CHAPTER XLIX.

[Contents]CHAPTER XLIX.The Lord of Dirleton’s Tale—The Bishop of Moray and his Clergy.The Earl of Moray led him and his little force through the Meads of St. John. That scene, lately so gay, was now considerably changed. Most of the pavilions on the hither meadow had been struck, and the knights who had occupied them had already left the ground with their people, whilst others waited to join the line of march. The temporary bridge was there to afford them a passage; but the demolition of the lists had been already begun under the superintendence of the pursuivants, and others of the heralds, to whom the property of the materials was an acknowledged perquisite. The inhabitants of the little town of tents and temporary huts were in humming motion, like a hive of bees that are about to swarm. All were preparing to depart with lamentations, their occupation being gone with the tournament that had assembled them; and pack-horses, and wains, and rude carts without wheels, that were dragged along the ground on the pointed extremities of the shafts projecting behind, were loaded with the utmost expedition.The street of the burgh presented a different picture. Thither the news of the approaching war had not yet reached, and the townsmen rested with blackened hands and faces from their melancholy work of clearing out the burnt rubbish from the foundations of their houses, to gaze, and wonder, and speculate on the armed force. Loud were the cheers with which they greeted the Earl of Moray, and they were not tired with these manifestations of their gratitude to their generous lord until they had accompanied him for a considerable way beyond the eastern end of the town. At the distance of some five or six miles from Forres the Earl halted his men, just where the half-wooded and half-cultivated country gave place to a bare heath of considerable extent, and where the gentle breeze was permitted to come cool and unbroken against their throbbing temples, after they were relieved from the thraldom of their bassinets and morions; whilst the oaks that fringed the moor, and straggled into it in groups and single trees, enabled them to find sufficient shade from a now oppressive sun, to eat their morning’s meal in comfort.A pavilion was pitched for the reception of the nobles,[343]knights, and ladies, and, after partaking of the refreshment that was provided under it, they wandered forth in parties to waste the time beneath the trees, until the horses should have been fed, and everything prepared for continuing the march. Sir Patrick Hepborne, having fallen into conversation with De Vaux, the old Lord of Dirleton, wandered slowly with him to a clump of trees at some distance, and they sat down together on an old oak that had fallen by natural decay from the little grove of gigantic trees that threw a shade over it. The place was sufficiently retired to promise security from interruption, and Hepborne longed much to obtain from his companion the distressing history to which he and his lady had alluded on the evening of their first meeting at Tarnawa. He felt it difficult, however, to hint at a subject of which he already knew enough to satisfy him, that it could not fail to be productive of painful emotions to his father’s old friend, and he would have left it untouched had not accident led to it.“That blasted moor, where tree grows not,” observed the Lord of Dirleton, “and where, as thou see’st, the stunted heath itself can hardly find food for life, amid the barren sand of which its soil is composed, was cursed into sterility by the infernal caldron of the weird-hags who, by their hellish incantations, did raise a poisonous marsh-fire to mislead Macbeth; and did so drag him down from the path of honour and virtue, to perish in a sea of crimes his soul would once have shuddered at. See’st thou yonder huge cairn of stones? Some men say that it marks the very spot where the foul crones first met him, as, with his associate Banquo, he did return victorious from the overthrow of the Danes, who did invade Fife, and whose bravest leaders he sent to eternal repose in St. Colme’s Isle; it was there, I say, that tradition reporteth they did appear to him, when, with the flattering tongue of the great Tempter, they did salute him Thane of Glammis and of Cawdor, and alswa King hereafter.”“Tell me, I pray thee,” said Sir Patrick, “what make these soldiers who do so crowd towards the cairn? Methinks some of them on horseback, and some of them on foot, are riding and running full tilt around it, as if in frolicsome chase of each other.”The Lord of Dirleton was silent for some moments. He sighed, and, much to Sir Patrick’s surprise, tears came into his eyes. He was deeply affected for some moments.“Thou must of needscost marvel, Sir Knight,” said he at length, “to see me so much moved by a question the which is so simple in itself, and the which did fall so naturally from thee.[344]But thy wonder will cease anon. Be it known to thee, that these men do run and ride in that manner, in compliance with a well-received belief, that to surround the cairn with three times three circuits, securely buys the happiness of him who doth so, for the space of three times three months. Peraunter thy marvel will now be enhanced, why I should have wept at the notice of a practice so apparently harmless; but that thine astonishment may forthwith cease, I shall haste me to tell thee the cause of these tears. I am not sorry that I have been led thus accidentally to the subject, sith I did well intend me to effund into thine ear, at first fitting time, the circumstances of that bereavement of the which, when I did once before obscurely hint to thee, thou didst then seem to wish to hear more.”The Lord of Dirleton paused, as if to recollect himself, and, after an effort to master certain feelings that agitated him, he began his narrative—“It was about three months after the Lady of Dirleton had happily given birth to her first daughter, that I left her and her baby in full health, and soon afterwards travelled northward into these parts, with mine early friend, John Dunbar, Earl of Moray. We had been at Lithgow together, at the proclamation of King Robert, and I had yielded to my Lord’s wishes, to bear him company for some few days at his Castle of Tarnawa. After a short sojournance in his hospitable hall, I reached this spot on my way homewards, and chancing to halt here, as we do now, I was told of the virtues of the Witch’s Cairn. Bethinking me that it was good to secure nine months of happiness at so easy a price, I spurred my horse into a gallop, and began to course around it at full speed.“I had already encircled it twice three times, and had begun the seventh round, when my horse was suddenly scared by the appearance of a haggard female figure that arose from among the docks and clot leaves in the middle of the heap, and glared fearfully at me. The animal started so unexpectedly aside that he threw me from the saddle, and I lay stunned by the severity of the fall. When my senses returned to me, I found myself in the hands of my people, who were busied about me under a tree. Convinced that it was some supernatural thing that had so strangely crossed me, and put a period to mine attempt to work against fate, I did eagerly demand of those about me what had become of the unsightly witch. All agreed that she had limped slowly away before their eyes until lost in the neighbouring wood; one or two there were who did ween her to be no other than some ancient shepherdess or nerthes-woman, who, wearied[345]with watch, mought liggen her down to rest there, and who had been frayed from her sleep by the sounding tramp of my horse’s gallop; but the rest were of my mind, that she was verily some evil witch, whose blasted form and eyne boded some dire malure.“Sore oppressed with the belief of approaching calamity, I did hie me back to mine own Castle of Dirleton, with a far heavier heart than I had left it, dreading drearily as I went that I should learn some dismal tidings when I should reach thither. But all was well; and as things went not in anywise awry for some time, I began to laugh in secret at my own apprehensions. Prosperity favoured me, indeed, in a somewhat unusual manner. For six months was I blessed by a train of good luck so unusual, that hardly a day passed without some happy or favourable occurrence; but this was the very cause of awakening new fears in me. If, said I, reasoning with myself—if the six withershin circles round the Witch’s Cairn have had any influence in producing this marvellous coil of good fortune, what will happen when the spell-thread is unwound to the end, where it was so mysteriously snapped? This seventh moon must be pregnant with some dire affliction.“I trembled for its approach. It began—several days of it had already stolen away—all was well, and I did again blush for my fears; but, alas! they were too soon realised. One evening Sarah, the nurse of our infant, was amissing with her charge. It grew late, and the Lady Dirleton became frantic with the most cruel apprehensions. She insisted on accompanying me out to search for the nurse and her babe. The alarm spread, and not only the domestics but the whole vassals, largely sharing in our affliction, turned out to aid us. All our efforts were in vain, for a dark and stormy night came on; and on that wide plain that stretcheth between the Castle and the sea, there was greater risk of the seekers losing themselves than chance of their finding the woman and the babe. The Lady Dirleton recklessly wandered until she was so sore toil-spent that she was carried to the Castle almost insensible. I did still continue my search in despair, in defiance of whirlwinds of sand and red glaring flashes of lightning. Faint and distant screams were heard by times ymeint with the blast. We followed in the direction they went in, as well as the mirkness of the night might permit us to do. Sometimes they would bring us down towards the shore of the sea, where they were lost amidst the thunders of its waves rolling furiously in on the beach. Anon we did hear them retreating inland, and we were led by[346]them, in a zig-zag course, hither and thither across the plain, in idle pursuit. ‘The child! the babe!—ha, the murderer!—ha, blood, blood, blood!—murder, murder!—the child, the child!’ were the fearful words we caught from time to time, ymingled with wild unearthly cries. Still we followed, and we shouted by times; but our shouts were unheeded, albeit they must natheless have been heard by the person whose voice reached our ears so strongly.“At length, after a harrassing night of fruitless following, the voice died away from us, and we groped wearily and hopelessly about until day did gloomily dawn upon us. We again wandered down towards the shore, and there descried a female figure, with torn garments and dishevelled hair, running and leaping about with wild and irrational action among the sand-heaps by the sea side. I thought of the hag of the Witch’s Cairn, and my blood curdled within me.“For some time we followed the figure, but almost with as little success as we had before done in the darkness of night. At length, by making a circuit around her, we came close upon her, where she had seated herself on the top of a benty hillock. It was Sarah, the nurse of our child. She rose wildly, by fits and starts, and waved her arms high in the air, and gave streaming to the wind the infant’s sky-blue mantle, the which was red with blood-stains. Her eyes were fixed in vacancy, and she regarded us not as we approached her; but she screamed and shrieked unintelligibly; and again she laughed loud and horribly at intervals. We rushed upon her, and then it was we discovered that reason had been reft from her. Her eyes glared wildly around on us all, but she knew no one, and no syllable could now be extracted from her. It was too clear, alas! that she had murdered mine infant in the sudden frenzy that had seized her!”“Blessed Virgin, protect us!” cried Sir Patrick Hepborne, horror-struck with the Lord of Dirleton’s story.“She was the daughter of an old and much attached domestic,” continued de Vaux, “and she herself, devoted to us as a daughter, loved the infant as her own. Nothing but madness could have driven her to do a deed so horrible. Where she had disposed of the body of the poor innocent we could never discover, though our search for it was unceasing for some days. As for the wretched Sarah, whom God had so visited as to make her no longer accountable for her actions, she was brought back into the Castle, and put under that needful restraint to the which she was subjected for many years thereafter. When she[347]came to be examined more narrowly, some one discovered a dreadful gash on her right hand, as if given by a dagger, a circumstance the which did add to the heap of mystery the truth was buried under, and engendered full many a vague thought and idle surmise. I gave mine orders that some one should be for ever on the watch by Sarah, night and day, to catch up anything she might utter in her ravings, that might chance to illuminate the darkness that hung over this heart-breaking calamity. But albeit her voice was rarely silent for a moment, being unceasingly poured forth in elritch screams of laughter when she was in her wildest fits, or in piteous moaning and waymenting when she was low, yet did she rarely mould it into words of meaning. Full oft would she take up in her arms the mantle, the which she had never parted withal, and hush it with sad lullaby, as if the child had been within it; and more than once, when thus employed, she was seen to clasp it in agony to her bosom, to look wildly on vacancy, and to stretch forth her arm, as if dreading the approach of some one, and fleeing into the darksome corner of her cell, she was heard to yell out, ‘Murderer!—ha! the babe, the babe!—help, murder!—blood, blood!—my babe!’—and then she would lay open the mantle, and gazing into it with frenzy, would increase her screams to the very cracking of her voice, as if she had but that moment discovered that the infant was gone.“Thou mayest right well conceive, Sir Patrick,” continued the Lord of Dirleton, after a pause, during which he yielded to the emotions so powerfully excited by this recapitulation of the circumstances of this so terrible affliction which had befallen him—“thou mayest easily imagine, I say, what a deep, nay, fathomless tide of sorrow poured over the souls of the Lady Dirleton and me. We loathed the very air of the scene tainted by this dreadful tragedy. Anxious to escape from it, we hastened abroad, and strove, by mixing in the society of a new world, to blunt the pangs we suffered from the very souvenance of our home. I need say no more, I wis, but to crave thy good pardon, Sir Patrick, for drawing so hugely on thy patience by this long narration, the which, I do natheless opine, hath not been altogether uninteresting to thee, sith I have observed that thou hast, more than once, showed signs of thy friendly sympathy for our misfortune.”“In truth, my Lord, I am deeply affected by thy strange and melancholy history,” replied Hepborne. “But what, I pray thee, hath become of Sarah, thy child’s nurse, on whom so much mystery doth hang?”[348]“After many years of confinement, Sarah’s wudness did become more tranquil; it seemed as if it was gradually worn out by its own fury. Then did succeed the mantling and stagnant calmness of idiocy—and seeing that she was no longer harmful, she was, by slow degrees, permitted greater license, until at last she was suffered to go about at the freedom of her own will. But will she seemed to have none. Supported by the Lady Dirleton’s charity, and tended by her order, she wandered to and fro in the neighbourhood of the Castle, like a living clod, hardly ever exhibiting even a consciousness of existence.”“And dost thou believe, my Lord,” demanded Hepborne, “that the wudness of this poor afflicted wretch did verily work this sad malure to thee? Or didst thou never entertain aught of suspicion of crime against any who were more accountable for their deeds?”“Ay,” replied the Lord of Dirleton, after a pause; “ay, we had suspicions—horrible suspicions. My brother John, that is my half-brother, for he was the son of my father by a woman of low birth and infamous character, who, by sacrifice of virtue and afterwards by her cunning, didst circumvent my father, then an old man, and did induce him to patch up a marriage with her. After the death of my father she would fain have kept the same place she had done during his life; but as I had just then married me I could not insult my wife by the introduction to her notice of a woman so notourly infamous. I natheless did what in prudence I might for my brother, then a young man of some eighteen or twenty winters. I took him under mine own roof, where I in vain endeavoured to bring down his naturally haughty and unbending temper, and to restrain the violence of his passions. I had shown him an elder brother’s kindness from very boyhood, and methought his heart did love me. But his wicked and infamous mother, stung with the disgrace of being refused admittance within our gates, so worked upon his young mind that she taught him to regard me rather as an enemy than as a benefactor. Forgetful of the anxiety I did ever display for the advancement of his fortunes and the improvement of his mind, he became impatient of reproof, and ever and anon he was guilty of the most gross and offensive insults to me, and yet more so to the Lady Dirleton, against whom his mother’s hatred was more particularly inflamed. Such ungrateful behaviour did naturally beget much unhappy brawling, and high and bitter words often passed between us. At length his daring arose to such a height that he presumed to usher in his impure dam[349]among the noble and honourable guests who assembled to witness the ceremonial baptism of our infant. O’ermastered by rage at the moment, and boiling with indignation, I forgot myself so far as to give him a blow; and I did hound both of them straightway forth with ignominious reproach from my walls. I saw not John ever again, yet I had good cause to fear that he——But hold! my wife and daughter approach; and, hark! the trumpets do sound for the march.”As the Earls of Moray, Fife, Dunbar, and Douglas, who led the line, were breaking through the oak forest through which they travelled for some time after leaving the halting-place, the proud towers of Elgin rose before them, and the tinkling of many a bell from its various convents and churches told them that its inhabitants were already aware of their approach. Soon afterwards the long train of a procession was seen winding down from the entrance of the town, and as they drew nearer they descried at the head of it the venerable Alexander Barr, bishop of the diocese. He was accompanied by his twenty-two canons secular, and various other members and servants of the Cathedral; and after him came a body of Black Dominican Monks, followed by the Grey Franciscan Friars, all marching in pairs. Ere the warlike body of nobles, and knights, and men-at-arms had reached the bridge, the procession had halted to receive them. The Bishop, in his episcopal robes, sat, patiently waiting them, on a well-fed milk-white palfrey, of sober and staid disposition, suited to his master’s habits. The Earl of Moray hastened to dismount, and would have run to assist the Prelate from his horse. But there was no pride in the old man, and seeing the Earl’s intention, he quitted his saddle with an agility hardly to be looked for from one of his years, and, hastening to meet his embrace, bestowed his willing benediction on him, as well as on the Earls of Fife, Dunbar, and Douglas, and those who followed them.“My Lord Bishop,” said the Earl of Fife, “verily I did scarcely look for this good countenance and gentle demeanour from thee, seeing how I am sykered to him who hath wrought the Church so much foul wrong. But thou well knowest——”“Talk not of these matters, my Lord Earl of Fife, I beseech thee,” cried the Bishop, interrupting him; “talk not of these matters now. We shall have ample leisure to discuss these painful themes ere the hour of couchee. Mount, I beseech thee, and let me now do what honour I may to the son of my King, and to his noble brothers-in-law, the gallant Earls of Douglas and of Moray, by escorting them to the Royal Castle. Thy[350]messengers, my Lord,” continued he, turning to Earl Moray, “did out-run my tardy hospitality; for ere I gathered tidings of thy coming, or could bestir myself to make fitting provision for thy reception, and for the banqueting of these nobles, knights, and ladies, thy preparations at the Castle were already largely advanced, else had I assuredly claimed thee and all as my guests.”“Of a truth, we are rather too potent a company to harass thee withal,” replied the Earl of Moray; “and, as Constable of the Royal Castle here, it would ill become me to shrink from the fulfilment of its hospitality. Let us mount, then, and hie us thither.”All being again in their saddles, those composing the procession turned their faces towards the town, and began to move slowly onwards. The black crosses on the humble white gowns of the Dominicans or Black Friars, and the grey gown and cowl of the Franciscans—their meek and world-contemning countenances—their bare feet, the soft tread of which gave forth no sound—the humble banner of St. Giles, the tutelary saint of the town, who was represented in his pastoral habit, holding a book in his right hand, and a staff in his left, with the motto, “Sic itur ad astra,” were all calculated to lead the mind far above the pomps of this vain world, and were strangely contrasted with the fierce and haughty looks of the warriors—their glittering armour—their nodding plumes—the yell of the bugles—and the proudly-blazoned surcoats, and shields, and banners, and pennons, which flared against the declining sun, as if their glory had been made to endure even beyond that of the blessed luminary itself.They wound up the steep hill to the Castle, and there the religious orders halted in two lines, facing each other, until the gaudy war-pageant had passed inwards, with all its crashing clangour of instruments, and all its flash and glitter. The holy brethren then moved away in silence, disappearing in succession, like the waves that follow the foaming surges raised on the bosom of a lone lake by the fall of some mountain crag.But there was one monk of the order of St. Francis there who staid not with his brethren to gaze with lack-lustre eye on the ranks of the warriors as they rode by. Deep excitation seemed suddenly to be awakened in him by some passing object. With an agitated air, he shrouded himself up in his grey cowl, and tightening his girdle of ropes about his loins, he mingled with the ranks of riders, and glided into the Castle.[351]

CHAPTER XLIX.The Lord of Dirleton’s Tale—The Bishop of Moray and his Clergy.

The Lord of Dirleton’s Tale—The Bishop of Moray and his Clergy.

The Earl of Moray led him and his little force through the Meads of St. John. That scene, lately so gay, was now considerably changed. Most of the pavilions on the hither meadow had been struck, and the knights who had occupied them had already left the ground with their people, whilst others waited to join the line of march. The temporary bridge was there to afford them a passage; but the demolition of the lists had been already begun under the superintendence of the pursuivants, and others of the heralds, to whom the property of the materials was an acknowledged perquisite. The inhabitants of the little town of tents and temporary huts were in humming motion, like a hive of bees that are about to swarm. All were preparing to depart with lamentations, their occupation being gone with the tournament that had assembled them; and pack-horses, and wains, and rude carts without wheels, that were dragged along the ground on the pointed extremities of the shafts projecting behind, were loaded with the utmost expedition.The street of the burgh presented a different picture. Thither the news of the approaching war had not yet reached, and the townsmen rested with blackened hands and faces from their melancholy work of clearing out the burnt rubbish from the foundations of their houses, to gaze, and wonder, and speculate on the armed force. Loud were the cheers with which they greeted the Earl of Moray, and they were not tired with these manifestations of their gratitude to their generous lord until they had accompanied him for a considerable way beyond the eastern end of the town. At the distance of some five or six miles from Forres the Earl halted his men, just where the half-wooded and half-cultivated country gave place to a bare heath of considerable extent, and where the gentle breeze was permitted to come cool and unbroken against their throbbing temples, after they were relieved from the thraldom of their bassinets and morions; whilst the oaks that fringed the moor, and straggled into it in groups and single trees, enabled them to find sufficient shade from a now oppressive sun, to eat their morning’s meal in comfort.A pavilion was pitched for the reception of the nobles,[343]knights, and ladies, and, after partaking of the refreshment that was provided under it, they wandered forth in parties to waste the time beneath the trees, until the horses should have been fed, and everything prepared for continuing the march. Sir Patrick Hepborne, having fallen into conversation with De Vaux, the old Lord of Dirleton, wandered slowly with him to a clump of trees at some distance, and they sat down together on an old oak that had fallen by natural decay from the little grove of gigantic trees that threw a shade over it. The place was sufficiently retired to promise security from interruption, and Hepborne longed much to obtain from his companion the distressing history to which he and his lady had alluded on the evening of their first meeting at Tarnawa. He felt it difficult, however, to hint at a subject of which he already knew enough to satisfy him, that it could not fail to be productive of painful emotions to his father’s old friend, and he would have left it untouched had not accident led to it.“That blasted moor, where tree grows not,” observed the Lord of Dirleton, “and where, as thou see’st, the stunted heath itself can hardly find food for life, amid the barren sand of which its soil is composed, was cursed into sterility by the infernal caldron of the weird-hags who, by their hellish incantations, did raise a poisonous marsh-fire to mislead Macbeth; and did so drag him down from the path of honour and virtue, to perish in a sea of crimes his soul would once have shuddered at. See’st thou yonder huge cairn of stones? Some men say that it marks the very spot where the foul crones first met him, as, with his associate Banquo, he did return victorious from the overthrow of the Danes, who did invade Fife, and whose bravest leaders he sent to eternal repose in St. Colme’s Isle; it was there, I say, that tradition reporteth they did appear to him, when, with the flattering tongue of the great Tempter, they did salute him Thane of Glammis and of Cawdor, and alswa King hereafter.”“Tell me, I pray thee,” said Sir Patrick, “what make these soldiers who do so crowd towards the cairn? Methinks some of them on horseback, and some of them on foot, are riding and running full tilt around it, as if in frolicsome chase of each other.”The Lord of Dirleton was silent for some moments. He sighed, and, much to Sir Patrick’s surprise, tears came into his eyes. He was deeply affected for some moments.“Thou must of needscost marvel, Sir Knight,” said he at length, “to see me so much moved by a question the which is so simple in itself, and the which did fall so naturally from thee.[344]But thy wonder will cease anon. Be it known to thee, that these men do run and ride in that manner, in compliance with a well-received belief, that to surround the cairn with three times three circuits, securely buys the happiness of him who doth so, for the space of three times three months. Peraunter thy marvel will now be enhanced, why I should have wept at the notice of a practice so apparently harmless; but that thine astonishment may forthwith cease, I shall haste me to tell thee the cause of these tears. I am not sorry that I have been led thus accidentally to the subject, sith I did well intend me to effund into thine ear, at first fitting time, the circumstances of that bereavement of the which, when I did once before obscurely hint to thee, thou didst then seem to wish to hear more.”The Lord of Dirleton paused, as if to recollect himself, and, after an effort to master certain feelings that agitated him, he began his narrative—“It was about three months after the Lady of Dirleton had happily given birth to her first daughter, that I left her and her baby in full health, and soon afterwards travelled northward into these parts, with mine early friend, John Dunbar, Earl of Moray. We had been at Lithgow together, at the proclamation of King Robert, and I had yielded to my Lord’s wishes, to bear him company for some few days at his Castle of Tarnawa. After a short sojournance in his hospitable hall, I reached this spot on my way homewards, and chancing to halt here, as we do now, I was told of the virtues of the Witch’s Cairn. Bethinking me that it was good to secure nine months of happiness at so easy a price, I spurred my horse into a gallop, and began to course around it at full speed.“I had already encircled it twice three times, and had begun the seventh round, when my horse was suddenly scared by the appearance of a haggard female figure that arose from among the docks and clot leaves in the middle of the heap, and glared fearfully at me. The animal started so unexpectedly aside that he threw me from the saddle, and I lay stunned by the severity of the fall. When my senses returned to me, I found myself in the hands of my people, who were busied about me under a tree. Convinced that it was some supernatural thing that had so strangely crossed me, and put a period to mine attempt to work against fate, I did eagerly demand of those about me what had become of the unsightly witch. All agreed that she had limped slowly away before their eyes until lost in the neighbouring wood; one or two there were who did ween her to be no other than some ancient shepherdess or nerthes-woman, who, wearied[345]with watch, mought liggen her down to rest there, and who had been frayed from her sleep by the sounding tramp of my horse’s gallop; but the rest were of my mind, that she was verily some evil witch, whose blasted form and eyne boded some dire malure.“Sore oppressed with the belief of approaching calamity, I did hie me back to mine own Castle of Dirleton, with a far heavier heart than I had left it, dreading drearily as I went that I should learn some dismal tidings when I should reach thither. But all was well; and as things went not in anywise awry for some time, I began to laugh in secret at my own apprehensions. Prosperity favoured me, indeed, in a somewhat unusual manner. For six months was I blessed by a train of good luck so unusual, that hardly a day passed without some happy or favourable occurrence; but this was the very cause of awakening new fears in me. If, said I, reasoning with myself—if the six withershin circles round the Witch’s Cairn have had any influence in producing this marvellous coil of good fortune, what will happen when the spell-thread is unwound to the end, where it was so mysteriously snapped? This seventh moon must be pregnant with some dire affliction.“I trembled for its approach. It began—several days of it had already stolen away—all was well, and I did again blush for my fears; but, alas! they were too soon realised. One evening Sarah, the nurse of our infant, was amissing with her charge. It grew late, and the Lady Dirleton became frantic with the most cruel apprehensions. She insisted on accompanying me out to search for the nurse and her babe. The alarm spread, and not only the domestics but the whole vassals, largely sharing in our affliction, turned out to aid us. All our efforts were in vain, for a dark and stormy night came on; and on that wide plain that stretcheth between the Castle and the sea, there was greater risk of the seekers losing themselves than chance of their finding the woman and the babe. The Lady Dirleton recklessly wandered until she was so sore toil-spent that she was carried to the Castle almost insensible. I did still continue my search in despair, in defiance of whirlwinds of sand and red glaring flashes of lightning. Faint and distant screams were heard by times ymeint with the blast. We followed in the direction they went in, as well as the mirkness of the night might permit us to do. Sometimes they would bring us down towards the shore of the sea, where they were lost amidst the thunders of its waves rolling furiously in on the beach. Anon we did hear them retreating inland, and we were led by[346]them, in a zig-zag course, hither and thither across the plain, in idle pursuit. ‘The child! the babe!—ha, the murderer!—ha, blood, blood, blood!—murder, murder!—the child, the child!’ were the fearful words we caught from time to time, ymingled with wild unearthly cries. Still we followed, and we shouted by times; but our shouts were unheeded, albeit they must natheless have been heard by the person whose voice reached our ears so strongly.“At length, after a harrassing night of fruitless following, the voice died away from us, and we groped wearily and hopelessly about until day did gloomily dawn upon us. We again wandered down towards the shore, and there descried a female figure, with torn garments and dishevelled hair, running and leaping about with wild and irrational action among the sand-heaps by the sea side. I thought of the hag of the Witch’s Cairn, and my blood curdled within me.“For some time we followed the figure, but almost with as little success as we had before done in the darkness of night. At length, by making a circuit around her, we came close upon her, where she had seated herself on the top of a benty hillock. It was Sarah, the nurse of our child. She rose wildly, by fits and starts, and waved her arms high in the air, and gave streaming to the wind the infant’s sky-blue mantle, the which was red with blood-stains. Her eyes were fixed in vacancy, and she regarded us not as we approached her; but she screamed and shrieked unintelligibly; and again she laughed loud and horribly at intervals. We rushed upon her, and then it was we discovered that reason had been reft from her. Her eyes glared wildly around on us all, but she knew no one, and no syllable could now be extracted from her. It was too clear, alas! that she had murdered mine infant in the sudden frenzy that had seized her!”“Blessed Virgin, protect us!” cried Sir Patrick Hepborne, horror-struck with the Lord of Dirleton’s story.“She was the daughter of an old and much attached domestic,” continued de Vaux, “and she herself, devoted to us as a daughter, loved the infant as her own. Nothing but madness could have driven her to do a deed so horrible. Where she had disposed of the body of the poor innocent we could never discover, though our search for it was unceasing for some days. As for the wretched Sarah, whom God had so visited as to make her no longer accountable for her actions, she was brought back into the Castle, and put under that needful restraint to the which she was subjected for many years thereafter. When she[347]came to be examined more narrowly, some one discovered a dreadful gash on her right hand, as if given by a dagger, a circumstance the which did add to the heap of mystery the truth was buried under, and engendered full many a vague thought and idle surmise. I gave mine orders that some one should be for ever on the watch by Sarah, night and day, to catch up anything she might utter in her ravings, that might chance to illuminate the darkness that hung over this heart-breaking calamity. But albeit her voice was rarely silent for a moment, being unceasingly poured forth in elritch screams of laughter when she was in her wildest fits, or in piteous moaning and waymenting when she was low, yet did she rarely mould it into words of meaning. Full oft would she take up in her arms the mantle, the which she had never parted withal, and hush it with sad lullaby, as if the child had been within it; and more than once, when thus employed, she was seen to clasp it in agony to her bosom, to look wildly on vacancy, and to stretch forth her arm, as if dreading the approach of some one, and fleeing into the darksome corner of her cell, she was heard to yell out, ‘Murderer!—ha! the babe, the babe!—help, murder!—blood, blood!—my babe!’—and then she would lay open the mantle, and gazing into it with frenzy, would increase her screams to the very cracking of her voice, as if she had but that moment discovered that the infant was gone.“Thou mayest right well conceive, Sir Patrick,” continued the Lord of Dirleton, after a pause, during which he yielded to the emotions so powerfully excited by this recapitulation of the circumstances of this so terrible affliction which had befallen him—“thou mayest easily imagine, I say, what a deep, nay, fathomless tide of sorrow poured over the souls of the Lady Dirleton and me. We loathed the very air of the scene tainted by this dreadful tragedy. Anxious to escape from it, we hastened abroad, and strove, by mixing in the society of a new world, to blunt the pangs we suffered from the very souvenance of our home. I need say no more, I wis, but to crave thy good pardon, Sir Patrick, for drawing so hugely on thy patience by this long narration, the which, I do natheless opine, hath not been altogether uninteresting to thee, sith I have observed that thou hast, more than once, showed signs of thy friendly sympathy for our misfortune.”“In truth, my Lord, I am deeply affected by thy strange and melancholy history,” replied Hepborne. “But what, I pray thee, hath become of Sarah, thy child’s nurse, on whom so much mystery doth hang?”[348]“After many years of confinement, Sarah’s wudness did become more tranquil; it seemed as if it was gradually worn out by its own fury. Then did succeed the mantling and stagnant calmness of idiocy—and seeing that she was no longer harmful, she was, by slow degrees, permitted greater license, until at last she was suffered to go about at the freedom of her own will. But will she seemed to have none. Supported by the Lady Dirleton’s charity, and tended by her order, she wandered to and fro in the neighbourhood of the Castle, like a living clod, hardly ever exhibiting even a consciousness of existence.”“And dost thou believe, my Lord,” demanded Hepborne, “that the wudness of this poor afflicted wretch did verily work this sad malure to thee? Or didst thou never entertain aught of suspicion of crime against any who were more accountable for their deeds?”“Ay,” replied the Lord of Dirleton, after a pause; “ay, we had suspicions—horrible suspicions. My brother John, that is my half-brother, for he was the son of my father by a woman of low birth and infamous character, who, by sacrifice of virtue and afterwards by her cunning, didst circumvent my father, then an old man, and did induce him to patch up a marriage with her. After the death of my father she would fain have kept the same place she had done during his life; but as I had just then married me I could not insult my wife by the introduction to her notice of a woman so notourly infamous. I natheless did what in prudence I might for my brother, then a young man of some eighteen or twenty winters. I took him under mine own roof, where I in vain endeavoured to bring down his naturally haughty and unbending temper, and to restrain the violence of his passions. I had shown him an elder brother’s kindness from very boyhood, and methought his heart did love me. But his wicked and infamous mother, stung with the disgrace of being refused admittance within our gates, so worked upon his young mind that she taught him to regard me rather as an enemy than as a benefactor. Forgetful of the anxiety I did ever display for the advancement of his fortunes and the improvement of his mind, he became impatient of reproof, and ever and anon he was guilty of the most gross and offensive insults to me, and yet more so to the Lady Dirleton, against whom his mother’s hatred was more particularly inflamed. Such ungrateful behaviour did naturally beget much unhappy brawling, and high and bitter words often passed between us. At length his daring arose to such a height that he presumed to usher in his impure dam[349]among the noble and honourable guests who assembled to witness the ceremonial baptism of our infant. O’ermastered by rage at the moment, and boiling with indignation, I forgot myself so far as to give him a blow; and I did hound both of them straightway forth with ignominious reproach from my walls. I saw not John ever again, yet I had good cause to fear that he——But hold! my wife and daughter approach; and, hark! the trumpets do sound for the march.”As the Earls of Moray, Fife, Dunbar, and Douglas, who led the line, were breaking through the oak forest through which they travelled for some time after leaving the halting-place, the proud towers of Elgin rose before them, and the tinkling of many a bell from its various convents and churches told them that its inhabitants were already aware of their approach. Soon afterwards the long train of a procession was seen winding down from the entrance of the town, and as they drew nearer they descried at the head of it the venerable Alexander Barr, bishop of the diocese. He was accompanied by his twenty-two canons secular, and various other members and servants of the Cathedral; and after him came a body of Black Dominican Monks, followed by the Grey Franciscan Friars, all marching in pairs. Ere the warlike body of nobles, and knights, and men-at-arms had reached the bridge, the procession had halted to receive them. The Bishop, in his episcopal robes, sat, patiently waiting them, on a well-fed milk-white palfrey, of sober and staid disposition, suited to his master’s habits. The Earl of Moray hastened to dismount, and would have run to assist the Prelate from his horse. But there was no pride in the old man, and seeing the Earl’s intention, he quitted his saddle with an agility hardly to be looked for from one of his years, and, hastening to meet his embrace, bestowed his willing benediction on him, as well as on the Earls of Fife, Dunbar, and Douglas, and those who followed them.“My Lord Bishop,” said the Earl of Fife, “verily I did scarcely look for this good countenance and gentle demeanour from thee, seeing how I am sykered to him who hath wrought the Church so much foul wrong. But thou well knowest——”“Talk not of these matters, my Lord Earl of Fife, I beseech thee,” cried the Bishop, interrupting him; “talk not of these matters now. We shall have ample leisure to discuss these painful themes ere the hour of couchee. Mount, I beseech thee, and let me now do what honour I may to the son of my King, and to his noble brothers-in-law, the gallant Earls of Douglas and of Moray, by escorting them to the Royal Castle. Thy[350]messengers, my Lord,” continued he, turning to Earl Moray, “did out-run my tardy hospitality; for ere I gathered tidings of thy coming, or could bestir myself to make fitting provision for thy reception, and for the banqueting of these nobles, knights, and ladies, thy preparations at the Castle were already largely advanced, else had I assuredly claimed thee and all as my guests.”“Of a truth, we are rather too potent a company to harass thee withal,” replied the Earl of Moray; “and, as Constable of the Royal Castle here, it would ill become me to shrink from the fulfilment of its hospitality. Let us mount, then, and hie us thither.”All being again in their saddles, those composing the procession turned their faces towards the town, and began to move slowly onwards. The black crosses on the humble white gowns of the Dominicans or Black Friars, and the grey gown and cowl of the Franciscans—their meek and world-contemning countenances—their bare feet, the soft tread of which gave forth no sound—the humble banner of St. Giles, the tutelary saint of the town, who was represented in his pastoral habit, holding a book in his right hand, and a staff in his left, with the motto, “Sic itur ad astra,” were all calculated to lead the mind far above the pomps of this vain world, and were strangely contrasted with the fierce and haughty looks of the warriors—their glittering armour—their nodding plumes—the yell of the bugles—and the proudly-blazoned surcoats, and shields, and banners, and pennons, which flared against the declining sun, as if their glory had been made to endure even beyond that of the blessed luminary itself.They wound up the steep hill to the Castle, and there the religious orders halted in two lines, facing each other, until the gaudy war-pageant had passed inwards, with all its crashing clangour of instruments, and all its flash and glitter. The holy brethren then moved away in silence, disappearing in succession, like the waves that follow the foaming surges raised on the bosom of a lone lake by the fall of some mountain crag.But there was one monk of the order of St. Francis there who staid not with his brethren to gaze with lack-lustre eye on the ranks of the warriors as they rode by. Deep excitation seemed suddenly to be awakened in him by some passing object. With an agitated air, he shrouded himself up in his grey cowl, and tightening his girdle of ropes about his loins, he mingled with the ranks of riders, and glided into the Castle.[351]

The street of the burgh presented a different picture. Thither the news of the approaching war had not yet reached, and the townsmen rested with blackened hands and faces from their melancholy work of clearing out the burnt rubbish from the foundations of their houses, to gaze, and wonder, and speculate on the armed force. Loud were the cheers with which they greeted the Earl of Moray, and they were not tired with these manifestations of their gratitude to their generous lord until they had accompanied him for a considerable way beyond the eastern end of the town. At the distance of some five or six miles from Forres the Earl halted his men, just where the half-wooded and half-cultivated country gave place to a bare heath of considerable extent, and where the gentle breeze was permitted to come cool and unbroken against their throbbing temples, after they were relieved from the thraldom of their bassinets and morions; whilst the oaks that fringed the moor, and straggled into it in groups and single trees, enabled them to find sufficient shade from a now oppressive sun, to eat their morning’s meal in comfort.

A pavilion was pitched for the reception of the nobles,[343]knights, and ladies, and, after partaking of the refreshment that was provided under it, they wandered forth in parties to waste the time beneath the trees, until the horses should have been fed, and everything prepared for continuing the march. Sir Patrick Hepborne, having fallen into conversation with De Vaux, the old Lord of Dirleton, wandered slowly with him to a clump of trees at some distance, and they sat down together on an old oak that had fallen by natural decay from the little grove of gigantic trees that threw a shade over it. The place was sufficiently retired to promise security from interruption, and Hepborne longed much to obtain from his companion the distressing history to which he and his lady had alluded on the evening of their first meeting at Tarnawa. He felt it difficult, however, to hint at a subject of which he already knew enough to satisfy him, that it could not fail to be productive of painful emotions to his father’s old friend, and he would have left it untouched had not accident led to it.

“That blasted moor, where tree grows not,” observed the Lord of Dirleton, “and where, as thou see’st, the stunted heath itself can hardly find food for life, amid the barren sand of which its soil is composed, was cursed into sterility by the infernal caldron of the weird-hags who, by their hellish incantations, did raise a poisonous marsh-fire to mislead Macbeth; and did so drag him down from the path of honour and virtue, to perish in a sea of crimes his soul would once have shuddered at. See’st thou yonder huge cairn of stones? Some men say that it marks the very spot where the foul crones first met him, as, with his associate Banquo, he did return victorious from the overthrow of the Danes, who did invade Fife, and whose bravest leaders he sent to eternal repose in St. Colme’s Isle; it was there, I say, that tradition reporteth they did appear to him, when, with the flattering tongue of the great Tempter, they did salute him Thane of Glammis and of Cawdor, and alswa King hereafter.”

“Tell me, I pray thee,” said Sir Patrick, “what make these soldiers who do so crowd towards the cairn? Methinks some of them on horseback, and some of them on foot, are riding and running full tilt around it, as if in frolicsome chase of each other.”

The Lord of Dirleton was silent for some moments. He sighed, and, much to Sir Patrick’s surprise, tears came into his eyes. He was deeply affected for some moments.

“Thou must of needscost marvel, Sir Knight,” said he at length, “to see me so much moved by a question the which is so simple in itself, and the which did fall so naturally from thee.[344]But thy wonder will cease anon. Be it known to thee, that these men do run and ride in that manner, in compliance with a well-received belief, that to surround the cairn with three times three circuits, securely buys the happiness of him who doth so, for the space of three times three months. Peraunter thy marvel will now be enhanced, why I should have wept at the notice of a practice so apparently harmless; but that thine astonishment may forthwith cease, I shall haste me to tell thee the cause of these tears. I am not sorry that I have been led thus accidentally to the subject, sith I did well intend me to effund into thine ear, at first fitting time, the circumstances of that bereavement of the which, when I did once before obscurely hint to thee, thou didst then seem to wish to hear more.”

The Lord of Dirleton paused, as if to recollect himself, and, after an effort to master certain feelings that agitated him, he began his narrative—

“It was about three months after the Lady of Dirleton had happily given birth to her first daughter, that I left her and her baby in full health, and soon afterwards travelled northward into these parts, with mine early friend, John Dunbar, Earl of Moray. We had been at Lithgow together, at the proclamation of King Robert, and I had yielded to my Lord’s wishes, to bear him company for some few days at his Castle of Tarnawa. After a short sojournance in his hospitable hall, I reached this spot on my way homewards, and chancing to halt here, as we do now, I was told of the virtues of the Witch’s Cairn. Bethinking me that it was good to secure nine months of happiness at so easy a price, I spurred my horse into a gallop, and began to course around it at full speed.

“I had already encircled it twice three times, and had begun the seventh round, when my horse was suddenly scared by the appearance of a haggard female figure that arose from among the docks and clot leaves in the middle of the heap, and glared fearfully at me. The animal started so unexpectedly aside that he threw me from the saddle, and I lay stunned by the severity of the fall. When my senses returned to me, I found myself in the hands of my people, who were busied about me under a tree. Convinced that it was some supernatural thing that had so strangely crossed me, and put a period to mine attempt to work against fate, I did eagerly demand of those about me what had become of the unsightly witch. All agreed that she had limped slowly away before their eyes until lost in the neighbouring wood; one or two there were who did ween her to be no other than some ancient shepherdess or nerthes-woman, who, wearied[345]with watch, mought liggen her down to rest there, and who had been frayed from her sleep by the sounding tramp of my horse’s gallop; but the rest were of my mind, that she was verily some evil witch, whose blasted form and eyne boded some dire malure.

“Sore oppressed with the belief of approaching calamity, I did hie me back to mine own Castle of Dirleton, with a far heavier heart than I had left it, dreading drearily as I went that I should learn some dismal tidings when I should reach thither. But all was well; and as things went not in anywise awry for some time, I began to laugh in secret at my own apprehensions. Prosperity favoured me, indeed, in a somewhat unusual manner. For six months was I blessed by a train of good luck so unusual, that hardly a day passed without some happy or favourable occurrence; but this was the very cause of awakening new fears in me. If, said I, reasoning with myself—if the six withershin circles round the Witch’s Cairn have had any influence in producing this marvellous coil of good fortune, what will happen when the spell-thread is unwound to the end, where it was so mysteriously snapped? This seventh moon must be pregnant with some dire affliction.

“I trembled for its approach. It began—several days of it had already stolen away—all was well, and I did again blush for my fears; but, alas! they were too soon realised. One evening Sarah, the nurse of our infant, was amissing with her charge. It grew late, and the Lady Dirleton became frantic with the most cruel apprehensions. She insisted on accompanying me out to search for the nurse and her babe. The alarm spread, and not only the domestics but the whole vassals, largely sharing in our affliction, turned out to aid us. All our efforts were in vain, for a dark and stormy night came on; and on that wide plain that stretcheth between the Castle and the sea, there was greater risk of the seekers losing themselves than chance of their finding the woman and the babe. The Lady Dirleton recklessly wandered until she was so sore toil-spent that she was carried to the Castle almost insensible. I did still continue my search in despair, in defiance of whirlwinds of sand and red glaring flashes of lightning. Faint and distant screams were heard by times ymeint with the blast. We followed in the direction they went in, as well as the mirkness of the night might permit us to do. Sometimes they would bring us down towards the shore of the sea, where they were lost amidst the thunders of its waves rolling furiously in on the beach. Anon we did hear them retreating inland, and we were led by[346]them, in a zig-zag course, hither and thither across the plain, in idle pursuit. ‘The child! the babe!—ha, the murderer!—ha, blood, blood, blood!—murder, murder!—the child, the child!’ were the fearful words we caught from time to time, ymingled with wild unearthly cries. Still we followed, and we shouted by times; but our shouts were unheeded, albeit they must natheless have been heard by the person whose voice reached our ears so strongly.

“At length, after a harrassing night of fruitless following, the voice died away from us, and we groped wearily and hopelessly about until day did gloomily dawn upon us. We again wandered down towards the shore, and there descried a female figure, with torn garments and dishevelled hair, running and leaping about with wild and irrational action among the sand-heaps by the sea side. I thought of the hag of the Witch’s Cairn, and my blood curdled within me.

“For some time we followed the figure, but almost with as little success as we had before done in the darkness of night. At length, by making a circuit around her, we came close upon her, where she had seated herself on the top of a benty hillock. It was Sarah, the nurse of our child. She rose wildly, by fits and starts, and waved her arms high in the air, and gave streaming to the wind the infant’s sky-blue mantle, the which was red with blood-stains. Her eyes were fixed in vacancy, and she regarded us not as we approached her; but she screamed and shrieked unintelligibly; and again she laughed loud and horribly at intervals. We rushed upon her, and then it was we discovered that reason had been reft from her. Her eyes glared wildly around on us all, but she knew no one, and no syllable could now be extracted from her. It was too clear, alas! that she had murdered mine infant in the sudden frenzy that had seized her!”

“Blessed Virgin, protect us!” cried Sir Patrick Hepborne, horror-struck with the Lord of Dirleton’s story.

“She was the daughter of an old and much attached domestic,” continued de Vaux, “and she herself, devoted to us as a daughter, loved the infant as her own. Nothing but madness could have driven her to do a deed so horrible. Where she had disposed of the body of the poor innocent we could never discover, though our search for it was unceasing for some days. As for the wretched Sarah, whom God had so visited as to make her no longer accountable for her actions, she was brought back into the Castle, and put under that needful restraint to the which she was subjected for many years thereafter. When she[347]came to be examined more narrowly, some one discovered a dreadful gash on her right hand, as if given by a dagger, a circumstance the which did add to the heap of mystery the truth was buried under, and engendered full many a vague thought and idle surmise. I gave mine orders that some one should be for ever on the watch by Sarah, night and day, to catch up anything she might utter in her ravings, that might chance to illuminate the darkness that hung over this heart-breaking calamity. But albeit her voice was rarely silent for a moment, being unceasingly poured forth in elritch screams of laughter when she was in her wildest fits, or in piteous moaning and waymenting when she was low, yet did she rarely mould it into words of meaning. Full oft would she take up in her arms the mantle, the which she had never parted withal, and hush it with sad lullaby, as if the child had been within it; and more than once, when thus employed, she was seen to clasp it in agony to her bosom, to look wildly on vacancy, and to stretch forth her arm, as if dreading the approach of some one, and fleeing into the darksome corner of her cell, she was heard to yell out, ‘Murderer!—ha! the babe, the babe!—help, murder!—blood, blood!—my babe!’—and then she would lay open the mantle, and gazing into it with frenzy, would increase her screams to the very cracking of her voice, as if she had but that moment discovered that the infant was gone.

“Thou mayest right well conceive, Sir Patrick,” continued the Lord of Dirleton, after a pause, during which he yielded to the emotions so powerfully excited by this recapitulation of the circumstances of this so terrible affliction which had befallen him—“thou mayest easily imagine, I say, what a deep, nay, fathomless tide of sorrow poured over the souls of the Lady Dirleton and me. We loathed the very air of the scene tainted by this dreadful tragedy. Anxious to escape from it, we hastened abroad, and strove, by mixing in the society of a new world, to blunt the pangs we suffered from the very souvenance of our home. I need say no more, I wis, but to crave thy good pardon, Sir Patrick, for drawing so hugely on thy patience by this long narration, the which, I do natheless opine, hath not been altogether uninteresting to thee, sith I have observed that thou hast, more than once, showed signs of thy friendly sympathy for our misfortune.”

“In truth, my Lord, I am deeply affected by thy strange and melancholy history,” replied Hepborne. “But what, I pray thee, hath become of Sarah, thy child’s nurse, on whom so much mystery doth hang?”[348]

“After many years of confinement, Sarah’s wudness did become more tranquil; it seemed as if it was gradually worn out by its own fury. Then did succeed the mantling and stagnant calmness of idiocy—and seeing that she was no longer harmful, she was, by slow degrees, permitted greater license, until at last she was suffered to go about at the freedom of her own will. But will she seemed to have none. Supported by the Lady Dirleton’s charity, and tended by her order, she wandered to and fro in the neighbourhood of the Castle, like a living clod, hardly ever exhibiting even a consciousness of existence.”

“And dost thou believe, my Lord,” demanded Hepborne, “that the wudness of this poor afflicted wretch did verily work this sad malure to thee? Or didst thou never entertain aught of suspicion of crime against any who were more accountable for their deeds?”

“Ay,” replied the Lord of Dirleton, after a pause; “ay, we had suspicions—horrible suspicions. My brother John, that is my half-brother, for he was the son of my father by a woman of low birth and infamous character, who, by sacrifice of virtue and afterwards by her cunning, didst circumvent my father, then an old man, and did induce him to patch up a marriage with her. After the death of my father she would fain have kept the same place she had done during his life; but as I had just then married me I could not insult my wife by the introduction to her notice of a woman so notourly infamous. I natheless did what in prudence I might for my brother, then a young man of some eighteen or twenty winters. I took him under mine own roof, where I in vain endeavoured to bring down his naturally haughty and unbending temper, and to restrain the violence of his passions. I had shown him an elder brother’s kindness from very boyhood, and methought his heart did love me. But his wicked and infamous mother, stung with the disgrace of being refused admittance within our gates, so worked upon his young mind that she taught him to regard me rather as an enemy than as a benefactor. Forgetful of the anxiety I did ever display for the advancement of his fortunes and the improvement of his mind, he became impatient of reproof, and ever and anon he was guilty of the most gross and offensive insults to me, and yet more so to the Lady Dirleton, against whom his mother’s hatred was more particularly inflamed. Such ungrateful behaviour did naturally beget much unhappy brawling, and high and bitter words often passed between us. At length his daring arose to such a height that he presumed to usher in his impure dam[349]among the noble and honourable guests who assembled to witness the ceremonial baptism of our infant. O’ermastered by rage at the moment, and boiling with indignation, I forgot myself so far as to give him a blow; and I did hound both of them straightway forth with ignominious reproach from my walls. I saw not John ever again, yet I had good cause to fear that he——But hold! my wife and daughter approach; and, hark! the trumpets do sound for the march.”

As the Earls of Moray, Fife, Dunbar, and Douglas, who led the line, were breaking through the oak forest through which they travelled for some time after leaving the halting-place, the proud towers of Elgin rose before them, and the tinkling of many a bell from its various convents and churches told them that its inhabitants were already aware of their approach. Soon afterwards the long train of a procession was seen winding down from the entrance of the town, and as they drew nearer they descried at the head of it the venerable Alexander Barr, bishop of the diocese. He was accompanied by his twenty-two canons secular, and various other members and servants of the Cathedral; and after him came a body of Black Dominican Monks, followed by the Grey Franciscan Friars, all marching in pairs. Ere the warlike body of nobles, and knights, and men-at-arms had reached the bridge, the procession had halted to receive them. The Bishop, in his episcopal robes, sat, patiently waiting them, on a well-fed milk-white palfrey, of sober and staid disposition, suited to his master’s habits. The Earl of Moray hastened to dismount, and would have run to assist the Prelate from his horse. But there was no pride in the old man, and seeing the Earl’s intention, he quitted his saddle with an agility hardly to be looked for from one of his years, and, hastening to meet his embrace, bestowed his willing benediction on him, as well as on the Earls of Fife, Dunbar, and Douglas, and those who followed them.

“My Lord Bishop,” said the Earl of Fife, “verily I did scarcely look for this good countenance and gentle demeanour from thee, seeing how I am sykered to him who hath wrought the Church so much foul wrong. But thou well knowest——”

“Talk not of these matters, my Lord Earl of Fife, I beseech thee,” cried the Bishop, interrupting him; “talk not of these matters now. We shall have ample leisure to discuss these painful themes ere the hour of couchee. Mount, I beseech thee, and let me now do what honour I may to the son of my King, and to his noble brothers-in-law, the gallant Earls of Douglas and of Moray, by escorting them to the Royal Castle. Thy[350]messengers, my Lord,” continued he, turning to Earl Moray, “did out-run my tardy hospitality; for ere I gathered tidings of thy coming, or could bestir myself to make fitting provision for thy reception, and for the banqueting of these nobles, knights, and ladies, thy preparations at the Castle were already largely advanced, else had I assuredly claimed thee and all as my guests.”

“Of a truth, we are rather too potent a company to harass thee withal,” replied the Earl of Moray; “and, as Constable of the Royal Castle here, it would ill become me to shrink from the fulfilment of its hospitality. Let us mount, then, and hie us thither.”

All being again in their saddles, those composing the procession turned their faces towards the town, and began to move slowly onwards. The black crosses on the humble white gowns of the Dominicans or Black Friars, and the grey gown and cowl of the Franciscans—their meek and world-contemning countenances—their bare feet, the soft tread of which gave forth no sound—the humble banner of St. Giles, the tutelary saint of the town, who was represented in his pastoral habit, holding a book in his right hand, and a staff in his left, with the motto, “Sic itur ad astra,” were all calculated to lead the mind far above the pomps of this vain world, and were strangely contrasted with the fierce and haughty looks of the warriors—their glittering armour—their nodding plumes—the yell of the bugles—and the proudly-blazoned surcoats, and shields, and banners, and pennons, which flared against the declining sun, as if their glory had been made to endure even beyond that of the blessed luminary itself.

They wound up the steep hill to the Castle, and there the religious orders halted in two lines, facing each other, until the gaudy war-pageant had passed inwards, with all its crashing clangour of instruments, and all its flash and glitter. The holy brethren then moved away in silence, disappearing in succession, like the waves that follow the foaming surges raised on the bosom of a lone lake by the fall of some mountain crag.

But there was one monk of the order of St. Francis there who staid not with his brethren to gaze with lack-lustre eye on the ranks of the warriors as they rode by. Deep excitation seemed suddenly to be awakened in him by some passing object. With an agitated air, he shrouded himself up in his grey cowl, and tightening his girdle of ropes about his loins, he mingled with the ranks of riders, and glided into the Castle.[351]

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