say on," said the latter impatiently.
"In two years from this, the king will take upon himself the government of the nation, and I shall retire me to my old castle of Crichton, in the Glen of Tync, beyond the Esk, and spend there my latter days in peace."
"The government—in 1444—this boy?"
"The boy will then be fifteen, and he is a manly boy withal. The time is coming when he must be contracted to a foreign princess, and, through the lord of Campvere, Duke Arnold of Gueldreland has made overtures on the part of his daughter Mary, now in her ninth year. To these overtures the regent and myself, with the consent of the lords of council, have thought it meet to respond, and you shall bear our missives to the duke, who is now either in Gueldreland, in Brabant, or Burgundy, I know not which; and in due time I, with a fitting train, will set out for his capital. But promise me to be secret as you are faithful in this matter, and remember it is in the service ofthe king."
"In this embassy I promise to do all that may become a loyal man—save wed the Lady Mary of Gueldres herself; for, after all you have proposed, by the mass! I knew not where your generosity might end."
"Good!" replied Crichton. "To-night I ride for Stirling, to see the regent and Queen Jane; when I return, you shall have your sealed letters of credence, and Dirltoun the treasurer shall pave the way with gold."
The chancellor shook his hand with kindness, and retired, leaving the frank and single-hearted soldier to consider the journey before him; the yet greater separation by land, water, and time, it would make between himself and Murielle, and also to surmise whether the proposal merely veiled some deeper and more distant object; for, since that fatal 24th of November, Gray had ever a doubt of the regent, the chancellor, and their projects.
"He overshot the butt—his cunning hath outdone itself," muttered Gray. "Did he not think a ward of the crown would content the king's poor soldier for a bride? but a princess—ha! ha!" And he uttered a merry but scornful laugh.
As the twilight deepened, and the shores of the Forth blended in the distance with its darkening waters, he thought over all that had passed; but was not left long to his own reflections, for a grey-bearded pikeman of his guard drew back the moth-eaten arras, and announced his kinsman, Sir Thomas MacLellan, of Bombie.
Awake, awake! lover, I bring, I bringMost gladsome news, that blissful are and sureOf thy comfort; now laugh, and play, and sing.Full soon thou shalt achieve thine adventure,For in the heaven decretit is thy cure.Remains of James I. of Scotland.
"Welcome, my good and merry friend!" exclaimed Gray, starting forward to greet him;—"lights, wine, and a jolly greybeard of usquebaugh," he added to his servant;—"and you have returned."
"'Tis but an hour since I alighted at an hostelry, with two hackneys, a sumpter-nag, and my best suit of armour, packed on the saddle of my black horse—you remember it—with the curtal tail."
"Your wounds——"
"Are well and whole, though, sooth to say, the two-handed whinger of John Gorm was somewhat heavy for one's patience, and cut through my chain-shirt and jack-wambeson, as if they had been pie-crust. But I am recovered now. The pure breeze that comes over the broad Solway and whistles round the turrets of old Raeberry has made me a hale man again."
"Would that I could say the same," sighed Gray.
"That slash on the face——"
"Won't please a woman's eye now, I fear me."
"But to wed one who objected thereto would be to throw one's ace in the game of matrimony," replied MacLellan, tossing upon a settle his sword, jewelled dagger, and laced mantle; "yes—even were she a princess."
"Soho, man! talk not of princesses—I have just had my choice of six."
"Six!—daughters of the queen of Elphen?"
"Nay, six of flesh and blood, and declined them all," said Gray, laughing.
"What riddle is this?—or has a fairy indeed been with you?"
"You shall hear."
Lights had now been brought, and the candles, in the brass sconces which hung on the tapestried wall, cast lines of steady radiance across the otherwise gloomy old chamber. The arras was drawn across the windows, in the gratings of which, as well as through the battlement of the tower overhead, the wind was whistling. Red and white wine, in flasks of Venetian silver, glittered on the table; and to these was added usquebaugh, in one of those stone jars which came from Flanders, and had in front a bearded mask; whence the Scottish name of "greybeard" for a whisky-jar to this day.
The friends drew their seats close to the table.
MacLellan carefully wiped the dew from his sword, a short weapon, the steel of which was embrowned—a fancy of the time (whence, perhaps, the "berry-brown blades" of old songs)—and in it were little flutes, to permit the blood to run off when used in mortal strife; for our Scottish sires studied all these little matters to a nicety. MacLellan's handsome and athletic figure was displayed to advantage in his steel cuirass and gorget, his hanging sleeves, and long black riding-boots, the tops of which were strapped to his girdle. His face was ruddy and sunburnt; his black curly hair was closely cropped, in the fashion of the time; he had a moustache, though then military men wore it seldom, and none but the old indulged in beards.
With considerable animation, he related his adventures among the hills and forests of Athole,—the capture of the great freebooter,—the sudden resistance offered by him and his followers at Perth,—and the conflict on the north Inch, without the city wall. To all this Gray listened with some impatience, nor did he begin to evince any interest until the lieutenant, at the conclusion of his narrative, detailed his sojourn at his castle of Raeberry, in Galloway.
"What news bring you from that part of the country?" he asked.
"The burden of the old song—rief and stouthrief, oppression, hamesücken, and outrage, on the part of the Douglases, who make all bow to their rule; so that no man, of whatsoever rank he be, or however strong his dwelling, can lie down to sleep with the certainty of being a live man at the dawn of day."
"And what of dame Margaret?"
"Well," replied MacLellan, holding a glass of red wine between him and the light, to watch the gossamer beeswing as it floated to and fro, "you have heard, of course, how loosely the wedding-ring hung on her fair finger?"
"How—how?" asked Gray, impetuously.
"Is it possible that you do not know?" asked MacLellan, with surprise.
"What? I have heard nothing here."
"That she is wedded to James, earl of Abercorn, who is also now of Douglas."
"Wedded!" reiterated Gray, with unfeigned astonishment in his eyes and voice, as he now heard of this strange and formidable alliance for the first time; "wedded to the widow of his nephew?"
"Exactly—the poor boy who lies below the castle wall without; and a strong alliance our regent and chancellor may find it prove."
"But what says the church to this?" asked Gray, after a pause.
"The Countess Margaret is heiress of Galloway, Wigton, Balvenie, Ormond, and Annandale—a good slice of braid Scotland," replied MacLellan, in a bantering tone, as he hated the Douglases; "James, umquhile only of Abercorn and Avondale, is a mighty lord; so the most reverend father in God, Alexander—by divine permission bishop ofCandida Casa(so run the pastorals to his pretty flock, the moss-troopers)—put a good round sum in gold nobles in his pouch, dozes away in his episcopal chair, and troubles not his mitred head about the matter; for is not Abbot John of Tongland, the keeper of the earl's conscience, a Douglas? By St. Paul, it is hardly wise or pleasant to call oneself by a different surname on the other side of the Nith, and I have some thoughts of getting permission from the king-of-arms, to call myself Archibald or Sholto Douglas—they are all one or other—as a surer warrant for a whole skin."
"Truly, we live in strange times!" pondered Gray; "and Murielle—Lady Murielle—you have not spoken of her?"
"Men say she is the same little moping, mooning nun, as ever."
"Beloved Murielle!" thought Gray in his heart, "And say, kinsman, how does she look?"
"Lovelier than her wont. She improves as she grows older, like this wine of Alicant; but there is a pensiveness about her——"
"A pensiveness?"
"That must be very flattering to you."
"Jesting again," said Gray, with annoyance.
"Under favour, not in the least."
"Then you really saw her, MacLellan?"
"How could I have judged of her beauty or pensiveness else?"
"Often?"
"Once only, my friend."
"At Thrave?"
"No, faith!" replied Sir Thomas, laughing and shrugging his shoulders; "I have a wholesome dread of that ugly gallows knob above the castle gate. But I did see her, however, and so closely, that her cramasie skirts rustled against my leather gambadoes, as she passed me."
"Where—where?"
"In the Lady Chapel of Tongland. I would have helped her to holy water from the font, but it was frozen hard and fast; for it was Candlemas day, and the Dee below the abbey wall was a sheet of ice, from rock to rock."
"You saw her," said Gray musingly, with a soft smile, as if he conjured up her face and form; "you saw, and yet did not speak with her?"
"By St. Cuthbert, 'twere as much as my life is worth to have done so, begirt as she was by Earl James's surly swashbucklers and rusty helmetted moss-troopers; but, from all I can learn in Galloway, she believes you dead."
"Oh—impossible!"
"Why so? Did she not see you stricken to the earth by the swords and mauls of more than a hundred wild Galwegians, Douglases, and devils?"
"True, she must have seen it—if, indeed, she could have looked upon it."
"Be assured that curiosity will conquer alarm—even love, at times," responded the sceptical MacLellan.
"A fatal mistake may result from all this."
"What mean you by a fatal mistake—a marriage?"
"Yes," said Gray, with a bitter sigh.
"It is not unlikely," replied the lieutenant, carelessly, while polishing his cuirass with a leather glove.
"How—why do you say so?"
"Nay; I did but echo your own thoughts."
"I have none; I am full of sorrow and bewilderment."
"Earl James and his countess are leaving nothing undone to strengthen their hands for some great enterprise. All men in Galloway say so, from the Brig of Dumfries to the Point of Kirkcolm; for theblack dinneris yet fresh in their minds, and the marriage of Lady Murielle to a powerful lord might—might——"
"Say on."
"Add a few thousand men to their strength, should the Douglases make a Raid out of Galloway."
"Oh, how many secret tears must all this have cost her! She believes me dead: dear Murielle! I could joyously die for her—"
"Joyously tolivefor her, would be to act the wiser part," said the other, with a loud laugh.
"Ever mocking, MacLellan. It is enough to madden me, this doubt and fear; these bold schemes on one hand, her gentleness and ignorance of my fate on the other; while I am under pledge to leave Scotland for Flanders on the king's service, and may not—nay, I cannot return sooner than half a year hence, having a voyage to Sluys by sea, and a journey to Gueldres on horseback before me. I would give this gold chain for a trusty messenger to Galloway."
"You should add for aboldone; as some courage is required to conveybillets-douxunder the gallows knob of Thrave."
"Jesting again, kinsman," said Gray, reproachfully.
"Nay, I do not jest," said MacLellan, suddenly becoming serious. "Within a month from this, I return to my house at Raeberry, which I am strengthening by new walls and towers, as I know not what mischief James the Gross may be hatching; and I give you my faith as an honourable man, that I will see Murielle Douglas, and bear to her your farewell messages. This I will do, if the act should cost me liberty and life. I have often, ere this, perilled both for a less matter."
Little did the brave Lieutenant of the King's Guard foresee that these were no idle words, and that this rash promise to his friend would cost the exact penalty he so heedlessly named, and would send down his story among the many dark episodes of the Scottish annals; but of this, more anon.
Gray's heart was filled with gratitude by the offer, and after MacLellan retired, he began to look forward with more confidence, and even pleasure, to his projected mission into Flanders, as a scene of new adventures, and an agreeable change after the sufferings and monotony of the past year.
Within a month after the conversation just detailed, Sir Patrick Gray had embarked at the old Timber Holfe of Leith, and sailed from Scotland on board theSt. Regulus, a caravel belonging to the monks of St. Mary, at Pittenweem, who were great traders and shipowners in those days.
At the same time MacLellan, faithful to his promise, contrived to convey a letter from him to Murielle, who was so worn out by the daily persecution she experienced, and being assured of her lover's death (indeed, Achanna swore to have seen his tomb in the church of St. Giles), that she was on the point of consenting in the desperate longing for peace, to receive the addresses of the duke of Albany, who was then in exile on the Continent. But now, suddenly hope revived in her heart; the bloom came back to her cheek, and the light to her eye; strength of purpose returned to her, and she resisted so strenuously, that the subtle earl and his imperious countess found their schemes completely marred for the time.
As a proof that he still lived, she displayed Sir Patrick's treasured letter, which had fallen at her feet attached to an arrow, shot, she knew not by whom, as she walked one day by the margin of the isle on which the castle stands; but her sister tore the missive from her hands, stigmatized it as a vile forgery, and rent it to fragments, which she trampled under foot in presence of her bower maidens.
Then the sombre earl swore his deepest oath that, if the bearer could be discovered, he would soon be dangling from the gallows knob above the gate.
So Murielle, in new happiness, prayed for the safety of her lover, while his ship bore merrily across the summer sea towards the coast of Flanders.
Meantime the earl, to perfect his political intrigues with Albany, to make his sure peace with Pope Eugene IV., who had privately disapproved of his marriage while publicly dispensing him, resolved to visit Rome. He was not without hope, by change of scene and distance from home, to divert the mind of Murielle, and bend her to his purpose.
He prepared a brilliant train of knights and followers, and took with him the abbot of Tongland, who volunteered to smooth over all difficult matters at the Vatican, and who hoped, moreover, as he displayed a mighty parchment, that, "before he returned to the wilds of Galloway, the master of lies and iniquity, the father of all evil and evil devices, should once more have become a pure spirit, clad in a shining raiment."