Why, what an intricate impeach is this!I think you all have drank of Circe's cup.If here you housed him, here he would have been;If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly.COMEDY OF ERRORS.
The course of our story, leaving for the present Halbert Glendinning to the guidance of his courage and his fortune, returns to the Tower of Glendearg, where matters in the meanwhile fell out, with which it is most fitting that the reader should be acquainted.
The meal was prepared at noontide with all the care which Elspeth and Tibb, assisted by the various accommodations which had been supplied from the Monastery, could bestow on it. Their dialogue ran on as usual in the intervals of their labour, partly as between mistress and servant, partly as maintained by gossips of nearly equal quality.
“Look to the minced meat, Tibb,” said Elspeth; “and turn the broach even, thou good-for-nothing Simmie,—thy wits are harrying birds' nests, child.—Weel, Tibb, this is a fasheous job, this Sir Piercie lying leaguer with us up here, and wha kens for how lang?”
“A fasheous job indeed,” answered her faithful attendant, “and little good did the name ever bring to fair Scotland. Ye may have your hands fuller of them than they are yet. Mony a sair heart have the Piercies given to Scots wife and bairns with their pricking on the Borders. There was Hotspur and many more of that bloody kindred, have sate in our skirts since Malcolm's time, as Martin says!”
“Martin should keep a well-scrapit tongue in his head,” said Elspeth, “and not slander the kin of any body that quarters at Glendearg; forby, that Sir Piercie Shafton is much respected with the holy fathers of the community, and they will make up to us ony fasherie that we may have with him, either by good word or good deed, I'se warrant them. He is a considerate lord the Lord Abbot.”
“And weel he likes a saft seat to his hinder end,” said Tibb; “I have seen a belted baron sit on a bare bench, and find nae fault. But an ye are pleased, mistress, I am pleased.”
“Now, in good time, here comes Mysie of the Mill.—And where hae ye been, lass for a's gane wrang without you?” said Elspeth.
“I just gaed a blink up the burn,” said Mysie, “for the young lady has been down on her bed, and is no just that weel—So I gaed a gliff up the burn.”
“To see the young lads come hame frae the sport, I will warrant you,” said Elspeth. “Ay, ay, Tibb, that's the way the young folk guide us, Tibbie—leave us to do the wark, and out to the play themsells.”
“Ne'er a bit of that, mistress,” said the Maid of the Mill, stripping her round pretty arms, and looking actively and good-humouredly round for some duty that she could discharge, “but just—I thought ye might like to ken if they were coming back, just to get the dinner forward.”
“And saw ye ought of them then?” demanded Elspeth.
“Not the least tokening,” said Mysie, “though I got to the head of a knowe, and though the English knight's beautiful white feather could have been seen over all the bushes in the Shaw.”
“The knight's white feather!” said Dame Glendinning; “ye are a silly hempie—my Halbert's high head will be seen farther than his feather, let it be as white as it like, I trow.”
Mysie made no answer, but began to knead dough for wastel-cake with all despatch, observing that Sir Piercie had partaken of that dainty, and commended it upon the preceding day. And presently, in order to place on the fire thegirdle, or iron plate on which these cates were to be baked, she displaced a stew-pan in which one of Tibb's delicacies were submitted to the action of the kitchen fire. Tibb muttered betwixt her teeth—“And it is the broth for my sick bairn, that maun make room for the dainty Southron's wastel-bread. It was a blithe time in Wight Wallace's day, or good King Robert's, when the pock-puddings gat naething here but hard straiks and bloody crowns. But we will see how it will a' end.”
Elspeth did not think it proper to notice these discontented expressions of Tibbie, but they sunk into her mind; for she was apt to consider her as a sort of authority in matters of war and policy, with which her former experience as bower-woman at Avenel Castle made her better acquainted than were the peaceful inhabitants of Halidome. She only spoke, however, to express her surprise that the hunters did not return.
“An they come not back the sooner,” said Tibb, “they will fare the waur, for the meat will be roasted to a cinder—and there is poor Simmie that can turn the spit nae langer: the bairn is melting like an icicle in warm water—Gang awa, bairn, and take a mouthful of the caller air, and I will turn the broach till ye come back.”
“Rin up to the bartizan at the tower-head, callant,” said Dame Glendinning, “the air will be callerer there than ony gate else, and bring us word if our Halbert and the gentleman are coming down the glen.”
The boy lingered long enough to allow his substitute, Tibb Tacket, heartily to tire of her own generosity, and of his cricket-stool by the side of a huge fire. He at length returned with the news that he had seen nobody. The matter was not so remarkable as far as Halbert Glendinning was concerned, for, patient alike of want and of fatigue, it was no uncommon circumstance for him to remain in the wilds till curfew time. But nobody had given Sir Piercie Shafton credit for being so keen a sportsman, and the idea of an Englishman preferring the chase to his dinner was altogether inconsistent with their preconceptions of the national character. Amidst wondering and conjecturing, the usual dinner-hour passed long away; and the inmates of the tower, taking a hasty meal themselves, adjourned their more solemn preparations until the hunters' return at night, since it seemed now certain that their sport had either carried them to a greater distance, or engaged them for a longer time than had been expected.
About four hours after noon, arrived, not the expected sportsmen, but an unlooked for visitant, the Sub-Prior from the Monastery. The scene of the preceding day had dwelt on the mind of Father Eustace, who was of that keen and penetrating cast of mind which loves not to leave unascertained whatever of mysterious is subjected to its inquiry. His kindness was interested in the family of Glendearg, which he had now known for a long time; and besides, the community was interested in the preservation of the peace betwixt Sir Piercie Shafton and his youthful host, since whatever might draw public attention on the former, could not fail to be prejudicial to the Monastery, which was already threatened by the hand of power. He found the family assembled, all but Mary Avenel, and was informed that Halbert Glendinning had accompanied the stranger on a day's sport. So far was well. They had not returned; but when did youth and sport conceive themselves bound by set hours? and the circumstance excited no alarm in his mind.
While he was conversing with Edward Glendinning touching his progress in the studies he had pointed out to him, they were startled by a shriek from Mary Avenel's apartment, which drew the whole family thither in headlong haste. They found her in a swoon in the arms of old Martin, who was bitterly accusing himself of having killed her; so indeed it seemed, for her pale features and closed eyes argued rather a dead corpse than a living person. The whole family were instantly in tumult. Snatching her from Martin's arms with the eagerness of affectionate terror, Edward bore her to the casement, that she might receive the influence of the open air; the Sub-Prior, who, like many of his profession, had some knowledge of medicine, hastened to prescribe the readiest remedies which occurred to him, and the terrified females contended with, and impeded each other, in their rival efforts to be useful.
“It has been ane of her weary ghaists,” said Dame Glendinning.
“It's just a trembling on her spirits, as her blessed mother used to have,” said Tibb.
“It's some ill news has come ower her,” said the miller's maiden; while burnt feathers, cold water, and all the usual means of restoring suspended animation, were employed alternately, and with little effect.
At length a new assistant, who had joined the group unobserved, tendered his aid in the following terms:—“How is this, my most fair Discretion? What cause hath moved the ruby current of life to rush back to the citadel of the heart, leaving pale those features in which it should have delighted to meander for ever?—Let me approach her,” he said,”—with this sovereign essence, distilled by the fair hands of the divine Urania, and powerful to recall fugitive life, even if it were trembling on the verge of departure.”
Thus speaking, Sir Piercie Shafton knelt down, and most gracefully presented to the nostrils of Mary Avenel a silver pouncet-box, exquisitely chased, containing a sponge dipt in the essence which he recommmended so highly. Yes, gentle reader, it was Sir Piercie Shafton himself who thus unexpectedly proffered his good offices! his cheeks, indeed, very pale, and some part of his dress stained with blood, but not otherwise appearing different from what he was on the preceding evening. But no sooner had Mary Avenel opened her eyes, and fixed them on the figure of the officious courtier, than she screamed faintly, and exclaimed,—“Secure the murderer!”
Those present stood aghast with astonishment, and none more so than the Euphuist, who found himself so suddenly and so strangely accused by the patient whom he was endeavouring to succour, and who repelled his attempts to yield her assistance with all the energy of abhorrence. “Take him away!” she exclaimed—“take away the murderer!”
“Now, by my knighthood,” answered Sir Piercie, “your lovely faculties either of mind or body are, O my most fair Discretion, obnubilated by some strange hallucination. For either your eyes do not discern that it is Piercie Shafton, your most devoted Affability, who now stands before you, or else, your eyes discerning truly, your mind hath most erroneously concluded that he hath been guilty of some delict or violence to which his hand is a stranger. No murder, O most scornful Discretion, hath been this day done, saving but that which your angry glances are now performing on your most devoted captive.”
He was here interrupted by the Sub-Prior, who had, in the meantime, been speaking with Martin apart, and had received from him an account of the circumstances, which, suddenly communicated to Mary Avenel, had thrown her into this state. “Sir Knight,” said the Sub-Prior, in a very solemn tone, yet with some hesitation, “circumstances have been communicated to us of a nature so extraordinary, that, reluctant as I am to exercise such authority over a guest of our venerable community, I am constrained to request from you an explanation of them. You left this tower early in the morning, accompanied by a youth, Halbert Glendinning, the eldest son of this good dame, and you return hither without him. Where, and at what hour, did you part company from him?”
The English knight paused for a moment, and then replied,—“I marvel that your reverence employs so grave a tone to enforce so light a question. I parted with the villagio whom you call Halbert Glendinning some hour or twain after sunrise.”
“And at what place, I pray you?” said the monk.
“In a deep ravine, where a fountain rises at the base of a huge rock; an earth-born Titan, which heaveth up its gray head, even as—”
“Spare us farther description,” said the Sub-Prior; “we know the spot. But that youth hath not since been heard of, and it will fall on you to account for him.”
“My bairn! my bairn!” exclaimed Dame Glendinning. “Yes, holy father, make the villain account for my bairn!”
“I swear, good woman, by bread and by water,—which are the props of our life—”
“Swear by wine and wastel-bread, for these are the props ofthylife, thou greedy Southron!” said Dame Glendinning;—“a base belly-god, to come here to eat the best, and practise on our lives that give it to him!”
“I tell thee, woman,” said Sir Piercie Shafton, “I did but go with thy son to the hunting.”
“A black hunting it has been to him, poor bairn,” replied Tibb; “and sae I said it wad prove since I first saw the false Southron snout of thee. Little good comes of a Piercie's hunting, from Chevy Chase till now.”
“Be silent, woman,” said the Sub-Prior, “and rail not upon the English knight; we do not yet know of any thing beyond suspicion.”
“We will have his heart's blood!” said Dame Glendinning; and, seconded by the faithful Tibbie, she made such a sudden onslaught on the unlucky Euphuist, as must have terminated in something serious, had not the monk, aided by Mysie Happer, interposed to protect him from their fury. Edward had left the apartment the instant the disturbance broke out, and now entered, sword in hand, followed by Martin and Jasper, the one having a hunting spear in his hand, the other a cross-bow.
“Keep the door,” he said to his two attendants; “shoot him or stab him without mercy, should he attempt to break forth; if he offers an escape, by Heaven he shall die!”
“How now, Edward,” said the Sub-Prior; “how is this that you so far forget yourself? meditating violence to a guest, and in my presence, who represent your liege lord?”
Edward stepped forward with his drawn sword in his hand. “Pardon me, reverend father,” he said, “but in this matter the voice of nature speaks louder and stronger than yours. I turn my sword's point against this proud man, and I demand of him the blood of my brother—the blood of my father's son—of the heir of our name! If he denies to give me a true account of him, he shall not deny me vengeance.”
Embarrassed as he was, Sir Piercie Shafton showed no personal fear. “Put up thy sword,” he said, “young man; not in the same day does Piercie Shafton contend with two peasants.”
“Hear him! he confesses the deed, holy father,” said Edward.
“Be patient, my son,” said the Sub-Prior, endeavouring to soothe the feelings which he could not otherwise control, “be patient—thou wilt attain the ends of justice better through my means than thine own violence—And you, women, be silent—Tibb, remove your mistress and Mary Avenel.”
While Tibb, with the assistance of the other females of the household, bore the poor mother and Mary Avenel into separate apartments, and while Edward, still keeping his sword in his hand, hastily traversed the room, as if to prevent the possibility of Sir Piercie Shafton's escape, the Sub-Prior insisted upon knowing from the perplexed knight the particulars which he knew respecting Halbert Glendinning. His situation became extremely embarrassing, for what he might with safety have told of the issue of their combat was so revolting to his pride, that he could not bring himself to enter into the detail; and of Halbert's actual fate he knew, as the reader is well aware, absolutely nothing.
The father in the meanwhile pressed him with remonstrances, and prayed him to observe, he would greatly prejudice himself by declining to give a full account of the transactions of the day. “You cannot deny,” he said, “that yesterday you seemed to take the most violent offence at this unfortunate youth; and that you suppressed your resentment so suddenly as to impress us all with surprise. Last night you proposed to him this day's hunting party, and you set out together by break of day. You parted, you said, at the fountain near the rock, about an hour or twain after sunrise, and it appears that before you parted you had been at strife together.”
“I said not so,” replied the knight. “Here is a coil indeed about the absence of a rustical bondsman, who, I dare say, hath gone off (if he be gone) to join the next rascally band of freebooters! Ye ask me, a knight of the Piercie's lineage, to account for such an insignificant fugitive, and I answer,—let me know the price of his head, and I will pay it to your convent treasurer.”
“You admit, then, that you have slain my brother?” said Edward, interfering once more; “I will presently show you at what price we Scots rate the lives of our friends.”
“Peace, Edward, peace—I entreat—I command thee,” said the Sub-Prior. “And you, Sir Knight, think better of us than to suppose you may spend Scottish blood, and reckon for it as for wine spilt in a drunken revel. This youth was no bondsman—thou well knowest, that in thine own land thou hadst not dared to lift thy sword against the meanest subject of England, but her laws would have called thee to answer for the deed. Do not hope it will be otherwise here, for you will but deceive yourself.”
“You drive me beyond my patience,” said the Euphuist, “even as the over-driven ox is urged into madness!—What can I tell you of a young fellow whom I have not seen since the second hour after sunrise?”
“But can you explain in what circumstances you parted with him?” said the monk.
“Whatarethe circumstances, in the devil's name, which you desire should be explained?—for although I protest against this constraint as alike unworthy and inhospitable, yet would I willingly end this fray, provided that by words it may be ended,” said the knight.
“If these end it not,” said Edward, “blows shall, and that full speedily.”
“Peace, impatient boy!” said the Sub-Prior; “and do you, Sir Piercie Shafton, acquaint me why the ground is bloody by the verge of the fountain in Corri-nan-shian, where, as you say yourself, you parted from Halbert Glendinning?”
Resolute not to avow his defeat if possibly he could avoid it, the knight answered in a haughty tone, that he supposed it was no unusual thing to find the turf bloody where hunters had slain a deer.
“And did you bury your game as well as kill it?” said the monk. “We must know from you who is the tenant of that grave, that newly-made grave, beside the very fountain whose margin is so deeply crimsoned with blood?—thou seest thou canst not evade me; therefore be ingenuous, and tell us the fate of this unhappy youth, whose body is doubtless lying under that bloody turf.”
“If it be,” said Sir Piercie, “they must have buried him alive; for I swear to thee, reverend father, that this rustic juvenal parted from me in perfect health. Let the grave be searched, and if his body be found, then deal with me as ye list.”
“It is not my sphere to determine thy fate, Sir Knight, but that of the Lord Abbot, and the right reverend Chapter. It is but my duty to collect such information as may best possess their wisdom with the matters which have chanced.”
“Might I presume so far, reverend father,” said the knight, “I should wish to know the author and evidence of all these suspicions, so unfoundedly urged against me?”
“It is soon told,” said the Sub-Prior; “nor do I wish to disguise it, if it can avail you in your defence. This maiden, Mary Avenel, apprehending that you nourished malice against her foster-brother under a friendly brow, did advisedly send up the old man, Martin Tacket, to follow your footsteps and to prevent mischief. But it seems that your evil passions had outrun precaution: for when he came to the spot, guided by your footsteps upon the dew, he found but the bloody turf and the new covered grave; and after long and vain search through the wilds after Halbert and yourself, he brought back the sorrowful news to her who had sent him.”
“Saw he not my doublet, I pray you?” said Sir Piercie; “for when I came to myself, I found that I was wrapped in my cloak, but without my under garment as your reverence may observe.”
So saying, he opened his cloak, forgetting, with his characteristical inconsistency, that he showed his shirt stained with blood.
“How! cruel man,” said the monk, when he observed this confirmation of his suspicions; “wilt thou deny the guilt, even while thou bearest on thy person the blood thou hast shed?—Wilt thou longer deny that thy rash hand has robbed a mother of a son, our community of a vassal, the Queen of Scotland of a liege subject? and what canst thou expect, but that, at the least, we deliver thee up to England, as undeserving our farther protection?”
“By the Saints!” said the knight, now driven to extremity, “if this blood be the witness against me, it is but rebel blood, since this morning at sunrise it flowed within my own veins.”
“How were that possible, Sir Piercie Shafton,” said the monk, “since I see no wound from whence it can have flowed?”
“That,” said the knight, “is the most mysterious part of the transaction—See here!”
So saying, he undid his shirt collar, and, opening his bosom, showed the spot through—which Halbert's sword had passed, but already cicatrized, and bearing the appearance of a wound lately healed.
“This exhausts my patience, Sir Knight,” said the Sub-Prior, “and is adding insult to violence and injury. Do you hold me for a child or an idiot, that you pretend to make me believe that the fresh blood with which your shirt is stained, flowed from a wound which has been healed for weeks or months? Unhappy mocker, thinkest thou thus to blind us? Too well do we know that it is the blood of your victim, wrestling with you in the desperate and mortal struggle, which has thus dyed your apparel.”
The knight, after a moment's recollection, said in reply, “I will be open with you, my father—bid these men stand out of ear-shot, and I will tell you all I know of this mysterious business; and muse not, good father, though it may pass thy wit to expound it, for I avouch to you it is too dark for mine own.”
The monk commanded Edward and the two men to withdraw, assuring the former that his conference with the prisoner should be brief, and giving him permission to keep watch at the door of the apartment; without which allowance he might, perhaps, have had some difficulty in procuring his absence. Edward had no sooner left the chamber, than he despatched messengers to one or two families of the Halidome, with whose sons his brother and he sometimes associated, to tell them that Halbert Glendinning had been murdered by an Englishman, and to require them to repair to the Tower of Glendearg without delay. The duty of revenge in such cases was held so sacred, that he had no reason to doubt they would instantly come with such assistance as would ensure the detention of the prisoner. He then locked the doors of the tower, both inner and outer, and also the gate of the court-yard. Having taken these precautions, he made a hasty visit to the females of the family, exhausting himself in efforts to console them, and in protestations that he would have vengeance for his murdered brother.
Now, by Our Lady, Sheriff, 'tis hard reckoning,That I, with every odds of birth and baronyShould be detain'd here for the casual deathOf a wild forester, whose utmost havingIs but the brazen buckle of the beltIn which he sticks his hedge-knife.OLD PLAY.
While Edward was making preparations for securing and punishing the supposed murderer of his brother, with an intense thirst for vengeance, which had not hitherto shown itself as part of his character, Sir Piercie Shafton made such communications as it pleased him to the Sub-Prior, who listened with great attention, though the knight's narrative was none of the clearest, especially as his self-conceit led him to conceal or abridge the details which were necessary to render it intelligible.
“You are to know,” he said, “reverend father, that this rustical juvenal having chosen to offer me, in the presence of your venerable Superior, yourself, and other excellent and worthy persons, besides the damsel, Mary Avenel, whom I term my Discretion in all honour and kindness, a gross insult, rendered yet more intolerable by the time and place, my just resentment did so gain the mastery over my discretion, that I resolved to allow him the privileges of an equal, and to indulge him with the combat.”
“But, Sir Knight,” said the Sub-Prior, “you still leave two matters very obscure. First, why the token he presented to you gave you so much offence, as I with others witnessed; and then again, how the youth, whom you then met for the first, or, at least, the second time, knew so much of your history as enabled him so greatly to move you.”
The knight coloured very deeply.
“For your first query,” he said, “most reverend father, we will, if you please, pretermit it as nothing essential to the matter in hand; and for the second—I protest to you that I know as little of his means of knowledge as you do, and that I am well-nigh persuaded he deals with Sathanas, of which more anon.—Well, sir—In the evening, I failed not to veil my purpose with a pleasant brow, as is the custom amongst us martialists, who never display the bloody colours of defiance in our countenance until our hand is armed to fight under them. I amused the fair Discretion with some canzonettes, and other toys, which could not but be ravishing to her inexperienced ears. I arose in the morning, and met my antagonist, who, to say truth, for an inexperienced villagio, comported himself as stoutly as I could have desired.—So, coming to the encounter, reverend sir, I did try his mettle with some half-a-dozen of downright passes, with any one of which I could have been through his body, only that I was loth to take so fatal an advantage, but rather, mixing mercy with my just indignation, studied to inflict upon him some flesh-wound of no very fatal quality. But, sir, in the midst of my clemency, he, being instigated, I think, by the devil, did follow up his first offence with some insult of the same nature. Whereupon, being eager to punish him, I made an estramazone, and my foot slipping at the same time,—not from any fault of fence on my part, or any advantage of skill on his, but the devil having, as I said, taken up the matter in hand, and the grass being slippery,—ere I recovered my position I encountered his sword, which he had advanced, with my undefended person, so that, as I think, I was in some sort run through the body. My juvenal, being beyond measure appalled at his own unexpected and unmerited success in this strange encounter, takes the flight and leaves me there, and I fall into a dead swoon for the lack of the blood I had lost so foolishly—and when I awake, as from a sound sleep, I find myself lying, an it like you, wrapt up in my cloak at the foot of one of the birch-trees which stand together in a clump near to this place. I feel my limbs, and experience little pain, but much weakness—I put my hand to the wound—it was whole and skinned over as you now see it—I rise and come hither; and in these words you have my whole day's story.”
“I can only reply to so strange a tale,” answered the monk, “that it is scarce possible that Sir Piercie Shafton can expect me to credit it. Here is a quarrel, the cause of which you conceal—a wound received in the morning, of which there is no recent appearance at sunset,—a grave filled up, in which no body is deposited—the vanquished found alive and well—the victor departed no man knows whither. These things, Sir Knight, hang not so well together, that I should receive them as gospel.”
“Reverend father,” answered Sir Piercie Shafton, “I pray you in the first place to observe, that if I offer peaceful and civil justification of that which I have already averred to be true, I do so only in devout deference to your dress and to your order, protesting, that to any other opposite, saving a man of religion, a lady or my liege prince, I would not deign to support that which I had once attested, otherwise than with the point of my good sword. And so much being premised, I have to add, that I can but gage my honour as a gentleman, and my faith as a Catholic Christian, that the things which I have described to you have happened to me as I have described them, and not otherwise.”
“It is a deep assertion, Sir Knight,” answered the Sub-Prior; “yet, bethink you, it is only an assertion, and that no reason can be alleged why things should be believed which are so contrary to reason. Let me pray you to say whether the grave, which has been seen at your place of combat, was open or closed when your encounter took place?”
“Reverend father,” said the knight, “I will veil from you nothing, but show you each secret of my bosom; even as the pure fountain revealeth the smallest pebble which graces the sand at the bottom of its crystal mirror, and as—”
“Speak in plain terms, for the love of heaven!” said the monk; “these holiday phrases belong not to solemn affairs—Was the grave open when the conflict began?”
“It was,” answered the knight, “I acknowledge it; even as he that acknowledgeth—”
“Nay, I pray you, fair son, forbear these similitudes, and observe me. On yesterday at even no grave was found in that place, for old Martin chanced, contrary to his wont, to go thither in quest of a strayed sheep. At break of day, by your own confession, a grave was opened in that spot, and there a combat was fought—only one of the combatants appears, and he is covered with blood, and to all appearance woundless.”—Here the knight made a gesture of impatience.—“Nay, fair son, hear me but one moment—the grave is closed and covered by the sod—what can we believe, but that it conceals the bloody corpse of the fallen duellist?”
“By Heaven, it cannot!” said the knight, “unless the juvenal hath slain himself and buried himself, in order to place me in the predicament of his murderer.”
“The grave shall doubtless be explored, and that by to-morrow's dawn,” said the monk, “I will see it done with mine own eyes.”
“But,” said the prisoner, “I protest against all evidence which may arise from its contents, and do insist beforehand, that whatever may be found in that grave shall not prejudice me in my defence. I have been so haunted by diabolical deceptions in this matter, that what do I know but that the devil may assume the form of this rustical juvenal, in order to procure me farther vexation?—I protest to you, holy father, it is my very thought that there is witchcraft in all that hath befallen me. Since I entered into this northern land, in which men say that sorceries do abound, I, who am held in awe and regard even by the prime gallants in the court of Feliciana, have been here bearded and taunted by a clod-treading clown. I, whom Vincentio Saviola termed his nimblest and most agile disciple, was, to speak briefly, foiled by a cow-boy, who knew no more of fence than is used at every country wake. I am run, as it seemed to me, through the body, with a very sufficient stoccata, and faint on the spot; and yet, when I recover, I find myself without either wem or wound, and, lacking nothing of my apparel, saving my murrey-coloured doublet, slashed with satin, which I will pray may be inquired after, lest the devil, who transported me, should have dropped it in his passage among some of the trees or bushes—it being a choice and most fanciful piece of raiment, which I wore for the first time at the Queen's pageant in Southwark.”
“Sir Knight,” said the monk, “you do again go astray from this matter. I inquire of you respecting that which concerns the life of another man, and it may be, touches your own also, and you answer me with the tale of an old doublet!”
“Old!” exclaimed the knight; “now, by the gods and saints, if there be a gallant at the British Court more fancifully considerate, and more considerately fanciful, but quaintly curious, and more curiously quaint, in frequent changes of all rich articles of vesture, becoming one who may be accounted point-de-vice a courtier, I will give you leave to term me a slave and a liar.”
The monk thought, but did not say, that he had already acquired right to doubt the veracity of the Euphuist, considering the marvellous tale which he had told. Yet his own strange adventure, and that of Father Philip, rushed on his mind, and forbade his coming to any conclusion. He contented himself, therefore, with observing, that these were certainly strange incidents, and requested to know if Sir Piercie Shafton had any other reason for suspecting himself to be in a manner so particularly selected for the sport of sorcery and witchcraft.
“Sir Sub-Prior,” said the Euphuist, “the most extraordinary circumstance remains behind, which alone, had I neither been bearded in dispute, nor foiled in combat, nor wounded and cured in the space of a few hours, would nevertheless of itself, and without any other corroborative, have compelled me to believe myself the subject of some malevolent fascination. Reverend sir, it is not to your ears that men should tell tales of love and gallantry, nor is Sir Piercie Shafton one who, to any ears whatsoever, is wont to boast of his fair acceptance with the choice and prime beauties of the court; insomuch that a lady, none of the least resplendent constellations which revolve in that hemisphere of honour, pleasure, and beauty, but whose name I here pretermit, was wont to call me her Taciturnity. Nevertheless truth must be spoken; and I cannot but allow, as the general report of the court, allowed in camps, and echoed back by city and country, that in the alacrity of the accost, the tender delicacy of the regard, the facetiousness of the address, the adopting and pursuing of the fancy, the solemn close and the graceful fall-off, Piercie Shafton was accounted the only gallant of the time, and so well accepted among the choicer beauties of the age, that no silk-hosed reveller of the presence-chamber, or plumed jouster of the tilt-yard, approached him by a bow's length in the ladies' regard, being the mark at which every well-born and generous juvenal aimeth his shaft. Nevertheless, reverend sir, having found in this rude place something which by blood and birth might be termed a lady, and being desirous to keep my gallant humour in exercise, as well as to show my sworn devotion to the sex in general, I did shoot off some arrows of compliment at this Mary Avenel, terming her my Discretion, with other quaint and well-imagined courtesies, rather bestowed out of my bounty than warranted by her merit, or perchance like unto the boyish fowler, who, rather than not exercise his bird-piece, will shoot at crows or magpies for lack of better game——”
“Mary Avenel is much obliged by your notice,” answered the monk; “but to what does all this detail of past and present gallantry conduct us?”
“Marry, to this conclusion,” answered the knight; “that either this my Discretion, or I myself, am little less than bewitched; for, instead of receiving my accost with a gratifying bow, answering my regard with a suppressed smile, accompanying my falling off or departure with a slight sigh—honours with which I protest to you the noblest dancers and proudest beauties in Feliciana have graced my poor services—she hath paid me as little and as cold regard as if I had been some hob-nailed clown of these bleak mountains! Nay, this very day, while I was in the act of kneeling at her feet to render her the succours of this pungent quintessence, of purest spirit distilled by the fairest hands of the court of Feliciana, she pushed me from her with looks which savoured of repugnance, and, as I think, thrust at me with her foot as if to spurn me from her presence. These things, reverend father, are strange, portentous, unnatural, and befall not in the current of mortal affairs, but are symptomatic of sorcery and fascination. So that, having given to your reverence a perfect, simple, and plain account of all that I know concerning this matter, I leave it to your wisdom to solve what may be found soluble in the same, it being my purpose to-morrow, with the peep of dawn, to set forward towards Edinburgh.”
“I grieve to be an interruption to your designs, Sir Knight,” said the monk, “but that purpose of thine may hardly be fulfilled.”
“How, reverend father!” said the knight, with an air of the utmost surprise; “if what you say respects my departure, understand that itmustbe, for I have so resolved it.”
“Sir Knight,” reiterated the Sub-Prior, “I must once more repeat, thiscannotbe, until the Abbot's pleasure be known in the matter.”
“Reverend sir,” said the knight, drawing himself up with great dignity, “I desire my hearty and thankful commendations to the Abbot; but in this matter I have nothing to do with his reverend pleasure, designing only to consult my own.”
“Pardon me,” said the Sub-Prior; “the Lord Abbot hath in this matter a voice potential.”
Sir Piercie Shafton's colour began to rise—“I marvel,” he said, “to hear your reverence talk thus—What! will you, for the imagined death of a rude, low-born frampler and wrangler, venture to impinge upon the liberty of the kinsman of the house of Piercie?”
“Sir Knight,” returned the Sub-Prior, civilly, “your high lineage and your kindling anger will avail you nothing in this matter—You shall not come here to seek a shelter, and then spill our blood as if it were water.”
“I tell you,” said the knight, “once more, as I have told you already, that there was no blood spilled but mine own!”
“That remains to be proved,” replied the Sub-Prior; “we of the community of Saint Mary's of Kennaquhair, use not to take fairy tales in exchange for the lives of our liege vassals.”
“We of the house of Piercie,” answered Shafton, “brook neither threats nor restraint—I say I will travel to-morrow, happen what may!”
“And I,” answered the Sub-Prior, in the same tone of determination, “say that I will break your journey, come what may!”
“Who shall gainsay me,” said the knight, “if I make my way by force?”
“You will judge wisely to think ere you make such an attempt,” answered the monk, with composure; “there are men enough in the Halidome to vindicate its rights over those who dare infringe them.”
“My cousin of Northumberland will know how to revenge this usage to a beloved kinsman so near to his blood,” said the Englishman.
“The Lord Abbot will know how to protect the rights of his territory, both with, the temporal and spiritual sword,” said the monk. “Besides, consider, were we to send you to your kinsman at Alnwick or Warkworth to-morrow, he dare do nothing but transmit you in fetters to the Queen of England. Bethink, Sir Knight, that you stand on slippery ground, and will act most wisely in reconciling yourself to be a prisoner in this place until the Abbot shall decide the matter. There are armed men enow to countervail all your efforts at escape. Let patience and resignation, therefore, arm you to a necessary submission.”
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So saying, he clapped his hands, and called aloud. Edward entered, accompanied by two young men who had already joined him, and were well armed.
“Edward,” said the Sub-Prior, “you will supply the English Knight here in this spence with suitable food and accommodation for the night, treating him with as much kindness as if nothing had happened between you. But you will place a sufficient guard, and look carefully that he make not his escape. Should he attempt to break forth, resist him to the death; but in no other case harm a hair of his head, as you shall be answerable.”
Edward Glendinning replied,—“That I may obey your commands, reverend sir, I will not again offer myself to this person's presence; for shame it were to me to break the peace of the Halidome, but not less shame to leave my brother's death unavenged.”
As he spoke, his lips grew livid, the blood forsook his cheek, and he was about to leave the apartment, when the Sub-Prior recalled him and said in a solemn tone,—“Edward, I have known you from infancy—I have done what lay within my reach to be of use to you—I say nothing of what you owe to me as the representative of your spiritual Superior—I say nothing of the duty from the vassal to the Sub-Prior—But Father Eustace expects from the pupil whom he has nurtured—he expects from Edward Glendinning, that he will not by any deed of sudden violence, however justified in his own mind by the provocation, break through the respect due to public justice, or that which he has an especial right to claim from him.”
“Fear nothing, my reverend father, for so in an hundred senses may I well term you,” said the young man; “fear not, I would say, that I will in any thing diminish the respect I owe to the venerable community by whom we have so long been protected, far less that I will do aught which can be personally less than respectful to you. But the blood of my brother must not cry for vengeance in vain—your reverence knows our Border creed.”
“'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will requite it,'” answered the monk. “The heathenish custom of deadly feud which prevails in this land, through which each man seeks vengeance at his own hand when the death of a friend or kinsman has chanced, hath already deluged our vales with the blood of Scottish men, spilled by the hands of countrymen and kindred. It were endless to count up the fatal results. On the Eastern Border, the Homes are at feud with the Swintons and Cockburns; in our Middle Marches, the Scotts and Kerrs have spilled as much brave blood in domestic feud as might have fought a pitched field in England, could they have but forgiven and forgotten a casual rencounter that placed their names in opposition to each other. On the west frontier, the Johnstones are at war with the Maxwells, the Jardines with the Bells, drawing with them the flower of the country, which should place their breasts as a bulwark against England, into private and bloody warfare, of which it is the only end to waste and impair the forces of the country, already divided in itself. Do not, my dear son Edward, permit this bloody prejudice to master your mind. I cannot ask you to think of the crime supposed as if the blood spilled had been less dear to you—Alas! I know that is impossible. But I do require you, in proportion to your interest in the supposed sufferer, (for as yet the whole is matter of supposition,) to bear on your mind the evidence on which the guilt of the accused person must be tried. He hath spoken with me, and I confess his tale is so extraordinary, that I should have, without a moment's hesitation, rejected it as incredible, but that an affair which chanced to myself in this very glen—More of that another time—Suffice it for the present to say, that from what I have myself experienced, I deem it possible, that, extraordinary as Sir Piercie Shafton's story may seem, I hold it not utterly impossible.”
“Father,” said Edward Glendinning, when he saw that his preceptor paused, unwilling farther to explain upon what grounds he was inclined to give a certain degree of credit to Sir Piercie Shafton's story, while he admitted it as improbable—“Father to me you have been in every sense. You know that my hand grasped more readily to the book than to the sword; and that I lacked utterly the ready and bold spirit which distinguished——” Here his voice faltered, and he paused for a moment, and then went on with resolution and rapidity—“I would say, that I was unequal to Halbert in promptitude of heart and of hand; but Halbert is gone, and I stand his representative, and that of my father—his successor in all his rights,” (while he said this his eyes shot fire,) “and bound to assert and maintain them as he would have done—therefore I am a changed man, increased in courage as in my rights and pretensions. And, reverend father, respectfully, but plainly and firmly do I say, his blood, if it has been shed by this man, shall be atoned—Halbert shall not sleep neglected in his lonely grave, as if with him the spirit of my father had ceased forever. His blood flows in my veins, and while his has been poured forth unrequited, mine will permit me no rest. My poverty and meanness of rank shall not avail the lordly murderer. My calm nature and peaceful studies shall not be his protection. Even the obligations, holy father, which I acknowledge to you, shall not be his protection. I wait with patience the judgment of the Abbot and Chapter, for the slaughter of one of their most anciently descended vassals. If they do right to my brother's memory, it is well. But mark me, father, if they shall fail in rendering me that justice, I bear a heart and a hand which, though I love not such extremities, are capable of remedying such an error. He who takes up my brother's succession must avenge his death.”
The monk perceived with surprise, that Edward, with his extreme diffidence, humility, and obedient assiduity, for such were his general characteristics, had still boiling in his veins the wild principles of those from whom he was descended, and by whom he was surrounded. His eyes sparkled, his frame was agitated, and the extremity of his desire for vengeance seemed to give a vehemence to his manner resembling the restlessness of joy.
“May God help us,” said Father Eustace, “for, frail wretches as we are, we cannot help ourselves under sudden and strong temptation.—Edward, I will rely on your word that you do nothing rashly.”
“That will I not,” said Edward,—“that, my better than father, I surely will not. But the blood of my brother,—the tears of my mother—and—and—and of Mary Avenel, shall not be shed in vain. I will not deceive you, father—if this Piercie Shafton hath slain my brother, he dies, if the whole blood of the whole house of Piercie were in his veins.”
There was a deep and solemn determination in the utterance of Edward Glendinning expressive of a rooted resolution. The Sub-Prior sighed deeply, and for the moment yielded to circumstances, and urged the acquiescence of his pupil no farther. He commanded lights to be placed in the lower chamber, which for a time he paced in silence.
A thousand ideas, and even differing principles, debated with each other in his bosom. He greatly doubted the English knight's account of the duel, and of what had followed it. Yet the extraordinary and supernatural circumstances which had befallen the Sacristan and himself in that very glen, prevented him from being absolutely incredulous on the score of the wonderful wound and recovery of Sir Piercie Shafton, and prevented him from at once condemning as impossible that which was altogether improbable. Then he was at a loss how to control the fraternal affections of Edward, with respect to whom he felt something like the keeper of a wild animal, a lion's whelp or tiger's cub, which he has held under his command from infancy, but which, when grown to maturity, on some sudden provocation displays his fangs and talons, erects his crest, resumes his savage nature, and bids defiance at once to his keeper and to all mankind.
How to restrain and mitigate an ire which the universal example of the times rendered deadly and inveterate, was sufficient cause of anxiety to Father Eustace. But he had also to consider the situation of his community, dishonoured and degraded by submitting to suffer the slaughter of a vassal to pass unavenged; a circumstance which of itself might in those times have afforded pretext for a revolt among their wavering adherents, or, on the other hand, exposed the community to imminent danger, should they proceed against a subject of England of high degree, connected with the house of Northumberland, and other northern families of high rank, who, as they possessed the means, could not be supposed to lack inclination, to wreak upon the patrimony of Saint Mary of Kennaquhair, any violence which might be offered to their kinsman.
In either case, the Sub-Prior well knew that the ostensible cause of feud, insurrection, or incursion, being once afforded, the case would not be ruled either by reason or by evidence, and he groaned in spirit when, upon counting up the chances which arose in this ambiguous dilemma, he found he had only a choice of difficulties. He was a monk, but he felt also as a man, indignant at the supposed slaughter of young Glendinning by one skilful in all the practice of arms, in which the vassal of the Monastery was most likely to be deficient; and to aid the resentment which he felt for the loss of a youth whom he had known from infancy, came in full force the sense of dishonour arising to his community from passing over so gross an insult unavenged. Then the light in which it might be viewed by those who at present presided in the stormy Court of Scotland, attached as they were to the Reformation, and allied by common faith and common interest with Queen Elizabeth, was a formidable subject of apprehension. The Sub-Prior well knew how they lusted after the revenues of the Church, (to express it in the ordinary phrase of the religious of the time,) and how readily they would grasp at such a pretext for encroaching on those of Saint Mary's, as would be afforded by the suffering to pass unpunished the death of a native Scottishman by a Catholic Englishman, a rebel to Queen Elizabeth.
On the other hand, to deliver up to England, or, which was nearly the same thing, the Scottish administration, an English knight leagued with the Piercie by kindred and political intrigue, a faithful follower of the Catholic Church, who had fled to the Halidome for protection, was, in the estimation of the Sub-Prior, an act most unworthy in itself, and meriting the malediction of Heaven, besides being, moreover, fraught with great temporal risk. If the government of Scotland was now almost entirely in the hands of the Protestant party, the Queen was still a Catholic, and there was no knowing when, amid the sudden changes which agitated that tumultuous country, she might find herself at the head of her own affairs, and able to protect those of her own faith. Then, if the Court of England and its Queen were zealously Protestant, the northern counties, whose friendship or enmity were of most consequence in the first instance to the community of Saint Mary's, contained many Catholics, the heads of whom were able, and must be supposed willing, to avenge any injury suffered by Sir Piercie Shafton.
On either side, the Sub-Prior, thinking, according to his sense of duty, most anxiously for the safety and welfare of his Monastery, saw the greatest risk of damage, blame, inroad, and confiscation. The only course on which he could determine, was to stand by the helm like a resolute pilot, watch every contingence, do his best to weather each reef and shoal, and commit the rest to heaven and his patroness.
As he left the apartment, the knight called after him, beseeching he would order his trunk-mails to be sent into his apartment, understanding he was to be guarded there for the night, as he wished to make some alteration in his apparel.
{Footnote: Sir Piercie Shafton's extreme love of dress was an attribute of the coxcombs of this period. The display made by their forefathers was in the numbers of their retinue; but as the actual influence of the nobility began to be restrained both in France and England by the increasing power of the crown, the indulgence of vanity in personal display became more inordinate. There are many allusions to this change of custom in Shakspeare and other dramatic writers, where the reader may find mention made of