King Henry (add Buchanan and Lindesay) dissembled his anger and mortification, saying that he "accepted the kindness of the young King of Scotland, and could not but applaud the greatness and the chivalry of his soul."
The Nethertoun of Largo was bestowed by James upon the Admiral, together with the Green Ribbon of the Thistle, an Order in which the death of the loyal Glencairn at Sauchieburn had made a vacancy; for this naval victory, on which innumerable ballads were made, was of infinite consequence to Scotland, as it spread abroad the terror of her name by sea, at a time when the warlike skippers of France, England, Portugal, and Spain, when sailing in their lumbering argosies, with their cumbrous tops and gigantic poop-lanterns, were not over-particular in distinguishing friends from foes, when they met each other, far from human aid or justice, on the broad and open arena of the ocean.
"Contempt on the minion who calls you disloyal!Though fierce to your foe, to your friends you are true;And the tribute most high to a head that is royal,Is love from a heart that loves liberty too."—MOORE.
Everything being quiet now, at home and abroad, Lord Drummond proposed the completion of his old arrangement for wedding his daughters to Home and Bothwell, and as the Bishop of Dunblane was returning through England,—ready excuses having been found for his unlawful detention,—the scheming and ambitious old noble contemplated a grand and triple ceremony; the coronation of one daughter and the marriage of the other two, and spent much of his time among monks, minstrels, heralds, and other devisers of pageantries.
Henry had released the poor Bishop, and satisfied him that his detention had been all a mistake; and in proof thereof, committed his secretary of state to the Tower—craved the reverend Father's blessing, kissed his episcopal ring, and so forth, and thus dismissed him with all honour; but, cunning as a lynx, and still following the insidious policy of his family and his time, he hourly expected tidings from Shaw, from Gray, or Borthwick, of whom more anon; for that worthy had contrived to keep himself concealed in the ship of Bull during the engagement, having not the slightest interest in its issue, and feeling only a laudable spirit of economy with regard to risking his own precious person. Thus, on the ship's anchoring off Dundee, favoured by the darkness and confusion, he lowered himself into the water by one of the starboard gunports, swam safely ashore, and made his way with all speed to the house of the traitor Gray of Kyneff, which lay several miles distant, beyond the Howe of Angus, and there he remained for some time in concealment and consultation.
Brown autumn came; the birchen leaves turned yellow in the russet woods of Angus; the hills looked dark and close at hand; the black corbie and the greedy gled croaked on the fauld dykes and on the bare branches of the loftiest trees, and the swallows had long since departed on their yearly journey to the sunny lands of the South.
All taut and trim as ever, theYellow Frigate, with her carved and painted sides that shone with gilding, still lay inactive in the harbour of Dundee, with her long blue pennon dipping in the glassy water alongside.
The Bishop of Dunblane (James Chisholm, chaplain to the late king) had now reached his episcopal palace on the banks of the Allan Water, and from Strathearn, Lord Drummond had brought his two beautiful daughters, with a glittering escort, to Dundee; but now Home and Bothwell, their intended spouses and their double terror, were loitering on the borders, concerning some dispute in which they had—fortunately for those in whom we are interested—became involved with the Wardens of the English Marches.
Barton and Falconer hovered about the mansion of Lord Drummond, and watched its walls, till they knew every stone in its quaint arcades and broad round towers; they loitered in Tindall's Wynd and the Fish-street daily—each like an Adam near his Eden; but never once, at the windows, on the bartizan, nor in the street on foot or on horseback, nor at church during morning mass or evening vespers, had they been favoured by a sight of the sisters; neither did they receive any message, which only convinced them how strictly the poor girls were guarded, for Drummond of Mewie and a band of his men from Strathearn garrisoned the house, and warded, like wakeful hounds, every avenue to it.
In Dundee, in those days, there was a famous hostel and tavern, named the Stone Bicker, which had been established by the provost and magistrates in the time of James I., in obedience to the law of 1424, which required all burgh-towns in the realm to have at least one comfortable "hostellrie," with stables and chambers. This was a quaint old house, having many crow-stepped gables, square ingle-chimneys, and deep shady galleries of wood, which stood upon columns of stone. Above its door was carved in stone a bicker—with the legend,
PAX INTRANTIBUS, 1424.
In form, this stoup or bicker was identically the same as that now used in Scotland; and the name is derived from the same source as the Germanbecher.
Behind the house was a spacious green, smooth, grassy, and surrounded by various little bowers trimmed over with Gueldre roses, sweetbriar, and woodbine. Here the soldiers of the king's guard, the cannoniers of Broughty Castle, the seamen of the ships, pages of the court, and other idlers—not a few of the latter, knights and gentlemen—loitered and played, or observed others playing, at long-bowls, at chess, or cards, or shooting at the butts with bow and arquebuse, to encourage the use of which, James I. put down the games of golf and foot-ball by act of parliament in 1424.
On a warm evening about the end of August, Barton and Falconer sat moodily over a stoup of Bordeaux, in one of these bowers: close by them on the green was a knot of their sailors, lounging at full length, drinking ale from pewter flagons of that form which we find still retained in the metal gill and mutchkin stoups in Scotland: they were all talking and laughing with their bonnets off and gaberdines unbuttoned, for they had just ended a tough game at bowls; Cuddie Clewline, the coxswain, with his arm still in a sling, old Archy of Anster, the boatswain, and Master Wad, the gunner, were among them; and placing his short squat figure against a cask, Willie began to scrape and screw up his fiddle, preparatory to favouring the company with an air.
"How happy seem those honest souls of ours," said Falconer; "no thought of to-day—and less care for the morrow."
"True, David; and all are happy whose wants and wishes, hopes and ambition, are small—for contentment is great wealth."
"Hark," said Wad, lowering his fiddle-bow as a bell tolled; "what's o'clock?"
"It is Sanct Clement's Kirk, but tak nae heed what's o'clock, sae lang as ye are happy, Willie," said Cuddie. "We'll hae another stoup, and pay the score wi' the fore-topsail."
"And are you sae happy awa' frae your bonnie English wife?"
"Yes, I am—happy as a cricket; but do the folk no say that bell tolled o' its sel on the nicht the king was slain."
"There can be nae sic thing in nature, coxswain," said a seaman.
"But there may be out o' nature," replied the coxswain, sharply; "how the black de'il can you ken aucht aboot it—you that hae been but a month at sea?"
"I hae heard o' mony queer things in my time, Cuddie; but I never heard o' a bell that rang o' its ain accord."
"Weel, Ihave," said the old boatswain, solemnly; "and if ye wad like to hear a bit yarnie spun anent it—"
"Coil away, boatswain," said one, clinking his stoup.
"Pay it out, carle Archy," said another.
"My faither, honest man, in his young days was master o' theSaint Denis, a pinck of Kinghorn," began the boatswain, "and had three times the honour o' sailing to France wi' knights and ambassadors, anent the marriage o' King James wi' the daughter o' Duke Arnold and Catharine the Duchess o' Cleves. Weel, on the third time, in the year '48 as he was bearing awa' for name, and had left far astern the free port o' auld Dunkerque, wi' its basin, sluice, and batteries, he found a dismasted and abandoned caravel floating on the sea; and lang she seemed to have been dismantled and unmanned, for sea-weed and barnacles grew thick on her gaping planks and rusty chainplates, and it was next thing to a miracle that she floated at all. He boarded and overhauled her, but name, mark, or trace found he none, to indicate whose she might be, or where she cam' frae. A fine bell, wi' a clear siller tone, rocked on her forecastle, and this he unhooked and brought awa'; and the moment his boat pushed off, the bell gied a clink wi' its tongue, and the auld battered wreck gaed down wi' a sough, and half swamped the boat in its swirl as the waves yawned and closed owre it. The sailors looked ilka man in the other's face, and there seemed whisper in their hearts, that there was something about that auld and nameless wreck that was strange and eerie.
"My faither hung the bell in his forecastle,—for its tones were clear and ringing, like a siller horn in a summer wood, or a young lassie's laugh when her heart is full; but my certie, there were soon terror and dismay on board the brave pinckSaint Denis, of Kinghorn; for the bell o' the nameless wreck was bewitched, and rang a' the watches itsel', and untouched by mortal hand; and in the deid hour o' the mirk nichts its full clear notes vibrated through every plank and stanchion in the ship, and through every sleeper's ears and heart; for never before had a bell wi' sic a sweet yet terrible tone flung its sound upon the waters. It was thrice thrown overboard, and thrice it was found hanging on its old neuk in the forecastle; and when theSaint Deniscame home, far and wide spread the terror o' her story through a' the seaport towns o' Lothian, Fife, and Angus; so the owners had to break up the pinck, for nae man would bide aboard o' her, and for years she lay rotting at her anchors in the harbour o' Wester Kinghorn."
"May this broon ale be bilge if I would ha'e put a foot on her deck after the bell came back the first time," said the gunner. "So they broke the auld craft up for firewood: weel, Archy, after that what became o' the bell?"
"It was exorcised by candle, book, and holy water, by the Abbot o' Inchcolm, and thereafter it was hung in the steeple o' Largo, where untothis dayit summons the faithfu' to prayer; but never a note hath it rung unbidden since its devilish power was destroyed."
"Ugh!" said the gunner, shrugging his thick square shoulders, "St. Mary keep us frae evil! And noo for a song, shipmates," he added, giving his bow a flourish over the fiddle. "Cuddie will sing us the last new ballad, made by a gentle makkar, on the admiral—to whom lang life—and our battle with Sir Stephen Bull,—to whom I also say long life, southron he be!"
Thus invited, Cuthbert Clewline required no pressing, but after clearing his throat, giving his ruff a jerk, and hitching at the points of his wide canvas breeches—which were similar to those still worn by our fishermen, being so ample and short as to resemble a kilt, he sang the quaint and old doggrel ballad of
"Schir Andro Wood,"
to the air ofSir Andrew Barton; and as it is somewhat curious as a nautical ballad of the time, we are tempted to transfer a modernized copy of it from the "History of the Scots Wars," into these pages, still preserving, however, the words the coxswain sung.
"Of all our Scottish mariners, who ever sailed the sea,The stoutest was Sir Andrew Wood, the bravest too was he!So wroth grew England's haughty king, that a single Scot should keep,From Norway's shores to Cape de Verd, the mastery of the deep;And he throughout his kingdom did a proclamation make,Of a thousand silver pounds per year, Sir Andrew Wood to take.
"Then up a gallant captain stood, Sir Stephen Bull was he,Saying, 'I shall fight this Scottish man till he your prisoner be,'Right merrie and right proud withal was England's monarch then,And he gave unto this captain bold, three ships with guns and men.So sailing to our Scottish seas, he cruised near to Crail,Until he saw Sir Andrew Wood with two ships under sail.
"No enemies old Andrew wot were in the Scottish sea,And fearing neither man nor deil, he sailed right merrilie;But when he saw the English cross, O joyful was he then,And bravely did his crew exhort to fight like Scottish men;'For Scotland's king we draw the sword, our bairnies and our wives,in the cause we'll fearless risk our precious limbs and lives.'
"So then he pierced the auld red wine, and a stoup to ilk did gie,As owre the capstan-head we swore from southron ne'er to flee!Thus on we came with open ports, at six knots going free,And vowed to sink—or sink the foe—to die, but never flee!And there we fought this battle keen beside the Bass and May,From the rising to the set of sun, upon a summer day.
"The first ball from the English fleet, it shot our foreyard through,And the splinters beat our gunner wight, till he was black and blue,Then up he sprang, stout Willie Wad, for a fierce wee man he,And vowed to drink 'a pint o' bilge,' or he avenged would be;Then levelling straight a great carthoun, with rings of iron stayed,A bloody lane, from stem to stern, he through the foemen made!
"The Scots they fought like lyons bold, and many English slewe,So the slaughter which they made that day, old England long sall rue;And bravely fought Sir Stephen's men, as Englishmen do aye,And blows they gave, for ilk they got, as we shall ne'er gainsay;Till the red summer eve closed in, and at the set of day,We parted, but as tigers part, all panting from the fray.
"But ere again that summer sun rose from the German main,Once more the drummes to quarters beat, the fight began againe;And long we fought with deadly hate, as men for life may fight,For nought can nerve a Scottish arm, like Scotland's wrong and right.Sir Stephen Bull we captive made, and sailing to Dundee,We squared the yards, we furled the sails, and anchored merrilie.
"Then joyful was our noble king, and generous too was he,Red gold he gave, and shipped them home, to their ain countrie;'Go tell fair England's king,' quoth he, 'that soe I use the brave,But if againe ye sayle our seas, you'll win a watery grave.'Sir Andrew Wood, our captain bolde, was thanked throughout the land,And many a fair reward got he, from good King James's hand.Thus bravely was this battle fought, between the Tay and Bass,And whennextwe meet the English fleet, may worse ne'er come to passe!"
Boisterous applause followed the conclusion of this song, and every man simultaneously lifted his mug of ale to his mouth, in honour of the sentiment expressed by the last line.
"Thou hast sung well, honest fellow; take this for thy minstrelsy," said a gentleman who had loitered near, tossing into the coxswain's bonnet a golden louis, a donation which immediately drew all eyes upon him.
He was a handsome man, young apparently, and wore a rich sword and scarlet mantle, with a jazarine jacket and salade, which concealed his face, or at least hid so much of it that recognition was impossible. He had lingered near Falconer and Barton, and now resumed his place in a seat adjoining theirs, and if he was not eavesdropping his conduct looked very much like it; but it was unmarked by them, for they were too full of their own thoughts.
"Well fare thee, Scotland," sighed Falconer, draining his wine-horn, "and many such battles may ye win by land and sea. But, much as I love thee, thou art no longer a home or a place for me. France—France or Italy, and their battle-fields, must now be the place where my life and its sorrows may be ended together."
"Why so, bravo Falconer?" asked a familiar voice, as a hand was laid on his shoulder. "What melancholy crooning is this?"
Sir David turned, and his eyes met the face of the young king,—for he it was who wore the scarlet mantle, and had now laid the salade aside.
The two gentlemen started to their feet, and uncovered their heads with reverence.
"Nay, nay, sirs; put on your bonnets," said he. "I am the younger man by a few years, and, though a king, have not risked my head so often in my country's service; but a time may come. And now answer me truly, gallant Falconer—why didst thou not tell me of this old love of thine for our pretty Sybilla Drummond?"
"I dared not."
"Dared not! art thou not a brave fellow?"
"I am a poor one. Alas! your majesty cannot know the miserable timidity of the poor."
"Then what fettered thy tongue, stout Barton, eh?—thou who art laird of manors and acres, ships and stores, enow to make a monarch envy thee?"
"Because—dare I say it?"
"My true friends may say whatever they please to me."
"Because, your majesty, deep though my love, I dared not aspire to wed the sister of one who—who is to be our queen."
The young king coloured deeply, and paused for a moment, as if some such thought had now struck himself for the first time; then he thrust the idea aside, and said,
"Your fears were foolish, sirs; ye had won those ladies' love, and surely that was winning the main part of the battle; for, if the song says rightly, when a woman's heart is won, there is nothing more to achieve in this world."
"Save fortune and rank; and dare I, the son of a poor skipper of Borrowstonness, who have neither, compete with long descended peers who have both?"
"Yes, Falconer," said Barton, proudly; "for thou hast that which we seldom find among our nobles—a right true Scottish heart, that would peril all for the weal and honour of the land God gave our fathers."
"By Heaven and by my father's bones, you say well, Robert Barton!" said the young king, with a sudden emotion of generous enthusiasm; "and men who have hearts so tried and so true as yours, may well be the brothers of a Scottish king! and mine you shall be, or this proud old lord—John Drummond of Stobhall and that ilk—must tell me better why not! Come with me then—his house is close by; let us have this skein unravelled, for to make my loyal subjects happy is the best tribute I can pay to the memory of that dear departed sire for whom you fought: he who lost his life in upholding the rights of the people against the monstrous privileges of a race of titled tyrants."
However reluctant Barton and Falconer might be to thrust themselves upon the presence of Lord Drummond, while the barbarous treatment they had so lately experienced there was fresh in their minds, and being aware that the Laird of Mewie, with a band of wild Celts from the Highlands of Perthshire, guarded the passages and ambulatories of the house—the generous energy of the young king, the protection his presence could afford, his desire, which was law, and the happiness his intervention might procure, together with the wish for meeting once again with those they loved so well—were all too powerful to be resisted; and in silence the two gentlemen followed King James down the main street of Dundee, through Tyndall's Wynd, where Lord Lindesay and part of the royal retinue joined them, and together they all proceeded straight to visit Lord Drummond, the copper horn at whose gate young Lindesay blew lustily. And the old baron's half anger, half astonishment, and entire perplexity at the visit and its object, we will leave to the reader's imagination, and thus close this eventful chapter—eventful, at least, to the two lovers who accompanied the King of Scotland.
"Strange tidings these, my cousin! By St. Jude!They'll urge us all to battle ere the time."—Old Play.
What followed this happy interview with the leal and true-hearted James IV. may be gathered from the following conversation, which took place next day, in the Mauchline Tower, between three Scottish worthies who have already occupied a prominent place in the annals of their country, as well as in this more humble narrative. The Mauchline Tower, which had the honour of being the residence of Sir Patrick Gray of Kyneff, when that personage afflicted Dundee with his presence, stood at the south-west corner of the Murray gate, and obtained its name from the Campbells of Loudon and Mauchline, to whom it once belonged. It was of such strength as to become in after years a bastelhouse of the town wall, but is now removed, and no trace of it remains save its name, which is still retained by a court or alley that opens off the Murray-gate.
In the roughly-arched and stone-paved hall of this ancient mansion, the windows of which had stone seats and iron gratings, the furniture was of an old and barbarous aspect, and consisted only of a great standing-table, forms and cupboards all of black old Scottish oak, with five or six enormous arm-chairs. In stone recesses were the wooden bowls, the tren-plates and luggies used at meals; for the half-bankrupt baron's silver tankard and pewter dishes were all carefully put away in lockfast almries.
The wide fireplace was without a grate, and over it was carved the escutcheon of the Grays—a lion rampant, within a border engrailed; the emblem of hope upon a wreath, and the motto, "Anchor, fast anchor," being the cognizance of the first of the race in Scotland,—Sir Hugh de Gray, Lord of Broxmouth, in the days of Alexander II.
On the day after the interview between James IV. and the two officers of theYellow Caravel, Sir James Shaw of Sauchie and Sir Patrick Gray had a meeting with Hew Borthwick, in the upper hall of this ancient structure.
Gray and the regicide had been in close consultation, when Sir James Shaw, a little intoxicated, though the hour was early—hastened in, with his face inflamed, and expressive of high excitement.
"Here are tidings, with a vengeance!" said he, dashing his blue velvet bonnet on the paved floor.
"What's astir now?" asked Gray, knitting his dark eyebrows. "If it be the reading of the papal dispensation in the cathedral kirk of Dunblane to-morrow, I know of it already, for our friend Hew Borthwick has just informed me thereanent."
"The king, with Margaret Drummond, Sir David Falconer—the same runnion who is captain of Wood's arquebussiers—and Robert Barton, with the Lord Drummond, and the ladies Euphemia and Sybilla—all smiles and merriment, and riding side by side, with hawks upon their dexter wrists, each lover by his lemane, and guarded by the lances of the Royal Guard—have left Dundee within this hour."
"Which way—east or west?" asked Gray, starting to his feet.
"By the western gate, and past Blackness."
"For Dunblane?"
"Yes; and the constable of Dundee carried the royal pennon on a Lance."
"Damnation!"
"So say I—doubly," stammered Shaw.
"On what errand have they gone?"
"Men say variously," replied the Laird of Sauchie, opening and shutting his bloodshot eyes; "but I overheard that venerable foutre whom the courtiers call Duke of Montrose, tell his son—that fop the Lord Lindesay—that the king was gone to hear the sentence of excommunication fulminated against those who slew his father."
"That concerns thee, Master Hew."
"SirHew," sneered Shaw.
Borthwick winced, and smiled bitterly.
"He said, moreover, that James was to receive from the bishop's hand, an iron belt, to be worn for ever under his shirt, in memory of the day he drew his sword against his father."
"Few who were at Sauchie, on either side of the burn, will be likely to forget the day, Sir James. Well—and is there anything more?" asked Gray, biting his glove and rasping his steel spurs on the pavement.
"Yes—chief of all—that Margaret Drummond will there be crowned as Queen of Scotland, at the same time as her husband, and that the Lord Lyon, with all his heralds and pursuivants, the chancellor and all the great officers of state, are appointed to keep tryst at Dunblane."
"What—the reading of the papal letter, the crowning of a king and queen, and a sentence of excommunication, all to be performed in one day—not omitting this freak of the iron belt—pshaw! thou ravest man; and I will not believe it."
"And why not?"
"Because, since Scone became old fashioned, every coronation must take place at Holyrood. A rare bundle of news thou'st brought us, gossip."
"I have not yet told thee all—for the best of the pudding is still in the pot."
"Well, say on," said Gray, shrugging his shoulders with something between a smile and a frown on his face.
"I heard Sir Andrew Wood say to the Constable of Dundee, that Falconer and Barton were to be wedded by the bishop to old John Drummond's daughters—and by the king's express command; but thou wilt not believethateither, perhaps?"
"Wedded—is he as mad as his father was before him? Will he wed one sister himself, and in the person of others raise those traders' sons—loons whose ancestors are buried in obscurity, and whose fathers brought salted hides and tallow, tar and hemp from Memmel, cartwheels and saddles, iron pots and pewter pans, from Flanders—to a close alliance with the Scottish crown? God's death, it's monstrous—pshaw! and cannot be! Our peers and barons are not so low in pride or poor in spirit as to brook such an outrage——"
"Unless King Henry paid them for it—which he is not likely to do."
"But what will the Lords Home and Hailes—Bothwell, I mean—say to this?"
"The constable put the same question to yonder gorbellied admiral, who replied that the king had undertaken to pacify them; but it was no business of his—a mariner's—to study such ware; then he added something about a gunner and his lintstock, a steersman and his helm, which I did not understand, but conceived to mean something insolent to the nobility."
"And doubtless it was so—the tarry varlet!" said Gray, stamping his armed heel on the paved floor; "Sir James, thou amazest by all this! but where tarries now the Lord Angus?"
"He is hunting the red-deer on the wild Rinns of Galloway," replied Shaw, with a reckless laugh.
"I might have shrewdly guessed he was not on this side of the Howe of Fife."
"Are there any fresh tidings from Henry of England?"
"Henry expects them from us," said Gray with one of his hissing whispers and deep satanic smiles.
"True—I am forgetting our fair stipulation, penned by Master Quentin Kraft, and of which there are duplicates in London, to the effect that he—that is, King Henry—shall use all interest with our king to have my barony of Sauchie erected into an earldom—"
"Andmybarony of Kyneff and estate of Caterline erected into a lordship; I do not see why I should not have put in for an earldom too—but I shall content me if made as good as my chief, Kinfauns; though I would make as noble a Scottish peer as most of them."
For once in his life, Sir Patrick Gray spoke truth.
"But instead of gaining these things, sirs," said Borthwick, who had listened in attentive silence to all the foregoing, "ye have lost your governorships of Stirling and of Broughty, with all their attendant customs, kains, and powers, and now—"
"The marriage on which these airy coronets depend will never happen, I fear me," said Shaw, seating himself with a groan.
"It shall happen," said Gray, furiously, as he took a huge tankard of wine and three flagons from a side press; "we have made but one or two false moves, Sir James; next time we'll have better luck; and the tables will turn when we have Margaret Tudor for queen. She is said to be not over-handsome; but 'twill be all the same to King James when the candles are out in Linlithgow Bower. So Margaret Drummond must be removed," he added, filling up the silver-rimmed horns with Rochelle.
"We have each said so a thousand times, sirs," said Borthwick, "and yet she still remains."
"This removal must then be thy task, Master Hew," said Shaw, setting down the pot, in the purple contents of which he had dipped his wiry mustachios; "get thee a nag at the Stone Bicker, or anywhere else; hie thee away after these galliards to Dunblane, and learn what can be done; for nothing but desperate measures can save us now, as we are desperate men; one may see that by these bare walls and these half mutchkin stoups of sour Rochelle."
"Thou hast still the powder of Kraft, the London apothecary?" asked Gray, in a whisper.
"Yea," answered Borthwick; "and it is said to be so potent, that I have borne it about me in great fear, though it is carefully sealed and waxed all over."
"Draw closer," hissed the voice of Gray, as he sunk it into an almost inaudible whisper.
The reader is already aware that Borthwick had been originally a priest of Dunblane, and, consequently, he knew well the whole cathedral and its locality. It was therefore agreed that he should disguise himself in any manner he deemed most fitted for the occasion; that he should depart for that secluded little city, and endeavour to put to some deadly use the poison with which he was entrusted.
It was, moreover, arranged that at midnight, on the second day from this one, they should both meet him at the Bridge of Dunblane, and hear what his success had been. Gray supplied this trusty ruffian with a horse, and Shaw gave him gold, for he had about seventy miles of a rough and devious road to travel, and so they separated; the two barons to prepare and mount, for any emergency, all the armed retainers they could collect; and the regicide to execute his terrible mission.
"This object once achieved," said Gray, "we must rid ourselves of Borthwick—for he knoweth over many secrets to make our heads secure on our shoulders!"
"For human bliss and woe in the frail threadOf human life are all so closely twined,That till the shears of Fate the texture shred,The close succession cannot be disjoined,Nor dare we from one hour judge that which comes behind."Harold the Dauntless.
The information of Sauchie was all correct, save in that part which referred to the coronation of Margaret, which James intended should take place at the same time as his own, not in the little episcopal city of Dunblane, but in the capital city of Edinburgh, amid all the splendour with which he could invest it; and already the Lord High Treasurer, Sir William Knollis, better known as Lord St. John of Jerusalem, being Preceptor of the Scottish Knights of Rhodes, the Lord Chancellor, the Secretary of State, and the Lords of the Privy Council, were making the necessary arrangements for the great ceremonial at Holyrood.
The king's influence, united to Barton's acknowledged worth and landed possessions, operated so far on Lord Drummond, as to make him sullenly acquiesce in the marriage of Euphemia to one whose betrothal could not, in a Catholic age, be broken without incurring the penalty of sin; and, in the same spirit, he permitted arrangements to be made for Sir David Falconer, whom James called "the gentlest and the bravest knight at court," wedding Sybilla; meanwhile the old lord consoled himself for thus stooping to the royal will by reflecting that he still had two other daughters growing up—Beatrice and Elizabeth—who should be forced bongré malgré to marry the first eligible earls upon whom he could lay the hands of a father-in-law.
The king's train was received with all honour by the Baron Bailie of Dunblane, and Sir Edmund Hay of Melginch, the chamberlain of the diocese, who marshalled them to the palace of the good old bishop, James Chisholm, whose name must not be confounded with that of his successor, William Chisholm, a base and irreverend prelate, who robbed the see of its revenues to maintain his children, and desecrated the episcopal palace by scenes of licentiousness.
This palace stood to the southward of the magnificent cathedral, on the edge of the declivity which slopes down towards the river Allan. It was surrounded by thick old copsewood and by striking and picturesque scenery; but it has long since fallen into shapeless ruin, and now only a few vestiges of its lower apartments can be traced.
The four lovers were so happy that we shall not presume to intrude upon them, or attempt to transfer to paper any description of their joy, but will leave them to their quiet and dreamy rambles, arm in arm, or hand in hand, in that deep and finely wooded glen below Dunblane, where the precipices overhang the Allan, and the windings of the dell give so many lovely glimpses of foliaged scenery; and to their sport of shooting at the butts with feathered arrows, in the smooth park without the old cathedral walls, where many hundred years of careful pasturage and mowing had made the green grass as smooth as velvet; for now it was never brushed by other feet than those of the gliding deer or the lighter-footed hares and rabbits; and there the young king, and even the kind bishop, with some of the prebends, drew the bow to please the three beautiful Drummonds; and Margaret, with her blonde hair and sweet blue eyes, was voted the best shot of them all—for James and his two favourite subjects were too gallant to beat her shooting, and the most reverend father, by Divine permission Bishop of Dunblane, was somewhat too stout and pursy to draw a shaft like her.
They were all happy, and pure joy beamed in their eyes; it glowed in their young hearts and mantled in their cheeks.
Two alone were grave; viz., old Lord Drummond, because he was somewhat perplexed, or felt that he cut rather a foolish figure, and was about to have for sons-in-law two men on whom James dared not yet bestow nobility for fear of raising the anger of older patentees; and on the young king's brow a cloud was resting, for on the morrow he was to receive from the Bishop's hand "the sackcloth shirt and iron belt," which he was to wear as the self-imposed penance of filial disobedience;
"While for his royal father's soul,The chanters sung, the bells did toll;"
and kindly and consolingly the white-haired bishop sought to soothe the sorrow and disperse the gloom which the young monarch strove in vain to overcome.
Could it be that a mysterious presentiment of approaching evil was hovering in his heart? In Scotland, we often hear of such forebodings still.
On the day following the intended sentence of excommunication, Margaret was to behold one sister wedded to Robert Barton and another to David Falconer; and on that day theYellow Frigateand her consorts would startle the broad blue Firth that rolls before Dundee by a loud and merry salvo from their brass culverins and iron arquebusses à croc.
Already had each beautiful bride playfully tried the espousal ring—the emblem of eternity—upon her pretty finger—that third finger of the left hand from which, according to an old superstition, there ran one mysterious fibre directly to the heart; and now we may inform our fair readers, whom such items may interest, that the said rings were not the plain hoops used in our own day, but each was massive and chased, inscribed by a holy legend, and having on it two ruby hearts, surmounted by a little crown of diamonds, for such was the fashion in the olden time.
And now, as the day on which the sisters were to receive communion at mass in the cathedral, dawned in sunny glory and splendour, lighting up the painted lattices, the grey walls, and green woods of the old episcopal palace, and tinting with its brightest hues the rapid waters of the Allan, the old bishop patted their silken tresses, and called them his "good children," as they knelt to receive his morning blessing in the dining-hall, reminding them with a smile, that "happy was the bride whom the sun shone on, and that he hoped the god of day would not rise less brightly on the morrow."
And they all smiled to each other timidly and fondly, for, alas! they little knew that for some of them to-morrow was—eternity.
Margaret, the Queen of Scotland—for such indeed was she now—was to receive the communion with her sisters; but Barton and Falconer having, we may suppose, obtained it but recently, or for some other reason now unknown,did notshare it with them, which will account for their escaping the perilous web which English guile and Scottish treason were weaving around them all.
"And, as they say,Lamentings heard i' the air; strange scream of death;And prophesying, with accents terrible,Of dire combustion and confused events,New hatched to the woful time."—Macbeth.
True to his appointment, about twelve o'clock, "that hour o'nicht's black arch the keystane," on the night before the important day of the three solemnities, when the papal dispensation was to be read, an excommunication to be pronounced, and that Iron Belt, so famous in the history of James IV., to be consecrated and bestowed—Hew Borthwick, the fell spirit, the evil genius of Margaret Drummond—or rather, the vile slave and tool of villains more subtle than himself—appeared at the ancient bridge of Dunblane; the same which is mentioned in the introduction to this work as being the erection of the Bishop Findlay Dermach, in the year 1406.
The stillness of midnight reigned in and around that diminutive cathedral city. As Hew Borthwick, the outcast of nature, loitered on the old and narrow bridge which spans the Allan, and lingered under the gloom of some enormous alder or boor-trees that grew out of the rocks and threw their shadow on the path, some strange ideas began to hover in his mind.
Save the rush of the river over its rocky bed, the rustle of the autumn leaves in the coppice, or the bay of a sheep-dog on the distant muirlands, there was no sound in the air; but there came many an imaginary one to the ears of Borthwick. At one time he thought a wild cry went past him on the wind; at another, he was certain that voices were lamenting among the copsewood by the river side.
He listened breathlessly!
All was still, save the beating of his own heart.
Was conscience beginning to be stirred at last within that arid, cruel, and stony breast, or were these ideas the mere result of the dark and midnight hour, the place, the time, and the solemn and awful superstitions incident to the age and the nation?
Swinging high aloft in the beautiful square tower of carved stonework, the cathedral bell tolled the hour of twelve. The first sonorous note, as it rolled away upon the trembling air, made Borthwick's coward heart leap within him; and he listened to each stroke in breathless agony, as a wretch might listen to his death-knell, and when the last and twelfth had boomed away upon the darkened sky, he breathed more freely, but the perspiration hung in drops upon his clammy brow, for that bell had roused old memories in his heart, and called back the days that were gone, as an old familiar voice or gong might do.
"Tush!" he muttered; "let me not be now white-hearted and a fool, when the last die has been cast in this infernal game—the last scene prepared in this tremendous drama. Twelve has struck, but there is no appearance of them yet!"
Faint and flickering lights shot over the tall and many-coloured windows of the cathedral, and played between the slender tracery of their shafted mullions, or died away in the recesses of the church. Those were the tapers of monks who had received a penance of midnight prayers to say at certain tombs or shrines; and our lurker remembered the time when he too—but he turned on his heel, and strove to forget those better days and that embittering memory. "Would the tryst had been anywhere but here."
Rays of light were streaming more brightly from the smaller but strongly grated windows of the bishop's palace, and they played on the brown foliage of the woods below, and on the rushing surface of the river in the dell. One by one these rays of light faded away; at last darkness reigned in the mansion, and Borthwick shuddered, for he knew that Margaret Drummond and her sisters would then be a-bed.
He was deadly pale; and had any one passed him casually on that high and narrow bridge, his aspect, even at night, must assuredly have startled them.
To him it was strange and almost irritating, that all the life he had passed, with many of its minuter and long-forgotten incidents, should now rise before him like a long unfolding scroll, strongly, darkly, and fearfully, as it might do before one who is about to die; and a terrible tissue it was!
He recalled the awful name and fate of his parents, and the promises he had made to the humane old priest who had saved him doubly, as he was wont to say, "like a brand from the burning," and the vows he had made in youth, in that cathedral aisle, to spend a life of holiness, of usefulness, of purity, and of prayer, to atone for the real or traditional atrocities of Ewain Gavelrigg and his wife among the Sidlaw hills; and how had he kept these vows?
"Accursed be these thoughts!" said he, as he walked to and fro, and bit his nether lip, as if to control the growing fear and bitterness of his heart. At that moment something struck his face, and he sprang aside in terror uncontrollable.
"Pshaw!" said he, "a bat!"
Everything was fraught with some old memory to him now, and he remembered the old story of its origin to which he had often listened, as the monks sat round the refectory fire in the cold winter nights, when the Allan was sheeted with ice, and the blast of the snow-clad Grampians moaned in the leafless woods of Dunblane; and the voice of his old patron came back to his ears in the accents of awe with which he used to tell the story:—of how, when a boy of seven years of age, the Saviour of mankind was at play in the streets of Jerusalem, with other little Jews, and in sport they fashioned various birds and animals of clay, and then the children quarrelled among themselves, each preferring his own workmanship, and all united in laughing to scorn an uncouth bird made by the little hands of the golden-haired boy, the son of Mary, till the tears fell from his eyes; and as they dropped upon the little image, lo! it expanded its wings of clay and flew from hand to hand, and after fluttering over his head, soared into the air and became a veritablebat. On beholding this, the children fled, and on relating the story to their parents, were by them forbidden to play again with that bright-haired little boy, whom they stigmatized as an embryo sorcerer; and Borthwick remembered with mingled pity and envy the good faith, the awe, and holy interest with which the old and silver-bearded priests bent their heads around the winter hearth, and listened to legends such as this; for it was indeed an age "when old simplicity was in its prime."
At last his reveries were interrupted by perceiving at the other end of the bridge two men on foot; they had been there for some time conversing and regarding him, but unobserved by Borthwick, whose eyes and mind were turned inward, if we may say so; and now by their height, bearing, and stealthy motions, he was convinced that they were no other than Sir James Shaw of Sauchie and Sir Patrick Gray of Kyneff.
"Well met, fair sir," said the latter, with his usual courtly sneer.
"Good-morrow, Master Borthwick," added Shaw, whose incessant intoxication was quite visible, even in the dark.
Both were well armed in cuirasses, gorgets, and plate sleeves, with swords and daggers in their belts, and they bore on their heads French salades which completely concealed their faces, forming at the same time a defence which no sword could cleave or pole-axe break.
"You have good tidings, I opine, sir," said Gray.
"Alas! what leads you to infer so?"
"Your keeping tryst so faithfully," said he, again.
"Is this troublesome dame disposed of?" asked his companion, with a hiccup.
"To-morrow will tell—"
"To-morrow, and why to-morrow?" demanded Shaw, angrily.
"God's death, fellow! have we ridden a matter of seventy miles, from the Mauchline Tower to the Brig of Dunblane, only to hear this?"
"Hear me, sirs, and be patient," said Borthwick, who, to their astonishment, seemed to be as crushed in spirit as he was pale in face and trembling in speech; "I have essayed a hundred modes of obtaining access to the Bishop's palace, that I might reach Dame Margaret's room, which is in the north-east corner thereof, for I know every nook and cranny of that house of old, as if it were my own."
"And with what intent?"
"To poison the holy water font, which I understand hangs at the head of her bed."
"A rare idea," hiccupped Shaw, "provided King Henry's powder be strong enough."
"'Sdeath, the young king likely dips his dainty fingers too therein, so that would only mar King Henry's matrimony for ever—well."
"The king's pages and attendants, archers, esquires, and priests, thronged every avenue, so all attempts to reach the room were vain. By the way of the bishop's kitchen, I had less hope; for though I might dose a dish strongly enough to poison a score, yet how could I be assured that Dame Margaret would eat of it?"
"True; then by the Holy Father, we have come but to hear of difficulties."
"And to learn that nothing has been done," grumbled Sir James Shaw; "a pestilent humbug!"
"Patience, sirs, patience," groaned Borthwick; "failing about the palace, I resolved to try what could be achieved by the way of the cathedral."
"Hah!" said Gray, starting.
"I know its avenues well—"
"Ay, you were a monk, and snuffled Latin there for many a year—well."
"I begin to breathe again—so—" muttered Shaw.
"I had heard with certainty that the three sisters were to receive the Blessed Sacrament there to-morrow from the hands of the bishop, with all solemnity—"
"Well, well, what then?" asked Gray, impatiently.
"Yes, what then?" repeated the Laird of Sauchie, whose eyes were always closing.
"I stole the vestments of the sacrist who hath charge of the altar vessels, flowers, and ornaments, and whose duty it is to provide candles, bread, and wine for the communion. Well I knew where old Father Duncan's cassock hung when the good man was a-bed; and I knew the pocket too wherein he kept the key of the iron-doored niche containing the cruets of wine, beside the great altar. I donned the gown, I found the key—with eyes half blind, with ears that tingled, and a heart that trembled at every fancied sound, I glided through the long aisle of yonder silent church, and sought the niche, unchanged as when I saw it last, some sixteen years ago! I opened it—softly—slowly—fearfully, and the cruets of wine were before me—to-night, sirs—only to-night—yea only an hour ago were they before me, in my hands—and—and—"
"My God! thou didst not poison the wine—the wine about to become—"
"Hush, oh hush, in pity now; I poisoned one of them at least."
"Horror!" exclaimed Gray of Kyneff; "I foresaw not this. I would have cared little about the poisoning of some vulgar wine-pot, suppose that all Dunblane had died o' the dose; but the Communion—the Holy Eucharist—"
"I poisoned it!" groaned Borthwick, while his teeth chattered; "and to-morrow will solve a grand and awful mystery."
"And gain me an earldom," said Shaw.
Gray placed a hand upon his mouth.
There was a pause during which the three wretches gazed upon each other in silence; for it would require a Catholic, and more especially a Scottish Catholic of that age, to feel the full effect of the chilling awe and dread the act of this apostate priest produced upon himself and his two companions. Eventheirhearts quailed and trembled at it; for though the infamous and unjust conduct of the popes to Scotland, in early times and during the Crusades, made the people value lightly the bulls of the Vatican—so lightly, indeed, that more than one papal legate, natheless his purple cope and scarlet stockings, has been assaulted, stripped, and driven across the English frontier, with the nation in arms, and the country flaming at his heels; still the influence of religious sentiment, whatever its phase, was, as it has ever been, strong in the hearts of the Scots; but now with Shaw and Gray it was mingled with an overpowering superstition, and veneration for ancient, incomprehensible, and mysterious rites.
"A holy horror curdled all their blood;" and thus for some minutes none of them spoke.
"This sacrilege is awful!" said Sir Patrick.
"But the Holy Eucharist willnotpoison," said Shaw, whom the communication had completely sobered; "so thou hast, perhaps, but fooled thyself as well as us, Master Borthwick."
"What is this, Laird of Sauchie," asked Borthwick with gloomy fury; "art thou so dull as to think so? was there not William Comyn, the Lord High Chancellor of Scotland, in the days of King Malcolm IV.—a consecrated bishop too—who was poisoned by the wine of the Eucharist, and fell stone dead, in rochet, cope, and stole, on the steps of the altar?"
Another long pause ensued, during which Gray whispered to Shaw,—
"We must now close this fellow's mouth for ever; a dagger stroke, and over the bridge with him. Be ready when I say, 'Let us part, Sir Hew."
"May the blessing, or invocation, render this poison, if not altogether null in effect, at least less fatal than death?"
On this important point, Borthwick dared not reply, and they could hear his teeth chattering.
"Where is there a leech?" asked the ex-governor of Stirling.
"There is none nearer than Perth,—at least none that I wot of."
"How, Ninian the barber-chirurgeon in the Speygate?"
"The same; and he is too far off to be available," said Borthwick.
"He is the only one on the south side of Tay, except the Highland seers and crones," said Shaw, loosening his dagger in its sheath of velvet.
"Ah," continued Gray, conversing in the assumed tone of ease, to throw their intended victim off his guard; "did he not nearly slay the Lord Angus by piercing him too deep with his phlebotemus?"
"Missing the vein and cutting the artery,—a very fool."
"For which, if he had failed to stop it, the Master of Angus would have hung him over his own stair-head. He knoweth the signs and stars," continued this cold-blooded ruffian, looking casually, as it were, over the bridge to measure the height by his cold and stern eye; "but who save asses employ him, Master Borthwick?"
"Oh, many," continued Shaw, laughing, as they drew nearer their victim; "husbands, to have doses for scolding wives, and expectant heirs whose purses are empty, for old and doting uncles; in short, anyone who wishes to be rid of anyone else; for he enjoys pretty much the reputation of your friend the apothecary at—how name you the place—oh yes, Bucklersbury, in London, ha! ha! is it not so, Master Borthwick?"
He made no reply, for their ghastly merriment chilled him.
"Such a leech will not do for the daughters of the Lord Drummond," resumed Shaw; "but the night wears apace."
"Let us part then, Sir Hew!" said Gray, and at the same moment both their daggers clashed together in the breast of Borthwick, whose hot blood spirted horribly through his pyne doublet, over the hilts, and over their fingers.
The first blows failed to kill him, and he sank heavily against the parapet of the bridge.
"Mercy," he sighed; "mercy—God—mercy!"
"Such mercy as thou gavest King James," replied the villains as an apology to themselves, while they buried their poniards again and again in his heart, with a heavy and awful sound.
"'Tis but an act of self-defence, this!" said Gray.
"True—true—of course it is—he might have destroyed us, else," added Shaw, in a breathless voice.
"He is gone now—so over with him!" replied the other.
Lifting the heavy, and yet warm body of the regicide, they shot it over the steep bridge into the rapid stream below, where it fell with a loud splash. As it was swept down the current, they sprang upon their horses, which were haltered under the boortrees.
"Now, Sir James, away for Kyneff or Caterline!" cried Gray, as they dashed through the dark streets of Dunblane, and at full speed took the road towards that great and fertile plain which lies between the northern bank of the Tay and the base of the Sidlaw hills, and is known so well in song as the Carse of Gowrie.
"I love! and love hath given me sweet thoughts, to God akin;And oped a living paradise, my heart of hearts within;Oh! from this Eden of my life, God keep the serpent, Sin."GERALD MASSEY.
Pontifical high mass was performed with unusual splendour in the cathedral church of Dunblane. On this occasion, the bishop preceded by his cross-bearer, and the banner of the diocese, borne by Sir Edward Hay of Melginch, by all the prebends of the cathedral, with choristers and singing-boys, passed in procession through the centre aisle to the altar, having on his head a mitre blazing with jewels, gorgeous robes on his shoulders, and wearing scarlet gloves on his hands, which bore the identical crook by one touch of which Saint Blane restored sight to the blind, and life to the dead heir of Appilby, as we may still see recorded in the fifty-seventh folio of the Breviary of Aberdeen.
The king was on a royal seat, surrounded by the lords and ladies of the court and household, and many of the great officers of state; the Captain of his Guards, Lord Drummond, Falconer, Barton, and many more, all richly dressed in the gaudy costumes of the time, when fancy and fashion ran riot among silk and satin, velvet and miniver, feathers, jewels, and lace. Bright steel cuirasses, cloth of gold, satin doublets and velvet mantles, with the silver stars and green ribands of the Thistle, or the escallops of St. Michael, and the crosses of many a foreign Order of knighthood, made the group around the young monarch alike gay and splendid.
The entire population of the little city and of the adjacent district crowded the triple aisles of the magnificent church; and on groups of these, all of them attired in varying colours, and various fashions—for Dunblane approaches the Highland border—long hazy flakes of light fell inward from the three tall lance-headed compartments of the great western window, in which were a thousand prismatic tints, as martyred saints, crowned kings, and pallid Virgins stood amid pious scrolls and gaudy flowers, green foliage and bright armorial bearings, all woven in the brilliant glass, filling up the double mullions and grotesquely twisted tracery.
This beautiful church is less richly decorated than many others in Scotland; its mouldings and clustered capitals are without flowering; yet from the loftiness of its windows, and the general symmetry of its proportions, this effort of the architectural taste and piety of King David I. is full of grandeur and dignity. From its walls hung the banners and scutcheons of the once powerful Earls of Strathearn, with the sword of Malise, who fought at the Battle of the Standard; and the helmet of Sir Maurice of Strathearn, who was slain at the Battle of Durham; there, too, hung the trophies of the Lords of Strathallan, and the Drummonds of Drummond. Beneath the pavement, which was lettered with epitaphs, and rich with graven brasses, their bones were reposing, cered in lead, deep in the gothic vaults below; and there their effigies may yet be seen, with shield on arm, with sword at side, and hands upraised as in prayer.
The light stole through the windows with a chastened effect, and so many tapers burned upon the great altar, that with all its gilding it seemed a pyramid of flame; and in front of it were the floating garments of the bishop and his attendant priests, with the thin white smoke of the censers rising among them; while the full-toned organ, with its trumpet sound, and the harmony of a hundred voices, all melodiously attuned, rolled along the high-arched roofs, and went at once to the depth of every soul and the inmost chords of every heart—calling, as it were, to prayer and to enthusiasm, the whole being of every listener.
On the altar lay two bridal wreaths, and a peculiar belt of iron.
The wreaths were those to be worn on the morrow by Euphemia and Sybilla Drummond; the iron belt was to be the life-long penance of King James.
In the lower aisles, "a dim religious light" brooded over all; and in the solemnity of devotion, every knee and every head were bowed, and, outwardly at least, all was hushed and humble meekness.
Before the carved oak rail of the sanctuary knelt the three sisters, with their bright hair confined in golden cauls, and their faces bowed before the venerable bishop—an old man, whose days went back to those of the Regent Murdoc Stuart, and the wars of James I. with Alaster of the Isles.
Mass was performed with great solemnity; and though few Catholics—perhaps none—will believe what ensued, or that blessed wine would poison, yet we have it on record, that a Scotsman, who was Bishop of Durham in 1153, was destroyed by the wine of the Eucharist, in which a deadly drug had been placed by his enemies, some English priests.
From the prelate's hand the three fated sisters received the communion, of which he had himself partaken, impregnated, as it was, with a poison as deadly as ever human science or human villany prepared.
"Corpus Domini nostri," &c. &c., prayed the poor bishop, with reverence, and eyes half-closed as he signed the cross in blessing over their fair foreheads, and placed between the lips of each the wafer which he had dipped in the poisoned wine, and of which he had himself partaken!
The poor girls, with their white hands crossed upon their fluttering breasts, and their young hearts, full of pious joy, returned to the crimson canopied stall, over which their father's feudal banner, with the three bars, wavy, hung beside the royal standard, with the lion, gules, and there again they knelt in prayer beside the youthful king.
When mass was over, the bishop ascended the altar, still robed in fall pontificals, with his mitre on his head, and resigning his crook to an assistant priest who waited on the steps, he opened the famous letter of Dispensation.
"The Most Holy Father in Christ our Lord, Innocent the Eighth, by Divine Providence,servus servorum Dei, to his dearly beloved brother James, also by Divine mercy, Bishop of Dunblane, and to all others, &c. &c., wisheth health and benediction in the Lord."
Beginning thus, he read, in pure and sonorous Latin, the Papal authority, removing the guilt and sin committed, and absolving, dissolving, and annulling the ties of blood between James, by the grace of God, King of the Scots, and his cousin, the Lady Margaret Drummond; and thus, by the apostolical power confided to the Holy See, removing every hindrance and impediment to their lawful marriage, "dated at Rome, on the festival of Corpus Christi, and of our Pontificate then fourth year."
The bishop closed the letter which he had brought from such a distance, and which had involved him in so many personal perils, and then resumed his glittering crozier from its bearer.
Then Margaret, whose small white hand the young king had pressed repeatedly, and whose agitated heart had beat wildly, felt as if a mountain had been lifted off it; for fondly, fully, and devoutly she believed in the annulment it announced, and the authority from which it came; and her soft blue eyes beamed under her velvet hood and gold-fringed caul with the most beautiful joy, and with the purest and holiest of rapture as they met those of the young king, her husband—ay, her husband now, without secrecy, or fear, or sin.
"Margaret—my own beloved Margaret!" he whispered, and tremblingly kissed her brow, an act of respect and tenderness which stirred the hearts of all the people.
Honest Barton was spelling away industriously at his missal, content, as he thought, and said inwardly, "that Euphemia was alongside of him, and that, on the morrow, with a fair wind and a friar's blessing, they would cast anchor together in smooth riding, and in the sunny haven of matrimony;" but Falconer and Sybilla knelt hand in hand behind the high oak-screen, and deeply thanked God and the good young king, who had brought to this happy and most unexpected issue the long hushed secret of their ardent hearts.
Would that we could leave them thus; but the ways of fate, and the course of unforeseen events, are inexorable.
James IV. now received from the Bishop's hand the penance-girdle—thatIron Belt—to which he added every year a weight to worn in memory of his father's fall, and which he never laid aside either by day or by night, until the morning of the fatal ninth of September, 1513, thirty-five years after; and on that day he perished at Flodden, with ten thousand Scottish hearts as brave as his own!
Now old Duncan, the sacristan, supplied innumerable torches and tapers to the people, giving one to every man, woman, and child. The whole church become filled with light—a blaze, a flood of flame, till the eyes ached, and the beautiful lines of St. Paulinus seemed to be realized in the old aisles of Dunblane:
"With crowded lamps are these bright altars crowned,And waxen tapers shed perfume around,From fragrant wicks beams calm the scented ray,To gladden night, and brighten radiant day.Meridian splendours thus light up the night,And day itself, illum'd with sacred light,Wears a new glory, borrowed from those rays,That stream from countless lamps in never-ending blaze."
But this unusual glory chilled the hearts of the vast congregation who filled that great cathedral church; for now the bishop prepared to pass upon the murderers of the late king and their abettors, the heaviest fulminations of the Vatican: and in that age, when churchmen united spiritual with temporal power, everything in nature, from the king on his throne to a caterpillar on the leaf of a tree, were liable to anathema. To men, its sentence was armed with a thousand terrors. The ex-communicated person was shut out, cut off, as it were, from all social life; his servants, his wife—even his dearest children, dare not come near him, or relieve his most urgent wants by a crumb of bread or a drop of water; for he had forfeited all claims on humanity, all natural rights and legal privileges.
Any man might slay him, and under this inhuman law, even his body was denied proper burial; in some sequestered or hated, at least, unconsecrated spot, it was flung aside, and covered up with stones; and now the bells of Dunblane began to toll a solemn peal, and the inmost hearts of all the people, surrounded as they were by that blaze of light, became appalled, as the bishop, in a loud but melancholy voice, poured forth against the regicides the sentence of Pope Innocent VIII.: "In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, et benedictæ nostræ Dominæ Sanctissimæ Mariæ, atque virtute angelorum archangelorumque, &c., à sancte matris Ecclesias græmio segregamus ac perpetuæmaledictionis anathemate condemnamus!"
The three sisters felt a sleep stealing over their humid eyes and hushing their beating hearts, as they nestled close together, as if in terror of the spiritual thunder that rang over their heads in a language they could not comprehend; but, perhaps, it was excess of happiness at their own position—or, perhaps, the blaze of light oppressed them, for they were silent, motionless, and still.
Timidly they cast a furtive glance at their father, Lord Drummond, as he stood near them, sheathed in the same armour he had worn at the Battle of Sauchieburn, with a wax taper clutched like a lance in his gauntleted hand; unsubdued by the terrible anathema, the proud noble heard it with constitutional indifference, or concealed his inward fear under an outward smile of scorn.
But his daughters felt sick and faint.
Margaret closed her eyes and drooped her head upon the shoulder of Euphemia, whose hand was now clasped by Sybilla.
As the bishop concluded, he extinguished his taper, and every one in the church followed his example,—the prebendaries and others treading their torches vigorously underfoot, and Lord Drummond crushed his under his armed heel with as much animus as Sir Andrew Wood might have done; while the bells continued to toll the knell of the doomed souls, at long and solemn intervals, in the towers of the cathedral, the interior of which seemed to become suddenly dark and gloomy, for the day without had overcast, and dense autumn clouds, charged with mist and rain, came rolling from the Grampians across the lowering sky.
A chill—a horror of the scene, this solemn curbing with bell book and candle—had fallen upon the people, who were stealing softly and hastily away; while the poor old bishop, exhausted by the long service and its exciting nature, and more than all by the poison he had imbibed, tottered into the arms of Sir Walter Drummond, the dean, and was borne out by a side door, with all the air of a dying man.
The three sisters, as if absorbed in prayer, were still leaning forward against the oak rail, and kneeling on the velvet cushions; they remained thus very long after all the congregation had dispersed; and loth to disturb them, their happy lovers lingered in the aisle with the king and his attendants, till Lord Drummond lost all patience, and roughly summoned them.
"Effie—Maggie—by my soul, ye have gone to sleep, I think—come, arouse ye there!" he exclaimed.
Then the young king went softly over and touched Margaret on the shoulder.
She did not stir; neither did she seem to feel him.
"Sybilla—Euphemia!" said he.
But there was no answer.
For those three kneeling figures were stone dead!
* * * * * * *