We must return to the characters of our dramatic narrative whom weleft at Perth, when we accompanied the glover and his fair daughterto Kinfauns, and from that hospitable mansion traced the course ofSimon to Loch Tay; and the Prince, as the highest personage, claimsour immediate attention.
This rash and inconsiderate young man endured with some impatience his sequestered residence with the Lord High Constable, with whose company, otherwise in every respect satisfactory, he became dissatisfied, from no other reason than that he held in some degree the character of his warder. Incensed against his uncle and displeased with his father, he longed, not unnaturally, for the society of Sir John Ramorny, on whom he had been so long accustomed to throw himself for amusement, and, though he would have resented the imputation as an insult, for guidance and direction. He therefore sent him a summons to attend him, providing his health permitted; and directed him to come by water to a little pavilion in the High Constable’s garden, which, like that of Sir John’s own lodgings, ran down to the Tay. In renewing an intimacy so dangerous, Rothsay only remembered that he had been Sir Join Ramorny’s munificent friend; while Sir John, on receiving the invitation, only recollected, on his part, the capricious insults he had sustained from his patron, the loss of his hand, and the lightness with which he had treated the subject, and the readiness with which Rothsay had abandoned his cause in the matter of the bonnet maker’s slaughter. He laughed bitterly when he read the Prince’s billet.
“Eviot,” he said, “man a stout boat with six trusty men—trusty men, mark me—lose not a moment, and bid Dwining instantly come hither.
“Heaven smiles on us, my trusty friend,” he said to the mediciner. “I was but beating my brains how to get access to this fickle boy, and here he sends to invite me.”
“Hem! I see the matter very clearly,” said Dwining. “Heaven smiles on some untoward consequences—he! he! he!”
“No matter, the trap is ready; and it is baited, too, my friend, with what would lure the boy from a sanctuary, though a troop with drawn weapons waited him in the churchyard. Yet is it scarce necessary. His own weariness of himself would have done the job. Get thy matters ready—thou goest with us. Write to him, as I cannot, that we come instantly to attend his commands, and do it clerkly. He reads well, and that he owes to me.”
“He will be your valiancie’s debtor for more knowledge before he dies—he! he! he! But is your bargain sure with the Duke of Albany?”
“Enough to gratify my ambition, thy avarice, and the revenge of both. Aboard—aboard, and speedily; let Eviot throw in a few flasks of the choicest wine, and some cold baked meats.”
“But your arm, my lord, Sir John? Does it not pain you?”
“The throbbing of my heart silences the pain of my wound. It beats as it would burst my bosom.”
“Heaven forbid!” said Dwining; adding, in a low voice—“It would be a strange sight if it should. I should like to dissect it, save that its stony case would spoil my best instruments.”
In a few minutes they were in the boat, while a speedy messenger carried the note to the Prince.
Rothsay was seated with the Constable, after their noontide repast. He was sullen and silent; and the earl had just asked whether it was his pleasure that the table should be cleared, when a note, delivered to the Prince, changed at once his aspect.
“As you will,” he said. “I go to the pavilion in the garden—always with permission of my Lord Constable—to receive my late master of the horse.”
“My lord!” said Lord Errol.
“Ay, my lord; must I ask permission twice?”
“No, surely, my lord,” answered the Constable; “but has your Royal Highness recollected that Sir John Ramorny—”
“Has not the plague, I hope?” replied the Duke of Rothsay. “Come, Errol, you would play the surly turnkey, but it is not in your nature; farewell for half an hour.”
“A new folly!” said Errol, as the Prince, flinging open a lattice of the ground parlour in which they sat, stept out into the garden—“a new folly, to call back that villain to his counsels. But he is infatuated.”
The Prince, in the mean time, looked back, and said hastily:
“Your lordship’s good housekeeping will afford us a flask or two of wine and a slight collation in the pavilion? I love the al fresco of the river.”
The Constable bowed, and gave the necessary orders; so that Sir John found the materials of good cheer ready displayed, when, landing from his barge, he entered the pavilion.
“It grieves my heart to see your Highness under restraint,” said Ramorny, with a well executed appearance of sympathy.
“That grief of thine will grieve mine,” said the Prince. “I am sure here has Errol, and a right true hearted lord he is, so tired me with grave looks, and something like grave lessons, that he has driven me back to thee, thou reprobate, from whom, as I expect nothing good, I may perhaps obtain something entertaining. Yet, ere we say more, it was foul work, that upon the Fastern’s Even, Ramorny. I well hope thou gavest not aim to it.”
“On my honour, my lord, a simple mistake of the brute Bonthron. I did hint to him that a dry beating would be due to the fellow by whom I had lost a hand; and lo you, my knave makes a double mistake. He takes one man for another, and instead of the baton he uses the axe.”
“It is well that it went no farther. Small matter for the bonnet maker; but I had never forgiven you had the armourer fallen—there is not his match in Britain. But I hope they hanged the villain high enough?”
“If thirty feet might serve,” replied Ramorny.
“Pah! no more of him,” said Rothsay; “his wretched name makes the good wine taste of blood. And what are the news in Perth, Ramorny? How stands it with the bona robas and the galliards?”
“Little galliardise stirring, my lord,” answered the knight. “All eyes are turned to the motions of the Black Douglas, who comes with five thousand chosen men to put us all to rights, as if he were bound for another Otterburn. It is said he is to be lieutenant again. It is certain many have declared for his faction.”
“It is time, then, my feet were free,” said Rothsay, “otherwise I may find a worse warder than Errol.”
“Ah, my lord! were you once away from this place, you might make as bold a head as Douglas.”
“Ramorny,” said the Prince, gravely, “I have but a confused remembrance of your once having proposed something horrible to me. Beware of such counsel. I would be free—I would have my person at my own disposal; but I will never levy arms against my father, nor those it pleases him to trust.”
“It was only for your Royal Highness’s personal freedom that I was presuming to speak,” answered Ramorny. “Were I in your Grace’s place, I would get me into that good boat which hovers on the Tay, and drop quietly down to Fife, where you have many friends, and make free to take possession of Falkland. It is a royal castle; and though the King has bestowed it in gift on your uncle, yet surely, even if the grant were not subject to challenge, your Grace might make free with the residence of so near a relative.”
“He hath made free with mine,” said the Duke, “as the stewartry of Renfrew can tell. But stay, Ramorny—hold; did I not hear Errol say that the Lady Marjory Douglas, whom they call Duchess of Rothsay, is at Falkland? I would neither dwell with that lady nor insult her by dislodging her.”
“The lady was there, my lord,” replied Ramorny; “I have sure advice that she is gone to meet her father.”
“Ha! to animate the Douglas against me? or perhaps to beg him to spare me, providing I come on my knees to her bed, as pilgrims say the emirs and amirals upon whom a Saracen soldan bestows a daughter in marriage are bound to do? Ramorny, I will act by the Douglas’s own saying, ‘It is better to hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak.’ I will keep both foot and hand from fetters.”
“No place fitter than Falkland,” replied Ramorny. “I have enough of good yeomen to keep the place; and should your Highness wish to leave it, a brief ride reaches the sea in three directions.”
“You speak well. But we shall die of gloom yonder. Neither mirth, music, nor maidens—ha!” said the heedless Prince.
“Pardon me, noble Duke; but, though the Lady Marjory Douglas be departed, like an errant dame in romance, to implore succour of her doughty sire, there is, I may say, a lovelier, I am sure a younger, maiden, either presently at Falkland or who will soon be on the road thither. Your Highness has not forgotten the Fair Maid of Perth?”
“Forget the prettiest wench in Scotland! No—any more than thou hast forgotten the hand that thou hadst in the Curfew Street onslaught on St. Valentine’s Eve.”
“The hand that I had! Your Highness would say, the hand that I lost. As certain as I shall never regain it, Catharine Glover is, or will soon be, at Falkland. I will not flatter your Highness by saying she expects to meet you; in truth, she proposes to place herself under the protection of the Lady Marjory.”
“The little traitress,” said the Prince—“she too to turn against me? She deserves punishment, Ramorny.”
“I trust your Grace will make her penance a gentle one,” replied the knight.
“Faith, I would have been her father confessor long ago, but I have ever found her coy.”
“Opportunity was lacking, my lord,” replied Ramorny; “and time presses even now.”
“Nay, I am but too apt for a frolic; but my father—”
“He is personally safe,” said Ramorny, “and as much at freedom as ever he can be; while your Highness—”
“Must brook fetters, conjugal or literal—I know it. Yonder comes Douglas, with his daughter in his hand, as haughty and as harsh featured as himself, bating touches of age.”
“And at Falkland sits in solitude the fairest wench in Scotland,” said Ramorny. “Here is penance and restraint, yonder is joy and freedom.”
“Thou hast prevailed, most sage counsellor,” replied Rothsay; “but mark you, it shall be the last of my frolics.”
“I trust so,” replied Ramorny; “for, when at liberty, you may make a good accommodation with your royal father.”
“I will write to him, Ramorny. Get the writing materials. No, I cannot put my thoughts in words—do thou write.”
“Your Royal Highness forgets,” said Ramorny, pointing to his mutilated arm.
“Ah! that cursed hand of yours. What can we do?”
“So please your Highness,” answered his counsellor, “if you would use the hand of the mediciner, Dwining—he writes like a clerk.”
“Hath he a hint of the circumstances? Is he possessed of them?”
“Fully,” said Ramorny; and, stepping to the window, he called Dwining from the boat.
He entered the presence of the Prince of Scotland, creeping as if he trode upon eggs, with downcast eyes, and a frame that seemed shrunk up by a sense of awe produced by the occasion.
“There, fellow, are writing materials. I will make trial of you; thou know’st the case—place my conduct to my father in a fair light.”
Dwining sat down, and in a few minutes wrote a letter, which he handed to Sir John Ramorny.
“Why, the devil has aided thee, Dwining,” said the knight. “Listen, my dear lord. ‘Respected father and liege sovereign—Know that important considerations induce me to take my departure from this your court, purposing to make my abode at Falkland, both as the seat of my dearest uncle Albany, with whom I know your Majesty would desire me to use all familiarity, and as the residence of one from whom I have been too long estranged, and with whom I haste to exchange vows of the closest affection from henceforward.’”
The Duke of Rothsay and Ramorny laughed aloud; and the physician, who had listened to his own scroll as if it were a sentence of death, encouraged by their applause, raised his eyes, uttered faintly his chuckling note of “He! he!” and was again grave and silent, as if afraid he had transgressed the bounds of reverent respect.
“Admirable!” said the Prince—“admirable! The old man will apply all this to the Duchess, as they call her, of Rothsay. Dwining, thou shouldst be a secretis to his Holiness the Pope, who sometimes, it is said, wants a scribe that can make one word record two meanings. I will subscribe it, and have the praise of the device.”
“And now, my lord,” said Ramorny, sealing the letter and leaving it behind, “will you not to boat?”
“Not till my chamberlain attends with some clothes and necessaries, and you may call my sewer also.”
“My lord,” said Ramorny, “time presses, and preparation will but excite suspicion. Your officers will follow with the mails tomorrow. For tonight, I trust my poor service may suffice to wait on you at table and chamber.”
“Nay, this time it is thou who forgets,” said the Prince, touching the wounded arm with his walking rod. “Recollect, man, thou canst neither carve a capon nor tie a point—a goodly sewer or valet of the mouth!”
Ramorny grinned with rage and pain; for his wound, though in a way of healing, was still highly sensitive, and even the pointing a finger towards it made him tremble.
“Will your Highness now be pleased to take boat?”
“Not till I take leave of the Lord Constable. Rothsay must not slip away, like a thief from a prison, from the house of Errol. Summon him hither.”
“My Lord Duke,” said Ramorny, “it may be dangerous to our plan.”
“To the devil with danger, thy plan, and thyself! I must and will act to Errol as becomes us both.”
The earl entered, agreeable to the Prince’s summons.
“I gave you this trouble, my lord,” said Rothsay, with the dignified courtesy which he knew so well how to assume, “to thank you for your hospitality and your good company. I can enjoy them no longer, as pressing affairs call me to Falkland.”
“My lord,” said the Lord High Constable, “I trust your Grace remembers that you are—under ward.”
“How!—under ward? If I am a prisoner, speak plainly; if not, I will take my freedom to depart.”
“I would, my lord, your Highness would request his Majesty’s permission for this journey. There will be much displeasure.”
“Mean you displeasure against yourself, my lord, or against me?”
“I have already said your Highness lies in ward here; but if you determine to break it, I have no warrant—God forbid—to put force on your inclinations. I can but entreat your Highness, for your own sake—”
“Of my own interest I am the best judge. Good evening to you, my lord.”
The wilful Prince stepped into the boat with Dwining and Ramorny, and, waiting for no other attendance, Eviot pushed off the vessel, which descended the Tay rapidly by the assistance of sail and oar and of the ebb tide.
For some space the Duke of Rothsay appeared silent and moody, nor did his companions interrupt his reflections. He raised his head at length and said: “My father loves a jest, and when all is over he will take this frolic at no more serious rate than it deserves—a fit of youth, with which he will deal as he has with others. Yonder, my masters, shows the old hold of Kinfauns, frowning above the Tay. Now, tell me, John Ramorny, how thou hast dealt to get the Fair Maid of Perth out of the hands of yonder bull headed provost; for Errol told me it was rumoured that she was under his protection.”
“Truly she was, my lord, with the purpose of being transferred to the patronage of the Duchess—I mean of the Lady Marjory of Douglas. Now, this beetle headed provost, who is after all but a piece of blundering valiancy, has, like most such, a retainer of some slyness and cunning, whom he uses in all his dealings, and whose suggestions he generally considers as his own ideas. Whenever I would possess myself of a landward baron, I address myself to such a confidant, who, in the present case, is called Kitt Henshaw, an old skipper upon the Tay, and who, having in his time sailed as far as Campvere, holds with Sir Patrick Charteris the respect due to one who has seen foreign countries. This his agent I have made my own, and by his means have insinuated various apologies in order to postpone the departure of Catharine for Falkland.”
“But to what good purpose?”
“I know not if it is wise to tell your Highness, lest you should disapprove of my views. I meant the officers of the Commission for inquiry into heretical opinions should have found the Fair Maid at Kinfauns, for our beauty is a peevish, self willed swerver from the church; and certes, I designed that the knight should have come in for his share of the fines and confiscations that were about to be inflicted. The monks were eager enough to be at him, seeing he hath had frequent disputes with them about the salmon tithe.”
“But wherefore wouldst thou have ruined the knight’s fortunes, and brought the beautiful young woman to the stake, perchance?”
“Pshaw, my Lord Duke! monks never burn pretty maidens. An old woman might have been in some danger; and as for my Lord Provost, as they call him, if they had clipped off some of his fat acres, it would have been some atonement for the needless brave he put on me in St. John’s church.”
“Methinks, John, it was but a base revenge,” said Rothsay.
“Rest ye contented, my lord. He that cannot right himself by the hand must use his head. Well, that chance was over by the tender hearted Douglas’s declaring in favour of tender conscience; and then, my lord, old Henshaw found no further objections to carrying the Fair Maid of Perth to Falkland, not to share the dulness of the Lady Marjory’s society, as Sir Patrick Charteris and she herself doth opine, but to keep your Highness from tiring when we return from hunting in the park.”
There was again a long pause, in which the Prince seemed to muse deeply. At length he spoke. “Ramorny, I have a scruple in this matter; but if I name it to thee, the devil of sophistry, with which thou art possessed, will argue it out of me, as it has done many others. This girl is the most beautiful, one excepted, whom I ever saw or knew; and I like her the more that she bears some features of—Elizabeth of Dunbar. But she, I mean Catharine Glover, is contracted, and presently to be wedded, to Henry the armourer, a craftsman unequalled for skill, and a man at arms yet unmatched in the barrace. To follow out this intrigue would do a good fellow too much wrong.”
“Your Highness will not expect me to be very solicitous of Henry Smith’s interest,” said Ramorny, looking at his wounded arm.
“By St. Andrew with his shored cross, this disaster of thine is too much harped upon, John Ramorny! Others are content with putting a finger into every man’s pie, but thou must thrust in thy whole gory hand. It is done, and cannot be undone; let it be forgotten.”
“Nay, my lord, you allude to it more frequently than I,” answered the knight—“in derision, it is true; while I—but I can be silent on the subject if I cannot forget it.”
“Well, then, I tell thee that I have scruple about this intrigue. Dost thou remember, when we went in a frolic to hear Father Clement preach, or rather to see this fair heretic, that he spoke as touchingly as a minstrel about the rich man taking away the poor man’s only ewe lamb?”
“A great matter, indeed,” answered Sir John, “that this churl’s wife’s eldest son should be fathered by the Prince of Scotland! How many earls would covet the like fate for their fair countesses? and how many that have had such good luck sleep not a grain the worse for it?”
“And if I might presume to speak,” said the mediciner, “the ancient laws of Scotland assigned such a privilege to every feudal lord over his female vassals, though lack of spirit and love of money hath made many exchange it for gold.”
“I require no argument to urge me to be kind to a pretty woman; but this Catharine has been ever cold to me,” said the Prince.
“Nay, my lord,” said Ramorny, “if, young, handsome, and a prince, you know not how to make yourself acceptable to a fine woman, it is not for me to say more.”
“And if it were not far too great audacity in me to speak again, I would say,” quoth the leech, “that all Perth knows that the Gow Chrom never was the maiden’s choice, but fairly forced upon her by her father. I know for certain that she refused him repeatedly.”
“Nay, if thou canst assure us of that, the case is much altered,” said Rothsay. “Vulcan was a smith as well as Harry Wynd; he would needs wed Venus, and our chronicles tell us what came of it.”
“Then long may Lady Venus live and be worshipped,” said Sir John Ramorny, “and success to the gallant knight Mars who goes a-wooing to her goddess-ship!”
The discourse took a gay and idle turn for a few minutes; but the Duke of Rothsay soon dropped it. “I have left,” he said, “yonder air of the prison house behind me, and yet my spirits scarce revive. I feel that drowsy, not unpleasing, yet melancholy mood that comes over us when exhausted by exercise or satiated with pleasure. Some music now, stealing on the ear, yet not loud enough to make us lift the eye, were a treat for the gods.”
“Your Grace has but to speak your wishes, and the nymphs of the Tay are as favourable as the fair ones upon the shore. Hark! it is a lute.”
“A lute!” said the Duke of Rothsay, listening; “it is, and rarely touched. I should remember that dying fall. Steer towards the boat from whence the music comes.”
“It is old Henshaw,” said Ramorny, “working up the stream. How, skipper!”
The boatman answered the hail, and drew up alongside of the Prince’s barge.
“Oh, ho! my old friend!” said the Prince, recognising the figure as well as the appointments of the French glee woman, Louise. “I think I owe thee something for being the means of thy having a fright, at least, upon St. Valentine’s Day. Into this boat with thee, lute, puppy dog, scrip and all; I will prefer thee to a lady’s service who shall feed thy very cur on capons and canary.”
“I trust your Highness will consider—” said Ramorny.
“I will consider nothing but my pleasure, John. Pray, do thou be so complying as to consider it also.”
“Is it indeed to a lady’s service you would promote me?” said the glee maiden. “And where does she dwell?”
“At Falkland,” answered the Prince.
“Oh, I have heard of that great lady!” said Louise; “and will you indeed prefer me to your right royal consort’s service?”
“I will, by my honour—whenever I receive her as such. Mark that reservation, John,” said he aside to Ramorny.
The persons who were in the boat caught up the tidings, and, concluding a reconciliation was about to take place betwixt the royal couple, exhorted Louise to profit by her good fortune, and add herself to the Duchess of Rothsay’s train. Several offered her some acknowledgment for the exercise of her talents.
During this moment of delay, Ramorny whispered to Dwining: “Make in, knave, with some objection. This addition is one too many. Rouse thy wits, while I speak a word with Henshaw.”
“If I might presume to speak,” said Dwining, “as one who have made my studies both in Spain and Arabia, I would say, my lord, that the sickness has appeared in Edinburgh, and that there may be risk in admitting this young wanderer into your Highness’s vicinity.”
“Ah! and what is it to thee,” said Rothsay, “whether I choose to be poisoned by the pestilence or the ‘pothecary? Must thou, too, needs thwart my humour?”
While the Prince thus silenced the remonstrances of Dwining, Sir John Ramorny had snatched a moment to learn from Henshaw that the removal of the Duchess of Rothsay from Falkland was still kept profoundly secret, and that Catharine Glover would arrive there that evening or the next morning, in expectation of being taken under the noble lady’s protection.
The Duke of Rothsay, deeply plunged in thought, received this intimation so coldly, that Ramorny took the liberty of remonstrating. “This, my lord,” he said, “is playing the spoiled child of fortune. You wish for liberty; it comes. You wish for beauty; it awaits you, with just so much delay as to render the boon more precious. Even your slightest desires seem a law to the Fates; for you desire music when it seems most distant, and the lute and song are at your hand. These things, so sent, should be enjoyed, else we are but like petted children, who break and throw from them the toys they have wept themselves sick for.”
“To enjoy pleasure, Ramorny,” said the Prince, “a man should have suffered pain, as it requires fasting to gain a good appetite. We, who can have all for a wish, little enjoy that all when we have possessed it. Seest thou yonder thick cloud, which is about to burst to rain? It seems to stifle me—the waters look dark and lurid—the shores have lost their beautiful form—”
“My lord, forgive your servant,” said Ramorny. “You indulge a powerful imagination, as an unskilful horseman permits a fiery steed to rear until he falls back on his master and crushes him. I pray you shake off this lethargy. Shall the glee maiden make some music?”
“Let her; but it must be melancholy: all mirth would at this moment jar on my ear.”
The maiden sung a melancholy dirge in Norman French; the words, of which the following is an imitation, were united to a tune as doleful as they are themselves:
Yes, thou mayst sigh,And look once more at all around,At stream and bank, and sky and ground.Thy life its final course has found,And thou must die.Yes, lay thee down,And while thy struggling pulses flutter,Bid the grey monk his soul mass mutter,And the deep bell its death tone utter—Thy life is gone.Be not afraid.‘Tis but a pang, and then a thrill,A fever fit, and then a chill,And then an end of human ill,For thou art dead.
The Prince made no observation on the music; and the maiden, at Ramorny’s beck, went on from time to time with her minstrel craft, until the evening sunk down into rain, first soft and gentle, at length in great quantities, and accompanied by a cold wind. There was neither cloak nor covering for the Prince, and he sullenly rejected that which Ramorny offered.
“It is not for Rothsay to wear your cast garments, Sir John; this melted snow, which I feel pierce me to the very marrow, I am now encountering by your fault. Why did you presume to put off the boat without my servants and apparel?”
Ramorny did not attempt an exculpation; for he knew the Prince was in one of those humours, when to enlarge upon a grievance was more pleasing to him than to have his mouth stopped by any reasonable apology. In sullen silence, or amid unsuppressed chiding, the boat arrived at the fishing village of Newburgh. The party landed, and found horses in readiness, which, indeed, Ramorny had long since provided for the occasion. Their quality underwent the Prince’s bitter sarcasm, expressed to Ramorny sometimes by direct words, oftener by bitter gibes. At length they were mounted and rode on through the closing night and the falling rain, the Prince leading the way with reckless haste. The glee maiden, mounted by his express order, attended them and well for her that, accustomed to severe weather, and exercise both on foot and horseback, she supported as firmly as the men the fatigues of the nocturnal ride. Ramorny was compelled to keep at the Prince’s rein, being under no small anxiety lest, in his wayward fit, he might ride off from him entirely, and, taking refuge in the house of some loyal baron, escape the snare which was spread for him. He therefore suffered inexpressibly during the ride, both in mind and in body.
At length the forest of Falkland received them, and a glimpse of the moon showed the dark and huge tower, an appendage of royalty itself, though granted for a season to the Duke of Albany. On a signal given the drawbridge fell. Torches glared in the courtyard, menials attended, and the Prince, assisted from horseback, was ushered into an apartment, where Ramorny waited on him, together with Dwining, and entreated him to take the leech’s advice. The Duke of Rothsay repulsed the proposal, haughtily ordered his bed to be prepared, and having stood for some time shivering in his dank garments beside a large blazing fire, he retired to his apartment without taking leave of anyone.
“You see the peevish humour of this childish boy, now,” said Ramorny to Dwining; “can you wonder that a servant who has done so much for him as I have should be tired of such a master?”
“No, truly,” said Dwining, “that and the promised earldom of Lindores would shake any man’s fidelity. But shall we commence with him this evening? He has, if eye and cheek speak true, the foundation of a fever within him, which will make our work easy while it will seem the effect of nature.”
“It is an opportunity lost,” said Ramorny; “but we must delay our blow till he has seen this beauty, Catharine Glover. She may be hereafter a witness that she saw him in good health, and master of his own motions, a brief space before—you understand me?”
Dwining nodded assent, and added:
“There is no time lost; for there is little difficulty in blighting a flower exhausted from having been made to bloom too soon.”
Ah, me! in sooth he was a shameless wight,Sore given to revel and ungodly glee:Few earthly things found favour in his sight,Save concubines and carnal companie,And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree.BYRON.
With the next morning the humour of the Duke of Rothsay was changed. He complained, indeed, of pain and fever, but they rather seemed to stimulate than to overwhelm him. He was familiar with Ramorny, and though he said nothing on the subject of the preceding night, it was plain he remembered what he desired to obliterate from the memory of his followers—the ill humour he had then displayed. He was civil to every one, and jested with Ramorny on the subject of Catharine’s arrival.
“How surprised will the pretty prude be at seeing herself in a family of men, when she expects to be admitted amongst the hoods and pinners of Dame Marjory’s waiting women! Thou hast not many of the tender sex in thy household, I take it, Ramorny?”
“Faith, none except the minstrel wench, but a household drudge or two whom we may not dispense with. By the way, she is anxiously inquiring after the mistress your Highness promised to prefer her to. Shall I dismiss her, to hunt for her new mistress at leisure?”
“By no means, she will serve to amuse Catharine. And, hark you, were it not well to receive that coy jillet with something of a mumming?”
“How mean you, my lord?”
“Thou art dull, man. We will not disappoint her, since she expects to find the Duchess of Rothsay: I will be Duke and Duchess in my own person.”
“Still I do not comprehend.”
“No one so dull as a wit,” said the Prince, “when he does not hit off the scent at once. My Duchess, as they call her, has been in as great a hurry to run away from Falkland as I to come hither. We have both left our apparel behind. There is as much female trumpery in the wardrobe adjoining to my sleeping room as would equip a whole carnival. Look you, I will play Dame Marjory, disposed on this day bed here with a mourning veil and a wreath of willow, to show my forsaken plight; thou, John, wilt look starch and stiff enough for her Galwegian maid of honour, the Countess Hermigild; and Dwining shall present the old Hecate, her nurse—only she hath more beard on her upper lip than Dwining on his whole face, and skull to boot. He should have the commodity of a beard to set her forth conformably. Get thy kitchen drudges, and what passable pages thou hast with thee, to make my women of the bedroom. Hearest thou? about it instantly.”
Ramorny hasted into the anteroom, and told Dwining the Prince’s device.
“Do thou look to humour the fool,” he said; “I care not how little I see him, knowing what is to be done.”
“Trust all to me,” said the physician, shrugging his shoulders. “What sort of a butcher is he that can cut the lamb’s throat, yet is afraid to hear it bleat?”
“Tush, fear not my constancy: I cannot forget that he would have cast me into the cloister with as little regard as if he threw away the truncheon of a broken lance. Begone—yet stay; ere you go to arrange this silly pageant, something must be settled to impose on the thick witted Charteris. He is like enough, should he be left in the belief that the Duchess of Rothsay is still here, and Catharine Glover in attendance on her, to come down with offers of service, and the like, when, as I need scarce tell thee, his presence would be inconvenient. Indeed, this is the more likely, that some folks have given a warmer name to the iron headed knight’s great and tender patronage of this damsel.”
“With that hint, let me alone to deal with him. I will send him such a letter, that for this month he shall hold himself as ready for a journey to hell as to Falkland. Can you tell me the name of the Duchess’s confessor?”
“Waltheof, a grey friar.”
“Enough—then here I start.”
In a few minutes, for he was a clerk of rare celerity, Dwining finished a letter, which he placed in Ramorny’s hand.
“This is admirable, and would have made thy fortune with Rothsay. I think I should have been too jealous to trust thee in his household, save that his day is closed.”
“Read it aloud,” said Dwining, “that we may judge if it goes trippingly off.”
And Ramorny read as follows: “By command of our high and mighty Princess Marjory, Duchess of Rothsay, and so forth, we Waltheof, unworthy brother of the order of St. Francis, do thee, Sir Patrick Charteris, knight of Kinfauns, to know, that her Highness marvels much at the temerity with which you have sent to her presence a woman of whose fame she can judge but lightly, seeing she hath made her abode, without any necessity, for more than a week in thine own castle, without company of any other female, saving menials; of which foul cohabitation the savour is gone up through Fife, Angus, and Perthshire. Nevertheless, her Highness, considering the ease as one of human frailty, hath not caused this wanton one to be scourged with nettles, or otherwise to dree penance; but, as two good brethren of the convent of Lindores, the Fathers Thickskull and Dundermore, have been summoned up to the Highlands upon an especial call, her Highness hath committed to their care this maiden Catharine, with charge to convey her to her father, whom she states to be residing beside Loch Tay, under whose protection she will find a situation more fitting her qualities and habits than the Castle of Falkland, while her Highness the Duchess of Rothsay abides there. She hath charged the said reverend brothers so to deal with the young woman as may give her a sense of the sin of incontinence, and she commendeth thee to confession and penitence.—Signed, Waltheof, by command of an high and mighty Princess”; and so forth.
When he had finished, “Excellent—excellent!” Ramorny exclaimed. “This unexpected rebuff will drive Charteris mad! He hath been long making a sort of homage to this lady, and to find himself suspected of incontinence, when he was expecting the full credit of a charitable action, will altogether confound him; and, as thou say’st, it will be long enough ere he come hither to look after the damsel or do honour to the dame. But away to thy pageant, while I prepare that which shall close the pageant for ever.”
It was an hour before noon, when Catharine, escorted by old Henshaw and a groom of the Knight of Kinfauns, arrived before the lordly tower of Falkland. The broad banner which was displayed from it bore the arms of Rothsay, the servants who appeared wore the colours of the Prince’s household, all confirming the general belief that the Duchess still resided there. Catharine’s heart throbbed, for she had heard that the Duchess had the pride as well as the high courage of the house of Douglas, and felt uncertain touching the reception she was to experience. On entering the castle, she observed that the train was smaller than she had expected, but, as the Duchess lived in close retirement, she was little surprised at this. In a species of anteroom she was met by a little old woman, who seemed bent double with age, and supported herself upon an ebony staff.
“Truly thou art welcome, fair daughter,” said she, saluting Catharine, “and, as I may say, to an afflicted house; and I trust (once more saluting her) thou wilt be a consolation to my precious and right royal daughter the Duchess. Sit thee down, my child, till I see whether my lady be at leisure to receive thee. Ah, my child, thou art very lovely indeed, if Our Lady hath given to thee a soul to match with so fair a body.”
With that the counterfeit old woman crept into the next apartment, where she found Rothsay in the masquerading habit he had prepared, and Ramorny, who had evaded taking part in the pageant, in his ordinary attire.
“Thou art a precious rascal, sir doctor,” said the Prince; “by my honour, I think thou couldst find in thy heart to play out the whole play thyself, lover’s part and all.”
“If it were to save your Highness trouble,” said the leech, with his usual subdued laugh.
“No—no,” said Rothsay, “I never need thy help, man; and tell me now, how look I, thus disposed on the couch—languishing and ladylike, ha?”
“Something too fine complexioned and soft featured for the Lady Marjory of Douglas, if I may presume to say so,” said the leech.
“Away, villain, and marshal in this fair frost piece—fear not she will complain of my effeminacy; and thou, Ramorny, away also.”
As the knight left the apartment by one door, the fictitious old woman ushered in Catharine Glover by another. The room had been carefully darkened to twilight, so that Catharine saw the apparently female figure stretched on the couch without the least suspicion.
“Is that the maiden?” asked Rothsay, in a voice naturally sweet, and now carefully modulated to a whispering tone. “Let her approach, Griselda, and kiss our hand.”
The supposed nurse led the trembling maiden forward to the side of the couch, and signed to her to kneel. Catharine did so, and kissed with much devotion and simplicity the gloved hand which the counterfeit duchess extended to her.
“Be not afraid,” said the same musical voice; “in me you only see a melancholy example of the vanity of human greatness; happy those, my child, whose rank places them beneath the storms of state.”
While he spoke, he put his arms around her neck and drew her towards him, as if to salute her in token of welcome. But the kiss was bestowed with an earnestness which so much overacted the part of the fair patroness, that Catharine, concluding the Duchess had lost her senses, screamed aloud.
“Peace, fool! it is I—David of Rothsay.”
Catharine looked around her; the nurse was gone, and the Duke tearing off his veil, she saw herself in the power of a daring young libertine.
“Now be present with me, Heaven!” she said; “and Thou wilt, if I forsake not myself.”
As this resolution darted through her mind, she repressed her disposition to scream, and, as far as she might, strove to conceal her fear.
“The jest hath been played,” she said, with as much firmness as she could assume; “may I entreat that your Highness will now unhand me?” for he still kept hold of her arm.
“Nay, my pretty captive, struggle not—why should you fear?”
“I do not struggle, my lord. As you are pleased to detain me, I will not, by striving, provoke you to use me ill, and give pain to yourself, when you have time to think.”
“Why, thou traitress, thou hast held me captive for months,” said the Prince, “and wilt thou not let me hold thee for a moment?”
“This were gallantry, my lord, were it in the streets of Perth, where I might listen or escape as I listed; it is tyranny here.”
“And if I did let thee go, whither wouldst thou fly?” said Rothsay. “The bridges are up, the portcullis down, and the men who follow me are strangely deaf to a peevish maiden’s squalls. Be kind, therefore, and you shall know what it is to oblige a prince.”
“Unloose me, then, my lord, and hear me appeal from thyself to thyself, from Rothsay to the Prince of Scotland. I am the daughter of an humble but honest citizen. I am, I may well nigh say, the spouse of a brave and honest man. If I have given your Highness any encouragement for what you have done, it has been unintentional. Thus forewarned, I entreat you to forego your power over me, and suffer me to depart. Your Highness can obtain nothing from me, save by means equally unworthy of knighthood or manhood.”
“You are bold, Catharine,” said the Prince, “but neither as a knight nor a man can I avoid accepting a defiance. I must teach you the risk of such challenges.”
While he spoke, he attempted to throw his arms again around her; but she eluded his grasp, and proceeded in the same tone of firm decision.
“My strength, my lord, is as great to defend myself in an honourable strife as yours can be to assail me with a most dishonourable purpose. Do not shame yourself and me by putting it to the combat. You may stun me with blows, or you may call aid to overpower me; but otherwise you will fail of your purpose.”
“What a brute you would make me!” said the Prince. “The force I would use is no more than excuses women in yielding to their own weakness.”
He sat down in some emotion.
“Then keep it,” said Catharine, “for those women who desire such an excuse. My resistance is that of the most determined mind which love of honour and fear of shame ever inspired. Alas! my lord, could you succeed, you would but break every bond between me and life, between yourself and honour. I have been trained fraudulently here, by what decoys I know not; but were I to go dishonoured hence, it would be to denounce the destroyer of my happiness to every quarter of Europe. I would take the palmer’s staff in my hand, and wherever chivalry is honoured, or the word Scotland has been heard, I would proclaim the heir of a hundred kings, the son of the godly Robert Stuart, the heir of the heroic Bruce, a truthless, faithless man, unworthy of the crown he expects and of the spurs he wears. Every lady in wide Europe would hold your name too foul for her lips; every worthy knight would hold you a baffled, forsworn caitiff, false to the first vow of arms, the protection of woman and the defence of the feeble.”
Rothsay resumed his seat, and looked at her with a countenance in which resentment was mingled with admiration. “You forget to whom you speak, maiden. Know, the distinction I have offered you is one for which hundreds whose trains you are born to bear would feel gratitude.”
“Once more, my lord,” resumed Catharine, “keep these favours for those by whom they are prized; or rather reserve your time and your health for other and nobler pursuits—for the defence of your country and the happiness of your subjects. Alas, my lord, how willingly would an exulting people receive you for their chief! How gladly would they close around you, did you show desire to head them against the oppression of the mighty, the violence of the lawless, the seduction of the vicious, and the tyranny of the hypocrite!”
The Duke of Rothsay, whose virtuous feelings were as easily excited as they were evanescent, was affected by the enthusiasm with which she spoke. “Forgive me if I have alarmed you, maiden,” he said “thou art too noble minded to be the toy of passing pleasure, for which my mistake destined thee; and I, even were thy birth worthy of thy noble spirit and transcendent beauty, have no heart to give thee; for by the homage of the heart only should such as thou be wooed. But my hopes have been blighted, Catharine: the only woman I ever loved has been torn from me in the very wantonness of policy, and a wife imposed on me whom I must ever detest, even had she the loveliness and softness which alone can render a woman amiable in my eyes. My health is fading even in early youth; and all that is left for me is to snatch such flowers as the short passage from life to the grave will now present. Look at my hectic cheek; feel, if you will, my intermitting pulse; and pity me and excuse me if I, whose rights as a prince and as a man have been trampled upon and usurped, feel occasional indifference towards the rights of others, and indulge a selfish desire to gratify the wish of the passing moment.”
“Oh, my lord!” exclaimed Catharine, with the enthusiasm which belonged to her character—“I will call you my dear lord, for dear must the heir of Bruce be to every child of Scotland—let me not, I pray, hear you speak thus! Your glorious ancestor endured exile, persecution, the night of famine, and the day of unequal combat, to free his country; do you practise the like self denial to free yourself. Tear yourself from those who find their own way to greatness smoothed by feeding your follies. Distrust yon dark Ramorny! You know it not, I am sure—you could not know; but the wretch who could urge the daughter to courses of shame by threatening the life of the aged father is capable of all that is vile, all that is treacherous!”
“Did Ramorny do this?” said the Prince.
“He did indeed, my lord, and he dares not deny it.”
“It shall be looked to,” answered the Duke of Rothsay. “I have ceased to love him; but he has suffered much for my sake, and I must see his services honourably requited.”
“His services! Oh, my lord, if chronicles speak true, such services brought Troy to ruins and gave the infidels possession of Spain.”
“Hush, maiden—speak within compass, I pray you,” said the Prince, rising up; “our conference ends here.”
“Yet one word, my Lord Duke of Rothsay,” said Catharine, with animation, while her beautiful countenance resembled that of an admonitory angel. “I cannot tell what impels me to speak thus boldly; but the fire burns within me, and will break out. Leave this castle without an hour’s delay; the air is unwholesome for you. Dismiss this Ramorny before the day is ten minutes older; his company is most dangerous.”
“What reason have you for saying this?”
“None in especial,” answered Catharine, abashed at her own eagerness—“none, perhaps, excepting my fears for your safety.”
“To vague fears the heir of Bruce must not listen. What, ho! who waits without?”
Ramorny entered, and bowed low to the Duke and to the maiden, whom, perhaps, he considered as likely to be preferred to the post of favourite sultana, and therefore entitled to a courteous obeisance.
“Ramorny,” said the Prince, “is there in the household any female of reputation who is fit to wait on this young woman till we can send her where she may desire to go?”
“I fear,” replied Ramorny, “if it displease not your Highness to hear the truth, your household is indifferently provided in that way; and that, to speak the very verity, the glee maiden is the most decorous amongst us.”
“Let her wait upon this young person, then, since better may not be. And take patience, maiden, for a few hours.”
Catharine retired.
“So, my lord, part you so soon from the Fair Maid of Perth? This is, indeed, the very wantonness of victory.”
“There is neither victory nor defeat in the case,” returned the Prince, drily. “The girl loves me not; nor do I love her well enough to torment myself concerning her scruples.”
“The chaste Malcolm the Maiden revived in one of his descendants!” said Ramorny.
“Favour me, sir, by a truce to your wit, or by choosing a different subject for its career. It is noon, I believe, and you will oblige me by commanding them to serve up dinner.”
Ramorny left the room; but Rothsay thought he discovered a smile upon his countenance, and to be the subject of this man’s satire gave him no ordinary degree of pain. He summoned, however, the knight to his table, and even admitted Dwining to the same honour. The conversation was of a lively and dissolute cast, a tone encouraged by the Prince, as if designing to counterbalance the gravity of his morals in the morning, which Ramorny, who was read in old chronicles, had the boldness to liken to the continence of Scipio.
The banquet, nothwithstanding the Duke’s indifferent health, was protracted in idle wantonness far beyond the rules of temperance; and, whether owing simply to the strength of the wine which he drank, or the weakness of his constitution, or, as it is probable, because the last wine which he quaffed had been adulterated by Dwining, it so happened that the Prince, towards the end of the repast, fell into a lethargic sleep, from which it seemed impossible to rouse him. Sir John Ramorny and Dwining carried him to his chamber, accepting no other assistance than that of another person, whom we will afterwards give name to.
Next morning, it was announced that the Prince was taken ill of an infectious disorder; and, to prevent its spreading through the household, no one was admitted to wait on him save his late master of horse, the physician Dwining, and the domestic already mentioned; one of whom seemed always to remain in the apartment, while the others observed a degree of precaution respecting their intercourse with the rest of the family, so strict as to maintain the belief that he was dangerously ill of an infectious disorder.