"Sir Andrew Wood, news hath come in, within this hour, that five English ships are plundering all the coast about Dunbar, so that men can neither fish at sea, nor plough upon the shore, for the shot of their cannon and arquebusses. They have burned many homesteads in the night, and harried the hirsels of the friars at Aberlady; so, if you will not serveus, you may, at least, serve Scotland, by ridding her of these gnats, who sting her in her time of toil and trouble."
"That will I do blithely, lord earl! I searched all the coast from the Red Head to Dunbar Sands, and yet saw nought of these English craft, which were off Taymouth last month. What say ye, Barton, if it should prove to be Eddy Howard?"
"That I will found an altar to St. Clement in Mary's Kirk of Leith, where, if we are victorious, masses shall be said till the day of doom."
"Where were these craft last seen, lord earl?"
"Cruising between the Isle of May and the Craig of Bass," answered Hepburn of Blackcastle; "there are five in all, and three have their forecastle gunsen barbette."
"With red crosses in their topsails?" asked Falconer.
"The same."
"'Tis Howard!" exclaimed Sir Andrew Wood, striking his hands together with joy; "let us unmoor, and be off, lest we miss them again. Farewell, your grace and lordships—come, Davie Falconer, and thou, too, Barton; let us go."
"You will take one cup of wine ere you leave us, admiral," said Angus.
"I crave leave to be excused," said Wood; "I have drunk many a pot of wine here with my auld messmate, Andrew Barton; but I will never bend a bicker with those who are in arms against his master—for had puir Andrew been alive, he had stood by my side to-day; so let us bear away, then—the sky is clear, as the saw saith,
'When the clouds spread like a feather,Mariner look for fair gude weather.'
We'll sight these Englishmen to-night, and overhaul them before morning."
Glad to be rid of one whose loyalty and inflexible truth were likely to prove troublesome, and perhaps infectious, the barons in reality cared very little whether Sir Andrew vanquished the English or was sunk by them; for, like true Scottish peers, the national honour to them was nothing when conflicting with their own private ends. As the three kingsmen left the house, they saw two ladies at one of the lower windows waving their handkerchiefs through the basketted grating, careless whether pages, grooms, or men-at-arms observed them. These were Sybilla and Euphemia Drummond. For a minute the lovers loitered to exchange a word and glance.
"Thou art welcome, thrice welcome to my father's house, Lady Effie," said Barton; "and one day I hope to see its porch bedecked with white garlands in thine honour, when coming home as its lawful mistress; but that must be when the tide of fortune turns, for sorely hath it now set in against the loyal and true; so we, dear Effie, must thole it with the others. I see how the land lies still with the old lord, thy father; but we'll weather the reefs yet, please God, Effie."
Poor Falconer could only kiss the soft white hand of Sybilla, and give her one deep and sorrowful glance, when Lord Home, who would gladly have fallen on him, sword in hand, but for the safety of their hostages, came furiously forward, and the two lovers hurried after the admiral, who was impatiently waiting for them at the outer gate.
"Bear on, Robbie," said he, "we have no leisure now for backing and filling, or toying and kissing hands. Doth not thy heart glow with a double hope of vengeance at the sight of thy father's rooftree and wasted substance? Well-a-day," he added, as they hastened through St. Nicholas Wynd, "our poor king, after beating to windward all his life against the dark current of adversity, perhaps is gone now, as his grandsire went before him—sain him God! And though I will rather scuttle the old frigate than lower my colours or vail my topsails to those sharks of barons, yet thou seest, messmate, we must e'en bear up before this civil tempest, and scud under bare poles, for fear of losing all; but were I sure that the king was in life, by the bones of St. Rule, I would not lift tack or sheet to humour the best lord in the land!"
"But then the English fleet?"
"Ay, true, there thou hast the weathergage of me; yes, we must fight in honour and conscience, whether lord, earl, or laird, king or chancellor commanded us or not; ship your oars, my lads, and shove off for the ship," he cried, as they sprang on board the barge, just in time to prevent a violent collision between some of her crew and the Angus spearmen, who had been provoked by the taunts and abuse of Cuddie Clewline the coxswain. This "ancient mariner," whose weatherbeaten visage was puckered up like a knot on an oak tree, possessed a vocabulary of abuse that was pretty extensive; and he had been perambulating the pier, spitting on his hard horny hands, and throwing mortal defiances right and left among the vassals of the Lord of Galloway, boasting that he did not value "their steel trappings or iron jacks a ropes-end or a brass bodle."
As the barge, with its colour waving, shot out of the sunny harbour, the crews of the merchant craft and Hanse traders gave the well-known admiral a hearty cheer, and his oarsmen, as they bent to their task and almost lifted their light craft out of the water, sung that merry old Scottish sea-song, which is mentioned in the prologues of Bishop Gawain Douglas—
"The ship sails owre ye saut sea faem,Yat rowes on ye rocks o' our native hame;"
while Cuddie sat in the prow, flourishing his boat hook in defiance to the soldiers on the bridge and pier.
Ere the last notes of the song and the plash of the oars had been lost in the boom of the surf that broke on the reefs then known as the Musselcape and Beacon Rock, Sir Patrick Gray rushed down St. Nicholas Wynd, crossed the bridge, and hurried to the Kirkgate, where, in theBell of St. Anthony, a well-known hostel, he found his minion, Sir Hew Borthwick, whom he scarcely knew, so splendidly was he attired; for the price of James's signet-ring (long since transmitted by the Governor of Berwick to London) had lined his pockets with something better than pebbles, and enabled him to ruin all the pages, pimps, and bullies about the prince's court at tric-trac and shovel-board.
"Ride, Borthwick, ride," said Gray, breathlessly, as he roughly drew him into a corner; "for death and life ride to Dunbar; here is money—six half lions (about thirty shillings); get thee a skiff, and seek the English Captain Howard. Warn him that Wood is putting to sea—say his fleet is overwhelming. Anathema! Oh, the fool, the half-witted English lurdane, to be loitering yet in Scottish waters with that devilish damsel in his possession! If she is taken, her tongue will destroy us all; she must be flung overboard, with all the ciphers of Quentin Kraft, if theHarryis captured; see to this on your life, Hew Borthwick, see to it! Away, while there is yet time—away!"
In ten minutes after this the regicide, well mounted, left Leith by the Porte St. Anthony, and crossing the Links, struck eastward by the dreary Figgate Muir, riding at headlong speed towards Dunbar.
It was about four o'clock in the evening, and as these "Scottish worthies" separated, each mentally bequeathed the other to the infernal shades.
"The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith,Fu' loud the wind blaws down the ferry,The ships ride at the Berwick Law,And I maun leave my bonnie Mary."—Scottish Song.
As his barge glided into the stream, and Leith with its pier, spires, and sandy links, melted into the sunny haze; as the harbour closed and narrowed astern; the admiral, after remaining long silent, exclaimed,—
"Well—-split my topsails, if I would not rather endure the English fire, yardarm and yard arm for eight glasses, than overhall all this talk again with these herring-faced lordlings; but one day, gadzooks! I hope to make the best among them lower his ancient at the king's name."
"They have cast a glamour over the Lord Drummond," said Barton, with a gloomy expression in his eyes; "he was kind to me once, and but for my father's death and this unhappy strife, I had been ere now his son-in-law, and holding a banquet, perhaps, in yonder hall, where all that rabble rout of hostile peers hold council."
"Thy fair weather and smooth anchorage are coming, Robert," said the admiral; "and what sayst thou, Davie Falconer?"
"That fickle fortune, I fear me, will never tire of persecuting one who ever courts her smiles; though sooth to say, I never fear her frowns. Poor Lady Sybilla, how sad, how pale she looked!"
"Be not cast down, Falconer," continued the kind old Laird of Largo, on seeing the arquebussier gazing dreamily at the tall house of Barton, which stood like a watch-tower on the left bank of the Leith; "be not heavy o' heart, because thy purse is at low water; thou shalt have thy winsome bride yet, my lad! And if the king gives thee not land, thou shalt never lack siller while auld Andrew Wood hath a shot in his locker. Thy father's son, Davie, shall beat to windward, and keep in the line of battle with the best craft in the fleet. The happiest occurrence in the voyage of life is to be brought to by a bonny young lass."
"How wobegone young Rothesay looked to-day," said Falconer.
"Ah! there our king (God bless him!) was wrong," said the admiral; "he should have given the lad a longer swing to his cable, or a little more headway, in the matter of running after the winsome dames at court, as young princes will do at times. The tide of experience would soon have brought him into deep water. I know that, though an auld sailor, who (St. Mary be thanked) knoweth as much anent courts and cities as a seamew may; but hilloh! what is astir here?" he added, as the barge sneered alongside the Yellow Caravel, and two very ominous loops were seen to dangle from her foreyard-arms.
History informs us that the admiral had just returned in time to save his two noble hostages from being hung; for the crew having become alarmed by his long stay on shore, were preparing—by order of Sir Alexander Mathieson, who took command in his absence—with great deliberation to run George Lord Seaton and John Lord Fleming to the yardheads; and the poor nobles (both good and worthy men) were in the very act of making their peace with Heaven, through the intervention of Father Zuill, when the admiral stepped on board, and at once despatched them on shore, where the account they gave to Angus and others of their treatment, made the peers more than ever dread and abhor the Laird of Largo and his crews.
"Tell the spearmen o' the Lord Angus," shouted Cuddie over the side, as their boat was shoved off, "that d—n my auld buits if——"
"Peace, coxswain," said Barton; "thou ever becomest crank when lacking ballast, or when thine orlof is overstowed with usquebaugh; so, silence—man the tackles, and hoist the boats on board."
"Lords, indeed!" muttered the admiral, as he walked aft; "were my honour not pledged, I would fain have belayed the dogsons to the whipping-post, and given them a round dozen with a rope's end, just as a fare-ye-well. But heave short on the anchor, Barton—cast loose the courses, and make sail on the ship."
History (to which in these chapters we are obliged to have constant reference) informs us, that though the admiral had several ships at his disposal, and the English squadron consisted of five sail, he somewhat unwisely resolved "to takeonly his own two," meaning theYellow Frigateand theQueen Margaret, which had been built at the Newhaven, under his own eye; and so, after desiring the other armed vessels, whose captains adhered to him and the cause of the missing king, to cruise between Leith Roads, St. Margaret's Hope, and Alloa, to cut off the communication of the insurgents with Fife, he weighed anchor, and stood down the river about six in the evening, favoured by a gentle south-west wind.
There were great preparations made for battle on board these two stately ships, as under a press of canvas, they bore down the Forth, between Inchkeith and those two reefs known as the Briggs and the Craigness, and steered for the Isle of May, which lay north-east by east, but was not visible from that part of the river. The admiral and his officers remained in their harness. Willie Wad and his yeomen hoisted powder up from the magazine; the boatswain was preparing all the culverins on the long and clumsy slides then in use; the arquebussiers put fresh matches to the serpentine cocks of their firearms; filled their priming horns, and buckled on their bullet-bags, which were hung at the right hip, and all were on deck in their jazarine jackets and steel caps, swords, and daggers. The seamen were accoutred in nearly a similar manner, and armed themselves from the racks of Jedwood axes, hand-guns, and boarding-pikes, that were framed round the masts and the bulwarks of the poop. All were noisy, loquacious, and enthusiastic, save a few of the quiet married men, whose wives and little ones were watching their departure from the shore.
"Away aloft, Cuddie—get into the fore-crosstrees," said the admiral, "and thou shalt have a can of egg-flip and three silver bonnet pieces the moment ye sight these English ships. Will she not carry more, Barton?"
"Not without leaving Sir Alexander too far astern; but we may try: master boatswain, rig me a guy on the spanker-boom, sheet home the mizen-staysail, and up with that cross-jackyard a bit."
This primitive contrivance has now been replaced by the gaff, and to the lower end of it the staysail was then bent on. Though the summer evening was then bright on shore, a thick white haze arose from the broad estuary, and hid the land on both sides. The admiral became merry as the river widened, and the May arose in a faint blue line at the horizon; and he said to the gunner,—
"Pass the word, Willie, to Father Zuill, to quit the mass-book—to overhaul his hurdy-gurdy, and ship on its mirrors, for gadzooks, we will be aboard the English in another hour or two."
"Carry those shot to their guns, Willie Wad," said Barton, kicking away some balls that were rolling about the deck; "no iron should ever come within seven feet of a binnacle."
The wind soon became lighter and more aft; and as the yards were squared more, the staysails began to shiver. The vessels were now going slowly through the water, and cleaving a shining passage that left a long wake astern. The sun of June set brilliantly behind the distant Ochils; the shores were mellowed in haze; but above it, the peculiar hill of North Berwick rose on the starboard bow, gleaming in the western light like a volcanic cone of flame. As the glow faded on the waters, a light, like a gigantic star, began to beam among the hills astern.
This was Saint Anthony's Light—a beacon which was burned by the good and charitable Hospitallers of St. Anthony upon the tower of their hermitage on the rocks above Holyrood. This tower was then more than forty feet high, and thus its light was seen far down the estuary, in which it was the only beacon in those days; for there was then no Pharos on Inchkeith (which belonged toKeith, the Earl Marischal), and was without a night-beacon until the early part of the seventeenth century. The island, in the time of James III., was a place of compulsory retirement for lepers and other sick persons; and was a famous resort of water-cows and kelpies; and on the rocks there the mermaids, with curling tails, a looking-glass in one hand and a comb in the other, arestill to be seen, as more than one hardy boatman of Newhaven, and pious elder of the Fishwives Kirk, are ready to aver on oath, especially when the moon is S. by W., and the tide is full between Granton and Kinghorn.
"St Abb, St. Helen, and St. Bey,All built kirks near unto the sea;St. Abb's upon the Nabs, and St. Helen's on the Lea,But St. Bey's upon Dunbar sands is nearest to sea!"—Old Rhyme.
Meanwhile, the worthy messenger of the worthy knight, Sir Patrick Gray, captain of Broughty, was riding hard towards the east. To avoid question by the gateward, who kept the bridge and toll of Musselburgh, he swam his horse through the river, near the church of St. Michael the Archangel, and dashed through Pinkie-woods, over Tranentmuir and Hoprigmains, and never drew his bridle until King David's royal burgh of Dunbar and the massive towers of that noble fortress, which was then considered the key of East Lothian, rose before him; and from the higher ground, as he approached the bare and sea-beaten promontory on which they stand, he could perceive five English vessels cruising in the offing, or deep water, and almost becalmed between the mainland and the May.
Three of these were indeed the vessels of Howard, who, when on his homeward voyage, had been joined off Holy Island by two large armed vessels, under Miles Furnival, sent by Henry VII. from the Thames, with orders to pillage the coast of Scotland, and (in fulfilment of the old and invariable policy of the English kings) to take every advantage of the intestine broils of Scotland to distress and harass the people, that they might the more willingly listen to his proposals, when the project of the prince's marriage with Margaret Tudor was revived—a foolish and mistaken policy, as the Scots were ever the last people in the world to be wooed by cold steel and gunpowder.
Feeling appetised after his long ride, Sir Patrick's messenger reined up his foam-flecked charger at theDunbar Arms, an hostel in the Highgate, where he ordered a cup of Malvoisie, a pair of roasted plovers, and a quail, with sweet sack, for he felt able to devour a horse, after his long ride near the seacoast; and he resolved, that though the evening was drawing on, affairs of state should wait his pleasure.
"How happy are the rich," thought he, with a sigh of enjoyment, after he had drained the last of his sack, and picked the last bone of the quail; "how often have I fed my hopes when I had little wherewith to feed my stomach," he added, clinking the English gold pieces, with which his purse was now so well lined, and which went current in Scotland, as Scottish coins did in England, for then the coin of all nations was circulated everywhere; "but this country will grow too hot for me ere long, so I must e'en turn spy on Henry, and win in England the lyons, louis, and angels of the new king, James IV.—ugh!" and he smiled a ferocious smile, "he owes his crown tome! But now to reach these devilish ships anent that damsel, who I would with all my soul was sleeping with her fathers."
He now went on foot to the harbour, where, though the sea was calm, there was considerable agitation in the water, for Dunbar is the most bleak and stormy headland on the coast; but he found that no money would tempt the fishermen to put him on board of any of those English vessels, which were lying, almost becalmed, about two miles off; and he soon ceased to ask them, as their suspicions were readily excited, and there were not a few who threatened to drag him before the provost, that he might be forced to "declare what manner of business he, a Scot, had on board these hostile craft."
This threat made him tremble, for now he had three tenements in Stirling, with a remarkably well-lined purse; and if "the sudden possession of gold will make a brave man cautious," how much more so will it render timid a dastardly regicide?
Hastily leaving the fishermen, he walked for nearly a mile along the sands, on which the surf was rolling with considerable force, and gazed anxiously at the English ships, which were all within two miles of each other, with their high lumbering poops, their carved and gilded quarter-galleries, and the muzzles of their brass cannon shining in the last rays of the sunlight that lingered in the west; and Borthwick stamped his feet with anger, for he supposed that Wood's ships must, by this time, have dropped far down the river, and that shots would soon be exchanged.
Upon the level shore, close to the seamark, there stood in those days the chapel of St. Bey, who was daughter of a certain Saxon king. This princess, according to local tradition, had emigrated among the Scots with her two sisters, St. Abb and St. Helen, who, being meek, gentle, and pious, were disgusted with the world and the barbaric pomp of their father's petty court, and resolved to spend their dowers in the erection of churches, and their lives in devotion. All these three votaresses having a curious predilection for salt water, endeavoured to find sites as near the sea as possible. St. Helen built her oratory on a plain, near the beach, and St. Abb raised hers on that high rock which overhangs the German Ocean, while St. Bey succeeded in founding her fane so close to the floodmark that at every full tide the waves washed its massive walls; and hence arose the Lothian rhyme prefixed to this chapter.
Thinking little of St. Abb, St. Helen, or St. Bey, Hew Borthwick, on passing the chapel of the latter, suddenly found himself seized by a party of seamen, whom, by the fashion of their gabardines, and the sound of their voices, he knew at once to be English; and close by was a large boat, well laden with several sacks of flour, three sheep, and a quantity of vegetables, all taken from an adjacent farm; for this foraging party were numerous and well armed.
"Yoho, brother; whom seek ye?" demanded one, who grasped Borthwick by the throat—yet the craven dared not to draw his sword.
"I seek some one who will take me on board theHarry, for I have an urgent message to the captain."
"Concerning the damosel aboard, I have little doubt," replied the seaman, who was no other than Dick Selby, the gunner; "I ever said little luck would come to Eddy Howard by having this painted galley in tow."
"Nay, Dick," said another, "she be no galley, but a noble lady."
"A Scots one, though. Well, and what want ye with the captain, eh?"
"How can the Scot answer thee, Dick," interfered another, "when thou'st twisted his mouth all to starboard; why, 'tis all on one side, like the ballast-port of a timber-ship."
"Teach thy grannum to make sackwhey! I warrant thee I'll make the Scot find his tongue. Speak!" roared the gunner, giving Borthwick a furious shake.
"I have an urgent message for your captain, which none must know but he," gasped Borthwick, in a half-strangled voice; "look at me, sirs—some of you must have seen me on board before now?"
"Tarry a minute, gunner Dick," said a soldier who was in half mail, and had but one eye; "Ihaveseen this man before, methinks."
"Off Taymouth—at night," said Borthwick.
"I remember me now," said the soldier, who was Anthony Arblaster; "unhand him, Dick, ere worse come of it, for the captain's temper hath been truly devilish of late."
"We have had a long spell on this here shore," growled the gunner, as he released the throat of Borthwick, whose lace doublet was no way improved by the application of such a hard and tarry hand as Dick's; "we have turned our best barge into a bumboat, as ye may see, so come aboard and let us shove off, before some of your furious Scots come after their flour-sacks. I would to St. George they were all, for the trouble they give us, steering in the latitude of purgatory!"
"Or a warmer latitude still," added Anthony Arblaster, rubbing his blind eye.
"Avast," said an old sailor, "and remember there is a Scot here, and that he be but one among many."
But the said Scot, though boiling with rage at his treatment, cared little for national reflections; yet, had these honest English hearts known the actual character of the wretch they had on board, they would have flung him into the sea, lest they should never more have fortune on its waters.
"Ship your oars, my hearts," said the gunner; "and harkee, Arblaster, bear a-hand, old dead-eye, and belay these here quadrupeds to the thwarts, or we may lose them in the surf."
The boat was bluffly built, and being full of men, and moreover heavily laden, she laboured through the breakers which roll for ever on those sands, and shipped a great quantity of spray before her head was fairly turned towards theHarry, which was astern of all the other vessels, all of which were lying with their heads towards the river. The uneasiness manifested by Borthwick, as the spray flew over his rich cloak and doublet, afforded extreme gratification to the hardy seamen who had nothing to spoil, and whose oars bent almost to breaking, as they strained between the tholing-pins, and shot the heavy barge from one long roller to another.
After they had pulled a mile from the shore, and saw the Castle of Dunbar rising with all its strong red towers and crenellated ramparts in many a frowning row, bristling with cannon and black loop-holes, the one-eyed archer, who was seated in the stern, uttered a shout of astonishment:—
"Hilloah, old Buff," said the gunner; "what is the matter?"
"There are two large ships standing down the river!"
"Sir Andrew Wood, for a thousand rose nobles!" said the gunner, slapping his thigh; "thou hast the true eye of an English archer, Tony, thof thou'st but one; well, I thought we should not make out two days of a quiet cruise here. Give way, my hearts—give way! odds firkin, they are bringing down both wind and tide with them—yare—yare—stretch out!"
"Itisthe Admiral Wood," said Borthwick, with gloomy spite, "and my message to your captain concerns him."
"They are hull down as yet, though," said the gunner, as he stood up and shaded his weather-beaten visage with his thick knotty hand; "well—odds my life, bold as he is—and a better seamen never spliced a rope, Scot though he be, I do not think Sir Andrew, with only two ships, will venture to attack us; and we'll see him haul his wind ere another half-glass is run."
The ships of Wood were about nine miles off, being abreast of North Berwick, and they loomed large through the haze of the summer gloaming, which, however, was rising from the water as the moon, which was round and full, soared into the clear blue sky, above the hills of East Lothian. The Ness of Fife was not visible in the haze, for at this extreme point the noble Forth is more than twenty miles broad.
"O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps,And now falls on her bed."—Shakespeare.
The approaching vessels had been descried already from the ships of Howard, who fired a cannon to quicken his boat; and the moment it was on board and hoisted in, with its provisions he desired all to be cleared away for battle, and ordered Borthwick to attend him in his cabin.
"Well, thou bird of ill omen," said he, while arming himself, "what evil wind hath blown thee on board theHarryto-night? Speak out, and briefly, too; try none of thy cobler tricks with me."
"I have come with a message from the Lords at Leith——"
"Ah! they are there, then; and the rumours we have heard are true: has the King of Scotland fought a battle and been defeated?"
"Yes, and hath fled, no man knows whither," said Borthwick, with a dark smile on his pale face, while he could not repress a twinge of uneasiness at the mention of the king's name, for he saw ever before him—when alone for a moment—that ghastly corpse, lying where he had flung it, in the ditch beside the Bannock.
"And so young Rothesay now is king," said Howard, sadly, and pausing while he braced his corslet.
"No—nor can be, until we ascertain that the king, his father, is dead."
"Of course; well, and what want your rebel lords with me?"
"I should have said Sir Patrick Gray."
"Well, well—speak quickly; for the foe comes on. Your message——"
"Concerns the Lady Margaret Drummond, and your bond in cipher with the Scottish friends of King Henry."
"Well," said Howard again, buckling his waist-belt with a furious jerk; "what of them?"
"Wood is about to attack you, and you must be well aware that if theHarryis taken, and these are found on board—the lady and the bond,—the hope of Henry's alliance will be crushed by her being discovered, and the safety of his allies in Scotland will be compromised by the documents."
"The curse of all the saints be on King Henry's plots and on those Scottish cravens who pander to the pay, the wiles, and selfish ends of England!" said Howard, with great bitterness. "Well, fellow, and what would your Laird of Kyneff advise?"
"That this troublesome dame be hove overboard, with Master Kraft's writings and the deep-sea lead tied together to her neck——"
"Confound thee, thou limb of Satan!—thou infamous and lubberly lurdane!" cried Howard, in a tempest of rage at this terrible proposition. "Begone," he added, smiting Borthwick on the mouth with his steel glove; "begone, sheer off; or by all that is sacred in heaven, I will have thee bound to a kedge, and flung overboard like St. Clement! Yoho there, Will Selby!" he said to his page, who stood without the cabin, "is that fisher-boat, which we took off Tyningham sands, astern yet?"
The page replied that it was.
"Then see this ruffian put into her; give the two fishermen a handful of tokens, and bid them cast off and begone, in the devil's name, lest I hang this recreant Scot where I fain would hang his masters."
In two minutes after this our knight of the scarlet mantle found himself hustled over the side of theHarryinto a shore-boat, in which were two poor fishermen, who, after receiving a handful of those leaden pledges which the English used in the time of their seventh and eighth Henries in lieu of copper coinage, gladly pulled away for Tyningham Sands, where their wives and children had been waiting for them in sore apprehension and weeping the livelong day. Anxious to get clear of the engagement which was to take place, they stepped their mast, hoisted their sail, and prayed hard to St. Bey for a favourable breeze; but little wind came, and even that was against them; so they bequeathed the poor saint to the devil, spat on their hands, and betook them to their oars, like men.
"Thank Heaven, my ship is freed from the contamination of such a wretch," said Howard; "though 'twere not worth while to lose my temper with him. By St. George, I profit little by old Caxton's 'Book of Good Manners;' though I have studied it more than stars or compass since Margaret Drummond came on board."
The handsome Howard was now completely armed, and presented himself at the cabin of Margaret, whose attendants, Cicely and Rose, had acquainted her of the dire preparations making on deck overhead. Sorrow and confinement had rendered her so pale that she was like a beautiful marble statue, and her exceeding fairness was rendered stronger by her dark purple dress, and the triangular cap of the same material which shaded her fine hair, the locks of which shone like golden tresses in the light of the cabin lamp. On beholding Howard in his armour she started forward to meet him.
"Dear madam," said he, "I am come—to—to—"
"To restore me to my family," said Margaret, with sweet earnestness; "is it not so? you will—you will do so now; for I have been told that the king's admiral approaches to demand me."
"Nay, lady, I came but to convey you to a place of safety," paid he; "you are misinformed, for none in Scotland (three villains excepted) know that you are here, or that you are in the land of the living. The king was accused of abducting you, and he has lost a bloody battle near Stirling, fought by the nobles."
"And my father fought against him?"
"Very probably."
Margaret clasped her white hands in fear and misery.
"And what tidings are there of the Duke of Rothesay?"
"I have heard of none," said Howard, on whom that name when uttered by her lips, fell as a mortal blight. "Lady Drummond, we are about to engage in a close, and, it must be, desperate conflict, with the king of the Scottish mariners, and it may be that you will never again be troubled by the voice or presence of Edmund Howard. Oh, think over all I have dared to urge, during the many days it has been my happiness to know you and to seek your esteem. You know my secret; say, if I survive to-night, may I hope for something more than friendship?"
"Your secret," reiterated Margaret, as her fine blue eyes filled with tears; "alas, fair sir, you know notmine. I admire and most sincerely respect you, Edmund Howard; but more I dare not say—so, I beseech you, cease to urge me further on this most painful subject."
"True, true," said Howard, beating his breast, "I have indeed but little to offer you compared with what you have lost. It may be weakness——"
"The weakness of the strong man and of the gallant heart."
"Alas! in love we ever carry more sail than ballast—who can control the heart in love——"
"If you knewall, you never again would address me thus. Oh, talk not of love to me—it is in vain, nor dare I listen."
"Alas, that I should hear this doom from your own lips at last, lady! I will quit this wandering life of mariner, for I have one of those happy homes that are only to be found in England; where the woods are green, and our painted windows open down to soft and sunny lawns, instead of iron grates that grimly peer through deep fosses and guarded barbicans, as here in Scotland, lady. There no rude barons, or lawless lairds, ride from tower to tower with spears and torches in their train, no hostile clansmen wage eternal war, making their life but a mission of military vengeance and feudal hatred; and there no venal peers are ever ready to sell their country and their king, her rights or her honour for foreign gold. Oh no; in merry England we know nothing of transmitted hatred, of Highland raids and border forays. I love you, lady, well, and, with you, I fain would share that quiet English home; I love you passionately, and denial is death, and worse than death to me! and I say so now when on the eve of battle with one who was never foiled or vanquished on the sea. In that happy home, if spared to see it, I could worship you as a monk who serves his altar, and treasure you as a miser hoards his treasure. Oh do not turn from me as if I was hateful," continued Howard, borne away by his passion and finding eloquence in the very depth of it; "'tis true I am an Englishman, lady, and that you are a Scot—but can a few miles of land or of water make such an evil difference in our tempers or our race——"
"Oh no, it is not hate that makes me turn away, but true sorrow for yourself, my good and noble Howard," said Margaret, as she pressed his hands in hers; for his honest passion and gentle bearing touched her to the soul, and no woman ever hears a man say he loves her without feeling a more than common interest in him; but happily for both, this painful interview was cut short by the stentorian voice of John o'Lynne, who cried through the poop door,—
"Yoho, Captain Howard; the Scots are within a mile of us and bring down the breeze with them, and it freshens fast."
This reminded Howard of what he had forgotten,—that he had come, not to make love, but to conduct his fair prisoner and her two pretty attendants, Rose and Cicely, to a place of security, which he now proceeded to do. They were accordingly conducted between-decks, amid a tremendous uproar, for in one quarter Dick Selby was hoisting up shot and powder from the magazine, in another, boxes, chests, and bulkheads were going down, and hammocks being triced up, while the shrill whistle of the boatswain, the swearing and noise of the seamen, made the place terrible to them; and from the lower deck they descended by a ladder and the light of a lantern into a dreary and Cimmerian gulf, from which arose the combined odours of bilge and rancid beef, stale cheese, tarry ropes, and other agreeable perfumes, such as usually pervade the region of the cockpit. And there, in a curtained and cushioned berth, below the water-line, he left them to their prayers, and with a sigh ascended to the maindeck of theHarry; and then his spirit rose as he breathed more freely.
"Dick Selby,—up with the battle-lanterns, and beat to quarters!" said he: "John o'Lynne, make sail on the ship; see, theCressiwill first engage these petulant Scots; stand to your culverins, my lads fore and aft, if you would not brook a Scottish prison, oatmeal, and iron fetters, before we see merry England again!"
And bravely every man in the good shipHarrystood by his gun, and drew tighter the buckles of his helmet and girdle.
"He ha' brass within and steel without,With beams on his top-castle strong;And eighteen pieces of ordnance,He carries on each side along.And he hath a pinnace dight,St. Andrew's cross is his guide;The pinnace beareth nine score men,And fifteen guns on each side."Sir Andro Burton
The wind had freshened as theYellow Frigateand her consort bore down the river, and confident in the great size, heavy armament, and complete equipment of those vessels which Sir Alexander Wood was so fond of styling "his own two," he walked to and fro on the poop, whistling for more wind, and all undaunted by the reported strength of the enemy, though Barton, Falconer, and Sir Alexander Mathieson deemed him rash and unwary in leaving so many of his vessels to cruise idly in the river. As the land lessened, Preston Bay opened out on one side and the far-stretching bight of Largo on the other. By this time the five English vessels were in sight, scattered considerably apart, but their white sails were distinctly visible on the dusky blue of the darkening sea and sky. Falconer and Barton were accoutred in polished steel, and were armed with Jedwood axes, sword, and dagger. After having inspected the culverins, moyennes, and sakers with which the forecastle, poop, and main-deck were mounted—after having seen that the bores were clean, the wadding tight, and tackles clear—Willie Wad was placidly regaling himself on cold salt junk and a can of beer with the coxswain of the barge, who was drinking ale from an old gallipot.
Archy the boatswain, and his mate (or yeoman, as they were then named), worked at a grindstone, putting a keener edge on their two-handed swords, axes, and boarding pikes, while they whistled and sang as the sparks of the grinding steel flew to leeward through the open ports; and close by them was a grim old arquebussier, who had served at the siege of Lochmaben, under James II., against the Douglases at Brechin, and at the Bog of Dunkinty, notching his leaden balls with a cross for good luck; and now the Admiral, whose mind was occupied by the hope of victory, was joined by Father Zuill, who under his cassock wore a jazarine jacket and steel gloves, which he was at no pains to conceal.
"Harkee, timoneer," said the Admiral, "keep her head away a point or two towards the north. Yonder headmost ship I take to be theCressi, and if so, I will play her a trick I have not tried since we fought the Portuguese under Antonio de Belem, and sunk hisLady of Sorrow. Gadzooks! that Englishman saileth as if he would poke the wind's eye out! We will have a brave moonlight night, Father Zuill; see how brightly she rises above the Lammermuirs."
"Yet I would rather this bout took place by sunlight."
"Why—what! art at thy plaguey burning-glasses again?"
"Thou knowest, Admiral, that Marcellus used his mirrors both in summer and winter——"
"Nay, I know nothing of the kind."
"Unless they were to trim his beard by," said Falconer.
"Out on thee, Davie," said the Admiral; "don't mock our friar, though he hath more crotchets in his poor head than there be strands in a nine-inch cable."
"Yes," mused the priest; "he used them even in the coldest winters against the ships of an enemy; but there is no record of moonbeams setting ought on fire."
"Odds life! I should think not, friar," said the Admiral, looking aloft, and watching the sails of the frigate.
"Would that I could assure thee, Sir Andrew, how a combination of mirrors, all reflecting heat on one point, could set the great globe itself on fire; then how much more so a miserable caravel?"
"Let me see the caravel set on fire first, and I will consider about the world after. So-ho, Burton, the wind is veering round upon our quarter."
"And thou shalt see it, Admiral; for when I construct my parabolic speculum to burn at ten paces, one ten times its size shall consume everything to cinders at a hundred paces. 'Tis plain as a pikestaff."
"Look ye, shipmate," said the Admiral, impatiently, "stick to thy mass, and leave burning and cannonading to those whose trade it is; the gunner to his lintstock, the steersman to his helm——"
"And the cook to the foresheet," interrupted the friar, petulantly finishing the Admiral's invariable proverb, which he had picked up in his old skipper days. "Yet a time shall come when thou and all here shall behold with wonder the effect of my parabolic speculum, when it reflects the fierce solar rays to that point of fire which is the true focus of the parabola."
"Perhaps so," replied the Admiral; "but I never mean to watch thy devilish hurdy-gurdy again. Dost remember when we were off Cape Ushant, how nearly I was brained at the taffrail by the jibbing of the mainboom, when watching these plaguey glasses with which you promised to burn me a hole in the sails of a Spanish lugger?"
"Alas! Laird of Largo," said the learned chaplain, sorrowfully, "thou knowest nought of this noble science—nothing of optics; nothing of epicycles, whose central circle is the circumference of a greater; and nothing of crystalline spheres."
"Hillo! thou'rt at thy magic again," said the Admiral, angrily; "all this is too deep for me, Father Zuill; I am out of soundings, look ye; and if I dived into the abyss of this learning, I should never come up again. Look to the staysails, Barton—the wind cometh more upon the beam."
TheMargaretwas now half a mile astern. After passing the Bass Rock, they found the wind coming freshly from the south, and saw the English ships closing up fast as they caught the breeze; but still theCressiwas far ahead of theHarry, and though a small vessel, which mounted only twenty pieces of ordnance, with a crew of about two hundred men, she stood boldly towards the taller and heavier Scot, with which her crew were intent on grappling—atactiquepeculiar to that age; but Wood had no intention of letting her do so, and resolved to rid himself of her company, by serving her as he had served the Admiral of Portugal, when he fought him off the Rock of Lisbon, a few years before.
The light haze had now cleared away from the bosom of the estuary; from a clear, unclouded sky, a gorgeous moon shed a flood of brilliant light upon the wide blue waters, on the coast of East Lothian, that lay sleeping in the silvery distance; on the nearer bluffs of the castled Bass and the low, flat Isle of May, that lay far off towards the north and east. The waves were dancing in green light tipped with silver foam, as they rolled between continent and isle, and the English vessels, with all their canvas set, as they stood towards the foe, looked like gigantic swans or sea-birds floating on the deep.
A red flash from the high forecastle of theCressiwas followed by a gush of pale blue smoke, and then the iron ball of a carthoun howled through the rigging of the frigate, and plunged into the water far off. This irritated the old Laird of Largo, who always loved to have the first fire; and now he blew his whistle—the signal for battle.
"Let fly at her tophamper, Willie Wad," he cried, as a line of lights glittered along the gun-deck; "give us moonlight through her canvas,—cut her cordage and unreeve her rigging."
Simultaneously a flood of red fire and white smoke burst from the low waist and towering fore andafter-castlesof the two ships, and a storm of shot flew over each, the balls of theCressi, many of them stone bullets from King Henry's quarries at Maidstone, knocked great white splinters from the painted hull and carved galleries of theYellow Frigate, and killed and wounded many of her men; while she in turn cut to pieces the rigging of her enemy, and thus rendered her motions slow and her management difficult.
"We must rid ourselves of this hornet before we engage her companions," said Sir Andrew; "put the ship about, Barton, and remember our prank with the Portuguese."
"'Bout ship," cried Barton, after a few preparations, putting the trumpet through his open helmet; "helm's a-lee;—let go, and haul!"
Round swung the ponderous ship, while loose shot and everything else rolled from windward to leeward, as she stood off on the opposite tack, as if about to creep in shore and fly; and now the increasing breeze filled her canvas, and careened her gracefully over on that bright moonlit sea, which her bows cleft as an arrow cleaves the air. Astonished to find the dreaded Laird of Largo fly before them, the crew of the Cressi gave three hearty English cheers, and had the hardihood to make all sail in chase, firing the light falcons of their forecastle as fast as the cannoniers could bring them to bear upon the towering stern and quarter of the Scot, who while returning the fire, tacked twice, as if to escape.
"Barton, take thou the helm," said Wood, "and keep at your quarters, my yeomen of the sheets and braces. Yo-ho, boatswain! take in all the small sails."
On seeing this, in their nautical or national confidence on the sea, the English crew again believed that now Wood was about to grapple with them, and natheless his superior size, they had no doubt of being able to engage and retain him valiantly until theHarry, which was a mile astern, came up.
Though it was an age in which navigation was destitute of many modern inventions and appliances, Wood was as famous for the skilful manner in which he handled his ship as for the bravery with which he fought her, for under his orders, her vast hull, with its towering rigging and cloud of sail, was like a toy. Thus, after a few manoeuvres, theCressilay to, and continued firing briskly at theYellow Frigate, which her crew believed was about to run alongside; but in rounding to, her captain, though a brave mariner, had given Wood the advantage of the wind, and while her crew poured in their missiles, cannon and arquebuse-shot, with those clothyard shafts so famed in English war, Barton suddenly put the helm hard up, at a sign from the Admiral, who cried with the voice of a stentor,—
"Yeomen of the braces and bowlines, let go! slack off your sheets and tacks,—-yare, my hearts,—yare, and square the yards."
It was all the work of a moment; the blocks creaked, the cordage whistled, the canvas flapped heavily, and filled again, at the tremendous bow of the Scottish caravel was suddenly brought to bear directly upon the broadside of theCressi, whose captain had no time to fill his yards or forge ahead again, for dire confusion and dismay pervaded his crowded decks, from which a hundred mingled cries of rage, wonder, and defiance arose. And there she lay, in the deep valley formed by the long-swelling waves, while her crew bravely fired their culverins at theYellow Frigate, which bore down under a cloud of canvas, looming like the shadow of death between them and the brilliant moon.
On, on she glided, almost noiselessly.
One wave alone separated them!
Then down she came thundering with her iron beak upon the enemy's vessel, striking her right amidships. The wild shriek of rage that rose on one side was mingled with a shout of triumph on the other. TheYellow Frigatescarcely felt the shock, as she rode over the low waist, and crashed through the torn rigging of theCressi, the lofty poop and forecastle of which fell inwards, as the hull was cloven in two, and sunk for ever into that brilliant sea, the vortex of which sucked down two hundred gallant men.
"For God's love, Sir Andrew, lower the boats," cried Falconer, looking into the foam-covered whirlpool, where a few spars and casks, with an occasional head or a hand, were rising and sinking.
"Impossible—even our pinnace would sink with her; but God sain them," said the old Admiral; "there hath gone down many a brave fellow, who will never more lift tack or sheet in this world!"
A loud cheer now rose close astern; it came from the crew of theQueen Margaret; and both ships then bore on towards the enemy, leaving the sea covered with thedébrisof the wreck; and as the old ballad says,—
"Many was the feather-bed,That fluttered on the foam;And many was the gude lord's son,That never mair came home.
"The ladies wrang their fingers white,The maidens tore their hair;A' for the sake o' those true loves,They never shall see mair."
"May they sleep as soundly in the Scottish sea as my father sleeps in their Kentish downs," said Barton; "but many a blue corpselicht will dance on these waters ere the sun of to-morrow rises."
"To your guns again, my merry men all," cried the Admiral "they are two to one against us; but if we put them not to rout we were no better than Gordon gowks, and there will be many a toom bowie and kirn in Fife and Lothian. Heed not King Henry's bitter almonds, for I swear by my honour as a seaman and faith as a knight, that every shipmate o' mine who loseth a fin, shall swing his hammock for life in Largo Tower, and share the goods kind God hath given me; he shall never lack a brass bodle or a can of ale while auld Andrew Wood hath both to part with him fairly over the capstan head; so stand every man to his quarters—put your faith in God and St. Andrew, and fight, my lads, as you have often fought before, for auld Scotland and her glory!"
This characteristic harangue was answered by a hurrah, and many a weatherbeaten and well-bearded visage glowed redly along the gun-deck when the matches were blown, and the waves sparkled in the moonlight, as they ran merrily past the triced-up lids of the open ports through which the brass culverins and guns of Scottish yetlin were run and pointed, after being primed and shotted for battle.
"Sir David Falconer, send thine arquebussiers aft, line the taffrail and fill the tops with them—away aloft!" cried the Admiral, "and shame be on the last who is through the lubber's hole or over the foot-hook shrouds!"
The arquebussiers clambered up the ratlins, and our marines of the present day would be rather amused could they see such a sight as those soldiers presented; heavily accoutred with back, breast, head, and thigh pieces, bandoliers, flasks, and swords—and, more than all, their long arquebusses, crawling like scaly armadilloes up the black rigging. However, they soon reached their perches, and levelled their barrels over the little wooden battlement which then surrounded the tops. As it was now intended to come to what was termed "close battle," there was no more manoeuvring; and all the adverse ships bore down upon each other, firing their cannon briskly; while arquebusses, pistolettes and calivers, with many a shaft from bow and arblast were levelled from the tops, the poops, and forecastles—for the brilliant moon enabled aim to be taken with precision; and as the wind was again becoming light, the courses were drawn up, and all reduced their sails.
"Stand by with the grappling irons," cried Barton, whose bright armour and conspicuous figure made him the mark of many a missile; and in obedience to his order a number of bold fellows leaped into the chain-plates to threw them on board the foe, the moment the vessels came near enough. The sides of the English ships were similarly supplied. These grappling-irons were composed of five or six branches, bent round and pointed, with a ring at the root, to which is fastened a rope to hold on by when the grapple is thrown and catches the object. Thus they closed in upon each other—these six hostile ships; the two Scots running (as our annals relate) right in between the four English; the left centre ship being theHarry. All were pouring their missiles upon each other with fearful rapidity, and the English were so reckless that their shot must have killed many of their own men, after piercing the Scottish hulls. By some mismanagement, theHarry'sspritsail-yard became entangled with the main-shrouds of theYellow Frigate, which forged a little a-head, and dragging round theHarrywith her, by one broadside she swept her deck like a tempest, and breached to ruin the towering poop beyond.
"Half-an-hour of a true parabolic speculum were worth a year of this work!" said Father Zuill, who now appeared in a coat of mail, with a poleaxe which he handled as well as ever he had done his rosary.
"Boarders, away fore and aft!" cried Sir Andrew Wood, through his trumpet, as he stood above the clouds of smoke at the edge of the poop, towering like an iron statue, while the chain-plates crashed as the ponderous hulls sheered alongside of each other in rasping collision; and in hundreds the boarders swarmed on the bulwarks, while the English grappling-irons clutched the Scottish ships, whose sailors worked side by side with the foe, in lashing the shrouds together below and the yard-arms aloft, until the six vessels formed, as it were, one broad platform, for a scene of melancholy butchery, which we have but little heart and less taste for describing.
The Scottish mariners, armed with their two-handed swords and Jedwood axes, and all accoutred in steel caps and jacks or doublets of escaupill, led by Sir Andrew Wood on one side, poured from the bows and sprit-sail yard of theYellow Frigateupon the decks of theHarry, and drove the enemy across the forecastle and along the larboard gangway, while Barton, sheathed in full armour and wielding a deadly ghisarma in both hands, led another band through the fire, smoke, and infernal uproar, hewing a passage, hilt to hilt, to the forecastle of the other ship, desperately forcing a passage through a hedge of gallant billmen, into the waist.
The crew of theQueen Margaret, under Sir Alexander Mathieson, after succeeding in repelling the English boarders, were similarly employed elsewhere; and there, under that placid summer moon, were Englishmen and Scot fighting like tigers, all mingled in a wildmelée, while their firmly-grappled ships were committed to the mercy of the waves and currents. Save the flash and boom of a cannon or saker from the poops, or the bang of a pistolette or arquebuse from the tops, there were no other sounds heard now, but the rasp of steel gleaming on steel, the twang of the English bows, and the crash of the Scottish axes oh helmets and bills; the cries and shrieks of the wounded, and the yells of pain and defiance, drowned in a gurgle, as many a man was driven, fighting, overboard, and drowned or crushed to death between the grappled ships. The decks were encumbered by killed and wounded, and repeatedly the Scots were driven back over their own bulwarks, and had to fight the English on the decks of Wood and Mathieson.
"St Andrew! St. Andrew! A Wood! a Wood!" on one side, were met by "St. George for England!" on the other, mingled with many a furious epithet and ferocious expression of that deep-rooted national animosity, which the infamous wars of the Plantagenets had created between two nations, who, if allied, might then—as they have since—defied the world in arms.
Overhead the arquebussiers blazed at each other from the tops, and sent an occasional bullet into the mass of combatants below.
After various turns of the conflict, Robert Barton found himself fighting hand to hand with the crew of theHarry, close to her poop, and attended only by Willie Wad and a few seamen. With these he strove to join the Admiral, who had already penetrated into the vesselbeyond, and was maintaining a desperate and most unequal conflict with her crew.
While Barton fought his way up the starboard side of theHarry'sdeck, his boatswain, with a band of Jedwood axes, hewed a passage along the larboard, and, owing to the heavier weapons, and perhaps greater number of the Scots, theHarry'screw were driven into the poop, where they hewed and shot in the dark: thus many a brave man perished by the hands of his own shipmates. Here Barton, when just at the poop door, encountered a gallant English gentleman, who had repeatedly cut a passage through the frigate's men, by knocking them down like ninepins; and, recognising Howard by the heraldic cognizance on his surcoat, the Scottish captain uttered a cry of triumph, and rushed upon him, to revenge Lord Howard's recent victory in the Downs; and then forgetting all but their personal animosity, they engaged hand to hand with sword and dagger, at every blow and cut making the sparks fly from their coats of tempered steel; and thrice during the conflict old Anthony Arblaster wound up his weapon, and sent a deliberate shot at Barton's head, and was preparing a fourth when a blow from an axe ended the poor man's shooting for ever.
"Haloo, auld junk," cried his slayer, "may I drink bilge, but thou'rt fitted for foreign parts at last! and by St. Andrew, gaffer Englishman," he added, turning upon Howard, "I'll cloure thy harnpan too, double caulked wi' wadding and sheathed wi' steel though it be!"
The short squat gunner was rushing on with uplifted axe, when Barton threw himself forward, and on his own sword caught the descending blow.
"Sheer off, Wad, sheer off, this man is mine, and I must slay him myself, were it but to soothe my slaughtered father's soul; so leave us, I command you!"
Wad soon found another antagonist in tall Dick Selby, who gave him more than enough to do. Meanwhile the combat continued between Howard and Barton, till a passing bullet broke the sword of the latter, and he stood disarmed and at the mercy of Howard, who merely uttered a bitter laugh and scornfully dropped the point of his sword, saying,—
"How now, my bonny Scot; wilt beg thy life at an English hand?"
"I could beg it of none more noble than Howard's; but strike, if you will, for never will I beg life or quarter of a living man, and least of all from the brother of him who slew my father!" cried Barton, hoarsely.
At that moment Wad returned with an armed tide of seamen flushed with blood and victory; the noble Howard was beaten to the deck, and, despite all Barton's efforts, would have been slain, had not the cry of a woman been heard, and Margaret Drummond, fearless of the surrounding carnage, the whistling shafts, the ferocious visages, and uplifted steel, threw herself on her knees beside him, and spread her white arms over him in protection.
The terror she had experienced in the cockpit was so great, that, regardless of the hideous grating and crashing below and the awful tumult above, she resolved to make an effort to reach the Scottish ships, which, as little Will Selby had informed her, were lashed alongside. Thus had she come so opportunely—and thus, with these two acts of mercy, will we gladly veil the horrors of this midnight conflict.
The Scottish seamen, who knew her not, and deemed she was the wife of Howard, drew back and spared him at once; for none are more merciful, albeit their roughness, than those honest souls who live by salt water; but Barton was confounded, and gazed upon her in astonishment and silence, while the din of battle died away around them, and it became known that the English ships had hauled down their colours. So thanks to the bravery of Sir Andrew Wood, old Sir Alexander Mathieson, "the King of the Sea," David Falconer, and a certain valiant mariner of Leith, named William Merrimonth, sailing master of theMargaret, who received a desperate wound, "ye foure Inglish shippes were takin," and all their crews disarmed, according to the records of the Scottish Admiralty, after a deadlier conflict than these waters had witnessed since the Knight of Dalhousie fought King Edward's fleet at Tweedmouth and sunk eighteen of his galleys.
"Oh, blythely shines the bonnie sun upon the Isle o' May,And blythely rolls the morning tide into St. Andrew's Bay;When haddocks leave the Firth of Forth and mussels leave the shoreWhen oysters climb up Berwick Law, we'll go to sea no more—No more—we'll go to sea no more."Scottish Fisherman's Song.
When the sun rose from the ocean, the appearance of these six ships was wofully changed. The waves were rolling in brilliant green and gold, and the yellow sands of Tyningham, the red towers, the deep caverns and surf-beaten rocks of Dunbar were glistening in the morning beams; the gannets, the cormorants, and gigantic solan geese on their snow-white pinions, were wheeling merrily in the welkin above the summer sea; but the state of the hostile ships, which, while they were all lashed together, had drifted hither and thither at the mercy of the wind and tide, was deplorable. Their decks were crowded by killed and wounded, especially round the scuttle-butts, to which many had crawled for the purpose of allaying their burning thirst; the bulwarks were splashed with blood, and it oozed, or dropped in curdles from the scuppers; boats, booms, and spars were riven and splintered; sheets and tackles were streaming loose upon the breeze; the yards were out of trim and lowered upon the caps, while the canvas was pierced and torn;—but still theblue ensignwas flying over all.
The ships with which Sir Alexander Mathieson had grappled were almost complete wrecks, for all his cannon were great carthouns or forty-pounders—prodigious guns for that age. TheYellow Frigate, like her chief adversary theHarry, had lost all her trim neatness; some of her yards were shot in the slings; her rigging hung in loops and bights, and blood was trickling down the masts and stays, or dropping from the tops upon the battered deck and white courses; for many of Falconer's arquebussiers lay there slain, or bleeding through the gratings, from the wounds of bullets and arrows.
Sir Andrew Wood, before loosening a buckle of his harness, now ordered the prisoners to be secured, and crews put on board the prizes; their damages to be partly repaired, and sail to be made on them all. The grappling-irons were cast off; the ports lowered; the decks swabbed, and the dead sent ashore; shot-holes were plugged and caulked; loose ropes coiled up, the sails trimmed, and before a favourable breeze from the south-east, the six vessels bore away for Largo Bay, as the Admiral had no intention of taking his prizes into Leith, until he knew to whom they should be delivered; for he considered the victorious barons as no better than rebels.
The dead were buried in two trenches in the cemetery of the old collegiate kirk at Dunbar, where the mound which covered the "Englishmen's grave" was long an object of interest to the people.
In getting the ships clear of the horriddébrisof the battle, and in attending to the wounded, English and Scots worked side by side with hearty goodwill, and only relaxed their sailor-like indifference when they drank their cans of brown ale together, and passed the blackjack of whiskey-and-water from man to man;—for now, when that deadly strife was over and their fury had expended itself, enmity was at an end—for a time at least,—and Willie Wad and Dick Selby, the rival gunners, carved at the same junk with their jocktelegs (or clasp-knives), and the latter sang when the former produced his fiddle; while the boatswain spun some of his wonderful yarns to amuse the prisoners. All on the gundeck of theYellow Frigateseemed merry enough, the maimed excepted, but there were lowering brows and heavy hearts in the cabin of her Admiral.
This apartment had four windows which overlooked a gallery; and the morning sun shone brightly through them as he rose from the amber-coloured sea. Along the sides were the culverins on their carriages, and on the rudder-case were the arms of Wood—argent, an oak tree growing out of a mount, with two bears for supporters; and to this two ships were afterwards added, as we find in Sir David Lindesay's "Book of Blazons," in memory of his victory near the Isle of May.
The frank Laird of Largo had doffed his helmet and much of his iron panoply, and at two bells (nine A.M.) was entertaining to a sumptuous breakfast (as sumptuous at least as could be prepared on board of ship) his officers and some of the English prisoners—Captain Howard, John o'Lynne, Miles Furnival, and two other English captains whose names are not recorded, with Falconer, Burton, and other gentlemen of the Scottish ships. All sat side by side at Largo's long and hospitable board, the place of honour being assigned to Lady Margaret Drummond and her two attendants, Rose and Cicely.
The three looked pale, jaded, and weary, for the terrors of the past night and the horrors of the dawn had impressed them deeply—the more so, as they had been attending to some of the wounded, who had no other leeches than the ship's barber-apothecary and their messmates. The breakfast consisted of several joints of mutton, cut in collops, with roasted capons, dishes of roasted chickens, eggs broiled in their shells on large platters—or as they are named in Scotland and France, assiettes,—cakes, manchets, and jugs of ale, with several sack possets, each formed of twelve eggs put into a Scottish mutchkin of sack with a quart of cream, well sugared and boiled together for fifteen minutes; and there were hippocrass of milk and cherry wine for the ladies. Such was the repast to which fair justice was done by all save Howard and Margaret Drummond—or as we should perhaps style her, the Duchess of Rothesay.
Entreaty and remonstrance had proved alike futile when Howard was pressed by Barton and Sir Andrew Wood to explain how and why this missing daughter of the Lord Drummond—she whose strange disappearance was one of the secret springs that rolled a civil war against the throne—was found on board his vessel! He flatly and firmly declined to answer; and Margaret herself could not very clearly inform them as to her abductors; for she knew of none save Borthwick, against whom, for want of a better object, Barton resolved to turn the whole current of his wrath.
However, all King Henry's plot with the Scottish traitors was nearly being discovered about the time the ships surrendered, by Master Quentin Kraft, the notary, who was dragged abaft the mizenmast of theYellow Frigateby Cuddie Clewline and Dalquhat the seaman, who had found him ensconced in the cable-tier of theHarry, where he had repeatedly offered them a certain iron-bound volume, with which they would have nothing to do, believing by its aspect that it must be a book of magic, else wherefore that lock and all these bands of steel.
"Slue him round—heave ahead, master," said the coxswain, giving him a push; "haud up your face, auld dog-fish—you are before the Admiral!"
The dapper attorney, in his black cassock-coat, looked very much scared, and said in a quavering voice—
"I crave your mercy, Sir Andrew Wood—I can pay a small ransom if it be wished; I am Quentin Kraft, a gentleman of the law—an attorney—a notary, if it please you—one well known about Westminster Hall and Lincoln's Inn—London."
"A what, sayst thou?" demanded the Admiral.
"A notary public, at your service—and secretary to the noble Captain Howard."
"A scurvy rogue, Sir Andrew Wood," said Howard, disdainfully; "one who hath been stripped of his gown and coif in Westminster Hall and cast adrift by the benchers at Lincoln's Inn. But men who can handle the quill are scarce,—so I was e'en forced to content me with such a secretary, for lack of a better."
"It is false—I am a man of repute," said Kraft.
"Yea," said Howard; "but a devilish one, sirrah."
"And if the Scottish admiral," added the spiteful notary, "will accept this volume at my hands, promising that my life, limbs, and goods shall be respected, it will make his fortune."
"Wretch and villain, wouldst thou betray the secrets of King Henry?" cried Howard, as he rushed upon Kraft, and wrenching away the volume, flung it through an open port-hole; and being iron-bound, it sunk like a stone into the sea.
"It was well done, Captain Howard," said Sir Andrew Wood; "I ken little and I care less what yonder black tome contained; but I honour thee for destroying it, as much as I despise this miserable notary for proffering it as the price of a life that is not worth taking. Away with him, Cuddie, and though such lubberly land-loupers are gude for nocht but to drink the king's ale and lollop in the afterguard or ship's waist, see that no man molests him."
The breakfast was dispatched with great relish. Men were used to hard knocks, cuts, and slashes in those days; and, though many at the table had their heads and arms bandaged up, from the effect of their late conflict, they passed the ale-cans and frothing possets merrily from hand to hand; and already Father Zuill, who had donned his friar's frock, was explaining to John o'Lynne the powerful results that would ultimately accrue to an astonished world by a properly developed parabolic speculum; and John listened with a smile of perplexity to what he considered the freak of a learned madman.
Barton sat silent, and gazed from time to time at Howard, as if he was pondering whether it was a dream or a reality, that they both had their legs under the same friendly table. Falconer, too. was somewhat silent, or only addressed the fair Margaret, in whose soft eyes and pale Madonna face he was tracing the expression of her darker sister Sybilla. Howard was also reserved, for the waves that ran go brightly past the cabin windows were bearing him further from his home; and he felt himself disgraced in being captured by a force so inferior to his own, and being the subject of a narrative that would sound but ill on Paul's Walk, in London; and he was aware, too, that with Margaret's release all hope of his gaining her affection would pass away for ever for now she would be restored to that gay young prince, whom, as yet, he conceived to be her lover only.