"Be not afraid of me, lady, for I am innocent as the Paschal Lamb, and as gentle to boot."
"By that blessed name," she implored, "I conjure you to tell me the meaning of this? and who you are——"
"I am Sir Hew Borthwick, knight of an unfortunate ilk, but your most devoted servitor, lady."
"O, heavenly mercy!" she murmured, on hearing that terrible name, and believing that all her old forebodings were about to be realized, immediately fainted, or became powerless, and had no longer any capability of coherence in speech or thought.
"Devil be thanked—now we shall have no more trouble with her," said Borthwick, as Captain Howard kindly spread his own velvet mantle over her.
"Poor little thing," said he; "she has fallen among evil hands; but, thank heaven, this dog's duty will soon be over. To-night she will swing in her hammock, aboard theRoyal Harry."
"And to-morrow may mingle her tears with the waters that bear her to English Harry's prison," added Sir James Shaw, laughing.
"Hold water a moment, my lads," said the English captain, as he flung a purse to Borthwick, who caught it as a hungry dog does a bone. "Master Hew, this is the last largess of King Henry's I hope you will ever receive from my hand."
"Thank you, Captain Howard—life is a race, and money the prize. In this world we always scorn honest poverty and worship gilded crime."
"Philosophy in a cur's throat," muttered Howard. "Adieu, gentlemen; when next I unfurl St. George's cross in these waters, I hope to do it in fair daylight, when bringing to your shores a bright-eyed English queen. And now give way, my hearties," he added, as the oars were dipped into the water, and the boat was slewed round—"give way for life!"
"Or death," said Borthwick, with a chuckling laugh, as he concealed the heavy purse in his broad leathern girdle. "Farewell, sirs."
"Farewell," cried Howard, with one hand grasping the tiller and the other placed at the side of his mouth to convey the sound—"and may the great devil go with you for a rascally Scots pirate and ground shark."
Margaret lay in a death-like faint, and this gallant English gentleman, while commiserating her fate and cursing the secret duty on which his subtle king had sent him, still urged his men togive way, and at every stroke their fourteen oars almost lifted the light boat out of the water. Howard raised the mantle repeatedly from the pale face of his prisoner, and the soft beauty of her features served every moment to increase the disgust he felt for himself and his Scottish colleagues.
The tide was ebbing fast, and as the river was running like a millrace, they soon reached theRoyal Harry, which, with her consorts, was abreast of Broughty Castle, laying to, with her fore and mizen yards aback; but it was not until she was placed on one of the cushioned lockers of the great cabin, where proper restoratives were kindly and judiciously applied by two pretty young female attendants whom Howard had brought for her from London, that poor Margaret began to recover from her first shock of terror, and to become aware of where she was.
With the wind right ahead, theHarrybegan to beat out of the narrow channel, on each side of which are broad and dangerous sandbanks, which then were alike destitute of lights and buoys; but a quartermaster was in the fore-chains, constantly heaving the lead. The night was misty, for a thick eastern haar yet floated on the bosom of the sea. The moon, now full-orbed and brilliant, was shining, like a lamp-globe of obscured glass, shorn of its beams, which lent a palpable whiteness to the mist they could not pierce. As the wind freshened a little and made gaps through the fogbank, the moonlight played along the waves, which followed each other in long white lines of glittering foam.
The English ships heeled over as the breeze freshened, for they were now always close-hauled. The statelyHarryrode gracefully over each long rolling swell that curled under her prow; but Howard thanked his good angel when he was clear of that dangerous estuary, and when his next larboard tack enabled him to run far beyond the shoals of the Buddon-ness.
At times the mist was so dense that the two consorts of theHarrycould not discern her top-light; the watch rang the ship's bell every ten minutes, and they responded. This monotonous ringing continued for nearly two hours, when suddenly the watch of the leading English ship was startled by the report of a heavy culverin, apparently only a few fathoms distant from their weatherbow, or so close that the red flash was seen through the white and moonlit haze.
All hands were piped, and with alacrity the seamen stood to their quarters, but in considerable excitement, forAndrew Woodwas murmured along the decks as the ports were opened and the loaded guns run out, while Howard hurried Margaret Drummond to a place of safety below the water-line. But in accordance with King Henry's express orders, he was resolved to avoid hostilities if possible, and if the stranger should prove to be the famous Scottish admiral, to deceive him by answering his hail inFrench.
"What though our hands be weaker nowThan they were wont to be,When boldly forth our fathers sailed,And conquered Normandie?We still may sing their deeds of fame,In thrilling harmony;They won for us a gallant name,Ruling the stormy sea!"—Ballad.
After running along the coast of Angus so far as that remarkable promontory named the Red Head, which rises to the height of two hundred and fifty feet on the southern shore of Lunan Bay, Sir Andrew Wood had put his ships about, and under easy sail bore back towards Dundee, without seeing any trace of the strangers he was in search of. From the tops the light had been discerned in theBig Oof Arbroath, as the seamen named the great circular window of St. Thomas of Aberbrothwick, which was then illuminated at night by the charitable Benedictines of that magnificent abbey; and it formed a glorious landmark for those who traversed the German Sea, from whence it could be seen shining afar off, like a vast moon resting on the sloping promontory.
About midnight the vessels were creeping along the sandy shore of Barrie, where the waves rolled far upon the level beach, and chafed against the heaps or tumuli which cover the graves of the Danish invaders, when Master Wad, who had the middle watch, pricked up his ears on hearing the distant sound of a ship's bell. The silver mist was still so thick, that when viewed from the stern, the ship's head, and even the mizen crosstrees, were involved in obscurity.
"I hear a sound," said Falconer, who, lover-like, was still loitering on deck, and restlessly musing over the hazel-eyed Sybilla, from whom he calculated he was now only about eight or ten miles distant. "Willie," said he, "that sound is like the ringing of metal, or is it the deid bell in my ear?"
"I would hope not," replied the gunner; "for if it is sae, some o' us will be slipping our cables before day-dawn."
"There it is again—no imaginary, but a solid bell, and it rings in the mist. Can it be the Inchcape?"
"Nay, Sir David; the moon is in the west, and the tide in ebbing, so by the soundings we should ha'e the Buddon-ness about three miles off on our lee-bow."
"And the Inchcape Bell?"
"About eight miles to windward. Ewhow, sirs! there are the top-gallant sails of a large vessel glinting in the moonlight and aboon the mist like snaw on a hill-top; a pint o' sack to a pint o' bilge, it is the English captain! Call up Robert Barton—pass the word to the admiral!"
The arquebussier who stood on guard near Jacob's ladder passed this intelligence through the door of the poop, and in a moment Captain Barton and Sir Andrew came on deck. As all sailors do, they first glanced at the compass, and then cast their gaze aloft, to see that all the sails were full.
"How does she bear?" asked Sir Andrew.
"About a mile off, on the lee-bow, between us and the Gaa sands."
"Gadzooks! her draught of water must be small."
"There she's noo, sir, wi' top-gallants set aloft, for the wind is but light."
As the gunner spoke the canvas of the strange vessel was seen to glitter like snow in the moonlight; but for a moment only, as she was again immediately shrouded in mist.
"What dost thou take her to be, Robbie?" asked the admiral.
"English," replied Barton, tightening his waist-belt, "English by the rake of her masts and fashion of her top hamper."
"Art sure?"
"I got a full glisk of her just now, as she shot out of one bank into another. Hark! there goes her bell again!"
"Master Wad, got ready a gun there, for on the next tack we may fall aboard of her; I do think she is English, though there was no red-cross on her fore-topsail. But clear away for battle, Barton, for if it is the gallant Howard, we shall avenge thy father's fall, and make such a din on these waters as will scare all the fish between Fifeness and the Carlinheugh. Take in sail, and beat to quarters."
The kettle-drum rolled and the trumpet was blown: in three minutes the ports were opened; the sails reduced by the watch; the magazine opened by the gunner; the arquebussiers of Falconer manned the tops and poop, and flinging aside their bonnets and gaberdines, five hundred seamen, grasping the rammers and sponges, the linstocks and tackle of the cannon, stood in fighting order, while Master Wad fired a gun, and ran a red lantern up to the mast-head, to let Sir Alexander Mathieson, who was half a mile astern, know that the admiral had cleared for action.
"Sail ho!—here she comes again!" cried a hundred voices, as the gigantic outline of the English ship, looming like a great cloud through the mist, approached on the opposite tack, and within pistol-shot. Both shortened sail by backing their fore and mizen-yards. By the line of lights that glittered along the stranger's deck, her crew were evidently standing by their guns, and all equally prepared. Trumpet in hand, Barton, whose heart was brimming with fiery joy, sprang into the main-chains on the starboard side.
"Silence fore and aft!" cried he; but the warning was needless, for then one might have heard a pin fall on board theYellow Frigate.
"Ho—the ship ahoy!"
"Hola-ho!" replied a voice from the waist of the stranger.
"French!" muttered Barton, in a tone of disappointment; "what ship is that?"
"TheSainte Denis, caravel of Monseigneur the admiral of the galleys to his Majesty Charles the Affable."
"This is theYellow Caravelof his Majesty the King of the Scots. We knew not that the admiral of France was in these seas."
"We are in pursuit of three English ships commanded by Captain Edmund Howard, brother of the lord admiral of England."
"So are we, and would give all the teeth in our heads to overhaul them. Sir Andrew Wood craves leave to pay his respects ko Monseigneur d'Esquerdes, admiral of the galleys."
"Monseigneur the Laird of Largo is welcome."
Archy, the old boatswain, was piping away the crew of the barge, when the pretended Frenchman, having no desire for such a visit, hauled his wind, braced up his yards, and stood right away into the mist, with his topsails glittering, after which Sir Andrew Wood saw no more of him. The ports were lowered, the culverins secured; Master Wad locked the magazine with a sigh, as he reflected there was no chance of fighting; the hammocks were piped down; the yards were squared; and with no ordinary feelings of disappointment, the crew of theYellow Frigatefound themselves once more silently passing the Tower of Broughty towards their former anchorage off the craig of St. Nicholas.
Intent only on reaching England without perilling the crooked measures of his sovereign, Captain Howard was glad that he had succeeded in "throwing dust," as he said, "into the eyes of old Andrew Wood," and when sorely importuned by his officers and crew to fight the Scots, is reported to have lost patience, and said,
"God confound ye, fellows; dost think I will carve out my coffin to please you?"
But fate, however, and the waves and wind were against him; for before daybreak the mist was swept from the German Sea by a sudden and heavy gale from the south-east, which nearly threw theHarryon her beam-ends, and compelled her to run before it, in the very opposite direction from that which Howard wished to pursue. He was driven along the dangerous coast of Kincardine; and before the second day's sunset, instead of making the coast of England, as they had hoped, the crews of the three English ships were straining every nerve, and using all the art of seamanship to weather the dangerous Cape of Buchan-ness, nearly ninety miles northward from the mouth of the Tay.
How it fared with Margaret Drummond in the meanwhile will be related in another chapter of this history.
"A letter forged! St. Jude to speed!Did ever knight so foul a deed?"—Marmion.
A few pages back, we left the Duke of Rothesay, the Earl of Angus, and Lord Drummond seeking the presence of James III., all in a high state of excitement. They soon reached the hall (already described) where, during his annual visits to Dundee, the king received petitions and heard complaints, or held council, with what success we have already shown. It was, as usual, crowded by courtiers and nobles, with their armed followers and dependents; and Hailes, Home, the Forester of Drum, the Steward of Menteith, and other discontented personages, were grouping and whispering together.
The king was seated in the great chair, under the purple cloth of estate; near him stood John Abercrombie, the learned Benedictine, and they were examining with deep interest Lorenzo della Magna's edition of Dante'sInferno, which had been printed at Florence seven years before, and had thirteen illustrations engraved by Baldini. This had been a gift to James from the Papal ambassador, the Bishop of Imola; and the almost unlettered Angus gazed with wonder and pity at a king whose mind was so narrow that he could feel interested in a trifle so pitiful as a printed book!
The usually stern expression which clouded the dark face of this great lord of Galloway was partly concealed by the visor of his helmet; but the excitement under which he laboured was evident, for he frequently approached James, and withdrew again, as if irresolute how to broach the subject that oppressed him.
Lord Drummond and Rothesay were equally excited, and their emotion was balm to the gloomy soul of Sir Patrick Gray who accompanied them, and who, with his pale thin lips and fine but sharp teeth, his small wiry hands and cold delusive smile, seemed to be the evil genius of them all.
"My Lord Angus," said the Constable of Dundee, "dost think this king of ours will ever prefer the marshalling of hosts to the making of books and ballads—the clank of armour to rustle of silk—or the jangle of spurs to the patter of cork-heeled shoon?"
"We shall soon see," replied Angus, hoarsely, through his clenched teeth, as he darted a savage glance at the Duke of Montrose.
"It would seem not," added the warlike Constable, who, when a mere youth, had slain the aged Earl of Crawford at the battle of Arbroath; "he is overmuch of a clerk and carpet squire for me."
Neither Angus nor this Lord of Dudhope had much love for each other, but like many of the hostile nobles, they cordially agreed in keeping an iron hand over the poor king, and in resolving to defeat his projects, whether wise or unwise, and to destroy every favourite chosen from "the herd," as they designated the people, from whom unfortunately the favourites of the Stuart princes were generally chosen.
"Fool-king!" growled the furious earl, "while thou toyest with some wretched ballad-book, I hold in my hand that which shall startle all Scotland like the note of the last trumpet."
"Yea," responded the Constable of Dundee, "these balladeers and book-makers remind me of so many birds of prey hovering about the throne."
"These carles in iron seem like so many crocodiles watching the poor king," whispered the Benedictine at the same moment to William Dunbar, the sweet author of theThrissel and the Rois, for there was then a feud between the men of the sword and the men of letters, as it was not an age when they could entertain a high veneration for each other.
Rothesay's excitement at last became insupportable. Pale and trembling with grief and anger, he approached the royal chair, and stretching out his hands, with his fine eyes full of fire, tears, and upbraiding, said to the king,—
"Father, is it thus thou hast deceived me!"
"Deceived thee—in what?" asked the astonished monarch.
"Yea, deceived me. The Lord Drummond told thee how I loved and was wedded to his daughter; and you gave me hopes of clemency and forgiveness, while knowing that overnight she had been most cruelly and foully abducted—torn away from me—from me who loved her better than my own soul!"
It is impossible to describe the astonishment that was visible in the faces of all who heard this startling avowal and charge; but in no face was it more strongly impressed than the king's, and his silence appeared to Rothesay the dumb confusion of discovered guilt.
"Father and king," said he, firmly, "where is my wife, the Duchess of Rothesay?"
"Rash monarch!" added Lord Drummond, with a hand on his sword, "I, too, demand, where is my daughter?"
"By my soul as a man—by my honour as a king, I know not!" replied James, with dignity and indignation, as he rose from his chair, and threw the poems of Dante on the dais.
"Restore her to me!" continued the young prince, frantically, while his dark eyes sparkled through their tears; "restore her, or in three days I will set all Scotland on fire!"
"'Tis a wile of the English faction to further their Tudor marriage," said Lord Lindesay, an opinion in which many nobles concurred; "beware, my lord, beware of what you say and do!"
Angus stood silent and confounded by this double revelation.
"'Tis enough to weeponceover those we love," said Lord Drummond; "I have wept for my lost daughter, for she was my dearest and best beloved, the most gentle and bonnie of five; and now I shall think of vengeance! None but thee, James Stuart, could have an interest in removing or destroying her, so restore her, dead or alive, or vengeance will be the occupation of my life! The honour of a Scottish noble cannot be trifled with, even by a Scottish king; so beware that, when plunging into the abyss of rebellion I do not drag thy throne down with me!"
Stunned by this terrible and, at such a time, most dangerous accusation—dangerous, the more so that it came from the lips of his own son, the good and amiable king gazed irresolutely among the nobles, and read a threatening expression in all their clouded brows; even Montrose, his most trusty councillor, cast down his eyes in doubt, and now the stern face cf Angus, who stood close by him, leaning on his sword, rivetted his wondering gaze.
"My lord earl," said he, "what is the matter? Why approach me in harness, and almost in a close helmet? Say, dost thou believe me capable of a deed so vile?"
There was a solemn silence, for it was known that the majority would adopt the opinion of this potent military chief.
"I do deem thee guilty of this most cruel abduction; yea, and of worse!" replied the stern Earl, as he threw up the barred umbriere of his black helmet with a jerk, and drew from his gauntlet a letter which was folded with care and tied by a ribbon, sealed with purple wax, and inscribed "secret, with care." "And to prove how far the bitter memory of our raid at Lauder, and the love of the faithless and vile will carry thee, I will take the liberty of reading to this most illustrious audience a letter which is addressed to his Grace of Montrose, but which, by a blundering pikeman, was brought to my secretary, who made himself master of its contents. My lords, these are terrible! Strict honour required that it should have been forwarded to the Earl of Crawford—pardon me—(with a sneer) I mean your Grace of Montrose; but the common safety of the First Estate required its immediate publicity."
The stealthy eyes of Sir James Shaw sought those of Gray, and an icy smile was exchanged; but to others, their faces seemed imperturbable. A commotion immediately pervaded the hitherto still assembly; and the old Duke of Montrose, with his sword half-drawn, was approaching Angus, in great wrath, when his arm was grasped by the king. Seeing a storm impending, several of the peers, the Sieur de Concressault, the Lord Lindesay, and Ramsay, Lord Bothwell, drew near the throne, the malcontent nobles drew near Angus, while the pale and irresolute Rothesay stood like a statue between them.
"You know this signature, my lords," said Angus, displaying the letter.
"It is the king's," said Shaw, almost the only man among them who could read or write with ease.
"And this seal,bearing two rocks in the centre of a stormy sea, with the motto 'DURABO?'"
"The king's private signet," said Sir Patrick Gray; "we all that as well as our own faces."
"Read, read, my lord," cried twenty voices; and with some trouble, though the handwriting of this document of Borthwick, which is now before us, is very plain, Angus sternly and emphatically read as follows:—
"To his Grace the Duke of Montrose and Earl of Crawford, our trusty and heartily beloved friend, Lord Great Chamberlain, &c., be this delivered.
"Montrose, we greet you well. The help of the same blessed God, who has delivered us from many perils, will, I doubt not, with the assistance and advice of such powerful and zealous subjects as your grace, soon free our unhappy realm and oppressed people from that cruel nobility who tyrannize over all. I have now all prepared for the great banquet to be given in the Castle of Edinburgh, where, when Angus, Hailes, Home, and all that party, are birling the wine pot, we shall show them theBlack Bull's Head. Fail not to come with all your most trusty adherents—men who will close their hearts to every emotion of pity and remorse, and who will have no thought but the wish to save Scotland by extirpating a traitorous nobility, who in all ages have been ready to sell their souls and bodies to the English kings for gold. With the fathers, all the sons above the age of twelve years should also be invited, and such I think was the suggestion of your grace at our last meeting. It now remains but to fix the time of this auspicious banquet. What say you to the feast of St. Monina—that evil day of July? From our Castle of Stirling, the 7th day of May, 1488.
"JAMES REX."
Exclamations of anger and astonishment burst from every lip, for this letter contained some artful hits, such as the Bull's Head, which was the signal for the murder of the Earl of Douglas in 1440, and Monina's day, which was the anniversary of the raid at Lauder.
The king was fearfully pale.
"My Lord Earl of Angus," said he, controlling his righteous indignation, "on your allegiance as a subject, I command you to surrender up this tissue of falsehood—this infamous forgery."
"Nay," replied the earl, with a grim smile; "if your Majesty wishes it consigned to the custody of the Lord Clerk Register, let him and other parasites seek it at my Castle of Thrieve, in Galloway, where, by the cannon's mouth, it shall be faithfully delivered to them or their messengers."
"Beware, Archibald Douglas, lest ye overtask my patience."
"Beware, James Stuart, for thou playest a perilous game! So this precious banquet is to be on Monina's day in July. I trustthat partywill all come with their best swords by their sides."
"The anniversary of the raid of Lauder," said the governor of Broughty; "an ominous day."
"This is infamous—this is intolerable!" exclaimed the white-haired Duke of Montrose, unsheathing his sword.
"So say I," added Angus, with a bitter laugh.
"All who dare aver that the king wrote such a letter to me," continued Montrose, "or that such was the intention of our state banquet at Edinburgh, lie foully in their throats, and are false cravens! Let us betake us to our swords at once, for the sword alone can wrest a charter for the people's liberty from this subtle and tyrannical nobility."
"Duke," said James, "liberty is the inherent right of the people. They give us prerogatives, but it is not in the power of princes to give a people what they possess by right of inheritance—liberty."
"Montrose, thou sayest well," said Angus, who did not understand the hint conveyed by the king's reply; "the sword, the sword, so be it then," he added, with lofty pride and stern joy; "and with God's blessing, let the battle field decide whether this kingdom of Scotland shall be governed by its hereditary peers or the parasites of a king. James II. slew two earls of my house; one was murdered in the castle of Edinburgh in the midst of a friendly feast, another was stabbed to the heart by a dagger in the Castle of Stirling—stabbed by the royal hand, and then was flung over the chamber window upon the rocks below, like the body of a slaughtered hound rather than the corse of William Douglas, Duke of Touraine, and Lord Supreme of Galloway. I shall be wary how your father's son adds a third to the number."
Angus glared with hatred at Montrose, who was the first subject in Scotland after the little Duke of Ross, being the first of the nobility who attained a ducal coronet, a distinction quite sufficient to gain him the enmity of all the earls of the Douglas faction.
"Oh, Angus," said James, reproachfully, "thou art a fierce subject, in whose lawless heart uncurbed ambition rages like a devouring flame; but wouldst thou have thy king to stoop to thee?"
"And why not, if that king hath erred?" asked the earl, bluntly.
"God be the judge between us," said James, raising upwards his hands and tearful eyes.
"Decide, decide," said Angus, whose anger was increasing every moment; "banishment to such evil councillors as Montrose, and death to all ignoble favourites—or death to the peers of Scotland; and here, at the foot of that throne for which I and ten generations of my house have often shed the Douglas blood, I throw down the gage of battle!"
With these daring words Angus drew the steel gauntlet from his right hand, hurled it at the foot of the throne, and withdrew, followed by Drummond, Hailes, Home, Gray, and others, who led the bewildered Duke of Rothesay away with them. The young Lord Lindesay, and his father the venerable Montrose, both sprang forward to pick the gauntlet up, but the latter was successful, and both these loyal nobles, with several others who loved and pitied the king, followed him to his private cabinet, to which he immediately withdrew.
"Said I not that I would put all Scotland in a flame?" whispered Borthwick to Sauchie, as he put his foot in the stirrup to mount at the palace gate.
"Yea, and verily thou shalt have, as I promised, three of my best tenements in Stirling, by deed of a notary's hand," replied the Laird of Sauchie.
Abercrombie the Benedictine, William Dunbar the poet, and other literary men, were left behind in the hall. The angry altercation had somewhat scared them, but they could not resist an expression of pleasure at the prospect of their enemies, the military nobles, confronting each other on the field of battle.
"I would not, for a king's ransom, be in the boots of him who penned this specious forgery!" said the chief of our ancient poets, in his East Lothian patois.
"Ay, Willie Dunbar," said Father Abercrombie, "with the nobles it proposed to slay their eldest sons—no bad hint."
"Why, this would make our poor king a heathen, like the Jews of old," replied Dunbar.
"Yea, and it reminds me of a passage in the first act of theElectraof Sophocles."
"You remember of the pagan emperor, who amused himself catching flies?" said the translator of Sallust, laughing.
"I warrant you, Brother Barclay," replied Dunbar, "the king will find these carles increase like unto so many wasps. But hint not that, even in jest, our blessed king conceived a thought so vile as that banquet of blood."
"Alas!" said the young poet Henrison, sorrowfully, "who among us can foresee the end of all this? Life is unstable as sunshine on the water."
"Yes, my good master of arts," replied Barclay, "it is even our friend Dunbar sings in his sweet Lament—
"Our pleasaunce here is all vane glory,This false world is but transitory:The flesh is bruckle, the fiend is slee—Timor mortis conturbat me!"
Dunbar gave a gratified smile at this quotation from his and bowed to the learned Benedictine. At that moment the clatter of hoofs drew them all to the north windows of the hall, and they beheld the noisy train of Angus gallop along the street with lances uplifted, and his banner with thered heartdisplayed. The earl, with the Duke of Rothesay and others, were with them, and save the prince, all were brandishing their drawn swords, and crying, "A Douglas! a Home! to arms! Remember the raid of Lauder!"
To these tumultuous cries many added others, such as, "No English alliance, no invasion of Bretagne! Remember Andrew Barton!" And making a terrible din as they poured along the narrow street, Angus, with five hundred armed men, issued from the western gate of Dundee, and, conveying the young heir of Scotland with him, took the road direct for the royal burgh of Stirling.
"Faintingly her head she bendeth,And on my dim and dewy eyes,A kiss her purple mouth bestoweth,Sweet repayment, while she sighs—'Ah, that fondling in thine arms,Thus may I ever live and die!'She ceased, and the heart of EuphrasieIn the joy forgot the sigh."
We must go a little back in this, our history, to inform the reader how the daughters of Lord Drummond received his proposition of making one of them Lady of Home and the other Lady of Hailes. He did not find them quite so pliant or acquiescent as the noble lords for whom he destined them.
In the morning, before Margaret's abduction had been discovered, and when the cold roasted beef, the venison pies, and tankards of hot spiced ale, on which the good folks of those days breakfasted, were awaiting them in the dining-hall, he sent impatiently for Euphemia and Sybilla, and announced his views regarding them, simply saying that the safety of the state in a struggle which all men saw approaching required many bonds of union among the nobles, and that the bonds of matrimony being the surest, it was requisite, by an alliance with these two military chiefs, to strengthen his house, as he was now well up in years, had many enemies, and so forth.
Poor Sybilla, whose lover had avowed his passion to none save herself, and whose claim upon her love and honour were known to her only, received this startling announcement with terror and dismay; for it crushed and bewildered her like a sentence of death. But Euphemia, who was proud and fiery, and the day of whose marriage with Robert Barton had been already named, and was now only postponed in consequence of his father's death, received the proposal with astonishment, and with the indignation it merited.
"My father, this cannot be!" she exclaimed, setting her pretty foot firmly on the floor, and nervously adjusting her satin hood, "you know that I am solemnly, and by a ritual of our Church, promised and affianced to Robert Barton. My uncle, the Dean of Dunblane, heard mytrothplightat the altar, when I received this betrothal ring; our promise of marriage is sanctioned and blessed by the Church, and can no more be broken than the band of marriage itself, without committing sacrilege and sin."
The old lord fidgetted about, for he felt the truth of what she said.
"Oh think again, dearest father, of what you require of us?" added Euphemia.
"Us—us? I address myself to you, in the first place, Dame Euphemia. The noble lovers I provide for you are not to be trifled with, and will assuredly brush from their path the son of Barton the merchant——"
"Sir Andrew Barton, the knight and admiral," interposed Euphemia—"Barton the Laird of Barnton and Almondell!"
"Barton umquhile skipper and trader," said the father, angrily, as he tore open the ribbons of his doublet and walked hurriedly up and down the oak floor, stamping hard on his red-heeled boots at every turn.
"Dear father," urged the plaintive voice of Sybilla, "bethink thee what our dearest mother would have thought of such a proposition."
"Just what she thought when such a proposition was made to her thirty years ago—God assoilize her! She was a good and loving wife to me, and yet—dost know how we came to be espoused?"
"Because you loved her, I would hope."
"Loved—fiddlestick! not a bit, at that time at least. When I was a beardless young callant, the Murrays of Athole marched into Strathearn, and came down by the woods of Ochtertyre and Comrie, with pipes playing and banners displayed, to harry the lands of Drummond of Mewie, and levy at the sword's point the tiends of the kirk of St. Ronan at Monzievaird. Mewie was slain by them—shot dead by three arrows. This was not to be borne! I marched with all the stout lads of the stewartry against the Murrays, but they were too strong for me then, and I was obliged togang warilyuntil Lord Crawford offered to lend me five hundred lances from Angus. We soon cleared all Upper Strathearn of the Murrays, and drove them through Glenturrit and Glenlednock. We besieged them in St. Ronan's kirk—fired its heather roof, burned one half of them alive, and claymored the rest. In gratitude to Crawford, who had more daughters than he knew what to do with, I married Elizabeth Lindesay, and a good wife and true she was to me—although at first she made many a moan, for she had been affianced to Drummond of Mewie; but who cares for woman's tears when trumpets are blown?"
"Father," said Euphemia, "thou forgettest that a woman has but one heart to lose—one heart to bestow."
"'Sdeath! I shall lose my patience, and bestow my curse on some of ye. Some harper or balladeer, some tramper or Egyptian hath put this stuff into your head. Whoever heard of hearts or lovers standing in the way of great lords—of castles and broad acres—of bands of mail-clad men? Stuff, I tell thee, Effie; Hailes and Home will both be made earls, and you shall both become countesses. I swear by every altar in yonder kirk of Mary, you shall! We have had a queen and a Lady of the Isles in the family, but never a countess yet!"
"Father, this cruelty and sacrilege will break my heart—it will kill me."
"I never heard of a lusty lass like thee being killed by marriage yet. Now do not provoke me, for my mind is made up. Come hither, Sybilla; thou wilt not take a plaguey love-fit to vex thy old father?"
"Alas! father——"
"What! 'sdeath! hast thou no heart either, and wilt thou become a contumacious gipsy?"
"Hear me, dear father——"
"I'll hear nothing but thy promise to be the bride of Hailes, or of Home, I care not which; but one you shall have, so settle it between ye. They are both brave and handsome gallants, with a good retinue at their cruppers. I have no time for more of this," he continued, buckling on his enormous sword; "or for reponding to the devil's litanies of such gadabouts as either of ye."
The announcement of Lady Margaret's disappearance gave a sudden change to this extraordinary conversation, and springing at a wrong conclusion, Lord Drummond impetuously rushed away in search of Rothesay, whom, as already related, he met in St. Clement's Wynd, from whence they proceeded to the poor king, leaving Sybilla and Euphemia overwhelmed with grief and consternation by this new and sudden calamity; for no trace of Margaret could be found, and the discovery of her poor little babe, concealed in the alcove of the turret, served but to augment their sorrow and perplexity.
Next morning the anchors of the frigate were barely down before Jamie Gair, who acted as pilot, and others who came off in the shore-boats, informed those on board of the strange rumours then current in Dundee. One man informed Archy the boatswain of how the Lady Margaret Drummond had been carried off by the king's order, and drowned in the pools of Errol; another told Master Wad how Angus and Drummond had quarrelled with the king, and would have slain him but for the timely intervention of the French ambassador, the Mareschal de Concressault, and the Lord High Constable; a hundred other stories, equally absurd and improbable, were heard by other members of the crew; and the excitement which evidently prevailed ashore, caused some alarm on board of the ships.
The admiral doubled the guard of arquebusses on the poop and forecastle, loaded the cannon, moored the ships with a spring upon their cables, ordered that all boats should be kept a bow-shot off, and desiring the barge to be piped away, hurried ashore with all her crew armed by jacks of mail below their canvas gaberdines.
Falconer, Barton, and the admiral were in half armour. The latter hastened to the presence of the afflicted king, whom he found highly excited by his late altercation with Angus and Rothesay; while the two companions—the lovers—repaired to the mansion of Stobhall.
Borthwick, whom Sir Patrick Gray had desired to act as a spy upon the inmates of that stately residence from the moment the ships had been seen in the estuary, threw himself, sans leave, upon a coalier's horse, which he found tethered to a ring in St. Clement's Wynd, and galloped to Broughty, where the malcontent noblesse were assembled in solemn but somewhat angry conclave; and there he informed Lord Drummond and his two intended sons-in-law that the young ladies had visitors. Upon this, the trio formed a little plot within their greater conspiracy, to remove, or as Lord Drummond said, to brush Barton and Falconer from their path for ever, and if possible to entrap the good old admiral, and get the two king's ships into their own hands; for theYellow Frigateand theMargaretwere then the flower of the Scottish fleet, which, in the infancy of our maritime affairs, mustered only a few sail.
In that time England had no more; for Henry VII. and Henry VIII., when requiring ships for warlike purposes, seized without ceremony upon the largest merchantmen in their English ports. In 1512 the fleet of James IV. consisted of forty-six sail, and was in no way inferior to the fleets of Henry of England or Don Emanuel, King of Portugal.
Borthwick, a wretch whose whole life had been a lie, a cheat, a web of mischief and infamy, informed the three lords that Robert Barton was in the house with Lady Euphemia, and that Sir David Falconer was in the garden with her sister. On this they all rushed to their horses, summoned the Lairds of Carnock and Balloch and other armed followers of trust, and left the tower of Broughty intent on some desperate outrage.
"So, then, 'tis Falconer whom Sybilla loves," said Hailes; "and 'tis she whom I have made up my mind to win if I can. I have observed that in his presence she always became brighter and more beautiful. I was sharp enough to see that a spell was upon her; but I had no idea then that she would ever be more to me than her aunt, the old dame of Montrose."
"Prick on! prick on!" urged Home, spurring his horse; "we will soon teach these varlets the penalty of raising their eyes to noble ladies."
Unaware of the coming storm, Barton sat with Euphemia in the chamber of dais; and Falconer with Sybilla in a summer house or alcove at the foot of the garden, the southern boundary of which was the bed of the Tay.
Shaded from the brilliant sun of noon by the trellis-work, the thick honeysuckle and the privet, the lovers sat within their bower. The shining river chafed the yellow sand at their feet in all its greenness and verdure, the opposite coast seemed to palpitate in a blaze of light; and midway between, with all their yards squared by the boatswain's critical eye, their white sails neatly handed, and their great blue ensigns drooping listlessly over their carved poops, the stately caravels of the Laird of Largo rode at their moorings with their heads to the ebbing tide.
Believing that none were watching and that none could see them, Sybilla, in the excess of grief for her sister's mysterious disappearance, had thrown herself upon the breast of Falconer. All his whispers were full of hope and affection, and Sybilla wept while she listened. Confined in its caul of gold, her glossy hair hung in a heavy cluster on the shoulder of Sir David, and her hands were locked in his. The lover endeavoured to convince her that their sad and gentle Margaret was not, as the credulous burghers averred, destroyed by the king, but most probably was abducted by him or young Rothesay, and secured in some of the royal castles, but for what end none could then foresee; at all events, to be assured that her safety was certain, and that they would infallibly hear of her soon, as none could have a pretext for injuring a being so good and gentle. Sybilla allowed herself to be persuaded, and a faint smile began to steal over her soft and downcast face.
Never did the rich costume of the court of James III. appear to better advantage than on the fine form of Sybilla Drummond. Her kirtle was of green brocade, and an open robe of cloth-of-silver fell behind her, edged with fur and lined with white satin. Her girdle was of silver, and there, as at her white forehead, her swelling bosom and delicate little ears, hung long pearl pendants.
Women are said "to love those who follow desperate professions;" but in those days, though the men of Scotland were all desperate fellows, they had no professions to follow save the church, the sword, or the sea; so it was rather the chivalric uprightness of his character, the gallantry of his bearing, and the superiority which his educated mind gave him over the brutal barons and unlettered lords of her time, that made Sybilla yield up her pure and simple love to this young soldier, who was one of James's favourites, and a protégé; for his father had died in battle on the deck of his ship, defending the harbour of Blackness when assailed by the English fleet seven years before.
They did not speak much, this young and dreaming pair, for their hearts were too full of tenderness and hope, desperate hope, that their love might be successful; and being loth to pain unnecessarily the heart of her lover, Sybilla, unlike the haughty Euphemia, did not confide to him the intentions of her father regarding that young noble whom he had sworn to make his son-in-law at all hazards; but with the superstition incident to her time, rather than to herself, she enumerated a number of omens of impending evil which now can only excite a smile—and Falconer smiled at them even then.
Yesterday, when going to the chapel of the Grey Sisters in the Overgaitt, ahe had seen a single crow flying straight before her—an infallible omen of mischance; and this morning at sunrise, when watching the swans that swam on the river, one uttered a wild, wailing, and melodious sound, such as she had never heard before. She thought it was enchanted; but an hour after it was seen to float upon the water with outstretched wings, quite dead—another terrible omen!
"The swan was dying, dearest Sybie, and was singing its own sweet dirge," replied Falconer; "but thou hast heard what few have the fortune to hear—though there is nothing wonderful in it. If Archy of Anster our wight boatswain were here, he could tell thee of stranger things; of an ocean where the fish turn all manner of beautiful colours before they die; of gigantic plants that flower but once in a hundred years, and happy is he who beholds them then; of islands where every tree utters a melodious sound when the soft wind sweeps through their fairy leaves, and of birds that live for six long centuries, and having no mate, burn themselves to death in a nest of spices, from whence a young one springs forth with all its plumage sprouting—the phoenix of Arabia! In the bosom of Nature, dearest, there is hidden many a secret of which we know nothing."
"I have heard Father Zuill speak of such things to my sister Margaret," said Sybilla, weeping at her name.
"Our chaplain—ah! he hopes one day to invent a mirror which will consume ships and cities, scorch forests to charcoal, and mountains to cinders, and put cannon and arquebusses quite out of fashion, like the mangonels and balistæ of the olden time. What would become of me then? I should have to learn some other trade than soldiering, or go to battle with a mirror on my back. It is the insanity of science."
"Yet I have heard that your old Dominican is a famous preacher."
"Ay, Willie Wad, our gunner, swears that when he expounded on the Deluge, one day, all the fishes arose from the water and sat upon their tails to hear his discourse, as they of old to St. Anthony, when he preached. But Cuddie, the admiral's coxswain, averred that it was only because they had more reason to be grateful than other animals, being the sole portion of the animated creation that escaped the great flood in the days of old Admiral Noah. But thou dost not smile, Sybie—sweet-heart."
Between these two there was a reciprocity of sentiment so complete, that conversation was, perhaps, little wanted at that sad and anxious interview. Neither had a thought, a hope, or a fear, in which the other did not participate; and now, for more than another hour they sat dreaming side by side, or only exchanging mute and little caresses, as Sybilla reclined her head on Falconer's shoulder. Her eyes were fixed on the still flow of the sunlit Tay, while his were gazing on the radiance and serenity of her pure and delicate face.
He thought that a timemightcome when this dear spell would be broken—when the tendril that clung to him, this gentle one who had entwined herself around his heart, and who loved him with all the purity and fervour of a young and confiding girl, would be torn from him and given to another. It might be; such things happened often in Scotland then; and at that foreboding thought, a frown wrinkled the brow of Falconer; a cold anguish entered his heart, and he was obliged to turn away, lest the timid Sybilla should see the expression of menace which he knew such a terrible anticipation wrought upon his features. Was this a foreboding of what was to come?
At such moments Falconer would feel the white straight brow of Sybilla come nearer his cheek, and her hand tighten its clasp in his; then his angry fears evaporated, in the tenderness that mute caress inspired.
Poor lovers! they heard not the stealthy steps that were creeping down the gravel walks; they saw not the fierce and mocking eyes of those who, from without the leafy bower, were watching, with mingled scorn and amusement, this interchange of endearments and this purity of soul, in which they could not share; for, acting on the information received from Borthwick, those inseparable companions, Hailes and Home, with the Lairds of Carnock, Balloch, and others, were all close by, armed and intent on some deed of cruelty.
Suddenly their ominous shadows darkened the sunny entrance of the bower! The lovers started, and beheld five or six pairs of eyes regarding them with expressions of menace and insolence.
"Villain, draw!" said Lord Hailes, imperiously.
"'Pon my soul, you have a polite way of announcing yourself," said Falconer, scornfully, as he drew his sword and placed himself before the terrified Sybilla, around whom he threw his left arm as a protection.
"I most humbly crave pardon for this unpleasant intrusion, Lady Sybilla," said Hailes, uncovering his head, and bowing till his plumed bonnet swept the grass—but bowing with bitter irony: "we must hale forth this man, whose presence disgraces you."
"Fellow, come forth!" cried Home, unsheathing his sword; "the crows shall hold thy lykewake to-night."
"Gie him Lauder Brig owre again," said Drummond of Carnock, making a thrust, which drew a shrill cry from Sybilla, and a successful parry from Falconer, whose sword twisted the other's blade out of his hand, and sent it flying over a tree-top behind him.
"A devil of a fellow this!" said Balloch.
"An insolent churl!" added the two lords.
"Allow me to suggest to your lordships the cultivation of courage as a quality—the acquisition of politeness being an impossibility," said Falconer, with a withering glance.
At this sneer the rage of his assailants knew no bounds; and they lunged at him again and again severally and with all their swords together, but being within the bower he kept them completely at bay.
"Come forth, I tell thee, villain!" said Home, imperiously, "that I may handsel a new sword on thy plebeian head."
"Proud lord," said Falconer, as by one well-directed thrust he pierced the sword-arm of Hailes; "ere long we will teach thee, and such as thee, who fight only to uphold long pedigrees and overweening privileges, that the Scottish people will not submit to be trampled on by a horde of titled traitors."
"May I die, fellow, but thou shalt eat these words," cried Hailes, hoarsely, and still pressing on, while his sword-arm dripped with blood.
"I know one thing thou wilt never die of—shame," said Falconer, laughing, as he thrust him back at full length on the sward. At that moment, the gallant young arquebussier, who was so fully occupied in front that he did not hear Borthwick breaking through the bower behind him, suddenly felt his arms seized by that personage; and then his assailants, two of whom were infuriated by wounds, rushed upon him; tore the screaming Sybilla from his arm, wrested away his sword, and dashed him to the earth. Now there was an ominous pause, as to whether or not they should despatch him at once.
"Gie him Lauder Brig, I till ye!" cried Balloch again.
"Thou art right, laird," said Home, fiercely; "but we have no tent cords."
"But here is my scarf," said Hailes, whose hands clutched the throat of Falconer like a tiger's fangs. "Knot me a noose some of you, and pull with a will."
"Quick," added Carnock; "pull—pull! By Saint Beelzebub, my fine fellow, thou wilt soon look like a gled nailed on a byre-door."
In the hands of so many, Sir David Falconer, though young, powerful, and athletic, was completely overmastered; and now ensued one of those terrible scenes which so often darkened the annals of our country. The scarf, which was of soft silk, was tied round Falconer's neck in a slip-knot, with grim deliberation.
"Save me from this butchery, Lord Home—forhersake," said Falconer, making tremendous efforts to free himself; "or, at least, remove her in pity. Hear me, Home—thou wert once loyal and gallant."
"Peace, villain," replied that ferocious peer, as he smote the brave suppliant full and heavily on the mouth with his hand.
"Mercy," implored Sybilla, sinking on her knees, and clinging to the hand of Borthwick, who held her as in a giant's grasp; "mercy for him, and for the love of God! Man—man—thou hast been a priest, and must yet remember that the merciful are blessed, for they shall obtain mercy. Have pity! O have pity; by the Star of Heaven, by the Queen of Angels, I implore you to have pity!"
But Borthwick, who was wholly employed in looking down upon that snowy bosom, of which her kneeling position enabled him to see more than was ever meant for eyes like his, heeded her not; but grasped her with the strength and tenacity of an iron vice; and now, while her cries and entreaties would have melted the hearts of any men but those of the Scottish noblesse of 1488, these miscreants began to strangle and drag Falconer, by the knotted scarf, towards the river.
"For God's love—for her sake—gentlemen—my Lord's—good sirs, do not murder me thus before her face—before her; remove her—beloved Sybilla—pity, pity—mercy, am I to die like a dog—for her—for her sake, monsters—God!——"
The tightening of the knot cut short the cries of Falconer, who in that terrible moment thought only of Sybilla; but dragged as he was by the throat, strangulation immediately ensued; his handsome features became swollen, livid, and frightful; his eyeballs protruded. He tossed his arms about him wildly; but the third time he was dragged round the bower, he was senseless, lifeless, and stiff; and the assassins, after bestowing a few parting kicks on the body, carefully sheathed their swords, which had been lying on the ground, and retired, leisurely and without precipitation.
"Adieu, lady," said Lord Hailes, with a stern loftiness of manner; "now we have revenged your honour on this presumptuous churl."
"Farewell, and I give you joy of your lemane, sweet madam," said Borthwick, mockingly, as he released her.
With a shriek Sybilla sprang to the breathless body of her lover. Her fingers were trembling, weak, and powerless; thus she strove fruitlessly to loosen the hateful scarf which encircled his neck. The attempt was vain, for there was no strength in her.
Then, overcome by the frightful, swollen, and blackened aspect of that beloved face, she uttered another wild, despairing cry, and fell prostrate and senseless upon him.
So ended this scene of horror!
"How can I 'scape Antonia!—how evadeA father's stern inflexible decree?Paint but the means, I ne'er shall be afraidTo tread a path prescribed by love and thee."Bridal of Pisa
While this atrocity was acted in the garden, and about a pistol shot distant from the mansion, Robert Barton received from Lady Euphemia a sorrowful and excited explanation of her father's new and peculiar views regarding herself and her sister; on hearing which the lover lost all patience, and said all one might be supposed to say on receiving such startling information. David Falconer would, perhaps, have heard it in silent sorrow, for he felt himself poor and powerless; but the wealthy heir of old Sir Andrew Barton had no doubt on the subject of his own conduct.
"'Zounds, Effie, what is this you tell me? Would your father, Lord of that ilk, and Steward of Strathearn though he be, wrest thee from me? thee whom the Church hath given me—who art all but my wife, and wear on that dear hand the betrothal ring, which soon must be a bridal one? No, no! Yonder lieth the frigate, and the barge's crew are at the Craig of St. Nicholas; say but the word, and I shall place the broad waters of the Tay between thee and these Lords of Home and Hailes! They may be the prouder and the sterner, but that they are either richer or better men than Robert Barton of Leith I deny. 'Sdeath, 'tis little I value such holiday loons! Mass! I would like rarely to see them both piped aloft in a close-reefed topsail breeze to send down the topgallant-yard, or haul out a weather-earing! On my faith, it would be a sight for old Andrew Wood."
"Alas! they have seldom less than each a thousand lances at their back; and thou, dear Robert, hath none."
"None, say ye, Effie? I have every man in yonderYellow Frigate, and theQueen Margaretto boot; I have every seaman in Leith and Dundee. Faith! I would not lie in the hosen of him who wronged the son of Andrew Barton; but to let these lordlings get the weathergage of me and Davie Falconer—Hailes and Home—two varlets only fit for carrying powder or wringing wet swabs—no, no, Effie, it never shall be!"
"But alack! they are both brave and determined."
"Likely enough—brave fellows in smooth water; but I'll teach them how to dip their spoons in the captain's mess; by St. Mary I will!"
Euphemia Drummond threw herself upon his breast and wept, as she said—
"Surely, they will never have the evil heart to take me from thee? Oh, were my uncle the dean, or our good friend the old bishop here, they dared not even to think of it."
"But your uncle the dean is attending a chapter at Dunblane, and our good friend the bishop is drinking King Henry's sack in London Tower, to which he has been wantonly conveyed a prisoner, by those same Englishmen who quite as wantonly slew my poor father on the open seas. But some one approaches—'tis thy father, Effie; leave me to speak with him on this matter—for a moment only, my sweet one."
As the old lord raised the arras at one end of the apartment and entered, his eldest daughter retired by a door at the other; and Robert Barton, while his heart swelled with sorrow and honest indignation, approached with a lowering brow the father of the girl he loved, and one whom until now he had ever esteemed is a dear and venerable friend.
"Good my lord," said he, "I pray you to pardon me, if I intrude upon the grief occasioned by the disappearance of Lady Margaret, by making a humble offer of my service and assistance."
"I thank you, Master Robert Barton," replied Lord Drummond, with something of confusion and much of stern coldness in his manner; "but I believe that to the king—and to him only—must I look for the restoration of my dearest and most gentle daughter."
"To the king?——"
"Ay, to the king! I spoke plain enough. She is the wedded wife of his son, the Duke of Rothesay——"
"Rothesay!"
"Ay, ye well may start; but James, still hankering after those grasping Tudors (may God confound them all!) liked not the match, and hath had her kidnapped. He hath dared to do this; but the act shall cost him a crown, should I spend the last of my breath and the last of my blood to tear it from his brow. False king!" he added, apostrophising the wall; "didst thou forget even for a moment that she was a daughter of Lord Drummond?"
"Hark you, my lord; I am the king's liegeman, and deplore you should nurse thoughts of treason, or have such words of danger on your tongue; but still more do I deplore that you should harbour in your heart sentiments repugnant to the principles of honour, and to the happiness of your eldest daughter."
A flush of anger reddened the brow of the proud old noble.
"What mean you, Captain Barton?" he asked.
"Why, my lord, have you proposed to cast me adrift—I who am affianced to Euphemia, and who love her with a true and honest heart? Come, my lord, be fair and above-board with me; remember that our dear Effie is my plighted wife—plighted and betrothed to me in happier times than these."
"Pledges made in peace are often broken in war," replied the noble, coldly, and without noticing a gesture of impatience which escaped the honest seaman; for he remembered how anxious the conspirators at Broughty were to obtain the king's ships. In his ambition to achieve this, and also obtain vengeance upon James, he condescended to subterfuge.
"Captain Barton," said he in a low voice, "all correspondence between the king and his nobles is at an end, and another day may see their swords unsheathed against him. Promise me, should this event occur," he continued, sinking his voice into a whisper, "that you will contrive to have yonder war ships delivered unto such captains and mariners as the vice-admiral who acts under his Grace the Duke of Albany may appoint; or that you will serve the nobles—and my pledge to you may yet remain inviolate."
"May? God forgive thee, thou subtle old man, for such a cruel alternative," replied Barton, with deep emotion, while his eyes filled and their lashes trembled. "I love your daughter better than my life; Heaven knows how long I have loved your Effie, how dearly and how well; but I also love that good king who was ever my father's friend; and the curse of that dead father would arise from his grave in the Englishman's sea, and follow me to the end of my days on sea and on land, if I proved false to my allegiance. My dear Effie! accursed be the policy which would make thee the boon for which I am to barter name and fame, honour and soul!"
Lord Drummond whose perceptions of right and wrong (never too clear at any time) were somewhat clouded and warped by the quarrel of the barons and king, against whom he now felt a deadly hatred, witnessed this deep burst of feeling unmoved, for he had not the smallest intention of yielding up his daughter to her betrothed, even though the latter were base enough to betray the admiral and surrender those great caravels, which were the terror of the northern sea, and the flower of the infant navy.
"You will not join us, and deliver up two paltry ships," resumed the politic tempter; "what! not even for a bride so fair?"
"No—not as the king's rebellious subject."
"So, so," muttered the lord, impatiently, "if you go from this on your feet, you may warn James of the cloud that gathers round his throne."
"Alas! I will never betray your lordship. As the father of Euphemia, I almost considered you mine. Heaven judge between us, my lord, for I love and revere you still; natheless, this duplicity to me, and this falsehood to our beloved king."
Instead of being touched by the depth of feeling displayed by Robert Barton, the cruel noble now only feared that in his efforts to serve that desperate cause in which he had enlisted himself, he had betrayed too much to the king's true man, and saw at once the danger thus incurred. Raising the arras, he whispered to young Drummond of Mewie, who stood without, and was in attendance upon him,—
"Summon Carnock, Balloch, and their people; they are loitering in the hall, the street, or garden. Tell them that this man knoweth more than should be risked with others than ourselves. Dost thou comprehend me?"
Mewie, a savage-looking and unscrupulous young Celt from Strathearn, muttered something under the thick red beard that fell in shaggy volume under the brow of his steel cap, while he grinned and withdrew. Then Lord Drummond turned once more to poor Barton, who, under the old noble's calm exterior, could never have divined the deadly intentions of one he loved so well, but gazed sadly at him as if he sought to gather some new hope for himself and for Euphemia.
"Then in this approaching raid, Captain Barton, you will permit that long Toledo of yours to rust in its velvet scabbard?"
"Not if the king's enemies are in the field; but, good my lord, let us talk of that which is nearer my heart than broil or battle. Consider how this sudden enmity to me has filled my soul with sorrow. Oh, my lord, to say how much poor Effie and I have loved each other were a vain and useless task; but to reflect that the very day on which we were to wed was named—to think——"
"Come, come," replied Drummond, with a lowering brow and a grim smile, as he heard the trampling of feet in the arcades below, and knew that his clansman, Mewie, and others were assembling there; "this may not be; Cupid must not shoot his shafts amid a civil war, nor Hymen light his torch at the flame of burning towns. We can have no dalliance now; the dame to her bower, and the knight to his saddle. If, Robert Barton, thou wilt deliver up Sir Andrew Wood and the king's ships to the governor of Broughty, thou mayst yet have thy bride; to not, seek a mate in another nest than the house of Drummond, and as its foe,gang warily. Fare ye well, sir,—ha! ha! my daughters shall wed with new made earls."
"'Tis true, my lord, I am no noble, and consequently I am the better Scotsman; but I believe I am rich enough to please even you. My father has left me a fair estate upon the Forth and Almond, where the land is so fertile that, as the old rhyme says,
"A rood of land on links of ForthIs worth an earldom in the north."
"I care not," replied Lord Drummond, doggedly; "thou shalt never have daughter of mine, wert thou rich as James III., and rumour says his black chest in the castle of Edinburgh is brimming with ingots and precious stones. I will not wed a Drummond to the son of a merchant trader."
"My Lord,"—Barton began, proudly—
"Nay, nay," interrupted the old lord, impatiently; "get thee some huckster lass about the timber holfe, at Leith; she will better suit old Barton's son than will a daughter of the Steward of Strathearn."
At this gross speech Barton grew deadly pale, and laid a hand on his sword, but immediately relinquished it, saying with calmness,
"No insult will tempt me to forget that you are the father of my dear Euphemia; that your hairs are grey as my poor father's were; and more than all, that (alas!) you loved me once!"
"Zounds, fellow, I shall lose all patience!" replied the lord, angrily, for, in truth, he felt ashamed of himself, and wished to be worked up into a passion. "Wouldst thou place thyself in competition with the Lord Home, the son of the Hereditary Bailie of Coldinghome, or with the Lord Hailes, the son of that gallant peer who slew the Lieutenant-general of England at the battle of Sark, and won that glorious day for Scotland?"
"The son of Sir Andrew Barton may compete with any man! True,hebegan life as a poor ship-boy and skipper's varlet; but he died a knight and Laird of Barnton. Woe to both Home and Hailes, if they come within arm's-length of me; some day I may overhaul them, and show them the foretop with a vengeance! Farewell, my lord; when next we meet I will not trouble you with entreaties even for your daughter; and so, till then, God keep you."
Barton bowed, and with a heart swollen almost to bursting with rage and grief, and a brain that seemed to swim under the influence of his conflicting emotions, he staggered from the chamber, and descended unattended to the outer-door, and with all the aspect of a man flushed with wine. On gaining the pavement he saw the Drummonds of Carnock, Balloch, and Mewie, all with the holly-branch in their bonnets or helmets, loitering under the arcades in the Fish-street, and all well armed. He was hurrying past them towards St. Clement's Wynd, when some one called aloud,—
"Hallo!—Captain Barton!"
Too much occupied by his own bitter thoughts, he did not hear the cry, but walked hurriedly on.
"Dost thou not hear us, rascal?" cried several voices.
Barton now turned to discover who was addressed.
"Ah," said Lord Hailes, who with Home and others issued into the street, "I thought he would know we meanthim."
"Villain!" said Barton, unsheathing his sword, and trembling with a terrible joy; "what mean you by this?"
"By the black rood, my fine fellow, but your tone is high for a skipper of Leith!" said Home.
"It is the tone to which I am entitled."
"Ah, we shall prove that," said Borthwick, drawing his sword, while his eyes gleamed with cruelty and malice; and the rest, to the number of seven or eight, also unsheathed their weapons.
Barton did not wait for the attack but fell on bravely, dealing long and sweeping cuts with many a thrust between. One of the latter ripped up the sword-arm of Borthwick, and hurled him against the wall of a house; one of the former fell full upon the harnpan which Lord Hailes wore under his velvet bonnet, and rolled him ignominiously in the gutter; but the rest closed in, fighting in a circle, and notwithstanding his bravery, skill, and that strength of arm peculiar to all seamen, Barton would have been beaten down and slain without mercy had not the sudden arrival of old Sir Andrew Wood, Cuddie Clewline, the coxswain, and the whole barge's crew, armed with boatstretchers and poniards, given a sudden change to the aspect of the conflict. With a stentorian shout, such as only can come from the throats of those who are wont to out-bellow the wind and waves, they rushed into the fray, with cries of—
"Ho for Barton! Clear the hause here, loons and lubbers! Ware your gingerbread masters—Largo for ever!"
Barton, who had been driven back against the wall of a house, was soon freed, and his assailants put to immediate flight, but not before several severe blows had been given and received. With the admiral there was a tall and handsome man, who was clad in a coat of rich gold brocade, and whose face was concealed by a salade. This person immediately assailed Lord Home with great impetuosity, and at every blow cried—