"Down with the traitor nobles—perdition to the foemen of the king!"
Home met him with great resolution, but on receiving from Caddie a side blow, right in the pit of the stomach, this great lord of the Merse was doubled up, as the admiral said, "like a bolt of old canvas," and stretched without breath on the causeway.
"Now that we have cleared the fairway, let us trip our anchors and be off," said the admiral, "for Home has a hundred mosstroopers and more in the market-place. Away to the Craig of St. Nicholas, my lads, and shove off!"
They soon reached the landing-place and sprung into the barge; the oars were shipped, Barton grasped the tiller, and with the blue ensign trailing in the water astern, they pulled away towards the ships. In his excitement the captain forgot his poor friend Falconer; then suddenly the recollection flashed upon him; he turned to address the admiral, when lo! he found that the tall gentleman whose voice and sword had been so active in Fish-street, had now removed his salade, and was no other than the—king!
On recognising him, the barge's crew suspended rowing for s moment, and doffed the bonnets amid deep silence, while Barton also uncovered.
"Give way, my lads," said the admiral, smiling; "'tis his Majesty the King, who, finding only falsehood and rascality among the loggerheads ashore, is coming to sail merrily with us on the sea, where we shall teach him how to knot and splice, to grease a mast, to hand, reef, and steer, and to sleep in the topgallant-sail, as soundly as in the Castle of Stirling. Barton," he added, in a whisper, "the nobles are rising in arms; the men of Angus are already mustering in the Howe, and the barons hold conclave at the Tower of Broughty. We are on the eve of a dark rebellion, and as yet, nowhere hereabout could the king be safe but on board theYellow Frigate."
Barton bowed, for he had no words to reply in. His heart was already too full of anxieties of his own—anger, bitterness, and sorrow, not unmingled with fear for the persecution that might be endured by Euphemia, and the domestic tyranny to which she might be subjected.
In a few minutes they were close to the frigate. Cuddie caught the mainchains by his hook, and the boat sheered alongside the steps. The boatswain's pipe was heard—the kettledrum beat, and the arquebussiers stood to their arms as the king stepped on board, followed by Wood and Barton. He was then marshalled with great formality and the deepest respect to the great cabin.
Then the royal standard, the yellow banner with the red lion rampant, was hoisted at the mainmast-head, to indicate that the king was on board. On this appearing, a commotion was observable immediately on board theMargaret, which lay a bowshot further up the river; her drum was beaten and her barge's crew piped away, to bring old Sir Alexander Mathieson, "the King of the Sea," on board the Admiral, while all her port-lids were triced up, and the cannon run out.
The salutes of the two great ships, which fired each a hundred guns, announced to the people of Dundee and of the opposite coast, that the king was on board. Hence arose that rumour, which proved perhaps so fatal to the interests of James—that he had abdicated, and was going with Admiral Wood to Holland or Flanders. Circulated industriously by the highborn enemies of the throne, the report spread like wildfire, and though there were no means of travelling in those days but on foot or on horseback, it was known with many strange additions at the cross of the metropolis on the following day, and it gave a great impetus to the bad cause of the malcontent nobles.
"Then on my mind a shadow fell,And evil hopes grew rife;The damning thought stuck in my heart,And cut me like a knife,—That she whom all my days I lovedShould be another's wife!"Summer and Winter Hours
With the last words of Barton ringing in his ears and rousing a voice of reproach in his heart, Lord Drummond flung aside his velvet cloak and descended into the garden, which was at the back of the mansion, and lay between it and the margin of the river. Some remembrance of happier, and perhaps of less ambitious days came over his memory; he felt something of remorse for having so ruthlessly delivered over his daughter's plighted husband to the violence of his enemies; but as he had no wish either to alter the deadly cast of the die, or to hear the clashing of the assassins' swords in the street without, he walked through the garden hurriedly and muttered—
"I have done wrong—I have acted ignobly, and not as Robert Barton would have done by me, or to the meanest in Scotland! Yet I did not tell him to love my daughter Effie—and Home and Hailes shall both be earls, if swords and lances can make them so. Yet—yet—tush! I have behaved like an old wolf. But there was no remedy—I had betrayed too much to him; so cold steel must seal his lips for ever. And yet, alack! those lips have often been upon poor Effie's cheek. No—no—let me not think of it!——But who is this? A captain of the king's arquebussiers—and Sybilla too;—pest! here is another lover!"
Beside the bower he saw Sir David Falconer lying upon the ground with the scarf of Hailes (which he knew well) twisted round his throat. The young man was not dead, but nearly strangled, and was now beginning to recover. Near him, on her knees in a stupor of grief, with blood-shot eyes, and with her dress disordered, Sybilla was sobbing. Powerless and unable to rise, she stretched her hands to her father, saying—
"Save him, father—save him!"
For a moment the heart of the ambitious old man was touched; he forgot that he had basely surrendered Barton to destruction, or remembered it only with an emotion of terror; and now he hastened to save Falconer. He freed his compressed throat from the rich silk and golden scarf of Lord Hailes, and opened the collar of his velvet doublet to afford him air; he bathed his face and hands in the bright salt water of the firth that was rippling on the yellow sands close by, and in a few minutes the rescued man was able to raise himself upon his hands and look around him. Sybilla, still kneeling beside him, placed an arm caressingly around his livid neck, and while glancing thankfully and imploringly at her father, placed her trembling lips to the distorted brow of her lover, murmuring—
"Joy, joy—oh, David, dearest David, thou art still spared to me!"
"Good morrow, fair sir," said Lord Drummond, grimly. "Now what am I to understand by all this?"
"That your lordship—has—has saved me from a cruel death,—from a death the coward hands of Home and Hailes destined for me—for me who never wronged them," said Falconer, with difficulty, and at intervals.
Sybilla wept aloud, and again wrung her pretty hands.
"Hold, little one," said her father; "this noisy exhibition of love and grief but little beseems a noble lady. Though one of King James's new-fangled knights, do you forget that this man is but the son of a merchant skipper?"
Though this was said in a low voice Falconer heard it, and it gave him new energy. Slowly and tremblingly he rose to his feet and said—
"My lord, with your daughter's love and your esteem I could achieve anything—Yea, I could ennoble myself,—yet both were alone sufficient to ennoble any man."
Unsubdued by this compliment, the proud old noble made a gesture of impatience.
"Another lover!" he muttered, stamping his spurred heel on the gravel walk; "was there ever a poor man so pestered by three gadabout daughters? This will be another fellow for us to kill, I suppose."
"Ah, my lord, if you knew how I love her, and how to me her love is a richer and a greater treasure than our good king's favour."
"The king's favour? Umph—a poor inheritance to-day, perhaps a poorer one to-morrow!"
"How, my lord," said Falconer, anxiously; "what is it you mean?"
"You will soon learn, for this night perhaps may see those standards which we furled at Blackness unrolled against the king. He who serves James is the foe of the nobility; he who is the foe of the nobility is also mine. So come, Sir David, get thee gone to thy ship, for the day wears apace, and I would not for the brightest jewel in my coronet have my daughter seen in this unseemly dress. Thou knowest this infernal king has stolen her sister, and that I'll have sure vengeance; yea, by Him who preached in Jerusalem and died on Calvary, I will! Come madam, come——"
A shout interrupted the old lord's sudden burst of anger; bright dresses and glittering swords were visible among the shrubbery; Home, Hailes, and their friends, smarting with wounds, bruises, and anger, after their conflict in the adjoining street, came tumultuously towards the bower, for they had resolved on hanging Falconer's body at the market-cross, in reparation of what they termed their wounded honour.
Sybilla uttered a cry of terror; again her heart trembled and stood still; but she threw herself with outstretched arms before her still feeble lover, whom the ferocious assailants again recognized and greeted with a shout.
"How now, my lords and gentlemen," exclaimed Lord Drummond, unsheathing his sword; "would ye commit hamesücken? Respect my presence, my property, and authority, if you regard not the life of this man, or the powers of the Lord High Constable? Are the rights of the baronage and nobility to be infringed by the nobles themselves? In the streets or highways slay as many as you please; but here, even a dog's life is sacred."
"We have sworn to hang this half-strangled parasite of James at the market-cross, and hanged he shall be!" replied Hailes, making a deadly thrust with his sword, which was skilfully parried by Lord Drummond, yet it passed within three inches of Falconer's heart.
"Thank you, my good lord," said the latter; "I am weak, but will rather trust to my own limbs than to your power of protection, or to their humanity. Adieu, dear Sybilla, and may God bless thee, kind one, for we may never meet again."
He staggered towards the water, and rushed in until beyond his depth, and then struck out to reach the ship.
Like a herd of wild animals disappointed of their prey, his tormentors sprang after him, midleg into the water; but he was already beyond the reach of their swords. They then hurled stones from the beach, and two tall Highland gillies, who had followed Balloch from Lochlomond side, strung their bows and shot their feathered shafts after him, but without success; for, weak as he was, Falconer was an expert swimmer, and was soon far beyond bowshot.
After all he had undergone, it was evident that he never could reach the ships without succour; but, fortunately, the uproar or the beach had been observed by the watch on deck; the fainting swimmer was seen to make signals of distress; a boat was piped away and lowered; and just as poor Falconer was slowly and despairingly relaxing his efforts, and sinking beneath the calm glassy current of the river, he was seized by the strong nervous hands of Willie Wad and Cuddie Clewline, and dragged on board.
Sybilla uttered a cry of joy and fainted, just as the first cannon of the royal salute pealed over the shining river.
"Lady, those hours for aye are gone.Our days of youth and joy are past;And each new year but rolls alongTo that which soon must be our last.Our early friendship—early joy,Moments affectionate and dear,The rules of life too soon destroy,And leave a barren desert here."
Margaret had now been three days on board of theHarry, which, with her consorts, theWhite RoseandCressi, had been vainly endeavouring to weather the dangerous Ness of Buchan, and gain the open German Sea; but as Howard's evil fortune would have it, the stiff breeze blew right ahead, and they were forced to tack and tack again, running eastward and westward on the same line, like that fated ship which, in the nautical legend, is ever striving in vain to weather Table Bay.
Howard, on leaving England, had provided two attendants for Margaret—pretty young English girls, whose names are recorded as Rose and Cicely. They were gentle and attentive, and did all that their kind natures dictated to soothe the prisoner's grief, which, after the first wild paroxysm had subsided, became a calm and settled bitterness, sadness, and dejection; and her tears fell incessantly for her child, which had been left in the secret alcove, where, perhaps, none might discover it, and where its feeble cries might be unheard till it perished; but then she remembered that Rothesay would know and reveal the place, and save its little life at all hazards.
She was now aware of being in the power of Henry's agents, and that she would be removed in secret, to make way for an English princess.
Howard, a gallant and polished gentleman, had visited her twice; the first time she repulsed him with flashing eyes and wild upbraidings of inhumanity and cruelty; the second time she heard all he had to say in silence, remaining pale and immovable, with eyes downcast, weeping and inflamed, for her powers of utterance were almost gone, and despair was coming fast upon her. Her great beauty of face and grace of form, when united to her grief, touched the manly heart of Howard; deep and sincere emotions of pity were stirred within him; and soon a deeper and a softer influence began to steal into his breast, and he muttered to himself again and again, as he walked on the weather-side of his poop—
"By St. George, I would rather stand old Largo's heaviest broadside than the witching glance of this fair woman's eyes! If I could but teach her to love me, a double end would be gained: it would win me Henry's favour on one hand, and such a charming wife on the other, as never a Howard had in his bosom before."
Then he longed to visit her again, and try his powers of consolation. He descended to the door of her cabin.
"How is the Scottish dame?" he inquired of little Will Selby, one of his pages, who remained below in attendance.
"Ill enough at heart, but pretty well in body, sir," replied the lad, with an impudent smile.
"Pretty well, sir," added his brother, tall Dick Selby the gunner, a strong and athletic son of old Father Thames; "especially after parting with her loose ballast in the last night's breeze."
Howard knit his brow at this coarse speech.
"Poor little thing," he muttered; "may the great devil take this pitiful errand, say I! By my soul, John o'Lynne," said he to his sailing master, or second in command, "I would rather walk over the standing part of the fore-sheet, with a shot at each heel, than do all this dirty work over again!"
He knocked softly at the cabin door, which was opened by Rose, one of the attendants. Exhausted and overcome, Lady Margaret had fallen asleep on one of the cushioned lockers; a velvet cloak was spread over her; one white hand, and her pretty feet in their red velvet slippers richly embroidered with gold, were only visible. Her face was deathly pale; her eyelids unusually swollen and inflamed, while their long lashes were matted by the bitter tears she had shed. Her rich soft hair was in disorder. It hung half in and half out of its gold caul, and Cicely was kindly and gently endeavouring to plait it into braids, while its owner, her new mistress, slept.
"Thou art a good girl, Cicely," said the captain, "and shalt have a ring of gold for this."
Though he spoke in low voice, Margaret was roused from her uneasy slumber, and started into a sitting position. Cicely and Rose withdrew into the inner cabin, and their lady began, as usual, to weep in silence, for the tears, which she had not the power to repress, rolled in large drops slowly over her face.
"Still so sad, so sorrowful!" said Howard, as he knelt on one knee, and taking her cold white hand in his, gazed kindly into her fine blue eyes; "still weeping, dear madam; still those tears, which, like your reproaches, cut me to the soul!"
"Alas! sir, what other solace have the wretched, but their tears?"
"I am but a plain English seaman, lady; I have been somewhat of a courtier in my time, but the salt water, as it washed the perfume out of my doublet, obliterated also the fine speeches that were then at my tongue's end, and I may not now fashion soft nothings to suit a lady's ear; but I speak from my heart, and with all the sincerity of an honest purpose. Oh! would, lady, that I could find some means of serving you and drying those tears! I beseech you to be pacified, and to hope—for while life remains to us, there is alwayshopeto bear us onward like a fair good breeze."
"If once I see your English shore, what hope shall I have then?"
"Heaven only knows what may happen before we have old England on our lee, lady. This head-wind freshens every minute, and you may see that the rocks of Buchan are still upon our starboard quarter, while the sea looks black to port."
Margaret gazed anxiously from the cabin windows, and saw the bold coast of Invercruden half shrouded in the haze of evening, as the sun sank behind it; she saw, also, the waves rolling in white mountains on the Bowness, the most eastern point of Scotland, where the rocks are so steep and the water so deep, that, in one of the rooms of the High Constable's castle, a glass of wine has been drunk from the top-gallant yard-arm of a vessel, as an old tradition tells us.
"If you would but land me, even on yonder stormy point, I know one who would lay an earldom at your feet—a Howard, an Englishman though you be."
"I would not disobey my king or betray his orders for all the earldoms in Scotland, lady. My father was an English lord, true; but the English nobles are not a race of sordid slaves like the Scottish peers, lady, ever ready to barter their country and their service for foreign gold and gain."
"Too true—too true!" said Margaret, wringing her hands; "I feel myself the victim of this cupidity."
"But I pray you to pardon my harshness of speech," said the handsome Howard, with great gentleness.
Amid all her grief, Margaret had sufficient perception to observe Howard's modulated tones, and the full, earnest, and anxious expression of his eye, which indicated the emotion then stealing into his heart. At first, the idea flashed upon her mind that she would make the poor Englishman's dawning passion subservient to her purpose and the achievement of her liberty; but Margaret Drummond was too artless and too honourable for such a course, and at once repressed the thought; for there was so much of open candour on his manly brow, and so much of kindness in his fine eyes and well-formed mouth, that she could perceive, althoughhewas the instrument of her wrong and misery, that he was at heart her friend, and might yet prove her most powerful protector. To such a man, she knew at once all bribes would be offered in vain; and she knew that she had nothing to hope for but from his generosity, his pity, or his love.
She gazed fixedly and with agony at the lessening shore, as theHarrystood off with its head towards the German Sea, and a pause, filled up by sighs, ensued.
"You still refuse to restore me to liberty?" she said, while her tears fell fast again.
"Absolutely—once and for all."
"For the first time in my life, I have received a refusal from a gentleman," said Margaret, proudly and bitterly.
"Alas! that this unfortunate should be me!"
"But it matters not; we are still in the Scottish seas, and a time may come when you will be forced to listen to me."
"Listen! oh, Lady Margaret! if you know the secret which is hushed in my heart!" replied Howard, who felt her reproaches deeply. "I do beseech you to pardon me," he continued, in a sad and earnest manner, "for I obey the dictates of a cold and politic king, not those of my conscience or my heart."
"A brave English gentleman should be above being the tool even of a king."
"Madam, I would deem myself the most ungallant of Englishmen if I refused you anything that lay within my power to grant, but liberty must lie with Henry himself."
"Liberty! but I am not an English subject. Oh, Rothesay, Rothesay!" continued Margaret, giving way to a fresh burst of grief; "what will be your thoughts on finding that I am gone?"
"Believe me, Lady Margaret," said Howard, in his saddest tone, and yet with somewhat of pique in his manner, "you will recover your love for this boy prince, and King Harry may mate you to some gallant English courtier."
"Thou thinkest me very facile," said Margaret, coldly, and with a pout on her pretty mouth.
"Nay, lady, I only think you beautiful, gentle, good, and, indeed, most loveable; so I crave pardon if I viewed you like a court lady too. They easily forget an affection; for women, alas! are very facile—yea, variable as wind and weather."
"Many women never loved at all, sir."
"No woman ever had only one love, gentle lady," replied the seaman, laughing.
Again Margaret renewed her entreaties to be set ashore; but she no longer resorted to bribery, for she saw how the noble Howard was stung when she formerly did so. Now she appealed only to his generosity, his courtesy, and his chivalry, and she plied her cause with all the power and eloquence that grief inspired, but plied in vain, though Howard became fearful that he would not be long able to withstand her pleading tongue, when aided by two such speaking eyes; he therefore begged permission to retire on deck, where his presence had long been required, for the south-east wind was increasing to a squall, and sail after sail had to be taken off the three English ships, which were now separated and far apart.
The dangerous coast of Buchan, of Cruden, and Peterhead, with all their bluffs, and reefs, and boiling caves, were on their lee; half-veiled in watery clouds, the sun had sunk behind the hill of Bennochie—that landmark of the ocean—and an angry sea was rolling in huge billows on the stern and terrible shore. To increase Margaret's mental and bodily miseries, a severe storm came on, and she had only one thought in the intervals of her sickness, as she lay weeping and supremely wretched on a couch—one desire—that this hated English ship might be dashed upon her native coast, and that she might have one desperate chance of ending her sorrows—of being saved or drowned. She would freely have risked one for the other; but then she remembered the poor mariners, who in that event might perish; and she prayed God and St. Olaus the patron of that rocky shore, to forgive her evil wishes; and, after reckoning on her white fingers the hours she had been absent from her poor babe, and after becoming totally exhausted, she fell into a deep, deep sleep, and was long unconscious of all that passed around her.
The English ships floated on the chaos of waters. With evening a pale ashy hue stole over them, and the whole sea darkened as the clouds lowered above it; then the wind swept past with its mighty breath, rolling the waves like vast ridges of mountains crested with foam, and having long dark vales of water between.
Meanwhile, Howard, an able seaman, was using incredible exertions to weather the storm and that deadly lee shore, behind the bluffs and peaks of which the sheets of lightning were reddening the cloudy sky. He reduced the sails to a few strips of canvas, and lowered the top-gallant yards on deck. Being ignorant of the strong currents, as the night-cloud deepened and the hoarse thunder died away, he feared much that some of his consorts might be stranded; he could see nothing of them, for, on hoisting a lantern at the main-mast head, no answering signals were returned. Every wave that swept over theHarrybore something from her deck; and John of Lynne was ordered to cut away her two large anchors, after which she rode more lightly over the black tumbling billows, and lay a point nearer the wind.
But the increasing storm compelled Howard at last to put his ship about, and away she flew like the wind itself, round Rattray Head, a promontory of Aberdeenshire; and so he bore away towards the Moray Firth, in search of shelter and of safety.
"They moved, a gallant companieOf stately ships, along;While Scotland's banner in the van,Led on the warlike throng."—Ballad.
The king remained on board of theYellow Frigatefor some days, during which the rumour that he had abdicated and retired to Holland, to avoid a new civil war, spread far and wide, from the gates of Berwick to those of Kirkwall. Meanwhile, the faithful Lindesays of Crawford and Montrose, with Thomas, Earl of Mar, and other loyal peers, were exerting themselves to raise an armed force for the protection of James, who appointed the Tower of Alloa as the place of tryst; and thus, immediately after the storm, theYellow Frigateand her consort weighed anchor, and bore away for the Firth of Forth.
All communication between the ships and shore had been cut off since the king's embarkation, as the town of Dundee was full of malcontents; and indeed there were great fears that an exchange of shots might take place as the vessels passed Sir Patrick Gray's garrison in the Castle of Broughty.
Falconer and Barton had no means of ascertaining what was passing at the house of Lord Drummond; but rumour reached them that he had sent his four daughters to his Castle of Drummond in Strathearn, under the escort of the Laird of Balloch.
It was a beautiful morning, about the last day of May; the river shone like a mirror, but its shores yet slept in the sunny summer haze when the frigates weighed anchor. The king was in his cabin, but he heard the din of preparation for sea, as Barton gave the order to "ship the capstan bars!"
Then, while his pages dressed him, he heard the sound of the fife and the stamping of feet, as the sailors in their deerskin boots tripped merrily round the capstan to the old air of "Trolee lolee lemane dou."
"Away aloft," cried Barton; "let fall."
Then the sails fell, and filled as they were sheeted home, on which the frigate gathered way. "Set the fore-topmast staysail—quick there—up with it, out of the cat's cradle."
Muffled in a surcoat of scarlet cloth trimmed with sables, King James came on deck as the vessels passed Tents-muir Point, and all the seamen took off their bonnets, while the drummer beat a march, and the arquebussiers gave a profound salute.
"I feel now more keenly than ever how hollow is all this pomp of royalty," said he, as he walked up the poop with the admiral, "and how paltry the inheritance of pride! The poorest archer or pikeman in any of my castles is happier than I, who to-day am called a king. Believe me, admiral," he continued, sadly, "if my death would be a bond of peace between my divided subjects, I could die happily!"
"And let those rapscallions get the weathergage of you? No, no—I would never die while I could live—never sink while I could swim, and that I consider good salt-water philosophy. Yet when the death-watchispiped, doubt not, your majesty, that old Andrew Wood will be found at his post, though he would be sorry to strike his flag before he had brought a few of these traitors up all standing at the bar of Divine Justice. Your majesty is only half my age—and to think of dying——"
"Father Zuill," said James, turning to the chaplain, who at that moment came on deck; "in this matter, what opinion have you to offer me?"
"We should remember the words of Seneca," replied the priest, folding his hands on his breast, and looking down; "he says—it is uncertain at what place death awaits thee, so wait thou for him in every place. Before old age be careful tolivewell, and in old age be careful todiewell—and herein Seneca gave sound advice."
"Alas, good priest," responded the sad king, "art thou a Scottish subject, and yet forget that thy kings—unhappy race!—never live to become old men?"
"But their virtues and honour survive the tomb," replied the chaplain; "true philosophy can only be acquired by mental suffering. There was a learned Persian who was wont to aver that he who had not suffered knew nothing."
Here the Admiral, who had a great aversion for this kind of conversation, which he did not understand, hailed the maindeck.
"How is she going, Barton?"
"Eight knots—clear off the wet reel, Sir Andrew."
"Keep her away a point or two to the south, and close the lee ports, for now we are past the guns of Broughty."
"We weary thee, worthy admiral," said the gentle king; "but I pray thee, Sir Andrew, to excuse my sadness."
Largo bowed, and reddened with a feeling of vexation, that the king had detected his impatience.
"I am a cold comforter for those who are in trouble," said he, "for I am but a plain-spoken mariner, who know of nothing beyond the ropes of a ship and the points of a compass; but we sailors, though our tongues may be less ready than our hands, have our hearts in the right place, our anchor is hope, and the blessed gospels our helm and compass—religion is our polestar, and loyalty our pilot."
"I defy thee, Father Zuill, to have expressed this better," said the king, with a smile; "how many of those dog nobles who are the curse of Scotland could say as much?"
The sun was now above the sea, which rolled like a mighty sheet of light around each rock and promontory; the low flat shore of Angus slept in that sunny glow, but the bolder bluffs of Fife were slowly becoming visible as the morning haze drew upward like a curtain of gauze. The clear brilliance of the sea and sun made Father Zuill think of his burning-glasses, and he invited the king (who found a great pleasure in visiting every part of the ship) into his cabin, whither the admiral felt himself constrained to accompany them; for, as there were many points and features in the chaplain's studies which he did not admire, he never entered this cabin when he could avoid it.
Small, low, and panneled with oak, it was surrounded by shelves, laden with books, glasses, retorts, and chemical apparatus, stuffed animals, and various antiquities, fossils, and preparations, the use of which the simple-minded seaman could not divine.
From one of the beams overhead hung a Roman lamp of bronze, which had been found in the city of Camelon; and appended thereto were the egg of an ostrich, a large amber bead, used as a charm to cure blindness, and an amulet of green stone, the meaning of which, Sir Andrew, after some hesitation, inquired.
"It is an Egyptian Nileometer," replied the priest; "in hieroglyphics this was the symbol ofstability, and as such was given of old to Pthah and Osiris."
Sir Andrew, who did not appear to be much more enlightened on the subject, rubbed his short beard, and ventured on one other inquiry.
"What means this black devil imprinted here on stone?"
"It is the Scarabaeus, the symbol of Pthah and the emblem of creative power, inscribed on a tablet, supported by Serapis and Anubis."
"Fiend take me, father chaplain, if I understand all this!" said the admiral, testily; "yet it may be all true as Barton's logbook, for aught that I know to the contrary. But were these persons you name demons like he who dwells at the Cape of Storms, and by one puff of his sulphurous breath blew old Barty Diaz on his beam-ends? or like the sea-ape—that scaly monster which hath the voice and figure of a man, yet is, after all, but a fish? or like the great sea-serpent whose yawning causes the whirlpool of Lofoden?"
"Nay," said the king, "they were the false gods of the pagan Egyptians."
"Well, I do not like having their trumpery on board theYellow Frigate," replied the admiral. "Do they not smell of witchcraft?"
"Nay," replied the chaplain, angrily, "not half so much as these two books behind you."
The admiral turned abruptly, and perceived two gigantic volumes, bound in vellum and clasped with iron; they lay upon the stock of a large brass culverin, which, as the port was closed, was lashed alongside thegun-wall, or, as it is now named, gunnel.
"And what may they be anent?" he asked.
"The writings of Joannes de Sacro Bosco,De Sphæra Mundi, and the magic book of Kirani, King of Persia, with the four treatises of Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie,De Secretis Naturæ; his tracts on the transmutation of metals, chiromancy, and astrology."
"Priest, I do not understand all this," said the admiral, growing quite angry. "Gadzooks! to me it would seem that thou speakest very much like a sorcerer, and all this place must be well swabbed out, for it hath a devilish odour of necromancy. But the gunner to his lintstock, the steersman to his helm, and the cook——"
"Sorcery!" interrupted the poor chaplain; "Heaven forbid! Dost think, if these relics of the olden time had aught to do with sorcery, they would lie side by side with this holy volume?" he added, opening an oak-bound tome, containing St. Gregory's Homilies on the Four Gospels. "Nay, this amber bead and this hieroglyphical tablet would then explode like a bursting cannon."
The admiral craved pardon, but mentally resolved that, in the first gale of wind, he would contrive to have the ship lightened of all these strange and mysterious wares.
"Dost thou speak Latin, admiral?" asked the chaplain.
"Latin," reiterated the seaman, angrily, "how should I speak Latin?"
"With your tongue," replied the chaplain, simply.
"Thou laughest at me, Father Zuill; dost take me for a puling student or a smock-faced friar, that I should know Latin? Nay, when such drones as thee were at the grammar schule, and trembling like a wet dog under a pedant's ferule, I was a bold sailor-lad, learning to hand, reef, and steer, and being made a man of, even while my chin was smooth as a lady's hand."
"Father Zuill was merely about to refer to a certain learned writer, who wrote of the secrets with which Nature is filled," replied the king, in a conciliatory tone. "Was it not so?"
"Exactly, please your grace; for with all his seamanship, he hath much yet to learn. Now, admiral, with what is the water filled?"
"Fish," was the laconic reply.
The chaplain smiled, and pouring a drop into the palm of the admiral's hand, placed a magnifying glass above it.
"Look, now, Sir Andrew," said he.
The admiral bent his eyes over it, and lo! an unknown world of little monsters were crawling there!
"Now, by Our Lady of Pittenweem, thereissorcery here!" said he, aghast, as he flung the water on the deck, and rubbed his hand on his trunk hose, and examined it again and again, to see whether all were gone.
"Nay, nay," said the king, with one of his sad smiles, "thou wrongest our good friend; for I assure thee, admiral, there is nought of sorcery here. This will show thee, Sir Andrew, how unsafe it is to laugh at anything merely because we do not understand it."
"Your majesty is right," said the chaplain, beginning to screw and unscrew the mirrors of his warlike machine; "thus the admiral laughs at me, because he knows not the theory of light, or the principles of its production. Why do decayed wood and dead fish emit a light? You know not; yet Pliny, who lived fourteen centuries ago, knew and wrote of these things. Every earthly body will emit light when heated, for the particles on their surfaces shine by attrition, and light is the first principle of fire. Ah," continued the learned projector, setting all the little mirrors in motion, and making them flash and glitter in a very alarming manner, "if Heaven give me grace, I may yet achieve much by my burning-glasses."
"Father Zuill," said James III., who had been reflecting that this poor priest, in his realm of strange inventions and abstruse study, was much happier than a King of Scotland and the Isles, "thou mightest achieve more by striving to develop the use of the magnifying-glass. Dost remember what Seneca says of a crystal convexity?"
"Yes; and of a glass globe filled with water, which maketh letters appear larger and brighter when viewed through it."
"I pray your majesty to excuse me," said the admiral, bowing; "for, gadzooks, if this goes on for another ten minutes, he will give me a fit of apoplexy. By the sound on deck, I think the wind is dead off-shore; and as we have not a king under our pennon every day, I beg leave to retire to the deck, and see how the land bears."
"The moon was in the dark blue sky,And mirrored in the dark blue deep;The placid wave rolled noiseless by,The winds like babes had gone to sleep;While o'er the vessel's shadowy side,The pilot viewed the glassy tide."
On rounding that long promontory known as the Ness of Fife, the wind, which had been upon the beam, became, of course, ahead, and as the frigates entered the mouth of that magnificent estuary, where the Forth, after a course of a hundred and seventy miles, joins the German Sea, they had to tack from shore to shore, consequently their progress became slow and protracted. The king, who loved to be among his subjects, to learn their wants, their wishes, and ideas, had been through every part of the ship between stem and stern, and had heard Willie Wad's explanations on various points of gunnery, and the boatswain expound on seamanship and the intricacies of standing and naming rigging. He had been through the magazine, the bread-room, the hold, cockpit, and cable-tier, and amid the various new things he heard and saw, forgot for a time, perhaps, that he was the unhappy King of Scotland.
He rejoined Father Zuill and the admiral on deck, where the former told him many a tale and legend of the castled craigs, the isles and rocks they passed; and amid these stories of the olden time, the chaplain forgot his crotchets of burning-glasses and other learned absurdities, and all who were near, drew nearer still to listen.
About noon, they were between the Isle of May and the straggling town of Anster, with the castle of the Anstruthers of that Ilk, and all its rough, brown, antique houses that cluster round the mouth of the Dreel-burn. Brightly on sea and river shone the unclouded sun on the white cliffs of the isle, and the rugged shore of Fife, with all its caverns, rocks, and towers, its ancient burghs, with their pointed spires and long and straggling fisher-villages that dot the sandy beach. The scene was lively and beautiful; but with saddened eyes and a sorrowful heart the thoughtful king gazed from Sir Andrew's lofty poop on the shores of his rebellious kingdom. The Forth shone like a stream of lucid gold; the Bass Rock, in the vaults and towers of which so many a wretch has pined: the Isle of May, with its priory and gifted holy well; Anster, with the enchanted Castle of Dreel; lonely Crail, with its Chapel of St. Rufus, and the Weem, wherein King Constantine was murdered by the Danes; St. Monan's, with the cavern where that martyr-hermit dwelt in the ninth century, and where he was slain, on that day of blood when the Norsemen ravaged all the coast of Fife, and slew six thousand persons;—all these were visible at once, and bathed in ruddy light.
Around the ships vast droves of porpoises were leaping joyously in the bright sunshine, and near the shore at least three hundred fisher-boats, with all their varnished sides shining in the noon-tide glow, were shooting their nets; and now a cheer floated over the water from their crews, in greeting to the valiant Laird of Largo, whoseYellow Frigatewas so familiar to them all. Above these boats the white sea-mews were flying in wild flocks, thus indicating where the droves of herring were.
Perceiving that the king gazed fixedly at the picturesque old town of St. Monan, with its venerable church having the walls of its steep-roofed chancel washed by the encroaching waves, the chaplain drew near, and pointed out a deserted path, which leads to this beautiful fane, by the side of a little stream that rushes through a ravine upon the beach. By that path King David II., when in sore agony from a wound received at the Battle of Neville's Cross, came humbly to crave the intercession of the dead St. Monan by praying at his shrine; and even while he prayed, the rankling wound, which had defied the care of the most skilful leeches, became well and whole, for the barbed head of an English arrow dropped from the scar as it closed;—so say the monks of old.
In the days of which we write, the bell that summoned the people to prayer hung upon a venerable yew, which stood in the churchyard, just where the saint had placed it seven hundred years before; but once in every year it was removed during the herring season, for the fishermen of the East Neuk averred that the tolling thereof scared all the fish from the coast.
In the roads of Leith the king was joined by theSalamanderand several other armed ships, commanded by the admiral's brother, by John Barton, and other brave seamen whose names are distinguished in the annals of their country.
The western breeze blew down the Firth as the vessels tacked between the narrowing shores, and Father Zuill or the garrulous boatswain had a tale to tell the king of every rock and isle; nor was the legend of Alexander II. and the Hermit of Emona who saved him from shipwreck, forgotten; and they showed a rock where the little prince his son was drowned, since named Inch nan Mhic Rhi; and before this story was finished the vessels were passing through the Ferry and standing slowly up the river, which there opens out like a vast lake, bounded by hills and wooded shores, between which its waters were rippling in the evening sun: but still the wind blew hard ahead, and Sir Andrew's ships lay as close to it as possible, being anxious to land the king at Alloa, the muster-place of the loyal barons. Repeatedly Captain Barton reported to him that he feared "the tide would not serve, and the ships would run aground."
"No matter," said he; "bear ahead at all risks, and remember our auld Leith proverb—Obey orders, though ye break owners."
Next morning, when the pale and anxious monarch came on deck, the ships were at anchor off the town of Alloa, which lay on one side of them, while on the other stretched a number of beautiful isles or Inches, covered with the richest pasture, and among the sedgy banks of these the stormy petrels yet build their nests at times. It was one of those hot summer days, when a smokelike vapour seems to pass in the sunshine over the fields of ripe corn, and in that sunny haze the hills of Clackmannan and the fertile shores of Stirling were steeped. The water was then deeper at Alloa than it is now, otherwise the ships of Wood could not have come abreast of the town, even though favoured by St. Mungo's tide, of which the crews, who of course knew the river well, took due advantage. This double flow is somewhat remarkable, for when the tide appears full it suddenly falls fifteen inches, and then returns with greater force, until it attains a much higher mark.
Tradition accounts for this by stating that when St. Mungo, the tutelar saint of the district, was proceeding with certain missionary priests to Stirling, by water, their vessel ran aground, and could not be got off, as the tide was ebbing; but the Saint prayed, and lo! the ebb returned with greater strength to bear the holy freight on their way; and in memory thereof, adouble tiderolls even unto this day on the beach of the ancient Alauna.
"Shall I resign the sceptre of my sires,And give the haughty barons leave to reign?No! perish all before that fatal hourI will sustain the majesty of kings,And be a monarch while I'm a man!"—Runnamede, Act 4.
It was the meridian of the 1st of June, 1488.
Partial gleams of sunlight fell or died away and flashed again alternately on the ancient town and still more ancient tower of Alloa, the stronghold of the Erskines, which crowns those strata of rock that lie between the fertile carse and the higher grounds, and break off abruptly above the harbour. The narrow and irregular streets of this picturesque little burgh were clustered round the strong donjon, the walls of which are eleven feet thick, and more than ninety feet high, and had often in Scotland's braver times repelled the chivalry of the first Plantagenets. A few crayers and barks, with their brown pitched sides and browner sails, were lying beside the rough stone quay that forms the pow or creek into which a rivulet flows.
The old lime-trees and venerable avenues of hedge, closely clipped in the French fashion, were in thick foliage around the old grey walls; the tide was full, and the Forth ran slowly past, still, calm, and waveless, as, with an imperceptible motion, the tall ships of Sir Andrew Wood warped close towards the town.
The gleam of arms was seen in the quaint old streets; steel helmets and cuirasses glittered on the quay, for armed men were watching the approaching ships, and a blue banner with a pale sable was unfurled on the tower, where Thomas, ninth Lord Erskine and second Earl of Mar, a loyal and irreproachable noble, with a numerous band of men-at-arms, drawn from his barony of Alloa, his forestry of Clackmannan, his estates of Nisbet, Pit-arrow, and Newton, awaited the landing of the king.
The nobles were everywhere rising in arms, and repairing to various muster-places, some for the king, but many more to fight for Angus, and against the court, in vindication of their imaginary rights and assumed privileges; while the hearts of the people, like their liberties, were oppressed and cast down.
It was a peculiarly close and sultry mouth, the June of 1488 and on this day in particular the air was breathless, hot, and still. Lowering thunderclouds, through the openings of which; the sunlight shot in sickly flakes, obscured the summer sky. Omens of evil preceded the coming civil war. In the fertile carse of Gowrie the peasantry had observed numbers of field-mice lying dead about the footpaths among the ripening corn—dead without any apparent cause.
A wonderful scorpion had been killed in the jousting haugh of Linlithgow; and a terrible comet—men called it a fiery dragon—passed over the Castle of Rothesay, from whence it was visible between the Polestar and the Pleiads, and for three nights this source of terror floated in the darkened sky. The stone unicorn on the cross of Stirling uttered a cry at midnight; the shadowy figures of armed knights were seen to encounter on the battleground where Wallace defeated the army of Edward I., under the brow of the Abbey Craig; the helmeted or hooded fish, called monachi marini, which never appear in the Scottish seas but as the presage of some terrible event, were seen to swarm in the firths and bays; and, to his great dismay, Jamie Gair had thrice netted an entire shoal of them. The minds of the people (naturally and constitutionally superstitious) became filled with the most dire forebodings of the great events that were at hand; and on the hearts of none did these omens fall more heavily than those of the two sisters, Euphemia and Sybilla Drummond, who were secluded in their father's solitary Castle of Drummond, where no tidings reached them of their missing Margaret, and where they could only hear vague and flying rumours of the great events which then convulsed the kingdom.
Their father's words when he left Strathearn for the insurgent camp had made them aware only of two things:—that he would fight to the death against the false king who had carried off his favourite daughter, and thatthey—on the rout of James's forces and the destruction of his favourite courtiers—should become, one Countess of Hailes, and the other Countess of Home, or he would never see their faces more.
At this time, it was not exactly known by the king and his court where the malcontent nobles held their tryst, or where the crown prince of Scotland was. Some said they were in Stirling with Sir James Shaw; others said, at Linlithgow; and many asserted they had retired as far off as the Douglasses' Castle of Thrave, in the wild and distant province of Galloway.
Many loyal and gallant gentlemen were now flocking to the royal standard with all the armed men they could muster; and with his most faithful adherents, James held a solemn conclave, or council of war, in the hall of the Castle of Alloa. On this occasion he was accompanied by the old admiral, by Sir Mathieson, Captains Barton and Falconer, than whom there were none present more eager to meet the insurgent lords in battle, that they might have an opportunity of avenging on Home and Hailes their late atrocities at Dundee. There, too, were Sir William Knollis, the preceptor of the Scottish knights of Rhodez; the old Marshal de Concressault; and young Ramsay Lord of Bothwell, with many gentlemen of his band—the Royal Guard—who wore the king's livery—red doublets, faced and slashed with yellow. These crowded around James, and on their glittering arms and excited faces the sunlight fell ill deep broad flakes of hazy radiance, through the grated windows of the old Gothic hall.
The sadness and dejection of James were apparent to all, as the noble Earl of Mar, the captain of Dunbarton—a peer whose family stood proudly pre-eminent in the annals of Scottish loyalty—conducted him to a chair on a dais at the end of the hall, over which hung a crimson cloth of state.
"On this unhappy day," said the Earl, "your majesty is more welcome to my house of Alloa than if you came to me flushed with the triumph of a hundred battles."
"I thank you kindly, my Lord of Mar," said he; "you are one of the few who know that through life I have struggled against an untoward and unhappy fate—or, as it would seem, an irrevocable destiny, which I can neither conquer nor avoid. Gladly would I change my father's crown for a shepherd's bonnet, and this lofty place for the sphere of those happy peasants who, in their narrow world, seem to pass through life without meeting an obstacle, simply because they are without ambition, and have few enemies. I never knew that the poor could be so happy till within these last few days which I spent among the brave hearts of good Sir Andrew's frigate."
"Hard work maketh a light heart at times," said the admiral, as his eyes glistened; "and I can assure your majesty, that never shipmate of mine would turn landsman again, to be bearded by every painted baron, and bullied by every cock-laird and cow-baillie whom he met at kirk or market."
"Are there no tidings yet of Rothesay?" asked James.
"None on which we can rely," replied the Earl of Mar.
"Or of Angus?"
"A body of horsemen, supposed to be his, marched eastward through the Torwood two days ago," replied the Duke of Montrose; "but whether bound for Edinburgh, or home to Galloway, no man can say; but the loyal nobles are gathering fast, and seven are now in waiting to pay their duty to your majesty."
"Seven—only seven, of all the peers of Scotland!"
"But seven is a fortunate number," said Father Zuill; "and even may prevail, when thirty might fail."
"Admit them at once, Earl of Mar," said James, "for this is not a time when a king of Scotland can trifle with his friends."
Marshalled by ushers, preceded by pages, and followed by esquires bearing their swords and helmets, there now entered seven nobles, all of whom the king knew well, and now they were the more welcome that they came completely armed. Among them were—Alexander, Earl of Glencairn, a Lord of the Privy Council, who had fought for James against the nobles in the Raid of Blackness; the aged Earl of Menteith, who in his youth had been a hostage for James I.; the Lords Graham, Ruthven, Semple, Forbess, and Gray, the High Sheriff of Forfar—a cousin of Sir Patrick, the infamous Governor of Broughty.
Though all unlettered and ignorant of scholarcraft as the most humble peasant of their time, all these lords had a high and noble bearing—for the age was one when pride of birth and long descent, with high military renown, were valued more than life; and, moreover, they were all hardy, strong, and athletic—browned by exercise, hunting, and hosting, and inured to war by the incessant feuds of the clans; thus, they wore their globular cuirasses, large elbow plates, and immense angular tuilles, or thigh-pieces, as easily as if they were garments of the softest silk. James rose up to welcome them, and each in succession knelt to kiss his hand.
"Welcome, my lords," said he; "what tidings bring you of our friends and foes?"
"I have brought your majesty three thousand good infantry from Cunninghame and Kyle," said Glencairn; "the same brave men who won me a coronet on the field of Blackness."
"A thousand thanks, brave Cunninghame! And thou, Ruthven?"
"A thousand and three brave fellows on horseback, all armed with morion, jack, and spear."
"And I, fifteen hundred archers and claymores," said the Lord Forbess, a weather-beaten and long-bearded noble, who wore the ancient Celtic lurich, with a plaid of his green clan-tartan, fastened by a silver brooch, upon his left shoulder; "I would they were as many thousands, to conquer or die in this good cause!"
All had a good report to make of their vassalage, and the king's spirit rose on finding, by computation, that these faithful peers had marched to Alloa somewhere about thirty thousand horse and foot, with many Highland archers; but these forces had very few cannon, and the only arquebussiers on whom they could rely were those of Sir Andrew Wood's ships.
"Montrose," said he, "mount messengers and despatch letters to those lairds who are captains of the Border castles; desire them to keep tryst at Melrose, and come in with all their lances and archers without an hour's delay."
Montrose, whose principal scribes were the poor poets who hovered about the court—such as William Dunbar and others—soon had the messages written and given to gentlemen of trust, who concealed them in the scabbards of their swords and poniards; and after being landed on the Carse of Stirling by the boats of theYellow Frigate, they departed on the spur towards the south.
While James was taking counsel of the loyalists on what course he should pursue, the venerable Duke of Montrose-Crawford entered again, with an expression of gloom and dejection so strongly marked on his face, that all the nobles turned towards him inquiringly.
"What now, my good Montrose," said the agitated king—"you have bad tidings—but what other can come to me? Have blows been struck, or has my poor son been slain? Speak, duke, for this suspense is torture."
"I have tidings, indeed, of double evil," said the aged peer, slowly, as if considering in what terms to impart them. "The Earls of Huntly, Errol, and Marischal, and the Lord Glammis, at the head of more than ten thousand men, have crossed the Forth at Stirling—"
"To join me—well?"
"Nay, to join the Earl of Angus, it is supposed; for they marched right under the cannon of the castle, and took their route through the Torwood."
"For where?" asked James, growing pale.
"None know. The prince—"
"Was with them," said James, bitterly.
"Nay, God forbid! He is said to be with Sir James Shaw, in the Castle of Stirling."
"'Tis well; we shall join him there, and together march against these rebel peers," said James, with flashing eyes. "Errol shall tyne his constable's staff, and perhaps his head with it. Is it agreed, my lords, that we march for Stirling and leave the ships of Sir Andrew Wood to guard the passage of the Forth?"
A murmur of assent replied.
"Let us to horse, then," said the king; "I would the queen were here, instead of praying at St. Duthac's shrine, in Ross. But to horse, sirs; and now what ails thee, kind Montrose?" asked James, placing a hand on the old man's shoulder, on perceiving that amid the general bustle which ensued, the donning of helmets and buckling of swords, this most faithful and aged noble stood irresolute, with sorrow impressed in his eyes and upon his face.
"Allace, your majesty," said he, "there are tidings of serious evil; the queen——"
"Is ill—my dear and loving Margaret; she left me sick and ailing sorely," said James, clasping his hands; "she is ill, while I am loitering here to play for a glittering bauble; she is ill, and where?"
"Allace the day! she is dead and in her coffin!" said Montrose, as he covered his kind old face with his hands and burst into tears.....
The unfortunate monarch was so crushed by these evil tidings, that his heart seemed almost broken, and his spirit sank lower than ever. His guiding-star was gone now, for she on whose advice he had ever relied as his most faithful friend and counsellor, during a stormy and unhappy life, was dead.
Margaret of Oldenburg, daughter of Christian I. of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, had been a woman of great beauty and amiability, tact and discernment, and their marriage had been a happy one, though at first purely political, having been brought about by Andrew, Lord Evandale, High Chancellor of Scotland. James had loved well his beautiful Dane, and they had three children, Rothesay, Alexander, Duke of Ross, and the little Prince John, styled, for a time, Earl of Mar. For eighteen years she had been his chief comfort amid every affliction, and the partner and soother of his sorrows; for the gentle Margaret had been all to him that a wise and politic queen, a dear and affectionate wife could be.
Mistrusting even the few nobles who had joined him (the faithful Montrose excepted), James lingered in deep sorrow another day at the old tower of Alloa, and then resolved to join the prince, his son, in the Castle of Stirling, there to assure him by the most solemn vows a heart-broken man might make, that he was innocent of Margaret Drummond's abduction, and would use every means to discover her. After that, he resolved to shut himself up in the fortress until the Highland clans—ever loyal and ever true—came down from the northern hills to his succour; for now rumour said that Grant of Grant, and Sir James Ogilvie of Lintrathen (afterwards the ambassador to Denmark), Hugh, Lord Lovat, with many of the Forbesses, Gordons, Keiths, and Meldrums had risen in arms, and were marching south to defend and enforce the royal authority on the rebellious Lowland lords.
By this time sure tidings were brought to Alloa, that the Earl of Angus, the Lords Drummond, Hailes, and Home, Sir William Stirling of the Kier, Sir Patrick Gray, and many others, had set up the standard of REVOLT at the town of Falkirk, in the fertile Carse of Stirling, where all the discontented lords and landholders of the three Lothians, Galloway, and the Borders, had joined them, with all the armed men they could collect; and together they formed a league, which for strength and daring had no parallel in the previous history of the kingdom, save the raid of the Douglasses in the reign of James II.
Sir James Shaw of Sauchie, Gray of Kyneff, and their minion, the infamous Borthwick, were among the most active in creating this unwarrantable rebellion.
The ancient burgh of Falkirk, which is so beautifully situated among the lands of the now fertile carse, wasthensurrounded by a dense forest of oaks and beeches, and near it lay a great morass, through which the Carron—that stream so famed in Celtic song and Roman war—flowed past the old Castle of Callendar, whose lords were for centuries comptrollers to the king. This town was then little more than a village, and consisted merely of a High-street and the Kirk Wynd, which led to the church of St. Modan, the pointed spire of which rose above the antique tenements of the Knights of Rhodez, whose preceptor possessed most of the property within the rising burgh. It was surrounded by a fortified wall having ports, one of which is yet remaining in the Back Row. Being loftily situated, and commanding an extensive view in every direction, it was admirably adapted for the muster-place of the rebel lords, whose whole desire was now to lure the unfortunate king to try their strength in battle. The town was filled by their troops; the cavalry occupied the High-street and Churchyard, while the chiefs had their quarters in the Castle of Callendar, the family seat of James, Lord Livingstone, where they held council by day, and wassail by night, drinking the comptroller's wine, and broaching his Lammas ale, "to the confusion of the king and of his parasitical favourites."
Here they were visited by the venerable and valiant Sieur de Concressault, who came alone, or at least attended only by three horsemen—one who bore his banner, a second who carried his helmet, and a third who sounded a trumpet; and, penetrating into the flushed, proud, and riotous company, who were drinking and roistering in the hall of Callendar, where they
"Carved at the meal with gloves to steel,And drank their red wine through the helmet barred,"
the marshal boldly announced to them what he had been desired to say by a mandate recently received from his master, the King of France. But before he spoke, this good soldier was shocked to perceive the young Duke of Rothesay (whom all the loyalists believed to be in Stirling) among these dark and fierce conspirators; for the false and subtle Shaw and others retained the heir of the crown among them, to give a colour and pretext to all their illegal actions—or at least, that on his young head some of the blame of revolt, and shame of defeat, should fall. He seemed pale and sad, and crushed in spirit; for he now felt convinced—thanks to the reiterations of Borthwick, Shaw, and Gray—that his father had destroyed both Margaret and her child; and as he was one of those who think it "better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all," his bitterness was great indeed.
"Marshal de Concressault," said he, "how did the king, my father, receive the tidings that I had left Dundee with these noble peers, and that they were in arms?"
"He wept."
"'Twas well," said Lord Drummond, sternly; "kings weep but seldom, and their tears are precious."
"Ay," added the grim and bearded Steward of Menteith; "and there be some in Scotland who shall yet greet tears of blude before this wark is owre! But what seek ye here, Laird of Pitmilty—speak! for our swords are longer than our patience?"
"My lords," said the ambassador, "the Kings of France and England declare that they consider it to be the common cause of all monarchs to protect the Sovereign of Scotland against you; for subjects must not be permitted to give laws unto a king, who, even although he were a tyrant, cannot be amenable to the authority of the people; for we have yet to learn that it is from them, rather than from God, he receives his throne and power."
All laughed loudly at this, for the "right divine" was never valued much in the Lowlands of Scotland; but Angus, who presided, struck his mailed hand like thunder on the table, and sternly imposed silence.
"Your king is not a tyrant, my lords," continued the aged marshal, warming as he spoke; "nay, we all know that no lady in the land was ever more good or gentle. And his errors, if he hath any, are the result of youth and evil counsellors——"
At this remark, a storm of angry mutterings pervaded the cuirassed and helmeted assembly.
"But suppose these men have done you wrong, my lords, is it wise, or is it noble, in a wild desire for vengeance, to endanger the safety of the most ancient kingdom in Europe, and the honour of its throne? These princes desire me to say, firmly and boldly, that no state can be so pure that corruption cannot creep into it; that you, my lords and gentles, should be cautious how ye shake the framework of the Scottish monarchy, and shatter its government, for they are ready to resent it; and, moreover, John, King of Denmark, Ferdinand of Spain, Maximilian of the Romans, the Dukes of Austria, Muscovy, Burgundy, and Brittany are ready to join France and England in punishing this revolt; and his Holiness Innocent VIII., by the voice of his legate, armed with full pontifical powers, will, ere long, pour the terrors of his indignation on all who are in rebellion against the Scottish crown."
Many a brow was knit, and many a sward half-drawn at this bold speech; but Angus waved his mailed hand, and again the multitude were still.
"Go back, De Concressault—go back to those false carles who sent you here," said he; "or, further still, to all those barbarous dukes and foreign kings, and tell them that the sacred rights of an old hereditary nobility shall not be shared with, or trampled on, by clodpoles and merchant-skippers, by hewers of wood and drawers of water, by men accustomed less to the sword than to the plough and hammer, the handloom and the tiller. Begone, I say, my Lord of Concressault; for if within another hour you are found within a mile of Callendar Yew, by the bones of St. Bryde, and by the soul of theDark Grey Man, from whom my blood is drawn, I will hang you on its highest branch, as the taghairm of victory to our cause!"
"Be it so," replied the Sieur de Monipennie, as he drew himself up with an air of scorn and military pride, and closed the umbriere of his helmet, as he donned it in defiance of them all. "On a coming day, I hope to requite this foul insult, and teach thee, Lord of Angus, that a Scottish gentleman—a Marshal of France—is as good as any peer that ever came of the Douglas Blood, and better, it may be."
Turning from the hall, he left Callendar with all speed, and crossed the Carse in the direction of the Forth, to rejoin the king at Alloa.
"How happy all these titled villains will be now," said the marshal to his esquire, who was no other than David Falconer.
"Nay, they may beglad, but scarcelyhappy," he replied. "There are our ships. Barton sees us, and sends off a boat."
"Say nought about our having seen that madcap prince among the rebels," said the old soldier; "for his father the king hath over many sorrows already to thole."
The moment the ambassador left Callendar, Sir James Shaw summoned Borthwick, who had been duly infeft in his three tenements in the burgh of Stirling.
"Mount," said he; "mount and ride, with forty chosen men, to Linlithgow, and thence to Edinburgh; display our banners at the burgh crosses—rouse the Gutterbloods of the Good Town, and the Whelps of the Black Bitch; say that the Falkirk Bairns and the vassals of Carse and Callendar have joined us to a man. Rouse one, rouse all against the parasites of James! those base-born courtiers who oppress the people—shout fire and sword, horse and armour! It is easy to gather the rascal mob, and raise an outcry. Here are a hundred lyons and rose-nobles——"
"English?"
"Ay, English rose-nobles," replied the subtle Laird of Sauchie, with one of his snaky smiles; "scatter them among the rabble; say they are from the good and charitable nobles—ha, ha! from Angus and from Drummond! Bait and draw on thecanaille; threaten them with war and pestilence; foretel the ruin of the burghs and the invasion of their privileges. Select villains—thou knowest many—harangue and arm them; say blood must flow. To arms by tout of horn and tuck of drum—against the court—and the muster-place is Callendar Wood. Say, to arms with Angus! who, like Warwick the Englishman, will become a maker of kings and a breaker of crowns in more ways than one. Tell the people and the poor that they must no longer be the stock-fish and foot-balls of the rich and noble; tell the rich and great that the base multitude have risen for plunder and the assumption of absurd privileges. Here, take my sword, it is a good Banffshire blade, and away to Edinburgh; see Napier, the provost, and say all I have said; for the papal legate is coming, and if once he sets his red legs on Scottish ground, the burghs are lost to the nobles for ever!"
While Sauchie repaired to his governorship in the Castle of Stirling, the firebrand Borthwick departed on his rebellious mission; for the revolted peers dreaded that, on the arrival of the Legate Adriano di Castello, who was hastening from Rome, the burgesses, and all who feared the censures of the Church, might join King James before a decisive battle was fought or a Revolution achieved.
The artful minion was very successful in his mission, and soon after, the flower of the Lothian spearmen—the finest infantry in Scotland—joined the rebel lords at Falkirk.