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I 



PEEFACE. 



In the following ps^s I haye endeayoured to describe 
sometlung of the manners tind inner life of the Lowland 
Seots at the period referred to, modernizing the language, 
which, to my English readers, might otherwise proye unin- 
telligible. 

For the political corruption of the Scottish noblesse at 
that — as at eyery other — ^period of. .their annals, ample 
proo& to support me are furnisbedib^i^fjS'ymer's Foedero," 
and « Tytler^s History ;" while tfie • fact Ijkst Henry VIII. 
and his suooessors too often employed in Scotland other and 
yery different emissaries than the two I shall introduce to 
the reader j has been atnply proyed by the Calendar of State 
Papers on Scotland, lately published by Mr. Thorpe, who 
flhowB us that, in addition to the deya«tations and burning 
of his lawless inyading armieB of English, Spaniards, and 
(Germans, he was base enough to hire secret assassini^ to 
remore all who were ininbioal to his matrimonial specula- 
tions in Scotland. 

Incidentally, I haye introduced the terrible episode of a 
Highland feud which occurred in the time of James Y. The 
siory of ''The Neish's Head" is still remembered in 
Stratheam j and I belieye a different yersion of it appeared 
some years ago in a work entitled " The Scottish Wars." 

The mode of torture mentioned in the adyenture at 
Millhengh Tower, was not uncommon in those barbarous 
dhjB, "HLj attention was called, by a friend, to a paper which 



IV PREFACE. 

is preserved at Cullen House, Banffshire, and which furnished 
the idea. 

It formed part of a collection of MSS. which belonged to 
the late Eev. John Grant, of Elgin, and which, with his 
library, he bequeathed to his chief, the Earl of Seafield. It 
refers to the feud between the Earls of Huntley and Murray 
(which ended in the murder of the latter, at the Castle of 
Donibristle, in Fifeshire), and is a copy of a petition from the 
latter noble, the chief of the Grants, and Dunbar, sheriff of 
Murray, praying the government of James VI. to grant 
them protection against Huntley and his followers, and 
craving redress for injuries which they had sustained at his 
hands. After narrating many instances of fire-raising and 
bloodshed perpetrated by the Gordons, it demands justice 
" for the cruel slaughter of John Mhor, son of Alaster Mhor 
Grant, a kinsman and follower of John Grant, of Freuchie, 
who was hanged and smeikU in the cruick, tUl he died, by 
Patrick Gordon, brother to William Gordon, of Monaltrie, 
and five or six others, at the instance and command of the 
said George, Earl of Huntley." 

In this document, which was dated 1591, there is another 
barbarity which I care not committing to print ; but such 
were the cruelties and recklessness of life, about the times 
immediately before and after the Beformation, and the 
regency of Mary of Lorraine. 

In the notes I have given a list — the gradual collection 
of years — of some of those Scottish gentlemen who fell in 
defence of their country on the 10th of September, 1547; 
and I have little doubt that many of my readers may dis- 
cover their ancestors amongst them. I have seen no similar 
list so ample, save one that I possess of the brave who died 
at Flodden with King James. 

26, Danube Street, Edinbuboh, 
May, I860, 



•», 



MARY OF LORRAINE, 



CHAPTER I. 

THE TOWER OF FAWSIDE. 

* The castle looketh dark without ; 

Within the rooms are cold and dreary ; 
Tlie chill light from the window fades; 

The fire it bnmeth all iincheery. 
With meek hands cross'd beside the hearth. 

The pale and anxious mother sitteth ; 
And now she listens to the bat 

That, screaming, round the window flitteth. 

Mai^ Howiit. 

Ten miles eastward from the Cross of Edinburgli, and two 
southward from ..the sandy shore of the Firth of Forth, 
stands an old and ruined fortalice, named the Castle of 
Fawside, on a green ridge which rises by gradual and 
gentle undulations, to the height of three hundred feet 
above the sea. 

In summer the* foliage of a group of venerable trees 
generally conceals much of this ancient mansion, which 
occupies a lonely and sequestered spot ; but its square 
cnimbling chimneys and round turrets, cutting the sky line 
above the leafy coppice, are visible to all who traverse the 
roads which lie at the base of the aforesaid ridge. Covered 
with wood, and a little to the westward, is the hill of 



2 THE TOWEB OF FAWSIDE. 

Carberry, the scene of Qaeen Mary's memorable surrender 
(some twenty years after the period of our present story) 
to those titled ruffians who styled themselves the Lords of 
the Congregation. 

The more ancient part of this mansion is of unknown 
antiquity, and consists of a narrow and massive tower, 
entered by a low-browed archway, built of deep-red sand- 
stone, facing the north. The arch gives access to a suite of 
those strong dark vaults which form the substructure of 
all old Scottish houses, and from thence, by a steep wheel 
stair (which contains a curious and secret hiding-place) we 
may ascend to a hall, the groined stone roof of which is still 
remaining, though covered on the top, where once the stone 
bartizan lay, by a coating of rich grass. 

Here, in this grim and narrow tower, in the twelfth 
century, dwelt William de Fawsyde, a baron in the first 
parliament of King David I. ; and his son Edmund, who 
stood by that brave monarch's side, when, in the monastery of 
the Holy Hood, he gifted the lands of Tranent to Thor, the 
son of Swan. The more modern parts of this ruin are on 
the south, and consist of a huge gable, having two massive 
turrets, a steep and narrow circular stair, and several large 
windows, in which the enormous harrow-shaped iron gratings 
are still remaining. Stone water-spouts, finely carved, 
project from these turrets ; but no date gives an index to the 
time of these additions, which are in the Scoto-French style 
of the sixteenth century. 

Like all such edifices in Scotland, this castle is haunted. 
It is the abode of a spectral lady, who wears a dule-weed, 
or antique suit of mourning, and appears once yearly, flitting 
among the ruins, on the anniversary of that Black Saturday 
in September when the fetal field of Pinkey was fought on 
the green slope and beautiful plain between the ruins and 
the sea. Benighted shepherds, gipsies, and other wanderers, 
vrho have ventured to seek shelter tinder the crumbling roof 



THE TOWEB 07 FAWBIDB. 3 

of the old hall, have more than once encountered her, to 
their terror and dismay ; but this restless spirit molests no 
one. Pale, sad, and silent, she generally sits in a comer of the 
great northern window, with her wheel or spindle, and like 
she of whom we read in the " Battle of Begillus," it has 
been said of her that, — 

** As she plied the distaff. 
In sweet voice and low, 
She sang of great old houses. 
And fights fought long ago ; 
So spun she, so sang she, until the east was grey. 
Then pointed to her bleeding heart, and shrieked and fled away.*' 

This quaint ruin, which i. sUU engirt by the remains o. 
a high barbican wall, entered by one of those strong yetlan 
iron gates peculiar to all baronial houses in Scotland, after 
the portcullis fell into disuse, was the residence and strong- 
hold of the Fawsides of that ilk — one of the oldest families 
in the Lowlands of Scotland. And now, with the reader's 
pardon for this somewhat archesological and architectural 
preamble, we will proceed at once to 6pen our story. 

In the year 1547, when the little Mary Queen of Scots< 
was a chubby child of five years old, and her turbulent and 
rebellious kingdom, then wavering between Catholicism and 
a new faith, for which there was no other name but Heresy, 
was governed by the soniewhat feeble authority of a regent, 
in the person of James Hamilton, second Earl of Arran, and 
next heir to the throne, the tower of Fawside was inhabited 
by Dame Alison Kennedy, widow of Sir John Fawside, who 
had been slain in a feud by the Hamiltons of Preston ; and 
this stern woman — ^for singularly stern she was by nature — 
was a Kennedy of the house of Colzea^, and cousin of that 
ferocious Earl of Cassilis, who, thirty-three years c^fter the 
epoch of this our history, deliberately roasted Allan Stewart, 
commendator of Orossraguel, before a blazing fire, having 
first denuded him of his dothes, and basted him well with 

b2 



4 THE TOWSS OF FAWSTDB. 

grease; and there, sputtering like a huge turkey, the 
hapless priest was turned upon a spit, until, with his 
scorched and shrivelled hand, he signed a charter, gifting all 
the lands of his abbey unto the earl and his heirs. 

On the evening of the 1st of August, the Feast of 
St. Peter ad Vincula (or the Festival of the Chains), 1547, 
this lady was seated at the northern window of her hall, 
gazing with fixed and anxious eyes over the tract of country 
that lay between her castle and the sea. Untouched and 
neglected, her ivory-mounted spinning-wheel stood near 
her; close by were six other wheels of plainer construc- 
tion, evincing that she and the women of her little house- 
hold had been spinning since the time of dinner, which, in 
those stirring days, was taken at the hour of twelve. 

The sun was setting beyond the purple hiUs of Dunblane, 
and its golden gleam lit all the far-extending shores of 
Lothian and of Fife, with their gray blufis, green bays, and 
sandy beaches, the straggling burghs of Crail and Kinghorn, 
and many a fisher-village, all dark and weather-beaten by 
the stormy gales that blow from the German Sea. At 
anchor in Musselburgh Bay were a few of those small craft 
which were then termed topmen, from their peculiar rigging, 
and which traded with the low countries in wool, skins, 
salmon, cloth, silks, and wine. They had huge square 
poops, and low prows beaked with iron, and were always 
well equipped with falcons, crossbows, and arquebusses, as 
a defence against English pirates and Moorish rovers. 

Save where a few cottages and a clump of trees dotted 
the slope here and there, the country was all open between 
the tower in which the lady sat, and the green knoll 
crowned by St. Michael's Kirk of Inveresk, and the high 
antique bridge and the thatched or stone-slated houses 
of the <' honest town" of Musselburgh. This venerable 
municipality was then terminated on the westward by a 
beautiful chapel, dedicated to our Lady of Loretto, to 



THE TOWER OF FAWSIDE. 5 

whose shrine the late King James Y., with taper in hand 
and feet and head bare, had made more than one pilgrimage 
for the health of his first queen, Magdalene of Yalois, and 
of his second, Mary of Lorraine ; for this old shrine shared 
all the fame and sanctity of its elder prototype in Italy. 
A great part of the adjacent town was in ruins, just as it 
had been left by the English after their invasion under Lord 
Hertford, three years before the date of our story. 

Below the hill of Inveresk lay a deep and dangerous 
morass, named the Howe Mire, then the haunt of the 
heron, the wild goose, and coot, the water kelpie, and the 
will-o'-the-wisp. 

lliree miles distant from the window at which Dame 
Alison was seated rose the high and narrow tower of 
Preston j and when her wandering eyes fell on its grim 
dark mass, they flashed with a hateful glare, while the 
gloom of her pale anxious brow grew darker, and its 
stem lines more deep ; for she hated the race of Hamil- 
ton, to whom it belonged, with all the hate a^ old Scottish 
feud inspired. 

On the green slope of Fawside Hill the shepherds, grey- 
plaided and bonneted, were driving home to fold and 
penn the flocks which had browsed there the livelong har- 
vest day ; and these were all of that old Scottish breed 
which is now completely extinct, but was small, active^ and 
keen-eyed, with tawny faces, hairy wool, and well-curved 
yellow horns. 

The quiet evening aspect of the pastoral landscape on 
which the lady gazed was not made more lively by the 
grisly forms of two dead men hanging upon the arm of 
an oak tree about a bow-shot from the tower gate, where 
the black rooks and ravenous gleds were perching or wheel- 
insr in circles round them. These imfortunates had been 
" hangit in their buits," as they phrased it in those days, 
by order of the baroness ; for there was then a law " that 



6 TBS VOWEB OF FAWSIDBi 

ilk baron might cleanse his lands of trespassers thrice in the 
year ; " so, on finding two on her estate of Fawside, she 
ordered them to be hanged, and, in five minutes thereafter, 
old Boger of the Westmains, her bailie, had them dangling 
from an arm of the dule tree. Her neighbours averred that 
this severity was exercised because the culprits bore the 
name of Hamilton ; and a greater horror was added to the 
episode by the discovery that certain portions of their limbs 
had been abstracted in the night, — '' Doubtless," said the 
bailie, " by the witches of Salt Preston, for the furtherance 
of their damnable cantrips." 

^'Half-past eight/' muttered Lady Alison, as the last 
segment of the ruddy sun sank behind the dark peak of 
Dumey^t, ''and no sign's yet of horse or man upon the 
upland road. TVoe to you, Westmains, for a loitering 
fool ! Thou art too old to scourge, and too faithful to 
hang, or, by my husband's grave, my mood to-night would 
give thee to one or other — the rod or the rope ! " 

As she spoke her thoughts aloud, in that manner peculiar 
to those who think deeply and are much alone, she beat the 
paved floor passionately with the high heel of her shoe. 
There she sat alone in that quaint old hall, with the sha- 
dows of night closing around her — alone, because she w^ a 
woman whom, from her stern nature and wayward humour, 
many feared and few loved. 

For the hundredth time that day, she anxiously consulted 
the horologue. This clock was a curious piece of mechanism, 
which occupied a niche in the hall, and was supported on 
four little brass pillars, surmounted by a metal dome, on 
which the hours were struck by a clumsy iron hammer. It 
bore the date 1507, and the name LexxdmhaU, having been 
found in an English ship taken by Sir Robert Barton, who 
had presented it as an almost priceless gift to her late 
husband. 

Nine o'clock struck from this sonorous horologue ; and 



lOWSR OF FAHSnWL 7 

ihen ihft pale moUier, wht^ in tlio8e perikms and stonny 
daja^ mitod fiir an only and long-absent son, struck ber 
b»ds deepainn^ together, and again seated herself at the 
grated window of the haD, to watch the darkening shadows 
withoat. 

Suddenly a sound struck her ear, and a horseman was 
seen galloping up the narrow bridle-path which traversed 
Fawade &ae and led direct to the castle walL 

** Nurse— nurse Maud !" said Lady Alison impetuously to 
an old woman wearing a curdiie and camlet gown, who 
joined her ; ** my eyes are full of teara^ and I cannot see — 
is that horseman our baiin, or only old Westmains f ** 

€c ^'£^ Westmains — 1 would ken his grey mare amang a 
thousand. 

" He ridetli fast, nurse, for a man so old in years.** 

" Yea ; but a drunken man and a famished horse come 
fiist home to bower and stall," responded the Abigail crastily ; 
''the hour is late, and Preston's men were at Edinburgh 
market to-day ; so, perhaps our bailie had a shrewd guess the 
way might be beset between the night and morning." 

''Beset!— and my son ^ muttered the pale mother 

through her clenched teeth. 

"Fear na for him ; he has friends ■ ■ " 

"Friends!" 

" Tes, madam — his sword and dagger, and stout hands to 
wield them ! But here comes that drunken carle, the 
baiHe." 

As the nurse spoke, the horseman trotted his nag into the 
paved barbican of the tower, and dismounted. 



8 W£3TUAINS. 



CHAPTER 11. 

WESTMAINS. 

Oh, when will ye come hame again ? 

Dear Willie, tell to me ; 
" When Bun and moon loup o'er yon hill — 

And that will never be ! " 
She turned hersel right ronnd about. 

Her heart burst into three ; 
" My ae best son is dead and gane, 

The other I ne'er shall see." 

Old BaUad. 

" A light/' exclaimed Lady Alison ; " a light, that I may 
sec by this loiterer's face whether he be tipsy or sobor !" 

Candles were soon flaming in the numerous sconces of 
polished tin and brass that bung on knobs around the hall, 
and shed a cheerful light through every part of it ; yet it 
was not without what we in these days would deem a quaint 
and weird aspect. Many centuries had darkened this old 
mansion, and twelve generations had hung their swords in 
that baronial hall. It is lofty, arched with stone, and its 
walls are still massive, deep, and strong. Father Seton, the 
vicar of the adjacent village, who was locally known as Mass 
John of Tranent, and to whose writings we are indebted 
for much that concerns this old family, has left a minute 
description of all the « gear and inside plenishing of the 
castle." 

Large oak chests, gimels and almries, the receptacles of 
linen, vessels for the table, food, corn, and beer, occupied 
the recesses. Trophies of arms and racks of spears stood 
between the windows. In this apartment there were but two 
chairs of carved oalc. These, as usual then in Scottish halla 



WESTMAIXS. 9 

stood on each side of the fireplace : one, being for the father 
of the family, had never been used since the slaughter of 
Sir John Fawside by the Laird of Preston ; the other was 
for Dame Alison. Kound the hall were ranged various 
forms, creepies, and buffet stools ; these, like the long table, 
were all of black old oak from the Burghmuir, and allotted 
to the use of the family or visitors. The stone seats in the 
windows were laid over with cushions of Flemish damask, 
and had footmats of plaited rushes from the Howe-mire. 
The stone walls, which, as the season was warm, were di- 
vested of tapestry, had been recently decorated by Andro 
Watson, the late king's favourite painter, and bore numer- 
ous gaudy and quaint designs, representing family traditions, 
such as passages of arms and daring feats performed in war 
or in the chase. 

Over the arched fireplace stood the portrait of uraquhile 
Sir John of that ilk, the work of the same hand. Quaint, 
stark and stiff, he was on foot, in an old suit of mail of the 
fifteenth century, jagged with iron beaks ; a snowy beard 
flowed below his girdle, and his right hand grasped the 
bridle of a white horse, on the back of which this gtdm 
figure had frequently been found mounted at midnight, 
as nurse Maud, and other old servants, had more than 
once affirmed ! — for Fawside Tower was haunted even 
then, as a matter of course. Too much blood had been shed 
ill and about it, and too many of its mailed proprietors had 
perished by bloody and violent deaths, for the mansion to 
be without its due proportion of spectral appearances and 
mysterious sounds. 

Thus, an antique copper bell which swung at the gable of 
the tower tolled of its own accord, and all untouched by 
mortal hand, when a Fawside died ; and on the Eve of St. 
John, a bearded visage, averred by seme to be that of the 
late liiird, peeped in the twilight through the hall windows, 
though these were more than twenty feet from the ground. 



10 WEBmAnnii 

The gleamiilg eyes would gase sadly for a moment on the 
shrinking beholder, and then the visage melted slowly away 
into air. 

Above the mantelpiece, as above the barbican gate, were 
the arms of this old &mily— -gales, a fess between three 
besants, the heraldic badge assigned to a predecessor who 
had been in Palestine — Sir Robert of that ilk, having served 
St. Lonis IX« in the last crusade, and taken the motto Fairik 
amd few nochi : but enough of this dull archsBology, and 
now to resume our narrative. 

Followed by several of the household, male and female, all 
anxious to learn what the towui news was, and chiefly 
whether there were any tidings of their young master^s 
return from France, where he had been resident nearly 
seven years, the ground bailie, Roger Fawside, of the West- 
mains, a vassal and remote kinsman, entered the halL He 
was a stout and thickset man, about fifty years of age ; his 
beard was grizzled and grey, like' his Lombard coat, which 
had long hanging sleeves, with rows of horn buttons from 
the shoulder to the wrist. He wore grey breeches and 
white ribbed stockings gartered at the knee, a blue bonnet, 
a sword and dagger, slung at a calf-skin girdle. Doffing his 
bonnet, he made a reverence to Lady Alison, and walking 
straight to where, upon a binn, near the hall door, there 
stood a barrel of ale furnished with a wooden cup, for all 
who chose to drink thereat ; he drew forth the spiggot, and 
proceeded to fill the aforesaid vessel with a foaming draught. 
With her brows knit, and her dark eyes flashing, the tall 
old dame came hastily forward, and by one blow of her 
jewelled hand, dashed from his the wooden tankard, while 
she exclaimed — 

** Satisfy my impatience, carle, ere you satisfy your thirst ! 
Well, what tidings of my son, Westmains, or of his ship ? 
speak, and quickly too, for you have tarried long enough ! ^ 

*' A ship supposed to be his, my Lady Alison, was seen 



VT 



WBSnCAIKB. 11 

on the water of Forth this morning, but she hath not come 
to land." 

'' This morning ^» 

« Yes," 

« Art snre of this ? " 

" Sure as I live, madam." 

''And he not here yet ! " pondered the lady. 

" The skippers at Mnsselburgh kent her well — a French 
gaUey, high pooped and low waisted, with King Henry's 
banner displayed ; men called her the S<damandre, or some 
snch name." 

*' Likely enough ; 'tis the crest of the late king's mistress, 
Diana, the Duchess of Valentinois ; and this " 

" Was about the dawning of the day, madam." 

" And since then," continued the lady impatiently, " she 
has not passed the Inch." 

'' There have been no storms to delay the ship ? " 

" None, save that made by Girzy Gowdie, of Salt Pres- 
ton, by baptising a cat in the devil's name last week, as we 
a' ken." 

*' But that storm came and went to drown a skipper of 
Dunbar, who had slighted her daughter." 

''And yesterday," added Nurse Maude, "she did her 
penance under a pile o' tarred barrels on Gulane Links." 

'' nightly was she served, the accursed witch ! " re- 
sponded Roger of Westmains, recovering the wooden cup 
and applying it hastily to the spiggot of the barrel, from 
whence he achieved a draught of ale ; " for 'tis now kenned 
that when she rode forth on a broom stick, in the auld 
fashion, thrice a year, to keep the devil's sabbath at Clootie's 
Croft, on the Lammermuir, she left in bed beside her 
gudeman, a three-legged stool in the likeness of herself; 
and the said stool (which was burned wi' her) only as- 
sumed its own fofm when Father John of Tranent, chanced 
to pass that way, telling his beads, about the matin time." 



12 wissniAurs. 

" Cease this gossip, bailie/' said the lady, starting again 
to tte north window ; " a horseman ! — see, see ! — a horseman 
at last is ascending the brae side." 

" But he wheels off to Carberry," added the nurse, in a 
voice like a moan. 

" Alas ! " exclaimed this stem woman, as her eyes began 
to fill with tears — ** my son ; why comes he not 1 " 

" The dogs howled the lee lang night,** said the wrinkled 
nurse, applying her apron to her eyes ; "and 'twas not for 
nocht that yonder howlet screamed on the cape-house head 
yestreen.'* 

" What mean ye, Maud 1 " asked the lady sharply. 

" They are kenned omens of evil." 

" Of evU say ye ! " % 

" Yes — weel awat it is ! " 

** Havers, Ximmer ! " said the ground bailie, taking another 
jug of ale ; "just an auld wife'^i havers ! " 

" Thou art right, Westmains," added Lady Alison ; "for 
I have believed but little in omens since Floddeu Field was 
stricken." 

" Why since then, lady 1 " 

" On the morn my husband marched from here to join the 
king's host on the Burghmuir of Edinburgh, as he combed 
his beard — and a braw lang beard it was, Westmains" 

" I mind it weel, for it spread from ilk shoulder to the 
other, covering corslet and pauldrons." 

"Well, as he combed it out with a steel comb twelve 
inches long, and buckled on his armour, lo ! there appeared 
before him, in the mirror — ^what think ye all ? " 

"I know not," replied the bailie, in his abstraction 
contriving to fill a third jug of ale ; " but many strange 
sights were seen in those days. We a' ken o' the spectres 
that King James saw at Lithgow Kirk and Jeddarfc Ha' ; 
and of the wierd spirit-herald who summoned the souls ot * 
the slain — the doomed men of the battle at Edinburgh Cross." 



13 

** Bat what tluiik yoa 1117 poor hnalwiid saw t " 

**Ab1 Hwe, I know not^" replied the bailie ; while the 
hnshed crowd of dependents drew near to listen. 

''A mort bead whoB his own comely &oe should hare 
been !" 

« IVeaenre OS a' ! " 

" Our lady o' Whitehom ! " 

^ Say ye so, my lady t * 'were the Taried exclamations of 
the servants. k 

" Yes ! — ^there stood the shining reflection of his cuirass, 
pauldronsy and sleeves of Milan plate^ jnst as we see them 
limned in yonder portrait ; bnt the goiget was sarmounted 
by a grinning sknlL And yet he fell not with the king an 
that £ital ninth of September." 

^ God rest him now, in his grave in Tranent Kirk ! He 
was a leal brave man, our laird ! " 

''Tme, Westmains," replied the lady, while her laigo 
black eyes kindled. ** But none of his race have died a 
natural death — ^it woold seem to be tbeir doom. All, all have 
perished in fend or in the cause of Scotland ; and though 
my heart would break were a hair of my Florence's head to 
be touched, never shall son of this house die in his bed like 
a £5it monk of St Mary or a Inrdane burgess of Hadding- 
ton." 

^ Thou art true to thy race, Lady Alison.** 

"Tell me what other news you heard, Westmains, in 
yonder borough town % " 

''A band of abominable witches have been dancing about 
the market cross, as they did last Hallowe'en, with the deil, 
in the likeness of a hairy Hielandman, playing the pipes to 
them." 

" Pshaw I And yet, 'tis strange — this witchcraft, like the 
spirit of lioUardy, seems to grow apace in the land." 

" They have been caught, and are to thole an assize. One 
is accused of giving devilish drugs and philtres to the Earl 



of BothweD, wherewith to win the love of the queen 
mother" 

" Mary of Lorraine ? '* 

*^ Another, of catting off a dead man's thumhs to make 
hell-broth, wherein she dipped nine elf-arrows, and shot nine 
o' auld Preston's kye." 

" A murrain on him ! Would to Heaven the hag had shot 
himself 1 But he is reserved for*a better end." 

"How?" 

" Can you ask 9 " said the lady fiercely. '* To die by a 
Fawside's sword — ^by the sword of my only son ! * 

"And there was taken," resumed the garrulous bailie, 
" a grisly warlock, to whose house in Lugtoi^ last Lammas- 
tide, there came the deil " 

" Save us and sain us ! " muttered the servants, crossing 
themselves — for Scotland was Catholic still, in outward 
form, at least, and the credulity of the people seems almost 
incredible now. 

" The devil I say you, Boger ? " asked the lady, becoming 
suddenly interested. 

" The grim black deil himsel, but in the likeness of a £siir 
woman — ^the Queen of Elfen, — and was there delivered of a 
female bairn, who in the space of three weeks grew large 
enough to become his wife, and through whom he knew as 
much as ever True Thomas did of old ; for he confessed that 
by taking a dog under his left arm, and whispering in his 
ear the queer word macpeblia, he could raise the King of 
Evil, his master, at will ; and by sprinkling a blanket with 
Esk water, as a spell, he drew all the dew and verdure of 
Wolmet-maiDs to his ain farm land, leaving the other 
bare and. withered. Then, worse than a', when Wolmet's 
wife was lying in her childbed-lair, by devilish cantrips, he 
cast the whole of her pain, dolor, and sickness upon John 
Guidlat, the baron bailie of Dalkeith, who, daring the entire 
time of her travail, was marvelloosly troubledi with suoh 



WBsniAiss. 15 

agonies, fary, and madnese, that it took the town drummer, 
the bellman and piper to boot, to hold him ; bat the moment 
the gentlewoman was delivered, Johu felt himself a whole 
man, and well ; and so, for all these things, the grey warlock 
o' Lugton is to be brankit wi iron^ and worried by fire at 
the GaUows-haugh." 

" Enough of such tidings as these ; heard ye nought else 
at Edinburgh-Cross, Westmains ? " 

"Elsel" 

'* Yefif, 'tis of my son and the state I would speak, — ^not 
the wretched gossip of an ale-brewster*s spence. What is 
the queen-mother, — what are the Begent Arran and his 
peatHeot HamUtons about ? *' 

•' The regent bydes him at Holyrood, the queen-mother 
at her house on the Castle-hill ; and there seems but little 
love and muckle jealousy between them yet, as I learned 
from a proclamation anent false coining, for which I saw 
three Frenchmen hanged and beheaded this morning." 

" Anything more 1 " 

" Odslife 1 I think that was enough to see before breaking 
one's £Eist ; and then their heads were spiked, where six 
others gim, on the Bnsto Forte." 

*' Groose ! I would thine was with them ; for the news I 
seek oozes out of thee like blood-drops." 

'* And there was an Irish leper woman branded by a hot 
iron on both cheeks, for returning uncleansed to her own 
house in St. Ninian's How." 

" Oh, Westmains, my heart is heavy ! " said the lady, 
seating herself after a pause, during which the ground bailie 
had filled and drained a fourth cup, to which a fifth would 
have succeeded had not Nurse Maud, as a hint that he had 
imbibed enough already, angrily driven home the spiggot : 
'* This day is the first of August ; and at noon we heard 
Father John of Tranent say mass for St. Peter's benediotion, 
that the shorn lambs might escape the danger of oold*' 



16 WESXUAIKS. 

** Mass according to the ancient wont." 

'' Mass according to the Church and faith of our fathers/* 
continued the ladj^ with some asperity j and then she added 
plaintively, '' I was in hopes that my son — my absent lamb 
— would be with us ere sunset, and yet he comes not." 

" A braw lamb," said Westmains merrily ; " a tall and 
proper youth, six feet high, in full steel harness, with sword, 
dagger, and spurs." 

" A lamb he is to me, Roger ; though I trust he may yet 
prove worse than a wolf to that old fox, Hamilton of Pres- 
ton. Oh, why doth he tarry ? " continued the mother, 
beginning to soften ; " can danger have beset him 1 " 

" Consult Mass John anent this," whispered the nurse ; 
" his prayers are as spells of power " 

" For those that pay him weel," added the bailie under 
his beard, while he scratched his chin. 

" Will his prayers bring home my bairn, if a fair wind 
fails him, think ye 1 " 

" I dinna ken. Like Our Lady's image in the Nunraw of 
Haddington, they bring rain when the Tranent folk need it 
to gar their kail grow ; or make the weather fair and clear, 
as the case may be ; then why may they not bring hame 
the young laird 1 " 

" Ay, why, indeed ! " muttered the nurse. 

" Oh, peace, you silly carlin 1 " 

" As you please, madam," retorted Maud. " But there is 
a wise woman in Preston-grange ^* 

« And what of her ? " 

" She can forsee things to come, and the return o' folk 
that are far awa, by turning a riddle wi' shears " 

" Nay, nay ; I would rather see my son no more than 
see him by necromancy and acts against God's holy word. 
Nurse. But Preston's men have been .abroad to-day, and 
they seldom ride on a good errand," said Lady Alison, start- 
ing from her seat with a new glow of anger and terror in 



WESTMAINS. 17 

her breast ; '^ but woe to them if aught happens to mj son, 
for bearded men shall weep for it, and I will kill Preston 
on his own hearthstone, as I would a serpent in its lair ! 
If that foul riever, who slew my husband under tryst, and 

my brave and winsome "Willie but he dare not !" she 

added, checking the bitter surmise by a husky and intense 
whisper; " no, he dare not ! " 

And, mnking into her diair, with nervous fingers she 
grasped the arms of it, and fixed her wild dark eyes upon 
the wall, as if she saw there in imagination the hereditary 
foeman of her husband's house. 

'' Yes, yes, he will be here in the morning," she said sud- 
denly, " for the ship has been seen. Nm*8e Maud, look out 
the best domick napery, and have a fire of turf and coal 
lighted in his room; hang the crimson curtains on the 
carved stand-bed, and the green arras on its tenter-hooks. 
See that the kitchen wenches set a posset of spiced alicant 
to simmer by the ingle — ^for the mornings are chill now; let 
them look well to what is in the ^ence and almerie against 
his hame-coming. We must make a feast. Nurse ; for afber 
seven years in France our auld Scottish fare will be alike 
welcome and new to him." 

'' Seven years^" said Maud, thoughtfully. 

*' Yes, Nurse; seven years come yule-tide hath our beloved 
bairn been absent from our hearth and hame." 

Westmains went away to his grange, or farm, which lay 
westward of the tower. The strong gates of yetlan iron 
were now closed for the night, and the lady of Fawside 
retired, to pray for her absent son, who at that moment was 
only ten miles distant, but lying on his back, bleeding and 
ga^ed by three wounds : but I anticipate my story. 



18 THE DEATH FEUD. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE DEATH FEUD. 

Then pale, pale grew her tearfa' cheek, 

** Let ane o' my sons three 
Alaue guide this emprise, your eild 

May ill sic travel dree ! 
O where were J, were my dear lord. 

And a* my sons to bleed ; 
Better to brook the wrong, than sae 
To wreck the high misdeed." 

ffai'dyknute. 

Several days passed; and though the ship had certainly 
come from France, and lay near the Beacon Rock, with all 
her sails furled, there came no tidings of the widow's son. 
Horsemen rode east, and horsemen rode west ; the burly 
Roger of Westmains wore himself almost to a shadow, and 
every steed in the stables was completely knocked up ; but 
no trace of Florence Fawside had been discovered, from the 
time he left the barge of M. de Villegaignon, at the old 
wooden pier of Leith. And now, with the reader's permission, 
we will go back a little in our story. 

The Fawsides of that ilk were neither powerful nor 
wealthy, and their purses bore no proportion to their pride 
or their pedigree; but they were landed barons of good 
repute, who took (or gave, which matters not) their name 
from their own property, bringing thence in time of war or 
tumult forty armed men to the king's host. Faithful and 
true in times of treason and invasion, this fine old race had 
never failed the Scottish crown ; but a deadly, bitter, and 
inextinguishable feud, one of those, hereditary and trans- 
mitted hatreds peculiar to some Scp.l^tisHi families, existed 



THE DEATH FEVD. 19 

between them and tbe Hamiltons of Preflton, whose lofty 
baronial tower stands about three miles distant from Faw- 
side Hill. 

William of Fawside served under David I., in his war 
against Stephen of England, and saved his life at the Battle 
of Northallerton. For this service he received, that night, 
a charter written on the head of a kettle-drum, the only 
piece of parchment which the Chancellor, Bishop Engelram, 
had at hand, and it is remarkable for a laconic simplicity 
peculiar alike to the age and countiy : — 

'^ David Dei Gratice Rex ScoUorum, to all his people 
gi^eting. Elnow ye that I have granted unto William, son 
of Adam, son of John of Fawside, the right of pasturage on 
Gladsmuir, in perpetual gift, until the Day of Doom." 

Now, in future years, long after the saintly David and the 
mailed knight who fought by his stirrup at Northallerton 
had been gathered to their fathers, there sprang up the 
Hamiltons, whose tower, of Preston was adjacent to this 
muir or waste land ; and the charter of the Fawsides was 
deemed sufficiently vague to make them claim the right of 
having the pasturage in common. Scotsmen required little 
excuse for unsheathing the sword in those sturdy old times ; 
and hence, about this miserable tract of ground, which was 
covered with broom, whin, heather, and huge black boulder- 
stones, the rival barons quarrelled and fought from genera- 
tion to generation, carrying their cause of feud even to the 
foot of the throne. More than once, in the time of James lY., 
Fawside and Preston, with their armed followers, had fought 
a desperate combat at the Market-cross of Edinburgh, and 
been forcibly expelled by the citizens, led by their provost. 
Sir Richard Lawson, of Boghall and Highrigs, who perished 
at Flodden. Again and again they had been forfeited by 
the Parliament, outlawed by the King, and excummunicatcd 
by the Abbot of Holyrood ; but each maintained himself in 
his strong old tower, and seemed never a whit the worse. 

c 2 * 



20 THE DEATH FEUD. 

When the Court of Session was established by James Y., 
their dispute "anent meithes and marches" was brought 
forward, and their case was the first on the roll ; but during 
its discussion (which sorely puzzled lawyers who were unable 
to sign their names) they so beset the lords with fire and 
sword on the highway and in their own residences, each 
threatening to cut off all who were Mendly to the other, 
that the plea was indignantly thrust aside, and they were 
lefb to settle it by the old Scottish arbiter of justice, the 
broadsword. 

They were the terror of East Lothian ; they fought when- 
ever they met, and each houghed, killed, or captured the 
sheep and cattle of the other, whenever they were found 
straying upon the disputed territory. 

About twenty years before the period of our story, Sir 
John Fawside and Claijde Hamilton of Preston (both of 
whom had fought valiantly at Flodden, and rendered each 
other good service in that disastrous field), accompanied by 
several gentlemen, their friend^, at the particular request of 
the good King James V. — the King of the Commons and 
Father of the Poor, as he loved to style himself, — met on 
Gladsmuir, with the solemn intention of peacefully adjusting 
the long-vexed question of their boundaries, and setting 
march-stones upon the common. They' were attended by 
certain learned notaries, who had been duly examined and 
certified by the bishop of their diocese, "as being men of 
feith, gude fame, science, and law;" but the tedium and 
technicalities of these legal pundits proved too dreary for 
such " stoute and prettie men," as an old diarist terms our 
two feudatories ; and, in short, Sir John and Hamilton soon 
came to high words. In the dispute, Eoger of Westmains 
closed up beside his leader, and on drawing his sword, 
received a stroke from the truncheon of an adversary. 
Roger ran him through the body, and on the instant all 
came to blows in wild Tiidee, Every sword was out of its 



THE DEATH FEUD. 21 

scabbard, every baud uplifted, and every tongue shouting 
taunts and the adverse cries of — 

" A Hamilton ! a Hamilton ! " 

" Fawside— * Forth and fear nocht 1 ' " 

The notaries tucked up the skirts of their long black 
gowns, and fled, while the clash of swords continued on the 
grassy common, where many a horse and man went down ; 
but the Hamiltons proved the most powerful, being assisted 
by the vassals of their kinsman, the Earl of Tarrow. 
Fawside- was slain, and all his followers were routed, and 
pursued by the exulting victors up the grassy brae to the 
gates of the tower, on the iron bars of which the Hamil- 
tons struck with their sword-blades, in token of triumph 
and contempt. 

When the brave Sir John fell, his neighbours were un- 
charitable enough to regret that he had not (before his 
departure) given Preston a mortal wound ; as all deemed 
it a pity that two such fiery and restless spirits should be 
separated for a time, even by the barriers of the other 
world. Denuded of his knightly belt and sword, Sir John's 
body was found among the green whins upon the moor, 
and was buried in the church of Tranent, where a tablet 
in the north wall Ml bears his arms, surmounted by a 
helmet, and inscribed simply, — 

'' Sio^n dPaioitae of ti^at fttt/' 

Three bullets fired from calivers were found in his body. 
His widow had these carefully extracted, with the intention 
of returning them to Claude Hamilton with terrible interest ; 
and thrice she dipped the dead man's dagger in the blood 
that oozed from his wounds, with the hope that, in a future 
time, her oldest boy might cleanse the blade in the blood 
of the slayer. 

Dame Alison was a fierce and stern woman, " animated 



22 THE DEATH FEUD. 

by such terrible passions as the heroines of the middle ages 
alone possessed." The partner and partaker of all her 
husband's ideas, his rights and wrongs — real or imaginary, — 
she now became inspired by one prevailing thought, and 
one only — revenge ; — ^and so absorbed was she by this de- 
vouring passion, that nothing in this world seemed to pos- 
sess the least interest or value, unless it might feed this 
demon, or further the terrible object she had in view. 
Secluded in her gloomy tower, with her two sons, William 
and Florence at her knee, she told them a thousand times 
the dark, bloody story of the old hereditary feud and hate 
— of their father's fall, and how, when tall men and strong 
soldiers, they must avenge it, by slaying him who proved his 
destroyer in time of truce and tryst — slaying him as they 
would a wolf in his den, or a serpent in his lair. And as 
she poured these wild incentives to future bloodshed into 
their boyish ears, she would point to where the tower of 
Preston reared its tall grim outline between them and the 
sea^ and say such things as such a mother, living in that 
wild age and warlike land, alone could say, till the little 
impulsive hearts of the boys panted like her own, in antici- 
pation of the hour that would lay Hamilton at their feet, 
and avenge that day's slaughter on Gladsmuir and Fawside 
brae. 

She gave each one of the bullets found in her husband's 
corpse ; the third she reserved and wore at her neck, with 
the intention that if her sons' hands failed her when they 
grew to manhood, she had still one left for vengeance in 
her own. 

She would have appealed to the king ; but the house 
of Hamilton was then in the zenith of its power, and com- 
plaints against one of a sept so numerous could find no 
echo at Falkland or at Holyrood ; and so the years passed on. 

Because Sir John had died unconfessed, and had been 
suspected of Lollard v, the Vicar of Tranent had at first re- 



THE DEATH FEUD. 23 

fused bim Chorch rites. For this affiront, the stem dame 
denied him the corse>presents exacted then by the priests, 
and nntil the Reformation, in 1559 — ^to wit, the best cow o^ 
the deceased; the ume^^iaith, or uppermost covering ok 
the b'^d whereon he lay, together with the silver commonly 
called Kirk-richts ; and farther, she threatened to send 
Westmains with a troop of hoFse, to barn both kirk and 
vicarage about the ears of his reverence. 

Yearly, on the anniversary of her husband's fall, she 
went, with hair dishevelled, feet bare, and a taper in her 
hand, to hear mass said for his soul, in the church of 
Tranent ; and after the service, with an irreverence which 
even the old vicar &iled to restrain, she invoked the curses 
of Heaven on the Hamiltons of Preston. Her sons heard 
these things ; they sank deep into their little hearts, and 
absorbed all their thoughts. 

Often when she prayed at her husband's tomb (it had 
now become her altar) she imagined that strange sounds 
came from it ; that she heard him chiding her delay in 
avenging him in this world and joining him in the next ; 
and these morbid fancies fostered yet more her spirit of 
revenge. 

By her injunctions, the gudeman of Westmains left 
nothing undone to render the boys hardy, stout, and 
athletic, and expert in the use of weapons of every kind ; 
thus, ere TVilliam, the eldest, who possessed great conieli- 
ne^ of face and beauty of person, had reached his twelfth 
year, he was master of the sword and dagger, the bow and 
arquebuse ; and he could toss a pike, pitch a bar, or handle 
a quarterstaff with the best man in the baroily. His brother 
Florence had gone to France, as page in the suite of Anne 
de la Tour de Vendome (the widowed duchess of the regent, 
John of Albany), who had promised Lady Alison he would 
return the most accomplished cavalier in Scotland ; and, as 
related, he had now been seven years absent. 



H THB DEATH FEUD. 

Eired by the story which his mother never oeased repeat* 
ing and enforcing, by touching references to the empty chair 
which stood nnused by the hall fire, to the unused plate 
that was placed daily on the hall table, to keep alive the 
memory of the slain man whose rusty arms and mouldering 
garments were hung in conspicuous places, and to all of 
which Dame Alison hourly drew the attention of her boys, 
— fired by the reiteration of all this, one evening, in the 
autumn of 1541, when EEamilton of Preston had just re- 
turned firom the battle of Haldenrig, where the army of 
Henry YIII. had been defeated with considerable slaughter, 
William Fawside, then in his fourteenth year, without consult- 
ing his mother, Father John of Tranent, or his warlike pre- 
eeptor, old Roger of the Westmains, presented himself at the 
iron gate of Preston tower, and, while his swelling heart beat 
high and his smooth cheek flushed crimson with the conscious- 
ness of his own audacity, he demanded of the surly and 
bearded warder admittance to the laird. The servants of 
the latter narrowly and insolently scrutinized the boy, who 
bore the arms of his house, gtUes, a fess between three besants, 
worked in crimson and gold on the breast of his velvet 
doublet. 

'' See that he has nae weapon — nae sting aboot him, the 
young wasp ! " said Symon Brodie, the butler, whose name 
and convivial habits have come down to us in a famous old 
drinking song. 

" They are kittle cattle, the Fawsides," whispered Mungo 
Tennant, the warder, as they ushered the boy into the high- 
arched hall, where the grim old laird was reclining asleep in 
a huge black leather chair, covered by a woirs-skin, and 
seated near a fire that blazed on the tiled hearth. 

'' Bairn ! " he exclaimed, with more astonishment than 
anger, on being wakened, '' what want ye of me 9 ** 

" My father's sword ! " replied young William boldly. 

''Your fiither 1 — And who was he, my callant?" 



THE DEATH FEUD. 25 

" Sir John of Fawside and that ilk '' 

"Aha!" 

''He whom ye foully slew under tryst^ as all in the 
Lothians know." 

The high, stern brow of old Preston grew black as night. 
He grasped the carved arms of his high-backed chair, and 
for a moment surveyed the boy with a terrible frown ; then, 
perceiving that he neither quailed nor shrank under this 
glance, but stoutly paid it back, though his little heart 
trembled at his temerity, Preston relaxed his ferocity a 
little, and grimly replied, under his shaggy moustache, 

" Ye lie, ye d — d little limmer ! — and they who told ye 
so, foully lie ! I slew him, true ; but it was in fair fight, and 
at open feud, as Qod and all braid Scotland be my judge ! *' 

" Be that as you will, I want his sword ; and, betide me 
weal, betide me woe, I shall have it ! " 

« His sword 1 " 

«Yes!" 

" For what purpose ? " 

" That ye shall ken anon," replied the boy with flashing 
eyes and clenched hands. 

"Ye have the dour devilish look o' that termagant 
Kennedy, your mother, in ye, lad You are the widow's 
son Willie, I suppose ) *' 

" I am. Your insolent grooms here ken me weel ; and 
better shall they ken me ere this death feud be stanched ! 
But the sword, Claude Hamilton of Preston ! — I say, my 
&ther's sword ! " 

'* But what want ye with it, loon 1 " 

"To stab you to the heart, when the time comes," 
roponded the fearless boy. 

" By my faith ! this little devil takes fire like the match 
of an arquebuse ! " growled the tall, grim laird. 

" My fether's sword^ foul riever ! " continued Willie, 
stamping his foot. 



26 THE DEATH FEUD. 

Old Preston now laughed outright, for the boy^s daring 
charmed his warlike spirit. 

" Though lawful spulzie, taken in combat and under har- 
ness, receive the sword, and welcome, bairn," replied Preston, 
unhooking from the wall one of those long cross-guarded 
and taper-bladed swords used in the early part of the 
fifteenth century, and handiug it the boy, who trembled 
with stern exultation as he there kissed the hilt of polished 
steel. ** It was good King James's gift to your father on 
that bloody morning when first we forgot our quarrel and 
fought side by side, like brither Scots, on the green slope of 
Flodden Hill, where our best and bravest were lying on 
the brae-side thick as the leaves in Carberry Wood. Take 
the weapon, bairn. Your father was a leal and gallant man 
— rest him, God ! for Scotland had no better, — and I, the 
man he hated most on earth, avow it ; and ill would it 
become Claude Hamilton to keep the sword of such a father 
from such a son. Take it, bairn, and welcome ; and I pray 
Heaven that we may meet no more ! " 

" False carle, wo shall meet, and that thou shalt see ! " 
responded the boy, pressing the sword to his breast, while 
his eyes filled with tears. 

Symon Brodie, the butler, here raised his huge hand to 
smite the boy down, but the laird interposed. 

" Beware, fellow ! " said he, " and let the bairn alone ; 
yea, and let him speak, too. What have I to fear from i\ 
fushionless auld carline and twa halfling laddies ? " 

" I have been told that you fear not God, although you 
are a Hamilton ; but I will teach you, carle, to fear me ! " 

" A brave lad ! " exclaimed the old laird, with an admira- 
tion which he could not repress. " I love to see a lad stand 
up thus for his father's feud and his family honour. But let 
this matter end; in twa hunder years and raair we have 
surely had enough of it ! Give me tliy hand, Willie o' Faw- 
sidc, nnd I will ask pardon for .slaying thy father. 'Twas 



TIIE DEATH FEUD. 27 

done in hot blood and under harness ; and I will even pay 
unto Mass John of Tranent a hundred French crowns to say 
funeral services for his soul's repose." 

" My hand ! " 

" Yes, bairn ; an auld man asks it of thee.'* 

" Never ! " replied William Fawside, shrinking back. 
" If I gave a hand to thee, my mother would slay me 
like a cur ; and I would well deserve the death. So fare ye 
well ! with a thousand thanks for this fair gift, until — we 
meet again." 

And they did meet, most fatally, five years afterwards. 

"William Fawside, then in his nineteenth year, was a tall 
and handsome cavalier, than whom there was none more gay 
or gallant in costume, manner, or bearing at the court of the 
Kegent Arran, to whom he officiated as Master of the Horse. 
He was the most graceful dancer on Falkland Green, and 
there, also, the victor of the ring and butts, with spear and 
bow ; but when he and Claude of Preston, then a man well 
up in years, confronted each other in the lists under the 
southern brow of the Castle Rock of Edinburgh, to fight a 
solemn duel, to which the taunts and open accusations of 
murder (for so the widow styled her husband's fall on Faw- 
side Brae) had brought him, the young Sir William saw, 
without pity, that his grey-haired adversary wae animated 
by a reluctance which he was at no pains to conceal, for on 
many a day of battle his courage had been put to the 
sternest proof. 

Cartels of defiance had been duly exchanged ; mass had 
been said in the chapel of Our Lady in the Portsburgh ; and 
there, in presence of the assembled citizens of Edinburgh, 
whose provost, William Craik, appeared on horseback in 
complete armour, and before a chair, in which sat George 
Earl of Errol, hereditary lord high constable of Scotland, as 
vicar-general to the infant queen, wearing on his surcoat the 
three shields of his house, iu a field a7*gent, and within a 



28 THB DEATH FEUD. 

listed space, sixty paces long and forty broad, stood the 
young and resolnte challenger, on foot, at the eastern end, 
and Preston at the western, all according to the custom of 
judicial combats. Each was in full armour of unpolished 
but highly-tempered steel, with open helmets ; each bore a 
Scottish target, a sword, and dagger. 

They were sworn solemnly by the constable, " That they 
had not brought into the lists other armour or weapons 
^ than such as were allowed by Scottish law, or any firework 
engine, witch's spell or enchantment, and that they trusted 
alone to their own valour, as God and His holy Evangelists 
should help them ! " 

It was then proclaimed that no man should speak or utter 
a cry, under penalty of a fine equal in value to twenty 
cattle ; or put forth hand or weapon, under pain of forfeit- 
ing limb and life to the queen — the poor little unconscious 
queen, who was then in her cradle, in time-hallowed Holy- 
rood. 

The constable rose from his seat, and waved his white 
truncheon thrice, exclaiming, 

" Let them go ! Let them go ! Let them go, and do 
their worst ! " 

This was the usual formula ; and then they rushed on 
each other.* 

Preston fought warily ; but the fury of his adversary and 
the wounds he inflicted soon raised the old man's blood, and, 
by one tremendous stroke of his two-handed sword, he clove 
the widow's son — ^her boasted, her fair and comely Willie — 
through helmet and bone, to the chin, slaying him in a 
moment; as the quaint records of the lord high constable's 
court have it, "cleaving him through harnpan and hams 
to ye bearde with ane straik of his quhingef ." 

His body was sent home for burial, but denuded of his 
armour, — • every buckle of which had been that morn 
adjusted by his mother's hands^— of his jewels and rings, 



THB DEATH F£UD. 29 

which, according to the fonn of judicial combats in Scotland, 
became, together with the posts and rails of the lists, the 
fees of the constable's servants. 

Lady Alison was on her knees at her husband's altar- 
tomb in Tranent Church, imploring God to aid and to protect 
her son, when old Boger of Westmains arrived, with his' 
eyes swollen by weeping, and his heart swollen by rage and 
sorrow, to detail the death of her eldest boy by the same 
relentless sword that slew his father ! The fierce, stem 
woman heard him to an end, and then fell prostrate on the 
tombj in a paroxysm of grief, and perhaps of remorse. 

If the latter found way in her breast, it did not linger 
long. Three days she remained in a darkened chamber, 
without speaking to any one ; on the morning of the fourth 
she came out, graver, more gloomy, and, if possible, paler 
than before, and said briefly to Westmains — 

" Write to France — to the chateau of Anne of Vendome, 
and desire Florence to come home without delay. I have 
yet the bullets that were found in the body of his father; 
and if the widow of John of Albany hath kept her royal 
word, I may yet have sure vengeance on yonder murderer 
and his brood ! " 

" The tenants have brought their herezelds," said West- 
mains in a low voice. 

*' Bemit them ; but say, to put their swords to the grind- 
stone, for the day cometh when I, Alison Kennedy, shall 
need them all." 

The bailie referred to the gift given in case of death to 
the heir of an over-lord, generally the best cow, yielded by 
those who held of the said lord an oxgang of land. 

There were now two places vacant at the hearth, two 
platters unused on the table, and two scutcheons hung in 
the kirk of Tranent ; but the mangled images of those who 
were gone remained enthroned more darkly than ever in 
the heart of the widow and mother ! 



30 AN OLD SCOTTISII MATRON. 



CHAPTER IV. 

AN OLD SCOTTISH MATRON. 

Can Christian love, can patriot zeal, 

Can love of blessed charity — 
Can piety the discord heal, 

Or stanch the death feud's enmity ? 

ScoU. 

Lady Alison op Fawside had been a beauty in her youth, 
when the stout and buirdly knight Sir John had wooed and 
won her, in the Castle of Calzean ; and in memory of this 
alliance, the cognisance of the Kennedys, a chevron giUes, 
between three cross-crosslets, fitched sable, may still be 
traced on the roof of the hall ; but in the year when our 
story opens few traces remained of those charms which 
Hiichown Clerk of Tranent, the old macker (i.e. troubadour) 
extolled in his poems, and for which he was rewarded yearly 
by a silver chain an ell long, three French crowns, and a 
camlet gown lined with Flemish silk, until his death, which 
happened about the close of the reign of Kiug James V. 

The widow was of great stature, yet her figure was grace- 
ful, noble, and commanding ; her features were fine ; her 
nose was straight ; and her black eyebrows, which met above 
it, together with the peculiar lines of her mouth and chin, 
expressed firmness and unflinching resolution. Her com- 
plexion was deadly pale. Her once-black hair was grey 
and escaped in grizzled locks from under her escallop or 
shell-shaped cap, which was made of thick point-lace, like 
her close-quilled ruff and ruffles. Her attire was always a 
black damask dress, buttoned by small silver knobs, from 
the lower peak of her long stomacher, up to her ruff. She 



AX OLD SCOTTiSH MATRON. 31 

wore a rosary and cross of ebony, and a black locket con- 
taining the hair of her late husband and his slaughtered 
son ; but no other ornament. Her pocket sun-dial, or 
perpetual almanac, a brass plate inscribed, "This table 
beginneth in 1540, and so on for ever," with her keys (and 
huge antique keys they were), her scissors and huswife 
hung at her girdle ; and she used a long ivory-mounted 
cane to assist her in walking, and as gossips averred^ 
wherewith to chastise her lacqueys and serving-men. Her 
busk was of hard wood, and contained a bodkin. This was 
literally a dagger seven inches long, and worn for defence 
in those stirring and perilous times. 

Four-and-thirty years ago this stem woman, without 
shedding a tear, had seen her husband and all his kinsmen 
ride forth on that invasion of England which terminated 
at Flodden ; but she welcomed him with transports of joy 
when he returned. Alas! old Westmains, covered with 
wounds, was the sole representative of forty stout men of 
Lothian, well horsed, with jack and spear, who had followed 
Fawside's pennon to the field. After this catastrophe, 
they had a few years peace with the Hamiltons of Preston, 
whose men had all escaped, being a portion of those many 
thousand Scots who melted away a week before the battle, 
and left King James with his knights and nobles to con- 
front the foe alone. 

Lady Alison was a Scottish matron of a very "old 
»chool" indeed, and possessed a stern and Spartan spirit 
incident to the times of war and tumult, raid and feud, 
amid which she had been born and bred. The annals of 
her country record the names of many such, who, in ex- 
tremity of danger, possessed that resolute spirit with which 
Scott has gifted his imaginary Helen MacGregor, and the 
cooloess of the Lady of Harden, who, when the larder 
was bare, placed a pair of Ripon spurs in her husband's 
]>late at dinner, as a hint to mount and ride £ov England, 



32 AN OLD SCOTTISH MATBON, 

where the fat beeves browsed on the green hills of Cumber- 
land. There was black Agnes Randolph, the C9untess of 
March, who, for five months defended her castle of Dunbar 
against the troops of Edward III., and foiled them in the 
end; there was the Lady of Edinglassie, who, after her 
husband had been slain by the Laird of Invermarkie, had 
the head of the latter cut off, in September, 1584, and con- 
veying it '' by its hoar locks " to Edinburgh, cast it at the 
feet of the startled James YL, as a token that she could 
avenge her own wrongs without appeal to Lowland judge 
or jury ; there was the Lady Johnstone, of Annandale, 
who, after the battle of the Dryffesands, where, in 1593, 
seven hundred Maxwells fell beneath the spears and axes 
of her clan, is accused of dashing out the Lord Maxwell's 
brains with her own white hand, when she found that 
brave, humane, and courteous noble lying mortally wounded 
on the field, and when his silver locks were exposed by 
the loss of his helmet, which had been struck off in the 
Tifidee ; and this terrible deed she is said to have per- 
petrated with the ponderous iron key of Lochmaben Kirk, 
at the old thorn tree on the green holm of Dryffe. There 
was also that grim patriot, the old Marchioness of Hamil- 
ton, who, when her son entered the Firth of Forth, in 1639, 
at the head of six thousand Englishmen^ rode to the beach 
with a pair of pistols at her saddlebow, vowing to God 
that she would shoot him as a traitor and a parracide, if he 
dared to land on Scottish ground under a foreign fiag — a 
hint, which the recreant marquis, her sou, fully understood 
and obeyed. 

We believe few men now-a-days would relish having 
such fiery " and termagant Scots," as the partners of their 
bed and board ; but the spirit and nature of these women 
were the development of the age in which they lived — an 
age when every house was a barred or moated garrison, — 
when every man was a trained soldier^ and when a day seldom 



AN OLD SCOTTISH MATBON. 33 

passed iu city or liamlet without blood being shed in 
public frskj or private feud ; bnt these grim matrons, and 
such as these, were the mothers of the brave who led the 
line of battle at Ancramford and Pinkey-cleugh, at Sark 
aud Arkinhome, at Chevj Chase, Bannockbum, Haidenrig, 
and Northallerton, and on a thousand other fields, where 
Scottish men without regret — ^yea, perhaps, with stem joy — 
gave their swords, and lives, and dearest blood for the 
mountain-land that bore them. 

It was this feudal and warlike spirit which made the 
resolute Lady Alison prosecute the quarrel against Preston 
with such determination and vindictiveness. 

She wept in secret for her slaughtered son ; but his death 
seemed to be only one other item in that heavy debt of hatred 
and thirst for vengeance which every drop of blood in the 
veins of Claude Hamilton could not assuage, even if poured 
out at her feet — a debt which she had no object in life but 
to pay with all the interest of her stem soul. 

Tiger-like, she panted with eagerness for the return of her 
second son, Florence, doubting not that when the death of 
his father and brother were added to the old and inborn 
hatred of the House of Preston, his younger and more 
skilful hand could never fail in the combat to which she 
had resolved the slayer should be invited and goaded by 
every taunt, if he proved unwilling. 

To her confessor, the old vicar of Tranent, who strove in 
vain to soothe this unchristian spirit, she would say fiercely, — 
*' Peace ! am I to forego my just feud at the behest of a 
book-i*-the-bosom monk 1 I trow not ! I am a Kennedy 
of Colzean. Oh that this boy were back to me, that he 
might unkennel and slay the old wolf who bydes in yonder 
tower,— even as his ancestor slew the wolf of Gulane." " ffe 
has no son," she was wont to say with savage exultation, 
while grinding her strong white teeth and beating the floor 
with her cane : " his wife left him childless — ^he has no cub 

D 



34 AN OLD SOOTTISH MATBOH. 

to tranBmit his blood with the fead to fature times ; so with 
him it most end. The sword of my Morence will end the 
strife with Preston's godless career and grasping race — ^black 
dool and pyne be on them ! " 

''But he has a niece,'* urged the white-haired vicar 
gently. 

"A niece " 

'* His ward and heiress, — ^a ward of the crown, too." 

" Mean ye that moppet the Countess of Yarrow, whose 
father drew the sword in pure wantonness on the day my 
husband fell ) " 

" Yes, Claude Hamilton's sister was an earl's wife." 

" Why tell me that ? what care I for his niece's coronet 1 
We were belted knights and landed barons ere surnames 
were known in the North, — ^yea, a hundred years and 
more before a Hamilton was heard of. And this niece — 
what of her ? " 

"She may marry." 

« WeU— well." 

"And her husband may — ^though Heaven forfend it — 
take up the feud." 

" Had she a hundred husbands, we'll find cold iron for 
them all, priest — ^and in the sword is all my trust." 

" Alas, lady ! trust alone in God," replied the vicar, 
shaking his head ; " He giveth much, and yet hath nought 
the less." 

" Oh that my brave bairn were back. The French are 
skilful masters of the sword ; and Anne of Albany promised 
me that Florence should have the best j that his hand 
should — if my Willie's failed — ^redress the wrongs of ages." 

But, as already related, several days elapsed after the 
arrival of the ship, yet there came to Fawside tower no 
tidings of her son, whom, as he bears a part of some im- 
portance in our history, we must now introduce to the 
reader. 



THE "GOLDEN ROSE." 35 



CHAPTER V. 

THE "golden EOSE." 

Leo, — ^What would you have with me, honest neighbour ? 
I^og, — Many, sir, I would have some confidence with you, that 
decerns you nearly. 

Leo.— Brief, I pray you ; for, you see, 'tis a busy time with me, 

" Much Ado abovnt Nothing" 

The sun was setting in the westward— for in the year of 
grace 1547 it set in the westward' just as it does now, 
though history omits to record the fact. Seven had tolled 
from the square towers of St. Mary and of the Commanderie 
of St. Anthony at Leith, on the evening of the -first of 
August, the same on which we left a mother seated in the 
old tower upon the hills waiting anxiously for her son, when 
the latter — to wit, Florence Fawside — left the ship of the 
Sieur Nicolas de Villegaignon, knight of Rhodes, and 
admiral of the galleys of France, and landing with all his 
luggage, which consisted of three large leathern mails, found 
himself once more on t&rrafirma, after a long but prosperous 
voyage from Brest j and, with a glow of satisfaction on his 
nut-brown visage, he stamped on the ground, to assure 
hunself that it was not a planked deck, but the land — and 
good Scottish land too, — as he hurriedly approached the 
quaint wooden porch of " Y® Gowden Eois " {i. e, the 
" Golden Kose "), an hostel which bore that emblem painted 
on a huge signboard that swung between two wooden 
posts. 

The latter were placed near the bank of the river, for 
although, to the eastward, there lay the charred remains of 
a wooden pier, burned by the English in 1544, Leith was 

D 2 



36 THE "GOLDEN HOSE." 

destitute of a quay in those days ; and thus a row of little 
gardens extended along the eastern bank between tbe water 
and the street of quaint Flemish-like mansions which faced 
it. These plots, or kailyards, were divided by privet or 
holly ^edges, and among them lay fisher-boats, tar-barrels, 
rusty anchors, brown nets, and bladders, with other debris 
of the mercantile and fisher craft, which lay moored on 
both sides ot the stream below Abbot Ballantyne's Bridge, 
the three stone arches of which spanned the Leith, where 
the pathway led to the church and burying-ground of 
St. Nicholas, and where stood a gate, at which a somewhat 
lucrative toll was levied by the monks of the Holy Cross. 

Passing between the signposts and up the bank, Florence 
Fawside found himself before the "Golden Rose," a long 
irregular house three stories in height, built all of polished 
stone, yet having a front of elaborate timberwork forming 
two galleries, supported on carved pillars, and surmounted 
by three gables, whose acute apex sharply cut the sky-line, 
and gave the edifice a quaint and striking aspect. Cloaks of 
velvet and of camlet, horse-cloths, crimson saddles, belts of 
gold or buff leather, with one or two huge pieces of gaudy 
tapestry, were hung carelessly over the oak rails of the 
galleries, in which many persons were lounging, for the 
house and the stable-yard behind it were alike full of 
guests and bustle. The " Golden Rose " was the principal 
hostelry in Leith, and had been built for the accommodation 
of travellers, a few years before, by Logah of Restalrig, Lord 
Superior of the barony. Hence, the landlord, Ralf Riddel, 
being one of his vassals, was bound to give " up-putting to 
all the laird's retinue, man and horse, when they chanced 
to pass that way," a contingency which happened more 
frequently than the said Master Riddel, with all his inbred 
respect for the house of Logan, perhaps relished, especially 
as no overcharge could be made upon other visitors, for, by 
a statute of the late King James V., the bailies of royalties 



THE "GOLDEN ROSE." 37 

and regalities made a regular tariff of prices to be observed 
by all hostellers throughout the realm, and by this tariff the 
charges for com, hay and straw, fish, flesh, bread, wine and 
ale, were all regulated and enforced under high penalties ; 
but, by the same law, persons travelling with much money 
in their possession are wisely advised to reside with their 
fi'i^nds. As Fawside entered, he observed a group of gen- 
tlemen, richly dressed, observing him narrowly from a dark 
gallery above the porch. 

Though the arrival of a stranger, especially one on foot, 
did not usually excite much attention at the establishment 
of Master Half Kiddel, the air and bearing, the handsome 
figure, and fine features of the young laird of Fawside, with 
his short-clipped beard and black moustache, d la Fran9ois I., 
his magnificent crimson-velvet doublet, which was profusely 
embroidered with gold, and stiff as buckram and lace could 
make it, his enormous ruff and long sword, his little French 
cap of blue velvet, adorned by a long white feather, and 
diamond aigrette, the gifb of Anne of Albany, his long 
black riding-boots, the tops of which joined his short 
trunk-hose, altogether caused th# tapster and ostlers to 
make so favourable a report of his appearance that he was 
speedily waited on by the gudeman of the establishment in 
person. 

He was conducted to an apartment the grated windows of 
which overlooked the stable-yard. The latter was full of 
pages, liveried lackeys, and armed troopers in iron-jacks, 
steel bonnets, and plate sleeves ; horses, saddled and un- 
saddled, were led to and fro; and clumps of tall spears 
were reared here and there against the walls. The clamour 
of voices and clatter of hoofs, together with the neighing of 
steeds and barking oi dogs, made the place instinct with 
life. The hostel was occupied by several of the noblesse 
and their retinues — for then no great lord could travel with 
out a troop of horse in his train ; but, all immindtul of the - 



38 THE ''GOLDEN BOSE." 

bustle below, young Florence of Fawside, when tbe landlord 
returned, was gazing earnestly to the eastward, where, upon 
the crown of the high green eminence or sloping upland that 
overlooked the spacious bay of Musselburgh and stretched 
far away into Haddingtonshire, all bathed in gold and purple 
by the setting sun, he could discern, some ten miles distant, 
the outline of his old paternal home rising above the thicket 
of trees by which it was environed. 

On turning, as he heard a step behind, he saw, on the 
roughly-hewn fir boards which formed the floor of the 
apartment, an ominous black stain, nearly a foot in cir- 
cumference, to remind him that he dwelt in a land of 
swords and danger. 

" I require a horse, gudeman," said he, divesting himself 
of his velvet mantle and rich sword-belt. 

" A horse ! — at this hour, sir 1 " 

" Even so, my friend, for in less than an hour I must 
ride hence. You have, doubtless, a swift nag to spare ? " 

"Yea, sir, ten, if ye lacked them — ten, than whilk my 
Lord Eegent hath none better in stall." 

" 'Tis well j and now for supper. I have been long in 
the land of kickshaws and frogs, where bearded men sup 
fricassees bedevilled with garlic and onions, in lieu of por- 
ridge and sturdy kailbrose ; so, gudeman of mine, I long 
for a right Scottish dish." 

" That shall ye have, fair sir, and welcome, with a stoup 
of Canary, Bourdeaux, or Alicant " 

" Nay, I am no bibber, believe me.*' 

" We get brave gude wine hereawa in Leith, sir, by our 
trade with the Flemings of the Dam." 

"After seven years in a foreign land, gudeman," said 
Florence, slapping the hosteller kindly on the back, while 
his heart swelled and his eyes filled, " your Scottish tongue 
comes like music to my ear — ^yea, like the melody o' an auld 
song, man ; and I snuff up my native air like a young horse 



THE "GOLDEN ROSK" 39 

tamed out to grass ; for, save once a year, by a letter given 
me by a passing traveller hastening Paris-ward, I have 
heard naught from home, or of aught that passed in Scotland 
here." 

" Kocht, said ye 1 " 

" Naught — so the term of my absence seems marvellously 
long — naught but evil," he added^ with a darkening expres- 
sion of face. 

*•' Evil ! " 

" Yea ; for I have returned to avenge the death of a dear 
kinsman." 

" Such errands are nothing new in Scotland," said Ealf 
Biddel, sighing and shrugging his shoulders. 

" No — in these hot days of feud and endless quarrelling. 
'Tis a heavy task I have in hand, gudeman ; but it must be 
done, when I have obeyed the behests pf those I left in 
France." • 

" Belong you to hereawa, sir 1 ** 

" I do," replied Fawside, smiling. 

" May I be pardoned for — for ** 

" For what ? " asked Florence, while the hosteller 
smoothed down his front hair, and twirled his bonnet on 
his fingers ; " for what should I pardon you ? " 

" For speiring your name ? " 

*^You may be pardoned, but not gratified, gudeman," 
replied Florence, laughing. " There are over-many under 
your rooftree to make it safe for me to utter my name 
aloud, alone as I am ; for though I have been wellnigh 
seven years away, I have not forgotten the danger of rashly 
telling one's name in fiery Scotland." 

" You are right, sir ; yet my house is one without re- 
proach." 

** What says this dark stain on the floor 1 " 

" That there I slew an Englishman, in the May of '44, 
when all Leith was in flames — ^houses, ships, and piers — 



40 THE "golden nosE." I 

I 

and ten tliousand of his comrades, under the Lord Hertford, i 
were on the inarch for Edinburgh. Yea, sir, I slew him 
there by one blow of my jeddart staff, for making his quar- 
ters good at sword's point. The * Gowden Rose ' is a house . 
without reproach." 

"But its visitors may not be so, despite their silken 
doublets and gilded coats of mail. Whose jackmen and 
lacqueys are these in the stable-yard ? " 

" The followers of the Earl of Glencairn, and of his son, 
the Lord Kilmaurs ; of the Lord Gray and his son, the 
Master, with others whom I ken not ; but they muster 
eighty horsemen in all." 

" The English faction ! " muttered Fawside. " By Heaven, 
'tis high time I had the water of Esk behind my horse's 
heels. And these lords " 

" Are all on their way to Stirling, to keep tryste with the 
Lord Regent." 

" Fool that I was, not to know at once the shakefork of 
the stable worn by the ruffians of Glencairn," said Fawside, 
referring to the cognizance of the Cunninghames, which is 
a/rgent, a shakefork sable, granted to Henry of Kilmaurs, 
who was master stabler to King Alexander IIL 

" And those fellows in pyne doublets and cuirasses ? " 

" With the oak branch in their burganets, and morsing 
horns at their girdles ? " 

*^ Yes." 

" They are the liverymen of the laird of Preston." 

" Of Claude Hamilton of Preston ! " exclaimed Fawside, 
instinctively assuming his sword. 

" Yes." 

" By St. Giles, I was right to speak below my beard, and 
utter not my name." Then, in a fierce whisper, he added, 
" Is he here ? " 

« No." 

" So much tho better. But get me supper and a swift 



THE "golden rose." 41 

horse. Sampter nags will come anon for my leathern mails, 
which I leave in your care, gudeman. Beware how you let 
men handle them, though my papers and vahwhlea I carry 
on my own proper person, where my sword can easier answer 
any kind friend who inquires after them.*' 

*' My house, I have said, is stainless and sakeless." 

"And now for supper," said Florence impatiently. 

" I can let you have a pie of eels, from Lithgow Loch ; a 
hash of Fife mutton, yea, mutton from Largo, where they 
say every tooth in a sheep's head is worth a French crown." 

" Good ! — ^the supper quick, the horse quicker," said Faw- 
side laughing ; — for it was a superstition in those days, and 
for long afber, that the teeth of the flocks which browsed on 
the conical hill of Largo were turned to solid silver by its 
herbage. 

He then turned once more to the window, to gaze on his 
mother's distant dwelling, — on those hills from whence the 
last gleam of sunlight had now died away. He drew from 
a pocket in the breast of his beautiful doublet two letters, 
tied with white ribbons saltirewise, and sealed with yellow 
wax, impressed by three fleur-de-lys. One was addressed — 
" A Madarm ma aceuVf la Berne dEcoase,*^ 

The other bore — 

^^For Monseignefwr the Ea/rl of Arra/a^ Lord Ha/miUonf 
Knight of St. Andrew cund St. Michael, Regent of 

Scotland.^ 

w 

The young traveller surveyed these important missives 
with a smile of satisfaction, and once more consigned them 
to the secret pocket of his doublet. While left thus 
to himself and his own thoughts, certain parties in an ad- 
joming apartment were taking a particular interest in his 
affairs. 



42 CURIOSITT. 



CHAPTER VI. 



OUEIOSITY. 



" Who's he t 
I know not — Doke Hnmphrey, mayhap ; 
Bat this I know, my sword will test it soon." 

Old Play. 

This apartment, which was next to that in which Florence 
Fawside was testing the merits of the eels of Linlithgow 
Loch (which are still much prized) and Balf Bidders 
Largo matton and Alicant wine, opened off the shady 
gallery wherein we lefb a gaily-attired group, who had 
watched the traveller enter the " Golden Rose." 

This group, which had also heen observing a number of 
poor lepers, who, under a guard of men-at-arms, were on 
the sands waiting the boats which were to convey them to 
banishment on Inch Keith, and had made them the subject 
of various cruel and ribald jokes — ^this group, was composed 
of several men of better position than conduct, for it con- 
sisted of that Earl of Glencaim, who had slain one of* his 
nearest relations under tryst ; of the Earl of Cassilis ; of 
Patrick Lord Gray of Kin&wns, and his son the master ; 
John Lord Lyle of Duchal, and his son James the Master 
of Lyle, who had together slain Sir John Penny, an unarmed 
priest. Several gentlemen of their different surnames were 
with them — all men who had more or less shed blood in the 
private quarrels and open feuds of that wild and lawless 
time. All were richly dressed, for the age was one of pro- 
fusion and ostentation ; the splendour of the third and fourth 
James was yet remembered in the land, which had not as 
yet suffered by the civil wars and depression subsequent to 



CUBIOSITY. 43 

the Heformation. Many of tliose to whom we are about to 
introduce the reader had their coats of arms embroidered 
on the breasts of their gorgeous doublets ; but the greater 
number wore half armour, gorgets, breast-plates, and plate 
sleeves; and all, without distinction, had long swords, 
Scottish daggers, and Italian pistols or calivers at their 
girdles ; and they were all, in secret, members of the anti- 
national or English faction— -of which more anon. 

" I have a presentiment that yonder young galliard in 
the crimson velvet bravery bodes us no good," said the Lord 
Xilmaurs in an imdertone. He was a stem and reckless 
noble, whose brown- velvet hat had already been perforated 
by two bullets in a brawl that day. 

"Why think you so, son?" asked his father the earl, 
whose cold grey eye ever suggested the idea that his lord- 
ship said one thing while thinking another. 

"He came from yonder gilded galley of the Sieur de 
Villegaignon — and see ! here come the admiral's own barge- 
men, with the lilies of France upon their pourpoints, bearing 
his mails. By my soul, sirs, this spark is served like a 
king's ambassador ! " ' 

" And may he not be the env^y of Henry of France 1 " 
asked some one. 

" Nay, for he is only young Florence Fawside of that ilk, 
as I imderstand,"^ said the Lord KHmaurs, to whose right 
eye a savage glare was imparted, together with a spasmodic 
contortion of that side of his face, by a dreadful sword- 
wound, which he received at the defeat of the English at 
Ancramford. 

" Only 1 " reiterated his father, with an accent upon the 
word ; " Mahoun ! art thou sure of this 1 " 
J* Sure as I am a Hving man." 

" But men say he is still in France," urged the Lord Lyle. 

"Nay, jny lord," began -the Master of Lyle, "for the old 
beldame his mother ^" 



44 CURIOSITY. 

" She is a Kennedy of Colzean, and my near kinswoman," 
interrupted Lord Cassilis hauglitily. 

" I crave your pardon, though fortunately we arc not of 
Carrick, where all men court St. Kennedie," replied the 
other, bowing with a smile on his lip and a sneer in his eye ; 
" but Dame Alison hath written letters into France to the 
Duchess Anne of Albany and Yendome, desiring her to 
send back the youth, that he might avenge the death of his 
brother, whom Claude Hamilton of Preston slew at the 
king's barresse, and in fair fight, -as we all can testify." 

" Ay, old Preston's sword hath been reddened alike in 
the blood of father and son, a strange but not uncommon 
fatality." 

" Consanguinity, my Lord Lyle, should make that quarrel 
ours too," said the Earl of Cassilis ; " but fortunately, I have 
no wish to embroil myself with Preston, and the old dame 
Alison hath ever disdained our aid and alliance." 

" If that bedizened sjDark be really Fawside her son, he 
has been long in the service of Anne de la Tour of Vendome, 
widow of the late Regent Albany," said one who had not 
yet spoken, and whose accent marked his country as Eng- 
land, though he wore the badges and livery of the house 
of Glencairn ; ** and rede me, sirs, he hath some other mis- 
sion to Scotland here than his mother's feud with the 
Prestons." 

" Thou art right, Master Shelly," said James Master of 
Lyle, as a sudden gleam shot athwart his sinister visage ; 
"in these days, when trusty messengers are scarce and 
bribes high, falsehood dear and fidelity dearer, I doubt not 
he hath letters from Henry of Valois to the Queen-Mother, 
and from the grasping princes of the house of Guise to the 
Regent Arran — and these letters must be inimical to us. 
Is it thus thou wouldst say, my valiant captain of the 
Boulogners ? " 

" It is," replied the disguised English soldier, whose steel 



CURIOSITY. 45 

salade was worn well over his handsome face, for conceal- 
ment. 

'* Such lettera would let us see their game, which 'twere 
well to know ere they can learn owr5," said Glencairn. 
" But if they are concealed in the lining of his doublet, in 
the scabbard of his sword, in the quills of his feathers, or 
perhaps indited with invisible necromantic ink by Catherine 
de Medicis — for I have known all these plans resorted to — 
we may kill the poor knave for nothing, and raise a pestilent 
hubbub in the burgh to boot.'* 

" Kill him here, then," said Kilmaurs, his son. 

" What, in the hostel % " said his fiather, starting. 

" Yes,** was the brief and fierce response. 

" 'Twould embroil us with Logan, whose property it is. 
But every thread of his garments shall be searched. 'Twas 
a shrewd thought of thine. Master Edward Shelly, for time 
presses in the matter of our baby-queen's marriage to thy 
baby-king." 

" If we find such letters on him," said Kilmaurs with a 
ferocious glance at each of his companions in succession, " by 
the five wounds of God he shall swallow them ere he die. 
I made an English spy eat five on the night before the 
battle of Ancramford." 

" And how fared he afber 1 " asked Shelly laughing. 

." Ill enough, I trow." 

« How ? " 

" He straightway swelled ,up like a huge ball, and burst, 
whereby I opined that the letters had been written with 
poisoned ink." 

" And these letters " 

" Were all anent the ransom of a friend of mine, who 
shared in England the exile of Mathew of Lennox, and 
whose lands had been gifted by the late James to me." 

" Let us see to this man at once," said Lord Lyle j " for 
I assure you, sirs, that if this fellow beareth letters out of 



46 CUBIOSITY. 

France to mar our lucrative plans, by my father's soul I 
will slay him, even as I slew that shaveling mass-priest 
Penny ! " 

"And how slew ye him?" asked Master Shelly, an 
Englishman of pleasing countenance and good presence, who 
seemed amused by the quaint ferocity of these Scottish lords. 

" I slew him like a faulty hound, because I liked him 
not," replied Lyle with a fierce grimace ; " and hewed off 
his shaven head with my whinger. Then my son reminded 
me that a soothsayer, the prior of Deer, who now sleeps in 
Roslin chapel, had foretold by his cradle that in days to 
come his head should be the highest in Scotland. In sooth, 
it shall be so, quoth I ; and, fixing it on my spear, which 
was six Scottish ells in length, I rode home with it thus 
through all the Carse of Gowrie to my castle of Duchal, 
where you may yet see the bare pyked bones of it grinning 
on the bartizan wall." 

" And what answer made you to the law ? " 

The other drew himself up with ineffable hauteur, and 
briefly replied — 

" I am the Lord Lyle ! " 

" Hush, sirs," said Glencaim ; " our man is in the next 
room, perhaps, and may overhear us." 

" Let us see to him," said Kilmaurs, loosening his dagger 
in its sheath. 

" Stay, sirs," said Shelly the Englishman ; " and excuse 
me if I am less reckless in bloodshed than you ; for, under 
favour, and with all due deference be it said, I came from 
a more peaceful land, where if the sword is drawn, it is 
usually for some weightier reason than because one man 
wears a dress striped with red and another wears it striped 
with green, or because one man wears a tuft of heather in 
his steel cap and another sports a sprig of laurel ; and so, 
ere you proceed to violence in this matter, I would pray 
your lordship to be well assured of who this stranger is." 



CURIOSITY. 47 



€€ 



If we snspect this knight of the crimson suit of being 
a spy of the Yalois or the Guises, what matter is it who he 
is ] " replied the master of Lyle impatiently. " But there 
is the landlord in conference with one of Preston's followers, 
so, let us inquire of him." 

" Half Briddel 1 — gudeman, come hither," said Elilmaurs. 

Thus commanded, Biddel ascended to the gallery, with 
several low bows, while the man with whom he had been 
conversing, and who was no other than Symon Brodie the 
butler of Preston, an unscrupulous and bloodthirsty swash- 
buckler, remained, bonnet in hand, on the steps a little 
lower down, to listen greedily to all he might overhear from 
a group so gaily attired. 

" Did not yonder gay galliard come from a ship in the 
roads 1 " asked Lord Kilmaurs. 

" Who ? ** responded Hiddel, with evident reluctance. 

*.'He of the crimson-velvet doublet and long French 
boots." 

" Yes, sir," replied Riddel, with increasing hesitation, foi 
he read mischief in the eyes of all. 

" From the galley of Nicolas de Villegaignon ? " 

*' Yes, my lords." 

'' He hath come &om France, then ! " said Kilmaurs 
sternly. 

" It would seem so." 

" Seem ! Speak to the point," continued the fiery heir of 
Glencaim, " or, by the horns of Mahoun ! we will burn thy 
house to the groundstone. It is so ! " 

** Yes — ^my lords, — ^yes." 

" Speak out, cuUionly knave," thundered the Lord Kil- 
maurs, the long scar on whose visage became purple as his 
anger increased ; " his name " 

« I ken it not." 

" How — ^ye ken it not ? " 

^'I^o." 



48 CURIOSITY. 

" Why J " 

*• He conceals it." 

" Hah ! that betokens secrecy ! " exclaimed Lord Lyle. 

"And as we have secret projects," added his sou, "we 
must suspect all of having the same ; so doubt not that he 
hath letters. All who come from the vicinity of the Louvre, 
or the Hotel de Guise, bring dangerous letters to Holyrood, 
dangerous at least to us, and we must have them." 

" He has come from France, my lords,— from France 
direct," said Symon Brodie, approaching and speaking in a 
whisper, as the abashed landlord withdrew. " Mairower, he 
w Florence Fawside of that ilk." 

" You know him, then 1 " said several. 

" Yea, and a* the race ; I ken their dour dark look, and 
wha but he could wear on his breast, gtdeSy a fess between 
three besants or ? " 

" Right, by Heaven ! " said the master of Lyle. 

" A follower of Anne of Yendome must^have letters from 
which we may glean what France or the Lorraine princes 
mean to do," said Shelly bluntly j " cut him off if you will, 
but not here, — it must be done secretly." 

" To horse, then," said Glencaim hoarsely, as if, wolf-like, 
he already scented blood on the soft evening breeze that 
came from the glassy river ; " to horse, and beset all the 
roads — Leith-loan, the Figgate Muir, and every path to the 
southward and the east, — for if he passes the brig of Esk 
to-night our cause perhaps is lost. He bears, doubtless, 
letters to the Regent and Queen, with promises of war with 
England and succour from France. Pietro Strozzi, the 
Marechal Duke de Montmorenci, or the Comte de Dam- 
martin, with twenty thousand arquebusiers and gendarmes, 
thrown into the scale against us, would leave our cause and 
the boy King Edward's but a feather-weight. To horse, 
sirs, and away ; for this August gloaming darkens fast, and 
night will be on us anon I " 



CUBIOSITT. 49 

As the earl spoke, tliej all hurried to the stables, and 
proceeded to saddle and mount their horses for the deadly 
purpose in view, and none were more active than Symon 
Brodie and seven other armed lackeys of the Laird of Preston, 
who joined in the affair, with no other interest or intention 
than to cat off the poor youth, in prosecution of the wretched 
quajrel between their master's house and his ; for men 
joined in such deadly things in those days, as readily as now 
we go to see a horse-race, a fire, or an election row. 

Master Edward Shelly, the Englishman, who was dis- 
guised as a follower of the House of Glencaim, joined in the 
plot also, but with some unwillingness; for he ran con- 
siderable risk. By the laws of James II., any i^^ngli^man 
found in Scotland became the lawful captive of the first man 
who discovered him ; and any Scottish subject who met an 
English man under tryst, as these noblesse were doing, was 
liable to imprisonment during the king's pleasure, and to 
the forfeiture of all he possessed. 

Such was the law passed by the parlian^ent at Stirlii^ 
'mU56. 



K 



50 TUE BUAWL, 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE BRAWL. 

My sword, my spear, my shaggy shield, 

They make me lord of all below ; 
For he who dreads the lance to wield 

Before my shaggy shield must bow ; 
His lands, his vineyards must resigu, 
For all that cowards have is mine. 

J)r, Leyden, 

Beinq a married man, Ealf Riddel went straightway to 
his spouse, and in whispers — ^l6st the panelled walls might 
have ears — ^he communicated his suspicions of the deadly 
intentions of his titled guests. A landlady of the nineteenth 
century would instantly, on learning such tidings, have made 
an outcry and summoned the police ; hut Euphemia Riddel 
received them with the coolness incident to those days, when 
every other morning a man slashed by sword or dagger was 
found dead or dying somewhere in the streets of Edinburgh. 

'* And what mean ye to do, gudeman ? " she asked. 

"Leave the event to Providence, gudewife." 

" To Providence and their whingers I " she exclaimed. 
."Hush, or the hail hive will be on us!" said he in a 
terrified whisper. 

"Foul fa' ye, Ralf Riddel, if ye permit this wicked 
slaughter of a winsome young man ! " 

" But they would ding their daggers into me in a trice.'* 

" What of that ? " she aaked sharply. 

"A sma' matter to you, perhaps, but mickle to me ; and 
if I was pinked below the ribs by thQse bullies, Symon 
Brodie, that bluidthirsty and drunken butler o' auld Pres- 
ton's would soon be drawing in his chair at the ingle* That 



THE BilAWLi 51 

chield is ower often here, gudewife, and I dinna like it. It 
is no aye for ale and up-putting he comes to the * Golden 
Rose.* But what shall I do anent Fawside ? " 

" Gowk ! do that whilk is right." 

" And that is— ? " queried Half, scratching his head — 

" To send a saddled horse to the Burgess close, and let the 
young laird out by the back yett while these lords and loons 
are busy in th^ yard. Take the horse round by your own 
hand while I see to the puir gentleman." 

The matter was thiw arranged at once ; and while the 
gudeman of the hostel led the nag through a narrow by- 
lane to the place indicated, an old and naiTow alley of dark 
and loflby houses which opened eastward off the bank of the 
river, his better half acquainted the young traveller with the 
danger which menaced him. With the boldness of his race, 
he at first refused to fly, and resolved to confront these men 
and fight them. Then he thought of his mother, and yielded 
to the entreaties of the good woman, his preserver. 

" I will owe you a brooch of gold for this, gudewife," said 
he, kissing her hand and buckling on his sword. 

It was the first time so brave and handsome a gentleman 
had done her this courtesy, and the heart of the woman 
swelled anew with pride and sympathy. 

"Away! away!" she exclaimed, "lest dool and wae 
light on thy house and home to-night ! " 

" I thank you, gudewife — thank you kindly ; 1 would not 
for worlds, were they mine, be maimed in a night-brawl by 
swashbucklers such as these, for I have greater and nobler 
work to perform than crossing my sword with such a rabble 
rout." 

" Ay, the defence of our holy Kirk of Rome ? " 

" Nay ; I shall not be slow in defending that if the time 
come ; but I have a beloved father's murder under tryst and 
a tender brother's death in mortal combat to avenge, witli 
the wrongs of centuries, upon the Hamiltons of Preston I " 

B 2 



52 THE BBAWL. 

replied Florence, wlio, instead of having his ardour cooled 
by .the fate of his relatives, longed with intense eagerness to 
see unsheathed against him the same sword by which they 
fell, that he might slay its wielder without mercy or 
remorse. 

" And now, fair sir, away ! " 

" And the horse ^* 

" Is at the Burgess Close foot, nigh unto the loan-end. 
Ride straight for Edinburgh, lest the eastward I'oad to the 
Abbey Hill be beset." 

" Thanks, madam," replied Florence, with a low French 
bow, as he loosened his long sword in its sheath, left the inn 
by a private door, and piloting his way in the twilight be- 
tween hedgerows ajad low thatch-roofed cottages, reached 
the place where Riddel stood, holding the horse by its bridle. 
The hosteller would not listen to a word of thanks from 
Fawside, but urged him to " ride swiftly ; " and assuredly 
time pressed, for he was barely in the saddle when at least 
forty armed and mounted men issued with scabbards, petro- 
nels, and hoofs clattering, from the stable-yard, and, sepa- 
rating into parties, proceeded at a rapid trot to beset the 
paths in every direction. 

Fawside gave his horse the spur, and Riddel saw the 
sparks of fire fly from the flinty road as it sprang away 
towards the city. 

When again the hosteller of the " Golden Rose " saw his 
fair roan nag, it was pierced by bullets, half-disembowelled, 
and lying drowned in the lake which then formed the 
northern moat of Edinburgh. 

The darkness had now completely set in ; and, save where 
a few trees, turf fences, or low dykes of stone and earth in- 
closed the fields, the whole country between the city and its 
seaport was open, but varied by many undulations and 
eminences covered by furze, tufted broom, and dark-green 
whin, or broken by hollows that were swampy, where the 



TH£ BBAWL. 53 

coot squatted in the oozy poola and the heron sent up its 
lonely cry from amid the thick rushes and masses of the 
broad-leaved water-dock. 

Jjeaving Leith, which was then without those strong walls 
and iron gates by which it was engirt during the stormy 
regency of Mary of Lorraine, Fawside, after tracking his 
way almost instinctively through narrow alleys of thatched 
cottages and kail-gardens, ascended the brae above the 
Abbot's Bridge, and reached the road that led by the 
Bonny-toun (or Bonnie-haugh), a little hamlet where, in 
affcer-years, old Bishop Keith wrote his " History of the 
Scottish Church;" but the hum of the river, which there 
poured over a ledge of rough rocks, had scarcely died away 
in his rear, when swiftly and furiously he heard the clatter 
of iron hoofs upon the dusty bridle-road he was traversing. 

At that moment the near hind shoe of his nag gave way, 
but by adhering to the hoof by a nail or two for some paces, 
nearly brought the animal down on its haunches, and even 
this trivial occurrence served to lessen the distance between 
Eawside and his pursuers, who cared not to disguise their 
purpose, as they shouted, halloed, and taunted him by all the 
epithets and scurrility incident to the vulgar of the time ; 
and foremost of all this rout, who were becoming excited 
with a thirst for blood and all the ardour of a hunt or race, 
rode Symon Brodie, the butler of Preston, mounted on a 
blood horse which belonged to his master, and had mroe 
than once borne at its neck the silver bdl, the prize of the 
winner at Lanark races. 

" Come on ! come on ! " he was exclaiming ; " and look, 
lads, to your whingers and spur-whangs, for we win on him 
fast ! Turn ye, Fawside ! turn ye ! and face, if ye dare, the 
same men that slew your kinsmen ! Through ! through !- — 
a Hamilton ! a Hamilton ! " 

These taunts made Fawside's blood boil within him, and a 
storm of hatred at these enemies of his family now tracking 



5i THE BBAWL. 

him with the most deadly iDtentions, gathered with stem 
ferocity in his heart : but the odds were too many against 
him ; and though his cheek glowed and every pulse quickened 
with passion, he held on his way towards the city without 
swerving or casting a single glance behind. His pursuers 
were now so close, that he could hear them encouraging 
each other and laughing at those whom they distanced. 

" Spur on — spur on 1 " cried the butler ; " this gay 
galliard has nine golden targets at his velvet hat." 

" They will blink brawly at our bonnet-lugs in the morn- 
ing sun 1 " exclaimed another, goring his horse on hearing 
this fabricated incentive to blood and robbery. ''I have 
plundered Dame Alison's eel-arks in the Howmire for a 
month past, and grazed my nowte on Birsley brae, but I 
must e'en change a' that if the laird win hame.*' 

" The auld devil in the tower will burst her bobbins wi' 
spite if we day her son ! " said a third. 

*' Od, on," cried others, " ere he gain the town-gates, for 
then the watch and the craftsmen will be raised like a 
hornet's nest on us, and the provost has but one word for 
brawlers — the Wuddie!^^ 

" Sooth ay 1 " panted Brodie, pricking his horse with his 
dagger to increase its speed ; " beware o' the Buith-holdcra 
and armed burgesses, for he is a landed man, and if we slay 
him ^» 

" Aver that we took him for a brawler, a dustifute, or 
fairand man." 

" Havers ! " exclaimed the savage butler ; " wit ye, lads, 
'tis our master's just feud. The young wolf hath come froni 
France to slay our master. Preston is auld now, while he 
is lithe and young ; no battle could be fair between them, 
so let us cut him off ere we ride homeward to-night— cut 
him off I say ! " 

" By my father's hand ! " exclaimed another horseman 
who came abreast of them, and panted as he spoke, ''I will 



TBE BRAWL. 55 

venture both craig and weaaon to diive my dagger in his 
brisket. I will teach Scottish men to become the spies of 
France." 

" Or the paid hirelings of England," retorted Fawside, 
now turning for the first time, and with his wheel-lock 
petronel dischai'ging a flying shot at haphazard among his 
pursuers. One by the side of the last speaker, who was the 
Lord KilmaurSy fell prone with a loud cry on the narrow 
path. Whether he was killed outright, or merely wounded, 
his comrades never tarried to inquire ; but with a shout of 
rage and defiance, continued the race for death and life in 
the dark. 

This episode occurred near a mill belonging to the monks 
of Holyrood — a quaint old edifice, having enormous but- 
tresses, and in which King Eobert I., when well stricken 
in years, is said by tradition to have found shelter on a 
stormy winter night, when the path to Edinburgh was 
buried deep under the drifted snow. 

Skirting a little loch, the waters of which turned the 
mills of the canons of Sanctse Crucis, the fugitive continued 
his flight towards the city, up the undulating slope now 
covered by the New Town of Edinburgh, but then a wilder- 
ness of furze and broom, till he reached the North-loch, ' 
which formed a moat or protection for the capital of the 
James's ; for on that side there was no other defence than 
this artificial sheet of water, which the magistrates could 
at all times deepen by closing the sluice at the eastern 
extremity, between the Dow-Craig, or Calton, and the 
Craig-end gate. 

Before Fawside the long and lofty ridge of the ancient 
city on its steep of rock and hill, upreared its rugged out- 
line against the starry sky, broken into a hundred fantastic 
shapes, and terminating at the westward in the black and 
abrupt bluffs, crowned by the ancient castle, which then 
consisted of four Imge donjons or masses of mason-work, 



£f6 THE HRAWXh 

the towers of King DaVid, of 8t Margaret, of the oon- 
Btable, and the rojal lodging ; but all were black and grim, 
for neither in the guarded fortress nor the walled city did 
a single rajr of light shine out to vary the dusky gloom of 
the scenery. Our &thers went to bed betimes in the year 
1047. 

In the bosom of the long and narrow loch which spread 
before him, the reflected stars were twinkling, and headlong 
down its grassy slope he rode, and, without a moment's 
hesitation, plunged in his panting horse, with knee and 
spur, voice and bridle, urging it to gain the opposite bank ; 
then plunge after plunge resounded on both sides, as 
nearly a score of horsemen leaped in after him, dashing the 
waters into a myriad foamy ripples, and resolved to follow 
him to the last ; while others, less determined, or less in- 
terested in his destruction, or the capture of the supposed 
IVench missives, reined up their chargers on the bank, and 
fired their wheel-lock petronels at him, as his roan horse 
breasted the dark water bravely, and snorted, swimming 
with its head aloft and flanks immersed. Ere it was mid- 
way across, the poor animal uttered a wild cry, writhed 
under the rider, and by throwing back its head in agony, 
announced that it was mortally wounded, for it sank almost 
immediately, leaving Fawside to disentangle his feet from 
the stirrups and strike out for the opposite bank. For- 
tunately he had learned to swim expertly in the Loire, 
when at Yend6me; thus he soon gained the opposite 
bank, but not without considerable difficulty, as its steep 
slope was covered by rushes, slime, and weedy grass. 

The wheel-lock, or pistol, used by the men-at-arms of 
those days, was an invention of the (rermans, and we 
have a minute description of it in Luigi Collados* treatise 
on Artillery, published at Venice in 1586, when it was 
deemed a flrearm as perfect as now we deem our boasted 
Enfleld or Lancaster rifle. The lock was composed of a 



THE BRAWL. 51 

solid wheel of fine steel revolying on an axle, to which a 
chain was attached. On being wound, this wheel drew up 
a strong chain, which, on the trigger being pulled, whirled 
the wheel with sUch velocity that the Motion of its notched 
edge struck fire from a flint screwed into a cock which 
overhung the priming-pan* The wheels took some time to 
wind up or spcm, as it was technically termed, by a spanner 
or key, which the pistolier carried by a ribbon at his neck ; 
but after all this preparation, like many better inventions 
of a more modem time, this weapon occasionally hung fire, 
and refused to explode at aU. 

However, on the present occasion, the wheel-locks of 
Florence's pursuers did their duty fatally for the poor horse 
he rode, and, boiling with a fury which he could no longer 
restrain, panting and breathless with his rapid ride, his 
recent immersion and present danger, he unsheathed his 
sword, determined to kill the first who came ashore, ere he 
turned once more to fiy. 

The first who came within his reach proved to be a fol- 
lower of the Lord Glencaim, Hobbie Cunninghame, or 
Hobbie of the Knychtsrig, who, in the preceding year, had 
been nearly hanged for abstracting " the provost's ox " — a 
£sit bullock presented annually by the town-council to their 
chief magistrate, — and whom he cut down by a single back- 
handed stroke. The second he slew at the third pass, and 
he felt, as he ran him through the body, something of a 
shudder when the man's hot blood poured through the cut- 
steel network of his swordhilt, and mingled with the cold 
water of the .loch which dripped from his doublet sleeves. 
But he thought, perhaps, little more about it, as he turned 
and rushed up the nearest close or alley, pursued by a dozen 
of his untiring enemies, who abandoned their horses, and, 
with an ardour which their recent swim in the water failed 
to cool, followed him on foot up the steep slope, with swords 
and daggers drawn. 



58 THE BBAWL. 

To quote a French writer when describiog a similar inci- 
dent — 

" Let not our readers have the least bad opinion of our 

hero, who, after having killed a man, feared the police, but 

not God ; for in 1547 all men were alike in this. They 

thought so little in that age of dying, that they also thought 

little of killing. We are brave now ; but they were rcbsh. 

People then lost, sold, or gave away their lives with jprqfatmd 
cardessTiess" 

Eemorse or regret has nothing to do with this kind of 
killing j and any man who enjoyed a day or two shooting 
during the siege of Lucknow, or in the rifle-pits at Sebas- 
topol, will tell you the same thing. 

Fawside's blood was now fairly up, and he felt that with 
fierce joy he could make mince-meat of them all. The 
struggle was not merely a life for a life, but twelve lives for 
his — ^twelve swords against one ! He reached the High 
Street, which traverses the crest of the lofty ridge occupied 
by the ancient city : it was involved in almost total dark- 
ness ; for though in the reign of the late king the citizens 
had been ordained to hang out oil lanterns at certain hours, 
under the weaker rule of the Regent Arran they preferred 
alike to save their oil and the trouble. A vast breadth of 
opaque shadow enveloped this great thoroughfare, which 
was then encumbered by piles of timber and peat-stacks for 
fuel, as each citizen had one before his door ; and there also 
— as in the streets of London and Paris at the same free- 
and-easy period — were huge mounds of every kind of house- 
hold debris, amid which the pigs occupying the sties under 
fore-stairs and out-shots, revelled by day, as the kites and 
gleds did in the early morning before the booths were 
unclosed and the business of the day began ; for these sable 
tenants of the adjacent woods swarmed then in the streets 
of Edinburgh, just as we may see them still about sunrise. 

Between these piles of obstruction the skirmish continued, 



THE BRAWL. 59 

and Florence Fawdde, finding that nearly all the arches of 
the various closes and wynds were closed and secnred by 
massive iron-stiidded doors, which had been hung upon them 
as a security since the late invasion of '44, was compelled to 
continue his retreat through the Landmarket towards the 
Castle Hill ; and then, having distanced several of his pur- 
suers, he turned in wild desperation to face three who were 
close upon him, and whose swords there was no avoiding. 

" They seek my letters or my life," thought he ; " but my 
letters are more precious than my life — ay, more precious 
to Scotland and her little queen than the lives of fifty brave 
men. My mother — oh, my mother I what will be her 
thoughts if these assassins succeed in destroying me — hunt- 
ing me thus to death like a mad dog. Oh, what a welcome 
home to my country ! — the first night I tread again on 
Scottish ground. Hold your hands, sirs ! *' he exclaimed 
aloud. ''I am on the queen's service, and the Lord 
Hegent's too. Hold ! — ^this is stoutrief, open felony and 
treason ! " 

" Fellow, thou makest a devil of a noise ! " said the youDg 
Lord Kilmaurs, making a deadly thrust, which Florence 
parried, and almost by the same movement cut one of his 
companions across both legs, and for a moment brought the 
ruffian down upon his knees j| but he started up and thrust 
madly at Fawside, whose back was now close to the wall 
of a house on the northern verge of the street, which there 
became narrow, as it approached the spur-gate of the 
Castle. 

" Fie ! armour — armour fie ! " he exclaimed, using the 
cry of alarm then common in Edinburgh. 

" Ding your whingers into him," said Kilmaurs furiously, 
as he paused for a moment to draw breath and let his com- 
panions' swords have full play, while his livid visage seemed 
by the starlight pale and green, as that of one who had been 
a corpse many days, and his dark eyes glittered like those 



60 THE BBAWL. 

of an incarnate demon. '^ At him to the hilt/' he continued, 
" lest he rouse the burgh on us j for the common bell will 
be rung in five minutes, and then every bloated burgess and 
rascally booth-holder will be at the rescue, with halbert, jack, 
and steel bonnet. At him, I say T' 

"Are you Egyptians or thieves," said Fawside tauntingly; 
" if so, take my purse among ye and begone, in the name of 
the devil your master." 

" No thieves or Egyptians are we," said Kilmaurs, again 
handling his sword with a savage laugh; '^but Scottish 
gentlemen, who would fain know what paper news you bring 
out of France." 

" From the three princes of the League," added Glencairn. 

"The bloody Cardinal de Lorraine, and that foul kite of 
Eome, the Due de Guise." 

"And the Due de Mayenne," added others, falling on 
with their swords. 

"Ah! — ^'tis my letters rather than my life they seek," 
muttered Fawside. " Let me be wary — oh, let me be wary, 
blessed Heaven ! " 

He had now his single blade opposed at least to four ; 
but, thanks to his own skill and the improvements made by 
a French master-at-arms on the earlier tuition he had 
received from old Roger of the "Westmains, he kept them 
all in play, though his wrist began to fail and his sword-arm 
tingled to the shoulder. There shot a sharp and sudden 
pang through his left side, and on placing his hand there he 
felt the warm blood flowing from a wound. The sword of 
his first adversary, Lord Kilmaurs, had glanced along the 
ribs, and at the same moment a Cunningham gave him a 
stab between the bones of the sword-arm with a species of 
dagger, then named a Tynedale knife. There is an old 
saying that a Scotsman always fights best after seeing his 
own blood. Be that as it may, Fawside, on finding the 
current of his IJfe now pouring from two wounds, that he 



THE BRAWL. 61 

wa» becoming weary, that there was a singing in his ears, 
a cloud descending on his eyes, and that the men with 
whom he fought seemed opaque shadows whose numbers 
were multiplying, and whose sword-blades his weapon sought 
and parried by mere instinct rather than by efforts of vision 
and skill — and, more than all, that many other merciless 
adversaries were coming clamorously and hastily up the 
street, a wild emotion of despair gathered with fury in his 
heart, at the prospect of never seeing his grey-haired mother 
more, and of being helplessly butchered on the first night 
he had set foot in the streets of Edinburgh after an absence 
of well-nigh seven years — butchered by men whom he knew 
not, and had never offended. Yet, with all this, he now dis- 
dained to cry for aid, but fought in silence and despair. 

" He sinks at last ! " said Symon Brodie with savage 
exultation. " A Hamilton ! a Hamilton ! Fawside, ye 
shall die ! " 

" Be it so. Then I to God and thou to the devil, false 
cullion 1 " he exclaimed, and by two well-directed thrusts 
he ran the half-tipsy butler and another knave through the 
body ; but their steel caps had scarcely rung on the cause- 
way when five or six other swords flashed before his eyes, 
and he received a third wound in the breast. On this a 
cry of agony, which was received by a shout of derision, 
escaped him. 

" Kilmaurs, is not this fellow killed yet ? " asked the 
Master of Lyle, who was one of the new-comers. " Devil 
bite The ! is this French trafficker to keep twelve swordsmen 
in play and kill them all at his leisure ! " 

" Upon him now, his guard is down ! " exclaimed the 
ferocious Kilmaurs, exasperated by the taunt of his com- 
patriot, as he rushed forward to despatch the poor lad, 
whose head and hands were drooping as he reclined against 
the wall of a dark shadowy house, and felt that life and 
energy were alike passing away from him ; when suddenly 



62 THB BBAWL. 

a tall man mingled his voice in the combat^ and being 
armed with one of those poleaxes which all citizens were 
bound to possess for the purpose of " redding frays " within 
the burgh, he beat them back, shouting the while, 

" Armour ! armour ! fie — ^to the rescue — ^fie ! " 

" What villain art thou ? " demanded Glencairn impe- 
riously, grasping his right arm. 

" Fie ! gar ding your whingers into him ! " cried the 
others. " What matters it who he is 1 " 

" Speak, rash fellow, lest I kill thee ! " said the lofty- 
noble. " I am the Lord Glencairn ! " 

" And I am Dick Hackerston, a burgess and free crafts- 
man — a hammerman of Edinburgh. Fie ! — have at ye a' ! 
Is this fair play or foul, my lords and masters?" he ex- 
claimed, as he swept them aside by describing a circle 
vigorously with his poleaxe. 

At that moment blindness came upon the eyes of Florence, 
and a faintness overspread his limbs. The stone wall against 
which he reclined seemed to yield and give way ; he felt the 
atmosphere change ; a red light seemed to shine before his 
half-closed eyelids ; and voices, gentle, softly modulated, and 
full of tender commiseration, floated in his ears. 

He sank down — down he knew not, recked not where. 

He heard a door closed violently 

A stupor like death came over him^ and he remembered no 
more ! • 



THE KEGENCY OF ABRAK. 63 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE BEGENCY OF ABBAN. 

Yet if the gods demand her, let her sail, — 
Our cares are only for the public weal : 
Let me be deeni'd the hateful causo of all, 
And suffer, rather than my peoplo fall. 
The prize, the beauteous prize, I will resign. 
So dearly valued, and so juady mine. 

Hiad, i. 

It has already been stated that the Regent of Scotland at 
this time was James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, better known 
amid the civil wars and woes of future years as the Duke of 
Chatelherault, a fief in Foitou, and formerly capital of the 
duchy of Chatelheraudois. His father was the first who 
obtained the earldom of Arran, and his mother was Janet 
Beaton, of Creich, niece of the unfortunate cardinal who 
was slain in the Castle of St. Andrew's. The French duke- 
dom he received for the . spirit with which he maintained 
Scottish and French interests against the valour of England 
and the machinations of that degraded and anti-national 
party the Scottish peers of King Henry's faction, a few of 
whom have already been introduced to the reader in the 
preceding chapter. 

The little queen was a child in her fifth year; and 
Henry VIIL, that wily and ferocious monarch, during his 
latter days lefb nothing untried, by subtle diplomacy, by 
open war, by hired assassins, and by bands of foreign con- 
doUierl leagued with his own troops, to remove from his 
path all obstruction to a marriage between his son Edward 
and the young queen of Scotland. He proposed to Arran^ 



64 THB REOENCY OF ABRAK. 

if he would deliver her person into his blood-imbrued hands, 
to assist him with all the power of England and Ireland to 
make for himself a new kingdom beyond the Forth, and to 
give his daughter Elizabeth, the future queen of England, in 
marriage to Arran's heir, the young Lord James Hamilton, 
then captain of the Scottish Archers in France ; but the 
Begent knew how little Henry's boasts would avail him at 
the foot of the Grampians, 6r had patriotism enough to 
reject a proposal so wild and so disastrous with the disdain 
it merited ; and so, in time, the English Bluebeard was 
gathered to his wives and to his -fathers, bequeathing to 
the Duke of Somerset, Protector of England during the 
minority of Edward VI., the pleasant task of arranging,' 
by fair means or foul, a matrimonial alliance between 
that prince and the little queen of "the rugged land of 
spearmen." 

Cardinal Beaton, long a faithful and a formidable enemy 
to Scottish treason and to English guile, had perished by 
the hands of assassins, whose secret projects were better 
understood at Windsor than at Holyrood. The invasion of 
Scotland, and the almost total destruction of Edinburgh — 
the burnings and the devastations in the fertile Lothians by 
Lord Hertford's army, with the rout of the English at the 
bloody battle of Ancrum — ended for a time all hope of 
Somerset ever accomplishing the perilous work so rashly 
bequeathed to him by his grasping and imperious master ; 
yet, being a brave and high-spirited noble, he still continued 
the attempt in secret, as he could never despair of having 
the nation ultimately betrayed while that faithless class, its 
nobility, existed. 

The Scottish peers were now, as usual, divided into two 
factions, one who adhered to the old treaty with France, 
and the other — ^the basest, most venal, and corrupt — com- 
posed of those who urged the advantages of the matrimonial 
alliance between the infant Queen Mary and the boy King 



THE BEGENCY OF ARRAN. 65 

Edward. These men, though bearing names of old historic 
memory, the 

*' Seed of those who scom'd ^ 
To stoop the neck to wide imperial Rome," 

were mean enough to receive in secret sums of money, first 
from Henry of England, secondly from the Protector Somer- 
set, and by written obligations to bind themselves to further 
the selfish and aggressive schemes of both ; while, in the 
same spirit of political perfidy, they gave to the Scottish 
Regent Arran the most solemn assurances of their entire 
concurrence with Am, in his conservative measures for obey- 
ing the will of the late King James V. — whose noble heart 
they broke, — and in defending the realm of his daughter 
against all foreign enemies, more especially their ancient 
foemen of the south. On one hand they openly announced 
their resolution to support the Church of their fathers, and 
the faith that came from Kome ; on the other, they secretly 
leagued with those who slew the primate of Scotland in his 
archiepiscopal castle at St. Andrews, and plotted for the 
plunder of the temporalities. 

The noble Earl of Huntly, with Arran and the more 
patriotic — the unblemished and unbribed, — ^looked towards 
France for a husband for their queen, and for troops to 
enable them to resist the combined strength of Cassilis, 
Glencaim, Kilmaurs, and more than two hundred titled 
Scottish traitors, when backed by the military power of 
England, and those Spanish and German mercenaries under 
Don Pedro de Gamboa and Conrad Baron of Wolfenstein, 
whom the Protector maintained in Norham, Carlisle, and 
other strongholds near the border. 

The weakness of Arran's government, the feeble power 
of the newly-instituted courts of law, the licentious lives 
of a hierarchy whose Church and power were nodding to 
their fall, the gradual declension of an ancient faith, and 



66 THB BBGSNCY OF ABRAK. 

the dawn of a new one divested of all tliat was striking or 
attractive to the imagination, and which, from its grim 
novelty, the people neither loved nor respected at heart, — 
all tended to arrest the rapid progress which Scotland had 
made in art and science, music and poetry, architecture, 
literature^ printing, and commerce, \mder the fatherly care 
of the six last kings of the Stuart race. Hence there was 
generated, about the epoch of our story, a greater barbarism 
among the feudal aristocracy and their military followers, 
all of whom were ever but too fierce, turbulent, and prone 
to bloodshed. Thus outrages, feuds, raidsy and combats, 
the siege and storm of castles and towers, were mere matters 
of every-day life ; and a fight of a few hundred men-at-arms 
a side, with lance and buckler, sword and arquebuse, in the 
streets of Edinburgh, Perth, or Aberdeen, occasioned less 
excitement among their warlike citizens than an election 
row, a casual fire, or a runaway horse, in these our jogtrot 
days of peace societies and Sabbatarian twaddle. 

The more ancient laws of Scotland, by which a man's life 
might be redeemed for nine times twenty cattle, or when 
for shedding blood south of the Scottish Sea (i,e. Firth of 
Forth) a penalty of twenty-five shillings was levied, or 
when, for committing the same offence north of the same 
sea the value of six cattle was exacted — ^had now been 
succeeded by a regular code of stricter statutes, to be enforced 
by regular courts of law and justide. . Tet blood was shed 
and life taken more often than before, in sudden quarrel 
and old hereditary feud, daily — yea, hourly, — without other 
punishment or remedy than such as the nearest clansman 
or kinsman might inflict with the sword and torch — and 
these were seldom idle. 

The times were wild and perilous I 

All men wore arms, and used them on the most trivial 
occasions. Even James Y., so famous for his justice and 
lenity, when a boy in his eleventh year, with his little 



THE BEGSNOT OF AREAK. 67 

Parmese dagger, stabbed a warder at tbe gate of Stirling 
Castle, because the man would not let him out to ramble in 
the town. 

Hence such outrages as the murder of Cardinal Beaton 
in his own castle, the slaughter of Sir John Fawside by 
Claude Hamilton of Preston, on the skirts of Gladsmuir. 
The besieging of John Lord Lindesay, sheriff of Fife, 
when in the execution of his oflLee, by the lairds of 
ClattOy Balfour, and Clayerhouse, with eighty men-at-arms, 
while at the same time the Grants amused themselves by 
sacking and burning the manor-house of Davy, in Strath- 
navem, and making a dean sweep of eveiytWng on the 
lands of Ardrossiere. Even the king's artillery, when en 
route from Stirling to Edinburgh, in 1526, were attacked, 
the gunners killed or dispersed, and the guns taken, by 
Bruce of Airth, who required a few field-pieces for his own 
mansion. Hence the slaughter of the Laird of Mouswald- 
mains by Bell of Currie, and of the Laird of Dalzel by the 
Lord Maxwell. Hence the abduction of Lady Margaret 
Stewart, daughter of Matthew Earl of Lenuor, by her 
lover, the young Laird of Boghall, and the death of her 
husband John Lord Fleming, great chamberlain of Scotland, 
by the sword of John Tweedie, Baron of Drummelzier, who 
slew him when hawking, on the 1st Kovember, 1524. 
Hence the slaughter of the Laird of Stonebyres by the 
rector of Colbinton ; of two gentlemen named Nisbet, in 
the king's palace and presence, by Andrew Blackadder of 
that ilk ; the murder of the Laird of Auchinharvie by the 
Earl of Eglintou ; the assassination of that fine old priest 
and poet, Sir James Lighs, abbot of Culross, by the Baron 
of Tulliallan, in 1531, and the firing of the thatched kirk of 
Monivaird, in Strathearn, by the Drummonds, who destroyed 
therein '^ six score of the Murrayes, with their wives and 
childraine, who were all burned or slaine except o»6." 

These little recreations of the Scottish landed gentry 

F 2 



68 THE BEOENCY OF ABBAN. 

and their retainers were occasionally varied by branking 
scolding wives with iron bridles, or ducking them in ponds j 
burning witches and Lollards ; hanging gipsies, and boring 
the tongues of evil-speakers with hot iron; — so that sel- 
dom a day passed, in town or country, without some stirring 
novelty of a lively nature. ^ 

One tract of land, where, in the year of Flodden, one 
thousand and forty-one ploughs had usually turned up the 
teeming soil, was now, as the Lord Dacre says, ^^ clearly 
wasted, and had no man dwelling therein," — ^wasted by his 
wanton inroads ; and this desolated tract lay in the middle 
marches, on the banks of the Leader, the Euse, and the Ale 
— the lovely border-land, — ^the land of war and song — of 
the sword and lyre ; but there grew little grass, and less 
com, where the hoof of the moss-trooper's steed left its iron 
print in the soiL 

Superstition was not wanting to add to the terror of 
warring clans and those English devastators who, in 1544, 
laid ]fkiinburgh in blazing ruin, and swept all the fair 
Lothians, as if the land had been burned ttp-*-tree, tower, 
and corn-field, hamlet, church, and hedgerow — ^by the fire 
which fell of old on the cities of the plain. Lady Glammes, 
a young and beautiful woman, was burned alive at Edin- 
burgh,, for treason, and some say sorcezy; and in the 
year of our story, 1547, there was buried in the beautiful 
chapel of Boslin, Father Samuel, the prior of St. Mary 
of Deir, who was deemed a wizard so terrible that all the 
sanctity of the place could scarcely keep his bones from 
rattling in their stone sarcophagus. 

Wonderful things were seen and heard of in those quaint 
old times. 

In 1570, a monstrous fish, having two human heads, 
each surmounted by a royal crown of gold, swam up Loch- 
fyno ; and seven years after, a swarm of fish, each having a 
monk's hood on its head, came up the Firth of Forth. In 



THE BEGENCY OF AKRAN^ 69 

Glencomie, a gentleman of the house of Lovat slew a 
veritable scaly dragon, which vomited fire like that en- 
countered by St. George of old, and set the purple heather 
in a flame. The northern sky was nightly brightened by 
ranks of gUttering spears and waving pennons. In the 
woful year of Pinkey-cleugh, a calf was brought forth with 
two heads, on Robert Ormiston's farm, in Lothian ; and if 
other omen of evil to come were wanted, on the Westmains 
of Fawside, a huge bull which belonged to our friend Roger 
the Baillie, and was the pride of the parish, when browsing 
on the green brae-side, turned suddenly into a black 
boulder-stone, which may yet be seen by those who take 
the trouble of inquiring after it; while a *' fierce besom" 
or comet that blazed o' nights in the southern quarter of 
the sky, portended evil coming from England, and made old 
men and grandmothers cower with afiright in their cosy 
ingles beyond the fire, and tell their beads as their minds 
became filled with forebodings of dolor and woe : for 
though hardy and brave, they were simple souls — our Scot- 
tish sires, three hundred years ago. 

Such was the state of the kingdom in the year of our 
story, and during the regency of Arran. 



70 _ MISTRUST. 



CHAPTER IX. 

MISTRTTST. 

* 

It will be great, thou son of pride ! — I have been renowned in 
battle ; but I never told my name to a foe. — Ossian, 

CoKsciousNESS returned slowly to Florence Fawside, and 
when his eyes unclooed, he saw first the huge misshapen 
figures of a large green-and-msset-coloured tapestry, which 
covered the walls of a dimly-lighted room, the four carved 
posts of a bed, the magnificent canopy of which spread its 
shadow over him, and the soft laced pillows whereon his 
head reposed. Then he became sensible of the presence of 
persons moving about him on tiptoe, speaking in gentle 
whispers. 

There were two women, young, beautiful, and richly 
dressed ; and with them was a man whose white beard 
flowed over the front of his long and sable robe. Then 
came again the sensation of faintness — ^the sinking sensation 
of one about to die, — ^with the agony of his sword- wounds, 
which felt like the searings of a red-hot iron, when the 
hands of his fair attendants — soft, kind, and " tremulously 
genjfcle " hands they were — ^unbuttoned his doublet, untied 
his ruff, drew aside the breast of his lace shirt, and a hand- 
kerchief which he had thrust under it when first wounded, 
and which were now both soaked with blood. This caused 
his wounds to stream anew. He felt the current of his life 
gush forth, and while a faint cry of pity from a female voice 
came feebly to his ear, the sufferer, when making a futile 
effort to grasp the pocket which contained his fatal letters, 
became once more totally insensible. ..... 



MISTRUST. 71 

The early dawn of a clear August tiiortaing was stealing 
through the iron-grated windows of the apartment in which 
he lay, when Florence awoke again to life, and, raising 
himself feebly on an elbow^ looked around him. 

He was in a chamber the walls of which were hung with 
beautiful tapestry ; the ceiling was painted with mytholo- 
gical figures^ and the oak floor Was strewn with green 
rushes and freshly-cut flowets — for carpets were yet almost 
unknown in Britain. Frotn a carved beam of oak, which 
crossed the ceiling transversely, hung a silver night-lamp, 
fed with perfumed oil, amid which the light was just 
expiring. In a shadowy comer of the room was an altar, 
bearing a glittering crucifix, before l^hich were two flicker- 
ing tapers, two vases of fr^h rodes, and an exquisitely- 
carved pne-Dieti of walnut-wood, inlaid ^th mother-of- 
pearl. 

The hangings of his bed were of the finest crin^on silk, 
festooned by gold cords and massive tassels. Oil one side, 
through the window, he could see the green northern bank 
of the loch which bordered the city, and through which on 
the night before he had striven to swim his horse ; beyond 
it werd yellow fields, green copsewood, and purple muir- 
land, stretching to the shores of the azute SV>rth. On the 
other side were the quaint figures of the old tapestry which 
represented a Scottish tradition well known In the days of 
Hector Boece---7<lnat on the day when the battle of Bannock- 
bum was fought and won, a knight in armour that shone 
with a marvellous brilliance, mounted on a black steed, all 
foamy with haste and bloody with spurring, appeared sud- 
denly in the streets of Aberdeen, and with a loud voice 
announced Brace's victory to the startled citizens. Passing 
thence to the north with frightful speed, over hill and valley, 
this shining warrior was seen to quit the land and spur his 
steed across the raging waves of the Pentland Firth, and to 
vanish in the mist that shrouded the northern isles. Hence 



72 MISTBUST. 

some averred he was St. Magnus of Orkney, while the 
xnore aspiring maintained that he was St. Michael the 
Archangel. 

"Where am 11 "was the first mental question of the 
sufferer, as he pressed his hand across his swimming fore- 
head. " My letters ! " was his next thought. On a chair 
near him hung his doublet : he made a great effort to 
ascertain if they were untouched, but sank back upon his 
pillow, exhausted by the attempt. 

Morning was fer advanced when he revived again. He 
found something cold and sharp in flavour poured between 
his lips ; it refreshed him, and on looking up he became 
inspired with new energy on seeing again the two ladies 
whose forms he believed last night to have been the portions 
of a feverish dream, or to have been conjured by his fancy 
from those upon the tapestry. 

One was a tall and beautiful woman, of a noble and com- 
manding presence, about thirty years of age ; her forehead 
was rather broad than high ; her nose, long and somewhat 
pointed, might have been too masculine, but for the charm- 
ing softness of her other features, especially her clear hazel 
eyes, which were full of sweetness, and expressed the deepest 
commiseration. That her rank was high, her attire suffi- 
ciently announced. She was dressed in a delentera of cloth- 
of-gold, the opened skirts of which displayed her petticoat 
of crimson brocade ; her sleeves were of crimson satin tied 
by strings of pearl ; her girdle was of gold surrounded by 
long pearl pendants ; while a cross of diamonds sparkled on 
her breast. 

Her companion seemed fully ten years younger : her 
stature was rather less ; her complexion was equally fair ; 
but her hair was of that deep brown which seems black by 
night ; her features were so regular that nothing prevented 
them from being perhaps insipid ; but the darkness of her 
eyebrows, with the vivacity of her deep violet-coloured blue 



MISTRUST. 73 

eyes ; and as she bent over the sofierer's bed, the rose-leaf 
tinge in her soft cheek came and went rapidly. She wore a 
loose robe of purple taffeta, trimmed with seed pearls; and 
among her dark hair there sparkled many precious stones ; 
for the attire o£ people of rank in those days was gorgeously 
profuse in quality of material and elaboration of ornament. 

" Mon Dieu ! — he faints again ! " said the former lady, in 
a soft but foreign accent, and with a tone of alarm. 

"Nay, he only sleeps," whispered the other; "and see — 
now he wakens and recovers ! " 

" Saint Louis prie pour moi ! but the pale aspect of this 
wounded boy so terrifies me ! " 

" Am I stiU in France 9 " murmured Fawside. 

" Oh, he speaks of France ! " exclaimed the elder, drawing 
nearer. * 

"Where am I, madame — in Paris?" asked Fawside 
family. 

" Nay, you are safe in the city of Edinburgh." 

" Safe ! And who are you who condescend to treat me 
BO humanely, so tenderly ? Oh ! I cannot dream. Last 
night — I now remember me, — ^I left the ship of the Sieur de 
Villegaignon, and was pursued by armed men, — ^by men who 
sought to murder me, and Heaven and they alone know 
why, for unto them I had done no wrong. I fell, wounded, 
I remember ; but how came I here 1 " 

"You must not speak, fair sir," replied the elder lady, 
placing her white and faultless hand upon the iiot and 
parched mouth of the youth. "But listen, and I shall 
tell you. We heard the clash of swords (nothing singular 
in Edinburgh), and cries for 'help* beneath our windows; 
from whence we saw a man beset by many, who beat him 
down at last, though he fought valiantly wiih his back to 
the postern door of our mansion." 

" A door ! — methought it was a stone wall. 

" Nay, sir, fortunately it was not the stone wall, but a 



74 tttSTBtTdir. 

door : my servantd opened it ; yon fell tmotmU, It ^^as 
instantly shut and barricaded, by my orders, and thus we 
saved you/' 

" And this was last night f " 

" Nay," replied the beautiful lady, smiling, and using her 
sweetest foreign accent, " it was three nights ago." 

"Thre^!" 

".I have said so, monsieur." 

" You are of France, dear madame ? *' 

" So are many ladies at the Scottish court." 

« And I— I-—." 

" Have been in sleep under the opiates of my physician, 
or at times delirious ; but now, thanked be kind Heaven, 
and his judicious skill, all dangei* of fever is past." 

^' Three days and nights ! Oh ! madame, to how much 
inconvenience I must have put you." 

" Say not so. To have saved your life is reward sufficient 
for my friend and me." 

" Thanks, madame, thanks j not that I value life much, 
but for the sake of one I love dearly, and for the task I 
have to perform." 

" One ! — a lady, doubtless ? ** asked the younger, smiling, 

'* My mother 1 " riBplied Fawside, as his dark eyes flashed 
and suffused at the same moment. 

"And your task is probably a pilgrimage 1 '* continued 
she with the violet-blue eyes. 

''Nay, lady, nay; no pilgrimage, but a behest full of 
danger and death, and inspired by a hate that seems at 
times to be a holy one — for the blood of a slain father 
inspires it." 

" Madame," began the younger lady uneasily, " may it 
please your-* " 

"/Slfay/" exclaimed the other, interrupting the title by 
which she doubtless was about to be addressed ; — and then 
' they whispered together. 



KISTRT78T. 75 

Fawside now remarked mentally that this was the third 
occasion on which she had been similarly interrupted. 

"Here lurketh some mystery," thought he, glancing at 
his doublet, in the secret pocket of which his letters were 
concealed, " so let me be wary." 

"These are exciting thoughts for one so weak and so 
severely wounded as you are," resumed the matron, for 
such she evidently was. " Know you who those outrageous 
assailants were ? " 

" Too well ! — ^the men who slew my father under tryst, 
and my brave brother too, by falsity and secrecy, as 'tis 
said" 

" And they ? " faltered the lady. 

"Who!" 

" Your £either and brother ? " 

" Were" good men and leal." 

" I doubt not that, sir. But their names 1 " 

" Were second to none in the three Lothians." 

" You are singularly wary, fair sir," said the elder lady 
proudly, and with an air of pique. 

"And your father fell ," began the younger in a 

tremulous voice, as if the young man's vehemence terrified 
her. 

" He fell so many years ago that the interest of my debt 
of blood and vengeanc e " 

« Is, I doubt not, dpubled ! " 

" Yea, madame, quadrupled ; and I shall have it rendered 
back duly, every drop." 

"Oh! say not so," said the young lady, shuddering. 
Thiuk of all you have escaped, and how, on that fatal 
night, kind Heaven spared you." 

" To avenge my family feud on those who would have 
slain me." 

** And you have been in France ?" said the lady in the 
cloth-of-gold, to change the subject. 



76 MISTBTJSr. 

" Yes, madame.** 

'^ And came from thence with Nicholas de Yillegaig* 
non ? " 

" Yes, madame.' 

**Ah, mon ZHeuf — dear, dear France !" she exclaimed: 
" and you were there how long ? " 

" Seven happy years, lady." 

** In the army, of course 1 " 

" No." 

" At the court of Henry of Yalois 1 " 

*' No — with Anne de la Tour." 

''The Duchess of Albany — a proud and haughty old 
widow." 

''But a mistress kind and gentle to me. I had the 
honour to kiss King Henry's hand on my way home through 
Paris." 

*' Had you any letters or messages for Scotland i " asked 
the lady anxiously. 

" Nay, I had no letters," he replied gloomily and briefly ; 
" but tell m6, pray, your names, your rank, ladies — in pity 
tell me ! " 

"Pardon us, sir," said the elder, patting his forehead 
kindly with her soft white hand ; " in that you must hold 
us excused. We tell not our names lightly to a stranger — 
a wild fellow who fights with every armed man, and, for 
aught we know, makes love to every pretty woman, and 
who, moreover, shrouds in such provoking mystery his own 
name and purpose. So adieu, sir — a little time and we shall 
be with you again." 

" Stay, madame — stay, and pardon me," he exclaimed, as 
they retired through the parted arras, and disappeared when 
its heavy fold' closed behind them. Then he sank upon his 
pillow, exhausted even by this short interview. 

" I am right," he muttered, as he lay with his eyes closed, 
in a species of half-stupor, or waking dream ; " my name 



MISTRUST. 77 

shall never pass my lips until I have the barbican gate of 
Fawaide Tower behind me. And yet — and .yet — ^how hard 
to mistrust that lovely girl with the dark-blue eyes and 
deep-brown hair ! " 

Bendered cautious by his late adventure, he tore off and 
de&ced the armorial bearings, which, in the French fashion, 
he wore on the breast of his beautiful doublet, and resolved 
studiously to conceal alike his name, his purpose, and his 
letters, to say no more of whence he had come or whither 
he- was bound, lest those two charming women, who so 
kindly watched and tended his sick couch, and who so sedu- 
lously concealed their names and titles, might be the wives, 
the loves, or kindred of his enemies. 

Such were his resolves. But how weak are the resolves 
even of the brave and wary, when in the hands of a beautiful 
woman ! 



78 PAVOUHABLE PROGRESS Off TUB PATIENT. 



CHAPTER X. 

IK WHICH THE PATIENT PROGRESSES rAVOURABLY. 

His qualities were beauteous as his form. 

For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free ; 

Yet, if men moTed him, he was such a storm 
As oft twixt May and April we may see. 

A Lover's Complaint, 

Aided by his youth and strength, and doubtless hy his 
native air, which blew upon his pale face through the 
northern windows of his chamber, when the breeze waved 
the ripening corn and wafted the perfume of the heather 
and the yellow broom-bells across the North Loch, Florence 
recovered rapidly. . His wounds soon healed, under the 
soothing influence of the medicinal balsams applied to them, 
and of the subtle opiates which he received from the hands 
of his two fair attendants, and from those of the wliite- 
bearded physician, who, with a pardonable vanity, cared not 
to conceal his name, but soon announced himself to be 
Master Peter Posset, chirurgeon to the late King James "V. 
of blessed memory (whose deathbed he had soothed at Falk- 
land Palace), and deacon of the chirurgeon-barbers of Edia-*--| 
burgh — a body who, in virtue of their office, were exempted 
by their charter from serving on juries, and from the duties 
of keeping watch and ward within the city. 

Master Posset was a man of venerable aspect, with a 
voluminous white beard. He was measured in tone, pe- 
dantic in manner, and bled and blistered, according to the 
rule of the age, only when certain stars and signs whiclx 
were believed to influence the human body, were in certaia 
mansions of the firmament^ — for he was a deep dabbler alike 



i 



FAVOURABU! PROGBESS OF THE PATIEl^. 79 

in alcbemy and astrology. Yet in 1533 he had studied and 
practised at Lyons as hospital physician under Babellais, 
and been the medical attendant of Jean du Bel lay, Bishop 
of Paris, when that distinguished prelate travelled to Eomo 
conoeming the diroroe of Henry YIII. oi England in 153*1. 
The residence of Master Posset was at the head of a forestair 
in tli9 Lawn-market^ where his unoouth sign, — a dried 
alb'gator, swung from an iron bracket, exciting fear and awe 
in the heart ol country folks who came to buy or sell, and 
where the armorial cognizance of Ym exB.^-^argent, a naked 
corpse fessways ^oper, between a hand with an eye in its 
])alm, the thistle and crown, — informed all that it was the 
domicile of the Deacon of the Chirurgeon-Barbers. 

By his pedantry and prosy recollections of MM, Babel- 
lais and Jean du Bellay, this worthy leech proved an in- 
tolerable bore to his patient ; but he had evidently received 
due instructions to be reserved ; for by no effort of cunning, 
of tact, and by no power of entreaty, could Fawside draw 
from him the secret of whose house they were in, and wha 
were these two women so highly bred/ so courtly, and so 
beautiful who attended him like sisters, and to whom he 
owed his life and rapid recovery. From a French valet 
who also attended him he was likewise unable to extract 
a syllable ; for M. Antoine^ though an excellent musician on 
the viol, made signs that he was dumb. 

" Master Posset, good, kind Master Posset," said Florence, 
one day, " I have exhausted all ofliers of bribes such as a 
gentleman in my present circumstances might make, and 
you have nobly rejected them all. Now I cast myself upon 
your pity, your humanity, to tell me who and what those 
two kind fairies are ! " 

" Who they are I dare not tell ; wliKJbt they are I may," 
replied the cautious leech. 

« Say on, then. What are they ? " 

^ A widow and a maid," 



80 FAYOUBABLE FB06RESS OF THE PATIENT. 

" The widow 1 " asked Florence impetuonsly. 

" Is she with the hazel eyes and chestnut hair." 

« The maid ? " 

" Of course the other, she with the darker hair and violet- 
blue eyes, and who, violet-Hke, secludes herself from all.*' 

" The loveliest, thank Heaven I " 

" Why thank you Heaven so fervently ? " asked Master 
Posset with surprise. 

" Ask me not ! — ask me not ! ** exclaimed Fawside, in 
whose heart every glance, every action, and every trivial 
question or remark of the younger lady had made a deep 
impression. 

" Their rank ? " 

" I may not, must not tell you," interrupted the physician 
hastily. 

« It is high?" / 

" Few are nobler in the land." 

*^ Ah ! Master Posset, each looks like a queen." 

" Perhaps they are so, — queens of Elfen," replied Master 
Posset, with a smile which his heavy white moustache con- 
cealed. 

"You are most (Jiscreet, Master Apothecary," sighed 
Florence with impatience. 

" To be discreet was one of my chief orders, and I am in 
the mansion of those who brook no trifling; and, as the 
great Babellais was wont to say, discretion to a physician 
was as necessary as a needle to a compass." 

" All this mystery seems rather peculiar and unnecessary ; 
but thus much I can discern, that the younger^entlewoman 
treats the other with such deference and respect, that her 
rank must be inferior, though her beauty is second to none 
that I have seen even at the court of France." 

" You are an acute observer, sir," replied the leech, red- 
dening, and with some alarm ; ** but may not such deference 
and respect arise from her junior years ? " 



" Scarcely ; for I can percneive that the elder is barely 
thirty years of age." 

^ Tet she has buried a second husband and at least two 
children/' 

" I shall soon discover her if you give me but one or two 
more such other details/' said Florence laughing. 

''You will not attempt it, I hope," said Master Posset, 
with growing alarm, and preparing to withdraw. 

" Most worthy doctor, whu^ is that which succeeds best in 
this world?" 

« I know not." 

"Shall I tell you »" 

"Yes." 

" Success. I havp great &ith in it." 

'' The very words of the great Eabelais 1 " 

^ The devil take Babelais 1 " said Mox^o^ with annoy- 
ance. 

<' Shame on you, young sir I " said Master Posset, who 
considered this rank blasphemy. 

^ Pardon me j but by this fEuth in success I shall never 
Mi," replied Fawside laughing. " I shall soon be gone from 
here, where I have played the owl too long, and when well 
enough I shall soar like the lark. Ah ! good Master Posset, 
most worthy deacon, dost think I have spent seven years of 
my life between Paris and Yendome without being able to 
discover a pretty demoiselle's name when I had the wish to 
do so. She caimot conceal herself long from me, be assured 
of that." 

'' Is it gallant to talk thus of those gentlewomen whose 
roof shelters you, and from whom you also conceal your own 
name % " asked Posset angrily. 

^< It is not ; and yet, by my £Euth, three sword wounds 
have given me more reason for caution than I ever thought 
would &I1 to my lot. But I will take patience for time 
unravelleth all things." 

Q 



82 FAVOTTBABLE PBOOBESS OF THE PATIEKT. 

'* As I have heard the divine Jean de Bellay preach in 
N6tre Dame at Paris many a time — ^yea, sir, verily tim6 
unravelleth all things." 

" Yea, and a^iengeik all things/' said a soft voice on the 
other side of his couch j and on taming, Fawside met the 
bright eyes of the lady and her friend fixed upon him. 

The young man was very handsome. His features were 
regular, but striking and marked ; his hair was cut short, 
but was black and curly ; his nose was straight, with a well- 
curved nostril ; his chin was well defined, and fringed by a 
short-clipped French beard. His shirt-coUar being open, 
displayed a muscular chest, white as the marble of Paros^ 
but crossed by the ligatures and bandages which retained 
the healing balsams on his wounds. His features had all 
the freshness and charm of youth, but over them was spread 
the languor of recent suffering and loss of blood ; thus his 
fine eyes were unnaturally bright and restless. Finding thai 
the noble lady had overheard his heedless remarks, Fawside 
made efforts to rise to bow, and, reddening deeply, said, — 

^' Pardon me, madam, I knew not that you were so near; 
nor y(my sweet mistress," he added in a tremulous voice, as 
he addressed the younger and more beautiful of those striking 
women, in whose charming society he had been thrown, and to 
whose care he had found himself confided for more than a week. 

Ldng conscious of the power of her beauty, it was im- 
possible for this young lady not to perceive and feel pleased 
with the interest she was exciting in the breast of Florence, 
the expression of whose dark eyes and the tone of whose 
voice too surely revealed it. 

This morning her sweetly feminine face was more than 
usually lovely in an ermined triangidar hood, trimmed lyith 
Isla x)earls from Angus, and these were not whiter than 
her delicate neck and ring-laden fingers ; she seldom spoke, 
save when addressed by her friend, and hbr replies were 
always brief. 



jfe.^ 



FATOXTRABLE FBOOBESS OF TBE PATIENT. 83 

^ I heard you mention Paris and tHe Yendomoifify" said 
the latter to the patient, as she bent her clear hazel eyes 
upon him, and as Master Posset respectfully withdrew from 
the chamber by retiring backwards through the arras. ^* I 
know the latter well, and every bend of the beautiful Loire, 
with the old castle of the Oomtes de la Marche and the 
ducal mansion of Charles of Bourbon ** 

" And the great old abbey of the Holy Trinity, with its 
huge towers, its pointed windows, and the^ reliquary ^' 

** Where the Benedictines keep in a crystal case the Holy 
Tear '* 

•* Wept by our Blessed Saviour over the grave of Lazarus." 

*' Ah, I see we shall have some recollections in common," 
said the proud lady, smiling ; '^ and £dr Paris — how looketh 
it?" 

« Gay and great as ever, forming, to my eyes,— in its life, 
bustle, and magnitude, — a wondrous contrast to our grim 
Scottish burghs, with their barred houses, their walls and 
gate&f, and steep streets encumbered by stacks of peat and 
fuel and heather." 

*^ Mon Dieu, yes; one may caracole a horse along the 
Rue St. Jacques or the Rue St. Honore without meeting 
such uncouth obstructions as these. Is the Hotel de Yille 
finished yet 1 " 

« Nearly so." 

"Are those four delightful monsters of M — ^M — oh, I 
forget his name — completed on the tower of St. Jacques de 
la Boucherie 1 " 

" Yes, madam, and grin over Paris all day long." 

" You see, I know Paris, sir." 

" Madame is doubtless only Scottish by adoption." 

The lady smiled sadly, while her friend laughed aloud. 

" I can see it before me now, in fancy," said she, while 
her fine eyes dilated and sparkled, "smiling amid the plain 
that is covered with golden corn, and bounded by the vine- 

Q 2 



84 FATOUBABLE ITBOOBSSS OF THB FATIBNT. 

clad bills that epvead from Most I'Hery to Foissy i Paris 
-with its huBj streets of brick-fronts ^d stone-angles, of 
slated roo& and many-coloured houses — the huge piasses of 
the die, the viUe, the great Bastile, and the double towers 
of mighty Notre Dame ! I see them all glittering in the 
cloudless sun of noon, as one day my little daughter shall 
see them too ! " 

'^ A daughter — ^you have a daughter, madam," said Faw- 
side with growing interest, ''and ar^ a widow j in pity tell 
me who you are V^ 

"We two have our little secrets, feir sir," she replied, 
holding up a slender finger with a waggish expression. 

"By the cross on my dagger, I swear to you, ma- 
dam '' 

" But your dagger is lost." 

"I regret that deeply, for it was the present of a noble dame." 

''Since we are so bent on fruitlessly questioning each 
other, may I ask Iter name ? " said the younger lady. 

" Diana de Foictiers, the Duchess of Yalentinois j it 
bears her three crescents engraved upon the hilt ; but I left 
it in some knave's body on the night of the brawL If he 
lives, the diamonds in the pommel may perhaps prove a 
salve for his sores j if he dies, a fund for his funeral — ^but 
a pest on't ! my brave dagger is gone." 

" Accept this from me," said the taller lady, taking from 
an ebony buffet that stood near, a jewelled poniard, and 
presenting it to Florence. 

" A thousand thanks, madam — a lady's gift can never be 
declined ; but what do I see ? The cipher of James V. — 
of his late majesty." 

"'Twas his dagger," said the lady gloomily, "and with it 
he threatened to stab Sir James Hamilton of Einnart, the 
inquisitor-general of Scotland ; but I arrested his hand and 
took away the weapon ; for the gentle King James would 
never refuse aught to a woman, a priest, or a child*'' 



FAVOUBABLB PBOGBESS OF THE P^IBKT. 65 

"And SO you were known to the fair mistress of 
Francis 1. 1 " asked the young lady with a slightly disdainful 
pout on her pretty lip« 

"Nay, madam, I cannot say that she knew me; but 
once when she and her royal lover quarrelled, I bore a 
letter &om her to Francis, and at a time when no other 
person would venture to approach him, his majesty being 
forious on the arrival of tidings that his fleet before Nice 
had been destroyed by the galleys of Andrew Doria." 

" This was three years ago." 

" I was loitering one day in the gallery of the Louvre, 
when she approached me, * M. le Page,' said she, placing a 
little pink note in my hand, ' will you do a service for me V 

" * I belong to Madame la Duchesse d'Albany,' said I ; 
' yet I shall gladly obey you, madam.' 

" ' Then you shall have ten golden crowns.' 

" * Ten crowns ! Ah, madam,' said I, gallantly, ' I would 
rather have ten gifts less tangible.' 

"* You shall have both, boy,' said she, laughing merrily; 
'the crowns now and the kisses hereafter.' 

•* Her note to Francis proved successful : in less than ten 
minutes that princely monarch was at her feet. But with 
her kiss, she gave me a Farmese dagger, which she wore 
at her girdle, the gift of her present lover, Henry of 
Valois, and which you, madam, have so nobly replaced by 
this." 

As he spoke, Florence, with the true loyal devption of 
the olden time, kissed the cipher which was engraved on 
its hilt. 

At that moment Master Posset reappeared, and whispered 
in the ear of the lady of the mansion. 

" Excuse me, sir," said she ; " there are those without who 
would speak with me." 

And on her retiring suddenly with the physician, Florence, 
somewhat to bis confusion, found himself for a time left 



86 THB OPAIi KING. 

alone with the younger and^ as we have more than once 
said, more attractive of his two attendants, and in whom, 
though as yet nameless, we have little doubt the sagacious 
reader has already recognized the heroine of our stoiy. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE OPAL BING. 

Late my spring-time came, but qaickly 

Youth's rejoioiug currents run. 
And my inner life unfolded 

Like a flower before the sun. 
Hopes, and aims, and aspirations. 

Grew within the growing boy ; 
Life had new interpretations ; 

Manhood brought increase of joy. 

Mary ffowitt. 

After a pause their eyes met, and the lady's were instantly 
averted ; the cheeks of both were suffused by a blush, for 
they " were so young, and one so innocent," that they were 
incapable of feeling emotion without exhibitiug this charm- 
ing, but, at times, most troublesome symptom of it. 

The lady spoke first. 

"And so, sir, you are still resolved to preserve your 
incognito — to maintain your character of the unknown 
knight?" 

" Tes, madam/' said he in the same spirit of banter, 
"while in the castle of an enchantress — for here, indeed, 
am I under a spell. And, more than all, my wounds 
have made me cautious to the extent, perhaps, of in- 
gratitude." 

" So you actually mistrust us ! " exclaimed the lady, 



THE OPAL BIKG. - 87 

colouriog deeply, while her dark-blue eyes sparkled with 
mingled amusement and surprise. 

"I will risk anything rather than lie longer under an 
imputation such as your words convey," replied the young 
man impetuously: "I am Florence Fawside of that ilk. 
And, now that you know my name, I pray you tell not 
my enemies of it, for I might be. slaughtered here perhaps, 
without once more striking a gallant blow in my own 
defence. I have told you my name," he added, lowering his 
voice to an accent of tenderness, while attempting to take 
her hand ; but she started back ; '* and now, dear lady, 
honour me with yours." 

But the lady had grown deadly pale ; her fine eyes sur- 
veyed the speaker with an expression of gloomy and startled 
interest, mingled with pity and alarm. Florence, on be- 
holding this emotion, at once detected that he had made 
a mistake by the sudden revelation of his name, and a vague 
sense of helplessness and danger possessed his heart. 

" I shall never forget the kindness, the humanity, and the 
tenderness with which you have treated me, lady; but 
why all this strange mystery — for you cannot be unfriended 
and alone here, as I at present am % Why have I been 
concealed even from your servants ? None have approached 
me but Master Posset the leech, and a Frenchman, Antoine, 
who pretends — ^as I suspect — to be deaf or dumb. All 
betokens some mystery, if not some pressing danger. Oh, 
that I were again strong enough to use mj sword — to sit 
on horseback and begone 1 " 

" To all these questions I can only reply by others. Why 
all .these complaints — ^whence this alarm % " 

" I must begone, lady," said Florence with a tremulous 
voice; for though, dazzled and lured by the beauty of the 
speaker on one hand, he dreaded falling into some deadly 
snare on the other ; " I long to see my aged mother — and 
I have letters " 



88 me opal xtnra 

^Ifoi for the Regent, I hope?** said the yonng hc^, 
coming forward a pace. 

^ Ftobe not my secrets, lad j. I hare told jou my name 
— ^I am the last of an old race that never £uled Scotland or 
her king in the honr of need or peril. I shall be faithful 
to yott ^" 

**To me!^ reiterated the beautiful girl in ft lowoice, 
-while blushing deeply. " I Heed not your Mth, good sir % " 

" To you and to my royal mistress j but I long to leave 
this — ^to see once more the aged mother who tended my 
infant year s ■ * 

'' A harsh and stem woman, who, if men say true, will 
urge you to the committal of dreadful deeds I " 

'' Say not so-nahe was ever gentle and loving to me, and 
to my brave brother Willie, who now, alas ! sleeps in his 
father's grftve.*' 

" Gentle and loving ! — so are the beat or the tigress to 
their cubs ; but their fierce nature still remains." 

" Bemember that she you speak of is my inother, lady," 
said Florence, colouring with vexation. 

*' Pardon me-^I speak but from report." 

" I long, too, to see honest old Roger of the Westmains, 
with his white beard and hale nut-brown visage— my tutor 
in the science of defence, he who taught me to handle sword 
and dagger, arquebuse and pike, as if I had come into the 
world cap-a-pie ; and next there is Father John of Tranent, 
the kind old vicar, who was wont in the long nights of 
winter to take me on his knee, and tell me such wondrous 
tales of Arthtur's round table, of William Wallace, of Alex- 
ander, and of Hector — ^the prophecies of Thomas the 
Rhymer, and how they never fail to be fulfilled — ^the story 
of Red Ettin, the giant who had three heads, and of the 
Gyre Oarlin, the mother-witch of all our Scottish witches, 
till my hair stood on end with terror of men so bold and 
people so weird and strange. I long to see my old nurse 



Tsx oPAii Bxsn* 89 

Maud, Mrho was wont to rock me to sleep in the old tnrret, 
and sing me the ' Flowers of the Forest/ or the sweet old 
song of ' Gynkertoun ;' and I long onoe more to find myself 
under the moss-covered rdof of the old tower, where my 
mother waits and, it may be, weeps for me — ^that grim old 
mansion, with its barred gate, its dark loopholes, and narrow 
stairs, whose steps have been hallowed by time, and by the 
feet of generations of my fore&thers who are now gone to 
God, and whose bones sleep nnder the shadow of His cross 
in the green kirkyard of Tranent." 

" In short," said the lady, with a very decided poat on 
her beautifnl red lips, '' you are tired of dwelling here, and 
long to be gone." 

** Here->— ah, madam, say not so 1 Here, here with yon, 
oonld I dwell for ever ; but I have beloved ties and stem 
duties, that demand my presence elsewhere." 

The dark-haired girl smiled and drooped her eyelids, 
while her confusion increased ; for affection soon ripened 
in yonng hearts in those old days of nature and of impulse, 
before well-bred folks had learned to veil alike their hatred 
and their love under the same calm and impenetrable 
exterior. 

The ice was now fairly broken, but their conversation 
became broken too. 

After a pause, during which Florence had succeeded in 
capturing the little hand of the unknown, and kissing it at 
least thrice, 

" You mean still to conceal your name from me 1 " said 
he with a tone of tender reproach. 

" I act under the orders of anothe r ■ " 

** Another ! — ^to whom do you yield this obedience ? To 
me you seem inferior to none on .earth." 

'* To none, I trust, in your estimation," said she, coquet- 
tishly. 

** But to esteem, to love you as I do — to have intrusted 



90 THE OPAL BZNa 

yon with my name, and yet to know not yoorsi is unkindi 
un&ir, and subjecting me to torture and anxiety." 

" I cannot give you my name— oh, pardon me, for in this 
matter, be assured, I am not my own mistres£f," said she, in 
a trembling voice. 

'' This is most strange, and like a chapter of Amadis, or 
some old romance. Then how shall I name you ? " 

^'^Urganda the unknown,'* or aught you please," she 
replied, smiling to conceal her confusion as she withdrew 
her hand ; and, taking from one of her fair and slender 
fingers a ring, she dropped it on the pillow of Florence, 
adding, ''take this trinket— it has a secret by which one 
day yon may know me. Take it, Florence Fawside, and 
wear it in memory of one who will never cease to regard 
you with most mournful interest, but who can never even 
be your — friend ! " 

''In memory — ^as if I could forget you while life and 
breath remained?" exclaimed Florence, bending over the 
jewel (an opal) to kiss it. 

When he looked up the fieiir donor was gone. A tremu- 
lous motion of the arras in the twilight — eve had now 
closed in — indicated where she had vanished, before he could 
arrest her by word or deed, and implore an explanation of 
the strange and enigmatical words which had accompanied 
a gift so priceless to a lover. 

She was gone ; and, exhausted by the excitement of the 
interview, by the sudden turn it had. taken, and the mutual 
revelation of a* mutual interest in each other's hearts, Flo- 
rence fell back upon his pillow, and lay long with his eyes 
closed and his whole being vibrating with joy, while the 
sober shadows of evening deepened in the tapestried room 
around him. 

He was filled with a new happiness, his soul roved far 

^ A fauioua enchaatress ia Ainadvt do Oaul, 



THE OPAL BIKO. .91 

away in the land of sunny dreams, his whole pulses seemed 
to quicken, and, with the conviction that this beautiful 
unknown loved him, he suddenly discovered there was in 
the world something else to live for than feudal vengeance. 

" To-morrow I shall see her again," thought he ; " to- 
morrow I shall hear her voice, and see her dear dove-like 
eyes assure me that she loves me still ; and her name— oh, 
she must assuredly reveal it to me then. But are this 
interview and this ring, her gift, no fantasies of mine ? . • • 
Oh, to solve this strange mystery and concealment ! " 

As he thought thus, and gave utterance to his ideas ha]# 
audibly, a red light flashed across the tapestried walls of the 
room. It came from the outside, and on raising himself he 
saw the wavering gleam of several torches on the well-grated 
windows, while the voices of men, one of whom uttered 
hoarsely several words of command, the clatter of horses' 
hoofs, and the clank of iron-shod halberds and arquebuses, 
rang in the adjacent street. What did all these unusual 
sounds mean 1 

A vague emotion of alarm filled his breast ; he glanced 
round for his sword, and kept it in his hand in case of a 
sudden attack ; but anon the gleam of the torches faded 
away, and the clatter of hoofs and spurs seemed to pass up 
the narrow street, and to lessen in distance. 

Then all became still in the mansion and around it j and 
a foreboding, that portended he knew not what, fell upon 
the heart of the listener. 



MAaXBR POSSET. 



CHAPTER XII. 

MASTER K)SSET. 

I am thy friend, thy best of friends ; 

No bud in constant heats can blow— 
The green fruit withers in the droughty 

But ripens where the waters flow. 

Mcbckay. 

The morrow came with its sunsliine; but the two fair 
faces which had been wont to shed even a more cheering 
influence over the couch of the wounded youth were no 
longer there. Hour after hour passed, yet they did not 
come ; and Fawside recalled with anxiety the too evident 
sounds or signs of a rapid departure on the preceding even- 
ing. 

So passed the day. Dumb Antoine alone- appeared ; but 
from his grimaces nothing could be gathered. Night came 
on, and with it sleep, but a sleep disturbed by more than 
one dream of a fair face, with dark-blue eyes and lashes 
black and long, deep thoughtful glances and allurmg smiles. 

At last there came a sound that roused the dreamer ; a 
ray of light flashed through the parted arras from another 
room. 

" She comes I " was the first thought of Florence. " At 
this hour, impossible 1 " was the second. 

There was a light step. Dawn was just breaking ; but 
the good folks of that age were ever afoot betimes. At last 
the arras was parted boldly, and Master Posset, bearing a 
lamp, with his long silvery beard glittering over the front 
of his black serge gown, which hung in wavy folds to his 
feet, approached, bearing on a silver salver the patient's 



icASTEB posopr. 93 

usual breakfast; pf weak hippocras^ with maccaroon biscuits. 
He felt the youth's pulsd, looked anxiously at his eyes and 
wounds, pronounced him infinitely better, and added that he 
" might on this day leave his couch," 

'* And the ladies 1 " asked Florence, unable to restrain his 
curiosity longer. 

*' What ladies ] " queried the discreet Master Posset. 

" Those who for so many days have watched my pillow 
like sisters — ^the hazel-eyed and the blue-^yed — for, alas 1 I 
know not their names. Where were they all yesterday, and 
where are they to-day 1 " 

« Gone ! " 

** Gone I " faintly echoed Florence ; — " but whither 1 " 

"To Stirling." 

" But why to Stirling 1 " asked Florence ipapetuously. 

** Because they have business with the Lord Regent," 

" I will follow them. My doublet — my boots and hose. 
Good Master Posset, your hand. Ah ! great Heaven ! how. 
my head swims, and thtf room runs round as if each corner 
was in pursuit of the other ! " exclaimed Florence, who 
sprang from bed, and would have fallen had not the atten- 
tive leech caught him in his arm& 

<< We must creep before we walk ; and you must walk, 
sir, before you can ride a horse." 

*' When may I sit in my saddle 1 ** ; 

'' In three days, perhaps." 

" In three days I shall be in Stirling t " said the other 
impetuously. 

" You had better go home," said Posset bluntly. " 'Tis 
the advice of a sincere friend, who would not have you ride 
to Stirling on a bootless errand." 

" Why bootless. Master Possett, when I tell you that I 
love, dearly love, one of those who have so abruptly for- 
saken me." 

Master Posset's facei at least so much of it as his 



94 HASTEB POSSET. 

volaminoas beard and moastaohe permitted one to see, 
underwent various expressions at this sadden annooncement 
— astonishment and perplexity, alarm, and then merriment. 

*' Fair sir/* said he, laughing and shrugging his shoulders 
(a habit he had probably acquired from M. Habelais), '' you 
forget yourself.** 

" Wherefore, forsooth ? Are they so high in rank above 
a landed baron ? " 

" In Scotland few are higher." 

" Do not say these discouraging things, but tell me their 
names ; for the hundredth time I implore you.'* 

" I dare not." 

" If I used threats, what would you say ? " 

" As my friend Eabelais said to a French knight at Lyons, 
when similarly threatened." 

" And what said your devil of a Eabelais 1 " 

*^ That threats ill became a sick man, when used to his 
friend ; and worse still from one of your junior years, to a 
man in whose beard so few black hairs can be reckoned as 
in mine." 

"Most true — forgive me; but when once free of this 
house, I shall soon solve the mystery. A woman so lovely 
as the younger lady must be well known, and must have 
many lovers.'* 

" Doubtless." 

" Thou art a most discreet apothecary, Master Posset—- 
yea, a most wonderful apothecary ! " said Fawside, gnawing 
the. end 'of his moustache, and continuing to attire himself 
during this conversation ; " and you really think she has 
many ? " 

" Yes ; yet from her strength of character, I am assured 
she is a woman who in her lifetime will have but (yiM love." 

" One ; come, that is encouraging ! " 

" Though little more than a girl in years, she is a woman 
in heart, in soul, and in mind. Do you understand me % " 



KASTBB POSSBT. 9^ 

'* Yes — ^truss me those ribbons — thanks, Master Posset — 
I understand you, but only so far that if I am not the love 
referred to, I shall pass my sword through the body of the 
other who may occupy that position. Her faintest smile is 
worth a hundred golden crowns ! '* 

"A sentiment worthy of Rabelais; but as your friend, 
Florence Fawside — one your senior in life and experience 
by many years— cease to speak or think of her thus." 

" Why, if I love her 1 " demanded the young man, with a 
mixture of sadness and that impetuosity which formed one 
of the chief elements of his character. 

" Because there are (as I call Heaven to witness I) barriers 
between you ^" 

" Grace me guide ! mean you to say she is married ? " 

" No ; but still there ' are barriers insuperable to the 
success of such a love." 

" To the brave 1 " asked Florence proudly. 

" Yea, to the bravest." 

''God alone knoweth what you all mean by this cruel 
enigma ; but in three days I will set forth to solve it — to 
solve it or to die ! " 

The old doctor smiled at the young man's energy, and 
kindly offered the assistance of his arm to enable him to 
walk about the chamber, after obtaining from him his 
parole of honour, that without permission duly accorded he 
would ngt attempt to leave it or penetrate into other parts 
of the mansion. 

The evening of the third day had faded into night, and 
night was passing into morning, when Master Posset ap- 
peared and said, — ''Come, sir, horses are in waiting; we 
leave this immediately." ^ 

" In the dark 1 " asked Florence, with surprise. 

" 'Tis within an hour of dawn." 

" A fresh mystery I— for whence— Stirling 1 "— — " No." 

« Whither then i " • 



90 MA0TSB P08SBT. 

^ FawBide Tower — ^have you no ties there 9 " 

"My mother — ^yes, my mother/' said Florencei with a 
gash of tenderness in his heart, as he hastily dressed ; ^^ bat 
once to embrace her, and then for Stirling — ^ho I " 

" You may spare yourself the toil of such a journey ; for 
I assure you, on the wordof an honest man, that in Idss than 
three days perhaps those you seek will be again in Edin- 
burgh." 

To this the sole reply of Florence, was to kiss the opal 
ring, the secret c^ which he had as yet £ailad to discover. 

" You must permit me to muffle your eyes.** 

''Wherefore, Master Posset? this precaution savours of 
mistrust, and becomes an insult." 

" Laird of Fawside, I insist upon it ; and she whose 
orders we must both obey also insists upon it**' 

« She— who 1 " 

" The giver of the opal ring,", whispered the doctor. 

"Lead on — I obey," replied the young man, suddenly 
reduced to docility; "all things must end — and so this 
mystery." 

Posset tied a handkerchief over the eyes of Florence, ^d 
taking his hand led him from the chamber, wherein he had 
suffered so much, and which he had now occupied for more 
than thirteen or fourteen days. He became conscious of 
the change of atpiosphere as they proceeded from a corridor 
down a cold, stone staircase, and &om thence to a street, 
evidently one of those steep, but paved closes of the ancient 
city, as they continued to ascend for some little distance. 
Then ^n iron gate in an archway (to judge by the echo) was 
opened and shut ; then they walked about a hundred yards 
further, before Posset removed the muffling and permitted 
Fawside to gaze around him. On one side towered the 
lofty and fantastic mansions of the Landmarket * rising on 

*** An ftLbreviation of /nUnd*markei 



HAST£B POSSET. 97 

• 

arcades of oak and stone. Near him the quaint church of 
St. Giles reared its many-carved pinnacles and beautiful 
spire. Within its lofty aisles scarcely a taper was twinkling 
now ; for already the careless prebendaries were finding other 
uses fpr their money than spending it in wax for its forty 
altars. Even the great brazen shrine in the chancel was 
dark ; the money gifted so vainly by the pious and valiant 
men of old, to light God's altar until the day of doom — for 
so they phrased it — ^had been pounced upon by Lollard 
bailies for other purposes, and thirteen years later were to 
behold the shrine itself fall under the axe and hammer of 
the iconoclast, with the expulsion of the faith and its priest- 
hood. 

The wide and lofty thoroughfare was dark. Here and 
there an occasional ray shot from some of the grated win- 
dows, pouring a stream of light athwart the obscurity, which 
the stacks of peat, heather, and timber, already referred to 
as standing before almost every door, according to common 
use and wont, made more confusing to a wayfarer. Eawside 
recognized the spot where Kilmaurs and his pursuers on 
that eventful night first overtook him, where he received 
his first wound, and where he made his first resolute 
stand against them, before he was beaten further up the 
street. ^ 

On a signal from Master Posset, a groom leading two 
saddled horses came from under the stone arcade of a lofty 
mansion, then occupied by Kobert Logan of Coatfield, who 
in 1520 was provost of Edinburgh^ and was the first ofiicial 
of that rank who had halberds carried before him. This 
groom, whom Fawside suspected to be no other than 
the Frenchman Antoine, lifted his bonnet respectfully and 
withdrew. 

"Fawside, the white or grey nag is yours," said the 
physician; "mount, and let us be gone, for the morning 
draws on apace, and my time is precious." 

H 



98 MABTEB POBSBT. 

Almost trembling with eagerness, if not with weakness, 
Florence leaped into the saddle of the white horse, which 
was a beautiful animal, as he could easily perceive by the 
amplitude of its mane and tail, by the action of its proud 
head and slender fore-legs ; and as he vaulted to his seat, 
without even using a stirrup, he felt all his wounds twinge, 
as if they would burst forth anew, for they were merely 
skinned over. 

In ten minutes more they had left the oity, after tossing 
a gratuity (a few hardies, i. e, liards of Guienne, worth three 
balance each in Scotland, where they were then current) 
to the warder at the Watergate, and were galloping by the 
eastern road towards the tower of Fawside. The stars 
were still shining brightly, and their light was reflected in 
the glassy bosom of the estuary that opened on the north 
and east, beyond a vast extent of desert beach and open 
moor. The steep and ancient bridge of Musselburgh was 
soon reached, and then Master Posset drew his bridle, 
saying,— 

" Here, Fawside, I must bid you farewell." 

^' Farewell ! you who have treated me so kindly, so 
' generously — ^farewell, when we are within three Scots miles 
of my mother's hearth ! Nay, nay, good Master Posset, 
this can never be." ♦ 

'' It must — ^I repeat. Entreaties and invitations are alike 
needless. I obey but the instructions of those I serve, and 
they are dames who brook no trifling." 

" Bethink you, dear sir, of the danger of being abroad at 
thisWrly and untimeous hour, when broken men-, Egyptians 
and all manner of thieves, beset every highway and hover 
in every thicket." 

The physician smiled, and, opening the breast of his 
furred cassock, showed beneath it a fine shirt of mail, which 
was flexible, and fitted him closely as a kid glove. '^ I have 
thought of all that," said he, "and I have, moreover, my 



MA^IIQ POSSET. 99 

dagger and a pair of wheel-lock petrostels at my 0addle*bow. 
Bo now, adieu." 

" But my fees to you, and this horse, Master Posset * * 

" You will find it a beautiful grey, though he looks milky- 
white under the stars." 

" To whom am I to return ib ? " 

" To none — it is a free gift to you," 

" To me — a, gift," said Florence with astonishment ; " from 
whom ? " 

« The lady '' 

"Who— which lady?" 

" The taller, with the hazel eyes and blonde hair ; and 
you must accept ; for 'twere ungallant to refuse." 

''All this but bewilders and perplexes me the more. 
Would it had been the gift of the other ! Ah, Master 
Posset, I have but one dread." 

" Come," said the physician, laughing, '' that is fortunate 
•—lovers usually have many." 

"One ever present dread, common to every lover — 
that she does not love me in return, but may be 
playing with my affection to prove the power of her own 
charms." 

" Take courage — ^you have seen no rival." ^ 

'* "No ; yet she must have many admirers of her beauty, 
and more aspirants to her hand and wealth ; and one of 
these might soon become a formidable rival." 

" Then you have your sword." 

^ In such a case a poor resource." 

'< But one that never fails," responded the warlike apo- 
thecary, turning his horse ; and, after reiterating their 
adieux, they separated, and in a short space Florence Faw- 
side found himself cantering up the steep crowned by the 
church of St. Michael, and thence by a narrow bridle-road 
that led up the hill-side to his mother's tower. 

Fourteen nights had elapsed since last we saw her sitting 

K 2 



100 HOK& 

lonely by her hearth ; and now she had long sinoe learned 
to weep for her only son as for one who was nambered with 
the dead. 



-•Of- 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HOME. 

Hail, land of spenrmen t seed of those who ecom'd 
To stoop the proud crest to imperial Homo I 
Hail I dearest half of Albion sea-wall'd ! 
Hail ! staiie nnconquer'd by the fire of war, — 
Bed war that twenty ages round thee blazed I 

Albania. 

Some thoughts sach as these which insfpired this now 
forgotten Scottish bard filled the swelling heart of Florence 
Eawside, as' he urged his horse up the winding way which 
led to his paternal tower. The morning sun had now risen 
brightly above the long^pastoral ridges of the Lammermuir, 
and he could see the widening Forth^ with all its rocky 
isles, and the long sweep of sandy beach which borders the 
beautiful bay that lies between the mouth of the Esk and 
the green links of Gulane, whereon, in those days, there 
stood an ancient church of St. Andrew, which William the 
Lion gifted unto the monks of Dryburgh. The blue estuary 
was studded by merchant barks and fisher craft, with their 
square and brown lug-sails, beating up against the ebb tide 
and a gentle breeze from the west. 

The sky was of a light azure tint, flecked by floating 
masses of snowy cloud, which, on their eastern and lower 
edges, were tinged with burning gold. 

The hottest days of the summer were now gone^ the pas- 



HOME. 101 

tures had become somewhat parched, and the shrivelled 
foliage that rustled in the woods of Carberrj seemed athirst 
for the rains of autumn. Amid the coppice, the com-craik 
and the cushat dove sent up their peculiar notes. The corn- 
fields were turning from pale green to a golden brown ; 
and, as the morning breeze passed over it, the. bearded grain 
swayed heavily to and fro, like ripples on the bosom of a 
yellow lake. The white smoke curled from the green 
cottage roo& of moss and thatch ; the blue-bonneted pea- 
.sants were at work in the sunny fields — the women with 
their snooded hair, or their white Flemish curchies (that 
came into &shion when James II. espoused Mary the Hose 
of Gueldres), were milking the cattle, grinding their hand- 
millfif, or busy about their little garden-plots; and to 
Florence all seemed to illustrate his country, and speak to 
his heart with that love of hornet which ^n, even more 
than now, was the purest passion of the Scottish people, and 
which, in all their wanderings, they never forget, however 
distant the land in which their lot in life may be cast. 

Florence felt all this as he spurred up the green braeside, 
and heard the people in his mother-tongue cry, '' God him 
speed ; " for though they knew him not, they saw that he 
was a handsome youth, a stranger, nobly mounted and 
bravely apparelled. 

Every step he took brought some old recollection to his 
heart. The gurgling brooks in which he had fished and the 
leafy thickets in which he had bird-nested, the old trees up 
which he had clambered, were before him now, and the days 
of his boyhood, the familiar voices and faces of his slaugh- 
tered fia,ther and brother, came vividly to memory. The 
song of a farmer who was driving his team of horses to the 
field, the lowing of the cattle, the barking of the shepherds' 
collies, the perfume of the broom and the harebell on the 
upland slope, all spoke of country and of home. But with 
this emotion others mingled. 



102 HOME. 

With all the genuine rapture of a boyish lover, he kissed 
again and again his opal ring, the gift of that beautiful un- 
known, who had filled his heart with a secret joy and 
given life a new impulse. 

" What can its secret be ? Oh ! to unravel all this 
mystery!" he exclaimed to himself a hundred times; 
but the ring baffled all his scrutiny and ingenuity. 

He had now four projects to put in force immediately 
after his return home. 

First, to deliver his letter to the Begent, Earl of Arran. 

Second, to deliver the ^her missive of Henry of Valoia 
to the queen-mother, Mary of Lorraine. 

Third, to discover his unknown mistress. 

Fourth, to avenge his Other's feud and &11 by ridding the 
world of Claude Hamilton of Preston, the Lord Kilmaurs, 
and a few others ; after which he would settle soberly down 
in his mother's house, and, for a time, lead the quiet life of a 
country gentleman — at least, such a life as they led in those 
days, when their swords were never from their sides. 

And now, as he surmounted the long ridge of Fawside, 
the landscape opened further to the south and eastward; and 
he saw the old square keep of Mphinstone, in which George 
Wishart had been confined in the preceding year by Patrick, 
Earl of Bothwell, and the wall of which had rent with a 
mighty sound — rent from battlement to basement, as we 
may yet see it, at the moment of his martyrdom before the 
castle of St. Andrews. 

The heart of Florence beat six pulses in a second as he 
drew nearer home, and saw the huge column of smoke 
ascending lazily from the square chimney of the hall, and 
the black crows and white pigeons fraternizing together on 
the stone ridge of the copehouse ; and now he passed old 
Eoger*s thatched domicile, the Westmains or Grange, from 
whence the inmates of the castle were supplied with farm 
produce. It was all under fine cultivation save one wild 



HOME. 103 

spot named the Deilsrig, which was set aside, or left totally 
unused, for the propitiation of evil spirits ; and none in the 
neigbourhood doubted that cattle which strayed or grazed 
thereon were elf-shot by the evil one, for they were fre- 
quently found dead within the turf boundary of this infernal 
spot, as their huge bones whitening among the dog-grass 
remained to attest ; and there, too, lay the unblessed graves 
of certain Egyptians, who, despite the protections granted 
by James IV. to " Anthony Gavino, Lord and Earl of Little 
Egypt," had been judicially drowned in the river Esk by 
Earl Bothwell, the sheriff of Haddington. 

Florence glanced at the place, which had so many terrors 
for him as a child, and dashed up to the arched gate of the 
tower, where his emotion was such, that it was not until 
aftor three attempts he could sound the copper horn which 
hung by a chain to the wall ; for such was the fashion then, 
when door-bells and brass knockers, like gas and steam and 
electricity, were still in the womb of time. 

In a minute more he had sprung from his horse and 
rushed up the stair to the hall, where his mother, with a 
cry of mingled fear and joy, clasped him to her breast, and 
wept like a true woman rather than the stern and Spartan 
dame she usually seemed.' Then old Eoger of the West- 
mains, in the exuberance of his joy, iiung his bonnet in the 
fire and danced about the hall table ; and the grey-haired 
nurse, Maud, contended with the vicar, Mass John of 
Tranent, for the next and longest embrace of the returned 
one ; for all welcomed him ba(S: to his home as one reprieved 
from the dead ; for surmise had been exhausted, and all 
ingenuity had fiuled to afford a clue to his mysterious dis- 
appearance after landing at Leith from the galley of 
M. de Villegaignon. 

After the first transports of her joy had subsided — and 
indeed, they subsided soon, for her natural sternness 
manner and ferocity of purpose soon resumed their sw 



104 HOME. 

in her angiy and widowed heart, his mother kissed him 
thrice upon the forehead, held him at arm's length from 
her breast, surveying his features with an expression of 
mingled love, tenderness, anxiety, and anger. 

" Thou hast been ill, Florence ; thy cheeks are pale, wan, 
and hollow. Thou hast been suffering, my son — ^yea, suffer- 
ing deeply. How came this about ? Say 1 — ^thou hast no 
secrets from thine old mother ! " 

" Ask these wounds, dear mother ; they have kept me for 
fourteen days a-bed and absent from you," he replied, as he 
tore open his crimson doublet and shirt, and displayed on 
his bosom the sword-thrust, which was scarcely skinned 
over. 

*^ Kyrie eleison ! " muttered the white-haired vicar, lifting 
up his thin hands and hollow eyes. 

Koger of the Westmains uttered a shout of rage and 
grasped his dagger. 

" My bairn — ^my braw, bonnie bairn ! " exclaimed the old 
nurse with tender commiseration. 

" Florence," said his mother through her clenched teeth, 
" whose sword did this 1 " 

" Can you ask me, mother ? " 

" His ! — ^would you say ? " she asked in a voice like a 
shriek, while pointing with her lean white hand to Preston 
Tower, the walls of which above the level landscape shone 
redly in the morning sun. 

" K"ay, not his, but the swords of his followers." 

" Of Symon Brodie and Mungo Tennant 1 " 

" Even so ; I heard their names in the melee,^^ 

" Accursed be the brood ; for their swords were reddest 
and readiest in the fray in which your father fell ! " 

" They and others dogged me close on the night I landed. 
I fought long and bravely " 

" My own son 1— my dear dead husband's only son ! " 

'' But what could one sword avail against twenty others ? 



HOME. 105 

Stnick down at last, I would have been hewn to pieces but 
for the stout arm of a friendly burgher and the kindness 

of of those who salved my wounds and tended me — 

yea, mother, kindly and tenderly as you would have done," 
be added, while the* colour deepened in his face, and he sank 
wearily into the chair in which his slain father had last sat, 
and which since that day none bad dared to occupy, as his 
widow would have deemed it a sacrilege. 

It required but the description of this last outrage to 
rouse the blood of Dame Alison and of all her domestics 
to boiling heat. 

'' Be calm, dear mother, be calm," said Florence, pressing 
her trembling hand to his heart. " In three days I shall bo 
well enough to handle my sword, and then I shall scheme 
out vengeance for all I have endured." 

"Thou hej^t him, vicar?*' exclaimed Lady Alison, 
striking her hands together, while her dark eyes shot 
fire. "The spirit of my buried husband lives again in 
his boy ! " 

"Lord make us thankfu' therefor!*' muttered the listen- 
iug servants, who shared every sentiment of their mistress. 

*• Be wary, madam ! *' said the tall thin priest. " Whence 
still this mad craving for revenge ? " 

" In the presence of this poor lamb, who has so narrowly 
escaped a dreadful death, weak, pale,'and wounded, dost thou 
ask me this, thou very shaveling 1 " she exclaimed with 
scornful energy. " My husband's feud and fall ! — Oh, woe is 
me ! — and my winsome Willie's death ^" 

" Demand a fearful reprisal ! " said Florence, with a 
vehemence increased by his mother's presence and ex- 
ample ; " and fearful it shall be ! " 

" Vengeance," replied the priest firmly, but meekly, " is 
ever the ofi&pring of the weakest and least tutored mind." 

'* Father John ! " exclaimed the pale widow. 

" I say 80 with all deference, my sod, and with all respecl 



106 HOHB. 

for onr good lady your mother. In her thirst for voDgeance, 
like the last stake of a gamester, she will risk you, her only 
son — ^risk you by invading the proTince of God ; for to Bim 
alone belongeth vengeance. Eemember the holy words. 
Dame Alison : ' Vengeance is mme, saith the Lord, and 
I will repay it.' " 

"So priests must preach," said Florence; "but, under 
favour, father, laymen find forgiveness hard to practise." 

"So hard," hissed Lady Alison through her sharp and 

firm*set teeth, "that for each drop Of Preston's blood I 

would give a rood of land — ^yea, for every drop a yellow 

rig of com li 'Twas but three weeks ago, come the feast of 

Bartholomew, l^e followed a thief with a sleuth-hound of 

Gueldreland within the bounds of our barony." 

" He dared ? " said Florence, sharing all his mother^s 
anger. 

"He or some of his people; and without asking our 
license, took and hanged him on a thorn-tree at the 
Bucklea. Did not his swine root holes in the corn on 
our grange, destroying ten rigs of grain and more, and he 
scornfully refused our demands to make the damage good ? 
Yet he burned the byres of our kinsman Boger for taking a 
deer in his wood at Bankton, though any man may hunt in 
any forest — even a royal one — so flEu: as he may fling his 
bugle-horn before him ; yet he broke Roger^s bow and arrows, 
took away his arquebuse, and hanged all his dogs. And where- 
fore 1 Because he was a Fawside and a kinsman of thine. 
And nowithey would have slain thee, my son — ^thee, in 
whom my joy, my hope, my future all are centred ! " she 
added, embracing Florence, the expression of whose hand- 
some face had completely changed to gloom and anger under 
her influence. " But while fish swim in yonder Firth, and 
mussels grow on its rocks, our hatred shall live ! " 

The vicar, a priest of benign and venerable aspect, smiled 
sadly, and shook his white head with an air of deprecation. 



HOXBi 107 

.'<I fear me, madam," said he, "thskt the fish and the 
mtiBsels aire races that bid &dr to oatlive alike the Faweddes 
of that Ilk and the HamiltonB of Preston, their folly, feadS|> 
and wickedness*" 

" On Eood-day in harvest, a year past, as I sat here alone 
by my spinning-wheel, my husband's armour clattered where 
it hangs on yonder wall, — and wot ye lohy 9 Preston was 
riding over the hill, and near our gate. Preston ! and alone t 
Could I have got the old falcon ready on the bartizan, he had 
been shot like a hoodieorow, as surely as ihe breath of |;iieaven 
was in his nostrils ! " 

'' !Fie 1 madam-^^fie ! I cannot listen to language ^oh as 
this 1 " said the vicar, erecting his tall figure and preparing 
to retire. 

" The wrongs I have endured in this world, yea, and the 
sorrows, too ^" 

^ Should teach you to look for comfort in tha^ which is to 
come,'* said the priest, with asperity. 

** Not till I have had vengeance swift, sure, and deep on 
the house of Preston. No, friar ! preach as you may, Alison 
Kennedy will never rest in the grave where her murdered 
husband Ues, but with the assurance that Claude Hamilton 
lies mangled in his shroud — mangled by the sword of her 
son Florence ! And he may slay him in open war ; for so 
surely as the souls and bodies of men are governed by stars 
and dimates, we shall have war with the English ere the 
autumn leaves are off the trees, and so surely shall that 
traitor Hamilton join them, for he was one of those whom 
Henry took at Solway, and feasted in London, to suit his 
own nefarious ends — ^like Cassilis, Lennox, and Glencairn." 

Boger of the Westmains heard with grim satisfaction all 
this outpouring of bitterness of spirit ; for he shared to the 
full her animosity to the unluc^ laird of Preston. To 
Boger, old Lady Alison was the greatest potentate on 
earth. Had the Begent Arran, or Mary of Xiorraine, oom- 



108 HOHB. 

manded him to ride with his single spear agamst a brigade 
of English, he might have hesitated ; but had Ladj Alison 
desired him to leap off Salisbury Graigs, he would probablj 
have done so, without the consideration of a moment, and 
had his old body dashed to pieces at the foot thereof. 

In joy for her son's return, the lady of the tower ordered 
the bailie to distribute drink-silver (as it was then termed) 
to all her servants and « followers ; laxgesses to the town 
piper and drummer of Musselburgh, and to the poor gaber*- 
lunzies who sat on the kirk styles of Tranent and St Michael. 
She then directed all the harness and warlike weapons to be 
thoroughly examined, preparatory to commenoihg^bostilities 
against the grand enemy, who, as we shall shortly see, was 
in his tower of Preston, thinking of other things than the 
mischief she was brewing against him. 

A few days slipped monotonously away. 

After Paris — the Paris of Erancis I. and Henry II.,— 
and after the busy chateau of the Duchess of Albany at 
Vend6me, the quiet and gloom of the littlp tower of Fawside 
soon became insupportable to its young proprietor. Thus, 
instead of remaining at home, attending to the collection 
of his rents in coin and kain, conferring with old Boger 
anent green and white crops on the mains of the Grange, 
listening to the stories of his nurse, holding bloodthirsty 
councils of war with his mother, concerning the best mode 
of invading with fire and sword the territories of a neigh* 
hour, only separated from his own by a turf dyke, or 
weaving deadly snares for cutting him off by the strong hand, 
he spent his whole days in Edinburgh, caracoling his beauti*^ 
ful grey horse up and down the High-street, through the 
courts of the palace, before the house of M. d'Oysell, the 
French ambassador, in the Oowgate, in the Greyfriars' Gar- 
dens, in the royal park, and in every place of public resort, 
with a plume in his velvet bonnet and a hawk on his left 
wrist, as became a gallant of the timci in the hope of dia- 



HOBCB. 109 

oavering, even for a moment, his lost lovCi the donor of the 
opal ring. Daily he visited the dwelling of Master Posset, 
at the sign of the Stuffed Alligator, in the Lawnmarket, to 
prosecute his inquiries there ; but either from accident or 
design, that most discreet of apothecaries was never at home. 
Thus daily the young Laird of Fawside was doomed to return 
disappointed, weary, and dispirited to his gloomy antique 
hall, or to his gloomier old bed-chamber in the northern 
portion of the tower — a portion concerning which the 
following tradition is related by Father John : — 

Sir Thomas de Fawsyde, who, in 1330, married Muriella, 
daughter of Duncan, Earl of Fife, when quarrelling with her 
one day about a favourite falcon, which she had permitted 
to escape in the wood of Drumsheugh, in the heat of passion, 
drew off his steel glove and struck her white shoulder with 
his clenched hand. Muriella, though tender and gentle, 
was proud and high-spirited. She felt this unkindness and 
affront so keenly and bitterly, that, without a tear or re- 
proach, she retired from his presence and secluding herself 
in the northern chamber, never spoke again, and refusing 
idl food and sustenance, literally starved herself to death. 
Upon this Earl Duncan, before King David II., accused the 
rude knight of having slain his daughter. 

'* And because it was notour and manifest," says Sir John 
Skene of Curriehill, in his quaint " Buke of the auld Lawes," 
printed in 1609, " that he did not slae hir, nor gave hir 
a wound of the quhilk she died; bot gave her ane blow 
with his hand to teach and correct hir, and also untill the 
time of hir death dearly loved hir, and treated hir as a 
husband weili affectionate to his wife, the king pronounced 
him.clene and quit." 

But the spirit-form of this lady, dressed in quaint and 
ancient apparel, of that rustling silk peculiar to all ghostly 
ladies, with her long hair dishevelled, weeping and mourning, 
was averredi for ages, to haunt the room where now her 



no PBESTOV tOWER^ 

descendant lay nightly on hia coaeb, dreaming of the secret 
love he was more intent on discovering, than of pursuing 
the hereditary quarrel of his race, and oblivions of delivering 
to the Eegent Arran and Mary of Lorraine the lettei's 
with which he was charged from the court of France. 

The reason of the last remissness was simply thb ; lie 
believed his fair one to be in Edinburgh, while the queen- 
mother was occasionally at Stirling, and the regent was at 
his country caatle, in Gadzow Forest, in Clydesdale. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

PBBSTON TOWKB. 

Then the Count of Clara began in this manner : " Sirs, it is manifest 
that men in this world can only become powerful by strengthening 
themselves with men and money ; but the money must be employed 
in procuring men, for by men must kingdoms be defended and won." 

Armdis of Oavl. 

On the evening of the same day: when Florence Fawside 
returned home, and his mother, like a spider in its hole, 
sat in her elbow-chair in the grim old tower upon the hill, 
weaving plots to net and destroy her feudal adversary, that 
detested personage in Ma equally grim old tower upon the 
lea, was forming plans of a similarly desperate, but much 
more extensive description. 

The paved barbican of his residence was filled by nearly 
the same horses and horsemen. Uveiymen and pages, wearing 
the oak branch in their bonnets or the shakefork sable on 
their sleeves, and by many men-at-arms in helmet, jack, and 
wambeson, whom we formerly saw in the courtycu:d of the 



PBBSTOl? TOWBB. Ill 

Golden Hose, at Leith, and whom we lefb in hot parsuit 
of Florence. As the shades of evening deepened on the 
harvest fields and bordering sea, the narrow slits and iron- 
grated windows of the old castle became filled with red 
light, for it was crowded by visitors; and the echoes of 
voices, of laughter, and shouts of loud and reckless mer- 
riment rang at times under the arched vaults of its ancient 
chambers. 

Near Preston, a burgh of barony, composed of old houses 
of rough and rugged, aspect, that cluster along a rocky 
beach of broken masses of basalt, denuded long ago of all 
earthy strata, stands this high square donjon tower of the 
Hamiltons of Preston, in later years a stronghold of the 
attainted Earls of Win ton. The adjacent beach is now 
covered with shapeless ruins of redstone, from which, ever 
and anon, the ebbing sea sweeps a mass away ; but in the 
time of our story these ruins were the flourishing saltpans 
of the enterprising monks of St Marie de Newbattle, who, 
since the twelfth century, had pushed briskly the trade of 
salt-making ; and nightly the broad red glares of their coal-fed 
furnaces were wont to shed a diisky light upon the rocky 
land and tossing sea — hence its present name, of the 
Priest-town-pans ; though in days older still, when King 
Donald YII. was pining a blind captive in his prison, the 
locality was called Auldhammer. In 1547, its church was 
an open ruin, having been burned by the 'English three 
years before. 

As a double security, within the barbican gate, this tower 
is entered by two arched doors on the east. One leads to 
the lower vaults oJxyM ; another, in the first story, reached 
by a ladder or bridge, gives access to the hall and sleeping 
apartments. Those who entered here, drew in the long 
ladder after them, and thus cut off all means of access from 
below. The vast pile of Borthwick, in Lothian, the tower 
of Ooxton« near Elgin, the tower of Half-forest, near Inver- 



lis PBESTOK TOWER. 

urie, and many other Scottifih castles of great antiquity, are 
constructed on this singular plan, where aecfwnJty was the 
first principle of our domestic architects. Preston had 
additions built to it in 1625 ; and a huge crenelated wall of 
that date still surmounts the simple machicolated battle- 
ments of the original edifice, making i^ one of the most 
conspicuous objects on the level land on which its lofty mass 
is reared. The original tower was one of the chain of 
fortresses garrisoned by Lord Home in the Idth century, 
and haying been burned by the English army in 1G50, 
after all the rough vicissitudes of war and time, it presents 
a mouldering, shattered, and venerable aspect. 

The arched gate on the east was surmounted by the three 
cinque-foils pierced ermine of Hamilton ; and on each side 
of it a large brass gun called a basilisk peered through a 
porthole, to " hint that here at least there was no thorough- 
fare." In short, Preston Tower is a mansion of those 
warlike, but thrifty and hearty old times when, by order, of 
the Scottish parliament, it was '' statute and ordained that 
all lords should dwell in their castles and manors, and expend 
the fruit of their lands in the counterie where the said larnds ^ 

It had other tenants besides old Claude Hamilton and his 
cuirassed and turbulent retainers ; as it was alleged to be 
haunted by a brownie and evil spirit ; and for the latter 
Symon Brodie, the castle butler, nightly set apart a cup 
of ale. If Symon failed to perform this duty, the spirit, 
like a vampire bat, sucked the blood of one of the inmates. 
The little squat figure of the brownie, wearing a broad 
bonnet and short scarlet cloak, had been seen at times, 
especially on St. John's Night, to fiit about the kitchen-door, 
watching for the departure of the servants, who always left 
to him, unmolested, his favourite haunt, the warm hearth 
of the great arched fireplace, where the livelong night he 
crooned a melancholy ditty, which sounded like the winter 



PRESTON TOWER 113 

wind through a keyhole, as he swung above the griesoch, or 
gathering peat, from the iron cruik whereon by day, as 
Father John of Tranent records, ''the mickle kail-pot 
hung." 

The merriment was great in the old hall j for the supper, 
which had been a huge engagement or onslaught of knives 
and teeth upon all manner of edibles, was just over. People 
always fed well in those old times, if we may judge of the 
abundance which filled their boards three times per diem; 
yet what were they, or the Saxon gluttons of an earlier age, 
when compared to the youth who, unrestrained by the silly 
fear of civilized society, discussed before the Emperor 
Aurelian a boar, a sheep, a pig, and a hundred loaves, 
with beer in proportion j or to his imperial majesty Maxi- 
mus Oaius Julius, who—long live his memory — ate daily 
sixty-four pounds of meat, and drank therewith twenty- four 
quarts of rare old Roman wine ! 

The supper, a meal taken at the early hour of six in 1547, 
was over in Preston HalL The long black table of oak had 
been cleared of all its trenchers and plalters of silver, delft, 
tin, and wood; but a plentiful supply of wine — -Alicant, 
Bordeaux, and Canary, — with ale and usquebaugh for those 
who preferred them, was substituted, in tall black-jacks 
which resembled troopers' boots, being made of strong 
leather, lined with pewter and rimmed with silver. Each 
of these jolly vessels held two Scottish pints (i, e. two 
quarts English); and drinking-vessels of silver for the 
nobles, horn for gentlemen, and wooden quaichs, cups, or 
luggies for their more &voured retainers, were disposed 
along the table by Symon Brodie (who had partly recovered 
from his sword-wound) : we say more favoured retainers, 
for, as the drinking bout which succeeded the supper in 
Preston was a species of political conclave, a gathering of 
conspirators, the doors were carefully closed, and not a man, 
save those on whom the Scottish lords of the English faction 



114 PRESTON TOWER. 

could thoroughly rely, was permitted to remaiu within eaiy 
shot ; and hence, at each massive oak door of the hall stood 
an armed jackman, with his sword drawn ; and on the dark 
pyne doublets, the dinted corslets and burganets, the brown 
visages and rough beards of these keen-eyed and listening 
sentinels, the smoky light of ten greats torches which were 
ranged along the stone wall, five on each side, near the 
spring of the arched roof, flared and gleamed with a waver- 
ing radiance. 

Nor were the party at the table less striking and 
picturesque. 

In his elbow-chair old Claude of Preston occupied the 
head of the long board. His voluminous grey beard flowed 
over his quilted doublet, and concealed his gorget of fine 
steel ; his bald head glanced in the light, and his keen, 
bright basilisk eyes surveyed the faces and seemecl to pierce 
the souls of the speakers, as each in turn gave his suggestion 
as to the best mode of subverting that monarchy for the 
maintenance of which so many of their sires had died in 
battle. 

There were present the Earl of Cassilis, he of abbot- 
roasting notoriety; the Earl of Glencaim and his son 
Lord Kilmaurs ; the Lord Lyle and bis son the Master ; 
the Lord Gray; with two others whom we have not yet 
fully introduced to the reader ; to wit, Patrick Hepburn 
Earl of Bothwell, abhorred by the Protestants as the first 
captor of George Wishart (and father of that Earl James 
who wrought the destruction of Mary Queen of Scots), and 
William Earl Marischal, the constable of Kincardine, 
both peers of a goodly presence, clad in half-armour, and 
wearihg the peaked beard, close-shorn hair, and pointed 
moustache of the time. 

Bothwell wore one of those curious thumb^rings concern- 
ing which bluff Jack Falstaff taunts King Hal. Jt was a 
gift from Mary of Lorraine, whom he once vainly believed 



PRESTON TOWER. 115 

to be in love with him, and whose slights had now driven 
him into the conspiracy against her. He had. a golden 
girdle, which glittered in the light, and thereat hung the 
long sword which had been found clenched in the hand ol 
his noble grandsire, 

** Earl Adam Hepbam — ^he who died 
At Flodden, by his sovereigns side,*' 

and which was popularly believed to have been charmed by 
a wizard, the late prior of Deer, in suchwise that the wielder 
of it should never have his blood drawn nor suffer harm, a 
spell which the wizard priest performed by kissing the hilt 
four times in the name of Orystsonday. Bothwell had been 
two years a prisoner in a royal fortress, for assisting in the 
raids and rapine of the late Earl of Yarrow ; and after 
being many years banished from Scotland, had lived at 
Florence and Venice, where his natural turn for mischief 
and deep-laid plotting had been developed to the full. 

Among these intriguers were two men of a very different 
kind, clad as followers of that master of treachery and state- 
craft, the fierce Earl of Glencaim, viz.. Master Patten, who 
Iftfterwards wrote the history of Somerset's hostile expedition 
into Scotland, and illfaster Edward Shelly, a brave English 
officer, whom we have already mentioned, and who was cap- 
tain of a band of English soldiers known as the Boulogners. 
BJe had been at the capture and garrisoning of Boulogne- 
snr-Mer in 1544^ where he superintended the rebuilding of 
the famous T<ywr de VOrdre, a useless labour, as Edward YI. 
restored the town to France six years after. These two 
Londoners were still disguised in the livery of the Cun- 
mnghame% and, further to complete the imposture, wore 
peasants' coarse blue bonnets and those cuarans, or shoes of 
undressed hide, which obtained for our peopole the sobriquet 
of rough-footed Scots. 

^ Symon, ye loon, attend to the strangers," said Claude 

I 2 



116 PBESTON TOWBB. 

Hamilton. "Fill your bicker from the jack of Alioant, 
Master Shelly ; or like you better a silver tassie, my man 1 
I tnist that you and worthy Master Patten, your secretary 
or servitor (we style such-like both in Scotland), have supped 
weU ? " 

" Well, yea, and heartily sir," replied Shelly, wiping his 
curly beard with a napkin. "But Master Patten was 
whispering that he must teach your Scots cooks to make 
that which he love« as his own life — a jolly Devonshire 
squab and white-pot." 

" Hah ! And how make ye such. Master Patten 1 " 

" With a pint of cream," replied Master Patten, " four 
eggs, nutmeg, sugar, salt, a loaf of bread, a handful of 
raisins, and some sweet butter. Then boil the whole in 
a bag, and seek a good tankard of March beer to wash it 
down with." 

"God willing, sir, we shall learn your southern dishes, 
.among other things, when, haply, we bring this marriage 
about with little King Edward VI. Each royal alliance 
hath brought some unco' fashion among us here in Scotland. 
Furred doublets came in with Margaret of Oldenburg ; 
the Flemish hood with Mary of Gueldres ; the velvet hat 
with Margaret Tudor ; the Frendh beard with Magdalene of 
Valois "* 

"And please heaven, worthy sir," snuffled Master 
Patten, " accession of wealth and strength with his 
majesty Edward VI." 

" Eight ! " said Glencaim gruffly ; " and your Devonshire 
squab to boot. And now, my lords and gentles, to business ; 
for the night wears on, and we must keep tryst with my 
Lord Regent betimes at Stirling, for you know that he 
would confer with some of us previous to a convention of 
the estates. Let Master Shelly speak ; for Master Patten 
hath brought new letters and tidings from the Lord Pro- 
tector of England." 



FBESTON TOWER. 117 

"WeO, 80%" said Shellj Unnily, ^to resume where we 
last left oK The Protector of Eogland pledges himself to 
inyade Scotland with an army sufficient to bear down all 
opposition, provided you and your armed adherents cast 
your swords into the scale with hiuL** 

'* Agreed!" said Claude Hamilton, glancing round the 
table. 

'' Agreed 1 " added all, in varying tones of approval 

On the table lay a map of Scotland,— one of those so 
quaintly delineated by M. Nicholas d'Arville, chief cos- 
mographer to the most Christian king; and to this refer- 
ence was made horn time to time by members of the 
worthy oondave, who sat around it or lounged in the hall. 

" How many fighting-men can you raise in that district 
named the Lennox, to aid our cause ) ^ asked Shelly, placing 
a finger on the part which indicated that ancient county. 

" Its hereditary sheriff Matthew Earl of Lennox, is one 
of U8,** replied Bothwell ; '^ and he can bring into the field 
eight thousand soldiers." 

*^ And then there are the Isles," began Glencairn. 

''Yea, my lord," said Shelly, with an approving smile, 
''of old a very hotbed of revolt against the Scottish 
crown. 

"And the place wherein our Edwards readily fermented 
treason," added Patten, " and stirred their lords to war 
against your kings, as independent princes of the He- 
brides." 

"Tru^t not to the islesmen," said Bothwell ; "the vanity 
of their chiefs was crushed a hundred years ago, on the 
field of Harlaw." 

'*But haply the spirit lives there yet," said Shelly, 
making a memorandum j " and if we sent a few war-ships 
through the Western Sea under the I<ord Clinton or 
Sir William Wentworth, our two best admirals, it might 
be no difficult task to rouse it onco again to action." 



118 PAESTON TO WEB. 

" You deceive yourself," said' Lord Lyle coldly ; " the 
sovereign of Scotland is now^ both by blood and position, 
hereditary Lord of the Isles, and the chiefs remember with 
love and veneration the chivalry ol James IV., and patriot- 
ism of his son. who died at Falkland." 

" Now, my lords, to the terms of your adherence with 
England," said Shelly, unfolding a parchment, to which 
several small seals were attached by pieces of ribbon ; and 
after hemming once or twice, he arose and read aloud : — 

"It is covenanted and written between us, Edward 
Duke of Somerset, Earl of Hertford, Viscount Beauchamp, 
Lord Seymour, uncle to the king our sovereign, lord high 
treasurer and earl-marshal of England, captain of the 
isles of Guernsey and Jersey, lieutenant-general of, all his 
majesty's forces by sea and land, governor of his hignness's 
most royal person, and protector of all his domains and 
subjects, knight of the most illustrious order of the Garter, 
and certain lords and barons of the realm of Scotland — to 
wit — Gilbert Kennedy, Earl of Cassilis ^ 

" Enough of this," said Cassilis bluntly, and with some 
alarm depicted in his face ; " there ave other peers who 
take precedence of me in parliament ; so why not in this 
parchment of thine? moreover, we care not to hear our 
titles so rehearsed." 

" In so dangerous a document as this," added some one. 

"How, my lords," exclaimed Shelly with astonishment 
and something of scorn ; " you dare not recede ^" 

" Dare not ? " reiterated Cassilis, with a fierce frown. 

" No," replied the Englishman bluntly. 

" And wherefore, sirrah ? " 

" Because the Protector of England holds in his hand a 
document which, if sent to the Begent of Scotland, would 
hang seven amoug you as high as ever Haman hung of 
old." 

" A document," repeated Kilmaurs, the gash on whose 



PUBIOSr 10WEB. 119 

pdfe dieekgiev black, wliflelus eyes flashed fire; ^is there 
SBothor bond than this ! ** 

^ Tea, one wiitten bj Master PSatten, and signed in the 
StaiM^iamber at London, bj seven Scottish lorda^ then 
priaoneis of irar, after the field of Sdway."* 

^ And ik^ — ^ qneried Ljle, mth knitted brow and in- 
quiring eye. 

^ Bound themselves to asadst King Henry YIII., of 
happy memoiy, in all his secret designs against their own 
ooontry, promising to invest him with the government of 
Scotland during the little queen's minority ; to drive out 
Arran and Mary ot Lorraine ; to admit English garrisons 
into all the fortresses ; and, in short, to play the old game 
of Edward Longshanks, €k>myn, and Baliol over again, in a 
land," added Shelly with an ill-disguised sneer, ** that is not 
likely to display another WaUaoe, or to boast another field 
of Bannockbum." 

^ And those seven — ^ asked Lyle impetuously. 

"Are the Earls of GassiHs and Glencaim, the Lords 
Somerville, Gray, Makwell, Oliphant, and Fleming.'* 

"Englishman, thou liest!" ezdaimed the Master of 
Lyle, grasping his dagger; "the Lord Oliphant is my near 
kinsman. 

"Peace, he lies not," said Oassilis; "I signed that bond, 
and by it will I abide." 

"Tea, Master of Lyle," said Shelly blandly, with a 
glance of sombre scorn and fury in his eye ; '' and other 
documents there are, which, if known, would raise in Soot- 
land such a storm that there is not an urchin in the streets 
of Edinburgh but would cast stones at you, and cry shame 
on the betrayers of his queen and country I " 

" Silence, sirs," exclaimed old Claude Hamilton with alarm, 
" the conversation waxeth perilous." 

"I am here on the crooked errand of the Duke of 
Somerset," said Shelly, rising with an air of lofty disdain 



120 PBESTON TOWXB* 

''no soldier's work it is, and rather would I have been 
with my stout garrison at Boulogne, than clerking here 
with worthy Master Patten." 

" Thrice have you come hither on such errands, Master 
Shelly, and they seem to pay well,*' said Kilmaurs 
tauntingly. 

The Englishman clenched his hand and blushed with 
anger, as he said imprudently, — 

''Thrice I have ridden into Scotland since that red day 
at Ancrumford, and each time have I, gone home wifch a 
prouder heart than when I crossed the northern border.*' 

"Prouder?" reiterated the fiery Kilmaurs, coming for- 
ward with a resentful expreasion in his lowering eye. 

" Yes," replied the Englishman boldly, and grasping the 
secret petronel which he wore under his mantle ; " for each 
time I asked myself, for whoit surn would an English yeoman 
sell his fatherland, his father's grave, or his king's honour, 
even as these Scottish earls, lords, and barons do, for this 
accursed lucre?" With these words. Shelly tore the purse 
from his girdle and dashing it on the table, continued : 
" When I bethink me of the truth and £uth, the unavailing 
bravery and the stanch honesty of the stout Scottish 
commons I am here to betray through those whom they 
trust and honour, my heart glows with shame within me ! 
Assuredly 'tis no work this for an English captain ; so do 
thou the rest, in €k>d's name, good Master Patten." 

As Shelly sat sullenly down, and twisted from side to 
side in his chair, as if seated on the hot gridiron of St. Law* 
rence, it was high time for the more politic Patten to speak ; 
for savage glares were ex(^hanged on all sides of the table ; 
Kennedies and Cunninghames closed round, each by his 
chieffcain's side ; swords and daggers were half-drawn, and 
Shelly's life was in evident jeopardy ; for his taunts, alike 
unwise and daring, had found an echo in the venal hearts 
of those at whom they we^e levelled. 



J 



PBESTON TOWEB. 121 

^'Whenoe this indignation, most worthj emissary 9** 
asked Eolmanrs, whose insolence and hauteur were pro* 
verfaiaL 

'' I am an envof^not an emissary," replied Shelly, eyeing 
him firmly from his plumed honnet to his white funnel 
boots ; *' I am a soldier, and have the heart of a soldier — 
I thank God, not of a diplomatist. I know more of gunnery 
and the brave game of war, than the subtlety of statecrafb. 
I am here to obey orders : these are to confer with you on 
what joxa lordships consider a salable matter — your 
allegiance ; had it been, as it may one day be, to cut your 
throats, 'twere all one to Ned Shelly." 

" Hear me, my most honourable and good lords,'* began 
Master Fatten, in his most wily and seductive manner ; *^ you 
cannot recede, so allow me to go on. The promises of the 
English Proteotov must naturally meet the fondest wishes 
of all. Listen to our indenture. Patrick Earl of Bothwell 
promises, on the £uth of a true man, to transfer his allegiance 
to the young king of England, and to surrender unto 
English troops his strong castle of Hermitage, on condition 
that he receives the hand of an English princess ^" 

'^ Princess ? " muttered several of the traitor conclave 
inquiringly, as they turned to each other. 

*^Who may«Ad be 9" asked Claude Hamilton with sur- 
prise. 

"Katherine Willoughby, widow of Charles Brandon, 
Duke of Suffolk," continued Patten, reading. 

Bothwell smiled proudly, as he thought of his triumph 
over Mary of Lorraine. 

"But," said the Earl of Glencaim, "what sayeth this 
dainty dame to be sold thus, like a bale of goods 1 " 

" What she may say can matter little," replied Patten. 

" 'Tis said she affects one named Bertie." 

" My lord, the Duke of Somerset will amend that." 

** A worthy successor to the poor Countess Agnes Sin- 



122 PBESTON TOWER. 

clair of Bavenscraig ! ** said the Maater of Ljle with some- 
thing of scornful commiseration. 

''My first countess sleeps in the kirk of St. Denis^ at 
Dysart," said Bothwell coldly, '' so I pray you to proceed. 
Master Patten ; this espousal is my matter." 

" The Lord Glencaim and Claude Hamilton of Preston/' 
continued the sciibe, " offer to co-operate in the inyasion of 
Scotland, and at the head of three thousand men, their 
friends and vassals, to keep the Hegent Arran in check 
until the English army arrive; the former to receive a 
hundred thousand crowns in gold on the day the infant 
queen of Scotland is delivered into Somerset's hand, and 
the latter to obtain a coronet, with the titles of Earl of 
Gladsmuir and Lord Preston of Auldhammer." 

'' Agreed ! " said Preston, glancing round with an air of 
satisfaction and curiosity to see how the announcement was 
received." 

'' On that day, sirs," added Master Patten, '' the infant 
queen of Scotland shall share the glory of being joint 
sovereign of a realm containing the English, Irish, and 
Welsh, the Cornishmen, and the French of Jefsey, Guern- 
sey, and Calais." 

" But," said Glencairn, " what if our devil of a regent, 
with a good array of Scottish pikes, standeth in the way of 
all this ] " 

" Then, by heaven, sirs, black velvet will be in demand 
among the surname of Hamilton ! " exclaimed Kilmaurs. 

" How % " asked Claude of Preston angrily. " Would you 
dare ^' 

'^ Exactly so ! " interrupted Kilmaurs with his deadly 
smile. 

*'And the said Claude Hamilton, laird of Preston," 
continued poor Master Patten, reading very fast to avoid 
further interruptions, " hereby binds and obliges himself to 
bestow in marriage upon Master Edward Shelly, captain of 



PBESTON TOWEB. 123 

the King of England's Boulogners, in reward for his ser- 
vices touching these state matters, the hand and estates of 
his niece, the Lady Madeline Hame, Countess of Yarrow, 
now his ward, and according to law in his custodj as over- 
. lord, by the will of her late father the earl, who bound her 
to remain so until the age of twenty-one years." 

" Thou art in luck, Master Shelly," said Kilmaurs, " for 
the lady is said to be beautiful." 

" But suppose she will not have me ? " suggested Shelly, 
who nq^ smiled and played with the feather in his bonnet. 

" Dare she refuse ! " growled Claude Hamilton, gnawing 
his wiry moustache. 

**We can get thee a love-philtre from Master Posset," 
said Bothwell, laughing. 

" As men say thou didst for Mary of Lorraine, what time 
she'wellnigh died at Rothesay," whispered Glencaim. 

*i Then I philtred her with small avail," said the High 
Admiral, grinding his teeth, for ho had really loved the 
widowed queen, while she had tolerated his addresses 
solely for political purposes of her own. 

" But, Master Shelly, I know of one (a witch) who deals 
in love-charms, and who " 

** Nay, my Lord Glencaim," replied the English soldier 
laughing, **I will have none of this damnable ware. A 
pretty Scots lass is witch enough for me. And now that 
we have concluded this paction, to which also the Earls of 
Atbole, , Crawford, Enrol, and Sutherland have given their 
adhesion on the promise of being 'honestly/ enterUmied/ I 
will drink one more tankard to its final success." * 

'^ I have no heirs male," said Preston, almost with sadness ; 
'' and if this alliance be happily concluded, I will give away 
to the husband of my niece my lands of Over-Preston, if, 

* The political villany of wliicli this chapter is descriptive is an* 
thentlc. See Tytler, and particularly " Acta Begia," vol. iii. 



124 PBESTON TOWEB. 

during my lifetime, the said Edward Shelly shall give to 
me, as chief lord of the feu, a pair of gilt spurs and three 
crowns yearly at the feast of St. Barnabas." 

« More luck still, Master Shelly I " said Bothwell. 

*' And I win grant to Grod and the church of St. Giles at 
Edinburgh, and to the monks serving God therein, for the 
health of my own soul, the souls of all iny ancestors, the 
souls of the two. Eawsides whom I slew, and for the souls of 
all the Mthful dead, my wood and lands of Bankton for the 
yearly payment of a rose in Blench Farm." ^ 

" *Tis well 1 *' said Shelly, with a singular smile, for he was 
alike indifferent to the old creed and the new. ** But reTnem- 
her that by proclamations the Scottish people must be every- 
where informed that we, the army of England, are coming to 
free them from the tyranny of the bishop of Home — from 
the exorbitant revenues demanded by his church, whose 
meadows and pastures are to become the property of the 
baroncf, and that money shall no longer be levied among the 
poor by full-fed bishops and shorn shavelings for the celebra- 
tion of masses and marriages, for burials and holy-bread, for 
wax and wine, vows and pilgrimages, processions, and prayers 
for children and &ir weather, or for curses by bell, book, and 
candle, and all such Soman superstition. Say everywhere 
that we come with the sword, not to woo your queen, but to 
crush at once the falling hierarchy of Borne, even as we have 
crushed it in England ! You understand me, sirs. And now, 
Master Patten, get your waxen taper ready. My lords, your 
seals and signatures to the bond ; and remember, that a 
month hence the bridge of Berwick will be ringing to the 
tramp of armed feet on their northern march ; and ere that 
time I shall have exchanged this Scottish bonnet for the steel 
burganet of my sturdy Boulogners." 

The seals and the signatures of the few who could accom- 
plish the (then) difficult task of affixing their degraded 
autographs to this rebellious bond were soon completed, and 



PBEERTON TOWEa 125 

Master Shelly wasconsigniDg it to a secret pocket of hisdagger- 
proof doublet, when Master Patten whispered waggishly, 

" In sooth, sir, methinks a fair dame should haje been 
also provided for me in this parchment." 

" In good faith, Patten," said Shelly, laughing, " I love a 
lass at home in England — a fair jolly dame, who lives near 
Bichmond ; I have other two) who are as good as wives to 
me, at Calais and Boulogne ; to wed a fourth, in Scotland 
here, were but to act King Harry over again, save that I 
don't shorten th*em by the head." 

At that moment Symon Brodie, the butler, entered 
hastily, and whispered in the ear of his master, who ex- 
claimed, while his nut-brown cheek grew pale, 

" Fawside of that ilk has come home, say ye ? " 

'' This morning our herdsmen on the Braehead saw him ride 
into the tower just as Tranent bell rang for the first mass." 

" The devil ! — Sayst thou so ? " cried Kilmaurs, starting 
up. " Hath that fellow come alive again ? " 

" It wad seem sae, my lord," replied Symon, rubbing his 
half-healed sword-wound. 

" Then we must have his French letters, even should we 
sack his house." 

" Nay, sirs," said old Claude of Preston, " no such work as 
thai shall be hatched here. I have had enough of the auld 
feud, and of Dame Alison, too — enough, and to spare. "Not 
content with setting her husband and madcap eldest son 
upon me to their own skaith, she pays that auld gowk. Mass 
John of Tranent, to curse me daily, and consorts with witches 
and warlocks nightly for my destruction. Oh, 'tis a pestilent 
hag, this Dame Alison of Fawside ! " 

** A witch-carlin ! " muttered the butler. " I hope some 
fine day to see the iron branks on her jaws." 

" ' Tis said she rambles about in the likeness of a brown 
tyke, to work evil on us," added Mungo Tennant. " If I liad 
her once in that form, within range of my arquebuse " 



126 PBESTOK TOWEB. 

" Silence ! " said the laird sternly ; " the blood of her 
house is red enough upon my hands already ! " 

" Well, well. But the letters— the letters ! " urged Kil- 
maurs impatiently ; ''are we to lose them ? " 

" If he ever had any, he must have delivered them long 
ere this," said Shelly. 

" Under favour, sir," said Glencaim, " he left not Edin- 
burgh (for the gate-wards are in our pay) until this day at 
dawn, or late last night, when one answering to his descrip- 
tion rode through the Water-gate on a white horse. Word 
came tardily to the warder at the Brig of Esk ; we had 
killed or taken him else at the Howmire." 

" Let the tower of Fawside be watched narrowly," said 
Kilmaurs; ''for these letters we must have ere we meet 
Arran and the Queen at Stirling, to know their plans as 
well as our own ; for men should play warily who risk their 
heads in a game like ours, my lords." 

" And now once more to the black jack, sirs^" exclaimed 
the laird ol Preston ; " see to the wine-bickers, Symon, and 
fill — fill, while we drink thrice to the three £Edr brides whom 
this bond will soon make wedded wives — ^the Queen of Scots, 
the Countesses of Bothwell and Yarrow ! " 

That night the rebel lords and their retainers drank deep 
in Preston Tower ; but tidings of an irruption of cerfcain 
feudal enemies into Carrick, Kyle, and Cunninghame, giving 
all to £bre and sword in these fertile districts, compelled 
Cassilis, Glencaim, Kilmaurs, and others, to depart on the 
spur ere mid-day ; and hence it was that, as related in the 
preceding chapter, Florence Fawside found himself at such 
perfect liberty to ride daily to the city in his gayest apparel, 
and almost without armour, to prosecute a tutile search for 
his fair unknown ; while his fiery mother chafed and scoffed 
at lus delay in commencing hostilities with the Hamiltbns 
of Preston. 



TUS LEITSR OF THS VALOIS. 127 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE LETTEB OP THE VALOIS. 



Madame, I was tnie servant to thy mother. 

And in her &voar aye stood thankfuUie, 
And though that I to serve be not so able 
As I was wont, because I may not see- 
Yet that I hear thy people with high voice 

And ioyfnl hearts cry continaallie — 
Yvoal Marie, tre noble £eyne cPMcoste/ 

Sib Eichabd Mattland. 

Fob seven consecutive days our hero traversed the streets 
of his native capital, poking his nose under the velvet hood 
of every lady whose figure or air resembled in any way those 
of his fair irmmorcUa ; and in these seven days he ran at 
least an average of . eight-and-twenty risks of being run 
through the body for his impudence ; but his handsome 
face, his suave apologies and brave apparel, obtained him 
readily the pardon of those he followed, jostled, or accosted. 
One evening he was just about to leave the city by the 
gloomy arch oi the Pleasance Porte, above which grinoed 
the skulls of those who had abetted the Master of Forbes in 
his wicked attempt upon the life of James Y., when the 
booming of Mons Meg and of forty other great culverins 
from the castle-wall made the windows of the city shake .; 
while the clanging bells in every church, monastery, and 
convent, gave out a merry peal. 

He asked one who passed him, " What tcaused these signs 
o& honour and acclaim ) " 

" The return oi the Queen-Mother from Falkland," replied 
this person, a bufgher, who was hastening froui his booth. 



128 THB LETTER OF THE YALOIB. 

clad in his steel bonnet and jazarine jacket, with an arque^ 
buse on his shoulder. 

« The Queen-Mother ! " 

He paused, and, with an emotion of alarm ; he remembered 
his dispatches from Henry of Valois to Mary of Lorraine 
and the Begent Arran, and resolved on the morrow to atone 
for his delay. As the armed citizen left him and mingled 
with the gathering crowd, the tone of his voice, and some- 
thing in his air, brought to Fawside's memory that man 
of the stout arm and long axe who had so suddenly 
befriended him on that night, the desperate events of which 
seemed likely to influence the whole of his future career. 
Here was a key, perhaps, to the name and dwelliDg of his 
unknown beauty j but the chance was scarcely thought of 
ere it was gone ! — already the armed stranger was lost amid 
the crowd that hurried up the adjacent dose, to mingle, 
in the High Street, with the masses who greeted Mary of 
Lorraine with shouts of applause. She entered in the dusk, 
surrounded by torch-bearers and guarded by a body of 
mounted spearmen, led by Errol, the lord high constable 
of Scotland, a peer who was secretly in league with England 
against her. She was preceded by a long train of merchants, 
wearing fine black gowns of camlet, lined with silk and 
trimmed with velvet, according to the rule for all above 
ten pounds of stent ; by the provost in armour, and the 
city officers and piper wearing doublets of !Rouen canvas, 
and black hats with white strings, and all armed with swords, 
daggers, and partizans. 

Arrived in the city on the morrow, Fawside rode at once 
to the residence of the Queen-Mother. He was well 
mounted, carefully accoutred, and armed to the teeth ; for 
in those days no man knew what manner of men or adven- 
tures he might meet if he ventured a rood from his own 
gate. 

His arn^our was a light suit of that species of puJQfed or 



T3B LSTTES OF YBE TSUMS. 1^ 



nbbed Bail wlddi ^wss designed as an imitatioa cf the 
slaited diesBes d the age. On lus bead inis one cf tbc^e 
abed caps known as a eomang-liat^ adorned br a white 
feadifr Hie mafl was as bdght as the hands of the £ist 
fiiiiwhri in Paris (M. Fomhisser, Roe St. Jacqaes> aimoorer 
to tte Gaide dn Ooips Eoossais) coold render it : and the 
cmiaaB was inlaid in gold, with a lepiesentation of the 
OiwiliiifHij as a chann against dangor — a style introdaced 
faj Beuveuulo Cellini, and named dcnNOS^titfi^e / and Dame 
Aliaoii, wiioi, with a deep and deadly interest in her louring 
bat afiectiaiiate eyes^ had watdied her son equipping himself 
and kwMJing his petionelsy saghed with anger that it was only 
far the city he was departing again. 

" Minbu fgh," she mattered; ''ever and always Edin- 
boig^ ! What demon hires thee there f Is it but to 
pomoe along the canseway, or flannt before the saucy kirn- 
mecaat the Batter Tron and Cramers-wives^ thou goest with 
all this oadesB iron aboot thee f " 

^ Usdess f " reiterated Florence with surprise. 

^'Tes — oaeleaB to thee, at least!" she said, almost 
fiercely. 

^ S^wak not so unkindly to me, dear mother ; I am going 
elsewhere than to Edinburgh." 

^ Hah — ^whither !" she demanded, with some alarm. 

** To tiie regent, on the business of the King of France ; 
and in the wilds of the Torwood, or of Cadzow Forest, I 
may not find this iron, as you stigmatize the best of Milan 
plate;, periiaps so useless a ooyering." 

For the first time, the mother and son parted with cold- 
ness on hor side ; for the delay he exhibited in challenging 
Preston to mortal combat, or assaulting and sacking his 
fimoQS, if not his tower, filled her angry heart with doubt 
and with disdain ; for herj^long-cherished hope seemed on the 
fYe of being dissipated. 

These bitter emotions gave place to anxiety when, about 

K 



130 THS LBTIBB OF THE VALOIS. 

mght&U, she heard news of the enemy. Boger of the 
Westmains hurriedly entered the hall, and, after paying his 
deyoirs as usual to the ale^harrel, announced that, while 
driving a few stirks home from Gladsmuir — ^the &tal land 
of oontention,-^he had seen Claude Hamilton depart at the 
head of an armed train of at least twenty mounted men, by 
the road direct for Edinburgh. 

^/ And my son is Uhere alone 1 " was her first thought ; 
for, in his anxiety to depart, and that he might with more 
freedom prosecute the search after his unknown, he had 
galloped westward from Fawside, without other friends than 
his sharp sword and his stout young arm. 

'' By this time — ^yea, long ere this," said Roger, looking 
at the sundiaT on the window-K)orner, '' he will be far on 
the way to the Lord Arran's house of Cadssow, and not a 
horse in the* barony could overtake him." 

'* Pray Heaven he. may be so," replied the grim mother, 
crossing herself thrice ; " he will be here to-morrow." 

But many a morning dawned, and many a night came on, 
before she again saw her son, whose adventures we wUl now 
rehearse. 

He soon ascertained that her. majesty the queen-mother 
was at her new private residence (on the north side of the 
Castle-Hill Street), which, with its little oratory and guard- 
house, she had erected after the almost total destruction of 
Edinburgh by the English army in 1544. Holyrood Palace 
was burned on that occasion. Thus^ at the time of our story, 
many of its southern apartments were in ruin ; and hence 
Mary of Lorraine was compelled to find a more secure habi- 
tation within the walls of the city, and in the vicinity of the 
fortress, of which the gallant Sir James Hamilton of Stain- 
house was governor, until he was slain in a bloody tumult 
by the FrencL 

Several persons, apparently of good position, were loi- 
tering near this tittle private palace, and to one of these—- 



THE LETXEB OF THE VALOIS. 131 

a page apparently — Fawside addrossed himself; and on re 
ceiving a somewhat supercilious answer, he exclaimed 
angrily,— 

'\ Quick, sirrah — announce me, for I must speak with the 
queen ere I ride for the lord regent's." 

These words were overheard by two gentlemen richly 
dressed and brilliantly armed in gorgets and cuirasses of 
fine steel, with their swords and daggers glittering with 
precious stones. They were each attended by two pages, 
and jostled so rudely past Fawside, who had now dis- 
mounted, and held his horse by the bridle, that, had he not 
been amply occupied by his own thoughts, he would have 
called them severely to account, as an insult was never 
tolerated in those days. 

"BothweU!" 

^ Glencaim ! " were the exclamations, as these worthies 
recognized and cautiously saluted each other. 

" * Tis our man Fawside," whispered the latter ; " doubtless 
he goes now to deliver his missives. Accursed folly that 
spared him ; but 'tis too late now ; let the queen receive hers." 

" And he goeth hereafter to Arran. I heard him say so." 

*'He shall never pass through Cadzow Wood alive. I 
have a thought — stay — get me a clerk to write. Where 
lodges Master Patten ? " 

'*At the upper Bow Porte — not a pistol-shot fj^pm 
this." 

** This way,' then," said Glencairn, twitching his friend's 
mantle ; and they humed away together, while the unfor- 
tunate Fawside, without the least idea that he was watched 
so narrowly, approached the Guise Palace, as it wm named 
by the citizens. 

This edifice, which was built of polished stone, was three 
stories in height ; the access to it was by a turnpike stair, 
above the carved doorway of which were the cipher of the 
queen, " M.R.," and the pious legend, L<ms et honor £)eo, to 

K 2 



132 THE LETTEB OF THE YALOI& 

exclude eviL On ^he opposite side of the narrow close -was 
the goard-house, where a party of thirty men-at-arms, under. 
Livingstone of Champfleurie, an esquire, all equipped by the 
queen, and "brought from her own lands as private vassals, 
furnished sentinels for her modest dwelling. These men 
were armed with sword, dagger, and arquebuse, and bore 
on their doublets-7-which were of the royal livery of Soot* 
land, scarlet fiiced with yellow-— the arms of the queen- 
dowager, or bendwise guUSy charged with the three winglets 
of Lorraine, and quartered with the Scottish arms, — sot a 
lion rampant within a double tressure, flory, and counter- 
flory, moflra. /i 

In those simple times, people of rank were easily access- 
ible ; thus, there was not much ceremony observed by royal 
personages. In a very brief space of time, Fawside found 
himself treading the oak floors of Mary of Lorraine's dwell- 
ing, as he was ushered by a page into a large apartment, 
the sombre tapestry of which was rendered yet darker by 
the narrow and ancient alley into which its three tall win- 
dows opened. This room was furnished with regal magnifi- 
cence. The arras, which had formed a portion of the dowry 
of Yolande of Anjou, depicted the career of Garin the Wild 
Boar, who figures in the romance of '' GkJiarin de Lorraine.'' 
The chairs were covered with crimson velvet fringed with 
silver, and all bore the royal crown and cipher. The door 
an^ panelling, some of which are still preserved, were all 
of dark oak exquisitely carved, and in each compartment 
was a device, an armorial beariug, or a likeness of some 
member of the royal family ; James Y., with his pointed 
moustache, and bonnet smartly slouched over the right ear, 
being most firequently depicted. The ceiling, which is still 
preserved at Edinburgh, is of wood, and very singularly 
decorated. In the centre is the figure of our Saviour, en- 
circled by the legend, — 

Ego 9vm via, veriiaSj et vik^ 



THE LETTER OF THE VALOIS. 133 

In eacli compartment is an allegorical subject^ sncli as the 
Dream of Jacob, the Vision of Death from the Apocalyse, 
&c., and one representing the Saviour asleep in the storm, 
^ith a view of Edinburgh, its castle and St. Giles's church 
in the background. His galley being afloat, not in the Sea 
of Galilee, but, curiously enough, in the centre of the North 
Loch. 

Within a stone recess, canopied like a Gothic niche, and 
secured thereto by a chain of steel, stood the &mous old 
tankard known as the Fairy Gu^ of "King William the 
Lion. 

Delrio relates, from Gulielmus Neubrigensis, that a 
peas&nt, one night, when passing near a rocky grotto, heard 
sounds of merriment j and on peeping in, beheld a quaint- 
looking company of dwarfish elves dancing and feasting. 
One offered him a cup to drink with them ; but he poured 
out the bright liquor it contained, and rode off with the 
vessel, which was of imknown material and strange of fashion. 
It became the property of Henry the Elder, of England, 
and was presented by him to King William the lion, of 
Scotland ; after whom it became an heirloom of our kings,* 
and was now in the custody of Mary of Lorraine. 

Florence Fawsieb had barely time to observe all this, to 
unclasp his coursing-hat. glance at his figure in a mir;or. 
and give that last and most satisfactory adjust to his hair, 
which every man and woman infidlibly do previous to an 
interview, when the arras at the further end of the apart- 
ment was suddenly parted by the hands of two pages. Two 
ladies in rich dresses advanced, and our hero knew that he 
was in the presence of the widow of James V. He sank 
upon his right knee, and bowed his head, until she desired 
him to rise and approach, with a welcome, to her mansion, 
in a voice, the tones of which stirred his inmost heart, by 
the emotions and recollections they awakened. 

• " DiscovrBO of Miracles in the Catholic Chyrch." Antwei-p, 167 



134 TRJS LETT£B OF THE VAlX>m 

Mary of Lorraine was the sister of Francis, Due de Guise, 
and widow of Louis of Orleans, Due de Longueville, before 
lier marriage with James V. 6f Scotland. She was beautiful 
and still young, being only in her thirty-second year. She was 
fair-complexioned, with a pale forehead and clear hazel eyes, 
which were expressive alike of intelligence, sweetness, and 
candour. Her red and cherub-like mouth ever wore the 
most charming smile ; her hair was partly concealed by her 
lace coif j her high ruff came close round her dimpled chin ; 
and on the breast of her puffed yellow satin dress, which 
was slashed with black velvet, and trimmed with black lace, 
sparkled a diamond cross, the farewell gift of her sister, 
who was prioress of the convent of St. Peter, at Bheims, in 
Champagne. 

" Bise, monsieur — rise, sir," said she, smiling ; " it seems 
almost strange when a gentleman kneels to me now." 

" Alas, madam, that the widow of James V. should find 
it so in tie kingdom of her daughter.'* 

" Or a daughter of Lorraine ; but so it is, sir — ^treason 
and heresy are spreading like a leprosy in the land ; nor 
need I wonder that those dedine to kneel in a palace, who 
refuse to do so before the altar of their God ! Mon Dieu, 
M. de Fawside j but we Hve in strange and perilous times. 
You tremble, sir — ^are you unwell 1 " 

Mary of Lorraine might well have asked this, for Florence 
grew pale, and tottered, so that he was compelled to grasp a 
chair for support, when, in the queen who addressed him, 
and in the lady her attendant, who remained a few paces be- 
hind, holding a feather fan partly before her face, he recognized 
those who had tended, nursed, and. cured him of his wounds 
•—she of the hazel, and she of the dark-blue eyes. 

To the beautiful queen, and her still more beautiful &iend 
and dame cFhonneu/r, he was already as well known as if he 
had been the brother of both. In this bewilderment he 
gazed from one pair of charming eyes to the other, and 



THB UEFTBR OF THE VALOIS. 135 

played with the plame in his couraing-haty ntteriy unable to 
Sj^eak ; till the qneen laaghed merrily, and said,— 

*' Monsieur is most welcome to my poor house in lisle- 
bonrg," — for so the French named, Edinburgh, &om the 
number of lakes which surrounded its castle; '^so our 
little romance is at an end — monsieur secognizeB us, Made- 
line — all is discovered ! " 

''Madeline ! " whispered ilorenoe in his heart; ''that 
name shall ever be a spell to me." 

" Well, Laird of Fawside — so you have Ibusiness with us. 
But first, I pray you, be seated, sir ; your wounds cannot 
be entirely healed. I remember me, they were terrible ! " 

" Ah, madam ! " said he, in a voice to which the fulness 
of his heart imparted a » charming earnestness and richness 
of tone, as he again knelt down, " how shall I ever repay 
the honour you have already done me ? The services of a 
life — ^a life of faith and gratitude— ^were indeed too little. 
But whence came all this mystery 1 " 

" For reasons which I disdain to acknowledge almost to 
myseli^" said the queen, with an inexplicable smile, which, 
whatever it meant, prevented the bewildered young man 
^m saying more. 

This royal lady seemed never to forget her lofty position 
when among those whom she knew to be the most uncom- 
promising of the Scottish peers; — every graceful gesture, 
every proud glance of her clear and beautiful eyes, seemed 
to say, — 

" I am Mary of Guise — ^Lorraine, Queen of Scotland ! 
I cannot forget that I am the widow of James V., and the 
mother of Mary Queen of Scots.** ^ 

But a gracious condescension, with a sweet gentleness of 
manner, to those whom she loved and trusted, made her 
wear a very different expression at times, and imparted to 
her features that alluring loveliness which, with her sorrows, 
became the dangerous inheritance of her daughter. 



136 THE LBTTBB OF THK VALOIS; 

Like that unhappy daughter, her tastes "were refined and 
exquisite j she was as passionately fond of music and poetiy 
as the late king her husband, and maintained a foreign band 
of musicians and vocalists. Among the latter were five 
Italians, each of whom received from her privy purse thir- 
teen pounds yearly, with a red bonnet and livery coat of 
yellow Bruges satin, trimmed and slashed with red, — ^the 
royal colours. M. Antoine (our pretended dumb valet), a 
Parisian, and her most trusted attendant, was master of this 
band, which included four violers, four trumpeters, two 
taboumers, and several Swiss drummers. 

Danger, and the desperate game of politics as played by 
the Scottish noblease, compelled this fidr widow to use. her 
beauty as a means of strengthening hersel£ Thus she pre- 
tended to receive the addresses of Lennox, Argyle, and 
Bothwell, luring them all to love her, while she deceived 
them all with hopes of a marriage, to gain time, till armed 
succour reached her court from France. She was fond of 
card-playing, and frequently lost a hundred crowns of the 
sun at one sitting to Bothwell, to Arran, and other peers ; 
and now the former, filled with rage on discovering the 
emptiness of his hopes, had joined the faction of Somerset, 
who flattered his spirit of revenge and cupidity to the fiiU 
by offering him the hand and fortune of the beautiful 
Katharine Willoughby. 

His half-mad love for Mary of Lorraine was well known 
in Scotland, where, after his return from Venice, it prompted 
him to commit a thousand extravagances. It is yet remem- 
bered how, when sheathed in full armour, he galloped his 
barbed charger down the steep face of the Calton Hill, and 
made it leap, like another Pegasus, the barriers of the tilting- 
ground, that he might appear to advantage before her and 
the ladies of her court, when patronizing a great tournament 
near the old Carmelite monastery of Greenside. 

But amid these historical details, which, as the Scots read 



THE LESTTEB OF THE VALOia 137 

all liistories but their own, will no doubt be new to tbem, 
we are forgetting the bewildered young gentleman, who has 
just kissed the white jewelled hand of Mary of Lorraine, 
aad risen to his feet by her command. 

*' And now, fair sir, that you have discovered us, you 
are no doubt come to proffer us your thanks for being your 
leeches and nurses," said the queen, laughing; "but we 
must insist upon sparing you all that ; for, be assured, sir, 
we were performing but an act of simple Christian charity.'* 

" I swear to your majesty, that until this moment I knew 
not who had so honoured me with protection and hospitality. 
I came bat to place in your hands a paper———*' 

** Monsieur ! " 

" A paper, the possession, or supposed possession, of which, 
on the night that first' brought me here, so nearly cost me 
my life ; though by what means those ruffians guessed I was 
intrusted with it, I know not." 

'' 'Tis a notice of some conspiracy, perhaps ?" 

" Nay -^ 'tis a letter from his majesty the King of 
France." 

*' A letter from the Yalois 1 " reiterated Mary, starting, 
while her eyes flashed with expectation. 

" From Henry IL," replied the youth ; and, drawing from 
his doublet i^e missive of the Most Christian king, he knelt 
again on presenting it to Mary of Lorraine. 

'' Thanks, sir, thanks. How droll, to think that I might 
have had this letter weeks ago, but for our little romance," 
she said merrily, while her hazel eyes seemed to dance in 
light, as she cut open the ribands by the scissors which 
hung at her gold chatelaine. She hastily read over the 
letter, the envelope of which was spotted by the bearer's 
\Aood. 

"If it please your grace — ^the news?" said the young 
lady, her attendant, in a soft voice. 

" Countess, approach ! " siedd the queen. 



138 THE LirrTER OF THE VAI1OI& 

'' She's a countess ! " said Fawside inandibly, and his heart 
sank at the discoTery. 

" *Tis brave news," exclaimed the queen with a tone of 
triumph ; " Henry of Valois promises me succour ; so my 
daughter shall never wed the son of English Heniy — the 
offspring of a wretch who lived unsated with lust and blood, 
who put to death seventy-two thousand of his people, and 
who died at' enmity Mdth God and man. Bead, Madeline^ 
7na beUe I ma bonne /—read for yourself." 

The lady read the letter, and presented it to the queen, 
who, ere she could speak, turned to Florence, saying, — 

" Sir, as a faithful subject and true Scottish gentleman, it 
is but polite and just that you should know the contents of 
'a letter with which you have been intrusted, and the de- 
fence of which has cost you so dear. But I rely on your 
honour — be secret and wary. Our schemes are great, for 
we are opposed to powerful and subtle schemers." 

'' Oh, madam, who would not die for your majesty % " 
exclaimed Florence in a burst of enthusiasm ; for the beauty 
and condescension of the queen filled his soul with ]oy and 
pride, kindling within it a fervour which he had never 
known before. 

The letter of Henry 11. ran thus : — 

^^ Madame ma Sc&wr, la Seme cPEcosse : 

''None in our kingdom of France can be better satisfied 
than we are with the good-will you have shown in the cause 
of our holy faith and common country j and knowing well 
the great need you have of assistance to further the great 
project of uniting our dear son the Dauphin to our kins- 
woman, your royal daughter the Queen of Scotland — ^to 
crush treason within and enemies without her realm, and 
ultimately to make you what you ought to be, JRegent 
tliereof, a portion of our valiant French army, veterans of 
the war in Italy, under wise and skilful captains, shall ere 



THB LETTEB OF THE VALOI& 139 

long land upon your shores. We would beseech yon to 
keep in memory our notable plan of stirring up Ireland 
against the government of Edward VI., by supplying the 
O'Connors with arms, and proposing your young <i[ueen as 
a wife to Gerald, the youthful Earl of Kildare, to lure him 
to revolt against the aggressive English ; though ere long 
the Sieur de Brez6, hereditary grand seneschal of Normandy, 
and M. le Chevalier de Yillegaignon, admiral of our galleys, 
will be in the Scottish seas to convey her to France, of 
which — when I am borne by my faithful Scottish archers to 
my fathers' tomb at St. Denis — she shall be queen. Be- 
seeching our Lord to give you, madame my sister, good 
health, a long life, and all you desire, we remain, your good 
brother, 

" From St OeTTnain-en-Lcvyey " Heiibi E. 

« 10 iljprt^, 1547.** 

" With ten thousand good IVench soldiers, united to the 
vassals of Huntley and other loyal peers, I shall be able 
alike to defy the power of England, of Arran, whom 
Somerset seeks to corrupt, and of those false Scots whom 
we have no doubt he has already corrupted," said the queen. 
'' I must write at once to Arran, though he suspects me of 
aiming at the regency. A queen, a mother — I sh^rll tri- 
umph ! I will teach those rebel peers that Mary of Lorraine 
will struggle rather than stoop, and perish rather than 
yield ! Champfleurie ! — ^where is M. Champfleurie ? " 

''He is with the guard, madam/' said the countess. 
"Shalll send for him?" 

Now Livingstone of Champfleurie was a West-Lothian 
•• Jaird, who enjoyed the reputation of being one of the hand- 
somest, but at the same time most dissipated men in Scotland; 
and on hearing him spoken of by the beautiful young countess, 
Florence eicperienced an unaccountable uneasiness; so he said 
hastily, — 



iiO THE LETTEE OF THE VALOia 

" Madam, will you intrust me with your letter ? I am on 
my way to the lord regent at Cadzow.*' 

" A thousand thanks, sir ; you shall be its bearer. And pray 
accept from me this chain in memory of your good service/' 

With these words, Mary of Lorraine, with an air of 
exquisite grace, took from her slender neck a chain of 
fine gold — the same chain which Ren6 IL of Lorraine 
wore in his famous battle with Charles the Bold, — and 
threw it over the bowed head of Florence. 

" And you were presented to King Henry ? *' she asked. 

" In the gallery of the Louvre, madam." 

"By whom?" 

" The Lord James Hamilton, captain of the archers of 
the Scottish Guard ; and by M. le Comte d'Anguien." 

" Ah ! that brave old soldier, with his hce of bronze and 
heart of steel ! He is still alive ? " 

'^ Alive, and hale and well, madam ; and most likely will 
command the troops destined for Scotland." 

" The victor of Cerizoles, the conqueror of the Marquis 
del Yasto in Piedmont. And who else is to lead the troops 
that succour me V" 

"M, le Comte de Martigues, say some; M. d'Ess^ 
d'Epainvilliers, say others." 

" A brave soldier is d'Ess^. According to the astrologer 
of Francis L, Mars was the shining lord of his nativity. 
Thus it was his destiny to lead the armies of France." 

"Ah, madam," said the young countess, "is not this 
heathenish, like the preaching of the Lollards 9 " 

" Of course ; yet it was believed at the court of the Most 
Christian King. And what say they of our lord regent in 
France ? " 

" Thaji he is true to French and Scottish interests, and 
hostile to the English alliance." 

" That I well believe ; but truer to his own interests than 
either." 



THE LETTEB OF THE VALOIS. 141 

''But they suspect him of wishing to secure the entire 
power of the kingdom, so that ere long Scotland may be 
goyemed by Hamiltons and nothing but Hamiltons ; for 
already they hold the archbishopric of St. Andrew's and other 
sees ; they govern half the royal castles, and hold priories and 
abbeys innumerable." ' x 

" That I know too well," said Mary, curling her proud red 
lip. 

'^And that, while printing the Bible in the Scottish 
tongue, and thus defying the bishops and disseminating 
heresy in Scotland, at Home he seeks a cardinal's hat for 
his brother John, the archbishop of St. Andrew's." 

"So— soj he would keep well with his Holiness there 
and well with the Lollards here ! Has he yet to be taught 
that a man cannot serve two masters 1 Mon Dieu ! poor 
M. I'ArchevSque de Saint Andr6 should consider well what 
he seeks. Since Kirkaldy of Grange and the Melvilles slew 
David Beaton, the red barretta is a perilous cap for a Scot 
to wear. But when do you ride for Cadzow Castle 1 " 

'« The moment I am honoured with the missive of your 
majesty." 

" That you shall shortly be, sir," replied Mary, sweeping up 
her train with one hand, while she joyously waved the other. 
" Oh, 'tis brave news this, of succour from France ! I shall 
cmsli these traitors at last, and defy this insolent duke of 
Somerset* Dares he think that Mary of Scotland and 
Lorraine would peril her daughter's soul for his kingdom 
of England, with its lordship of Ireland to boot ? Queen 
of Scotlan'^ she is, and queen of France and Navarre she 
shall be ! I would rather don armour and die in the field 
by the side of d'Esse than yield up my child to the paid 
traitors of Henry YIII. and his successor, this boasting 
duke of Somerset. A queen, a mother, a woman, I shall 
appeal to all the gentlemen of Scotland ; and if they fail 
me, I liave still the noble chivalry of France ! ^ 



142 THE COUHT£S& 

As the queen spoke, with a gesture of inimitable grace 
she withdrew through the arras, leaving Florence and the 
young oountess together. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE COUNTESS. 

Thy voice — oh, sweet to me it seems, 

And charms my raptm'ed breast ; 
Like music on the moonlit sea» 

When waves are luU'd to rest. 
The wealth of worlds were vain to give. 

Thy sinless heart to buy ; 
Ob, I will bless thee while I live. 

And love thee till I die. 

Delta, 

The young man was pale, mortified, and sick at heart ; for 
the «udden discovery of tbe exalted rank of one whom he had 
learned to think his friend^ and of the other whom he fondly 
believed to love him, made him lose all hope at once. He 
stood silent and embarrassed ; but he remembered the opal 
ring, and gathering courage with that memory, he turned 
his eyes on the beautiful donor. 

They filled with the soft light of love and tenderness as 
he gazed upon her. She caught, perhaps, the magnetic 
infection from his glance, for her long lashes drooped and 
a fiush crossed her cheek ; so from her confusion he gathered 
courage. * 

" Lady — ^Lady Madeline, — ^you see I have learned your 
name,'* began Florence, who knew not what to say. 

" Well, sir, I am glad you have spoken ; for our pause^ to 



THE OOUKTBSS. 143 

say the least of it, was vexy embarrassiDg,'* lepHed the young 
lady, playmg with the point laoe which edged the sleeve of 
her dress. 

'^ If you will permit me, I have a question to aakJ*' 

^^ Say on," said she, langhing. 

" What was* the origin, or whence the purpose, of that 
strange mystery in which youjonveloped me when I had lost 
the happiness of being here % Why did you conceal from 
me your rank — your name 9 and why was I conducted 
hence blindfold, like a fif>y horn an enemy's camp ? " 

^ Fair sir," said the countess, smiling, " I gave you permis> 
sion to ask but one question ; you have already run over 
four." 

" And I implore you to answer me." 

^ All was done by order of her majesty the queen." 

** But wherefore such fodlish mystety ) " asked Florence 
almost impetuously. 

" Foolish ! " reiterated the other, holding up a taper 
£nger. " Oh, fie ! — Said I not it was the queen's desire 1 " 

** Pardon me ; but I cannot resist emotions of mortifica- 
tion and deep sorrow." 

" The queen-mother has many eneniles in Scotland,'* said 
the countess, with a pretty little blush, — " Lollard preachers 
and disaffected peers, men Who live by trafficking in court 
scandal and the circulation of wicked rumours ; thus seeking 
to undermine her influence and to do her evil among the 
people. Do you understand me ? " 

" Under favour, I do not." 

" Had these men, or such as these, known that a gentleman 
of your age and appearance was wounded or slain under her 
windows, all Scotland had declared him to be a lover, attacked 
by a rival or by the queen's guard ; and, believe me, the spies 
of Somerset and the adherents of BothweU and Lennox would 
readily multiply the fatal rumour. Had they learned that a 
poor wounded youth whom she had rescued from destruction 



Hi THE COUNTESS. 

was concealed in her chamber for many days, then still more 
had he been reputed a lover, and a man devoted to die a 
cruel death. Do you understand me now 1 " 

" Oh, yes ; and feel deeply her most generous clemency, 
which perilled her repuation for me." 

" Mary of Guise and Lorraine was not reared at the court 
of Catharine de M edicis, nor was she wife of Louis de Longue- 
ville, without acquiring the virtues of patience and prudence,*' 
said the lady, smiling. 

''But you, lady — you, at least, had no such reason for 
concealment." 

" My secret involved that of my mistress ; moreover, 1 
had most serious reasons for greater secrecy." 

" A jealous husband, perhaps ? " 

''Nay," said she, laughing, and showing the most beau- 
tiful little teeth in the world ; " thanic Heaven, I have no 
husband." 

Florence began to breathe a little more freely. 

" A lover, perhaps 9 " said he, affecting to smile. 

" Nay, nor even a lover." 

" St. Giles ! — ^in what did your secrecy originate ? " 

" In yourself." 

" You are a beautiful enigma," faltered Florence, taking 
her hands in his, while his heart trembled; "but — but 
whatever be the result of such! an avowal, believe me from 
my soul when I say, that I bad not been here three days 
before I learned to love you. Lady Madeline — ^love you 
dearly, fondly, truly ! " he continued, in an almost breathless 
voice. 

She grew very pale, abruptly withdrew her hands, and 
averted her face ; for she felt that the voice of Fawside, like 
the voices of all who have a sincere and impassioned heart, 
had a powerful effect upon her. 

" Speak to me — speak ! " he urged ; " do not, for pity's 
sake, look so coldly, or turn from me," 



THE OOtniTiBBB. 14ff 

^ I do not look ooldly ; but spare me the piun of hearing 
this avowal," she Teplied, while trembling. 

" Spare you the pain •— oh, Madeline ! my love for 
yon ** 

'< Is futile," she replied, with her eyes full of tears. ^ 

« Futile ! " 

"Yes." 

^ Why— oh, what mean you, Madeline 9 Who aro you, 
that it should be so 9 " 

" I am — I am ** 

« Who—who ? " 

^* One whom you must ever know for your deadly enemy,* 
she replied, in a voice half-stifled by emotion. 

Had a bomb exploded at the feet of Florence, he oould 
not have been more astounded than by this strange reve- 
lation. 

" She is a kinswoman of Glencaim or Kilmaurs," thought 
he j " well, I can forgive her even that." 

For a minute he was silent, as if overwhelmed by sadness 
and astonishment. At last he said, — 

" My enemy — you 1 " 

" By the solemn truth which I tell you, by the words 
I have said, we are separated for ever ! " 

*< For the love of pity, say not so, I implore you ! '* 

^What I say can matter little," she* replied in a low 
broken voice ; '* I do love you, dear Florence ; but our fate 
is in the hands of others." 

" Others ! " he exclaimed impetuously. 

« Yes." 

** What can control us, who are free agents) " 

''Fatality. Thus our paths in life, like our graves in 
death, must lie far apart. But never, while breath remains^ 
shall I forget you, FJorence ! " 

*' Oh, 'tis insanity or a dream this ! " he exclaimed, and 
struck his forehead with a bewildered air ; and^ afber bow- 

L 



146 ^ THE OOUNTESS. 

ing his face upon her hand, had barely time to withdraw, 
when the heavy folds of the arras parted agaiii, and the 
queen-mother stood before him, with a letter in her hand, 
and a smile almost of drollery on her beautiful lip ; for she 
saw^plainly, in the confusion of both, that a scene had taken 
place. 

"You will convey this to my lord regent. It tells 
that I will meet him at the Convention of Estates in 
Stirling." 

"Thanks for this high honour, madam," said Florence, 
kneeling for the double purpose of kissing the seal of the 
missive and veiling the deep colour which he felt was too 
evident in his face. 

" And now, sir,, ere you go, I shall have the pleasure of 
presenting you to the Queen of Scotland. I trust her 
majesty's noonday nap is over by this time." 

The young man felt his eyes and heart £11 at these words, 
for the loyalty of the olden time was a passion, strong and 
enthusiastic as that of a lover for his love. 

Mary of Lorraine, with her white hand, drew back 
the tapestry, and revealed the inner apartment, the walls 
of which were hung with yellow Spanish leather staijiped. 
with crowns and thistles, and the oak floor of which 
was covered by what was then a very unusual luxury 
— ^a Persian carpet. Passing in, Florence found himself in 
the royal nursery. 

In a cradle of oak, profusely carved, and having a little 
canopy surmounted by a crown, lay a child — a little white- 
skinned and golden-haired girl, in her flfth year, asleep, with 
her dark lashes reposing on a cheek that bore the pink tint 
we see at times in a white rose-leaf. 

This child was Mary Queen of Scots ! 

The nurse, Janet Sinclair, wife of John Kemp, a burgess 
of Haddington, arose at their entrance. 

The youDg man knelt down, and^ with reverence and 



V 

affection, pressed his lips to the child's dimpled hands, which 
were folded together above its little lace coverlet. !fhe 
emotions of his heart would be difficult alike to analyze or 
portray. 

How little could those four persons who stood by the 
cradle of that beloved and beautiful little one, foresee the 
dork shadows which enveloped her future ! 

" The little bride of the son of France ! " said Mary of 
Lorraine j ^' she sleeps, alike oblivious of crowns and king- 
doms." 

At that moment the child opened her dark-grey eyes, and 
smiled to her mother. 

" If this should be, how strange shall be her destiny ! ^ 
said the countess thoughtfully. 

" How I" reiterated the queen-mother anxiously. 

" Tes — ^for what said True Thomas of Ercildoun more 
than three hundred years ago ) " 

*< What said he ? " 

Then the countess replied, — 

** A queen of France sball bear a son, 
Britain to brook from sea to sea ; 
And she of Bmce's blood shall come, 
As near as to the ninth degree.*' 

*^ I pray that Heaven may so shape out the future that 
your verse shall prove better than an idle rhyme," said 
Mary of Lorraine, clasping her delicate hands ; '* for the 
royal child of my dead husband is the ninth in descent from 
the hero of Baunockbum." 

Future events, in the birth of James YI., fulfilled this ola 
prophecy, which, in the days of our story, was in the mouths 
of all the people. 

'* And now, until I have the honour of again paying my 
devotion to your majesty, perhaps at Stirling, jOurewell," 
saidFawdde. 

l2 



148 ▲ SKAB35. 

*' Adieu, monsieur — may God keep you ! " 

A glance full of sad meaning from the countess was all 
the adieu he received from her ; and next moment he 
found himself in the narrow alley, where a soldier in lihe 
livery of the queen's guard held his grey horse by its bridle. 



CHAPTER XVn. 

A SNABEL 

# 

Oh what a tangled web we weave« 
When first we practise to deeeive. 

ScoU, 

In a preceding chapter we left two right honourable lords — 
to wit, the earls of Bothwell and Glencaim — ^in search of 
Master Patten, the scribe or secretary to Edward Shelly, 
the captain of the Boulogners. These gentlemen, as sup- 
posed followers of the house of Glencaim, resided in a 
quaint old-&ishioned stone house, then known as Cunning- 
hame's Land, which had been galleried and fronted with 
timber in the time of James lY. It was situated above the 
Upper Bow Porte, and there they were found readily 
enough by the two nobles, who had free entrance at all 
times. On this occasion, however, the earls, on coming in, 
hurriedly and unannounced, found the Englishmen seated at 
a table, immersed among letters, dockets of papers, maps, 
and manuscripts : they were both busy writing. Glencaim, 
who had a supreme contempt for such work, gave a hasty 
and impatient glance at Bothwell, whose only literary efforts 
had been to make his mark or jGix his seal to a notary's 
deed ; for, like Bell>the-Cat, of whom we read in " Mar- 



A 8NABE. 149 

mioD," or his majesty King Cole of the popular ditty, this 
untutored lord 

" Quite scorn'd the fetters of foar-and-twenty letters. 
And it saved him a vast deal of trouble" 

On their abrupt entrance, Patten and Shelly started in 
alarm from their work. The former spread his hands over 
the papers, as if to protect them ; but the valiant captain 
of the Boulogners drew his sword, with the first instinct of 
a soldier, to protect his compatriot and himself. 

" TJds daggers ! what new plot art thou hatching, worthy 
scribe, to put men's weasons in peril % " asked Glencairn ; 
''how many human souls are bartered in these piles of 
scribbled paper— eh. % " 

"Up with thy sword, Master Shelly," said Bothwell, 
laughing, and twisting up his large black moustache. " Did 
you think wq were the provost halberds or the queen's guard 
come to arrest you % *' 

" Either had found me ready, my lord. But I knew not 
what to think," replied Shelly with some displeasure, as he 
dropped his long straight sword into its scabbard, swept the 
papers into a drawer, and locked it. " Mastet Patten and I 
were deeply engaged ^ 

« Plotting— eh ? " 

'* Nay, my Lord of Bothwell ; I have had enough of that," 
replied the soldier coldly. " We were, simply reducing the 
bulk of our correspondence to suit the compass of our cloak- 
bags, committing some papers to the flames, and selecting 
others for conveyance to England, for whither we set 
oat ^" 

*' Not before the convention at Stirling, I hope 1 " 

''No." 

" When ? " 

'' Immediately after. Our work will then be completed, 
for peace or for war — for good or for eviL" 



IffO A SKABE. 

'^ Bat time presses, and our man is not yet gone/' said 
Glencaim, glancing anxiously from the window. 

" What would your lordships with us ? " asked Shelly ; 
" and to what do we owe the honour of this visit 1 " 

'^ To our lack of skill in the perilous art of clerking like 
worthy Master Patten," replied Glencaim. 

''And to our zeal in the young king your master's 
service/' added Bothwell, with his quiet mocking smile. 

" To the point, my lords 1 " said Shelly haughtily, while he 
drew tighter, by a hole or two, the silver buckle of his sword- 
belt. 

" Florence Fawside, the French envoy, spy, or what you 
will, is even now with Mary of Lorraine ! " 

" Art sure of this 1 ** asked Shelly in a low voice, full of 
interest, as he gazed through the barred window. 

'' Sure as my name is Patrick Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell ; 
we both saw him enter her residence ; and a soldier of her 
guard holds the bridle of his grey horse at the door — a 
soldier, who says he departs thereafter for Cadzow— dost 
thou see, for Cadzow ! " 

'' To the lord regent. This must not be ! " said Master 
Patten, starting up. 

'' Let us follow and cut him off— 'tis the simplest plan," 
said Shelly. 

« Nay— nay ! " 

" Why, thou, Bothwpll, art not wont to be wary ! " 

'' Our trains are scattered abroad throughout the city, and 
if we fared ill ^" 

« Four to one 1 " 

'' He might still cut his way through us ; and if once he 
reaches Arran, with promises of French succour, the Hamil- 
tons in the west and Huntly in the north will take the 
field at once against all malcontents : thus, the sooner we 
begin our Miserere md Dommus, and commit our neckverse 
to memory, the better." 



A SHABE. 151 

^ If a long sword will not keep me from having a long 
neck, or my head from rolling among the sawdust^ I shall 
e*en sabmit ; I were not my Other's son else ! " said the 
grim Earl of Glencaim, frowning till his black eyebrows met 
oyer his fierce nose. 

** Bat what can I do in this matter, my lords ? " asked 
Shelly with impatience. 

*< Simply thi& Desire Master Patten to write, with all 
qpeed, a note to a friend of mine. This note Champflenrie, 
captain of the qneen's goard, a gentleman in our interest, 
will prevail upon Fawside to deliver, as he rides westward, 
to a friend of mine, mark yon ; and this friend will place 
him in sore ward till we arrive. Then, after investigatiDg 
his cloak-bags and pockets to onr hearts* content, if we do 
not find what will satisfy us, we can roast him over the pot- 
croicks and baste him well with grease till his tongue 
tells us all he knows of the Guises and their desperate 
game. 

*' Agreed ! ** said Shelly, with a disdainful smile. '' And 
this friend ^ 

''Is Allan Duthie, laird of Millheugh, whose tower, a 
strong but sequestered place, standeth near the highway 
that leads through Codzow Forest. Quick ! — indite me this 
note. We have no time to lose, for every moment I expect 
to see him come forth and betake him to horse, and then our 
plot wiU fail." 

Patten with great deliberation selected a sheet of the 
coarse brown-tinted paper then used, and dipping his quill 
in the ink-hom, wrote to Bothwell's dictation the following 
note : — 

" Right trusty F&iend, — I greet you well and heartillie. 
It will be for the furtherance of our great cause if the bearer 
hereof a spy of the Guises, who is on his way to Cadzow, be 



152 A SKAfiB. 

detained at your house until snich time as I and my Mends 
arrive. These with my hand at the pen, 

« BOITHWBXLE." 

<' For the Eight Hon. the Laird of Millheugh. These,"* 

'' Can your friend read ? " asked Shelly. 

" Like Duns Scotus himself," replied Bothwell ; adding, 
'<*Master Patten, I thank you. When I am the husband of 
Katharine Willoughby, I will requite this and other services 
as they deserve. And now for our messenger, who must 
receive this from the hand of Ohampfleurie to lull all 
suspicion." 
" " Fawside is quite unsuspecting," said Glencaim. 

*^ And therefore, the more open to guile and to attack, 
poor fellow 1 " added Shelly with some commiseration, 
though not much afflicted with tender scruples at any 
time. 



THE DZATU-EBBAND. 1^ 



o 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE DEATH-ERRAND. 

My lord hath sent you this note ; and by me this fiirther charge, 
that you swerve not from the smallest article of it, neither in time, 
matter, or circumstance. — Meaaiurefor Measwre. 

Florence, with his heart beating wildly, from the conflicting 
revelations of his late interview, had placed his foot in the 
silver stirrap of his saddle, and was in the act of grasping ' 
his horse's flowing mane preparatory to mounting, when a 
gauntleted hand was laid bluntly on his shoulder, and on 
turning he m^t the dark and handsome, but somewhat 
crafby, fisuse of John Livingstone of Champfleurie, captain 
of the queen's guard, a man who had been long enough 
about courts and among Scottish and French courtiers to 
acqtiire the habit of veiling every emotion of life under a 
bland and well-bred smile, from which nothing could be 
gathered. Though faithful enough to the queen, as faith 
went at court, he was also disposed to be not unfriendly to 
his kinsman the Earl of Bothwell, and, heedless whether the 
missive given him by the latter purported good or evil to 
the bearer, he undertook that Fawside should deliver it. It 
was a favourite proverb of this time-serving soldier, *' as long 
as one is in the fox's service, one must bear up his tail." 

"Under favour," said he, "I would speak with you, 
laird." 

^Then speak quickly, for I am in haste," replied the 
young man, gathering up his reins. 

" Pardon me, sir, but 'tis said that a traveller should carry 
two bags, — one of patience and one of crowns." 

" I carry neither ; so to the point, sir." 



104 THS BEA^THHSBBAKD. 

^ I believe I have the honour of being known to you." 

" Tes ; John Liyingstone of Champfleurie, captain of the 
queen's guard/' replied Florence, bowing. 

** 'Tis said you ride westward." 

" True. But how know you that f ** 

*^ My sentinels overheard it from the pages of the queen." 

"Well?" 

'' Pass you by the tower of MiUheugh, in Cadzow Wood f * 

^'Perhaps; but the country thereabout is strange and 
new to me," said florence impatiently. 

''There are wild bulls, broken men, sloughs, pitfalls, and 
swamps in pleniy. But will you do a fair lady of the coui-t 
a favour ? " 

'' That will I blithely," replied Fawside^ whose heart beat 
quicker at the request. 

'^ She is in sore trouble, and lacks a messenger to her 
kinsman, the laird of Millheugh. As you pass his tower, 
will you please to deliver this little letter, and tarry a 
moment to refresh 1 " 

^^ And the lady 1 — her name 1 — ^who is she f ** 

'' Inquire not, as a gallant man." 

<< Mystery again ! " thought Florence, as he took the note, 
and his mind immediately reverted to the lady he had just 
left. 

Who was this fair woman, so beautiful, so graceful, so 
gentle in breeding and manner, that avowed herself bis 
enemy, and yet admitted that she loved him ; who gave 
him an opal ring in token of that love, and yet repelled 
farther advances ; and who now, he fondly believed, in- 
trusted him with a letter ? 

*^ Champfleurie," said he, '' I presume you know all the 
great people about the queen-mother's court ? " 

"Ay, from the great Earl of Huntly down to yonder 
little foot-page, who is clanking his spurs at the Close-head ; 
for your court page is a great man toa" 



THB DEATH-ERBAND. 155 

"Then pray tell me who are the queen's ladies 9 " 

The captain smiled ; for, if court scandal could be trusted, 
he stood high in favour with more than one of them ; so he 
said evasively, — 

" You seek to discover of whose letter you are bearer 1 " 

** Nay, on my honour I do not ! " 

'' Her ladies ? " queried the cunning captain, pausing for 
a reply. 

'^ Yes, what countesses has she about her 1 " 

''There are the countesses of Huntly, Monteith, Mar, 
and Crawford." 

" Pshaw ! all these are old, or well up in years." 

"Well, I said not otherwise," replied the arquebuaer, 
laughing. 

" The young and beautiful 1 " 

" Are Errol, Orkney, and Argyle." 

"Kay, 'tis none of these I ask for. I am assured, Laird 
of Champfleurie, that you are a most discreet man ; but fare 
you well, sir — so now for Cadzow ho ! " and putting his 
Sipon spurs to his impatient horse, he rode hastily off. 

Champfleurie looked after the fated young man, who 
trotted his grey charger through the time-blackened arch 
of the Upper Bow Porte, and disappeared down the winding 
descent of the ancient street which lay beyond, and athwart 
the picturesque mansions of which the meridian sun was 
pouring its broad flakes of hazy light, that varied its mass 
of shadows. 

" Poor fool ! " said the captain of the guard with his 
crafty smile ; " he rides on his deafHir^rrarbd.^ 

• ***•• 

The dawn of the next day was breaking, when a mounted 
man reined up his horse at the turnpike-stair, which gave 
access to a quaint tenement on the Castle-hill, known as 
the Boihweli Lodging (not far from where Master Posset's 
dried aligator swung daily in the wind), and demanded, at^ 



156 THE DSA.TH*ERRAMD. 

once to see his lordship on business of importance. In a 
scarlet gown trimmed with black fur, under which he 
carried his unsheathed dagger as a safeguard, the earl, who 
had just sprung from bed, appeared in his chamber of dais 
before the messenger, who was a rough and weather-beaten 
fellow, in a morion and plated jack, and who seemed half- 
trooper, half-brigand, and wholly desperado. 

"Well, varlefc,*' said the earl angrily, "you rouse us be- 
times ! What the devil is astir ? Have the English taken 
my castle of Hermitage, or are the Lord Clinton's war-ships 
off Dunbar Sands— -eh 1 " 

" Neither, lord earl," replied the man, in a strong Clydes- 
dale accent ; " I hae come in frae the west country, and 
been in my stirrups since twa past midnight." 

« From Millheugh 1 " 

"Direct." , 

« The spy ^" 

"Bound hand and foot, is safely lodged in Millheugh 
Tower, where the laird bade me say he shall bide in sure 
ward until ye come west ; or if ye wished it, he would bind 
him to the pot-cruicks ower the low in the kitchen, and 
smeik his secret out o' him by dint o' green-wood boughs, 
and wet bog peats." 

" Right — I shall reward him for this, and thee too," said 
the earl, with fierce triumph. " Thank St. Bryde of Both- 
well, or the devil more likely, we have nailed this knavish 
messenger at last. Get thee a horn of Flemish wine, my 
man, a fresh horse, and order all my train ; I shall ride for 
IMillheugh, and leave the West Porte behind me, ere the 
sun be up ! " 

Bothwell made such expedition, that in reality, ere the sun 
rose above Arthur's Seat, he and Glencairn, with Millheugh's 
messenger and a train of twenty well-armed horsemen, bad 
galloped through the western gate of the city, skirted the 
hill of Craiglockart, the ancient manors of Meggatland and 



OADZOW FOBEST. Id7 

t 

Bed Hall, and taken the old Lanark road, direct to the 
country of the Hamiltons. 

Meanwhile, let us see how fared it with the solitary mes- 
senger of Mary of Lorraine. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

QADZOW FOBBST. 

Mightiest of the beasts of chase. 

That roam in woody Caledon, 
Clashing the forest in his race, 

The mountain bull comes thundering on I 

8ooU. 

Thb evening of the day on which he left the metropolis 
was closing, when, after a ride of many miles, Florence 
found himself, with a sorely jaded horse, on the borders of 
the ancient forest of OadzQw, in that district which was 
named of old Machinshire, from the chapel of St. Machin. 

The nature of the roads, which in those days were mere 
bridle-paths, narrow, rough, and stony, being carried straight 
over hill and thi'ough valley, irrespective of all local obsta- 
cles, and were rendered dangerous by the uncultivated 
morasses and lonely wastes they traversed, and by the fords 
or deep and bridgeless torrents which intersected them — 
the nature of such paths for travelling from Lothian to 
Lanarkshire, had impaired the energies of the fine charger 
vhich had been the gift of Mary of Lorraine j and. in a wild 
and solitary place, near which no dwelling could be per- 
ceived, and where, on all sides, nothing was visible but the 
great gnarled stems of the oak forest, Florence dismounted, 
jttst as the solemn gloaming tlrew on ; and while his foam- 



}58 CA3>Z0W FOBXST. 

flaked horse cropped the herbage that grew deep and rich 
under the shade of the trees, he sat down for a time, to 
consider in which direction he should seek the Tower of 
Millheugh, where he was to deliver the pretended court 
lady's letter, and wherein he mentally proposed to remain 
until the morrow, when he could choose a more fitting^ time 
to appear before the Regent of Scotland, one of whose 
country residences, the Castle of Cadzow, was but a few 
miles distant. 

At this time ^he town habitation of the Hamilton family 
was in the Kirk-of-field Wynd at Edinburgh, a steep, 
narrow, and ancient street, the name of whiph ha& since 
been changed. 

A sensation of lassitude came upon Florence, who felt 
weary after his long and rough ride ; and as the red flush 
of the August sun faded away behind the purple hills, and 
its warm tints grew cold on the rugged stems and crisping 
leaves of the Druid oaks of Cadzow, his mind became im- 
pressed by the sylvan beauty and intense solitude of the 
scenery, and reverted to those whose faces he had that 
morning left behind him ; and, like all who have travelled 
far and rapidly, he felt the difficulty of realizing the exfent 
of distance that actually lay between him and them. With 
the last light of evening lingering on his glittering coat of 
mail, and the bridle of his white horse drooping over his 
right arm, he sat under a shady oak,' like a knight errant of 
old, waiting for adventures ; but though witches and fairies 
remained in Scotland, the age of giants and dwarfs and genii 
had pa^ed away. 

He thought of his mother, pale, austere, and reproachfdl ; 
loving him well, fondly, — yea, madly, — and yet, withal, so 
ready to peril his life in maintaining her old hereditary feud, 
in the fulfilment of her savage vow, and for the gratification 
of her morbid vengeance— a life which might yet be useful to 
her queen and country— a young lifej which the possessor 



OADZOW FOBEST. 159 

of it had saddfixily found to be invested with a new charm, 
a hitherto unknown value ; and here, drawing off his long 
glove, he gazed on the opal ring of Madeline — ^Madeline voho ? 

^ Oh, perplexity ! " he exclaimed ; " 'tis a romance with 
which our coquettish French queen is amusilig herself, and 
of which she wishes to make me and this beloved girl the 
hero and heroine.** 

And, sunk in one of those reveries so natural to a lover, 
when he seems to talk to, and have responses from, the 
object beloved ; when a thousand things are said that were 
omitted when last with her, — ^for when the heart is full, 
thoughts come quicker than language, Fawside remained in 
the twilight and in the forest, with the gloaming deepen- 
ing aroimd him, heedless alike of the outlaws who were 
averred to make ^ their haunt there, and of the ferocious 
white bulls (JBoa syheatris), the famous red-eyed, black- 
homed, black-hoofed, and snowy-maned mountain bison of 
old Caledonia^ herds of which have frequented the Forest of 
Cadzow from pre-historic days, long anterior to the Eoman 
invasion, down to the present time. 

On every hand spread the vast wilderness of oaks, some 
of which still measure twenty-five and twenty-eight feet in 
circumference, and are of an antiquity so great that they 
must have witnessed the rites of the Druids ; beiug the last 
remains of that immense forest which anciently covered all 
the south of Scotland, from the waves of the Atlantic to 
those of the German Ocean. 

In the wildest part of this wild wood — the Caledonia 
Sylva — stood the tower of Allan Duthie of Millheugh, in a 
little dell near a ruined and mossgrown mill, the fragments 
of which were overshadowed by an oak of stupendous di- 
mensions, known as King Malcolm's Tree, from the follow- 
ing little legend, which (as we dearly love all that pertained 
to Scotland '' in the brave days of old **) we will take the 
liberty of inserting here. 



160 CADZOW FOBBSr. 

A few years afber the fall of Macbeth and the destrtiotion 
of his castle of Dunsinane, Queen Margaret, Evan, the 
chancellor and Christian bishop of Galloway, revealed to 
King Malcolm III. a design which Dathac, one of his 
thanes, on whom he had bestowed many favours, had formed 
against his life, and which he resolved to put in execution 
as soon as he came to court. 

" Be sUent," said the king, " and leave me to deal with this 
matter in my own way." 

Ere long, the accused noble came to court with a numer- 
ous train of half-savage warriors, barelegged and barearmed, 
from the wilds of Galloway, and on the day thereafter, 
Malcolm, who was residing in the Castle of Stirling, pro- 
claimed a great hunting-match, and set forth for Cadzow 
Forest to hunt the mountain bulL In the most secluded 
part of the wood, he contrived to separate Duthac from the 
rest of the royal party, and drawing him into a gloomy little 
dell, under the shadow of a mighty oak, he leaped from his 
saddle and said, — 

" Thane, dismount ! " / 

Duthac at once alighted from his saddle, which, like his 
bridle, wa^ hung with little silver bells. 
. " Draw 1 " said the king sternly ; but Duthac hesitated. 

" Draw, lest I kill thee, by the holy St. Kessoge ! — kill 
thee defenceless ! " exclaimed the brave king, unsheathing 
his long cross-hilted and double-edged broadsword, which 
was of a fashion then, and for long after, worn by the Scots, 
and the guards of which were turned down for the purpose 
of looking in and breaking an adversary's blade. 

Duthac grew pale on hearing the vow of Malcolm j for 
St. Kessoge was then in great repute, so much so that in 
the sixth century his name was the war-cry of the Scots 
and Irish. Casting on the ground his green hunting-mantle, 
which had been eipibroidered by the white hands of his SajLon 
queen, St. Margaret, the king exclaimed,— 



OADZOW FOBXST. 161 

<' Thane 1— behold, we are here alone, and armed alike, 
with none to give one aid against the other. No ear can 
hear, nor eye can see us, save those of God 1 If you are 
still the brave man you have approved yourself in battle 
against the English and the Normans, and have the courage 
to essay your secret purpose, attempt it now ! If you deem 
me deserving of death, where can you deal it better, more 
manfully, or more opportunely, than h&rey in this secluded 
forest % You linger — ^you falter — yoni^ Duthac the Thane ! 
Hast thou prepared a poison for me ? " demanded the king, 
with increasing energy \ — *' that were the treason of a woman. 
Wouldst thou murder me in ^y sleep, as Malcolm II. was 
slain at Glammis % — an adultress might dp that. Hast thou 
a hidden dagger, to stab me in secret ? — ^'twere the deed of 
a coward and slave j and, Duthac, I hold thee to be neither. 
Fight me here, hand to hand, like a soldier — like a true Scot- 
tish man, that your treason at least may be freed from a base- 
ness that will consign you and your race to future in£a.my ! " 

Struck to the soul by this valiant and magnanimous 
spirit, Duthac presented his sword-hilt to Malcolm, and, 
kneeling before him (as Mathew Paris relates), implored 
pardon. 

''Fear nothing, Thane," said Malcolm IIL, taking his 
hand ; '' for, by the Black Eood of Scotland, thou shalt suffer 
no evil from me. Henceforward we are comrades — we are 
friends, as in other days we were soothfast fellow-soldiers." 

From that hour Duthac became a most fiEdthful subject. 
He received from Malcolm the land whereon they stood, 
and in confirmation thereof his charter was touched by the 
Bilyer battle-axe which our kings carried before sceptres 
were known (and which was long preserved in the Castle 
of Dnnstafihage) ; and from this episode the vast oak by 
the brook was named King Malcolm's Tree. 

I>athac was slain by his side at the siege of Alnwick, 
and was buried in the chapel of St. Machin ; but his de- 



162 CADZOW FOBESKF. 

Boendants, bearing the name of Duthie^ inherited the lands 
of Millheugh, in Cadzow, for long after the period of onr 
story : but to resum e 

^The reverie of Fawside was broken by a sudden shout 
that rose from the dingles of the forest. 

It was evidently a cry for succour ; there was a rushing 
sound, and a riderless horse came galloping wildly past, but 
stopped near the grey of Fawside, who adroitly caught the 
bridle which was trailing on the ground, and thus arrested 
the steed, by skilfully securing the rein to one of its fore legs. 

Agai|i he heard the cry, and it had a strange weird sound, 
being like that of a man vi terror or in mortal agony. 
Florence hastened towards the place from whence it seemed 
to come, and by the dim twilight, which the thick foliage 
of the oaks rendered yet more dusky, he perceived a man 
stretched on the ground, and one of the wild bulls of the 
district plunging at him with his wide-spread horns, which 
the victim strove to elude, by rolling from side to side, so 
that the bull beat his armed head against the earth or the 
roots of the trees. 

" Help I for God's love and St. Mary's sake — ^help I " cried 
the dismounted man. 

On seeing Florence approach, the bull, which was of vast 
height and bulk, and of milk-white colour, with its muzzle, 
horns, and hoofs of the deepest jet-black, uttered a species 
of grunting roar, and tossing his lion-like mane, which was 
white as the foam on the crest of a wave, lowered his 'broad 
head to attack this new enemy. Like that bull which bore 
away the fair Europa, — 

" Large rolls of fat about hif shoTdders htiDg', 
And to his neck the double dewlap clung ; 
His skin was whiter than the snow that lies ' . . 
Unsullied by the breath of southern skies ; 
Huge shining horns on his curled forhead standi 
Ad poUsh'd and ium'd by the workman's hand.** 



QABSSOW FOaSKF. 163 

This formidable enemy turned all his wrath on Florence ; 
but the latter unhooked the wheeUook petronel from bis 
girdle, and, by a well-direoted bullet shot right into the 
curly forehead of this king of the forest, laid him bleeding 
and powerless on the turf, where he lolled out his long red 
tongue, beat the air wildly with his hoofs for a moment, 
and then stretching his great bony limbs with a convulsive 
shudder, lay still and lifeless. 

"Kind Heaven sent you just in time, fair sir;' by 
my father^s bones, 'tis the narrowest of all narrow 
escapes!" said the rescued man, staggering up. ''That 
foreign firework engine of thine hath done me gude 
service." 

Florence could now perceive that the speaker was a 
gentleman, apparently ..ell up in yeat«. Hia face was 
partly concealed by the aventayle of his helmet, which had 
become twisted or wedged, as he stated, by his horse having 
stumbled on seeing the bull, and thus thrown him against 
the root of a tree ; but this protection for the face being 
partly open, Florence could perceive that his eyes were keen 
and fiery, and that bis beard and moustache were white as 
winter frost. 

like all who travelled or went to any distance, however 
short from their own doors, in these ticklish times, he wore 
a suit of half-armour that reached to the knees, below 
virhicli his legs were encased in long black riding-boots, 
which were ribbed with tempered iron. 

'' In the wood I outrode and missed my train, of nearly a 
score of horsemen," he continued ; '' and as the neighbour- 
hood has an indifferent reputation for honesty, I shall be 
glad to remain with you, sir, till we find a place of shelter 
for the night ; but may I ask your name ) " 

** You may," replied Florence, " but under favour, sir, in 
these times of feud and mistrust^ is it safe for me, a stran- 
gei\ who has no friend near but his single sword, to mention 

U 2 



164 OABflOW FOBin. 

Mb name to one who speaks so freely of having some twenty 
horse or so within call ? " 

'' You have somewhat of a foreign accent t " 

'' Perhaps so—I' have been these seven years past in 
France." 

" France — ^umph ! Hence your mistrust." - 

^'Exactly so. The land of Catholics and Hugaenots, 
bastiles and gendarmerie, was exactly the place to teaek 
prudence to the tongue and patience to the hand." 

** Then I claim the same right to mistrust and reserre/' 
said the stranger haughtily ; ^* though when only man to 
man I see but little reason for it, especially as I am an auld 
carle, and thou art lithe and young." 

Florence felt a glow of anger at this remark ; but he 
thought of his letters, his recent wounds, of Bothwell, Gl^i- 
caim, &c, and merely replied evasively, — « 

*^ Your horse awaits joja here — so let us, mount." 

** Whither go you ; or is that a secret too 1 " 

*' Nay— I ride for Cadzow." • 

« To the house of my lord regent 1 '' " Yes." 

The stranger muttered something in the hollow of his 
helmet, and it was to this purpose, — 

" From France, and for Cadzow ! Cogsbones I con this be 
the Guise messenger our party wot off" 

" Go you BO far ? " asked Florence. 

"Nay. I am only on my way to viait the.hoa» of a re- 
mote kinsman — the Laird of Millheugh." 

** Indeed ! I am bound for the same mansion, could I but 
find it. We may proceed together, and I shall trust me to 
your guidance." 

" With pleasure." 

" I have a letter for the laird from a kinsman of hi% a 
great lady at court, and I propose to leave it at the tower 
to-night, that I may reach Cadzow at a more suitable hour 
on the morrow," 



,OADZOW FOBEST. 165 

** NoW| thill sounds passing strange to me," said the old 
gentleman, peering keenly at Fawside under the peak of his 
helmet, and endeavouring to scan his features closely. 
<^Millheugh hath no kinswoman at court. From whom 
had you the billet ? " 

*^ Champfleurie, captain of the queen's guard." 

" Hah ! A master in the art of intrigue, I warrant him ! 
Let me see this note, if it please you ? " 

Florence placed it in the right hand of the stranger, 
whose left now grasped his horse's bridle. 

'*It bean on the seal the anchor and chevrons of Both- 
welL" 

** Of Earl Patrick 1 ** exclaimed Florence changing colour. 

''Yea; and his coronet, as I can see plainly enough, even 
by this twilight. Herein lies some mystery, but no evil, 
I trust ; for the Lord Bothwell is my assured friend. So let 
us forward, for yonder are the lights in Millheugh Tower 
shining, about a mile distant." 

** A mystery i say you, sir 9 '' reiterated Florence angrily. 
** I have nothing to do with court secrets ; and if this laird 
of Ohampfleurie has trepanned me into one, I shall read him 
a severe lesson, were he the last Livingstone in Scotland. 
And now, sir, as I have no intention of further concealing 
my name, know that I am Florence Fawside of Fawside and 
that ilk in Lothian, and fear no man breathing I " 

The stranger, with a startled air, i drew back a pace, and 
alter a pause said, in a low and changed voice, — 

''I have heard of you, and of your old feud with Claude 
Hamilton of Preston anent the right of pasturage and 
forestry. 

''Then you have only heard that which all in Scotland 
know, and that I am under vow to slay him 1 " 

^ Has this old man— for he t^ old, this Claude of Preston, 
0ver given you personal cause for hatred ? " 

^ Personally none," said Florence, with hesitation. 



16? CADZOy^ FOBW. 

" And yet you hate him i " 

'' Yea^ with an impulse that fiends alone might oompre- 
hend ! " was the impetuous reply. 

" Wherefore ? " 

" Ask my suffering mother, who reared me from infancy in 
this deadly hate ! Ask my dead £stther, and ask my dead 
brother, who sleep togiether in the old aisle of Tranent 
Kirk, and they might tell you why ! They died — those 
two brave and failMul ones — ^by Preston's bloody hands, 
bequeathing to me, as the chief part of mine inheritance, 
hatred — and well have I treasured it ! This sword was 
my father's ; this dagger was poor Willie's ; and in Pres- 
ton's blood I am bound by a hundred vows t6 dyei them 
both!" 

'* He is old," said the other gravely ; '' I tell thee, old." 

'^Then Scotland can the better spare him," was the 
stem response. 

<' Enough of this," said the stranger haughtily. " I am a 
Hamilton ; and here in Gadzow Wood, in the heart of the 
country of the Hamiltons, bethink you that your words are 
alike unwary and unwise. Here is your letter for Mill« 
he ugh ; and now let us proceed. I have quarrels enough 
of my own, without adding yours to my care." 

The elderly stranger restored the sealed note to Florence, 
and on mounting was about to speak again, when his horse, 
wLich was still restive and unruly after the late occurrence 
and report of the pistol-shot, on being touched by the spuif 
reared wildly back, and snorted as it cowered twice upon its 
haunches and tossed up its head ; then throwing forwaxd 
its fore feet, it sprang away like an arrow from a bow, and 
vanished with its rider in the darkened vista of the forest. 
Fawside's first impulse was to hallo aloiid, and, for a time, 
to search afber his new acquaintance ; but this proved un- 
availing, for the echo of each far-stretching dingle akmo 
replied. 



MILLBEUOR. 167 

" This stranger spoke truth," thought \ie. « I have been 
both unwary and unwise in disclosing my name and my feud 
to one I knew not — ^to one who proves to be a Hamilton, — 
and here in Cadzow Wood, too ! So-ho for Millheugh ; for- 
tunately yonder are the tower lights still glinting through 
the foliage." 

Directing his horse's steps by the red stripes of vertical 
light which shone through the narrow windows of the 
tower that had been indicated by the stranger as the 
fortalioe of Millheugh^ Florence threaded his way along 
the narrow dell the leafy monarch of which was the giant 
oak of King Malcolm^ and soon reached the outer gate of 
the barbican. 



-•p*> 



CHAPTER XX. 

MILLHEUGH. 

** Without prindple, talentj or intelligence, he is ungracioua as a,hog, 
greedy as a yultnre^ and thievish as a jackdaw." — Hvmphrey dinger, 

Suofiy indeed, was the ^character o£ the person upon whose 
rustic privacy Fawside now intruded himself. The tower, 
though built four centuries before, by Duthao the Thane, 
was indicative of the character of Allan, his descendant. 
It was grim, narrow, and massively constructed. The walls 
were enormously thick ; the windows were small, placed far 
from the floors of the chambers they lighted, and were 
thickly grated without and within. The stone sill of each 
was perforated, to permit the emission of arrows or arque- 
buse shot for defence ; and these perforations, when not 
required, were^ as usual in Scotland, closed temporarily by 
wooden plugs. A high barbican wall enclosed the court of 



168 UXLLHSrOB. 

the tower on all aides MKve towards the brooki the waters of 
which were collected to form a moat that was crossed by a 
drawbridge directly under the base of the keep. 

The laird was coarse in manner, rough and unlettered, 
but subtle in spirit, strong of Hmb, hardy by nature, keen- 
eyed, and heartless. In his time he had perpetrated many 
outrages, but always in form of raid ; and secluded in the 
fastnesses of CadzQW Wood, under the wing and authority of 
the House of Hamilton, to whom — though a fierce tyrant 
to others — he was a pretended slave, and (while in the 
pay of its enemies) a most obsequious and useful vassal, he 
had long eluded and braved the feeble power of the newly- 
created courts of law, — Scotland's last and best gift icom 
James Y. He had barbarously treated, for years, a poor 
girl to whom he had been handfasted, and to be rid of her, 
had her accused of sorcery and drowned in the Avon ; nor 
had he even pity for her children, whom he was accused of 
bestowing on Anthony Qavino, chief of the £^ptian% to be 
made vagrants and thieves. But the greatest outrage in 
which he was concerned was the assassination of the gentle 
priest and poet. Sir James Inglis of Culross. When his 
accomplices fled to the Hill of Eefnge at Torphichen, and 
claimed the sanctuary of the Preceptor and Elnights of 
St. John of Jerusalem, he sought a safer shelter in his own 
barred tower, where he lurked night and day, surrounded 
by pikes and arquebuses, tmtil the clamour occasioned by 
the sacrilege died away, or some new outrage in other 
quarters attracted the attention of the people. 

His gatekeeper and butler, his valets and stablers, had all 
the aspect of brigands, gypsies, or broken troopers. Their 
manners were coarse and sullen, or boisterous ; patched 
visages, blackened eyes, and broken noses, were common to 
them all ; and when Florence, in his rich suit of half-mail, 
with his jewelled poniard, his inlaid petronel, and glittering 
spurs, was ushered into the dimly-lighted hall, they surveyed 



mLLHBUGB. 169 

him askance, with unpleasant bat meaning looks that seemed 
to say, — '^ If time and place fitted, by St. Fanl, we would 
soon ease thee of all this bravery ! " 

The stone walls of the hall were lighted by four large and 
coarse yellow candles, that flared and sputtered in sconces 
of brass ; but more fully by an ample fire of pine-roots and 
turf that blazed on the hearth under a wide-arched mantel- 
piece, from whence the flames cast along the paved floor a 
lurid glow, as firom the mouth of an opened furnace. The 
grated windows of this hall were arched, and sunk in re- 
cesses whose depth was lost in shadow. Several old weapons, 
covered with rust and cobwebs, with a few tin and wooden 
trenchers of the plainest descri{)tion, were the only orna- 
ments or appurtenances on the walls of this rude old 
dwelling, while the furniture, which consisted of a table, a 
few Ibrms and tripod stools, was all of common wood. 
The floor was strewn with dried rushes, and eight or 
ten men, retainers of the tower, — ^fellows rough, unshaven, 
and uncombed in aspect, clad in shabby doublets, were 
lounging around two who were engaged in a game of 
trio-ttac 

They started up at the entrance of a stranger, and two 
others who had been asleep on the stone seats within the 
glowing fireplace now came forward, and cast aside the grey 
border plaids in which they had been muffled. 

They — ^the latter — ^wore gorgets of black iron, with pyne 
doubletcf,' swords, and Tyndale knives. Their steel caps and 
bucklers lay near. They were hardy and weatherbeaten 
men, but of brutal aspect ; and one whose visage was rosy- 
red, and whose nose was like a thick cluster of red currants, 
proved to be no other than Symon Brodie, the drunken 
butler of Preston Tower, while his companion was Mungo 
Tenant, the warden of the same distinguished establishment. 
Some recollection of their faces — for Florence, when a boy, 
bad once been nnmerdfttlly beaten by this same butler,— *or 



170 HnxHBiraa. 

of their liverj and badges, oaosed him to be at once upon 
his guard, and to beware of what might ensue. 

"Laird — laird Millheugh 1 a stranger would speak wi' 
ye," said several voices officiously ; and on one of the tric- 
trac players rising up, with an oath and a growl on the 
interruption, Fawside found himself confronted, rather than 
received, by the master of this free-and-easy mansion. 

" God save you, sir," said he, with a- blunt country nod, 
and a leer in his eye, as he surveyed the bright arms and 
gay apparel of his visitor with an expression in which con- 
tempt and covetousness were curiously blended ; '' whence 
come you ? " 

« From Edinburgh ^" • 

'^ Ay, ay, I thought sae ; a braw gallant--^ne of the 
galliards o' Holyrood or Falkland Green — or of the regent, 
eh ? I have seen muckle bravery o' this kind about Arran*8 
house in the Elirk o' field Wynd." 

"Nay, sir, you misfcake," was the haughty reply of 
Florence, to whom this bearing proved very offensive; "I 
have no connection with the court, neither have I the 
honour to hold any post or place about the person of the 
regent, but am a plain country gentleman of Lothian ; and 
being on my way to Oadzow, the captain of the queen's 
guard asked me to deliver this letter here, where he was 
pleased to add, I should be welcome to tarry and refresh.** 

" Welcome you are, and welcome are a' who like better 
to byde in Millheugh than in the forest for a night ; but 
what, in the black deviFs name, can the captain of the 
queen's guard, a painted and scented loon like Champfieurie, 
have to say to me ? " 

" 'Tis from a lady of the queen dowager's court." . 

" Whew ! " said the laird^ with a roar of laughter ; " let 
me see the letter, friend." 

As Florence presented the note, the laird rudely and im- 
patiently snatched it from hb hand, broke the seal, and 



icizxiHanQBB. 171 

pr6oeeded to' make Kim8e]f mastrer of its eontentiS. Bat this 
mastery was a process by no means speedily aocomplished 
by this oonntry gentleman of the year 1547* He drew close 
to one of l^e waU-sconoes, scratched his head, viewed the 
writing from varioos points, and, after much delay, per- 
plezity^ and muttering, under his ragged moustaches, many 
maledictions on the writer and himself he -succeeded in 
deciphering the few lines it contained. On this, a smile 
of mingled canning and ferocity spread over his massive and 
vulgar &oe« 

Daring this delay, Eawside, whoni he had permitted to 
stand, had an ample opportunity of observing him. 

He was tall and, we have said, strongly formed* His 
complexioii was pale and sallow, thougli his hair was black 
as jet. His dark eyes had' ever a malicious twinkle^ and a 
villanous expression was impressed on his whole £M)e by 
a wound received at the battle of Linlithgow, where the 
sword of the bastard of Arran — the same ignoble steel that 
slew the good and gentle Eari of Iiennox<~^had laid his left 
oheek open, at the same moment completely demolishing 
the bridge of his nose, which had never at any time been 
very handsome. His attire consisted of a diHy and greasy 
doublet, fixrmed' of what had once been peach-coloured 
ydlret, discoloured in several places by perspiration, slops, 
of wine, and the rust of his armour. It was rent under 
the arms, torn at the slashes, and, in lieu of buttons, was 
tied by fJEtded ribbons, and, where these had fJEuled, by plain 
twine. His russet sarcenet trunk hose were in the same 
condition. He wore cuarans of rough hide on his feet, and 
had a long hom-hafted dagger of butcherly aspect in his 
calfskin girdle. Add to all this black masses of elf4ock 
hair, a shaggy beard and moustache, and we hope that the 
reader sees before him Allan Duthie of the Millheugh. 

A deep quiet laugh stole over his features on making 
himself master of the contents of this letter, with the pur- 



172 



port of wliioh onr aeventeenth chapter lias madA the reader 
familiar. He gave a meaning glance at hia ruffianly «id 
anscrapulous retainers, who were intently eyeing the 
stranger as a prize or prey. Then he sarveyed the latter, 
the aspect of whose lithe, stalwart, and well-armed fignre 
made him resolve that a little policy would be wiser than 
an open and unprovoked assanlt^ before secmiDg him. 
Moreover, he feared that in a scuffle the gay suit of iVen^ 
plate armour, which he meant to appropriate, and which, he 
flattered himself, would exactly fit his burly figure, m^^fat 
suffer damage ; and this he by no means desired, especially 
when this unsuspicious visitor, who had brought his own 
death-warrant, might be much more easily killed or cap* 
tured without it. All this passed through his subtle mind 
in a moment. Then he turned to Florence, saying with an 
artful smile,—- 

'*Ye are right welcome, fair sir, to the poor dieer o* 
Millheugh Ha' ; but will ye no unstrap this braw harness, 
and draw nearer the ingle ; for though the month be Augfist, 
the cauld wind soughs at the lumheid, as if some wrinkled 
hag were byding there, on her way hame firae the moon or 
the warlock-sabbath.** ^ 

** I thank you," replied the young man ; '' and if one of 
your servitors will so &r favour me as to undo the straps 
of this steel casin g - " 

" That will I, myseP, do blythely, Fawside," said the laircl, 
who with great readiness unfastened the various buckles of 
some portions of the beautiful suit of mail, and removed 
them, with the shining and embossed coursing-hat, to a 
side bufiet, ngiuttering while doing so, — ** By the deiTs homs, 
he has a pyne doublet under a' ; but a dab wi a dirk may 
soon make a hole in that. Look w^eel to this harness, lads^ — 
as if it were mine ain,** he added aloud, with a wink to some 
of his people, who seemed quite to understand the hint» 
'' And so ye have oome fiK>m Edinburgh -^—" 



lOUUSSCOH. 173 

'< La^" said Horenoe, laughing j " but a month sinoe I 
vna in Paris." 

'^ Oho 1 •— ' and what new plo^s are the bloody Guises 
hatching— -for they are aye up to some develrie anent us, ehl" 

''I know of none, laird/' said Florence with reserve ; I 
have eome from France certainly, but I have not the honour 
to be ranked either as a friend or confidant of the Cardinal 
de Ouise or the Duo de Mayenne. Indeed, I never saw 
them but once, for a few minutes, in the gallery of the 
Lomvre." 

*' Tet Bothwell styles you a spy of the Guises ! " thought 
Millheagh. « Well, well, sir," he added aloud ; « 'tis no 
matter o' mine. Serve up the supper quick ; but, ere 
sitting down, sir, would ye take off your braw belt and 
•wwd?" 

" Nay, Millheugh," said Florence smiling, though certain 
tind^ned suspicions occurred to him ; '' I am never unarmed 
even in my own house j and you, I see, wear your belt and 
Tynedale knife." 

" Oh, it matters nocht to me," said the laird with a cunning 
laugh ; " but I thooht ye might sup the easier without your 
lang iron spit and braw baldrick." 

A repast of the plainest kind, but great in quantity, con- 
sisting mainly of brose, haggis, sowons, and porridge with 
prunes in it, was now served up, with cold beef, and venison 
hams ; and, while the two retainers of Claude Hamilton sat 
somewhat apart, darting covert scowls from under their 
shaggy brows at their master's feudal enemy, they, as well 
as Millheugh's hungry foresters, made great havock among 
the ^ contents of the piled platters and ample cogies 
with which the table was furnished — ^viands which were 
washed down by a river of ruddy-brown ale, flowing 
from a laige cask set upon a bin, in a stone recess, the 
Gothic canopy of which showed that in the days of the 
present proprietor's &ther therein had stood a crucifix 



and holy^water font, wberein all w«e wont to dip their 
fingers before sitting down to meals ; — ^but the timet were 
changing fast, and the mjpds, manners, and morals of the 
people were changing with them. 

When supper was over, Florence, weary with his long 
and rough ride of so many miles, and heartily sick of the 
laird's coarse, if not brutal conversation, retired to rest ; 
and believing himself in perfect security, divested himself 
of his attire, and was soon in a profoutid and dreamless 
slumber — so profound, that he heard not at niidnight three 
very decided attempts which were made by certain parties 
without to force his door, the many locks and bars of which, 
however, fortunately stood firm and were his friends. 
Soundly he slept, though his couch was made only of soft 
heather, packed closely in on an oblong frame, with the 
points uppermost, and a sheet spread over it, in the old 
Scottish fashion. But towards morning'*— all unconscious 
that he was a prisoner — sounds of distant merriment came 
floating to his ear, and awoke him for a time. 

That night, and for hours after midnight had passed, 
Millheugh and his men drank deeply in the rude and 
ancient hall, and their songs and boisterous laughter, came 
to the ear of Florence by fits, upon the weird howling of 
the morning wind. One drunken ditty, composed by some 
West Lothian (and long forgotten) song-wiiter, on Preston's 
never sober butler, seemed ap especial fiivourite, and a score 
of voices made its chorus shake the vaulted roof of the old 
tower. It ran thus :— ^ 

" Symon Brodie had a cow : 

When she Tfas lost, he couldna find her ; 
Bt^ he did a' that man oould do. 
Till she cam' hame wi her tail behind her* 
Honest bald Symon Brodie, 
Stupid auld doitit bodie 1 

Gin ye pass by Preston Tower, 
Birl thd stoup wi Preston Brodie* 



• XlLLHEUdH. n& 

" Symon Brodie had a wife. 

And wow ! but she was braw and bonnie ; 
A olout she tnik'frae off the bulk. 
And preened it on her cockernonie. 
Honest bald Symon Brodie, 
Stupid auld drunken bodie I 

For Claude, the Uird o' Preston Tower, 
Has kiss'd the wife o' Symon Brodie.*' 

Florenoe awoke late — ^at least, late for 1547 ; the time-dial 
indioated the hour of eleven ; when he rose, dressed himself, 
and descended to the hall, with his purse in his hand to 
scatter a largess among the servants, to breakfast, and then 
begone with all speed. 

By various pretexts, the laird procrastinated the time for 
his departure, till Fawside was at last compelled to order 
his horse peremptorily. Then Allan Duthie threw aside all 
disguise, and laughed outright at him. 

Florence started from the table, and with his hand on 
his sword approached the door of the hall. 

Then the laird snatched up an arquebuse with a lighted 
match, and at the head of several domestics, variously armed, 
prepared to dispute his exit, by completely barring the way j 
at this critical stage of their proceedings the sound of a. 
hunting-horn, blown loudly at the gate, made even the most 
forward of the brawlers pause to a time. 

^ Is that thy master's horn, Symon 1 " asked the treach- 
erons laird. 

''I dinna ken, -Millheugh," replied Symon, arming his 
light hand with a tankard, the contents of which he had 
just drained, and the creamy froth of which covered all his 
Bardolph nose and grizzly-grey moustache ; ''but he must 
be here ere midday pass." 

'- Claude Hamilton here I ** thought Florence, as the blood 
rushed back upoh his heart ; *' one house can never hold us 
—-with these people, too I Oh, mother ! to-morrow you 
may aay yoov mAM-prayen for my bntohery. Millheugh 



176 HZUCiBBUaB. • 

must know of our feud, and yet he told me not he was ex- 
pected here ! " 

'^ If he come not speed^y/' continued the jesting ruffian, 
'" woe worth all the breakfast he is likely to get ; but the loss 
o' it will be a just punishment, as I ken he eats beef and 
mutton in Lenten-time, instead of kail and green herbs, for 
the gude o' his soul." 

" What the deil hae our souls to do wi' kail, or bee( or 
mutton, Millheugh, whate'er our appetites may 9" asked 
Symon Brodie ; *' a gude appetite is a sign o' a gude 
conscience. There sounds the horn again ! " 

''A Lollard, hey f " exclaimed Millheugh ; " thou hast heard 
Friar Forest preach, I warrant." 

" I heard him preach, and saw him burued at a stake on 
the Castle Hill." 

"Take ye care then, Symon, for there are fitggots for 
those who speak like thee ; and a butler will bum as well as 
a friar." 

"Indubitably." 

" Make way, fellows ! " exclaimed Florence, lunging at 
Millheugh with his sword ; " make me way, or your Hves 
are not worth a dog's ransom. 'Tis well for thee, and such 
as thee, Symon Brodie, that the terror of the scoffer and the 
impious, Cardinal Beaton, is in his grave I " 

"His eminence," said Millheugh, "aye deemed himself 
on better terms with Heaven than other men." 

" Weel, weel," said the impudent butler, " he hath since, 
peradventure, discovered his mistaike in that matter." 

" Thou saucy varlet," exclaimed Fawside, making at him 
a blow, whidi he eluded by leaping on one side, " darest thou 
speak of him so in the presence of a loyal gentleman ? " 

" Peace, I command you," cried Millheugh j " for, by the 
hoof of Mahoun, here come more visitors 1 " 

As he spoke the jangle of spurs was heard on the stair 
that gave access to the upper stories of the tower. Several 



A BOTHWELL ! A BOTHWELL ! 177 

gentlemen, well armed, and richly clad in riding-coats, with 
long boots of Spanish leather, and having, mostly, htflmets, 
cuirasses, and gorgets, hurriedly thronged into the hall ; and 
Fawside felt a momentary emotion of alarm on recognizing 
among them the voices and figures of Patrick Earl of Both- 
well, the Earl of Glencaim, and the sinister visage of his 
son, the Lord Kilmaurs. 



CHAPTER XXL 

A BOTHWELL ! A BOTHWELL ! 

Yet might not Aquilante's spirit fail. 
Though shivered was his shield, and gashed his mail ? 
Cautious bnt firm he struck ; no sign of dread, 
His aspect or his manly port displayed. 

Boncesvalles, 

With a burst of laughter these turbulent nobles and their 
armed followers, who 'were numerous, unsheathed their 
swords; and Florence boldly confronted them all, while 
his heart beat rapidly, — ^for he knew that entreaty or con- 
cessiott would avail him nothing. He knew, too, that he 
had been foully ensnared. He found himself in a perilous 
predicament, for he soon recognized the voices, if not the 
faces, of nearly all the same men by whom he had been so 
sorely beset on the first night of his landing from the galley 
of M. de Yillegaignon. 

"So, so ! Our worthy Millheugh has brought the boar 
to bay 1 " exclaimed Kilmaurs, the wound on whose sinister 
visage grew purple in his excitement as he pressed forward. 

" Ha-ha I Fawside, most woiiihy messenger," added 
Bothweli ; '^ thou art quite alone, eh ! ** 

N 



178 A BOTHWELL ! A BOXHWELL ! 

** Alone ; but not as St. John was, in the Isle of Fatmos ; 
for he is with his betters and much good company," said 
Glencaim. 

" Do cease with this irreverence, Glencaim," said Bothwell, 
who, like all that still adhered to Borne, was nenrously sen- 
sitive of all that appertained to the faith of his fore&thers. 

" Ye haver, my lord,'* was the snrly rejoinder. " That 
whilk our forbears of auld deemed reverence we now term 
but rank idolatry, and an abomination in the nostrils of the 
Lord." 

" Like loyalty to the crown and £uth to our country — 
folly, eh ? But enough of this," said the selfish and blood- 
thirsty Kilmaurs. ^'And now for the matter in handL 
Worthy Master Florence Fawside " 

'^ A spruce young cock o' the game, my masters ! " said 
Symon Brodie. ^'I warrant ye will find him tough 
enough." 

'' We should keep him for fighting on' Fastems e'en/* 
added Millheugh, who was not quite sober. 

" Silence ! " cried Kilmaurs. " We have other ends in 
view for him, and need not this ribaldry." 

** What am I to understand by all this studied insolence, 
and by my being thus beset 1 " demanded Florence, stand-^ 
ing on his guard, sternly eyeing them all, and waving hia 
sword in a circle around him. ''Speak, sirs, lest I slay 
the most silent man among you." 

'' You have brought letters," began Kilmaurs. 

''One to the laird of Millheugh, most certainly. That 
letter I delivered." 

" Oh, yes ; of a verity we doubt not that," continued his 
chief tormentor Kilmaurs ; — " the letter from a &ir court 
lady — a countess, at least, who was in sore trouble, and lacked 
a messenger to her dear kinsman here. We mean not that. 
Ha-ha ! Ohampfleurie played his cards well ! " 

"I have been snared and deluded ! " said the poor youth,, 



▲ BOrnWELL ! A BOTHWELL ! 179 

while his heart beat like lightning ; and he glanced round 
him vainly for means of escape, or, at least, for a desperate 
and protracted resistance. 

'^ Precisely so ; you have been deluded. Champfleurie ** 

''Like each one of you, is a villain, whom, will Grod, 
I shall yet unmask and slay ! " exclaimed their victim. 

'' By St. Bride ! poor devil, I almost pity thee ! ** said 
BothwelL ''Thou'lt fiEu:e hardly enough at the hands of 
Millheugh and his ragged Bobins." 

" Florence Fawside," said Kilmaurs, " we know thee to be 
a spy of the Guises and bearer of their betters to Mary of 
liomdne and the Regent Arran. We can easily slay thee, 
and obtain such papers as may be concealed in secret 
pockets; but we care not^ by cracking the nut, to gain 
the kernel so hastily. Ye may be the custodier of other 
and more important secrets than men care to commit to 
paper, especially such men as the Cardinal de Gtiise and 
Monse^eur the Due de Mayenne : and these secrets we 
must have ! " 

'' Sirs, I swear to you, as a gentleman and a true Scottish 
man, I am the depositary of no such secrets as you suppose," 
said the unfortunate youth, with great earnestness ; for though 
brave, even to temerity, he thought of his old mother and his 
young love, while all their swords seemed to glitter decUlt 
before him, and his sinking heart grew sad. 

''A cock-laird like thee may swear to anything," said 
Kilmaurs insolently. 

*^ Thou, Kilmaurs, art an empty boaster, and a coward 
My race is ajnong the oldest in the land." 

'' Being descended, in the male line, direct from Adam." 

'' Despite this insolence, I repeat, my lords, that I tell 
you — truth!" 

''Knave, thou dost not tell the truth," exclaimed Kil« 
maurs^ who became pallid with fury; "so, beware, lest we 
have ihy tongi^e torn out by the roots and nailed on Hamil- 

N 2 



180 A BOTHWELIi! A BOTH WELL ! 

ton crosSy to feed the gleds and hoodicrowB. I have seen 
such done ere this." 

" If he lieth, the event shall prove," said Glencaim ; "let 
him be disartned^ and bonnd to the iron cmick above the 
hall fire j then pile on wetted wood and green bonghs^ till 
we smoke the secrets out of him." 

A shout of fierce and derisive acclamation greeted this 
suggestion of an impromptu mode of torture not uncommon 
in those old lawless times ; and the tone of defiance assumed 
by the victim was lost amid the bantering laughter and 
insults of more than thirty voices. Surrounded on all 
hands, he had only power left to run one assailant through 
the body, and before he could withdraw his sword to repeat 
the thrust, a score of heavy hands were laid upon him, thoee 
of his host, Allan of Millheugh, being among the most 
active. His sword and poniard were at once rent away, 
and he was dragged over the blood-stained floor towards the 
large arched fireplace. In the lust of blood, the feudal, or 
political, or religious rancour which animated those at whose 
mercy he was now so completely cast, they struggled with 
each other for who should give him a blow or a buffet, and 
contended vehemently for the office of binding him to the 
iron beam that swung over the blading fir^. ' 

Florence struggled also — but in vain. The united strength 
and the iron hands of his numerous enemies, noble and igno- 
ble, were irresistible and overpowering. 

He strove to cry aloud, but whether for mercy or in defi- 
ance, in his bewilderment, he knew not ; his voice was gone, 
and he could scarcely gasp for breath : then how much less 
was he able to articulate. 

" A rope — a rope ! " cried Millheugh ; " weel wetted, too, 
lest it bum when we birsel him. Quick, ye loons, quick ! " 

** Heap damp boughs and green peats on the fire," said 
Glencairn. " Quick — ^lest instead of only smokm^ the secret 
'Out of him, we roast him before the right time." 



A Bp9>HWELIi! A BOTHWELL! 181 

Bniisedi bleeding, pale, and powerless, Florence now 
found himself under the rough arch of the yawning fireplace 
and the flame of the large pile of blazing fuel that lay 
heaped on the hearth was already scorching him to the 
quick I Above his head swung the smoke-blackened bar 
of the cruick whereon occasionally large pots and cauldrons 
were hung, and which moved outward or inward, in sockets, 
like a crane. 

His hands were roughly forced behind him by the united 
strength of several men, and held thus while Mungo 
Tennant, the warder of Preston, prooeeded to tie them. 
Meantime others were piling green boughs on the flame, 
partially to quench its heat, and to All the vast tunnel-like 
chimney with black smoke, amid which they seemed like 
demons superintending infernal orgies. While this was 
proceeding, there was a snaky glare in the glistening and 
triumphant eyes of Elilmaurs. This fierce young lord was 
popularly believed to possess an evil eye, and that his gaze 
had the powep of blighting whatever it fell upon. Friend 
or foe, horse or sheep, were averred to wither away. In 
Cunninghame, it was said that com died in the ear, and the 
leaves of a tree shrivelled and droj^ed off, if he looked at 
them fixedly; and this dangerous attribute made him a 
source of terror to all — even to the irreverend Eeformer, his 
^Either. 

All was nearly complete ; the fire, half suppressed by the 
damp fuel, now emitted a dense column of black smoke, and 
a well-wetted rope was already made fast to the iron bar. 

" Up wi' him, now, to the cruick, by craig and heels," said 
Glencairn j *^ and then let him sneeze in the reek, like a 
carlin in the mist." ^ 

<* God have mercy on me ; for men will have none I " was 
the mental prayer of Florence, with a half-stifled groan, as 
he felt himself lifted off the floor and held over the smoke : — 
but ere the principal cord was made fast, a powerful man 



182 THE BCOBNED AHI^. 

« 

burst throagh the crowd around the vast fireplace, and, 
forcing them asunder, commanded all, ^* on pain of death, to 
hold their hands ! " 

** A Bothwell ! a Bothwell ! " cried Earl Patrick, in a voice 
of thunder. "Who dares cry hold, when I command to 
strike ? " 



♦CHAPTEK XXII. 

THE SCOBITED AMITY. 

Chieftains, forego ! 
I hold the first who strikes, my foe. 
Madmeu forbear your fi»ntic jar 1 

Lady of the Lake. 

" Hold all your hands," exclaimed the new comer ; "or by 
Heaven's vengeance, I will run the foremost of you through 
the body ! " 

" Who dares to lifb%ifl voice thus under my roof-tree 1 " 
demanded Millheugh savagely, forcing a passage, dagger in 
hand, through the throng. 

" I dare ! — I, Claude Hamilton of Preston," replied the 
stranger, in whom Florence (now released, and though re- 
clining faint and feebly on a bench) recognized, to his 
astonishment, the grey-bearded man whom, in Cadzow 
Forest, he had rescued from mutilation and a dreadful death. 

" And think you, carle, that we will obey you 1 " demanded 
the Earl of Bothwell contemptuously. 

" Perhaps not, were I alone ; but when I tell you, lord 
earl, that I have now a train of thirty horsemen, armed with 
jack and spear, in the tower court, and that I have but to 
sound this horn to bring every man to my aid, the fauce of 



THE SCORNED AMITY. 183 

affairs may be changed. I lost my train in tlie forest ; but 
fortunately, it would appear, we have reached this place 
together at a very critical time." 

" Hark you, Laird of Preston," said Glencaim angrily ; 
" what are we to understand by all this ? Would you at- 
tempt to deprive us of a lawful prisoner, whom we have 
captured at last, and after no small trouble, too 1 He — this 
Fawside — ^is your feudal enemy, and our political opponent, 
being an emissary of the bloody-minded Guises. Will y<m^ 
then, dare to befriend him % " 

"Ay, even he will I befriend," replied the old man 
sternly. 

" This is rank insanity," exclaimed the Earl of Bothwell ; 
'^ does one of our own party turn against us thus % And 
have we ridden five-and-thirty miles or more to find 
ourselves defrauded of our prey by the mere bullying of an 
auld carle like this % Forward ! again, my men, and string me 
yonder poppinjay up to the cruick with the rope— not at 
his waist, but round his knavish neck ! Or, if you will make 
still shorter work, let two take him by the hands, and two 
by the heels, and by one fell swing dash out his brains 
against the stone wall ! I have seen such done in Yenice 
ere this. I am Patrick Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, and 
high sheiiff of Haddington —^ who shall dare to gainsay 
mel" 

'' Stand back, I command you," thundered the resolute 
old laird of Preston, grasping his silver-mounted bugle with 
one hand, while menacing all with one of those long and 
ponderous two-handed swords then worn by the Scots ; — 
'* back, I say j or, by the arm qf St. Giles and all that is holy 
in heaven, I will make hawks' meat of the fii*st man who 
advances ! *Tis scarcely twelve hours since, when in Cadzow 
Wood, this youth, though mine enemy, saved me from a 
frantic white bull, when lying half stunned by a fSall from 
my horse ; and blessed be God, who hath enabled me to 



184 THB SGOBNED AMITT. 

oome hither in time to prevent a deed so foi^l a^ yon, my 
lord% contemplate. And now I tell ye, sirs, that were he 
laden with a horse-load of letters from the Guises, from the 
Cardinal,, the Duke de Mayenne, find from Henry of Yalois 
to boot, he shall ride forth on his way, sakeless and free, 
esoorted by my own followers ; and if thou, Allan o' Mill* 
heugh, (for weel do I ken thee for a bully and a knave of 
auld, man 1) restore not to him all of which he has been 
deprived, I will light such a five in Millheugh Tower as 
Cadzow Wood hath never seen since its tallest oaks were 
acorns ! " 

All present knew that Hamilton of Preston was a re- 
solute man, who would adhere to his word. Defrauded of 
their prey, the three lords muttered vengeance, and sheathing 
their swords, retired sullenly into a comer of the hall. 
The laird of Millheugh attempted to string -together a few 
awkward and absurd apologies, while restoring to Fawside 
his much-coveted arms and armour, which he hastily put oni 
in silence, and with the sombre fury that filled his heart 
expressed in every linament of his agitated face, which was 
now deathly pale, and marked by more than one wound or 
bruise, received in the recent struggle. 

" Drink, sir j you look fsunt and ill, after all this rough 
handling," said Claude of Preston, handing a cup of wine to 
his young feudal enemy, whose handsome features he scru- 
tinized with an expression of sadness and interest, — ^for 
Florence was said to be the living image of his father 
Sir John, whom Preston slew. 

The youth drank the wine, and returned the cup, saying 
briefly, — 

'^ Sir, I thank you : you, at least, are an honourable enemy 
-— «nd brave and humane as honourable." 

" And such, young man, the Hamiltons of Preston ever 
foimd each gentleman of your house to be." 

'' For that compliment, again I thank you." 



THE SCOBNED AMCFIT. 185 

He had now eompleted his arming, in which Preston 
oourteously assisted him ; and on drawing his sword, he 
could no longer restrain the rage and indignation with 
which his heart was bursting, and in this tide of wrath he 
included his preserver with his enemies. 

" AUen Duthie of Millheugh," said he sternly, while his 
eyes glared under the peak of his helmet, '^ I brand thee as 
a fieilse coward and foul thief ; aud such I shall prove thee 
to be, in the face of all men, at a fitting time. I am now 
ready to depart ; and gladly will I do so," he added, with a 
furtive glance at Preston ; ^^ for, of a verity, the air of this 
place sufiPocates me." 

« Ere ye go," said Preston, drawing off his glpve, *' Florence 
Fawside, in presence of these lords and gentlemen, for the 
good offices that have passed between us, last night and to- 
day, I offer you my friendship and alliance, to the end 
that our feud be stanched, and committed to oblivion." 

"You ask me this," said the young maa with rising anger, 
''while wearing at your side the same sword that slew my 
poor father and my brother Willie ! " 

^ Nay, if that be all, though with this aword, my fore- 
father, with his Scots, held the bridge of Yerneuil, in 
Anjou, against Duke Clarence's English billmen, I will 
shiver the blade to atoms^ ?•" 

"Keep your sword, Preston," replied Florence; "ere 
long, you will require it for other purposes. Friendship 
cannot exist with hatred, — alliance with mistrust." 

" You will never live to comb a beard as grey as mine, 
if you speak thus rashly through life," said Preston grimly. 

" I speak like my father's son ; and I care not for 
dying early, if I die as my fiather lived and died — with 
honour ! " 

^''Tis said like the brave son of a brave &ther ; but 
once more, Fawside, remember you gave me life h"'- 
night — ^to-day I give you life and liberty." 



186 THS BCOBinSD AlOTT. 

** Taunt me not with the service, old man. Tia well we 
are still, I thank God, equal ! My blood boils hotly, Pr^a- 
ton j and, despite the good you do me, I must remember 
my vow. Our fathers' feud, is but renewed : draw-^a li& I 
have given — a life I will peril iigain, even here ; so, oome on 1 " 

<< In this hostile hall?" 

"Where place so fitting as this foul den of would-be 
murder and robbery ) ** 

" Hash fool 1 If I am slain, your life will be forfeited," 
replied the baron, drawing back a pace. 

*^ I care not," replied the youth wildly and mournfully'— 
for the events of the morning had filled his soul with a fury 
which required an object whereon to expend itself; "at 
my mother's knee as a child, at the altar of God as a man, 
I have sworn a thousand times to slay thee, even as ye slew 
my father under tryst, wherever and whenever I met thee — 
and now the hour is come ! " 

During this new dispute, the three lords, and the group 
around them, looked on and listened with approving smiles ; 
for to them it seemed that Preston had merely come in time 
to save them the trouble of killing their prisoner. 

" If he escape," said Glencairn, " we can beset the paths 
from Cadzow, and watch for his departure. Our squire- 
errant rid^s alone, and must fitll an easy pr^." 

" But," said his son, " if the letters be delivered, wbdi then 
shall we have ? " 

" Vengeance ! " 

" Preston changes colour," said Bothwell, with a sardonic 
smile; "there will be such a raid in my sherififdom, as 
Lothian hath not seen since Sir Half Evers, the English- 
man, knocked with his gauntlet on the Bristo-gate, at 
Edinburgh." 

"And thereafter had his brains knocked out at Ancrum- 
ford," said Kilmaurs, who slew him there ; " but, hush, the 
storm grows apace." 



THS SCOBNED AMITT. 187 

At Fawside's last remark, Preston's wrinkled cheek grew 
deathly pale. 

** Bairn, hegone/' said he loftily, " lest I send thee to thy 
mother in a colt's-halter. Go— I scorn, the accusation, as I 
scorn yoor anger. If I took your father's life in feud, 'twas 
fairly done in open fray, and not under tryst ; and that life 
I saved twice at Flodden, from the Lord Surrey's band of 
pikemen. Go— go, I say, and God bless thee ; — ^the wish 
may be all the better, that it cometh from the lips of a man 
whose years are weHnigh three score and ten." 

'^ The murderer of my father and my brother ! Draw, lest 
I smite ye where ye stand ! ** 

" Never ! your blood is owre red on my hands already." 

** Hah, 'tis a coward I am confronting." 

<< Shame on thee, Fawside, to say so," exclaimed the Earl 
of Bothwell^ who began to watch this strange scene with 
new and more generous interest. 

Preston became fearfully pale, and trembled with 
emotion, while his staunch henchmen, Mungo Tennant 
and Symon Brodie, uttered a shout of anger, and drew 
their swords. 

** Becal that bitter word, boy ) " said Hamilton, hoarsely. 

** Coward, coward I " continued Florence^ menacing his 
throat with the point of his sword. 

Preston struck it contemptuously aside with his bare hand, 
and gasped for breath. He then made an attempt to draw 
liis sword ; but relinquishing the hilt, by a violent effort 
mastered his emotion. 

" Boy," said he, ^ my pride and my spirit are passing away 
from me. There was a time when, by a glance, I had almost 
slain thee for an insult such as this — but that day is 
gone, yea, gone for ever I A coward, I ? " he continued, 
with a wild, choking laugh, while the tears started to his 
reddened eyes ; ** rash fool ! thy brave father, whose spirit 
may now witness this meeting, would never so have 



188 THE 800BNBD AUXnr. 

taunted me ; but I am old euough tQ bear even this from 
thee. Go, I say, in peace ; for on this right hand of mine 
there is already more than enough of the blood of your 
family." 

In five minutes after this, Florence had left the tower 
of Millheugh; and found himself riding through the green 
glades of Gadzow Forest, the upper foliage of which was 
glittering in the noonday sun. 

Mentally he rehearsed his late meeting with Preston, 
and now his own heart — as his better passions resumed 
their wonted sway_began to accuse him of acting harshly, 
and without grace or generosity. Despite himself, his 
cheek began to redden with a glow of honest shame, for 
the taunts he had hurled upon a gentleman whose years 
were so many, and whose high valour had been so often 
and so undoubtedly proved in battle; but these thoughts 
were immediately stifled, as the tall form, and grave, re- 
sentful face of his stern mother seemed to rise before him, 
and gave rise to other ideas ; then, lest he might be 
followed by the men of Bothwell or Glencaim, he spurred 
his fleet grey to a gallop, and pushed on rapidly for the 
residence of the regent. 



CADZOW OASTIiE. 189 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

CADZOW CASTLE. 

When princely Hamilton's abode 

Ennobled Cadzow's Gothic towers, 
The song went round, the goblet flow'd, 

And wassail sped the jocund hours. ^ 

ScoU. 

The Avon, a tributary of the Clyde, flows through a 
beautifitl valley", the sides of which are clothed with 
magnificent timber of great size and age. Embosomed 
amid the thickest part of this forest, surrounded by trees 
which wer^ planted daring the reign of David I., and over- 
hanging a rushing torrent; the rocks of which are covered 
by masses of dark ivy and luxuriant creeping-plants, stands 
the castle of Cadzow, now an open ruin, having been dis- 
mantled in the wars of Queen Mary's time, but which, at 
the epoch of our story, had banners on its ramparts and 
cannon at its gate, being in all the strength and pride of a 
feudal stronghold as the residence of a princely and powerful 
chief, James Earl of Arran, who, by his position as regent, 
was the first subject in the realm. 

This castle is about a mile distant from the town of 
Hamilton, where Florence was informed that the regent, 
though at Cadzow, was preparing, with all his train, to 
depart for Stirling. This venerable fortress once gave a 
name to the whole district, and both were anciently the 
property of the crown of Scotland, as there are yet extant 
charters granted by Alexanders II. and III. dated at " our 
Castle of Cadzow ; " but David II. giffced to Walter, the son 
of Sir Gilbert of Hamilton, his lands of Cadzow and £del- 



190 CADZOW CASTIiE. 

wood, in the county of Lanark ; and thereafter on the whole 
territory was bestowed the present name of Hamilton, the 
castle and forest alone retaining their ancient designation. 

Many horses, saddled and richly caparisoned, held by 
grooms, liverymen, pages, or men-at-arms, were grouped 
under the trees of the park ; and the bustle of preparation 
previous to departure was evident in and about the castle 
as Florence rode up to the gate, where his arrival attracted 
but little attention [amid the throng of nearly a hundred 
gay Cavaliers, who were waiting for the appearance of the 
regent. 

After some inquiry, our new-KSomer found a page wearing 
the livery of the house of Hamilton, and desired him to say 
that a gentleman from Edinburgh requested the honour of 
an audience. 

" You cannot see the regent," replied the page bluntly, 
while switching a few specks of dust from liis white leather 
boots with a fine laced handkerchief. 

"Why so?" 

'' His grace is at dinner," was the brief reply. 

" He sits long ; 'tis one by the dial." 

" Kings are pleased to be hungry sometimes, and a regent 
may be so, too." 

'' Thou saucy jackfeather, say instantly to the captain of 
the guard, the usher, or whoever is in waiting, that I, 
Florence Fawside of that ilk, bearer of letters from the 
queen-mother and the king of France, am here at his 
castle gate, or, by the furies ! I will scourge you with my 
bridle, were you the last, as I verily believe you are the 
first, of your race in Scotland ! " 

This imperious speech crushed even the proverbial inso- 
lence of the court page, who was a son of Hamilton of 
Dalserfe. He reddened with anger, and frowned ; then ho 
gave a saucy smile and withdrew, saying, — i 

" I shall do your bidding, sir." 



CADZOW CASTLK. 191 

In a fev minntes after, the messenger found himself 
ushered into a stately hall, and in the presence of the 
Itep;ent of Scotland. 

James, second earl of Arran and tenth in descent from the 
founder of his house, who rose to &vour under King Alex- 
ander II., was a peer of noble presence. He had been the 
loyal friend of the late King James Y., whom he accom- 
panied in his^zpedition to the Orcades and Western Isles 
^in 1536, and with whom, in the September of that year, he 
embarked for France, and was present at his nuptials with 
Magdalene de Yalois, the eldest daughter of Francis I., in 
the church of Notre Dame at Paris. She died soon afler, a 
young and beautiful queen of twenty summer days ; and the 
king, about a year afler, espoused the daughter of Een6 of 
Lorraine, Mary, whom we have already had the pleasure of 
introducing to the reader. As regent of Scotland, Arran 
passed many patriotic laws, one of which, sanctioning the 
issue of the new Bible which Father William, a Dominican, 
had translated into the Scottish tongue, procured him, on one 
hand the affection of the Reformers, and on the other the 
hatred of those who adhered to the Church of Rome. 

He was above the middle height ; he had that peculiar 
length and gravity of visage which the shorn hair and 
peaked beard imparted to the fiEices of all the great and 
noble of his time, as we may see in the portraits of Francis I., 
Philip II., James Y., of Raleigh, Morton, Murray, and 
others ; his eyes and hair were dark ; when he smiled, it 
was haughtily, with his lips closed ; while the troubles inci- 
dent to his time and government gave him a saddened and 
preoccupied look. He wore a hongreline of blue velvet 
laced with gold braid, and so called from the pelisse of the 
Hungarians. This species - of doublet was buttoned close 
under the chin, but was open below, to display a cuirass of 
the finest steel inlaid with magnificent carving. It had been 
presented by Christian II. of Denmark to his father, who 



192 CAD250W CASTLE. 

had led five thonsand Scots to succour that monarch in the 
war of 1504. 

He was attended by four pages, all sons of barons of the 
surname of Hamilton — ^to wit, the young lairds of Dalserfe, 
Broomhall, Allershaw (who in manhood and in after years 
fought at Langside " for God and Queen Mary"), and Both- 
wellhaugh, a grave and resolute boy, who twenty years later 
was to slay the regent Maray. Clad in dotl^of-gold, with 
gold chains at their necks, they had his armorial bearings 
embroidered on the breasts of their doublets, and, though 
mere boys, they were armed like men, with swords and 
daggers. 

"Welcome to Cadzow," said the regent, presenting his 
hand, which Fawside kissed respectfully. " You have come 
from France, I am informed 1 " 

'* With M. le Chevalier de Villegaignon." 

" Villegaignon ! " reiterated the regent coldly, but with 
surprise. "jfiTe hath come and been gone again these 
several weeks. How comes it to pass, young sir, that I 
have only now the honour of seeing you ? " 

" The honour is mine, Lord Arran. As regent of Scot- 
land, all honour must, after our young queen, flow from 

you." 

Arran gave a cold smile, and replied, 

" This is well-timed flattery, and proves that you have not 
spent seven years, as I liave heard, with the Duchess Anne 
of Albany without benefit." 

Fawside bowed, and presented the letter of Henry 11. 

" What spots are these on the cover ? " exclaimed Arran. 
" Blood ! lft)u have been fighting, sir— been wounded 1 
Where was this 1 And you haye delayed ^" 

" Three swords in one's body are likely enough to cause 
delay ; and I, my lord, have had these, with a stroke or so, 
from a partizan to boot. Hence the delay of which your 
grace complains." 



CABZOW CAS1XB. 193 

** Indeed ! I mnst inquire into this. Bat' saoh brawls 
are now of honrly occnrrenoe. Eetire, gentlemen," said he 
to the four pages ; who at ouoe withdrew to resume their 
game of primero in the antechamber. 

Florence briefly and modestly, but with an indignation 
that grew in spite of himself, related the dangers he had 
undergone, first in the streets of Edinburgh and latterly in 
the tower of Millheugh, to which he had been snared by 
the letter given from the hand of Ohampfleurie ; and as he 
proceeded, the broad brow of Arran grew black as a 
thunder-cloud, and his whole face assumed a sombre 
expression. 

*' Now, heaven grant me patience ! " he exclaimed, 
striking his sword on the floor; 'Hhere is more than a 
mere brawl in this : treason lies under it — ^treason and a 
conspiracy; and, by my &ther*s soul, I shall hang them 
all!" 

** Hang nobles r* 

''Well, the more titled rascals shall have the perilous 
honour of having their heads sliced ofl* by an axe, — the grim 
privilege of nobility ; but the more common rogues I shall 
hang high and dry, like scarecrows in a cornfield. *' 

** My lord regent, I beseech you not to embroil yourself 
with powerful peers like Cassilis, Bothwell, and Glencairn, 
for a small matter like my three sword-cuts." 

'' Knaves who are at faith and peace with England, as I 
am told," continued Arran, pursuing his own thoughts. 

'' True, my lord ; but when we find among them a man 
like Hugh Earl of I^linton, who is constable of Bothesay, 
bailie of Ounningham, and chamberlain of Irvine, to attempt 
punishment would embroil your whole government, and peril 
the Queen*s authority." 

''And both are so weak, that no later than last year, 
without the assistance of the prior of Bhodes, and his galleys, 
I could not dislodffe a few sacrilegious rebels from the castle 



1^4 Cil>ZOW CASTLE. 

bf St. Andrew's! iTet we are strong, — ^we Hatniltons," 
continued thb rbgent loftily; ''the blobd of OUr house hks 
mingled with that of our kings, and run over Scotland in a 
thousand channels; but yotl bounsel well and wisely, Fawside ; 
for there are times when I fear that the envy of these 
malcontent lords will destroy iile, and level eVen the 
throne." 

" Fear them not, my lord ^ that man id worth little who 
eicitefe not envy.** 

" Faith, thou art right, hoy !'* «aid thl^ tegent cheerfully ; 
'^and though thesis who wronged theb are jjierhdps too 
numerous and powerful for me to punish at present, a time 
shdl bbtiie ; and hile&ntrhile, I will hot the less rewiird your 
worth and brdVery; and ho^, sir, for the letter of the 
Valois." 

As he redid it, the contehts seemed to please Mtn ; his 
eyes sparkled ; a glow suffused his cheek, and an expression 
of triumph spread over all his features. 

" We are to have auxiliaries from Henry II. to strengthen 
my government, and enable me to resist the wiles and wishes 
of the English protector, so that our young queen shall wed 
the heir of France, and not the son of the last Tudor ! 
Good — good! Monsieur d'Esse d'Epainvilliers is to be 
lieutenant-genei^ ; Mbnsieur d'Andelot, colonel of two 
thousand French faietL-at-arms,** he muttered, reading the 
nslmeis of those soldiers ivho served at the siege of Leith, and 
in the canipaign of 1548 ; " the Rhinegrave will bring three 
thousand Almayners armed with pike and arquebuae ; 
Monsieur Etanges is to be colonel of a thousand gendarmes 
on horseback^ Signer Hetro Strozzi will lead a thousalid 
Italian veterans ; M. le Chevalier de Dunois is to be general 
of the ordnance ; and the Sieur Nicholas de Yillegaignon, 
knight of Rhodez, and admiral of the galleys of France, shall 
bring twenty-two war-ships, and axty-two transports, ail 
bearing the ired lion of Scotland. 'Tis good, 'tis noble of 



ClbZOW CASTLS. l9S 

King HenrjT^ and wotiby tlie spirit ot the old isJUdnce "^ith 

France. 

» Fall— fall, whatever befall, 
OwrLimshaUhelmlof^U* ^ 

If We hive war witli England, — arid hourly I expte'ct it 
declaration of it, the sooner the^e sticcours arrivfe the better, 
for there are inany men in Scotland so foully corrupted by 
English gold, that t tremble at the prospect' of leading a 
Scottish army to the field, lest it craiUble by the V^rf 
corruption of our peerS." 

*' The galleys and transpdtts were lying in the h&rbotir of 
Brest, where I saw theiii When I sailed ; arid ttey Wait-^ — ** 

"Wait— for what f* 

**The arrival of the troops, who are alt choden meii,,l4hd 
are now on their march from the frontiers of Italy ; but I 
have yet another letter for Jrour gracfe.* 

" From Whotn t" 

** Her majesty ttie queen-toothet.** 

The brow of Ah*ah darkened for a moment, as hie Opened 
and read the missive. 

" She exults at the prospect of having so many JFrench 
men-at-arms to fence her daughter's throne, and fight the 
^glish ; but let ine be wary, lest they fight with Scottish 
men as well. Sir, if you love ine ^" 

"Oh, your excellency !" 

*' And wish to serve me," resumed the regent, grasping the 
arm of Fawside, and bending his keen dark eyes upon him, 
, you must avoid that dangerous Frenchwoman." 

" Who, my lord ?" stammered Fawside. 

"The widow of the late king; for she plots deeply to 
deprive me of the regency, which is the dUrling object of her 
ambition, and the hope of the Guises ; and this I know so 
well, that I dare scarcely lay my head on its pillow at night, 
tor ieair that a hand with a dagger is concealed behind the 
arras, — atoid her, I say ; avoid her I" 

o 2 



196 CADZOW CASTLE. 

Florence coloured deeply as the beautifal face and form 
of the royal widow seemed to rise before him, with the 
dearer image of her friend. Arran now insisted on his 
visitor being seated; and the purport of King Henry's 
letter having put him in the best of humours, he became 
more conversational. He walked about the room, and as he 
did so, or stood with his back to the fire, he said,— 

** I presume, sir, that you know how hard a task the 
loyal and faithful have to perform here in Scotland, to 
maintain the national league with France, in the face of 
secret treaties, formed, or 8<dd to have been formed, by 
certain of our lords, who were the prisoners of Eling Henry 
after the field of Solway, and whose plots, by the seven 
pillars of the house of wisdom, a wise man will be needed 
to uniraveL" 

" In France, I heard such things talked of openly ; and 
that Henry VIII. had the audacity to propose, if you 
would put the little Queen Mary into his murderous hands, 
to give his daughter Elizabeth in marriage to your son, now 
captain of the Scottish guard, and, with ati army, to make 
you king of all Scotland beyond the river Forth." 

"You heard rightly, sir," said Arran, with a scornful 
laugh j " 'twas a knave's hope — a madman's project ; and 
then he tried gold ; but had he offered all the precious metal 
that Michael Scott cheated the devil of, he would have failed 
with James of Arran !" 

" And how did wise Sir Michael cheat the devil?" 

"Know ye not the story ?" asked the earl, smiling. 

" No, my lord." 

" The Evil One was as marvellously oveiTeached as when 
Michael employed him to make ropes of sea-sand. He cut a 
hole in the crown^of his bonnet, and here, in Cadzow wood, 
holding it over the mouth of a coalheugh, which the devil saw 
not, so curiously had the wizard concealed it, he tauntingly 
ofiered to barter his soul for the said bonnet full of gold-dust," 



CADZOW CASTLE. 197 



" And tlie devil- 



'* Was outwitted, as he had to fill the pit ere he could fill 
the bonnet. So had Henry of England ofiered me all the 
gold which the infernal pit of Michael of Balwearie con- 
tained, he had failed to tempt me ; though I fear that a less 
bribe has tempted many others^ who pretend to be merely 
averse to the residence of our queen in France ; but, after 
oiir conference at Stirling, I have resolved that she sail for 
Brest ; for I would rather see the daughter of James V. 
lying by his side at Holyrood than wedded to son of him 
who, three years ago, carried fire and sword into Scotland, 
and who broke the gentle heart of Catharine of Aragon ! " 

" But what of the Protector Somerset ?" 

" He may meet us again in battle, when and where he 
will ; and now^ sir, if you will accompany me to Stirling, 
whither I set forth in a few minutes, you must re&esh ; for 
on my faith you look both weary and worn." 

Florence, in truth, felt and looked as the regent said ; 
for after his long ride from Edinburgh, and the adventures 
of the past day and night, he was becoming faint and pale. 
The regent sounded a silver whistle, which lay on the table, 
and was then used in lieu of a hand-bell. The young laird 
of Dalserfe, the senior page, appeared ; and to him Arran 
remitted the duty of attending to the wants of his visitor. 
The latter, though he would have preferred returning to 
Edinburgh, feU thskt the wish of Arran to have his company 
so far as Stirling implied a command, obedience to which 
became more palatable when he discovered that Mary of 
Lorraine and the ladies of her court would be present at the 
intended conference. 

The regent, a man of great penetration, though too quiet 
and well-meaning to govern a people so turbulent as the 
Scots, saw in Florence a young man, travelled, brave, intelli- 
gent^ of good position, of high spirit, and — what was much 
more remarkable in 1547 — of education. He felt that such 



}8^ xps jouBHinr. 

a man might prove invaltiable to hia JioqsehQld and govmi- 
mpnt, $^n4 ^^ ai^ous to attach him to his per^;^ 

This ide^ prqyed fortv^nate; fo^, by accompai^ying the 
regent \o ^t^rli^g, ]ie ^uded th^ followers of Bothwell f^d 
Glencaim, spme twe^ify or so of whom, with loaded arqi^^ 
bu8e% wer^ at fha^i mopient lurki])g in the forest pf Cladzow» 
fpr the Qxpr^ss purpose p| putting him q% if hp p^p fQV^ 
froia the p^tlp alope. 



-•♦♦- 



OHAPTEB XXIV. 

THE JOUBKETr 

Bight hand they leave thy ctiflb, Giaigforth I 
And apon tl^at t>ulwark of the nort)), . 
(jfrey Stirliog, yritb its tower and town^ 
Upon their fleet career look'd down. 

ScoU. 

On the wif.y from Cadzow to Stirling, though frequently 
honoured ]>y the society of the regent, whp requested him 
to ride near his person, Flore^ipe was sadj sombre, and 
abstracted] for his heart was full of ^e^y and bitter 
thpughta In Arran's train there rode a hundred horse, 
mostly gentlemen, all > well mounted, richly apparelled^^ and 
splendidly armed. As many of these were Hamiltons, they 
viewed with some jealousy and mistrust the sudden &mi* 
liarity which seemed to exist between the stranger and thei? 
chie£ The event^s which had taken place since the night of 
his landing at Leith had almost poured his heart against hia 
own countrymen ; at least these events had filled it with a 
thirst for vengeance on all wl^o were in league against the 
regent Arn|.n; tor with those^ and such ps those, he cor- 



VCS^ clffwcd ^e men who had l^id w^^ ^eodly 9P9trw % 
his desferactkniy and ha4 porscied wi^ nuck rancoTir p^^ who 
had done them no wrong. 

Champfleoiie he had xeaolyed to aUy, ^^hofit miieh 
pre&oe or oeiemony, on the first available opportunity. He 
had mmilar benevolent views r^arding the laird of Mill- 
hengh, the Lord Kilmann^ i|nd ao many othei!^ that, had he 
possessed the hands of Siiareq^ and had \ix every hand a 
sirprdy he would not have found the|n too mfuoiy to fulfil his 
men^ and hostile engagements. His pld inborn fmd heredi- 
taiy hatred of frestoQ was stiU unwayefing^ though tinged 
with compTinGtion ; for he could not bii^ remember and 
acknowledge the generosity of fhe old i^tan on whose grey 
hairs he had hu^ed bis scorq, his obliquy, and defiance. 

And then came to memory his love— -his unknown love— 
SQ beautiful and ^o playfully mysterious — a countess yet 
one whose name he had fioled to discover among the paany 
pountesses who, by ^he policy or loyalty of their husbands^ 
clustered about tbe person of Mary of Lorraine ; for it was 
becoming evident to all, that if a false move in ^e great 
games of war and politics were made by Arran, she, when 
supported by the Guises, a Erenc)i army under D'Esse 
d'SSpainvilliers, and those Scottish lords who adhered to hox^y 
would not fidl to obtain for herself that which she prised 
more than life — ^the regency of Scotland. 

The train of Arran rode rapidly, to reach Stirling in time^ 
lest the train of the queen-mother, who was coming from 
Edinburgh, might enteir the town before them ; and on this 
journey Florence could perceive, fix)m incidents that opcurxedy 
how the people and the times were changing. 

The wild white bulls were seen in great numbers about 
the woods of Cumbernauld, and the gentlemen of the re- 
gent's troop pursued and shot one of great size and beauty 
for mere sport, while it was grazing on the wild furzy heath 
of Fannyside-muir. They assigned the carcass to three of 



200 THE JOXTBITBT. 

the Queen's bedesmen, or blue-gown beggars, who were pass- 
ing, and then rode heedlessly on their way ; though on- an 
oak by the wayside there hung the festering and hideous 
remains of two poor Egyptians, who had been put to death 
by Malcolm Lord Fleming of Cumbernauld for having skdn 
one of these useless white oxen for food. 

At Templar-denny, they crossed the Carron by an ancient 
bridge of four pointed Gothic arches, built by the Knights of 
the Temple in the reign of David I. ; and there, as the 
glittering train of Arran rode through the village, the whole 
population were assembled on the bank of the river, in wild 
commotion, to duck a woman accused of witchcraft, while 
the air was rent by shouts of — 

" A witch ! a witch ! — ^banes to the bleeze, and soul to 
the deU ! " 

The victim was a hag, old enough, and ugly enoughy to 
support the character. She had dwelt apart from all in a 
wretched hut upon the haunted Hill of Oaks, and was 
accused of working much evil to a man who once mocked 
her years. By one spell she had stopped his mill for nine 
days and as many nights ; thus, though the Carron swept 
through the mill-race with the fury of a summer flood, the 
old moss-encrusted and wooden wheel stood still and im- 
movable ; but when it did turn, it was with a vengeance 
indeed ! It whirled with such velocity that the u)ill took 
fire and was soon reduced to ashes ; and all this she had 
achieved by the simple agency of burying a black cat alive, 
aAd casting above it three handfuls of salt. 

She shrieked piteously for aid and for mercy, as Arran's 
glittering train swept past ; but the age of chivalry was 
gone — ^vile superstition had taken its place ; and all these 
hundred lords, knights, and gentlemen, rode on their "way, 
abandoning this unhappy being to the fury of a mob, who 
soon ended her sufferings in the waters of the Carron, which 
swept her body to the Firth. 



THB JOUBinST. SOI 

The B^fonnation, with the saperstition of witchcraft, grew 
mnd flooxiahed side by side in SootlaQd. 

Ab the regent's train trayersed the district £saned still as 
the Scottish Marathon, a proof was seen of the progress the 
vhcde kingdom was making towards a universal apostasy 
firom Borne. Though a body of Cistercian nuns, on a pil- 
grimage from the priory of Emanuel, on the Avon, were 
heard singing the sexle, or noonday service of their order, in 
the chapel of St. Mary at Skoek, and the harmony of their 
sweet voices came delightfully on the soft wind that swayed 
the masses of wavy grain, and rustled the foliage of the Tor- 
wood at Banhockbum, one of those crosses which piety of 
old had placed in almost every Scottish village, had been 
overthrown in the night; the arms of this symbol of re- 
demption had been shattered, and the effigy of the Great 
Martyr was dashed to fragments, which were strewed over 
the roadway. 

Florence was neither devout nor bigoted, yet, like many 
of the regent's train, he felt that there was something in 
this new spectacle and sacrilege which deeply wounded his 
heart, and all the old traditions — if we may so name the 
solemn faith in which his mother reared him, and in which 
80 many of his ancestors had died — rushed like a flood upon 
his soul. Several gentlemen checked their horses, and 
frowned or muttered ; others smiled heedlessly and covertly, 
for the day was coming when all reverence for the cross 
and triple crown of Home would be lost amid the stem 
opposition of one portion of the Scottish nation and the 
apathetic indifference of the other. 



202 THE FnocESsxqzsr. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

■ 

THE ^^OCE9alO^, 

And many ft band of ardent youths were seen. 
Some into raptare fired biy glory's channs, 

Or burl'd the thnndenng car along the green. 
Or march'd embattled on in glitteriog arms. 

BeaUie. 

The Eegent Arran, with his gay train — their armour, jewels, 
and )ac6 all flashing in the sunshine — came at a gallop 
through the magnificent glades of the old Torwood, and 
entered Stirling by its lower gate, at the moment th^t t\ke 
cannon from the lofty castle, under the orders of Hans 
Cochrane, the Queen's master- gunner, beg^ to boom from 
the ramparts ; and the bells of the PominicanQ, in the Friar 
Wynd, and of the Franciscans, among whom King James lY, 
was wont to pa^s each Good Friday on his bare knee% " \n 
sackcloth shirt and iron belt," rang merrily ; and the vast 
silver-toned bell which King David hung in the great tower 
of Cambus Kenneth, on the green links of Forth, replied it^ 
the distance. 

The steep and narrow High Street of Stirling w^ so 
densely crowded by the burgesses and population of tbe 
adjacent villages, by country farmers and bonnet^lair^s on 
horseback, each with his gudewife cosily trussed on a -pillow 
behind him — and also by the trains of the Queen and Queen- 
mother, that it was with difiiculty Arran could approach, 
with his plumed hat in hand (he had given his helm/et to 
young Dalserfe), to pay his proper respects and take his 
place on the right hand of Mary of Lorraine^ while his reti- 
nue mingled with hers. 



SOS 

Tke daj was beantifa], dear, and aenme j and the chann- 
ing pnritj of the air, with the lofty situation of Stirling 
lising.on its ridge of rock from a Tast extent of fertile plain, 
cnrriag hilk^ Une river, and gre^i forest aoeneiy, that 
spread for miles aronnd it^ till mellowed £dnt and &r away 
in sonny mist and distance, might have made one think that 
it was on seme snch August day that King William the 
lion, in his last sickness, when the piayers of the Chnrch, 
and when the sabtle medicines drained from his fidry goblet, 
fidled to save him, thought of Stiriin^ and begged his 
courtiers to bear him theret, that he might inhale its delight- 
fol atmosphere, and live yet a little longer 

Amid the ceaseless hum of conversation, the air rang with 
cries, laoghter, the confused clamour, caused by the tram- 
pling of thousands of feet and iron hoo& in the narrow space, 
where tiiis dense and dusty throngs like the waves of a 
legman aea» seemed to be broken against the abrupt abut- 
ments of the houses wynds, and alleys ; the towers of turn- 
pike stairs and out-sbots^ or at times by the lowered lance, 
the levelled arquebuse^ or clenched hand of some exasperated 
man-ftt^arms who became incommoded by the pressure upon 
his mailed person. 

Every window was full of &oeQ, and every out-shot^ fore* 
stair, and doorhead, every ledge, moulding, and even the tops 
of some of the houses, bore a freight of bare-headed and 
bare-legged urchins, who, excited by the cannon, the bells, 
the crowd, the music, and the general hubbub, waved their 
caps or bonnets, and lent their shrill voices to swell the 
great chorus of sounds by which the Queen-mother, her 
little daughter, and the Eegent Arran, were welcomed into 
the loyal and ancient burgh of Stirling, whose noble castle 
'was to our kings of old what Windsor was to the house of 
England, and Aranjuez to the line of Castile, a summer 
palace, and — ^if such could be found in stormy Scotland-— ft 
place for recreation and repose. 



204 THE FAOCESSIOir. 

The Earl of Bothwell, outwardly still a loyal noble, with a 
troop of spearmen, all cuirassed, helmeted, and on horse- 
back, led the van; then came the great officers of state, 
mounted on caparisoned horses, each with his train of 
grooms and lackeys, many wearing their robes or official 
insignia ; thus Bothwell wore at his neck a silver whistle, 
and on his banner an anchor, in virtue of his office as Lord 
High Admiral of Scotland. 

First came the Lord Chancellor, John Hamilton, arch- 
bishop of St. Andrew's, a mild and gentle statesman, of great 
presence and dignity, the last Catholic primate of Scotland. 
He was barbarously murdered in 1571, at the bridge of 
Stirling, and in his last moments was insulted by his enemies 
compelling him to wear his pontifical robes. 

Then came the Lord High Treasurer, John Hamilton, 
abbot of Paisley, brother of the Regent; and the Comp- 
troller of Scotland, William Commendator, of Culross, each 
in the robes of his order. Then followed the Lord Keeper 
of the Privy Seal, bearing it in a velvet purse embroidered 
with the royal arms. This statesman was William Lord 
Buthven, of the fated line of Gowrie, and father of the stern 
Buthven, who looked so pale and ghastly through his barred 
helmet on that night twenty years after, when David Bizzio 
was slain in the north tower of Holyrood. 

The Secretary of State, David Panater, bishop of Boss, 
keen-eyed and shaggy-browed, bent his stem glance over the 
multitude. This was a learned prelate, poet, and statesman, 
who was once prior of St. Mary's beautiful isle, and for seven 
years was Scottish ambassador in France. Then came the 
laird of Colinton, who was Lord Clerk Begister, but who 
handled his two-handed sword better than his pen, riding 
beside the bishop of Orkney, who was lord president of 
the Court of Session, and a dabbler in the literature of the 
day — a scanty commodity withal. • 

The Great Chamberlain of Scotland came next. He wus 



THE PROCESSION. 205 

Malcolm Lord Fleming of Camberuanld, a brave and proud 
peer, who possessed a vast estate, having no less than twelve 
royal charters of lands and baronies in various countie& He 
was without armour, but wore a doublet of shining cloth of 
gold, with a chain and medal, also of gold, at his neck. Thirty 
gentlemen in armour, and as many servants in livery coats, 
armed with swords and petronels, and all bearing the name, 
arms, and colours of Fleming, rode behind him. Then, amid 
many other gentlemen, rode Claude Hamilton, of Preston, 
with his train of rough fellows, armed with helmet, jack, 
and spear, headed by his drunken butler, Symon Brodie, 
who had encased his portly person in a suit of remarkably 
rusty old iron, furnished with a capacious casque of the 
fifteenth century, from the hollow depths of which he swore 
at the crowd as confidently as if he had been an arquebusier 
of the royal guard 

Prec€?ded by many barons of parliament, wearing their 
crimson-velvet caps, which were adorned by golden circles, 
studded with six equidistant pearls, and by many bishops, 
abbots, and priors, in many-coloured robes, came M. d'Oysell, 
the ambassador of France, and Monsignore Grimani, patriarch 
of Venice and legate of Pope Paul III. A Venetian, feeble, 
nervous, sallow-visaged, and black-eyed, he had come to urge 
upon the Scottish hierarchy " the necessity for crushing the 
growing heresy, lest the church of God should fall." As if 
he had been a cardinal priest, two silver pillars were borne 
before him by two Dominican friars, between whom rode a 
Scottish knight of Khodes or Malta, from the preceptory of 
Torphichen, armed on all points, wearing the black mantle 
of his order, and bearing aloft the Boman banner, on which 
were gilded the triple crown of the sovereign pontiff and the 
symbolical keys of heaven. 

The clamour of the populace was hushed as this solemn 
personage approached ; but it was no spirit of reverenc 
repressed them ; for, sullen and contemptuous, the "Roii 



S06 tfiB PRocBsstoir. 

fts yet inuttered only undfer their beards, and scowled benfeath 
their bonnets at the envoy of " the pagan fu' o' pride ;" for 
the timd was oiie of change — ^the old faith all but dead, and 
the new "W^as little respebted arid less understood. 

We have said that the train of the Regent Arran joined 
thait of the Queen-mbtheh Hfe felt something of pique and 
envy at its splendour, yet he conrteously rode bareheaded 
by her side. In taking his place there, Fawside fell back, 
and, being pressed by the density of the crowd against the 
comer of a house, was compelled to remain there inactive 
on horseback while this glittering pit)cession, amid which 
80 many of his personal enetbies — snch as . Preston, Cassilis, 
Glbnbaim, and Kilhid,urd — ^bore a part, pilissed on. The sight 
of thede it! succession filled his heart with a Idnging for 
tBttibutitti justide upon them — a longing so deep and high, 
that the emotion swelled his breast till the clasps of his 
cuirass were strained td starting ; yet, retnembering that he 
was there alone — but oife Among many, common prudence 
compelled him to remain quiescent for a time. 

Led by Champfleurie came the Queen's band of armed 
pensioners or arquebusiers, wearing the arms arid livery of 
Scotland and Lorraine. These soldiers were first embodied 
by the widow of James Y., and existed as a portion of the 
Stirling garrison, wearing the Quaint costume of her time 
until 1803, when they were incorporated with one of the gar- 
rison battalions formed by Gebrge III. On this day they 
were preceded by the Queen's Swiss drummers, her trum- 
peters, violers, and taboutners, all clad in yellow Bruges 
satin, slashed arid trimmed with red, and led by M. Antoine, 
ih whom Florence imifaediately recognized the pretended 
dutnb valet of his mysterious habitation. 

Then came the widowed queen herself, looking rather 
pile, but beautiful as ever. She was seated in a chariot, 
then deemed a -Wonderful piece of mechanism. It was 
twelve feet long bysist i^ide, and rumbled alon^ on four 



THE PltOOiSSSIOll. S07 

elaborately-carved wheels. It was drawn by sax switch* 
tailed Flemish mares, each led by a lackey in scai'let and 
yellow, and was lined and hung with " doole-claith, or 
French black," as old Sir James Kirkaldy of Grange, her 
treasurer, styles it. Before it, an esquire bore her hus- 
band's royal banner, for the painting of which, in gold and 
fine colours, Andro Watson, limner to King James V., 
received the sum of four pounds. 

By her side was a little girl, whose sweet and childlike 
face was encircled by a triangular hood of purple velvet 
edged with pearls. This girl, with the dimpled cheeks and 
merry eyes, which dilated and glittered with alternate 
delight, surprise, and alarm at the bustle around her, was 
the queen of all the land, the only child of James V. ; 
and old men Who had fought at SolwAy, at Flodden, and 
at Ancmmford — agfed soldiers, Who had carried their white 
heads erect in S(5otland's bloodiest battles, — ^veiled them now, 
and prayed aloud that God might bless her. 

The conventional smile upon the beautiful face of Mary 
of Lorraine wad like the cold brightness of a winter sun, 
for many upon whom her smiles were falling she loved little 
and suspected much ; and thus she smiled on Arran when 
he bowed to his horse's mane to kiss her gloved hand. But 
the childlike Queen Mary laughed alotld, and held out both 
her pretty hands to the bearded earl, with a smile so sweet 
and natural, that even the cold and politic noble was moved, 
for it was the simple greeting of youth to a familiar face j 
while with her mother he Was on the terms of two well- 
bred people Who are shrewdly playing a selfish game and 
quite understand each other. Tet, as he gazed on the clear 
bright limpid eyes and smiling face of the beautiful child, 
be more than half repented the departure from that treaty by 
which she was to have become the bride of his son, the Lord 
Hamilton, who was then a soldier in France — a treaty which 
I would have placed the house of Arran on the Scottish throHe. 



208 TRB FR0CES8X0K. 

Mary's object was to obtain the regency, and with it the 
permanent custody of her daughter till she came of age ; 
while Arran, as next heir to the throne, was resolved to 
hold bo'th in his own hands, at all hazards and at ail perils. 

. In the Queen*s chariot were four ladies, who, like herself, 
wore the black velvet dool-cloak, the large hood of which, 
in the fashion of the time, was pulled so far over the face as 
to impart to the wearer the aspect of a mourner at a funeral. 

While all his pulses quickened with eagerness and 
anxiety, Florence strove to pierce the crowd that stood 
between him and this great mis-shapen and slowly- 
moving vehicle, which contained the two queens and 
their ladies ; but under their capacious hoods he failed 
to discover the face of her he sought. 

Suddenly one raised her gloved hand and lightly threw 
back the front of her hood. The action gave Florence a 
start like an electric shock. 

'^'Tis she!" he exclaimed, on recognizing the soft 
features, the dark eyebrows and hair of his unknown. 
''And now I cannot fail to discover her, as many here 
must know the names and rank of the ladies of the 
tabourette." 

He turned to a person who, like himself, was on horse- 
back, but who, being completely wedged in by the crowd, 
sat in his saddle gazing passivjely at the pageant, which 
ascended the steep street towards the castle of Stirling. 
He was well armed, and wore , the livery and badges of a 
trooper of the house of Glencaim, yet seemed, withal, to 
be a gentleman. In short, this person, who was gating, 
apparently, with the vacant curiosity of a mere spectator, 
was one of the most enterprising actors in our drama — 
Master Edward Shelly, the Englishman. To him, all this 
affair was but one other feature in the perilous political 
game he had been ordei^d to play, and which, in his soul, 
he despised. 



Eb kMnr UmiI tiie bemitifa], noUe^ i&d v«aKhj irife 
propoaed fixr bim by the SoottiBh malcontenta^ was lanong 
tke ittoiHiwnto of the two queens ; and though, es a soldier, 
aBonlogner, toloaUj indif^ient on ihe sobjeet of mattimony 
ia general, and, as an Knglwhman of 1547, eqpeoiaUy indif- 
ferent on the matter of a Scottish wife, be oertaii^y had 
some eariosity again to see this lady, whom, as yet, be bad 
never addresBed, bat whom be bad repeatedly passed in the 
streets, or seen at nuun^ and once at a bawking-party 
on Wardie Mnir, whui in attendance on Mary of 
LoRaine, like whonii she was a graoeM and expert horse* 
woman* 

The eyes of these two men were lighted by smiles, and 
the oobnr in their ebeeks heightened as they fxw the &ir 
young fiioei so suddenly rcTsaied ftom the sombre ^adow of 
the doole-doak ; but an examination of their smilss will 
prove that they lesolted firom diffittent emotions. 

Ilorenoe expressed in bis moistened eyes all his soul ftit 
of honest joy and love on beholding one so dear to bis heart 
—a heart as yet nnbackneyed in the waysof the world; and 
the warm flush oame and went on his smooth boyish cheek, 
while every pulse beat rapidly. 

The smik that spread slowly over the handsome and sun- 
burned £m» of Edward Bhelly, expressed cmly satisfaction, 
with (it might be) a dash of triumph, that she was all we 
have described her to be. Even in that age he was past 
the years of romantic or sadden attachments. Shelly was 
verging on forty ; and bis latter twenty years had been 
spent in Calais and other English garrisons in France ■: thus, 
in some respect^ his morality, especially as regarded women, 
fitted him as loosely as his leather glove. 

** So bo, my future wife 1 " he muttered, twisting his thick 
moustache up to his eyes, in the clear blue of which drollery 
was perhaps the prevailing expression. 

<< My love, unknown love 1 " whispered Florence in the 

p 



210 THE PBOcsssipsr. 

depth of his hearty and then a sadness came over all his 
features and his sool^ he knew not why. 

These two persons, the man and the youth, the careless 
and the impassioned, the triumphant and the sad, conscious 
that the same face attracted them, now turned towards each 
other, and spoke. 

« Worthy sir, cai^ you favour me with the name of that 
lady who has just thrown back her hood ? " asked Florence, 
in a voice that was almost tremulous, as if he feared the 
secret of his heart would be exposed. 

** And who is now speaking to the little queen 9 " 

" Yes." 

<< 'Tis Madeline Home, the Countess of Yarrow.** 

« Yarrow I " reiterated Florence in a breathless voice. 

*< Yes, the niece, and some say, heiress, of Claude Hamil- 
ton of Preston, who hath just passed upward with a train 
of horse, and his butler^ a drunken lout, like a huge lobster 
at their head." 

Had a cannon exploded at his ear, Florence could not 
have been more astounded than by this revelation of a 
relationship so fatal to the romance and success of his 
love. ' 

'^ She is beautiful, my friend," continued the Englishman, 
looking at her, with his head on one %ide, with the air of a 
connoisseur admiring a horse, a yacht, or a picture ; '^ what 
think you of her ? " 

'^ That one so fair, so noble, must have many, perhaps too 
many lovers," sighed the young man in a voice of bitterness, 
as he cast down his eyes. 

His manner was so strange, that Shelly now turned 
sharply towards him, and from the expression xd his face 
began to gather, or to fear, that there were in Stirling 
more lovers already than were quite necessary; but the 
Queen's great chariot passed on; the crowd collapsed in 
its rear ; the two horsemen were I'oughly separated, and 



THB PB0GE8SI0N. 211 

Florence, bewildered by what lie had jast beards mechanicilly 
followed tbe Eegent's train towards the GasUe of Stirling. 
He had bat one thought : — 

** Countess of Tarrow j she is the Gonntess of Yarrow, 
whose father^s sword was foremost on the day mj father 
fell ! " 

This, then, was the reason why she and the Qaeen, with 
a tact and secrecy which thus defeated the end in view, had 
so stndioosly concealed her name from him. But what 
availed their tact and secrecy now ? 

To love the niece, the ward and saccessor, the nearest 
and only kinswoman of Claude Hamilton, the man whom, 
since infancy, he had been taught to abhor, — ^the slayer of 
his father, the slayer of his brave brother Willie ; he whom 
he had registered a thousand impious vows to destroy 
whenever and wherever they met, — at church or in mar- 
ket, in field or on highway ; he whose namq in Fawside 
Tower had been a household word for all that was vile 
and hateful ; he whose friendship he. had so totally scorned, 
and on whose white hairs he had heaped obloquy and 
hurled defiance ! 

Alas ! it produced a terrible chaos of thought and revul- 
sion of feeling. Here Father John of Tranent would recog- 
nize the finger of Heaven, . pointing a way to soothe the 
angty passions of men, and to a lasting peace between the 
rival races ; but then Dame Alison, that stem daughter of 
the gloomy house of Colzean, would only recognize a snare 
of the Evil One, who was seeking to deprive her of her 
" pound of flesh," — of her just and lawful meed of ven- 
geance ! 

Full of these distressing reflections, Florence followed 
the train of the Queen into the Castle of Stirling, and, dis- 
mounting within the arched gate, which is defended by 
round towers, that are still of great strength, and were 
then surmounted by steeple-like roofs of slate, he joined 

p 2 



S12 m pnooBBSfOBf. 

the Regent's ftuite, who were now all on foot. Bened the 
loud and inoedsant jingling of spurs of gold, of silver, and 
of Eipon steel, upon the payement of the yard, the stair- 
cases, and the great hall, where the conference was to be 
held, proved how great was' the number of men of dis- 
tinction who followed Mary of Lorraine and the Regent to 
counciL 

As the former alighted from her chariot, there occurred 
(according to the narrative of the vicar of Tranent) one 
of those incidents, which were frequent in those simple 
times, when royalty was easier of access than now. 

An aged woman, wearing a curchie and tartan cloak, 
threw herself on her knees, and lifting up her hands^ 
exclaimed,^ 

" Heaven save your grace I " 

*^ What seek you 1 *' asked the Queen, pausing. 

'< Charity ;-^my gudeman died on Flodden Hill wi'^his 
four sons and his three brethren." 

^ My poor woman,'* said Mary of Lorraine, detaching a 
purse from her girdle, and placing it in the hand of the 
mendicant, ''then we have each lost a husband for 
Scotland.'' 

The Countess of Yarrow led the little Queen Mary by the 
left hand. 

The Regent Arran gave his right hand, ungloved, to her 
mother ; their suites formed in procession ; and, while the 
trumpets sounded shrill and high, they ascended to the 
hall, between ranks of pikemen and arquebusiers £ftcing 
inwards. 

The bells continued to toll; still the populace without 
shouted their acclaim; still the iron culverins and brass 
moyennes thundered in smoke and flame from the massive 
bastions and arched loopholes, wreathing the grey turrets 
with fleecy vapour, and waking the distant echoes of the 
Torwood and the Abbey Craig ; while, that nothing might 



TBM OOSVBHnON OF XSTAXBB. (IS 

• 

be wanting to swell tlie ooinbinati<Hi of noiaes, two old 
hoBB, pets and favoiiiites of the late King Jame^ to 
whom thej had been sent by the Emperor Charles Y., 
roused ai^pily from their letiiargio noonday dose, were 
pswiiii^ innaiiaQ^ and bellowing in that small oonrt^ 
which, fiom their piesenoe there^ is yet named the Lions' 
Den« 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE CONYENTIOK OF ESTA3XS« 

Oh, ifsstleBMn of Sootiand 1 oh, eheTaliem of Franee I 

How Mch and aU had grasp'd his sword and seised his aqg?y ]aiice« 

If lady-love, or sister dear, or n^rer, dearer bride, • 

Had been like me, your friendless queen, insulted and belied ) 

Bon GavUier. 

Tms meeting took place in that magnificent ball which 
was built by James IIL for banquets and the meeting of 
parliament. It is ope hundred and twenty feet long ; and 
to the taste for architecture, which led him to embellish it 
in a style of the most Acrid beauty (long since destroyed by 
the utilitarian barbarism of the Board of Ordnance), with 
his love for painting, poetry,. music, and sculpture, he owed 
much of that malignity which embittered his short life, and 
ultimately led to his fatal and terrible end in the adjacent 
field of Saucbiebum. 

Unlike the rough, rude tower which crowns the tremens 
dous precipice that overhangs the valley, and from the 
small windows of which our earlier monarchs, such as the 
four Malcolms, the three Alexanders, and the three Roberts, 
yreve wout to survey the mighigr landscape of wood and wold, 



<• 



214 THE CONVENTION OP ESTATES. 

mountain and rock, througb ^wliicli the snaky Foitli ^witids 
far BwAy to sea, — ^with the giant Grampians, deep, da^ 
and purple, cut hy the hand of God into a hundred splintered 
peaks, mellowing in distance amid the skies of gold and 
azure, — unlike this rude tower, we say, from the battlements 
of which men had seen Wallace win his victory, by the old 
bridge, and Bruce sweep Edward's host from Bannockbum,— 
the buildings of James III. in Stirling Castle are covered 
by quaint pilasters, deep niches, elaborate carvings, and rich 
mouldings; by columns and brackets, supporting stataes 
of Venus, Diana, Perseus, Cleopatra, James V., and 
Omphale. 

The hall had a lofty roof of oak, from w^ich hung En^i^, 
Moorish, and Portuguese banners, taken in battles at sea. 
by the gallant Bartons ; by Sir Andrew "Wood, of Largo, in 
his famous YeUow Frigate ; and by Sir Alexander Mathieson, 
the " old king of the sea." Its walls were covered by gaudy 
frescoes, ot pieces of tapestry, the work of Margaret of 
Oldenburg and the ladies of her court. At the upper end 
stood the throne, under the old purple canopy of James IV., 
until whose reign the royal colour in Scotland had been 
purple; and on a table, before this lofty chair, lay the 
sceptre, the sword of state, and the crown, — that croiJrn of 
thorns, and of sorrow, which more than one valiant king of 
Scotland has bequeathed to his son on the battlefield, — the 
fatal heritage of a fated line of kings. 

During a flourish of trumpets, the little queen ih& placed 
upon the throne, where she gazed about her smiling, while 
a mixture of childlike wonder, &larm, and drollery glittei^ed 
in her dark and dilating eyes. On her left hand sat Mary 
of Lorraine, a step lower down; on her right stood the 
Begent, in his shining doublet, leaning on his long sword. 
Behind the former were grouped the Countesses of Yarrow, 
Mar, Huntly, Errol, and Orkney, in their long dool- 
cloaks ; behind the latter was a gay suite of lesser barony 



THE oolsmsmnoix of estates. 215 

and gantlemen of the surname of Hamilton, gorgeously 
attired and armed. 

With an emotion of irrepressible sadness, Mary of Lorraine 
gased round, the beautiful hall, and on the splendid but 
aileat crowd wl^ich filled it ; glittering in armour, lace, 
velvet, silk, jewellery, plumage, and embroidery. Then her 
£ne eyes drooped on the child by her side. 

To her, Stirling Oastle was a place of many sad and 
atirring associationa There, her husband, the magnificent 
and gallant James Y., was bom, and crowned in the same 
year in which his fetther fell in battle. It was his fsLVourite 
residence, and the scene of many of his merry frolics, as the 
gudeman of Ballengeich ; ' and thete their only surviving 
child. Queen Mary, had been crowned in 1543, when on]y< 
nine months old,— -crowned queen of a people who were to 
cast her forth as a waif upon the sea of misfortune ; but on 
whose annals the story of her sorrows, and of their shame 
has cast a shadow that may never fade. 

Many conflicting public and private interests were in* 
▼olved in the result of this convention of estates, or con- 
ferenoe at Stirling. 

The marriage of the young queen with the heir of France, 
or with the boy Edward YL; and hence the great ques- 
tion of peace or war with England; involving the lives of 
thousands, who were doomed never to see the close of 
autumn. 

Bothwell looked forward with confidence to the rejection 
of the French marriage, and to himself obtaining the hand 
of an English princess, when he could exult over Mary of 
Locraine, who had trifled with his love, as with the love of 
many others, as already related, for reasons of her own, and 
slighted him in the end. 

M. d'Oysell, the ambassador of Henry IL, confidently 
anticipated the successful issue of that diplomacy Y^ich 
would ultimately make him a peer of France, knight of St. 



216 TBB OOVYnnOH 0F WA<aM. 

Michaely and perhapB lord of some forfeited Hogiidiiol 
seignenrie* 

M. Onmani, the patriaroh of Tenioey had also in view the 
maintenance of the ancient leagne between France and 
Scotland ; that the hf drarheaded heresy of the latter might 
he destroyed by fire and swordi if the power of the preacher 
failed* 

Gande Hamilton, of Prestmi, already saw in imagination 
his coming patent of the earldom of Gladsmniry aa othem of 
his fitction-^-daa8ili% Olencaim, and Kilmaora^Hiid their 
penBteni^ placet, and profits^ if the English marriage w-as 
achieved. 

Edward Shelly, somewhat to his own surprise, felt a 
combination of selfishness and delight, at the prospect of 
winning a rich and beantifol wife-^-a young countesi^ and 
perhaps an earldom, as the reward of Iim diplomacy ; while 
poor Florence Fawside, ignorant of all these secret springs 
of action, which moved the wise and good, or the titled 
knaves around him, looked gloomily forward to the sequel of 
the feud he had yet to foster, and to the consequent loaa, for 
ever, of a love that was all the more seductive and aUuriog 
because such a passion was nevr to his heart, and that she 
who was its origin, had thrown much that was romantic 
around it. Although the poor lad knew it not, on the 
decision of these lords and barons, lojral and true^ or sebd 
and false, depended, perhaps, the sequel of his love ; for the 
object of it was to be bartered, as Shelly phrased it, " like a 
bale of goods," to a foreign emissary, as the price of his 
services in assisting to subvert the liberties of Scotland. In 
his sudden grief, on discovering the abyss of old hereditary 
hate that yawned between himself and Madeline Home, he 
forgot even the wrongs he had to avenge upon the Laird of 
Champfleurie and others, who had plotted for his destruction. 
He forgot all but her presence, and that she was lost to 
himi 



THS COWBKnOH OF flBTAanB. 817 

All Lowland Scotland 'stood on tiptoe, watdiing with 
anxiety the result of a debate that was to give her an 
English king, or was still farther to cement the league of 
five hundred years, by placing the French dauphin on the 
throne of the Stuarts ; we say L&idand Scotland, for the 
Celts, ever at war among themselves, viewed with disdain 
or ' heeded not whatever was done, beyond their then 
impassable boundary, the Grampians. 

Arran looked forward to having the r^ncy placed more 
securely in his hand% and resolving that, if it passed, as 
ultimately it did, into the firmer grasp of Mary of Lorraine, 
to resort at once to arms^ and hoist the standard of revolt on 
his castle of Cadzow. 

Let us see how all this ended. 

The debate was stormy, for many of the speakers were 
rude and brief in speech, rough, unlettered, fierce, and tur- 
bulent. Frowns were exchanged, gauntleted hands were 
elenchedy and more than once the pommels of swords and 
poniards were ominously touched, among both partly ; for 
though the proud spirit and patriotism of many were ronsibd 
to fiery action by the great event at issue, there were others, 
whom we need not name— the Scottish fMUa/ruma of 1547 
— ^whose cupidity and selfishness alone were enlisted in the 
cause ; but vain were their exertions. The letter of Henry 
of Yaloia, the production of which caused many an eye to 
lour on Florence, who, absorbed in his own thoughts, was 
all unconscious that he was observed at all,*~the energy of 
his ambassador, M . d'Oysell, and the eloquence of Mary 
of Lorraine, when united to her own beauty and her hus- 
band's memory, bore all before them ! Hence the proposals 
of the English Protector, Somerset, were abruptly rejected, 
with something very much akin to disdain. In his letters 
there was assumed a dictatorial tone, which could not fail 
to ofiend the loyal portion of the Scottish riotlewe, 

^I>y his holiness Pope Julius XL,** said Arran with 



218 THE COmrENTIOK OF ESTAtES. 

» 

kindling eye, '' it was ordained in 1504, that at his court 
the king of Scotland should take precedence of the kings 
of Castile, of Hungary, Poland, Navarire, of Bohemia, and 
Denmark; and that he should recognize 7ix> superior but 
God and His vicegerent on earth : then whence this gro- 
tesque loftiness of tone from a regeiit of England % " 

The patriarch of Tenice and the French ambassador be- 
held this growing indignation with evident satisfaction ; 
while glances of ill-concealed anger and dismay were ex- 
changed by those whose names were affixed to the indenture 
which, at that moment. Shelly carried in the secret pocket 
of hisjazarine-jacket. Cassilis, who had little patience and 
less politeness, openly insulted the legate by terming Pope 
Julius " a shaveling mass-monger and pagan priest." 

^' My lord, my lord ! " exclaimed the Archbishop of St. 
Andrew's, growing pale with anger ; " beware lest he excom- 
municate thee with bell, book, and candle ! " 

"I care not," replied the sullen earl, frowning at the 
primate under the aventayle of his helmet ; '* for I am 
ready to maintain, wi' the auld Lollards o' Kyle, that the 
pope 18 a pagan, who exalteth himself against God, and above 
Him ; that he can neither remit sins nor the pains of pur- 
gatory by mumbling Latin, or scribbling on a sheep-hide ; 
that the blessing of a bishop is worth less than a brass 
bodle, and that Paul III. is the head o' the crumbling kirk 
of Antichrist ! " 

The sallow Venetian trembled with horror and anger at 
these words, and raised his thin white tremulous hands to 
heaven. 

'< Sancta Maria !" he exclaimed ; '' silence, thou false peer, 
lest I have thee burned quick ! " 

Cassilis laughed aloud, till every joint in bis armour 
rattled. 

"I am Gilbert Kennedy," said he, "and can betake me 
to my auld house in the wilds o* Carrick ; so send your 



THE CONYENnON OF ESTATES. 219 

faggots tbere ; and, hark ye, sir legate, I, who have hanged 
a monk, may feed the crows with a patriarch." 

Cassilis was a stem and ferocious lord, so none dared to 
reply. He was a tyrant over his vassals, who found his 
avarice insatiable ; yet it was always exerted in form of feudal 
law. Thys, on the marriage of each of his daughters (he had 
two--Jean, married to the Earl of Orkney, and Catherine, ' 
to the Laird of Banburrow), or the knighting of his sons, 
the master, and Sir Thomas of Colzean ; or for the mainte- 
nance of feuds with his neighbours, he had mulcted them 
heavily by the ordinance which made it " lesome to the lord 
to seek sic help frae his men conforme to their faculties and 
the quantitie of their lands ; " in short, to tax them, and 
seize the best of the goods in stable, byre, roost, and cheese- 
room, whenever the lord pleased, or found an urgent neces- 
sity for so doing. 

The arguments and energy of this avaricious peer, of 
Glencaim, Kilmaurs, and others, who were in secret the 
agents or adherents of Somerset, if they failed to convince 
the mass who heard them, of the advantages that might 
accrue from a nuptial and political union with England, 
succeeded at last in filling with undefined alarm the bosom 
of Mary of Lorraine, whose finely nervous and aristocratic, 
yet soft temperament, was as ill calculated to withstand the 
turbulence, cupidity, and savagery of these atrocious peers, 
as in after-times her daughter to withstand their sons. She 
knew the falsehood of those with whom she had to contend, 
and who were now collected in a gloomy group near the 
council-t£^ble. Her soft cheek, from having the pink tinge 
of a sea-shell, crimsoned ; her beautiful eyes filled with light, 
and, with a hand white as marble, grasping an arm of her 
innocent daughter's throne, she rose to speak, and then all 
were hushed to silence, and every eye was turned towards 
her. 

<'My lords and gentlemen," said she, gathering courage 



220 TSB oovYJBsmos 09 xenriTBS. 

from the emergency of the moment and the presmee of 
M. d'Oysell and the patriarch of Venice, ^'the holy religion 
which was placfted in this soil a thousand years ago, and 
which flourished so hroadly and so well, yielding good fruit, 
has heen all but uprooted I A cardinal priest, a prince of 
the Church, has been barbarously murdered in his own 
archiepiscopal palace, and, gashed by wounds, his naked 
corpse has been suspended from its ramparts in the Kght 
of noon ! Already, by this tremendous act, the altar of 
Gk)d has been defiled and the temple shaken to its founda- 
tion. Through the dim yista of events to c(»ne, I look 
forward with &ar and sorrow to the future reign of my 
little daughter, the child of the good King James Y,^-that 
King James whom Pope Julius made defender of the faith, 
and girt with a sword sharpeped by his holy hand on the 
altar-stone of St. Peter, against all heretics, especiaUy those 
of England, — ^that James Y., whose young and noble heart 
was broken by the rebel spirit of his peers, by their treason 
to Scotland in the cabinet, apd their cowardice at the battle 
of Sol way. ITay, never frown on me, or rattle your swords, my 
lords of Cassilis •and Glencaim," she added, waving her small 
white hand, on which the jewels flashed like the scorn that 
lighted up her eyes ; ^' I am a woman, and claim a woman's 
privilege to speak ; and thus I repeat again, that I antieipate 
the future of my daughter, a Stuart and a Guise, among you 
with grief and hor^ror ! The Earls of Bothwell and Glen- 
caim have spoken well and plausibly ; but apart from all, 
the Duke of Somerset's conditions, which are unworthy the 
Scottish crown aud degrading to the Scottish people, what 
happiness could be my daughter's in wedding the son of the 
apostate Henry, — be who was the horror of all modest 
women, — ^he who espoused Apne Boleyn, knowing her to be 
his own daughter, and yet laid her head on the block ; who 
violated his promises to Anne of Cleves, and sent her fidr 
successor also to the block ; who murdered the aged Cpimtebij 



SHB OOKYBQimOK OF BSTATfil Hi 

of Solisbuxy, and sent more than seventy thousand of his 
subjects to await his appearance before the judgmejit-seat of 
God j he who, by his lusts, and by his treason to the Holy 
See, made all England turn, in one day, heretic ! Yet it is 
to the son of this man you would wed her in helpless infancy ; 
and to the custody of his creature Somerset you would yield 
her, the daughter of Scotland and of France ! " 

A deep silence succeeded this outburst At last Arran 
spoka 

^ Fear not, madam," said he ; " being the next kinsman to 
the crown, I am, by the ancient <:sustom of our mother 
country, the tutor or custodian of its infiemt sovereign, and, 
with €rod's will, I shall remain so 1 " 

^ None dare dispute this right, Lord Earl," said Mary. 

" None, save the king of England or his representative,** 
m^ed Glencaim ; ** and he does so by the right of a treaty 
for the marriage of Edward with the daughter of King 
James, a treaty-^ — " 

**' Which we do not recognize," interrupted Arran. 

"What cared Henry of England for treaties 9" ex- 
claimed Arran's brother, the Archbishop of St. An- 
dreVfly — **he who trampled on all laws^ human and 
diviner 

" He hath gone to the place of his reward, sir priest," 
replied the rude Glencairn ; ** and now we have to deal, not 
mth a dead king, but with the Duke of Somerset." 

*^A heretic as stout," continued the incensed primate, 
'' though perhaps less lecherous and lustful" 

^ Lustful enough of our Scottish blood," said the gallant 
Earl of Huntly, witk a smile, '' if we may judge of his cam- 
paign among us here in '44, when we knew him as Edward 
Earl of Hertford." 

^ The result of ^all this chattering will be that we shall 
have war," said Glencaim. " The English will come*—" 

<^ With their Spanish and German auxiliaries- 



223 THE ooirvsNTioir of estates. 

"Well, let them come," retorted Arran. "Our hills are steep, 
our streams are deep and swift, our hearts, I hope, as stout, 
and the swords bequeathed to us by our sires from a thou- 
sand bloody fields, are sharp and sure as ever ! Let Somerset 
come, with his English billmen, his German pikes, and 
Spanish arquebuses : when I/rue to herself , Scotland is 
unconquerable ! " 

" Thou art right, my lord," added the patriarch of Venice ; 
" her people are unconquerable. But among her nobles are 
men ever ready to bend their necks to any chain of gold, or 
sell their faith and honour to the highest bidder ! " 

Perceiving that their design of having the English 
marriage accomplished was on the eve of being hopelessly 
frustrated, — ^that the proposals of the Valois were all but 
formally accepted by the regent and Mary of Lorraine, 
those who were in secret league with England became 
desperate, and Kilmaurs at last conceived the artful idea 
of embroiling Arran with the Queen-mother on a point 
concerning which he knew them to be remarkably sensitive. 
The smile of this crafty young lord was a mere twitch of 
the mouth, an unpleasant grimace at best ; yet such a smile 
his visage wore when, during a pause in this strangely-con- 
ducted controversy, he said to Arran, in a low and stem 
voice, — 

" Beware, my lord regent, lest this French marriage be 
not a plot of the Guises merely to involve us in a war with 
England." 

"For that I care little. But to what end would it 
be?" 

" An alteration in the regency.** 

Arran changed colour, and eyeing the young lord 
askance, asked, through his clenched teeth, • 

" That I may be succeeded by whom ? " 

" The Queen-mother, very probably." 

"'Tis fiilse^ my Lord Kilmaurs!" exclaimed Mary of 



THB OOmrENTIOir OF BSTATBS. 323 

Loxxainey haaghtilj^ ^'I say so— ]^ Mary, Qaeen of Scot- 
land P ^ 

"Under favour, madam/' said Arran, reddening with 
annoyance, ''you are neither Queen of Scotland nor the 
Scots, but simply queen-mother of the sovereign. There 
is a difference, you will pardon me. Henry of Yalois is 
king of France ; Edward YI. is king of England ; but 
our monarchs have ever been kings of the Scots ; for the 
soxL belongs to the people." 

"That whilk they soak so readily wi their gude red 
bluid, may wed be theirs," said the aged Earl of Mar. 

" Bravade as ye may," urged Kilmaurs, " 'tis all a plot 
of the Guises ; and such I will maintain it to be." 

" NoW| grant me patience to scorn this base calumny ! " 
said Mary of Lorraine, growing alternately red and pale 
with anger ; for though she coveted this post in her heart, 
she knew too well the danger of making an enemy of Arran. 
" Good, my lords ; I have made no struggle for the regency, 
nor have ever ventured to compete with my cousin 
Arran." 

" Madam," said Arran coldly, " what right could you have 
pled?" 

" Eight enough," replied the Queen, veiling her anger by 
a smile ; " nor am I quite without precedents either." 

" Indeed ! " said Arran, while Kilmaurs twitched the 
velvet mantle of Cassilis, and smiled to see the train on fire ; 
<' will you pleiase to state this right ? " 

"A mother's right to rear h^r tender offspring; and 
Heaven knows that thought engrossed my whole heart, after 
the death of my two sons at Eothesay, and of my late hus- 
band and beloved king." 

" €^ sain him ! God rest him in his grave at Holy- 
rood ! " muttered the loyal old Earl of Mar, raising his 
bonnet ; "he was the &.ther of the poor." 

"Lord earl, I thank you," said Mary, whose eyes filled 



1S4 TMM OOWHKTIQV OT WKUOMU 

with teaniy and wbooe daaghteri on pero«ivkig ttis emottoDy 
gently st^ her little hand within hers ; '* oEter his denth, 
I might have' urged the parliament to remember that 
Mary of Gueldres, the widow of James EL, and Maxgaret 
Tudor, the widow of James lY.^ were both regents of 
Scotland ; then why not I, Mary of Quiae a<kd Lorraine^ 
widow of their desoendant, James Y. t Yet» I asked jrou 
not for this. I love my kinsman Arran ; but I better love 
my little daughter — ^the child your monarch left me« Is it 
not 80, my good Lord Regent 9 " 

" It ia, madam ; you speak most fidrly and truly,** replied 
Arran, whose smile belied the admission. 

** I call God and His blessed Mother to witness, if I had 
then a thought in the world, but to rear my babe, as I was 
reared by my £Either, Ben6 of Lorraine, a good Catholic, and 
to guard her from the intrigues oi thoM who would d^troy 
the liberties of her country and her hope of salvation, by 
giving her in marriage to the heretic son of a heretic king." 

''And while united to resist this object," said Arran, 
courteously kissing her white hand, '' we are invincible j so 
long live the Dauphin of France who shall one day be 
Francis I., king of the Scots." 

A loud burst of applause shook the hall, while the mal- 
content lords exchanged glances of fury. 

'' Beware, my Lord of Arran, beware," said Glencaim ; 
'' last year, '46, Francis L of France was glad to pur^ase 
a peace with England at the expense of eight hundred 
thousand crowns." 

" We will purchase it at the expense of a few supeiAuous 
lives,'* retorted Arran, with a glance of stem signifioantee, 
which made the sombre earl yet more grim and sullen ; and 
now Bothwall began to fear that his chance of obtaining an 
English princess to grace his castle of Hermitage, was about 
as slender as Master Edward Shelly's hope of obtainitig a 
Scottish countess^ for better or worsoi 



THE OOKVEMTIOK OF E8TATE& 225 

The geoeral result of this conference, or convention of 
the lords spiritual and temporal^ was a unanimify of sen- 
timent on the part of the regent and of the queen-mother 
to promote internal peace and public order. The former, 
for the common weal, formally renounced the contract of 
marriage between the young queen and his son the Lord 
Hamilton, in favour of the Dauphin of France, and annulled 
all the bonds given by various powerful peers, who pledged 
themselves to see that alliance effected. 

The Earl of Angus and the Lord Maxwell, stung with 
shame^ publicly and solemnly repudiated all promises of 
loyalty or fealty to England; and the peer last named 
was made warden of the western marches. Bothwell, 
Cassilis, and Glencairn, with others of their party, were 
left in a state of doubt, irresolution, and fear ; for there was 
now at hand a crisis which would f(yrc» them to arms^ 
either for Scotland or against her. 

The convention dissolved, and from that hour Scotland 
and England prepared for open war ! 

Daring the debate the eyes of Florence and of the coun- 
tess met repeatedly, and each time she trembled, coloured 
deeply, and looked aside. Then, after a time, she durst not 
torn towards him* She knew that rwio he must have dis- 
covered her name, and who she was ; and her heart seemed 
to ahzink and wither up within her, in dread lest his 
love might turn to indifference, if not to hatred j for she 
knew the depth of abhorrence excited by the memory of the 
death-feud, inculcated by Lady Alison, in the two sons of 
Sir John Fawside. 

Meanwhile, ignorant of what was passing in the minds 
of his niece atid his 9(ArdM(vnl enemj, the old Laird of 
Preston had more than once surveyed the latter with 
somewhat of melancholy interest ; for he knew the wild, 
stem spirit which this youth inherited from his father — and 
the ideas he had imbibed with the milk and blood of his 

Q 



226 THB OONVENTIOK OF ESTATES. 

mother j but poor Florence, overwhelmei} by varied 
emotions, and by the secret he had so recently lenmed, 
avoided altogether the keen grey eye of Hamilton. 

The queen-mother made a low reverenoe to the lords of 
oonyention, and while the sharp trumpets flourished bravely, 
withdrew with her daughter and ladies of honour. The eye 
of Florence followed sorrowfully the sombre group in their 
doole-cloaks (for Mary of Lorraine in public stiU wore the 
garb of mourning), and in imagination he seemed to be bid- 
ding adieu for ever to his love^ and the hope it had kindled 
within him. 

In presence of this beautiful girl the young man seemed 
to be alike without words, or thoughts that bad any 
coherence. 

So absorbing was the emotion, that he was quite uncon-' 
scious of the insolent and defiant glances levelled at him 
by Gleneairn, by his son Kilmaurs, and others, as they 
brushed past and left the hall, to scheme further plots for 
vengeance or for safety ; for these lords and their followers 
were only restrained by a knowledge of the locality, of its 
sanctity, and of the high powers of the Lord High Constar 
ble, from assaulting and slaying him, sword in hand, within 
the precincts of this royal castle and palace ; for prinnely 
Stirling, in Scotland's earlier days, was both. 

Within an hour after the convention brok^ up two 
horsemen were seen passing eastward, through the ToTWOod, 
at full speed, to lessen as much as possible the eighty Scottish 
miles or so that lay between them and the frontiers of 
England. 

They were the valiant captain of the Boulogners and 
Master Patten, the emissaries of the Duke of Somerset^ on 
the high-road for Berwick and London, to announce that 
England had no argument left her now but a sharp and 
dangerous one — the sword I 

The loyal and true foresaw the evils to come with auiGexe 



KADELIinB HQIOL S27 

sorrow j and> under their ailvery beiirda, old men muttered 
that ancient prophecy 90 fsitallj and ao frequently applicable 
to Scotland :--<- 

Wq9 ^mt9 <$« Ic^nd who9§ Ung ia a ^kOi t 



CHAPTER XXVIL 

IIADELIKE HOME. 

Tia Irak thy name, that is my enemy ; — 
Thou art l^yaelf thooghj not a Montague. 
What 'a Montague ? It is nor bandy nor foot. 
Nor arm, nor face, nor any oXhw piM^t 
Belonging to a man. 

Borneo and Jtdid, 

liBFT almost alone in the king's hall^ Florence retired from 
it with a heart that was alternately a prey to the emotions 
of sadness and mortification, bitterness and anger. 

He had seen Madeline Home in her place at court as 
Countess of Yarrow, as maid of honour to Mary of Lorraine 
and as daughter of that brave Quentin «Uome, sixth Earl of 
Yarrow, who bore the king's standard at Flodden, and was 
warden of the middle marches — who was cupbearer to 
James V., and his ambassador to John HI. of Portugal. 
Florence had seen the eyes of a hundred men surveying with 
admiration her beauty, which rivalled and at times outshone 
that of the queen she attended. The conference had lasted 
three hours. In all that time his eyes had scarcely seen 
another object than Madeline, and yet she had seldom turned 
her gaze towards him, and latterly not at all ; for she felt 
oppressively conscious that she was in his presence, and that 
she had in some way wronged him, 

Q 2 



228 ICADELlinS HOXE. 

She had become cold, he conceived ; for it nevet ooourred 
to him that, in her timidity, and lest other eyes might read 
their secret, she dared no longer trust herself to look upon 
him ; and he knew not what this steadiness of averted gaze 
cost her poor little heart. . 

The dream which had filled his imagination with so much 
joy during the past few weeks — ^the dream of being loved by 
a woman young and beautiful — ^was now passing away ; and 
the grim, armed figure of Claude Hamilton of Preston, with 
the warnings and incitements of his mother to bloodshed and 
hostility, seemed to loom darkly out from amid the shadows 
of the future. 

In this sombre mood, and doubtful whether or not he 
ought to wait upon the regent before leaving Stirling, he 
wandered from the castle into the large tract of ground 
which lies south-west of it. Enclosed by a massive stone 
wall, this place is still known as the king's park, because 
there of old our monarchs kept tame deer. From 
thence he passed into the royal gardens, which lay at the 
east end of this park; and where vestiges of the walks 
and parterres, with the stumps of decayed fruit-trees, are 
still remaining amid the weeds and rushes of a marsh. In 
the centre of these parterres rises a mound of circular form, 
flattened on the suiAmit, and named still the Bound Table, 
from the games of chivalry played there by the princely 
Jameses and their knights of old, when a warrior spirit was 
strong in the land. 

It was now one of the loveliest of August evenings. The 
green masses of the giant Ochil range, the columnar fronts 
of the Abbey craig, and of Craigforth, were basking in the 
sunshine ; while the pale-blue or deep-purple summits of tbo 
mightier Grampians — Britain's ridgy backbone — stood 
sharply up against the clear glory of the golden sky ; and 
chief of all arose the hill of God BenledL 

The terraces of the royal garden were balustraded with 



HADSLHrE HOUB. 229 

carved stonework, and were reached by flights of steps. 
They were decorated with vases of floweh^ statues, and 
rosariams ; and, in the old Scoto-French fashion, there were 
long gxassy walks shaded by hedgerows of privet and hoUy, 
closely clipped, and compact and dense as a wall of leaves 
coold well be. 

As Florence wandered through these green alleys, oppressed 
by the thoughts we have described, at a sudden turn he met 
a lady, who carried upon her left wrist a hawk, the glossy 
pinions and plumage of which she was caressing. It sat 
Qpon a hawk-glove which was set with pearls, and with 
more than one ruby. Her other hand was bare, and of 
wcxiderfdl whiteness and beauty. She looked up as they 
drew near ; and the heart of Florence beat painfully quick 
as his.eyes met those of the promenader. 

She was the Countess of Tarrow ! 

Flushing for a moment, she became very pale as she gave 
Florence her gloveless hand, which he kissed with a tremulous 
lip, ere it was hurriedly withdrawn ; and then ensued one of 
those dreamy and painful pauses when, if doubt or fear exist 
in lovers, their eyes and hearts seem striving to analyse each 
other. 

^ At last I have learned your secret," said Florence sadly. 
** This day has discovered to me all — your rank, and, most 
sad and calamitous of all, your name and race ; for my own 
peace, O lady, a double revelation most fatal 1** 

'' Fatal!" she reiterated tremulously — ^her voice had a 
musical chord in it, which made every word she uttered 
singularly sweet and pleasing — ''did you really say 
fataU" 

" Can the word excite your surprise 1" he asked with a 
sadness amounting to bitterness ; '* when you knew that I 
was Florence Fawside, and the sworn enemy of your race — 
hating it and all its upholders — ^hating your blood and all 
who inherit it«^even as the house of Preston have hai^d me 



S30 HADfitims nonoL 

and mine — ^with a tanconr akin to that of devils ] for in this 
fidtli my mother reared me. 

"Yet, while knowing all that, I ministered tinto you in 
your perilous illness, even as a sister — as a wife would have 
done/' said the countess, in a low voice. 

"And by that most gentle ministry — ^by yodr dazzling 
beauty and adorable manner, lured me to love you.** 

« Lured !" 

" Oh, Lady Madeline ! my heart is swollen to bursting. 
You said you loved me." 

"And I love you still, dear, dear Florence !** she replied, 
in a voice broken by agitation. 

"Alas I but yesternight 1 repelled the proffered fWmidship 
of your kinsman — ^repelled it as my dead father, as my dead 
brother would have done — with antipathy and scom ; and 
woe is me ! the blood of both is on his sword and on his 
soul!** 

The countess bowed her face upon her hands, and wi^pt 
bitterly ; her shoulders shook with emotion, and her bosom 
heaved with dobs. For a moment the heart of Fawsidd was 
wrung. 

" Countess — Lady Yarrow — dearest Madeline — do not 
^weep ! Pardon me if 1 am rough of speech ; your tears fall 
like molten lead upon my heart. My loye — ^my dear love — 
look up and listen to me/* he continued, taking her hands 
in his ; while the hawk flew to the end of the cord which 
retained it, and screamed and fluttered its wings. "Ob, 
what shall I say to unsay the bitterness of words that should 
never have escaped me, and least of all to one so gentle and 
so tender as you !" 

"And you saved the life of my kinsman, my Uncle 
Claude, in Cadzow Wood <" 

"And he mine ** 

" In Maiheugh tower f 

" Yes,^— firom Allan Duthie. and his vile marauders."^ 



KADELIKE HOME. 231 

'' He told me All, dear !Elorence, all, and did fall justice 
to yonr truth and courage/' said the young countess, looking 
up, while her bright eyes suffused with tears of joy ; ''after 
sdoh serrioes given mutually, this hatred, so wicked and 
unnatural) must surely lessen and die." 

" Under favour, sweetest heart ; these services so given 
and rendered, but placed us again upon an equality. Thought 
and action in each are still free. One cannot upbraid, or 
fetter the other's hand, by the bitter taunt, to 7ne tlum owest 
life r 

^'Alasl here end» my dream* for if I find you thus 
stubborn and wilful to '971^, how shall I find my older, and 
sterner kinsmen f 

''Your dream, beloved Madeline, — of what?" asked the 
young man tenderly. 

" Of peace and goodwill at least, if not of love and amity 
between us; for well do I know that so strong is your 
mother's hatred, that when we ding down Tantallon, and 
make a bridge to the Bass,* we may attempt to overcome it, 
hai not m then." 

"Ah, speak not of my mother, Madeline," replied Florence, 
in an agitated voice ; " the foreknowledge of all with which 
she may— -nay, must taunt me, makes me think at times of 
bidding Scotland adieu for a season at least, and of returning 
to the Duchess of Albany, at Yendome ; of joining the 
French army, now advancing into the Milanese ; or, in short, 
of going anywhere, Madeline, save back to my father's old 
tower on Fawside Hill." 

The eyes of the young countess were fixed on him sadly, 
sweetly, and with somewhat of reproach in them. 

" You could not — ** she began ; 

"At this crisis, no— when duty requires every loyal 
gentleman to lay his sword and service at the feet of Mary 
of Lorraine." 

* An old proverb, desoriptiye of an impoBsibility. 



232 UADEUKE HOME. 

** Does no other sentiment than mere loyalty chain jou 
here 1" said the countess reproachfully ; " could you ** 



'' Leave you — you would ask, beloved Madeline ! ah, 
I am bewildered, and know not what I say." 

He threw one arm round her, and pressed her to his 
breast, and his lip to hers. 

When with her now, all the hopes and desires of life 
seemed to be gratified, and existence to have attained its 
culminating point, yet they were without words to express 
their emotion. 

EacX to the full, had admitted or owned their love for the 
other. Then what more had they to say, for loverlike, their 
eyes were full of eloquence, though their tongues remained 
silent. 

Suddenly a group of ladies appeared at the end of the 
long leafy alley. They were the queen-mother, the young 
queen Mary, and four ladies of honour. Florence had only 
time to whisper, — 

^' God mark thee, sweet one ; adieu !" — to snatch one other 
kiss — a kiss never to be forgotten ; and with a heart that 
beat joyously, and a head that seemed to whirl with delight, 
he quitted the royal garden with all speed, crossed the king's 
park, and ascended once more to the castle of Stirling. 



CHAUPFLEUBIE. S33 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

CHAMPFLEUSIE. 

Captoin Swagger has aak'd me to wait on you, 8ir ! — 
Of course you remember last evening's transaction !— 

And you, as a gentleman, cannot demur 
At giving the captain the due satisfaction. 

We Lave said that Florence lefl the countess with a tnmnlt 
of emotion in his breast. He was full of joy that she loved 
him, — joj and honest triumph ; but to what end was all 
this love 1 Circumstanced and separated as they were, by 
fate, by feud, and fortune, what could its sequel be, or how 
could a happy result ever be achieved ? ' 

At this perplexing thought, the tombs of his father and 
brother in the church of Tranent — ^those two quaintly- 
carved altar-tombs, on each of which lay the rigid effigy 
of an armed knight, his head upheld by two angels, his 
stony eyes gazing upward, and his mailed hands clasped in 
ceaseless prayer, as they lay with shield on arm and sword 
at side, — seemed to rise like the solemn barriers of death 
. between him and Madeline Home; for in each of these 
tombs lay the " blood-bolteted" corpse of a near and dear 
kinsman, slain in feud and mortal fight, by the hand of 
Claude Hamilton. Florence still viewed the latter as the 
hereditary foe of his race ; and with him, in the blindness of 
his anger, he identified those attempts by which his life had 
been so savagely and ruthlessly jeopardized of late. 

The recollection of all he had undergone by wounds and 
indignity, filled him with a bitterness which even his 
successful love could scarcely soothe ; and as he crossed the 
castle-yard to order his horse, on perceiving the captaia of 



834 CRAKPFLEUBnS. 

Mary of Lorraine's arquebusiers in conversation with a 
woman at one of the palace doors, he immediately approached 
him. The soldier was bravely apparelled in a red satin 
doublet and mantle, a white velvet hat with a red feathery 
white boots famished with long gold spurs, which he 
clanked together, and apparently veiy n^uch to his own 
satisfaction, as he pirouetted about, and laughed gaily with 
his female friend, while his delicately-gloved right hand 
played alternately with an amber rosary that dangled at his 
waist, and with a chain and medal of gold which hung at his 
neck. He wore a cuirass, which shone like a steel mirror ; 
and had, of course, his sword and dagger. 

Here Florence found a legitimate object whereon to vent 
his irritation ; and, as he drew near, the woman, who was 
no other than Janet Sinclair, the little queen's foster- 
mother, retired hastily and shut the door, on which Champ- 
fleurie, with an air of annoyance which he was at no pains 
to conceal, turned, with a frown on his handsome but sinister 
face, and surveyed Florence from head to foot with the cool 
air of perfect assurance. 

"I presume, sir, that you know mel" said the latter, 
sternly. 

'* I soon know every man who dares assume such a tone to 
me," replied the captain gruffly. 

** Dares ! " 

" I have said so, sir," replied the Soldier, shaking his plume. 

" Ha ! ha ! You either mock yourself or me." 

** XJds daggers, sirrah ! What make you here ?" 

'* That you shall soon learn. You remember giving me, 
in the streets of Edinburgh, a letter for the laird of Hill- 
heugh 1 " 

**I have some faint recollection of doing so,** replied 
Champfleurie, with an impertinent yawn. 

'*That letter was a deadly snare, — ^a lure for my destruc- 
tion ; and you knew it to be so." 



** You— John lAvingdtone of Champflenrie ! " 

" How, laird of Fawside— how 1 " 

^ By the tenor of the letter, and by the message with 
which you accompanied it, you proved yourself to be—-** 

*' What ? Be wary, sir,— what ? " 

« A false liitf ! ** 

Livingstone grew pale with rage. He drew back a pace, 
and pressing the hilt of his sword against his heart for a 
moment, relinquished it with a gasp of anger. On this, his 
fiery opponent, who was his junior by ten years^ ctmiled 
Boomfblly^ and said,-^ 

** Ton kno# the sensation of a sword^blade entering your 
flesh r* 

** Oogsbones ! I should think so ! ** replied the captain, 
trltii a smile equally proud and seomfbL "I have, in my 
time, had a dozen of good swords in me ; seven in duels, 
two at Ancrumford, and three at the rout of Solway.** 

"Then what is it like?" 

^' Do you wish practical proof, damned jackfeather t " 

** What is it like t ** reiterated Florence ftiriously. 

'« Hot iron.** 

^ Then you shall enjoy that warm sensation again ! ** 

** Indeed ! " sneered Champfleurie. 

" Yes ! ^ replied Florence, unsheathing his sword with a 
lary no longer restrainable ; fbr during this strange con- 
versation he had gradually been drawing the captain to- 
wards the Kether Baillery, a secluded part of the fortress. 
^ Defend yourself, villain, lest I kill you where you stand ! ^ 

'^ Stay ! — stay ! " exckimed the other, defending himself 
only by his left arm, round which he quickly rolled his 
velvet mantle. 

"Why stay! Would you oonftssf If so, the queen's 
dhAplaii^— *«>^'* 

" Bah ! Confession went out with the cardinal hist year. 



236 . OHAMPFLEuans. 

But hold your wrath, sir, and put up your sword ; remem- 
ber where we are, and that our lands are forfeited to the 
Lord High Constable if we draw weapons within the pre«> 
cincts of a royal castle or palace, and must I remind you 
that the queen's fqrtress of Stirling is both. Moreorer, my 
Lord of Errol, the constable, once caught me kissing his 
lady's hand; and husbands have troublesome memozies 
sometimes." 

'' Sir, I thank you for the lesson ; in my just anger I 
forgot where we were. But we need have no lack of a 
trysting-place." 

"No sir, if you are thus stout and resolute," replied the 
captain, coming close, with a sombre frown on his face ; for 
being as perfectly master of his temper as of his sword, he 
was the deadlier and more dangerous enemy. " At sunset I 
will meet you beside the Eoman Bock, below the castle 
wall" 

"Good! Till then " 

" Adieu." 

And with a stem salute they both separated. 

" Plague take thee for a ruMng bully," thought Cham|)- 
fleurie. " But, by the blessed pig of St. Anthony, I shaU 
kill thee like a cur, or I am no true Livingstone ! " 

People thought little of risking life, and less of fighting, 
in those days. But as Florence remembered the young love 
he had just left, her sweetness, her beauty, and passionate 
nature ; and then his stern mother, who loved and prized 
him as an only son, the prop of her years, the last of his 
line and the hope of its vengeance, the idea that he might 
for ever take up his abode in the burial-place of Stirling, 
filled him with a temporary sadness and gloom. Fortur- 
nately, however, but brief time was left him for sombre 
reflection, as he had barely parted firom Champfleurie when' 
the young baron of Dalserf approached, cap in hand, to say 
that the regent desired to speak with him immediately. 



TBE D0T70LAS ROOM. 237 

ilofence remembered the warning of Champfleurie, and 
believing they had been watched, his first idea suggested a 
rebuke, if not captivity, for drawing sword in a rojsl castle, 
as Arraii was endeavouring, but in vain, to repress the law- 
less and tnmultory spirit of the time. However^ on being 
ushered into his presence, his smile and welcome at once 
relieved the young man from all apprehension on that score. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE DOUGLAS BOOM. 

Wist England's king that I was ta'en, 

gin a blythe man he would be ; 
For once I slew his sister's son. 

And on his breast hare broke a tree. 

BaUad, 

Thb regent was alone, and seated at a table covered with 
papers, in a small chamber of the royal apartments, in the 
north-west comer of the castle. It was hung with tapestry, 
worked by the hands of Mary of Gueldres, as this closet 
had been a favourite study or resort of her husband, 
James II., whose name, '^ Jacobus Scotorum Hex," with the 
legend, LH.S. Maaia Mother of the JScmoiir, may still be dis- 
tinctly traced in golden letters, amid the elaborate cai*vings 
of the cornice. In this closet hung two well-battered suits 
of armour, which had been worn in a single combat in the 
valley of Stirling, on a day in the Lent of 1449, by two 
noble Burgundians, named De Lalain, one of whom, Jacques, 
was esteemed as the best knight in Europe ; but they were 
both slain, after a severe and bloody conflict, by two gentle- 
men of the house of Douglas, in presence of James IL, 



238 THE DOuaiiAa soon. 

who acted as umpire or judge of the lists. In this little 
room, the same monarch, by one stroke of his dagger, slew 
Williami sixth Earl of Douglas, whom he knew to be in 
league with others against the throne, and whose bleeding 
body was flung over the window by the captain of the 
guard, into the Nether Baillerie, where his bones were found 
in the beginning of the present century. 

From this terrible episode, which, though warranted in 
some respects, fixed an indelible stigma on the reign of the 
Bccond James ; the closet is still known by the name of 
TJie DougUta Room. 

Arran looked weary and thoughtful; for after the ir- 
ritatmg convention, he had a long interview with his 
brother John, who was Archbishop of St. AndreVs and lord 
chancellor ; and with David, Bishop of Boss, the secretary of 
state, whom Florence passed in earnest conversation together 
on the staircase as he ascended^ 

"Fawside,'' said he, *' after what has occurred to-day, 
you and every other gentleman in Scotland, may look to 
your harness, for we shall have war ere the next month be 
past." 

<'My harness is ever ready, and like my sword, is at the 
service of your grace," 

^ But the intrigues of our traitors will blunt the. edges 
of the sharpest swords we possess." 

" You mean ^ 

« The malcontent nobles, and the more turbulent of our 
landed gentry. Can I have patience with them, when 
Heaven itself seems to have none, since it permits them to 
slay and decimate each other, in their endless feuds and 
quarrels ? " 

At this remark, the young man coloured deeply, as he 
thought the regent referred to the feud of his family with 
the Hamiltons of Preston. 

*' You change colour/' said Arran, smiling } '' beUeve ma^ 



TSS POUOLAS BOOli. 289 

I refbrred not to your father's ancieiLt quarrel with mj 
kinsman, Claude, for your father was a brave md leal 
Scottish man; none was there better than he, or more 
approved in arms, among the soldiers of James lY, He 
fought at Elodden. But by that blush, Fawside, I per- 
ceive you are not much of a courtier," added the regent, 
laughing. 

" No, lord earl, though I have passed some time in the 
saloons of the Louvre and St« Germains ; happily I am not." 

" Happiljr ? " 

^ Yes, my lord j kings can at all times find courtiers, but 
loyal subjects and true soldiers are less brittle ware." 

" And you " 

''Hope that I have the honour to be esteemed a loyal 
subject." 

'' And a brave soldier, too, young man." 

'' I have yet that name to win," said Florence laodestly. 

'' At this perplexing time, when every avenue and ante* 
chamber of our palaces are thronged by traitors, who were 
in league with the late English Harry, and are now at faith 
with the protector, I do not deem it expedient to visit with 
condign punishment those men, of whose base intrigues I 
am, to some extent aware; yet, within the last hour, I 
have sent the Earl of Bothwell, deprived of his sword, 
spurs, and green ribbon, guarded by forty troopers, all 
Hamiltons, a prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh. There, 
in the sure ward of its governor. Sir James Hamilton of 
Stainehouse, let him await — through the iron bars of 
David's Tower — the coming of Dame Katherine Wil- 
loughby, his English bride ; and there shall he remain in 
solitude and seclusion, while I consider the means of crush- 
ing his compatriots, after we have swept the foe back to 
their own country." 

''Bothwell a prisoner 1" exclaimed Florence; '^I should 
like to hear my Lord Qlenoaira's opinion of this." 



240 THE DOUGLAS BOOtf. 

" What would his opinion be ? " 

" He is a lord of the Scottish privy council." 

" But his opinion ; what would it be 1 " 

" He is a lord of council" 

" Sir, what mean you by repeating that ^ " 

*^ Because, as a royal councillor^ he must not a^ppear to 
think different from your grace." 

Arran knit his brows, and then smiled. 

" By my soul, young sir, you have picked up some wit 
i& your travels ; but it may provoke the exercise of a 
sharper weapon in Scotland. 'Tis dangerous here especially. 
The town is full of our malcontent lords and the gentle- 
men of their trains. They swagger in the streets, and 
jostle the queen's guards, impeding even the horde-litter 
of Mary of Lorraine. They say and practise a thousand 
insolences in public ; their swords flash under the nose of 
any poor burgess body who dares but look at them ; they 
are fine fellows — ^yea, brave fellows ; but I hope to beat the 
dust from their jerkins, after we have used them to beat 
the Duke of Somerset." Arran laughed bitterly as he 
spoke thus, and then resumed more gravely : " To attempt 
to crush the hydra on the eve of a foreign invasion, would 
be an unwise policy. The friends and followers of my 
enemies would at once join the invader ; and bethink you, 
the clothyard shafts of the English, or the balls of the 
Spanish arquebuses, may save our Scottish headsmen and 
hangmen some work in time to come, by sending our faith- 
less ones to the place of their reward. But now to the 
point, concerning which I sent for you. Preparations are 
to be made on all hands for the defence of the country. A 
line of beacons is to be established from Sfc. Abb's Head to 
the summit of the palace of Linlithgow, in order that due 
intimation may be given of the moment the English cross 
the Tweed or Sol way; and in the old Highland fashion, 
the cross of fire shall be the warning to arms. You have 



THE DOUGLAS BOOM. 24l 

dbhe me good service, laird of Fawside ; and iMs I mean 
to reward Iti the manner most pleasing to yourself — hy 
taxing yet further jrour faiih and loyalty." 

" My lord regent, you read my thoughts like a wizard." 

" To you, under a royal warrant, which will be sent to 
your tower, in Lothian, I remit the task of superintending 
the erection of those beacons, on the most available sites. 
As for the expense, the lord high treasurer must see to 
that ; and each landed baron must furnish both workmen 
and material for the balefire in his own vicinity — ^as the 
landholders of Lothian furnished all that was requisite for 
the outer wall of Edinburgh, in the year of Flodden. You 
will see to this.'* 

" At the hazard of my life I will perform any duty you 
may do me the honour to assign me," replied Florence, 
with enthusiasm. 

The regent bowed, and when men in tis position bowed, 
Florence knew that it was a hint, the Interview was over. 
As he prepared to retire, — 

" You must promise me, sir," said Arran, " to avoid all 
brawls, duels, and quarrels." 

*'As &r as a man may do so, consistent with honour,*' 
replied Florence, as he retired and hastened to keep his 
appointment with Champfleurie. 

Pleased that one of his foes was now in captivity and 
disgrace, proud of the high trust reposed in himself by the 
regent, and prouder that the young countess still loved him, 
no man ever went forth to kill or be killed in higher spirits 
than our hero, as he descended from The Douglas Boon^ and 
called for his horse. It was soon brought ; and as he rode 
between the four large towers which then guarded the 
arched porch of the castle, with the air of an emperor, and 
with the lavish generosity of a true gallant of the time, he 
pnt his hand into the embroidered purse which hung at his 
girdle, and scattered a glittering shower of its contents 

B 



342 THE BOUAN BOCK. 

among the grooms, lackeys, and pages who lounged on the 
benches at the gate, and whose shouts of applause followed 
him as he rode hurriedly down the spacious esplanade. 



■•o** 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THB BOMAN BOCK. 

Your loTe ne'er leam*d to flee, 
Bonnie dame— winsome dame ! 
' Your love ne'er leam'd to flee. 

My winsome dame I 

Old Song, 

Thb sombre reflections mentioned at the close of the last 
chapter but one, again recurred to Florence, as he rode from 
the fortress and sought the winding path which led to the 
place of his hostile meeting. Then for the first time he 
remembered that he was without a second, and there was 
no man in Stirling whom he knew sufficiently to implicate 
in such an affair ; indeed, he was totally without acquaint- 
ances. Checking his horse and looking around, he perceived, 
at the head of the Broad Wynd, a man about to mount a 
stout nag. This person wore a brown doublet of Flemish 
broadcloth, with long red sarcenet hose ; he had on an open 
helmet, cuirass, and a grey border plaid. At his belt hung 
,a long dagger, and at his saddlebow a Jedwood axe, locally 
known as a Jethart staffl Hia burly figure, rough beard, 
and open,, honest expression of face, aroused the interest and 
won the favour of Florence, who for some time past had 
been forced to study the physiognomies of men ; and by his 
equipment believing him to be a respectable burgess or 
yeoman, he at once addressed him, — 



THE BOUAN BOCK. 243 

'< May I ask, gudeman, if you are a burgher of Stirling ? ** 

**Nay, sir; I come frae the gude town—" 

« Edinburgh ? " 

"At your service, fair sir." 

" Tis well — I am from that quarter, or a matter of ten 
miles east of it, myself." 

'' In what can I serve you, sir ? I am Dick Kackerston, 
a free burgess and guild brother, at the sign o' the ^ Crossed 
Axes ' in the Landmarket, where my booth is as weel . 
kenned as St. Giles's steeple." 

" Hackerston," reiterated Fawside, to whom his voice 
seemed fiimiliar ; " is such thy name, good fellow ? " 

" Sooth is it, sir ; and my father's before me. Sae, where- 
fore sic marvel ? " 

" To you I owe my life, brave man ! " 

" To owe me siller is nae uncommon thing ; but that a 
man — a braw gallant like you-— owes life to me, is some- 
thing new," replied the merchant, with surprise. 

*' Have you forgotten that night when on the Castle Hill 
a single swordsman was so sorely beset by the weapons of at 
least a score of swashbuckler knaves ; and when, but for 
your Jeddart staff ^ 

"By my faith, weel do I remember that bluidy night," 
said he, warmly shaking the hand of Florence ; and how I 
was beset in turn by these foul limmers, ilk ane o' whom 
deserved a St Johnston tippet, for they would have slain 
me on /the open causeway, and burned my booth to boot, but 
for the timeous arrival o' the town gu^rd and some burgess 
friends who heard the shouts under their windows, and came 
forth wi pyne doublet and axe to redd the fray. Wi some 
landward merchants I ride eastward ia an hour, ilk escorting 
the other, as there are many uncanny loons in the Torwood 
at times j so, in what can I serve you, sir ? " 

" I am the laird of Fawside, and shall be right glad to ride 
eastward in your company." 

b2 



S44 TfiB BOMAlr BOCK. 

The ni^rchant ionched tli6 peak of hid morioti. 

" I ken the auld to^er ctx the btaehead, aboVd thd Sowe- 
mire o* Inveresk." 

<< I have to £ght a false villaiti Krho h&th ^tm)n^ me ; 
but am without a single friend to ite^ Mr y\^f ehkared. 
Gademan, may I reckon on thee ? " 

' " Command me, sii*, if a gentleman i^ill tak($ (rhe aid o' a 
plain burgess body." 

''I thank you, gudeman, and iliay hare some Hght to ask 
it of you ; for my father, old Sif John of that ilk, Ifed the 
btifgesses of Edinburgh, wheti King JiUnes nllttahM hia host 
to Falamuin'* 

"And your enemy-= — ^ 

" Is Livingstone of Champfleurie." 

« Captain of the queen'd gtWf d ? " 

« The flame,'* 

" An impudent Yarlet^-^a Scurvy arqiiebussiet, Who poked 
his nose under tny gtidewife's hood nae further gati^ than 
three days ago/ as she was eoinihg frae the Mass^ by the 
north door o' Sti Giles ; and he wi' the Lord Kilmauti^ %ere 
coming, drunk as pipers, frae atl ale-browstet*s booth in the 
Crames. I am your man ; and you meet hittt ^ * , ' ^ 

'< At the Bomati Book/' 

« When r 

" Within fiire minutes by the dial." 

*' Come on, laird — 1 an* ready." 

" I ask you but to see fkit play, and if I am slaiti to bear 
this ring to the Countess of Tarrow, and my last message to 
— ^my mother." 

" Yes," said Hackerston, gtasping the hand of Florence, 
and giving his axe a floutish j " but ere I left the^ groutf d oii 
sio a deevilidh and dolorous errand^ by the §tm of St. Gile^, 
the patron o' cripples, I'll hae suiitteii thd head frae the 
fthoulders o' Oliampfleurie as I would th^ neb Ctue a syboe ; 
so, on, and without fear !" 



THS WH^ BOOK, 24fi 

^FarA, mnclfiir fwe/ur 'TU the piottp pf jpy bpuae, 
gadexaan ; and your words are ominous of good fortipiQ. -' 

HackersiiO|i mounted his hor^, %nd rod^ by the ^4e of 
FloreoiQe tP the reQdezyoua, ^here they foun4 the capt^A of 
the gu^d, |LCi»>l&p^nied by Lor4 Kiln^turd, awaiting them, 
Both word the half-suits of light armour iisuaUy worn at 
that time by all Scottish gentlemen when walking abroad. 

The scene of this encounter, pf which we ^^d a minute 
relation in the pag§s of a, ye^erahle 4^rist of the day, was 
the vicinity of the Boman Sock, whi^h took its name from 
aa inaoriptiott thereon. Ip was vi»We in thi»t age, but has 
since been efibced by time and the apfcion of the 'weather. 
The basalt had been smoothly chiselled, and bgre on its face 
a Latin legend, cut by the sp^dier^ of Julius Agricola^ inti- 
mating that on the Rock of Stirli^g-^thp Mons Dolorum, or 
Hill of Strife— the second legion of the ]E^maQ arpoy " held 
their daily and pightly watch," while pn the Gr^n^pian^ the 
still victorious Scpt^ barri^d the d^p p^es tl^at }ed tp the 
land of the Gael f 

"So, w/' eaid thft captaii^ of ^quehuses, Ipfbfjy, "you 
haye come firf h^i /*' 

^' I CV9YP pardon if f. haye detained ypa one minute over 
the appointed time," replied Fawside, with gloomy polite- 
ness ; " but I had to procure a friend." 

'^ You hfiye more to crave pardon for, sirrah," said Lord 
Kilmaurs roughly ;" as it is s^d that, by the agency of 
lefct»i^ -" 

"Letters again ! That word bid§ fur tq be the bane of 
my existence." 

" Yea — ^letters brought out of France by thee from those 
acourppd Guises, the Lord Bothwell, my assured friend, 
hath been degraded — deprived of his green ribbon — and 
committed to the custody of a Hamilton — a parasite of the 
Lord Arran." 

^ I brought no letters out 9f France, but such as well 



246 THE BOICAK BOCK. 

became tlie queen's liege man to bear," replied ilorenoe 
hangbtily. 

''WeU, and how about your friend: is a burrowtown 
merchant — a Inere booth-holder, as I take him to be, — ^a 
beseeming squire for a landed baron — a gentleman of that 
ilk?" asked Kilmaurs, with a lightning glance in his 
sinister eye. 

''Some flesher of Falkirk or souter of Linlithgow, I 
warrant," added the equally insolent Champfleurie, laughing. 
' " I am a brother o' the merchant guild, my masters," 
replied Hackerston, unabashed by their overweening manner; 
'^ and ken ye, sirs, that nae souter, litster, or flesher, can be 
one of us, unless he swear that he use not his office wi' his 
ain hand, but deputeth it to servitors under him V* 

'* What the devil does all this mean 1" asked Kilmaurs, 
shrugging his shoulders. ** Do you know, Champfleurie ?" 

"It means, gentlemen," replied Florence, sternly^ "that I 
— ^being too well aware there were assassins and bravoes 
here in Stirling, who, under the guise of nobility assault and 
murder in the night — ^thought that the aid of an honest 
man, stout of heart and ready of hand, as this brave burgess 
has before approved himself to be, might not be unneeesiaary ; 
and so, in lack of otber friend, I sought his good offices 
here." 

"And I commend you to keep a civil tongue in your 
head, my Lord o' Kilmaurs ; for my Jethart staff has ere 
this notched a thicker one than yours. I have gien mony 
an uncanny cloure in my time." 

"Enough of this !" exclaimed Champfleurie, drawing his 
sword and dagger. 

" Yea, enough and to spare," added Florence, unsheathing 
his rapier and the exquisite little poniard given to him b> 
Mary of Lorraine, and closing in close and mortal combat. 
They fought with such impetuosity that at the third pasa 
he ran Champfleurie through the left forearm, piercing hi^ 



THE BOKAN BOCK. 24t 

plate deeve like a gossamer veb, and inflicting a wound so 
severe that the blood dripped over his fingers. This wound, 
by almost paralyzing his left hand, rendered his dagger 
useless, either for stabbing or parrymg, for which latter 
purpose this little weapon was more especially used by the 
sword-playing gallants of those days. 

The bearing of Champfleurie, which previous to this had 
been cool, contemptuous, and defiant, now became furious 
and wrathful. 

He lunged and thru^ almost at random ; and twice 
Fawside contrived to secure his blade by arresting it in the 
ironwork of his own hilt ; he was thus enabled to retain it, 
and, locking in, to menace the throat of Champfleurie with 
his dagger; but twice he generously released the blade, 
which he might easily have snapped from its hilt ; and thus 
the pombat was twice renewed, after they had breathed 
a little, and glared into each other's pale and excited 
faces. 

Hie skill and generosity of Florence excited even the 
admiration of Kilmaurs, who exclaimed, — 

''Well and nobly done, Eawside ! But that I am sworn 
to be thine enemy I could wish thee for a Mend. Another 
BUi^h mischance, Champfleurie, and by Heaven thou art a 
lost man !" 

On each of these occasions Hackerston uttered a stentorian 
shout of applause, which in some measure served to dissipate 
the little self-possession retained by Champfleurie, who soon 
became almost blind with passion and hatred. In this state 
he soon proved an easy conquest to his antagonist, who by 
one tremendous blow broke his weapon to shivers, scattering 
the shining steel as if it had been a blade of glass, and, 
closing in, with the large hilt of his own rapier, struck him 
to the earth, and pinned him there by placing ^ foot on his 
breast The blood flowed copiously from the mouth of the 
fidlen man, who lay completely at the mercy ot the victor. 



^'Champfleune, thpu manawpm loon, aak life at jsf^Jfiaa^B, 
lest I 8I47 thee like a yenomons reptile." 

<' Nay, I need not ask that which is beyoii4 your ppvor to 
grant me," groaned the other. 

" How, sir — ^what mean you t" 

" That — ^that I am mortally woi|nde(L" 

'^Impossible 1" e^clqimed FloreQce with acftopisluQent i^'l 
did but give you ^ buffet with the shell pf my swi^ — a 
mere buffet, sirrah." 

'^ Draw near — draw near," said Champfleurie, }i^ closing 
his eyes ; and Florence k^^lt beside him* 

"Nearer still; I have somewhat tp say-^^ometbiAg to 
give tbee," 

Florence, with no emotipn now in his heart bat t]ie purest 
commiseration^ stooped over the supposed sufferer, who, 
transferring his dagger from one hand to the other, suddenly 
grasped him by the throat, dmgged him down, and strove to 
stab him in the heart ; but the point glanced aside upon the 
polished face of Fawside's finely-tempered ouiras^ and the 
attempt was futile, as the blade went under his left anut 

Suddeii though the action^ Florence, by pressing hiQ arm 
against his side, retained the weapon there, and; with his 
sword shortened in his hand, again menaced the throat of 
Champfleurie j but changing his purpose, instead of killing 
him on the instant, as he deserved, he merely compressed 
his steel gorget until he was almost suffocated, tmd then 
wrenching away the poniard, snapped the blade in pieces 
and threw them in his fa^ in token of contempt, 

At that moment the Lord KUmaurs came forward, with 
his sword sheathed an4 his right hand ungloved. 

" Laird of Fawside," said he, '^ you are a gentleman brave 
and accomplisihed as Champfleurie is false and unworthy. 
Accept my hand, in token that never again wiU I draw 
sword on you in any feud or faction, save for her majetrty 
the queen. You have convertej me from a foe to tt friend.'^ 



'^Tb^ii}'' sfkys the old ^^ixosk fiXvefidY r^feired tp, ''t]ie 
laird of Fawside, a soothfast yoiith an4 gallai^ti took the 
yoang lord's hmd in his for a brief space, saying, with a^ 
laugh,— 

** ^ He has rent mo a TelvQ^ doublet, that cost fifty shil- 
lings in the I^ne TArbre Sec, and mined my garsay hpsen 
by two swiffd-thrusts ; but I am without a scratch*' " 

Then straightway mpOQting his horse, without eastii^g 
another glance at his prostrate enemy, who was covered 
with shame, he left the burg^ of Stirling, in company with 
three landward merchants 04 their way tp Edinburgh. And 
so, for the present, ended k\» qi^annel with the laird pf 
Champfluerie. 



■•♦•■ 



CHAPTER XXXL 

THE JOUBNEY HOl^E. 

By wy fi^ithy therp be thieves i' the wQod ! 
Soho, Bir,-r-stnughtwa7 stiwd, ^pd le^ us see 
What mapner of knave or varlet you be. 

(Hd Play. 

I9 was fo^rtupate for Florence that IxQ w^ accompanied by 
the three well-armed and well-mounted burgesses of Edin- 
burgh, as several of the Lord Bothwell's friends or allies 
were loitering in tho Torwood, as before they had lingered 
in Cadzo>fr, with intentions towards him the reverse of 
friendly. Thus^ though the conversation of his companions 
concerning imports and exports, tallow, flax, and battens 
firom Muscovy, beer from Dantzig, wines from Low Ger- 
manie, fruits from France, and so forth, or the latest whim- 
whama ot absurdities of the provost and council of Edinburgh^ 



250 THE J0X7BKEY HOME. 

did not prove very interesting to him — a lover, a jovdix who 
had lately left the gaities of Paris, the court of France, and 
who, since then, had heen so favourably noticed by Mary of 
Lorraine, the most beautiful queen in the world, — ^their bajrly 
forms in jack and morion, their long iron-hUted swords and 
wheel-lock calivers were of good service in protecting his 
passage through the wilds of the Torwood and past the 
Callender, the stronghold of the Livingstones, one of whose 
chief men, the laird of Champfieurie, had suffered so severely 
at his hands. One of those who accompanied him was John 
Hamilton, then a well-known merchant in the West Bow, a 
cadet of the house of Inverwick, who afterwards fought 
valiantly and fell at Pinkey. 

From the green depths of the Torwood, Florence ggzed 
fondly and wistfully back to Skirling, and his soul seemed to 
follow his eyes, till castle, rock, and spire melted into the 
dusk of eve. 

The castle of Callender, the seat of Alexander fifth Losd 
Livingstone — ^a stem man, of high integrity, to whom Mary 
of Lorraine entrusted the custody of her daughter,— «was a 
strong tower, surrounded by a deep fosse, and had a high 
wall forming the outer vallium of the place ; and our tra- 
vellers found themselves close to it about nightfalL 

" The auld lord is a rough tyke," said Dick Hackerston ; 
" so, after what has happened to that loon Champfleurie (as 
ill news travel fast), we had better abide elsewhere than in 
the Callender." 

" The Lord Livingstone bears a high repute," said Florenee, 
" and is greatly loved and trusted by the queen." 

" Though somewhat of a courtier," said Hamilton, " he is 
keeper of the king's forest, of Torwood, and, by living among 
trees and v^d bulls his notions have become dark and fierce. 
I agree wi' you, neighbour Hackerston, we'll e'en find lodg- 
ings elsewhere, or lie xmder the gude greenwood." 

" So be it," replied Florence. " And yet, sirs^ 'tis some- 



THE JOUBNEY HOKlL ' 201 

wliafc hard that you, tbree honest burgesses, should be shel- 
terless on my account. Think you that the Lord Livingstone, 
even if he heard ere morning, which is barely possible, of my 
open duel with his scurvy namesake, would make common 
cause with him against me ) ** 

^' I would fear to trust him," replied Hackerstone ; " for 
blaid is warmer than water." , 

*' I little like lying a night in the Torwood,'* said John 
Hamilton ; '' preferring my snug bit housie at the Bowhead, 
m my gudewife birling her wheel in the cosy ingle, and the 
bairns tumbling ilk owre the other on the floor ; mairowre, 
I am a stranger hereawa. Johnnie Faa's gang o' Egyptians 
are abroad ; and the ^nts forfend that I come not to 
harm ! " 

"Why you in particular! What fear you?" asked 
Florence. 

^* Gude kens ! But this morning I put on my sark with 
the wrong side outwards, and placed my left shoe on the 
right foot." 

"Let us ride on to the castle of the Torwood," said 
Hackerston. " I ken the good dame who bides there, 
and have got her cramosie kirtles from France, and vessels 
of delfb and pewter from the Flemings of the Dam. She 
lost her spouse in a brawl wi' the Livingstones, and may 
make us a' the mair welcome that one of our company has 
the bluid o' one o' that name on his hands. She comes o' 
Highland kin — Muriel Mac Bdhui, and is the last o' the 
Neishes, a tribe extirpated by the Mac Nabs at Locheam. 
Come on, sirs ; I ken the way, and can guide you there." 

Putting spurs to their horses, they turned aside from the 
fortalice of the Lord Livingstone, which stood on the side of 
^ green and gentle slope, and skirting a morass named Cal- 
lender Bog, penetrated into a denser part of the Torwood by 
a path which, though apparently familiar to Hackerston, was 
scarcely visible to his companions, for night had closed com- 



2M Tgp noTjfmr HOWS- 

pletely in, mi tlm pale light pf tbfi di^mpjwi-lijfa sti^rp 79s 
ix^tercept^d by the thick foli4g^ of the q}4 primeval oaks, 
which towd their v^4hns hranc)^ in ^he riaing wind 
The rich gr^as that coyeir^ the path Qiafflp4, to some 
extent, the sound of their hossies' feet j iih^ PQ hearing 
voices before thena, — 

" Hush ! " said Florence in a lof^d wl^i^p^r ; " ^nd )ook 
to your weapons, siirpi ; fpr the ^pf^ood has ^ut an indifferent 
reputation." 

He had scarcely spoken, lyhen a clear a^d jpUy voice was 
heard singing merrily a song, the chorus of which was soine- 
thing to this purpose :-— 

** Saint George he was for England, 
Saint Denis was for France ! 
Sing ffoni 8oit, ray many men, 

" Englishmen, by this light ! " excl^ime4 F^prpnce, 

** By this murk darkness, rather I " added Hackerat^n, 
unslinging hi3 Jethart aope from his saddlebow. "And 
bold fellows they must be, tq chorus thus in the Norwood ! ** 

The fpur travellers now h^tily put on their helmets, 
which hitherto had been hung at the bo^ pf their sidles, 
and for which, during their ride from St^irlii^ they had 
substituted bonnets of blue clpth. 

" Stand,. 4rs ! " said Florence, " Who arp you I ** 

"Strangers," replied a voice, i^d then two horsemen 
became visible amid the gloom of the interlaced trees, — ' 
" strangers, who have lost their inray in this devilish forest." 

'^ This devilish forest belongs to the queen of Scotland ; 
and how come you to be siQging here by Qight ? " 

" By the Mass ! I knew not that it "Vfas a crime to sing by 
night any more than to sing by day," exclaimed the othei^ 
laughing ; " I do so when it listeth me." 

'^'Twas something unwary, at all events^" continued 



Florence, advancing so cloi^ that he cOuld petcdte th^ 
speaker, by his air and manner, to be undonbt^j a getl-^ 
tleman; "but, as your song discovers your fcountry, say, 
my friends^ what make you here, so far frotn yonr own 
borders?" 

"We do not yet make war,'^ l-eplied the other; "be 
asstired, fair sir, we have only lost our way, and sorely lack 
a guide." 

" For whence 1 " 

" The highway to Berwick, t6 whitih place We belong." 

"A "^ord with you." 

"Marty ! sir, a score-^yoti ate lirelcome." 

" YtW are perhaps ignorant of the law by \^hich, if any 
Englishman cornel^ into the kingdom of Scotland, to kirk or 
market, or to any other place, without a safe assur&ube, the 
warden, or any nian, may make him a lawful prisoner.'* 

" Ndy, fair sir, we are not ignorant of that law, and hare 
here a spedal assurance from the Scottish earl who is lord- 
warden of the eastern marches." 

"'Tis well, — then for this night at least, we are comrades,^ 
replied Florence, giving his hand to the strangers, who were 
no other than Master Edward Shelly, and his companion. 
Master William Patten, of London ; who, having mistaken 
the way, and being wary of exciting suspicion by inquiries, 
had for some hours been completely astray in the Torwood. 
Hackerston, Who had suffered severe pecuniary losses in the 
war of '44, when the Duke of Somerset (then Lord Hertford) 
set Edinburgh on fire in eight different quarters, grumbled 
under his beard at this accession to their party. 

" Fawside," said he, "I am a man true and faithful to 
God and the queen. Praised be Heaven, I have never 
consorted with traitors, or made tryst or truce with English- 
men ^ 

" Yes ; but to leave strangers adrift in this wild wood, 
wl\ere broken men and savage bulls, yea, and wolves too, 



254 THE JOURNEY HOME. 

haye their lair, is what an honest fellow like you would 
never consent to ; so, lead on.'* 

In a few minates more, the travellers found themselves 
close to a small square tower, surrounded by a fosse and 
wall — an edifice the ruins of which still remain, and 
present in their aspect nothing remarkable, or different from 
the usual towers of Scottish landholders of limited means. 

"Hallo — gate, gate, ho !" shouted Hackerston, two or 
three times, before a man appeared on the summit of the 
keep, and after counting the number of men, by the star- 
light, disappeared. His inspection had evidently been 
unsabis&ctory, for he presented himself again, but lower 
down, on the barbican wall, and immediately above the 
gate, where he thrust a cresset over the parapet, at the end 
of a long pole, and surveyed the visitors a second time. 
The species of light called a cresset, was formed of a loasely- 
twisted rope, dipped in pitch and resin, and coiled up in a 
little iron basket, which swung like a trivet between the 
prongs of a fork. It flared on the old walls of the tower, 
on the keen, peering eyes and waving grey beard of the old 
warder, as he shaded his grim face with his weather-beaten 
hand, and assured himself that those who came so late, and 
halloed so loud, were not Livingstones bent on stouthrief 
and hamesiicken, but real and veritable travellers, lacking 
food and shelter for man and horse. Apparently this second 
and closer scrutiny, which the desperate nature of the times 
required and rendered common, satisfied his scruples; the 
flashing cresset was withdrawn, the gate was unclosed, and 
Florence, with his five companions, soon found himself in the 
hall or chamber of dais, in the little fortaUoe gtiU knowu 
as the haunted castle of the Torwood. 



THB CHATELAINE OF THE TOBWOOP. 255 



CHAPTER XXXIL 

THE CHATELAINE OF THB TOBWOOD. 

After riding about three leagues, they saw the castle, and a goodly- 
one it seemed ; for before it ran a river, and it had a drawbridge, 
whereon was a fair tower at the end. — Amadis de OatU. 

Fi^BSNGE now recognized tke face of Edward Shelly. 

" We have met before — to-day, I think, in the streets of 
Stirling r said he. 

*' Exactly— and what then ? " asked Shelly, bluntly and 
uneasily. 

" Nothings save that I am pleased to see in this solitary 
place a face that is in any way familiar to me." 

Shelly bowed, and smiled pleasantly ; for the errand 
which brought him into Scotland, and the dangerous papers 
with which he was entrusted — ^papers bearing signatures 
involving war, and death, and treason — ^kept him ever 
anxious, restless, and suspicious of all who approached him. 

The chatelaine or mistress of the mansion — the Lady 
Torwood, as she was named, though but the widow of a 
landed gentleman, whose possessions lay principally amid the 
wilds of that once extensive forest, now approached. She 
wore a black silk dooleweed, with a cross of white velvet 
sewn on the left shoulder, in memory of her deceased 
husband (a mark of mourning which was introduced into 
Scotland by the late king, on the death of his first queen 
Magdalene of Yalois) ; she was young, for her years were 
under six-and-twenty, pale and saddened in expression. 
Three little children, the eldest of whom was not over three 
years, all clad in black dresses, each with a little white cross 
on the shoulder, nestled among the ample skii'ts of her 



256 TfliJ CHATELAINE OP THE TOltWOOD, 

dooleweed, and peeped in mingled alann and wonder at tbe 
strangers, whom the lady received courteously : for in those 
days the halls of the landholders and the refectories of the 
monasteries were the halting-places of all travellers, when 
neither inns nor taverns could be found ; and, indeed, 
prejudices against the latter ran so high that acts were 
passed by parliament, to enforce the patronage of hostelries. 

Lady Torwtiod's manner of receiving her visitore was 
singularly soft and polite; yet it was not unmixed with 
anxiety, for her little tower stood in a lonely place, and six 
well-armed strftngetl^ were not quite the kind of people a 
wido^tid faiother iiiight wish to see in that lawless time. 
The extreme paleness of her complexion contrasted strongly 
with the blacktiess bf her smooth shining hair And the 
darkness of her eyes and lashes, while her figure and be$;Hng 
hkd 2tll thitt &wn-like grd^ which is (or was) peculiar to 
the women of c^dlh noi^h^hi clans ih Scotl|tnd. 

"We ct^vfel yout patdoh for this tmtilnely intrusion, 
tnadame," said PMence, courteously, "but we hare been 
belated and astfay in the ibi-est; dnd as I have had a 
quatrel' — on6 bf those unpleasant things that will ensue at 
times amoilg artti^d tnen, — & crdssing of swords, in £&ct, with 
a LiVingstdfi^, you Will, readily Understand that iny vidmty 
to the Callender-: — " 

" Sird, you ate welcome bete, apologies are unnecessary,'* 
replied the ladjr, whose accent sdutded somewnat like th&t of 
a foreigner, fbt she belottiged to a Celtic tribe, and had 
acqtired the LdVland tenguctge as that of another pebpk. 
" You hdve hiA & qtiatrel ^th a Livingstone," she continued, 
while her qiiieli dark ey^s were filled by a momentai^ light ; 
" that naMe has cost me dear indeed ! but let me not tbllft 
of it iid^. Hfere you are safe, sir — your iatnefl— — " 

"Dick Etacketstdli, a burgfess o'Edinbutgh,*' replied thd 
burly proprietor of the Jethart axe ; ** and my fHefftds are 
also freer bu^g^sses a&d kndward merchants l&o tts^BiV. 



THE CHATELAINE OF THE TOBWOOD. 257 

My booth is nigh unto Master Posset's lodging, — an unco* 
stnmge man he is, mj lady; he cured the sair eyne o' a bairn 
o' mine, by rubbing them thrice wT a grey cat's tail." 

" And you, sirs ?" said the lady, smiling, and turning to 
Shelly and Patten. 

" Englishmen, of Berwick," replied the former. 

''Englishmen !" reiterated the fidr chatelaine, colouring — 
for the laws against harbouring them were so severe as to 
involve the highest penalties. 

'' Be assured, madam," replied the confident Shelly ; ^ we 
travel under the lord warden's especial protection." 

''And I am Florence Fawside of that ilk, in East 
Lothian." 

" I have heard of you— ^at least, of your family," replied the 
lady, while another gleam heightened her pale and pretty 
face, " and of their long feud with the Hamiltons of Preston. 
Dearly have such feuds cost me and minel In one, my 
whole race perished, save myself ; and in another, I lost my 
dear gudeman, his brother, and many brave friends and 
kinsmen, leaving me a forlorn widow, with these three sake- 
less bairns to rear." 

"IdTe in hope, madam," replied Florence, with some- 
thing of the spirit in which his mother reared him. 

" Hope ) " questioned the widow sadly, as she lifted her 
meek eyes to his ; ** what hope is there for me 1 " 

" That these children may one day avenge you ! " 

"Oh, sir, speak not thus," said she anxiously, while one 
white hand and arm went involuntarily round the curly 
head of her eldest littlo one ; " forbid it, Ood ! I hope to 
teaoh them that not unto us, but to Him alone belongeth 
▼engeance. 

" Would that my mother had reared us as this gentle 
woman rears her little brood 1 " thought Florence, struck by 
her resigned spirit and Madonna^like aspect ; " my brother 
had now been spared to ui,<*-aud Madeline, my love £ot hf 





ioS TQS CHATKLAINS OS* THE TQBflTQOXIU 

had then heen no secret^ like a deadly siu ; but, alas 1 my 
father's blood is yet upo^ her kinsman's sword and sonl 1 " 

These and many similar ideas passed through his mind, 
while refeshments were placed upon the table ; a cold chine 
of beef, manchets, and oat cakes, with flagons of Lammas 
ale ; and the wants of. the six guests were promptly attended 
to by the servants of the tower, while its mistress sat by the 
£re, in the only arm-chair in the hall, with her feet resting 
on a tabourette, and her three childi'^ nestling by her side, 
or playing and frolicking with the lurchers and terriers that 
were stretched on the hearth, which was covered by a 
large straw matting, the work of tl^ose tawny outlaws the 
Egyptians, a tribe of whom had been lurking in the Tor- 
wood since the days of their patron James lY. 

The usual evening meal had long been over in Torwood 
Tower ; thus the lady sat apart from all, but conversed freely 
with her unexpected guests, more especially with Florence 
apd Shelly : but the latter, though by nature the most frank 
and jovial of all jovial and frank fellows, felt the peculiarity, 
the delicacy and danger of his situation, and thus became 
singularly reserved. He therefore sought to turn th^ cpn- 
versation as much as possible from subjects likely to lead to 
himself, to his companion Master Fatten, or to their object 
in venturing into Scotland, whither Englishmen seldom 
came in those days of war and mutual mistrust, but with 
harness on their backs. In that age, before the invention 
of newspapers, the sole means of circulating current events 
(all of which were imusually marvellous) were passing 
travellers, pardoners, and begging friai-a, who gave their qwn 
yersion of " wars and rumours of wars," of battle^ of fiery 
dragons, of spectres, devils, omens, and other wonder% which, 
with an occasional miracle in church, formed th^ staple topics 
of convorsation in the middle ages, and for a long time after 
them, in Scotland. Thus, afraid that, as a strange and w%y- 
farei^ ha might be unpleasfautly qu^stipn^ by the in^p^to^ 



THB CHATELAINE OF THE ^OHWOOD. £(;9 

of this fiedaded tower, and lured to admit more than pru- 
dence suggested or patience brooked, Shelly, with considerable 
tact, led the &ir chatelaine to fipeak entirely of her own 
afikirs. 

" And did your husband faXi in battle I " he asked, with 
affected sympathy. 

" Nay, sir ; but in one of these vile civil brawls which are 
socially and morally the scourge of Scotland ; and which our 
kings have always striven, but in vain, to crush. He and. 
his father had been long at feud with the Livingstones, about 
the right of forestry in the Torwood, — even as the Fawsidee 
have been at feud with the HamiltoQs anent the right of 
pasturage on Gladsmuir ; and with the same rancour they 
and their armed followers fought whenever they met, afield, 
at market, at church, in burgh, and on highway. Many 
were wickedly slain, and many grievously wounded, on both 
sides, till once, when the late King James of blessed memory 
was hunting in the Torwood, and both were in attendance 
on him, he commanded my husband and Alexander Lord 
Livingstone to take each other's hands in token of per- 
petual amity, — and in case of refusal, he threatened to 
commit them to the Peel of Blackness. Slowly, unwilliogly, 
and with no consenting souls they did so, and, with a glare 
of hate in their eyes, vowed a hollow friendship over a cup 
of wine ; and merrily the good King James drained it to 
them both, fondly believing, in the kindness of his heart, 
that he had stanched the feud for ever. A vain hope ! The 
day was passed in the forest ; many a wolf, white bull, and 
deer were slaughtered, and many a horae and dog were 
gored and disembowelled in the conflict. Night came on, 
and, flushed with the king's good vine, their good cheer, 
and the excitement of the chase, the hunters separated j 
and before the midhour had passed, my poor husband, when 
on his way home, was beset by the Livingstones, led by the 
laird of Ohampfleurie, and, failing to reach the sanctuary of 

s 2 



260 THE CUATISLAINB OF THIS TOBWOOD. 

St. Modan's kirk, was barbarously murdered at Callander 
Bog, where, three days after, his fair body, sore gashed by 
many a ghastly wound, and divested of baldrick, bugle, 
sword, and dagger, was found by our sleuth dogs ; — and, 
woe is me ! his winsome eyes had been plucked forth by 
the gleds or eagles. We buried him in St. Modan*s kirk, 
and therein I founded an altar, where masses shall be said 
for his soul's repose so long as the world shall last, at ten 
marks the mass. Heaven guide that the feud may be for- 
gotten in his early grave, for I have seen enough of such 
horrors in my time ; and the memory of them, so far from 
inciting we to vengeance, like the stern lady of Fawside, 
fills me with dismay and woe." 

" Would that my mother could hear this gentle woman 
speak ! '* thought Florence ; " yet what would it avail 

m^l" 

" I come from the north country, sir," resumed the lady, 
her manner warming as she spoke ; " from a district and of 
a race, where the blood of men, though shed more freely, 
waxes hotter than in the Lowlands here. My name is 
Muriel MacNeish, or MacUdhui ; and I saw, in one night, 
all who bore my name and shared my blood, laid corpses 
round our hearth, as the closing scene of one of the darkest 
feuds that ever shed death and horror over the lovely vale 
of the Earn ! " 

To draw attention from his own affairs, Edward Shelly 
expressed some curiosity to hear her story ; so, while 
Florence and his .companions drew round, the liady Muriel 
related the following legend, to which, from the resem- 
blance borne by one of the characters to his mother, our 
hero listened with deep interest ; and which, as it contains 
much that is private, as well as public history, we will take 
the liberty of rehearsiug here, in our own words and in 
our own way. 



THE neish's head. 261 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



THE NEISH's head. 



It fell about the Martimas time, 
N When winds blow snell and cauld, 
That Adam o* Gordon said to his men. 

Where will we get a hauld ? M 

See ye not yon fair castle 
Stands on yon lily lea ? 
The laird and I hae a deadly feud, 
And the lady I &in would see. 

Adam o* Gordon. 

For ages, a feud had existed between the MacNabs and 
MacNeishes, two tribes of considerable strength and in- 
fiaence, who, without having any marked limits to their 
teiTitories, possessed that wild and mountainous district 
which lies around Lochearn. 

The former of these clans was a branch, of the Siol 
Alpin, and took its name {i, e., the sons of the abbot) 
from the ancient head of the Kuldee Abbey of Glen- 
dochart ; and, during the reign of James IV., they had 
successfully carried fire and sword into the land of their 
enemies, who possessed the district then known as the 
Neishes' Country, lying between Comrie and Lochearn, 
comprising the Pass of Stratheam, Dundurn, the Hill of 
St. Fillan, Glentiarkin, and part of Glenartney. Em- 
bittered by old traditionary wrongs, transmitted orally by 
sire to son, from age to age, the rancour of these two tribes 
was without a parallel, even in the annals of ancient 
Celtic ferocity and lust of vengeance ; and fired by the 
memory of a thousand real or imaginary acts of aggression 
the boys of each generation, while sitting on their fathers' 



262 THE N£ISH*S HEAD. 

knees, longed to be men^ that they might bend the bow or 
bear the tuagh and claymore against their hereditary 
enemies. 

On one occasion, the MacKeishes had carried off the 
holy bell of St. Fillan, a relic of remote antiquity, which in 
those days stood on a tombstone in the burial-ground of the 
saint^s church, and was venerated by all ; but it was 
miraculously restored ; for this bell, like the old bells of 
Soissons, in Burgundy, and of St. Kllan's, in Meath, had 
the strange power of extricating itself from the hands of 
the spoilerif and came back through the air to Strathfillan, 
ringing merrily all the way ; but the circumstance of its 
abstraction greatly increased th6 hostility between the rival 
tribes. 

In this petty war, the chief of the MacNabs fell, being 
slain by an. arrow from the bow of Finlay MacNeish, his 
enemy ; but he left twelve sons and his widow, Aileen, a 
daughter of the clan Donald (the race of the Sea) to carry 
on the fetid ; and animated by hate and fury, this woman, 
stem by nature and savage in purpose, seemed to have no 
thought, no hope for, or idea of, the future, but as they 
might serve « to feed her revenge," which aimed at the 
destruction of the Neishes, root and branch, and the ulti- 
mate capture of their territory. 

By her instigation, gathering all their fighting-meti for one 
decisive eflTorfc for the supremacy of the district, her sons 
marched from Kennil House, and the two clans met in 
battle with nearly a thousand swordsmen on each side, in a 
wild and pastoral vale, named Glenboultachan, between 
two high and solitary mountains on the northern shore of 
Lochearn. Each was led by its chief, and they rushed at 
once down the green slope to mingle in close and mortal 
strife, with wild yells, bitter epithets and invectives, while 
the war-cries rang and the pipers blew, as additional incen- 
tives 1k> slaughter and enthusiasm. Flying their sharp 



tHE neish's head. 263 

broadswords or long poleaxes with both hands, for greater 
freedom in the work of death, they tossed targets and plaids, 
breastplates and lurichs of steel, aside ; and so that work, 
ever so rapid and terrible in a Highland battle, went 
fearfully on. 

This battle took place on St. Fillan's Day, 1522, and the 
MacNabs bore with them the crook of the saint to ensure 
victory. It was borne by the Maclndoirs, who were the 
hereditary standard-bearers of MacNab, and had been cus- 
todiers of the crook ever since the death of St. Fillan, in 
649, an oflSice in which they were confirmed by a royal 
charter of King James II., in 1437. It is of solid silver, 
twelve inches long, elaborately carved, and having on one 
side a precious stone ; on the other, the eflSgy of our Saviour, 
and was the same relic which, with the saint's arm-bone, 
[Robert the Bruce had with him at the field of Bannockbum.* 

The morning sun, when pouring his light between the 
parted clouds athwart that gloomy mountain gorge, lighted 
up a terrible and bewildering scene, which Aileen MacNab, 
from the summit df a rocky peak, surveyed in gloomy joy, 
with her grey, dishevelled hair hanging over her shoulders, 
as she knelt on ashes strewn crosswise on the heather ; and 
there, with a crucifix before her, and a rosary on her wrist, 
she implored Qod and St. Fillan to grant her children and 
her tribe a victory ; and then she left her orisons, to shoot a 
shaft from her dead husband's bow, among the press of com- 
batants that fought like a herd of tigers in the glen beneath 
her. Then she would again prostrate herself upon the ashes 
and before her cross, which was made of the aspen — for of 
tliat wood, saitli old tradition, the true cross was made j hence 
the tree is accursed, and its leaves shall never rest. 

* III 1818 the last of the Maclndoirs, a Highland emigrant, took 
this valuable relic with him to America, and it is now preserved, with 
the letters add charters of James II., in the township of MacNab, in 
Canada. 



264 THB veibh's head. 

Wedged together in a dense and yelling mass, tine two 
clans were all mingled pellmell in wild tneUe, fighting msaa. 
to man^ scorning to seek quarter, and scorning to yield it. 
Heads were cloven through helmets of steel, bosoms pierced 
througli lurichs of tempered rings, while hands and limbs 
Arere swept off as the sharp wind may sweep the withered 
reeds from a frozen brook in winter ; and the long sword* 
bladqs, that flashed in the sun, seemed to whirl without 
ceasing, like a huge chevcmx de frize^ grinding all to deAth 
beneath them. 

Conspicuous above all this fiery throng, like the Destroying 
Angel or the Spirit of Carnage, wearing three eagle's feathers 
in the cone of his helmet, and clad in a lurich of shining 
lings, which covered his whole bulky form from his neck to 
the edge of his kilt, towered the eldest son of Aileen, named 
Ian Mion, Mac am, Ahba ({.e., smooth John, the son of the 
abbot), an ironical sobriquet bestowed upon him in conse- 
quence of the roughness of his aspect and the coarse, gtiuL. 
unyielding nature of his character. He bent all his energies 
to capture the Neishes' banner, which bore their crest, viz., 
a cupid with his bow in the dexter, and an arrow in tlie 
sinister hand, with the motto, AmicUiam traJiit amor. The 
tall and bearded bearer was soon cloven down by Ian Mioii, 
and the embroidered banner became the trophy of his prowess 
and daring. 

On the other side, Finlay MacNeish, a chief of great age, 
but of wondrous strength and activity, fought with un- 
parelleled bravery; but John MacNab and his eleven 
brothers bore all before them, and repeatedly hewed a bloody 
lane through the ranks of their foemen. At last their fol- 
lowers began to prevail ; and in wild desperation and despair 
at the slaughter of his people, on beholding three of his sons 
perish by his side, and on finding the disgrace of defeat 
impending, the aged chief of the Neishes placed his back to 
a large rude granite block, which still marks the scene of 



THB nbish's heap. 2^5 

this conflicti and, poising overhead his tvo-handed sword, 
stood like a lion at bay. His vast stature, his known 
streiigth and bravery, as he towered above the fray, with his 
^hite hair streaming in the W (the clasps of his helmet 
having given way, he had lost it) ; the wild glare of his grey 
ai^dt haggard eyes; the blood streaming from his forehead, 
which had been wounded by an arrow, and from his long, 
uplifted sword, which (like the claymore of Alaster MacC!oll) 
had a remarkable accessory, in the shape of an iron ball, that 
slid along the back of the blade to give an additional weight 
to every cut, — ^all this combined, made the bravest pf the 
MacISTabs pause for a moment ere they encountered him ; 
but after a dreadful struggle, in which he slew many of his 
assailants, the brave old man sank at last under a score of 
wounds inflicted %y swords and daggers ; and as his grey 
hairs mingled with the bloody heather, and were savagely 
trampled down, the triumphant yell of the MacNabs made 
the blue welkin ring and the mountains echo ; while his 
people were swept from the field, and perished in scores as 
they fled, being hewed down on all sides by the swords and 
axes of the MacNabs, or pierced by their arrows ; and the 
red lichens which spot the old grey stone in Glenboultachan 
are stiU believed by the peasantry to be the encrusted blood 
of the chief of the Neishes. 

With MacCallum Glas, their bard, about twenty of il^e 
tribe escaped, and took refuge on a wooded islet at the 
eastern end of Lochearn, where, in wrath and sorrow, they 
could lurk and plan schemes of revenge, which the ail-but 
total extinction of their name and number rendered futile ; 
while the victorious MacNabs, after sweeping their whole 
country of cattle, and destroying all their fiEU*ms, cottages, 
and dwellings, returned to hold high jubilee in Keonil 
House, the fortified residence of their chief, which stands 
upon a rocky isthmus, near the head of Loch Tay, and to inter 
their dead in the old buiial-place of the abbot's children, 



266 THE NEISH's H£AI). 

Innis Bui — a greenswarded islet in the Docliart, where their 
graves are still shaded by a grove of thosd dark and solemn 
pines which were always planted by the Celts of old to tuark 
where the tombs of their people lay ; and there the impetu- 
ous Dochart, after rushing in foam over a long series of 
cascades, under the shadow of the giant Benlawers, ends its 
wild career in the Tay. 

The slaiii of the enemy were stripped by the victors, and, 
by order of the remorseless Lady Aileen, were left as food 
for the wolf and raven. A fbw were interred by Alpin 
Maol (i.e. the Bald), an old monk of Inchaffray, who o£Sciated 
as priest of the church of St. Kllan. He came to survey 
that terrible field at the close of eve ; and of all the stately 
men who lay there on the blood-stained heather, gashed by- 
wounds, and with their glazing eyes upturned to heaven, or 
lying half immersed in a tributary of Locheam, towards 
which many had crawled in their thirst and suffering, he 
found only one who survived. The rest, to the number of 
hundreds arouud, were dead. They lay in piles, amid vast 
gouts of blood and broken weapons, and tufls of heather 
uptorn by the clutches of the dead in their death-agony. 

The wounded man proved to be the aged chief of the 
Neishes, whom the priest. Father Alpin, with the assistance 
of his sacristan, bore to a place of concealment, and, when 
hk wounds were healed, conducted him in secret to the 
islet in the loch, where the remnant of his people were lurk- 
ing, and where he found his daughter Muriel — a child of two 
years of age — the sole survivor of all his once numerous 
household ; for in their mad fury the fierce MacNabs bad 
spared no living thing, but swept all the land from Comrie 
to the beautiful banks of Lochearn, killing even the house 
and hunting-dogs of the vanquished. In every dwelling the 
clacliran-eoma, or rude mortar, then used for shelling barley 
by means of a wooden pestle, was broken and destroyed. 
The creel-houses, or wicker-work edifices, used as hunting- 



THlfi Kl^lSH'S &Eid>. 267 

lodges, and eveu every haUe mJmilainn, or mill-towti, was 
burned and ruined, that never more might the Neishes find 
shelter or food. All the land was heritably burned up, as 
when ferns were burned in autumn — a Celtic superstition 
long since forgotten. 

The feeble old chief was received with teftrs by the relics 
of his tribe ; and these tears spoke more than a thousand 
languages of all they had suffered, and were ready yet to 
endure, for him and the now tarnished honour of their fallen 
race. 

In a roughly-constructed hut, or creel-house, so named 
from being formed bf stakes driven into the fearth, with turf 
and wattled twigs between, the remnant of the MacKeishes 
lived the lives of outlaws j and having secured the only boat 
that lay in Lochearn, they were wont to make sudden and 
hostile descents on all sides of the lake, and suddenly at 
night, when least expected, the cries of those they were 
slaughtering without mercy arose with the flames bf blazing 
cottages amid the wooded wilderness, and marked where 
they were deaKng out vengeatice on the spoilers. Then by 
a sudden retreat to their boat, they would gain the sheltei' 
of their isle, and there, defying all pursuit, would subsist for 
days on the precarious plunder won in these midnight 
creaghs or forays. 

Penury, privatioti, and the despair of retrieving what tliey 
had lost, or of ever being able to make any resolute stand 
against the conquerors, made therii wilder, more desperate, 
and savage, than any other landless and broken tribe, — even 
than the MacGregors in the days of James VI. They sub- 
sisted entirely by plunder, winning their daily food by the 
sword and the bow ; and, ere a year was passed, their gar- 
ments consisted of little else than the skins of deer and 
other wild animals. Thinly peopled as that mountain dis- 
trict was at all times, the operations of Finlay MacNeish 
and his twenty desperate men rendered it more desolate 



268 THE kbish's head. 

than ever; for the MacKabs and their adherents, finding 
the vicinity of Loch earn so troubled and dangerons, re* 
moved their families, with their flocks and herds, to a dis- 
tance from its shores ; bat still, while the outlaws ou the 
isle kept possession of their boat, and destroyed evezy other 
that was set afloat in the loch, they were enabled to lead 
their lawless life in security; while the government of the 
regent, John Duke of Albany, who had never much power at 
any time beyond the Highland border, gave itself no con- 
cern whatever in the matter, for the duke resided princi- 
pally in France. 

From the residence of these outlaws, the green islet 
which is in the middle of the lower part of Locheam is 
still named the Isle of the Neishes. 

The future fate of the few stout men who adhered' to him, 
their chief, cost him but Uttle thought. He knew that they 
would, too probably, all die in detail, falling, as their fore- 
fathers fell, by the edge of the sword ; but the future of his 
little daughter, the last of all his race, pressed heavy on the old 
man's soul, for he would rather have seen her in her grave than 
the prisoner, it might be the bondswoman, of the abhorred 
MacNabs. He would gladly have committed her to the 
care of Alpin Maol, the priest of St. Fillan, that die might 
be sent to the abbot of Inchafli*ay, and by him be placed ia 
the charge of some noble lady or holy woman; but the 
priest abode where his church stood^ £Bir from the isle of 
bondage, in the very heart of the enemy's country, and the 
aged Finlay had no means of communicating witb him by 
message or letter. 

Muriel was now three years old, and her beauty was 
expanding as her days increased. She was pale and colour- 
less, but her hair was jetty black, and her quiet dark eyes 
expressed only sadness and melancholy thoughts, for, child 
though she was, the sauvagei'ie which surrounded her, and 
the sombre gloom «f her white-haired sire, a man whose 



THE liEISn's HEAD. 269 

whole heart and soal, whose every thought and plan and 
prayer were dedicated to retributive vengeance, impressed 
her with awe ; and she shrank from all his grim followers 
save MacCallum Glas^ or the grey son of Columba the 
citharist, the bard of the tribe, to whose care her mother had 
committed her on that night of horror in which she perished 
in their burning mansion, the night succeeding the defeat in 
Glenboultachan. 

The darkness of Muriel's eyes contrasted powerfully with 
the dazzling purity of her skin, which the tribe believed to 
be the result of a charm given to her mother by a certain 
wise-woman, who advised her to dip violets in goat's milk 
and morning dew, and to bathe the child therewith ; for, 
according to an old Celtic recipe, " Anoint thy face with the 
milk of goats in which violets have been dipped, and there 
is ~iiot a chief in the glens but will be charmed with thy 
beauty." 

So said the citharist in his song ; but MacKeish, as he 
made the sign of the cross on her pure and innocent brow, 
exclaimed, — 

" Thou art but a fool, grey Galium, for, by the great stone 
of Glentiarkin ! her beauty cometh from no other charm 
than the breath of her Maker." 

And in every foray he sought to bring some gaud or 
trinket of silver or of gold to deck his daughter, the child 
of his old age, the last of his doomed race ; the little idol 
who ehed a i-ay of light upon his melancholy and desperate 
liousehold in that wild and desolate isle. 

So passed a year. 



270 THE :7Kisii'3 niSAa 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE NEISH'S head — STOKY CONTINUED. 

• 

Thus to her children Luisa speaks — she cries. 
With you, my sons, my fate, my vengeance lies ! 
Live for that cause alone, with it to fall, 
A bleeding mother's is a holy oalL 

Portugal : a Poem* 

It was a year of danger, wounds, and rapine ; still the 
MaoNeishes, in their wave-surroundei fortress, defied all, 
and escaped every attempt to capture or destroy them ; for 
still their boat was the only one whose keel ploughed the 
waters of Lochearn. And now approached St. Fillan's Day, 
1523, the first anniversary of their disastrous defeat in 
Glenboultacban. In honour of this returning day of vic- 
tory, Lady Aileen MacNab invited all the principal dnine- 
wassals of her tribe to a great feast or festival ; and to pro- 
cure various accessories for the banquet and carousal 
Maclndoir, the standard-bearer, with other adherents of 
trust, were sent to the town of Crieff, which is situated on 
the slope of the Grampians. Having made all their pur- 
chases of provisions, wine and fruit, &c., they were returning 
with four laden sumpter-horses ; but when crossing the Ruchil ; 
at a place where it flowed through a thicket of pines, a shrill 
whistle was heard. Then followed shouts of wild ftiry and 
exultation, and Maclndoir found himself surrounded by 
Finlay MacKeish and his desperate followers, who by some 
means had obtained intelligence of his journey to Crieff. 
They were armed with rusty swords and battered targets, 
and were dad in little else than skins of the wolf and deer. 
Gaunt men they were ; hollow-eyed, fierce and savage in 



THS 2ilEISH'S BEAD. 271 

aspect. Their long unshaven beaxds flowed over their breasts, 
and their matted hair, without covering or other dressing 
than a thong or flllet of deerskin, waved in the breeze or 
Btreanxed over their naked shoulders like the manes of wild 
horses. 

"Tl^e Neishes, by the arm of St. Fillan!" exclaimed 
Maclndoir, drawing his sword in anger and dismay. 

" Yes, the Neishes, by the mass, the pope, and St. Fillan 
to boot 1 " replied the aged chief, with gloomy ferocity ex- 
pressed in every lineament of his face, as he turned up the 
sleeves of his tattered doublet and grasped his two-handed 
sword ; " we have long been supping the poorest of bruith,f 
but now T^e shall b^ve the good cheer of those sons of the 
devil who oppress lis. Come on, my children — come on 1 " 

A brief struggle, ensued; and while defending himself 
bravely^ Maclndoir vainly threatened the caterans with the 
*•' kindly gallows of Crieff," the power of William Earl of 
Mo^teith, who was then steward of Strathearn ; and, more 
more than all, with the dreadful retribution which Lady 
MacNab and her sons would assuredly demand if their 
goods were plundered or spoiled. 

Shouts of derisive laughter were his sole reply, and they 
mingled strangely Virith the cries of the wounded, the impre- 
cations of the victors, and the clash of blad^s^ which at every 
st?ake scattered sparks of Are and blood-drops through the 
supny air. In a few minutes Maclndoir was compelled to 
seek safety in flight ; while bis followers were all cut down, 
and the four ^umpter-hoi^ea, with their burdens, captured. 
Using their fvords and dirks as goads,-the MacNeishes 
drove thex^ at a furious pace down the hills towards Loch- 
eanA, in a solitary creek of which, under a shroud of ivy, 
willow, aiid wat;erdock8^ they had concealed their boat, on 
bos^rd of which they rapidly stowed their pluQder. The 

f Ga4io-*benoe the word hroth. 



272 THE iteish's head. 

four horses were then denuded of their trappings, ham- 
strung, and lefb to limp away or die in the pine forest ; 
while the MacNeishes, with a shout of defiance, shipped their 
oars, and as their long fleet birlinn cleft the clear waters of 
the lake and shot towards the little wooded isle, on the 
summit of which pale Muriel, with a beating heart, awaited 
them, the song of exultation raised by MacCallum Glas, as 
he sat harp in hand in the prow, and the chorus of twenty 
voices that joined his at intervals, reached the ears of the 
panting Maclndoir, when he paused on the brow of a neigh- 
bouring rock, and pressing the blade of his dirk to his 
trembling lips, swore to have a terrible' revenge for the 
affiront they had put upon him and the stem wife of his 
late chief, an affront which, to a Celt, seemed an outrage 
upon all laws divine as well as human. 

On reaching Kennil House he related to Lady MacNab the 
events of his journey from Crieff, stating that the sumpter- 
horses with their burdens were gone, and that his whole 
party, consisting of six men, had been cut to pieces by 
caterans. 

" By the Neishes ?*' she exclaimed in accents of rage. 

" By the old wolf in the isle of Lochearn ; and the blood 
of six of our people has soaked the heather." 

" Yet thou retumest alive to tell the shameful story ! *' was 
her fierce exclamation, as she smote him on the beard with 
her clenched hand, and her twelve tall sons gathered round 
her, muttering threats and growls of anger, all the deeper 
that they knew them to be futile, as the deep lake rendered 
the isle impregnable. They formed a hundred fierce schemes 
of wholesale slaughter, and for the total destruction of the 
wasps* nest — ^for so they termed the retreat of the Neishes ; 
but as the waters of the lake were too broad for armed men 
to swim them, and no boat could be procured, their projects 
ended in nothing but a settled wrath, all the deeper that it 
was without resource or vent ; so niglit closed in, and they 



THE heish's head. 273 

j9at in moody silence in their mother's hall. Its windows 
overlooked Loch Tay, the waters of which were flushed in 
one place by the light that lingered in the ruddy west ; and 
in others its deep blue was studded by the tremulous 
reflection of the stars. From the margiu vof the loch the 
beautiful and evergreen pines spread their solemn cones 
darkly over mountain and valley, as far as the eye could 
reach. Virgil praises their beauty in gardens; but the 
Mantuan bard never saw the wiry-foliaged and red-stemmed 
pine, that twists its knotty and tenacious roots round the 
basaltic rocks of the Scottish mountains^ or lie had found a 
fitter subject for his muse. 

Aileen MacNab surveyed the darkening landscape with A 
gleam in her stem grey eyes, and turned from time to time 
to observe her surly and athletic sons, who were grouped near 
the large Are that blazed on the hearth, and which cast from 
its deep archway, a lurid glow on their bare muscular limbs, 
and floating red tartans ; and then the idea that an insult 
Lad been oSered to her on the first anniversary of their 
great victory, — that she had been obliged to despatch messen- 
gers to her friends announcing that the banquet had been 
put ofi^ — and that at that very time too, probably, the wild 
caterans on the islet were feasting on the good cheer which 
Maclndoir had procured in Crie£^ and were pouring her rare 
]BVench and Flemish wines down their brawny throats, made 
lier tremble with wrath. 

Bepeatedly she addressed Ian Mion, her eldest son ; but 
on this night, John the Smooth, was unusually gloomy and 
abstracted, and made no response. 

It was averred that once, when hunting near the well of 
St. Fillan, he had met and .loved a beautiful fairy woman, 
who presented him with a ruby ring, the rich colour of 
-which would always remain deep and bright while his love 
lasted, but would fade as his love faded, and death come 
nigh the donor. The well where he received this strange 



S74 THE hxisb'b hsad. 

giftj ia still considered alike weird and holy in Stratiifillaii ; 
and there, even at tliis late age of the ^orld, rags and 
ribbands are tied to the twigs near it, and small propitiatory 
oblations in the form of coin, are dropped into its limpid 
waters by the saperstitioos Celts of the district. Ian Mion 
had long ceased to visit the well, for the Love he had vowed 
was a passing one, and the ring had been growing paler and 
more pale. On this night, as he surveyed it by the red glow 
of the bog-wood fire, the ruby had become white as snow, — ^a 
token that the fairy was dead, and that danger was near 
himseif. He shuddered, and then the sharp, stem, voice of 
his mother roused him, as she clenched her trembling and 
uplifted hands above her grey head, and exclaimed bitterly, — 

" A.Dhia 1 oh that my husband was here^ instead of lying 
in the place of sleep at Innis Bui, for this night is the n^bt 
for vengeance, if his lads were but the lads /" 

This significant mode of communicating a sentiment^ — a 
mode strongly characteristic of the genuine Celt, was 
immediately understood by the twelve sturdy warriors at 
the fire. 

''Taunt us not, mother," said Ian Mion, starting as if 
stung by a serpent, ** the night is the night for a terrible 
deed, and your sons ore the lads to achieve it, or may iheir 
bones never lie by their father's side under the dark pines 
of Innis BuL" 

He took his long claymore from the wall, and placed It in 
his broad leather belt ; he slung his target on his left 
shoulder, and grimly felt the point of his sharp bioda^ or 
Highland dagger ; and his eleven brothers followed his 
example, arming themselves with gloomy alacrity, while "^ ^n , 
with a smile of fierce exultation, surveyed their stature aud 
equipment. 

" Kow mother," said he, *' we go to Lochearn." 

" Achial ! achial, am bata 1" muttered his brother Gillespie. 
(Alas — alas, a boat !) 



v*;^ 



VHB mtSH'S HEA1>. 275 

"Why not take ourbirlinn from Loch Tayl** exclaimed 
Lady Aileen. 

^ And sail it over the hills to Locheam !" added her son 
Malcolm, who was somewhat of a jester. 

**No-^but carry it on your shoulders, my sons. There are 
twelre of you ; and for what did I bear — ^for what did I 
suckle you, but to rear you to act as your father expected, 
Mkemen!" 

** Our mother speaks wisely," said Gillespie. 

■**'Tw well and bravely tBought of," added Ian Mion ; "so, 
now for vengeance on the Neishes, the accursed cecUheame 
coiHe /" (i.6., woodmen, or outliiws.) 

'^ Then go,** exclaimed Lady Aileen, with uplifted hands ; 
'*and remember, the NeUli^a head, or let me never see ye 
more, and may the curse of your dead father dog ye to your 
graves 1'* 

In a minute more the twelve brethren had left the castle, 
and mshed to a little jetty in Loch Tay, where their birlinn 
or painted and gilded pleasure-boat was moored. 

It was soon beached, or drawn ashore, and raising it on their 
fllionlders they proceeded (six brothers relieviug the other 
six at every mile of the way) to asoend the steep, rocky, 
shelves of a mountain, and descended from thence into a 
liarrow and gloomy gorge, that forms the avenue of Glen- 
tarkin. Unwearied and resolute, the twelve brothers bore 
thus the birlinn on their shoulders, over this rough and 
rugged tract of mountain, and down the stony bed of a steep 
And brawling torrent, which tore its way through a rift of 
marl and clay, and serving as a guide for miles, poured its 
iraters into Locheam. 

* Quick, lads — quick," urged Ian Mion, pausing in a song 
"by which he had sought to cheer the way. 

'' Hurry no man's cattle, Ian," said Gillespie, as he panted 
under his share of the burden. 

" But hurry your lazy legs, for a storm is coming.** 

T 2 



276 THE 2nBI0B'0 HXAB. 

"How know you that V* 

" This morning I came over Bendoran ^ 

''Aire Dhia !" exclaimed Malcolm; ''an enchanted place; 
where storms are foretold." 

" So was I foretold it," replied Ian ; "for I heard the hollow 
voice of the wind sighing through the valley ; the shepherds 
also heard it, and were collecting all their flocks in bught 
and pen. So, on, lads, on ! And now by St. Fillan, I can 
see Locheam gleaming in the starlight far down below us." 

The moon, which had lighted them for some portion of the 
way, imparting by her pale radiance a ghastly aspect to 
everything, now waned behind the summit of Benvoirlich, 
and all became sombre, dark, and solemn, amid the pine- 
woods, and on the water of Lochearn, when, about one hour 
after midnight, the twelve MacNabs launched their birlinn, 
stepped on board, and without waiting a moment to rest or 
refresh, so resolute were they, and so determined to elude 
their mother's malison and to fulfil their vows of vengeance? 
they slipped their oars, and in silence shot their sharp-prowed 
vessel across the calm and lonely lake, and soon reached the 
Keishes* islet, which resembled a dense thicket or copse wood^ 
as the stems of the trees seemed to start sheer from the 
water. 

With muffled oars they pulled around it, and all seemed 
still in its woody recesses. No sound was heard — not even 
the barking of a dog, and so intense was the 'silence, that 
Ian Mion began to doubt whether the foes he had taken 
so much trouble to reach, were now in the isle or on the 
mainland, until he found their boat moored in a little creek. 
Driving his biodag again and again through its planks^ he 
soon scuttled it, and shoved it into the loch, where it filled 
and sank, thiis cutting off, for ever, all chance of flight for 
the foe, if defeated, and of communication with the main- 
land, if victorious. All this was performed in nervous haste, 
for, from this secluded islet^ the diabolical water-horse had 



THE keisb's hbad. ' 277 

, been frequently seen to dash into tlie lake ; and it was long 
the abode of a rdrisk, a being half demon, half mortal, whose 
piercing shriek before a storm could make all Lochearn echo. 
Mooring their birlinn under the lower branches of a large 
pine, the twelve brothers landed, braced on their arms their 
targets, which, were formed of coiled straw-rope, covered 
by thrice-barkened bull-hide, and studded with round brass 
nails. Then, unsheathing their long and sharp cla3rmores, 
they began warily to approach a red light, which they now 
detected in the centre of the isle, where it glimmered with 
wavering radiance between the stems of the trees. Ad- 
vancing cautiously, they discovered -it to proceed from the 
window — ^if an open unglazed aperture can be so termed—of 
the long and low-roofed creel-house or cottage built by the 
v^MacNeishes on the isle, and the turf walls of which they 
had carefully loop-holed for defence by arrows ; but now, 
overcome by fatigue, very probably by the unusual quantity 
of good food and rich foreign wines they had imbibed, lulled 
too by the sense of perfect security, they kept no watch or 
ward ; and thus, on peeping in, Ian Mion and his brethren 
beheld their enemies all asleep (save one) on the clay floor 
of the wattled wigwam (the hovel was little better), rolled 
in skins of deer, or coarse smoke-blackened plaids, the dull 
checks of which were the simple dyes of wild herbs and of 
the mountain heather. 

Ian Mion ground his teeth, and his Angers tightened on 
the hilt of his claymore, when finding his hated enemies 
within arm's length at last, and, to all appearance, a prey so 
easy. 

The fire from which the light proceeded, was formed of 
guisse-monaye, or bog oak from the morasses. It burned 
cheerily in the centre of the clay floor, from whence, .in the 
old Highland fashion, the smoke was permitted — after curl- 
ing among the bronze-like cabers — ^to fin4 its way through 
an aperture in the roof. Seated by this fire, upon a block 



278 THE neish's head. 

of wood, was the venerable Finlay MacNeisli, of all that 
wearied band the only one awake. He was enveloped in a 
tattered plaid of bright colours. His white hair fell in 
curly masses around his bron2ed visage, and mingled with 
his noble beard ; his »chin rested on his left hand, and his 
elbow was placed on his bare left knee. He was buried in 
thought j but a stern smile from time to time lit up his 
hollow eye ; for, warmed by the generous wine of Prance 
and of the Flemings of the Dam, which his good sword had 
that day won from the followers of his mortal enemy and 
oppressor, he was full of brilliant waking dreams ; though 
his thoughts chiefly wandered to the little couch of furs and 
heath, whereon slept the pale child, Muriel, the last of all 
his race, the flower of thaf wild islet, and the hope and joy 
of all his desperate band. For her, he planned out future 
triumphs, and the memory of all he had lost in that one 
fatal battle, the wild pass of Stratheam, the green Dundurn, 
the lone hill of St. Fillan, and beautiful Glenartney j his 
ruined home ; his plundered flocks and herds ; his wasted 
fields and ravaged farms, — all now, even to the time-honoured 
burial-place of his fathers, the prey of the MacKabs, — 
filled his soul with rage; and he saw before him the 
things such stern dreamers only see, in the red, glowing 
and changing embers of the fire, on which^his gaze was fixed. 

His thoughts were suddenly and roughly arrested by a 
shout of triumph at the opening which served for a window. 
He turned sharply, and on beholding the face of a strangpr, 
threw aside his plaid, and drew the sword which was never 
for a moment from his side. 

" Who are you 1 " he demanded, in astonishment and 
alarm ; " speak, and speak quickly ! " 

"Ian Mion Mac an Abba," replied the eldest son of 
Aileen, with a smile of scorn and triumph, 

" Smooth John of the accursed race, in the island of the 
Neishes I What seek you, caitiff? " 



THS KEISfi's HEAD. 279 

''A just vengeance; so come on thou false cafceran, or 
yield." 

^ MacNeish yields to iHe hand of the blessed Grod only ; 
but never to a MacNab of woman born ! " replied the 
aged Pinlay, with that air of supreme grandeur which the 
old Celtic warriors could -at times assume. "Tip, up to 
arms ! *' he added to his people ; but wine, weariness, and 
slumber heavily sealed their eyes, and he found neither 
response nor succour, while he and Ian met hand to 
hand. 

Their swords crossed, and by the light of the bog-wood 
fiiie, their wild eyes glared into each other's faoes ; and while 
blade pressed and rasped against blade, ere they struck or 
thrust, MacNeish said, — 

'* I am old, and thou, John MacNab, art lithe and young. 
If I fiJl, for the sake of our blessed Lady of Pity have 
mercy on my child — my little Muriel ; other boon than 
this have I none to ask.** 

*^ She shall have such mercy as brave men ever accord to 
/women and children," replied MacNab. 

" I thank you, Ian Mion * * 

** But for thee, there is " 

" Only death. I know it — so come on ! It may be 
that I shall die, yet I care not, if I can redeem my old 
life by having the best life among ye — ^ye sons of a mis- 
begotten cur ! " 

A thrust which he made full at the broad breast of Ian 
Mion, was parried with such force, that his arm tingled to the 
shoulder ; and now the poor old man felt the weakness of 
his many years, and the hoplessness of resistance. 

" MacNeish, you fight without hope — a man foredoomed 
to evil," said Ian mockingly. 

" True ; to evil and vengeance ! " exclaimed the other 
gloomily, for his mother had borne him on Childermas Pay, 
1467 (the 28th December) the anniversary of Herod's slaug^' 



280 KHB KXIBH'8 head. 

ter of the innocents ; a day of especial ill omen in ScoUaady 
for which it was deemed unlucky for a man to put on a 
new doublet, to clip his beard, or attempt anything in this 
world — ^then how much less to have the efirontery to come 
into it I 

It was vain for the old man to contend with an antago* 
nist so formidable as Ian Mion, who soon beat him to the 
earth by a mortal woimd, trod upon his sword and broke it. 
Then, twisting his fingers through the silver locks of Mac 
Neish*s ample beard, he dragged him to the block of wood 
on which he had been so recently seated, and there ruthlessly 
severed his head from his body by one slash of the clay- 
more. 

Ere the combat had ended, by a catastrophe so sudden and 
terrible, his eleven brothers had pierced and cut to pieces 
the whole band as they lay in their drunken slumber, and 
incapable of resistance. Of all the tribe of MacNeish none 
escaped, but Muriel, his child, and a little boy (the sou of 
Grey Galium, the bard) who concealed himself under a creel, 
and lay there in deadly fear, and drenched by the warm 
blood which flowed more than an inch deep over the day 
floor of this frightful hut. 

The summits of Benvoirlich, and of the wooded hiUs that 
look down on lovely Locheam, were tinged with gold and 
purple by the rising sun, as, with panting hearts and bloody 
hands, the twelve brothers rowed their birlinn from that 
isle of death towards the wooded shore, bearing with them 
the white head of MacNeish; 'nor did they rest for a 
moment until they reached the hall of Kennil House, where 
their pale, grim mother, who had never once closed her 
blood-shot eyes in sleep, awaited them. 

" Mo mather — na biodh fromgh, oirbh ! " (My mother, fear 
nothing now ! ") exclaimed Ian Mion, as he held aloft the 
ghastly head by its silyer locks ; and icom that hour (he 
MaoNabs took as their, crest^ ''thcNeish's head,'* c^firaniSe, 



THB neish's head. 281 

with the motto DreAd KotM, Aileen embraced her twelve 
savage 8ons» with stern exultation, and ordered the head to 
be spiked on the summit of her mansion ; while a banquet 
was spread, and the piper marched before the door, making 
every chamber ring to the notes of the clan salute, FanUe 

Lady Aileen would not permit the slaughtered caterans 
to receive the rights of sepulture. 

'' There, on the Neish's isle, let them lie unburied," she 
exclaimed, '* without aid from priest or prayer, torch or 
taper, mass-bell or mourner, — ^that their bones may whiten 
as a terrible niemorial to all that would dare to withstand 
us!" 

So said this fierce woman ; but gentle Father Alpin 
Maol, the good old monk of Inchaffray, had them interred 
in one grave, over which he placed a cairn of stones, and 
one of those Celtic crosses of a fashion which is only to be 
found in Scotland and Ireland. On the island the ruins of 
the Neishes' dwelling may still be traced, and on Innis Bui 
there still stands a monument erected by the MacNabs in 
commemoration of their savage triumph. 

The son of Grey Galium, the bard, when he grew to man- 
hood, settled in Strathallan ; and &om him are descended 
all who at the present day bear the names of Neish or 
Maclldiu. 

Little Muriel, who was almost inanimate with grief and 
terror, Father Alpin bore with him to Inch affray, in 
Stratheam, where she chanced to meet the eye of James V., 
when on a hunting expedition ; so she became the protegee 
of that good king, and when she grew to woman's estate, 
he bestowed her, with a portion in marriage, upon one of 
his esquires — the laird of the Torwood — and she was the pale, 
sad widow who, witly her three children nestling about her 
skirts, related to Florence, to Shelly, and their companions, 
this barbarous tale of a Highland feud. 



282 A BIVAL. 

Florence liBtened to it with deep interest, and the nima- 
tire filled his mind with melancholy reflections ; for in the 
character of Ladj Aileen MacNah he too easily reoc^^niised 
a resemblance to his own mother, — stem, implacable,, and 
revengeful. 

Shelly looked at Master Patten as Lady Muriel coBohided, 
and shrugged his' shoulders, with an expression in his eye 
which seemed so much as to say that he cared not how. soon 
the waters of the Tweed, and the Tyne and the Tees to 
boot, were between him and the land were such events were 
matters of not uncommon occurrence. 



-•c*- 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

A RIVAL. 

Cast off these vile saspicions, and tbe feiir 
That makps it danger I 

SwUhey, 

The limited accommodation of this small tower could only 
afford two chambers for the unexpected visitors^ To 
Florence, as a gentleman of known degree, was assigned the 
best ; to Shelly and his companion Master Patten, as 
strangers and travellers, was assigned , the other ; while 
worthy Dick Hackerston and his friends, as mere '' burgess 
bodies," or landward merchants, were left to wrap them- 
selves in their cloaks and plaids, and to sleep on benphes iu 
the hall, after the fire had been heaped with fresh fuel, bog- 
wood, peat, and coal; and after the pale chatelaine and 
her children had withdrawn to rest. 

The chamber of Florence was sombre in aspect. On one 



A Bivii.. 283 

'Side the arras tapestry bore a representation of the Cruci- 
fixion, and before it stood a pne-dieu and kneeling-stool of 
•Uadtoak ; on the latter lay a missal,^ richly gilded. The 
bed. had four twisted spiral columns, which supported a 
gloomy entablature and canopy, adorned by funend-like 
plumes of black feathers. 

Before retiring to rest, Florence for a time found a 
pleasare and employment with the opal ring of Madeline, 
and a flame from the lamp seemed to play amid its changing 
hiie& 

In the superstition of that and preceding ages, and ac- 
cording to the ideas of those who practised the occult 
sciences^ a mysterious and malignant power was believed to 
exist in the opal. . 

'' Malignant ! " thought he, as the dark story of the High- 
land feud and the memory of his mother's revengeful 
character occurred to him ; '* if it really be, that this strange 
stone, in which the flames seem to glow and waver, possesses 
any^ power over me, it can only be that of irresistible 
fatality." 

When he thus spoke, or rather reflected, he seemed to 
hear the name and title o^ Madeline nttered by some one 
near him ; or could it be the imagined echo of his own 
unuttered thoughts ? 

He paused and listened. Voices were speaking in an 
adjoining room ; and as it was only separated by an old 
wainscot partition, the joints and paneb of which were frail 
and gaping from age, he raised the arras and placed his ear 
close to an opening. The voices came from the chamber of 
the two Englishmen, whom he could perceive through the 
fracture in the boarding. They had not undressed, but had 
merely thrown off their doublets, and seemed resolved to 
sleep half ready for any emergency with their drawn swords 
beside them. 

''And so the prospect alarms you, my brave bully boy)" 



284 A BIVAL. 

continned Shelly, who was twisting his monstftche before a 
mirror, and seemed to be bantering his companion. 

" It doth, of a verity," replied Master Patten ; " so let ns 
pray the glorious Virgin Mary, that she keep us from witches, 
the Scots, and the devil !" 

"Thou bast no fear of the fires in Smithfield?'* said 
Shelly ; " cogsbones ! in old King Harry's time I have seen 
two fat citizens, and a le n apothecary from Aldgate, all 
burning in one blaze for saying little more. But, worthy 
Master Patten, when I am the husband of yonder sweet 
lady of Yarrow, what shall I make thee^seneschal, comp- 
troller, or steward of the household ? or would you prefer a 
snug place at court, where clerkly skill would avail theef 
But, by St. George, thou wouldst need to sleep in a suit of 
mail, well tempered and graven with saintly miracles ; for 
the avenues of a Scottish palace are well beset by swords and 
daggers." 

" Marry come up ! Master Shelly, don't talk of such things," 
replied Patten gravely. " By my soul, if I ever set foot in 
this cursed country of rough-footed and blue-capped heathens 
again, but under harness, may I never more see London 
stone or hear the bell of St. Paul's !'* 

"We found it more pleasant when mounting guard at 
Boulogne, making love to the market wenches at Calais, and 
playing the devil in the wine cabarets, eh? Bluff Kiug 
Harry's service had more pleasantries and fewer perils than 
his son's — the little King Edward.^' 

" Ugh ! think of that devilish story of the Pied-shanks 
who live but a few miles off— those Nabs or Neishes, or 
whatever the barbarians style themselves. "Why, 'twas like 
the tales that old mariners tell us, at Puddle Wharf and 
London Bridge, of black devils and savages who dwell 
beyond Cape Flyaway, in the kingdom of Prester John, 
or in the Island of the Seven Cities, which can only be found, 
once in every hundred years. Nay, I shall settle me down 



A BIVAL. 285 

somewbexe within the sonnd of Bow bells, a&d doubt not 
that, for what I have done in the young king's service here 
in Scotland, our Lord Chancellor, Sir William Paulet, now 
Lord St. John of Basing (and who is to be Marquis of Win- 
chester), or Sir William Petre, our most worthy Secretary 
of State, will make me some honourable provision." 

'' If not, mine honest Bill Patten, thou hast still thy sword 
and the scarlet- and-blue livery of a Boulogner ; but, as I was 
saying, when I am fairly wedded — ha ! ha ! droll, is it not ? 
— to my sweet Lady Yarrow, as the reward of my service 
here in Scotland " 

Florence did not wait to hear what the heedless English- 
man proposed to do after this happy event ; but, dropping 
the arras, he. took his sword, and leaving the chamber, 
knocked roughly at the door of the two strangers, who 
started to their weapons before they opened it. 

«* Sirs," said Florence sternly, " I have discovered yott to 
be two spies of the Protector Somerset." 

" Discovered ! Then you have been listening % " said 
Shelly with admirable coolness, though his nut-brown cheek 
grew pale with anger." 

<< How I have come to know it, matters not ; but the plain 
fact stands manifest — ^yon are spies I" 

** Spies r reiterated Shelly, trembling with suppressed 
passion. 

"I have said so." 

" Be wary, ear — ^be wary ; I wear a sword." 

"Edward Shelly, captain of King Henry's Boulognei-s, 
need not remind any one that he wears a sword, and can use 
it too. His name has found an echo even in the chambers 
of the Toumelles and the Louvre, where I have heard him 
praised as a true and valiant soldier." 

"I thank you, squire— I mean, laurd of Fawside — for this 
compliment; but ^^ 

"To be a spy I" 



286 A BIYAZ.. 

*^Tudim! as we used to say at Bcmlogn%'' esusbdooed 
Shelly foiioaslyj '^do not repeat that hatefiil w<ffd ! — 
well?" 

" Is to deserve the gallows." ' 

'^ You are deceived, sir, — I tell you, deceived. I am no 
spy, by all that is sacred on earth !" replied Shelly houBsly; 
for he was striving to master his pride and passion. '^ Be- 
member," he added, involuntarily placing his left hand \xpwL 
the secret pocket which contained his perilous despatches — 
" remember that you were accused of being a spy of the 
dukes of Guise and Mayenne." 

« But felsely so." 

*' Ab I may be of being an emissary of Edward Duke of 
Somerset." 

'' Then what meaneth all I overheard about your services 
in Scotland — of Sir William Petre and the Lord St Jolin of 
Basing, both of whom are well-known intriguers and favourers 
of the mad schemes of the late King Henry?" 

'^'Tis exceedingly probable that they are so," replied 
Shelly evasively j " for you must know that one is Xjord 
High Chancellor of England, and the other is Seoretai^ of 
State." 

He spoke slowly, to gain time for thought, as he felt all 
the perils of their position, and glanced down the dark cor- 
ridor without, surmising, if he suddenly slew Fawside, how he 
and Patten could get out of the tower, and escape into the 
forest. The project seemed too desperate ; for it scarcely 
occurred to him, when he relinquished it. 

'^ Now, hark you, sir," said he. '^ To make this matter 
short, is it your purpose to make us prisoners ? " 

'^ No ; for I would not wittingly bring two unfortunate 
men to a public and infamous death, more especially he of 
whom I heard so much in France, the brave leader of the 
English Boulogners." 

*' *Tis well, sir," replied Shelly, in a voice that seemed to 



* A BIYAL. 287 

£ftltec with honest emotion. '* You act generously j though, 
had you resolyed otherwise, you had got but two dead bodies 
for your pains." 

''Dead bodies t'* queried Master Fatten anxiously. 

** Yes," added Shelly firmly ; " for I would have run you 
throng the heart, my friend, to seal your lips for ever ; and ^ 
then I would have fought to the last — ^yea, to the very 
deatb-gtt^ ; for never shall a pestilent Scot fix an iron fetter 
on this hand, which planted the red cross of England on the 
Toor de TOrdre I " 

''In this chamber you have more than once to-night 
mentioned the name of a lady," said Florence gravely. 

'* Exactly; the Countess of Yarrow — ^bonny Madeline 
Home," replied Shelly gaily, and with a most provoking 
smile. " But what then 1 " 

"You actually aspire to her hand, — ^you, a stranger, a 
foreigner ? " 

" Cogsbones ! yea, to more ; and who shall dare to gainsay 
mei" 

" I do," replied Florence, who felt himself growing alter- 
nately pale and red with the anger that gathered in his 
heart. 

•* You I On what pretence or principle 1 " 

** As her accepted lover." 

«* Whew ! " whistled Shelly. " The deuce and the devil ! 
Dost thou say so ) Then I suppose we shall come to blows, 
after all" 

" Not here, at least," said Florence, with the calmness of 
concentrated rage in his tone, though his brow was crimson 
and his eyes were sparkling with light ; *' to fight here were 
to destroy you and your companion. I know not on what 
your presumptuous aspirations are based ; but if we meet not 
in battle ere thirty days from this be passed, I shall send 
my cartel to the Marshal of Berwick, and chaUeoge you to 
a solemn single combat." 



288 A RIVAL. 

** Good 1 I am easily found when wanted for sucli work ; 
and so, until that pleasant meeting be arranged^—" 

"Adieu, sirs." 

" A good repose to you," said Shelly, closing the door of 
his room and carefully securing it. 

" What think you of all this I " 'asked Patten, with some 
alarm and excitement in his face and manner. 

" By St. John the Silent ! I was beginning to think we 
were to prate at the door all night,** yawned Shelly, with 
a tone of irritation, as he threw himself upon his couch, 
spread his mantle over him, and went to sleep with the 
readiness of a soldier — a readiness provoking to Master 
Patten, who, after their late visitor's departure, felt doubly 
anxious and wakeful. 

In the morning, when Florence, with Hackerston, and 
the three burgesses, bade their farewell to Lady Muriel, and 
left the tower of the Torwood, they found that their two 
English friends (concerning whose names and purpose Flo- 
rence observed a steady silence) had arisen by daylight 
obtained a guide, betaken them to horSe, and three hours 
before had disappeared by the eastern road through the 
forest. 



Tnfi ccTur:::. S89 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE RETURN. 

What is ibe worst of woes that wait an age ? 

What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow ? 
To view each loved one blotted from life's page. 

And be on earth, alone, as I am now. 

Byron, 

As Florence and his companions took the same road that led 
towards Lothian, he reflected on ail that he had heard pass 
between Shelly and Patten on the preceding evening ; and 
though he humanely felt some satisfaction that they were 
gone, and consequently, he hoped, in safety, the circumstance 
of the English gentleman canvassing to his comrade so openly 
and confidently the prospect of his marriage with the Coun- 
tess of Yarrow, occasioned ample food for reflection, and for 
those peiplexing and annoying thoughts which suggest them- 
selves so readily to the restless imagination of a lover. 

« He has seen her, and knows she is beautiful, rich, and 
beloved by Mary of Lorraine," thought he ; " and a mere 
spirit of empty bravado has made him speak thus. Madeline 
may be able to solve the mystery ; if not, I have still my 
sword, and dearly shall Master Shelly pay for his empty 
boasting.*' 

As they passed through Falkirk, they found the whole 
population of that place (then a little thatched burgh of 
baroDy) in the streets and thronging the porch of the ancient 
church of St. Modan, where the bell was being solemnly 
tolled in the old square steeple. The faces of all they met, 
-were expressive of dismay and excitement. A dead body 
^of a recanted heretic, of course), which had been possessed 

u 



290 THE BETUBN. 

by an evil spirit, was on that day cast thrice out of its grave, 
in the dark depth of which it could only be retained in 
peace at last by Father Andrew Haig (the last Catholic 
vicar of the church) placing the consecrated Host upon the 
coffin, and having the earth heaped over it. 

This ghastly marvel furnished ample matter for conversa- 
tion until the travellers passed the Almond by a boat at 
Temple-Liston. There the river, which is now spanned by 
a bridge of very ordinary dimensions, was then so broad 
that for centuries it was crossed by a regular ferry-boat ; 
and as the current was swollen and rolling rapidly, some 
time elapsed before the little party of men and horses were 
safely transported to its eastern bank. 

Near this ferry, upon the soft yellow moss of a long 
lea-rig, sat a party of ploughmen and shepherds, making 
a rustic banquet of rye and soft scones, with milk, curds, 
and clouted cream, or sourkitts, as it was named from the 
staved kitts in which it was held. Some of these peasants 
wore hoods of blue or brown cloth, buttoned under the chin, 
and all had the grey plaid, or one of dull striped tartan, 
thrown over the left shoulder. Each had a knife at his 
girdle, and, in the old Scotch fashion, a horn spoon, which 
dangled at his hood or bonnet lug. The peasant girls had 
their hair snooded, and were bare-legged, though their feet 
were encased in cuarans of untanned hide, tied with thongs 
above the ankle. 

The morose gloom subsequent to the Reformation had not 
yet fallen upon the people, and this peasant group, while their 
herds and horses grazed near, before resuming labour in the 
fields, proceeded to amuse themselves ^ith the buck-hom and 
corn-pipe, and danced to the music of these and the lilting 
of their own voices, for such were the simple manners and 
enjoyments of the peasantry in the olden time. 

The quiet aspect of the landscape, which possessed all the 
tints of summer ripen^ and mellowed into autumn ; the 



menry peuuits dancing on the greensward ; the bine rivet 
flawing in front, and the herds that dotted ita banks basking 
in the snnshine j whOe on the steep beyond rose the grey 
tnrreted preceptory and Korman church of the Knights of 
St John, — made Florence think with sorrow of the change a 
month of war and havock might work here j and full of 
Bucfa reflections and of his own affairs, his secret love, his 
hostile mother, and his unfinished feud, he listened with 
some impatience to the prosing of honest Dick Hackerston, 
who rehearsed the magnitude of his own commercial transac- ' 
tious, to wit, how for my lord the Abbot Ballantj^e of Holy- 
rood he sold the wool of all the sheep which ranged upon 
the abbey lands at Liberton and Coldbrandspath, and the 
ikins and hides of all the animals slaughtered for the plen- 
tiful table of that great monastery ; and how he bought, 
bartered, or prftcured in return, from the French, the 
Flemings, and the Koglisb, rtusins, almonds, rice, loaf-sugar, 
love-apples, oranges, olives, ginger, mace, and pepper; for 
Master Peter Posset great boxes of dried herbs and apothe- 
caries' stiifis ; for the court ladies bales of French romances ; 
for Balph Kiddie, of the " Golden !Rose," cases of Khenish, 
Malvoisie, and Gascon wines, and so forth ; till our young 
gentleman of 1547, who felt just about as much interest in 
such matters as one of the present age might feel in scrip and 
railway shares, bank-stock and bonds, yawned with sheer 
weariness, when, at the west port of Edinburgh, he bade 
adieu to his mercantile companions, and, with 
refresh bis horse, took the road which, aflx 
• castles of CraigmiUar and Bnmsttme, led dire 
secluded home. 

The shades of evening were'deepening on 
fertile landscape, on the distant hills, and on 
sea, when be drew up in the conrt of Fawside 
dismounting hastened to meet his mother. W 
and tearful eye she received bim, and with a 



292 THE BXTUBK. 

on her pale white brow ; for, clad in her deepest dooIewee^B, 
she had spent the day in prayer and meditation between the 
tombs of her husband and her eldest son in the oharch of 
Tranent; and now^ with a sigh of bitter impatience, she 
beheld poor Florence, who was oppressed by the sombre 
aspect of a home such as she made it, toss aside hil^ sword 
and steel coursing-hat, anil sink wearily and in silence into a 
chair near the hall fire. ^ 

'' So, so, you are weary ) " said she, supporting herself on 
her long cane with one hand, while with grim kindness she 
patted his head with the other. '^ While ye have been wan- 
dering like a fule-baim between Edinburgh and Stirling, or 
Gude alane kens where, our tenants have neglected, for the 
first time in their lives, to bring their Lammas wheat into 
the barbican, whilk, as you ken, they are bound to send duly 
tied in a sack to you as their overlord." 

'' Oh, mother, heed not the Lammas wheat j anon we shall 
have other things to think of than the collecting of rent or 
kain." 

" Hah ! — say you so ? Then the news at Edinburgh 
Ci-oss " 

«Js war r 

'< 'Tis well ! Our men have been turning to women since 
the fields of Ancrum and Solway. And this war is, of 
course, anent the marriage of a boy king and a baby queen ; 
a brave matter, truly, for bearded men to fight about 1 ** 

" It would seem so ; and new I almost begin to agree 
with the Lord Huntly's view of this coming strife." 

** Indeed ! " said his mother, with more of scorn than 
curiosity in her manner ; "and what m^y his view be ? " 

" That he dislikes not the match." 

*^ The false Highland limmer ! " she hissed through her 
set teeth ; " so he dislikes not the match ^" 

" But hates the manner of wooing." 

" Now, by the souls of my ancestors who are in Heaven I ** 



THE BETUBN. 293 

ezclaimed Dame Alison, striking her long caue fiercely on the 
paved floor of the hall, " I love the manner of wooing, and 
thus may Scotland and England ever woo each other, with 
hands gloved and helmets harred ; for I hate the accursed 
match, and would rather see the child Mary Stuart strangled 
in the cradle, and her sceptre become the heritage of Arran, 
than live to be the bride of the apostate Henry's son and the 
crowned queen of our hereditary enemies ! And now, since 
we are talking of foemen, saw ye aught in your gowk-like 
rambling of the hell-brood who bide in the barred tower on 
yonder lea ? " » 

I did, mother," sighed Florence. 
Preston himself, perhapa** 
Yea, mother ; thrice." 

" Hath manhood gone out of the land ! And ye parted, 
as ye met, sakeless and bloodless 1 " 

'' As you see me, mother," replied Florence, overwhelmed 
by the bitterness of thoughts he dared not utter. 

*' Saints of Grod ! " she exclaimed, and raised her clenched 
hand as if she would have smote him on his sad but hand- 
some &ce ; then suddenly repressing the fierce impulse, she 
tanxed abruptly and left the hall. 

Florence thought of the sweet merry eyes of Madeline 
Home ; and all their memory was requisite to render life 
endurable with such a welcome to his mother's hearth. 



u 

It 



394 I>ADT ALISOK. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

LADY ALISON. 

t 

Oh, get ihee gone ! thou mak'st me wrong the dead. 
By wasting moments consecrate to tears. 
In idle railing at a wretch like thee ! 
A mother rarely will with patience hear 
« A true reproach against a living son, 
Far less a taunt directed at the dead. 

FirmUlian, 

Pbepabatioks for war between Scotland and England pro- 
gressed rapidly. Though the religious^ and, in some degree, 
the political principles of the Begent Arran were unsettled, 
he evinced the utmost activity in his military arrangements ; 
and in the south the Duke of Somerset was scarcely less 
energetic. Too well aware, by the history of the past, that 
the designs of England were other than merely matrimonial, 
that her inborn spirit of grasping ambition and aggression 
was abroad, and that her kings and governors had never 
respected truce or treaty, peace or promise, the Earl of 
Arran left nothing undone to attach the malcontent nobles 
to his own person. He ordered all the border castles to be 
repaired, strengthened, and garrisoned ; he ordained the 
sheriffs of counties, the stewards of stewartries, the pro- 
vosts of cities, and all the great barons, to train the people 
to arms, to the use of the bow and arquebuse, by frequent 
weapon-shows and musters. Old seamen who had served 
under Sir Andrew Wood, the valiant Bartons, and others, he 
encouraged to equip armed caravels and gallant privateers, 
with orders to sink, burn, and destroy ; while on land he 
strove, by threats or entreaties, to crush the bitter feuds 
that existed between clan and clan or lord and laird, that 



LAST ALISON. 295 

all migHt reserre their united strength and sharpest steel 
for the common enemy. 

Like the loyal lorda^ the malcontents mustered and 
trained their Tassels, bat were secretly watching the cur- 
rent of events; while among the people, Catholic and 
Protestant, reformed and unreformed {i e., heretic and 
idolater, as they pleasantly stigmatized each other), all for 
a time merged their disputes in the common cause, and 
armed them side by side, for the defence of their mother 
country. The reformers were undoubtedly in the interest 
of Reformed England, and averse to Catholic France ; hence 
'' a miraculous shower of puddocks " {AngUd^, frogs) which fell 
about this time somewhere in Fife, tended greatly to perturb 
the souls of the pious and godly, as being forerunners of a 
French army, headed by the Cardinal of Lorraine, or ^Hhe 
popish and bloodie Duke of Guise." 

Time passed, and the end of August drew nigh ; but there 
came no tidings from Scotland's faithless ally, of that armed 
force so solemnly promised, by those letters which Florence 
had brought from the Louvre, and at last the Regent 
Arran began to find that he must trust to himself alone 
to crush traitors within, ancf &ce his foes beyond the 
realm. 

So energetic were the measures of Florence, that within 
three weeks from the time of his leaving Stirling, a long line 
of such beacons as the regent desired was established upon 
all the hills near the coast of the German Sea, and from the 
high rocky bluff of St. Abb to the summit of the palace of 
Xinlithgow. Another line of beacons was also placed along 
the borders from sea to sea, on the highest eminences, and 
on many of the castles and peels, which had been strength- 
ened by the engineers who came to Scotland two years 
before, with the five thousand men-at-arms, sent over by 
Francis L, under George Montgomerie, laird of Larges, in 
Ayrshire— -famous in history as that Comte de Larges wi 



296 ' LADT ALISON. 

slew Henry II. of France in a tournament. Ajs in the 
older time of James II., and by the ordinance of his twelfth 
parliament, Florence posted armed watchmen between 
Boxburgh and Berwick and on all the fords of Tweed, «ii4 
built on Home Castle, the greatest balefire. One beacoA 
was to be the warning that the enemy were in motion ; two^ 
that they had begun to cross the river ; and four, *' all at 
anis as foure candellis " (to quote Glendook) that they were 
in great strength, and on their march for the Lothians. 

He left mounted guards composed of the vassals of the loyal 
border lords, whose sentinels were to convey instant intel- 
ligence^ of the foe's advance by day ; then by the regent 
it was ordained that none should leave their residences, or 
remove their goods or cattle, as it was his I'esoluticm to 
defend every hearth and foot of ground to the last ; and 
the cross of fire was to be the signal to arms ! After com- 
pleting these arrangements to the entire satisfacti<m of 
Arran, to whom he made his report at Edinburgh, Florence, 
on one of the last days of August, returned, with old Hoger 
of Westmains, to his secluded little fortlet, to muster his 
retinue, and await the summons to the field. 

Meanwhile, Glencaim, Ctssilis, Kilmaurs, and other ig- 
noble lords of their party, were absent at their own estates, 
superintending the fortification of their castles and array 
of their contingents, for the queen or against her, as the 
tide of events might make it suitable for them to act. 
Bothwell was brooding over his captivity in the castle of 
Edinburgh, and planning schemes of vengeance on Arran, 
on Mary of LoiTaine, and on our hero, whom he conceived 
to be in some way implicated in his afifairs. Shelly and 
Patten had reached London, from whence they joined the 
army of Somerset 

M. Antoine was composing a new piece of music, in 
honour of the intended nuptial alliance with France, and 
had resolved that it should rival the marriage ode or 



,LADY ALISON. 297 

epithalamium of tbe servile Buchanan. Mary of Lorraine 
and her ladies were busy with a new tapestry, as a present 
for the dauphine. Champfleurie was salving his sores at' 
Stirling, and taking new lessons in the science of defence 
and destruction. Old Claude Hamilton was also preparing 
for war, by deepening the fosse of his tall, grim tower, and 
like other barons, was storing up the grain, fuel, and pro* 
vender 'of his tenants, in its spacious vaults, and in the 
barns and granaries which stood within its strong barbican 
while ten brass drakes, imported for % him from Flanders, 
by Dick Hackerston, peeped their round muzzles over the 
parapet of the keep. 

On the first evening of his return from the borders, 
Florence was seated in the hall with his mother, who 
occupied her usual window bench, where she guided her 
spindle, which whirled on the floor ; while he, dreading a 
recurrence to her everlasting topic, the Hamiltons of 
Preston, and with his mind now, after an absence of three 
weeks, more than ever full of the image of Madeline, 
affected to be deeply immersed in the old black-lett-ered 
pages of "the Knightly tale of Gologras and Gawaine," 
from the quaint press of Chepman and Millar, printers to 
his late Majesty James lY., but his mother soon began to 
open the trenches, for he heard her muttering, — 

** Yes, yes, 'tis a basilisk I must get. Let me see, M[ister - 
Posset said that basilisks are hatched from dwarf eggs laid 
by old cocks ; and that they grow to little winged dragons, 
whose eyes, as all the world knoweth, can slay by a single 
glance. I must get me pne, if all things fail, and let it loose 
in Preston tower — that one reptile may destroy the others — 
yet Gude keep me from evil and witchcraft I " 

While muttering thus, slowly and in a manner peculiar 
to all who live much alone, or are in the habit of com- 
muniog with themselves, she glanced twice or thrice im* 
patiently towards her son i but he still read on. Finding 



298 LADT ALISOK. 

her audible remarks produced no response, she addressed 
him* 

*^ Wit ye now, my son, that Preston's niece, the daughter 
of that foul Earl of Yarrow, who drew his sword in the 
fray in which your ^Either fell, is even now in Preston 
tower." 

" Madeline 1 " faltered Florence, closing his book. 

" Yea, Madeline Home ; ye know her name it seems. So, 
when will there be a better time than now to form a plan 
for destroying the whole brood, root and branch ? " 

''A worse you' mean, mother," said Florence, as the dark 
story of Aileen MacNab occurred to him. 

'<<A better — I mean what I say; for in the war and 
tumult of an invasion, whaf; matter a few lives more or 
less 1 " 

*^ Mother, I dare not urge the feud at present," sighed 
poor Florence. 

"Dare not— did I hear you aright? have tyo acts of 
common charity — ^it may be of merest courtesy that passed 
between ye in the Tor wood, so blunted the keen resent- 
ment which hath lived for so many generations ? " 

" The regent '* 

" Prate not to me of regents — nay, nor of kings," she per- 
sisted, whirUng her spindle like lightning. 

"^nd Madel — this countess, she came to Preston ^" 

"Last night, and this morning she rode forth over Glads- 
muir, with a tasselled hawk on her dainty glove, and Mungo 
Tennant (oh that I had him within range of an arquebuse !) 
in attendance upon her, with a stand of birds, where a lash 
should be, on his knave's shoulders. And they hawked over 
the whole muir, though 'tis ours if the sword can. fence 
what the king^s charter hath failed to define. So I tell 
thee, son, that ere we lose men or harness in fighting the 
English, let us have one brave onslaught at Preston tower, 
and end this matter for ever." 



LAST ALISON. 299 

*' Its walls are higb, its gate is yetlan iron.*' 

*' Pshaw ! Hear me : Hamilton expects no attack ; what, 
then, so easj as at midnight to surround the tower with forty 
resolute mounted men, each with a windlan of straw trussed 
to his saddle-bow ; force the outer gate — John Cargill, the 
smith at Carberrj, says he can ding it to shivers wi' his fore- 
hammer, so e*en take the loon at his word ; kill the keeper ; 
pile the straw at the tower dOors, and fire it ; set bakehouse, 
and brewhouse, and mautkiln in a flame j then kill, by push 
of spear and shot of arquebuse, all who seek to escape ; smoke 
them to death, even as wight Wallace smoked the English 
at the bams of Ayr. You pause ** 

" By an act of the secret council it was ordained that this 
matter should end, mother ; for such is the law.'* 

**Hear him, Westmains !" said she with scornful pity, as 
the ground-bailie entered, made a low bow, and, according 
to his wont, marched straight to the ale-barrel. " I talk of 
the feud in which his father and his brother Willie fell ; and 
he quotes law to me like one of the ten sworn advocates, or 
a villanous notary of the new college bf justice. I tell thee, 
malapert bairn, that all the secret councils in the world 
cannot alter the ancient law of Scotland, as written by 
David II., anent feuds. What says it, Roger 1" 

" That * gif the king grants peace to the slayer without the 
consent of the nearest friends of him who is slain, these 
friends may seek revenge ^ " 

" Mark ye that, Florence — may seek revenge .'" 

"'Lawfully of him or of them who slew their friend.' 
Thus 'tis lawful to prosecute our feud to the death," added 
the ground-bailie. 

"And in this faith I reared thee since thou wert but a 
wee baimie, suppiug thy fii-st porridge with Father John's 
apostle-spoon." 

"Does not our Scottish law ordain that he who slays 
another shall be dragged to trial 1" asked Florence. 



300 4 LADT ALISON. 

" Law again ! Ob, I shall go mad ! " exclaimed Lady ASson, 
dashing her spindle from her, and pressing her hands over 
her grey temples, while her eyes flashed with fire. " When 
your father had a doubt in law, he consulted neither statute 
nor scrivener, but put his sword to the grindstone in the yard. 
Would you call it murder if we slew every man in yonder tower 
upon the lea to-night % I trow not. T would* be a righteous 
act in the eyes of Heaven ; and it would be styled by men 
-—even by those loons whose laws ye quote — a misfortona^ 
a slaughter committed in chavd^melle — even as thy father 
was slain by the Hamiltons; and Willie — ^my brave, my 
true, my winsome Willie — how died he 1" 

" In upholding that which the lord regent justly terms 
a curse to Scotland — an hereditary feud." 

'* Oh, can it be Gk)d's desire that I should be driven mad ! *' 
exclaimed Lady Alison, lifting up her voice, her eyes, and 
hands, with mingled rage and pity. 

" Mother, hear me," urged Florence, as the gentleness and 
beauty of Madeline, with the open, honest advances of Claude 
Hamilton, and those proflers of peace which were repulsed 
in an evil moment, and under the influence qf her who now 
spoke, all came vividly before him. 

" Never did one of this house or race talk thus, like a 
lurdane monk, like a mouthing abbot, or a craven wretch, 
but thee ! He who slays by the sword, as Preston slew thy 
father, shall by the sword be slain ; for so in Holy Writ the 
blessed hand of God inscribed it. Even Mass John of 
Tranent admitteth that ! ' 

Florence felt the truth of what she urged, and something 
of the old traditionary hate made his cheek glow with red 
shame for a moment, while his heart was heavy with 
sadness. 

'* Then, if I slay this man with my sword, mother,** said 
he gently, *'am I in turn to perish by the steel of some one 
elser* 



LADT ALISOK. ^ SOI 

^ Slave ! ** cried Ladj Alison in a voioe like a shriek; 
" did the hrave father to whom, for our shame, I bore thee-^ 
did thj brother, who died in the feud like a true Scottish 
gentleman — ^reckon thus — how they lived or when they 
died ? whom they slew or by whom they were slain ? I 
trow not ! Thou . hast become white-livered in France. 
Anne of Albany hath deceived me, and made thee a maudlin 
fool ! Out upon thee — fie ! fie ! Begone, lest I stain my old 
hands in blood by dinging my bodkin into thee !" 

With these fierce words, and seeming to concentrate the 
whole energies of her wild spirit in a glance of combined 
scorn and fury, she struck her right hand upon her busk, 
swept up the long black skirt of her dooleweed with the left, 
and retired from the hall with the bearing of a tragedy 
queen. 

Roger of Westmains, who had never before witnessed such 
scenes between Lady Alison and her son, or any of her 
family, gazed after her wistfully, and then surveying the 
young laird with a perplexed glance, he shook his white 
head in a way that might mean anything or nothing, just as 
one might choose to construe it, and withdrew after his fiery 
mistress. 

Then, with the manner of one who had been thoroughly 
worried, Florence laid aside his book, took his mantle, sword, 
and ooursing-hat ; and ordering out his favourite grey, gal- 
loped from the tower at a furious pace, he knew not and 
cared not whither — anywhere to be rid of his mother's fiei-ce 
taunts — of his own bitter thoughts and perplexities. 

He had but one fixed wish ashe cast his eyes to the green 
ridge of Soltra and the greener brow of Dunprender Law, 
that ere midnight the red blaze of those beacons he had so 
recently erected thereon might warn all Scotland of the 
coming foe ! War itself would be a relief from the excite- 
ment or irritation he endured now. 



303 THE CHAfXli Of ST, KAETIK. 



CHAPTER XXXVin. 

THE CHAPEL OF ST. MARTIN. 

With a graceful step and stately. 

Proud of heart and proud of mien ; 
With her deep eyes shining grayly, 
Ck>meth Lady Madeline, 

Trembling as with cold ; 
With cbeek red-flush'd like daisy tip. 
And full<ripe pouting ruby lip. 
And hair of tawny gold. 

Houseliold Words. 

Plato asserted that hopes were the dreams of people waking ; 
and Thale^ the Milesian aHirmed that hope was the most 
lasting of all things ; for when all seemed lost to man, it 
still remained. Thus our lover, like every other lover before 
the flood, or since, hoped on, though prejudice, fortune, and 
hostility had raised between him and Madeline Home barriers 
that seemed all but insurmountable. 

Skirting the green hill of Carberry, lie reached the banks 
of the brawling and beautiful Esk, then a deeper and a 
broader river than now. He boldly swam his horse through 
it near Edmondstone Edge, and spurred over th^ then open 
wastes known as the mains of Sheriff Hall, where on the 
purple muir lay the green ridges and trenches of a Homan 
camp, with a gallows-tree — sm old and thunder-riven oak, on 
which hung the bony fragments of one malefactor and the 
recently-executed body of another, who had been doomed to 
death by the Douglasses of Dalkeith. Down the steep slope 
from Newton-kirk he rode heedlessly, and passed the grey 
and ancient ramparts of Craigmillar, where, with beacon and 
culverlu, baiTed gate and moated wall, old Sir Symon 



THE OHAFEL OF 8T. MABTIN. . 303 

f 

Fresfcon of that ilk, was preparing for the coming strife ; 
then giving his horse the reins, he let him wander on, or 
crop the grass by the solitary way ; for Florence was buried 
in sad thoughts, yet his eyes failed not to linger from time 
to time on the distant outline of the capital, upheaved upon 
its ridge of rock, all rugged, broken, and fantastic ; the 
castle, spires, and every clustered mass of building, like the 
beetling brows of Salisbury and Arthur's bare round cone, 
tinted by the deep red of the western sun — a tint that 
seemed the brighter when, contrasted with the fields of 
yellow com that swayed their full ripe ears in the foreground, 
and the green masses of oak foliage that covered all the 
burghmuir in the middle distance of that lovely landscape. 

From the hill which is crowned by the ancient village of 
Kirklibei'ton, he rode slowly on till he reached Kilmartin, 
a little cell or chapel in a sequestered part of the eastern 
flank of the broom-covered hills of Braid. It was £i plain 
edifice with lancet windows, and had a cross bn its gable ; 
it 'Was of great antiquity, having been built by a baron of 
Mortonhall, who had gone to the Holy Land, and who, when 
lying wounded by a poisoned arrow, on the shore at Galilee, 
had made a vow to found a cell, if he ever saw his native 
land again. Two aged sycamores cast a sombre shadow over 
a few green graves which lay. within the low, half-ruined 
wall that enclosed the precincts. Those grass-covered 
mounds marked the last resting-places of various hermits 
who had succeeded Father Martin, who though locally 
canonized as a saint, is now forgotten (at least his history 
is only known to ourselves), and who, like him, had occupied 
Ifhe little cottage close by the chapel, ^nd had drawn the 
element of baptism from the spring of pure water that 
sparkled as it poured in the sunshine over a ledge of whin 
rock, and gurgled in torquoise-blue between the ripe coril- 
rigs, and under the yellow broom-bells, to join the Burn of 
Braid« 



304 THE CHAPEL OF ST. UABTIK. 

The story of Father Martin is somewhat singular. 
Among the five thousand military pilgrims from Scotland, 
who accompanied David Earl of Garioch to Palestine, 
there was a citizen of Edinburgh, named Mai*tin Oliver. 
^In the year 1191 he found himself with the army of Hichard 
of England, then besieging Ftolmais. Having been guilty 
of some crime, Oliver, to avoid punishment, deserted to the 
Saracens, and became, outwardly, a renegade to his religion. 
Tormented day and night by his conscience, lie endured the 
utmost misery, and on his knees vowed to atone to Grod for 
his crime. One day when posted as a sentinel on the out- 
works of the town, he perceived not far from him a Christian 
soldier, in whom he recognized a comrade, one of Earl David's 
band, named John Durward, whom he addressed in the 
Scottish tongue, telling him that he was weary of life, and 
longed to atone for his pretended apostasy. A communica- 
tion was thus kept up from time to time, and on a certain 
night, Martiif Oliver introduced the Scottish Crusadei-s 
" into a part of the city." The English followed, and Ptolmais 
was immediately captured. So says Hector Boethius, and 
Maimbourg, in his "Histoire des Croisades,*' adds, that 
assuredly the Christian princes had a sure intelligencer 
within the town. Oliver returned to his native land, and in 
a hermitage amid the lonely hills of Braid he passed his 
days in prayer and penance for his apostasy, and to atone 
for serving the enemies of God, in a city where the true 
cross was said to be destroyed. 

Many little chapels like Kilmartin, and such as St. 
Catherine at the Balm-well, St. John the Baptist on the 
Burghmuir, and of our Lady at Bridge-end, studded all the 
fertile Lothians, and were each kept by an old priest, who 
derived a scanty subsistence from the pious, the charita ble 
or the credulous ; from farmers, for blessing their herds and 
crops, for baptising their little ones, or praying for fine 
weather, — even now, when Scotland was on .the verge of 



THE CHAPEL OP ST. MARTIN, 305 

tliat tremendotis change the Reformation. To Florence, the 
calm seclusion of this old chapel, which was situated in a 
green hollow oj those wild and barren hills, seemed soothing 
and inviting, and there he resolved to rest awhile, and it 
possible to give himself up to deeper thought, that under 
its calm influence he might discover some means of extrica- 
tion from his present difficulties. Dismounting, he tied his 
horse to the chapel door, and entered without observing 
that under the sycamores there stood three richly-caparisoned 
horses, two of which were ridden by armed grooms, in the 
royal livery, while the third, whereon was a lady's, pad of 
crimson velvet, was riderless. 

A plain altar, with a stone step, well-worn by the knees 
of generations of peasantry who had prayed there ; a rude 
crucifix of freestone, carved within a niche, and an old sltuU, 
which, if abstracted, was said to have the power pf always 
returning to the chapel, were the sole features pf the interior, 
unless we add a slab in the centre, marked by a cross, and 
inscribed Mater Dei memento md. This marked the' grave 
of Father Martin, the repentant soldier of Ptolmais, who 
lived to the age of ninety, and died when Alexander III. 
was on the throne of Scotland. 

Florence had scarcely entered, dipped his fingers in the 
stone font at the door, and surveyed the bare, bleak little 
oratory, with the listlessness of a prfe-occupied man, when 
the rustling of silk and the sound of a light step behind, 
made him turn, and lo ! Madeline Home, wearing over her 
usual dress a long blue riding-robe of Flemish cloth, and 
having on her pretty head one of the prettiest of little 
Anne Boleyn hoods of purple velvet, stood before him, 
with her long skirt gathered up gracefully in her left hand, 
on which sat her favourite hawk (the same bird which had 
excited Dame Alison's indignation), and in her right she 
held a jewelled riding-switch. 

On beholding a person in the little chapel, she pausei? 

X 



306 THE CHAPEL OF ST. HABTIN. 

but when their eyes met, a bright flush passed over her 
sweet delicate face, with an expression" of surprise and 
inquiry. Her half-opened lips revealed her little teeth, so 
white and closely Set; and her dilated eyes seemed to ask an 
explanation, but Florence pressed her hand, and then they 
exchanged one of those long and tender kisses which are 
never forgotten. 

'^ Dearest Florence," she whispered, *'how came you 
hei-e?" . ' 

" At a time so strangely opportune, you would ask ? '* 

" You did not follow me 1 " 

** Follow you ? Heavens, no ! — and yet had I known—-" 

" Then how came you here ? " 

" Bj fatality — ^happy fortune — which you choose. CJod 
alone knoweth how, for, my sweetest heart, I know not. I 
rode forth from Fawside to escape from a bitterness too 
deep for telling; and riding on^ on — I knew not, cared 
not whither; my grey — the grey the queen gave me-— 
tarried at the chapel-door, and so I am here." 

" How strange — when / was here too ! " said Madeline, 
whose fine eyes sparkled with pleasure and drollery. 

"A fortunate coincidence 1" said Florence, caressing her 
hands. 

"To-day I was in Edinburgh with the queen, and being 
on my way home to Preston, she gave me an alms for the 
Franciscan at Kilmartin here, with that which the good 
man values more, — ^a fragment of St. Martin's garment, no 
larger than a testoon ; but brought from her sister, Madamo 
the prioress of Bheims, by Monsieur d'Oysell, the amba^- 
fiadbr." 

" And you are returning ** 

« To Preston Tower." 

" And to your uncle Claude ? " 

"Yes." 

" When, so near— our residences being within view of eack 



THE CHAPEL OF ST. MARTIN. 307 

other,-— may I hope to sob you ? " urged Morenoe ; " may I 
hope that we shall meet, in. some place where none can see 
or interrupt us ? " 

.^ A pressure of liis hand and a sweet smile were his 
aasuring reply. 

''Thanks, dear, dear Madeline ; then I may escort you 
eastward ) " said he anxiously. 

" So far as Carberry you may. Fortunately, I have the 
queen's servants in attendance on me, and not my uncle's ; 
so let us mount and go, for the evenijig is drawing on, and 
probably we shall not ride fast," she added, with a droll 
smile. 

" I am with you so seldom, dearest Madeline, that I am * 
loath to lessen the joy of our happy meeting ; do tarry with 
me here a little longer.'* 

" But the queen's grooms ^ 

'' Let them wait ; for what do the varlets wear livery 1 
I have a matter near my heart on which I must speak with 
you." 

" That you love me," said Madeline playfully ; '' but you 
have told me that often already." 

" Love you. Lady Yarrow ! oh, I love you — ^love you 
dearly; but "^ 

" But what 1 " 

'' My heart beats so fast, and love so bewilders me, that I 
know not what I say." 

" To the point — ^you have some secret, Florence." 

^ Know you a gentleman named Shelly 1 " 

" No j— but wherefore ? " 

« Edward Shelly 1 " 

" No," she replied, her bright eyes filling with wonder. 

^ Edward Shelly, captain of the English band named tho 
Boulogners ? " 

" No^I tell you no ; but why all these questions '' 

*' It is most inexplicable ! " exclaimed Florence ; 

s 2 



308 THE 0HAF1SL OF 8T: XABTIK. 

hastily told her what he had overheard Shelly saying to 
Master Patten, and the astonishment and perplexity of poor 
Madeline was great. Then she switched the skiH of her 
riding-dress impatiently, and said laughing, — 

" 'Tis the first time I have heard of this unknown lover. 
I hope he is handsome and gallant, — ^I should like much to 
see him ; hut — hut 'tis impossible all this, dearest Florence ; 
you dreamed it, or you but jest with me." 

*' Nay, 'tis no dream or jest, sweet Madeline, as I am to 
fight a solemn duel anent it, on the Border-side, with the 
same Edward Shelly, unless ** 

" What — ^what 1 " she asked, growing pale. 

" We meet in battle before a month be past, and of that 
there is every probability." 

" This cannot be ; his falsehoods must be seen to ! I 
shall know who this impudent varlet is, who dares to use 
my name even in empty jest!" said Madeline gravely; 
" but how truly spoke Mary of Lorraine this morning, when 
she said that love is more transient than friendship, for a 
lover is ever under delusions. But think no more of this 
saucy fellow, dear Florence. We need not add jealousy to 
the troubles that already environ our unfortunate passion. 
I am so happy when with you, that all existence seems a 
blank between each of our meetings. Poor dear Florence ! 
I do love to read in your kind eyes the joy my presence 
excites in your bosom — the love of which I am the source ! * 

Her manner, so soft, so suave and winning, when con- 
trasted to the harsh, stem, and imperious bearing of his 
mother, lent, her a charm far surpassing all the attractions 
of mere loveliness. After a long pause, during which her 
hot cheek was resting on his shoulder, and his arm was 
pressed around her, — 

" See," said she, " the sun has set, for the painted glass of 
the windows has lost all its brilliance ; we must go, Florence, 
lest mischief be^l us if we ride late, — ^and, of all things in 



THB OHAFCL OF ST. VARTUI. 309 

the world,*' she added, with a merry smiley '4et as avoid 
that fated place, the Ehreskirk." 

^' What maimer of kirk may it be 1 ** he asked, as he led 
her forth. . 

« A place near this, where an ancestor of mine was borue 
away by a fairy ; so, beware of a damsel in green, Florence,** 
said Madeline merrily, as he lifted her to the saddle, and 
then, taking the bridle, led her horse along the narrow road 
that traversed the Braid Hills. He then mounted, and the 
two lackeys of JVIary of Lorraine, dropping a little to the 
rear, followed them at an eaisy pace. 

" You see yonder steep knoll, so thickly covered by waving 
broom,** said Madeline; ''below it is a round hollow, 
called the Elveskirk, where the grass is ever o^the most 
bnliiant and beautifol green, as it is said to be mowed and 
watered by the fairies who dwell there, and who, on the 
Eve of St. John, are wont to dance and hold their revels in 
it. Once upon a time, an ancestor of mine, a brave young 
knight, who was lord of the manor of MoiTton Hall-^ 
yonder mp|ited tower among the dark old woods — ^had been 
dining with the abbot of St. Mary, at Newbattle, and was 
returning home, over the hills, near Kirkliberton. Tliis 
was long ago, in the days of James I. 

''The night was dear, and the moon shone brightly, 
when he met by the wayside a fair-skinned and golden- 
haired lady in green, whom he addressed in the language of 
gallantry, and who beguiled him to spend a few hours with 
her in the green hollow of the Elveskirk. Swift flew these 
hours, when love and pleasure chased them ! and when the 
moon was sunk behind the Pentlands, and the east was 
streaked with grey, the lady suddenly disappeared, and in 
her place, the knight found only a wild rose-tree, that 
waved in the morning breeze, as if mocking him. He 
turned to seek his horse, muttering the while, that the father 
abbot's wine must have been over potent ; but the steed h^'^ 



310 THE CHAPEL OF ST. XABTDT. 

disappeared ; so he resolved to proceed homeward on iodL 
As he walked on, to his astonishmeDt, he found the &ce of 
the country changed. The ridges of Braid^ and the hknff, 
flinty brow of Blackford, were the same as of old ; buf^ia 
some places where whilom the purple heather grew wit^ 
many a tuft of dark green whin, since last night the yeUow 
corn had sprung up, and was waving in the wind. Cottages, 
which he knew to be his own property, had sunk into ruin, 
and become mere piles of stones, or had totally disappeared ; 
and elsewhere others had sprung up as if by magic, and now 
large trees were tossing their foliage where not a twig had 
grown the night before ! 

" At the Bum of Braid, where he had been wont to cross 
by a dangerous ford, and where a subtle kelpie had deluded 
and drowned many a belated man, my ancestor found a goodly 
bridge of stone, and he parsed along it, as one in a dream* 
The Inch House, which whilom had been moated round by 
the river, stood now alone high and dry upon a grassy emi- 
nence ; and the river itself, had shrunk between its banks 
to a mere mountain burQ. ^ 

" Full of terror, the lord of Morton Hall l^urned to seek 
Kilmartin, the little cell we have just left, and he saw it 
standing, as we see it now, all unchanged, on the brow of 
the hOl, just where the saint was buried of old. He now 
discovered, that though yestereve he had been close-ahaven 
in the old Scottish fashion, his beard had grown to a vast 
length, that it had become white as thistledown, and wared 
to and fro as he walked. His hands were changed too^ as 
if with age, and his limbs, once so straight and strong, bent 
under the weight of his body, and seemed every moment to 
become more feeble. 

*< * Can this palsied wretch be myself — ^I who, at Dum- 
barton, struck down by a single blow of my axe the Red 
Stuart of Dundonald 1 ' he thought, as he tottered on. 

" A horror came over him, with the conviction that he 



THE CHAPEL OF ST. UABTIK. 311 

had Spent a long lifetime in a night, and he hastened 
towards the lonely chapel, tne priest of which, Father 
Michael, was his chief friend and confessor. At the little 
arehed door of the holy cell he met a churchman, 
wiiose face he knew not ;. hat to whom he said, trem- 
bling,— 

** * Is not Father Michael here ? ' 

"The priest gazed upon him with surpiise, and then 
replied, after a pause, — 

'* *' Father Michael Ochiltree, if it be he you mean, old 
ihan, is with the saints, I trust.' 

"'Dead!' 

" ' He became dean of Dunblane, and thereafter bishop 
of that see,* continued the priest, with increasing surprise ; 
''tis an old story, my son — Bishop Michael died in 1430, 
and is interred in the choir oHiis cathedral.* 

" ' Holy father,* said the lord of Morton Hall, with greater 
agitation and bewilderment ; ' what year of God is this ) * 

« at is 1520.* 

« ' Swear it.* 

'^ ' I swear it to thee, strange old man — it is the seventh 
year of our king's reign.* 

" * And he is named ' 

" * James.* 

^' ' But James what r 

" ' The Fifth: 

" ' Mother of €k)d ! ' exclaimed the knight ; ' I knew but 
James the Fvrst I ha'/e been ninety years among the elves 
-*-my wife, my children — ^yea, it may be my grandchildren, 
have all gone before me to the grave ! * 

" Rushing past the startled priest, he threw himself in a 
jiaroxysm of prayer at the foot of the altar. 

" In terror, the father followed and entered ; but only in 
time to see the tall and reverend figure of the knight 
crumble away to a few pieces of bone and impalpable dust. 



1 



312 THE OHAPlOi OF ST. MAI^TIK, 

The skull alone remamed, and yon saw it lying upon the 
altar." 

The anecdote or legend of the countess (one of a kind 
common to many countries) produced others, for the age 
was one of fable and fairy mythology ; so the time paaaed 
swiftly as the shades of evoDing deepened, and the lovers 
rode lingeringly on. 

** So, war is at hand," said the countess, after a pause ; 
*' O Florence, my soul trembles for you 1 " 

*' Fear not, dearest — ^for your sake I shall be waxy.'' 

" You can afford to be so, Florence ; one ot oouzage so 
approved, and in a close helmet ^ 

''Ah," said he smiling, ''you fear that my &ce may bare 
a ghastly scar, like my Lord ELilmaurs' ! But I c^ guard 
my head better than he. As the doughty Douglas said to 
the King of France, ' I can \ye gar my hands keep mv 
face.'" 

" What would you feel, Florence, were I laid before yon, 
mutilated — mangled — dead 1 " 

" Ah, why a thought so horrible ! " he exclaimed, im- 
pressed by her strange manner. 

" That you may imagine what I shall feel, if suick should 
be your fate." 

" For Heaven's love, Madeline, let us talk of other things." 

The moon was rising &om the glittering sea, when 
Florence, with a sigh, drew the bridle of his horse, a mUe 
eastward of Carberry ; for now they were close to the 
barony of Claude Hamilton, and to have proceeded furtiier 
with the young countess would have been alike unwary and 
unwise. 

" So here we part, dear Madeline I " said he sadly. 

" And part, we know not when to meet again.'* 

" Nay, I cannot leave you without knowing when that 
joy again awaits me. I must have promises^ for they are 
better than hope." 



TH£ OHAPEL OF ST. MARTIK. 313 

f' And I, ilorenoe, have had a frightful dream^ and dreams 
are said to be warnings.'' 

*^ Nay, Madeline ; they are but the reflection of the pasik, 
and no6 the foreshadowings of the future ; so, no dream 
could scare me — ^but what was yours I " 

''That your mother — that Lady Alison was slaying 
me. 

Ploreoee felt a pang even at this improbable idea; 
though he smiled, and to change the subject said, — 

''May I hope that, at dusk to morrow, you will meet me 
— ^you pause-^ah, promise me " 

" Where I " 

" In some secluded place — ^the church porch of Tranent — 
*tis always open for vespers." 

" I have a horror of that gloomy place, where so many 
dead are lying, and at such an hour ! " 

" But what fear you, when I will be there ? " 

" I shall come — but Father John-: — ^ 

" Will not betray us, dearest Madeline ! be assured of 
that ; the good priest loves me well." 

With some reluctance, she consented to meet him in the 
gloaming, at the place appointed, on the morrow's eve. He 
kissed her hand, and they separated ; but so long as her 
light figure and her waving riding-skirt were visible, he 
continued to gaze after her, as slowly and thoughtfully he 
rode up the winding way /that led to the gate of his home. 
JBTe gave a glance towards Soltra and Dumprender Law ; 
still their summits were dark, and no spark of light thereon 
as yet gave token of the coming foe. 

The evening was dark, and the tints of the landscape 
were sombre and sad. It was the autumn of the year, and 
in his heart the ripe autumn of a love, that might have no 
spring or summer. 

On this night the grim and indignant Lady Alison did 
not appear ; and Florence, who, by his recent unexpected 



314 THE LUBE 

interview, and the hope of another with Madeline Home, 
felt as if he was in the midst, of some tremendous treason 
against the peace and honour of his own family, experienced 
some relief in the absence of his mother ; for such is the 
power that may be attained by a strong temper and resolute 
will over a gentle and affectionate, but better nature. And 
now such was the tender influence of Madeline, that Florence 
had returned with every angry passion and bitterness soothed, 
and he became happy again, for he seemed yet to hear her 
sweet voice lingering in his ear, and the last kiss tliey had 
exchanged in the old chapel of St. Martin seemed yet to be 
hovering on his lip and thrilling through his heart. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE LURE. 

I will have such revenges on you both, 
That all the world shall — ^I will do »ach things, — 
What they are, yet I know not ; but they shall be 
The terrors of the earth. Yoa think I'll weep ; 
No, I'll not weep. 

Kimg Lear. 

Next day Lady Alison was moody, reserved, and sullen ; 
she spoke little, or muttered as she sat in the bay of the 
hall window whirling her spindle, or secluded herself in her 
bower-K^hamber. Maud, the old nurse, who had lost a hus- 
band and two brothers in the feud with the Hamiltons, 
alone shared her angry communings ; and even Roger, the 
bailie, who deemed himself one of the dame's chief coun- 
sellors and prime minister, on this day found her morose 



THE LURE.' 315 

and unapproachable. ^ Florence dreaded a renewal of the 
conversation of yesterday ; thus, avoiding the presence of 
his niother« he busied himself among the horses of his re- 
tainers, seeing that all were carefully shod and proved to be 
sound in wind and limb, while an armourer from Edinburgh 
was at work on the iron trappings of steed and man. The 
grindstone was whirling in the court-yard ; and songs were 
sang and tales told of the wars of James IV. ; while blades 
were burnished and pike-heads pointed and tempered anew ; 
for now, like a thousand other castles in* Scotland, the little 
fortalice of Fawside resounded with the bustle of military 
preparation. 

So passed the noon of day. Florence watched the western 
verging of the sun as evening drew near, and the rays re- 
volved round the dial. Then his heart beat quicker with 
anticipated happiness ; for the hour of his meeting with 
Madeline drew nearer and more near. Yet time never 
seemed to pass so slowly. 

As the hours of this long day succeeded each other. 
Lady Alison strove to smother the angry scorn her son's too 
peaceful spirit roused within her ; but being loath to 
nurse this growing bitterness against him, she sought 
him in the garden, which then lay on the sloping bank 
to the southward of the tower wall. 

On the face of a grassy terrace Florence reclined, with his 
head supported on his elbow, and so lost in thought that he 
did not hear her approach. In the hollow of his left hand 
lay the opal ring of Madeline ; and it caught the keen eye 
of Lady Alison as she propped herself on^er long cane and 
stooped over him. Startled by finding his deep and fond 
reverie so suddenly interrupted, Florence hastily placed the 
ring on one of his fingers, and resuming his volume of 
" Gologras and Gawaine," which lay near, arose with a flush 
of annoyance on his cheek. Rapid though the action, it was 
not done quickly enough to escape the keen eye of Damo 



316 THE LUB& 

AILboh, and her sharp, angry, and anxious glance vas sA 
once riveted on the trinket. She saw that it was aoi opal j 
and the mysterious and malignant power which that stoue 
was helieved to possess and to exert over mortals at once oc- 
curred to her^ and gave her maternal heart a twinge of alarnt. 

*' Here is some new and fatal mystery ! " s&e muttered ; 
" dool and plague be on the hour I sent my only son to 
France ! What bauble is this, Florence, that finds such 
favour in your sight ? " she asked. And, as he expected 
the question, he replied calmly, — 

" A trinket — only a trinket, mother ; few gentlemea 
about the court are without sucL" 

** My bairn," said she, seating herself by his side on the 
grassy slope of the terrace, and taking his hand in hers, 
while a foi^d smile spread over her face to conceal the 
anxious and searching glance of her grave grey ej&i, 
^* there was a time when a good sheaf of feathered arrows, 
a gay baldrick with pasements of gold, a crossbow with a 
stock inlaid with mother-o'-pearl, or a sword with a band- 
some guard, were toys that pleased you better, but that was 
before—" 

" What, mother 1 " 

" Before ye went to France, and to that devilish place 
Vendome ? Ye have been sairly changed, my bairn, sinsyne, 
nor like the name ye inherit ! " 

'^ Dear mother," said he, kissing her hand with that com* 
bination of gallantry and affection which went out with the 
age of periwigs, *^ may I hope that I find more favour in 
your eyes to-day ? " 

" Favour, my winsome bairn 1 " she reiterated, while play- 
ing with his curly locks and the tassels of his ru£^ and smiling 
fondly in spite of herself. 

" Or am I still a lurdane and a maudlin fool 9 " 

The old woman's brow darkened with an expression of 
care and trouble. 



THB LUBB. 317 

" I never tbougLt ye either, Florence ; but "^hy has the 
just and natural bitterness of your heart 5Ebr him who slew 
the nearest and dearest of your kinsmen turned all to peace 
and sweetness ? Was it for this I brought ye hame frae 
France ? — woe worth the day I ever sent thee there ! There 
is magic in it ; I tell thee, Florence, 'tis sorcery, and thou art 
under spell ! " 

" Perchance I am, mother," said he sadly, but with a fond 
smile, for he thought of Madeline. 

"Perchance ye are?" she reiterated scornfully. "Art 
puling again like a yammering bairn, instead of acting like 
a bearded man — ^like the son of that brave fether whom 
Preston and his people foully murdered in his harness, 
under tryst." 

" Are you come again to taunt and to torment me 1 " said 
Florence, attempting to rise ; but she clutched his right hand 
with fiery energy. ' 

" Sit ye there and listen ! " she exclaimed. . " Ye are 
foully bewitched — I know it. Whence got ye that devilish 
bauble whilk ye were worshipping even just now as if it 
v.-ere a saint's bone or the true cross^? 'Tis an opal; and 
know ye not the opal is a stone from the pillars of hell, and 
ever worketh the destruction of the wearer? Speak, ye 
witless one — speak ! '* she continued, raising her voice, while 
her grey eyes flashed with fire, and her wrinkled hand struck 
her cane again and again into the earth. " Some cursed 
witch of France hath wrought this mischief, and stolen alike 
thy manhood and thy heart. Give it me, that I may place 
it in the flames from whence it came, and so destroy the spell 
by which Preston is spared and thou art befooled. The ring, 
Florence — the ring, I say ! '* 

** Nay, mother ; in this you must hold me excused. But 
believe me, on the honour of a gentleman, no woman or 
witch of France gave this trinket to me." 

His mother drew back a pace, and surveyed him with 



S18 THE LUAE. 

a singular combination ' of expressions in her dark-grey 
eyes : maternal love, rage, pity, and shame were there 
displayed by turns in all their strength. 

''In our house, degenerate boy, have been ten knights 
created, where you will never kneel, under the kings 
banner, when its staff was planted in a foughten field 
where dead men lay thick as harvest sheaves ; and of these 
ten, every man fell in battle with his belt and spurs on ; 
but I trow, my silken page, thou wilt die comfortably in 
bed and with a whole skin.'* 

Poor Florence felt the scorn of his mother deeply, 
and his anger at her determined injustice now began to 
kindle. 

" I am under no spell, mother," said he calmly ; " but I 
love a lady who is second to none in Scotland^ save the 
queen herself." 

'' Indeed ! " replied his moth^, a new anxiety animating 
her breast. '' And who may this peerless one be who has 
captivated the timid and peaceful heart of my ren^ade 
son?" 

" Still so unkind and scornful ! Dearest mother—" 

" Who is she 1" she repeated angrily. 

" One whom you have never seen mother," 

*^ Her name ! " she demanded imperiously. 

Florence paused ; to tell his mother all would be perhaps 
to kill her on the spot, or to draw her bitterest malediction 
on his head. 

" Her name, I say ! " she reiterated fiercely, while a fiush 
came over her wrinkled face ; " say no ignoble name to me, 
Florence ; but remember, degenerate as ye are, that your 
blood is the reddest in Scotland. Still pausing — still quailing 
before me, eh ! 'Tis a woman you are ashamed of, and as a 
proof thereof, you dare not utter her name to your own 
mother." 

Florence felt that a crisis iu his fate was coming fietst; 



THE LUBE. 319 

aud that an end should bo' put to a conversation so 
unseemly, so bitter and humiliating ; so he replied,—^ 

** Her name is Madeline Home." 

His mother glared at him with a startled expression, as if 
she deemed him an enemy. 

"Did I hear you aright 1*' she gasped in a low voice, 
while trembling like an aspen bough ; ^^ what mean you V* 

''Mean?" murmured Florence, dreading the eifect of his 
communication. ' 

** Yes," she replied, still surveying him as if she deemed 
him a lunatic about to become troublesome. 

'' Mother, to end all this, I love Madeline Home, the 
Countess of Yarrow.'* 

"Love — love kerV^ she gasped, for she was too old and 
too excited to raise her Toice when suffering under deep 
emotion ; but snatching her bodkin from her busk, she 
-would have stabbed him, had not the nurse, Maud, arrested- 
her hand and clung in terror upon her arm. There was a 
long pause broken only by her sighs. Florence attempted 
to take her hand, but she fiercely thrust him aside ; for had 
Claude Hamilton appeared and made her a proposal of 
marriage, her intense disgust, bewilderment, and rage, could 
not have been greater. " My husband is in his grave," she 
said in a low and moaning voice ; " the sea of life ebbs and 
flows as it rolls round the place of his sleep ; but he hears 
its billows no more. Blessed be Heaven that spared him 
what I now feel ; but, if the dead know aught that passes 
iipoa earth, beware boy, lest his bones may clatter in their 
bloody shroud — ^for it woe a bloody shroud iu which I 
wound him, — and his soul, at the foot of the throne of Him 
who died on Calvary, may curse thee, Florence, curse thee 
for loving a daughter of the race of Preston !" 

Her calmness was more oppressive to Florence than her 
usually impotent anger. 

** To love her^-oh^ to love /*er/ " she continued,---" a wretc' 



320 * THE LURE. 

whose father, Quentin Home of Yarrow, drew his sword by 
Preston's side, in mere wickednes3 against your father, and 
may for aught I know, be one of his slayers. Boy, on thy 
peril, in thy raving, forget not our righteous feud !** 

" Unhappy feud ; what good has it ever done us ?" 

" "Who thinks of good, when speaking of an hereditary foe 1 
Shame on me that I bore thee ! Shame on thy father that 
he begot thee ! for by the holy Lamp of Lothian — yea, by the 
cross of the true Church, thou art fitted for naught in this 
world but to snuff candles, swing a censer and mumble 
latin, like old Mass John of Tranent. Oh, ungrateful, 
undntifol, and false ! If ever thou hast a child, may it sting 
thy heart to the /juick, even as at this hour thou stingest 
me ! Thy father is in his grave ^*' 

"By its side, Claude Hamilton is ready to make every 
honourable and religious amend; as Christians let us 
forgive ** 

" ' Tis the cant of shorn monks, — ^but is it the creed of a 
Scottish gentleman? Give me thy sword, and take my 
spindle and distaff; for by the God who hears us, they will 
become thee better than any warlike weapon. Thanks be to 
Heaven that I am the mother of another son who is there ; 
but while on earth he knew his duty to his race and name. 
Hear me, — hear me !" she continued deeply, and wildly 
grasping his right arm, as much to support her feeble form 
as to give energy to her words : " With this right h£tnd od 
the pale corpse of my husband, and with the other raised to 
heaven, I swore to have a dreadful vengeance on the house 
of Preston ! With the same hand on the corpse of my 
Willie — ^that comely corpse, — sore gashed by Preston's 
curtal axe, I swore again that deadly vow ; by the tombs in 
which they moulder side by side — that brave old father 
and most faithful son, — and on bended knees, by God's holy 
altar, a thousand times have I registered the saUifc terrible 
'^''Ow, — ^registered it in thy name, Florence ! I am a -^veak. 



THE LURE. 321 

very veak, and sorrow-stricken old woman ; my trust is in 
thee, Florence ; and woe to thee, woe, if that trust he 
un worthily placed I " 

Exhausted hy her emotions and this outhurst, she sank 
upon a stone hench that was near, her fingers convul- 
sively clutching her long cane, her pale lips quivering, and 
her bright but hollow eyes rolling on vacancy. After 
another long and painful pause, she spoke again through her 
grinding teeth. 

*^ She is said^ to be beautiful — this earl's daughter, — this 
border churl's brat 1" 

" So beautiful and so winning, mother, that you could not 
fail to love her " 

« What, I r 

" Yes ; and so good and pious ! Ask Father Johu if she 
ever misses a prayer, a mass, or other ordinance of the 
Church, and whether she 'is the mother of the poor where- 
ever she goes." 

" Marry come up !" exclaimed the fierce old dame, pressing 
her hands upon her throbbing heart ; for this praise bestowed 
so ardently by her son upon one of that hated race stung 
her to the soul. " Oh that I had her in the vault of the 
tower," thought she, *' or in yonder turret, or in my bower- 
ohamber, gagged, and bound liand and foot ! Verily, a hot 
iron would soon efi&use all trace of the fatal beauty by which 
this sorceress hath bewitched and spread a glamour ower 
thee!" 

As this terrible idea occurred to her, she deemed it a 
wiser mode to dissemble with her son, than to quarrel with 
him, in attempting to exert an authority which at his years 
was absurd, and could not be enforced. So, with the 
cunning, rather than the wisdom of age, she gradually 
seemed to recover her composure ; and for the purpose ot 
luring information from her son, began to speak with 
protended calmness, though her chest heaved with suppressed 



322 THE LUBE. 

emotion, and when Jm face was averted, her eyes glared like 
those of a basilisk. 

"These tidings of attachment are indeed something 
to startle and amaze," said she through her cleached 
teeth. 

" Nothing is new under heaven, mother," said Florence, 
with a sigh ; '' the years and events that have passed are bat 
the mirror of those to come." 

" This Ipve of thine, where hatred was w;ont to be, belies 
such musty morality. Love Madeline Home, indeed ? It 
will be with the chance of having a score of rivals." 

*' Well," replied Florence smiling, " a score are better 
than one." 

« One thou couldst kill." 

" A score shall not kill ipe, at all events. And now, dear 
mother, if Madeline loves me, may not an earVs coronet, if 
one day blazoned in the old hall there, glint bravely in your 
old eyes ? " 

" The coronet of the Homes of Yarrow 1" she said through 
.her still grinding teeth ; "and this earl's mother — who was 
she ? An Achesson, of Qosford, or the Guseford, for they 
made their money in the days of the Regent Albany, by 
supplying the gluttons of Edinburgh with geese. Oho ! of 
a verity, a brave alliance for one whose fathers have borne 
their crests on their helmets in j^dttle five hundred years 
ago ! But you see her frequently— rthis Countess of 
Yarrow?" she asked, on remembering her new tactics. 

" Alaa, no." 

" Indeed ! how cometh this about ?" she asked, taking her 
son's hand in hers, with seeming fondness. 

" Fate — ^yourself, mother, are alike adverse to us." 

" When are ye to see her who hath so begowked thee — 
this bonnie bird, again ? " 

"Mother, you do not mean her evil ?" asked Florence 
suddenly, for the expression of her eye bewildered hinu 



THE LURE. 323 

'' Wherefore such a thought ! " said she, aa her withered 
cheek reddened ; " but when do you meet 1 " 

'^ To-night/' said he, after some hesitation. 

" So soon — ^hah ! and where ? " 

" In the old porch of Tranent Church." 

'* Where they are lying — a fitting place for such a tryst ! " 
she thought. "At what time 1" she asked in a husky voice 
an4 while lowering her now stealthy eyes on the grass. 

" The gloaming." 

" 'Tis two hours hence, by the dial. We may sit and 
conf erse yet awhile ; bui you look pale and weary, my bairn, 
and must take a cup of my medicated cordial." 

" I thank you, dear lady and mother," said the unsuspect- 
ing youth, happy to perceive a change in the manner of the 
old lady, who summoned the nurse Maud, and, while giving 
her a key, whispered in her ear certain directions. In a 
minute after the old woman came out ,of the tower with a 
silver cup in her hand. 

"Drink, my bairn— drink," said the nurse, patting the 
cheek of Florence ; and he, heedless of what the contents 
might be if he pleased Lady Alison, drank them to the 
dregs, and turned with a smile to resume the conversation 
on the subject that was nearest his heart. He began to 
talk ; but he knew not what, for his tongue seemed to speak 
Mrithout his control ; and within five minutes his utterance 
became heavy and inarticulate j he made a strong effort to 
recover himself, but his voice was gone ; his eyes wandered 
— ^the tower, the garden, the terraces, and trees, seemed to 
be maltiplied by a hundredfold, and to be chasing each other 
in a circle ; then a deep drowsiness, against which he strove 
in vain to contend, fell upon him, and he lay motionless and 
still, but breathing heavily. 

These two stem old women — the lady and the nurse — 
exchanged a glance of triumph and satisfaction ; but the 
latter Kindly covered him up with a mantle, and kissed his 

T 2 



324 THE LTTRE. 

brow ; while the former, in her fiery energy, almost tore the 
opal ring from his finger, and in doing so pressed the spring 
of the secret inclosure, which Madeline had referred to, 
when she first gave it to Florence. The stone arose, and 
under it was a little coil of hair, with the ominous words — 

" What ye resolve 
Death tltaU diitolve," 

" So may it fare with the resolve of the donor !" said Lady 
Alison. " Maud, look ye to this moonstruck fool while I 
look to the false witch who hath begowked him. Now, ho ! 
to keep this gay love-tryst at the kirk of Tranent ! " 

In ten minutes after this, accompanied by Koger of 
Westmains and three other armed men, who knew no will 
but hers, and had no scruple in obeying it ; for they regarded 
her with as much veneration and fear as the dingy Hindoo 
does Brahma, or the miserable Persian does the bearded 
shah, she had left the tower of Fawside, and taken the 
eastern path direct to the church of the vicarage. 



THE WAKEKIXG. 325 



CHAPTER XL. 

THE WAKENING. 

He kneel'd in prayer in a lonely room, 

Baised hand and streaming eye, 
With a swimming brain, and a burning heart, 

And a wild and bitter cxy ; 
And a light came down on his stormy fears, 

For a time ; but the light grew dim : 
And now, through. the gloom of the pitiless years, 

What hope, what hope for him ? 

Lyrics of Life, 

Thb san had set — the evening was grey and cloudy — when 
consciousness slowly returned to Florence. A swimming of 
the sight, a throbbing in the head, with an intense cold over 
all his limbs, were his first sensations on awakening from the 
long trance into which the potent drug given him by his 
mother had cast him two hours before. 

" My appointment — ^the meeting — Madeline ! " were his 
first thoughts j and he staggered up but to sink again upon 
his hands, with drooping head and bewildered brain ; for the 
garden with its walks, trees, terraces, and shrubbery — the 
castle, with its grated windows and round tourell^ (of 
which the corbelling now alone remains), and its large square 
chimneys — seemed to be all in pursuit of each other, as 
whea he saw them last ; and, in short, some minutes elapsed 
before he became fully conscious of existence, or able to 
stand erect and think with coherence, if not with calmness. 

'' Madeline's ring?" It was gone 

A sudden light seemed to break upon him. He recalled 
bis mother's hatred and denunciations against her, and upon 
their love ; her sudden change to assumed placidity ; her 



326 THE WAKENIKG. 

remarks upon the ring ; and then the cup of cordial— her 
own *' medicated cordial **— given after a sadden whisper to 
Maud, who for years had been in all her secrets, the partner 
of her loves and hates, her sorrows and her joys. He saw 
it all ; he had been duped — most foully duped — ^and his ring 
abstracted. He rushed into the castle and sprang np-stairs 
in search of Lady Alison j her bower chamber was vacant ; 
she was not in the hsdl ; spindle, spinning-wheel, and distaff 
stood unused in the embayed window ; and he was informed 
by Maud that she and Koger of Westmains, with thre^ 
other armed men, had set out on horseback twa hours 
ago. 

** Strange and unusual this !** said he ; '' for, save to ipass, 
my mother never leaves her own gate. Where has she 
goner 

Maud replied, with eyes averted, she did not know. 

"You do know!" exclaimed Florence impetuously, — 
"speak!" 

* The old woman fumbled with the lappets of her curchie, 
and endeavoured to withdraw. 

" Speak ! " continued Florence, confronting her. " I am 
the victim of some vile plot. Ye haye half-poisoned me 
beldame, by son^e damnable philter ; for at this moment 
there is a bitter sickness in my heart and in my soul ! Speak, 
old nursie, speak, or, though your foster-son, by Him who 
hears us on high, I will hang you over the tower wall as I 
would a hag of Egypt ! '* 

" Weel," replied the woman, trembling, " she gaed by the 
loan end to the kirk." 

" Hah— to Tranant I I see it all. Fool 1 fool !— dupe 
that I have been, not to read the cruelty that glittered in 
her eye, while her lips seemed to smile ! My horse — quick 
— my horse ! " he exclaimed ; but, without waiting for the 
groom, he rushed bareheaded to the stable-yard, saddled the 
first nag that stood at hand, leaped on its back, and galloped 



THB WAKBNDra 327 

madly over hedge and ditch, through field and meadow, 
gtraight for the kirk-town of Tranant. 

The whole affair seemed to unravel itself now. Aware 
of the appointment in the gloaming, his mother had gone in 
hia place to meet Madeline ; and his heart tremhled at the 
prospect of the terror, the insult, if not the actual danger, to 
which the yoimg countess might be subjected by Lady 
Alison j his swollen heart beat painfully, . and wildly he ^ 
rode, spurring his panting horse, and pricking it with his 
poniard as it lingered at every desperate leap. 

Much of the fine old wood which once covered the district 
has now been cut down, rendering the landscape somewhat 
dreary and bare ; but though flat and (for Scottish scenery) 
unpioturesque, it was then, and is still, fertile and well cul- 
tivated, i^^ 

On this evening it seemed particularly gloomy* The 
sun, long before he set beyond the dark hills of Dunblane, 
had been thickly enveloped in masses of dun and grey 
cloudy tlfUB imparting a sombre aspect to the waves that 
tumbled in the estuary of the Forth, and flecked its breast 
with foam, while the breakers that roared and hissed upon 
the rugged shore were spotless as winter aoow. The white 
sea-birds v^re skimming over the harvest-fields, betokening 
a storm at hand ; and the red glare of the salt-pans, which 
belonged to the monks of St. Mary, and were perched upon 
the bleak and rifbed reefs of freestone that jutted into the 
dashing sea, streaked the dull-grey background with sudden 
gleams of vertical fire, imparting a weird aspect to the 
scenery. 

The gloom of the evening and the sombre aspect of nature 
inspired Florence with vague alarm, and with a strange 
foreboding that amounted to an emotion of horror, as he 
rode heedlessly and headlong towards the old church of the 
vicarage. 

It stands upon the southern verge or slope of a V 



328 THE WAKENIKO. 

narrow vale, which was then covered by giant whins and 
wild gorse, and at the bottom of which a brawling brook 
forced its way past all obstruction to the sea. Of old it was 
named Travement, which, say some, meant the hamlet in 
the valley ; but, according to the writings of Father John, 
was the battle-shout of certain stout Scots who roated a 
party of Banish invaders and drove them into the sea. The 
church, a plain edifice of gloomy and forbidding aspect, 
, built no one knows when or by whom, has a square tower 
and vaulted roof, and belonged of old to the monks of Holy- 
rood. Its windows were few, and, by the immense number 
of dead interred for ages within and without its massive 
walls, this sombre temple seemed to have sunk far below the 
original level of the ground. On the steeple was a weather- 
cock, which, as the Hamiltons of Preston were wont to aver, 
tauntingly flapped its wings whenever a Fawside died. 

The door, as in ^he churches of all Catholic countries, 
stood open, and when Florence dismounted and entered, the 
interior was so dark, that the only light came from the 
little tapers that twinkled before the altar which stood 
under the cross-arches of the rood-tower, and from the altar- 
tomb of Thorwald Lord of Travernent, whose eflSgy, cross- 
legged, ibr he had been a crusader, lay in the chancel, while 
on the wall near it there hung his rusty swoixi and moulder- 
ing hood of mail. 

Florence passed the tombs of his father and brother with 
a hasty glance and with a shudder ; for the memory of their 
faces, their fate, and the heritage of hatred they had be- 
queathed, came too vividly before him — too vividly at this 
terrible hour. 

" Madeline ! " he exclaimed ; but there was no reply. The 
gloomy church was open, vacant, bare, and silent, and its 
solemn aspect was oppressive to his mind. 

" Madeline ! " he repeated, in a louder tone. 

He was turning away to pursue his inquiries elsewh^ 



A BLOODY TRYST. 329 

when he perceived, immediately under a monument on the 
wall, which still bears the shield and name of his father, 

>®)&;B dTalDdtlKe oE tl^at Hit. 

lind within the shadow caused by the tomb, on which his 
armed effigy lay, the figure of a woman stretched without 
motion on the floor, over which a dark stream of blood was 
flowing even to his feet ; and with a moan of agony, rather 
than a cry of alarm, he sprang towards her. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

* A BLOODY TRYST. 
J 

O bide at hame, my lord, she said ; 

O bide at hame my marrow, 

For my three brethren will thee slay, 

On the dowie dens o' Yarrow. 

OldBaUad. -* 

Ok this gloomy evening, the 2nd of September, the tower of 
Preston, like every other tower and fortalice in Scotland, 
presented a scene of bustle and warlike preparation. Clumps 
of tall Scottish lances, newly shafted and freshly pointed, 
stood in rows against the barbican wall ; the clink of the 
smith's hammer, as he welded horse-shoes or riveted armour 
that had been cut or broken in recent frays, was heard in 
various quarters ; the hands of Symon Brodie, of Mungo 
Tennant, and other sturdy vassals, were all busy, scouring 
breastplates, burganets, and gauntlets ; and here, as in Faw- 
side, the red sparks flew from the whirling grindstone, as the 
hard edge of the Jethart axe or^the long fluted blade of the 



330 A BLOODY TBY8T. 

bvoadflword were applied thereto by those bronzed and bearded 
ploughmen whom the coming week was to see transformed 
into helmeted inen-at-arms following the laird to the field 
for Scotland and her queen. 

Amid this somewhat unwonted bustle the young Countess 
of Yarrow easily and unseen reached the castle garden, and 
from thence, by a private door, proceeded on foot to the 
place of rendezvous, attended only by a little footboy, who 
bore her missal in a velvet bag, on which her coat-of-arms 
was embroidered in the Scottish fashion for ladies, i. e,, with- 
out supporters, but surrounded by a cord of her colours, all 
fairly emblazoned by Sir David lindesay of the Mount, and 
named in the courtly language of heraldry a oordeliere, or 
lace of love. 

On reaching the church, which was little more than one 
Scottish mile from the gate of Preston, she sent her 
attendant on a message to the thatched village, with, some 
bodily comforts for certain of her poor pensioners; and, 
without perceiving that Boger of Westmains, with three 
armed men in helmets, jacks, and plate sleeves, with four 
saddled horses, were half concealed in a thicket of thorns 
close by, she entered the gloomy fane just as the snn set 
euveloped in clouds, as already described, thus making mere 
sombre the shadows of an edifice, the aspect and memories 
of which made her shudder, and blanched the beautiful 
smile which the hope of meeting her lover spread over her 
face. 

" Florence ! " she exclaimed timidly, pausing at the 
entrance of the church, which seemed so empty and deso- 
late ; and as she gazed anxiously up the nave, the figures 
of none met her eyes but those of armed men carved in 
stone, and stretched in death-like rigidity on their Crothic 
biersy surrounded by little figures called weepers, in mche&-^ 
effigies all swept away by the mad fiiry of the £iefi>rmers 
twelve years after. 



A BLOODY TBT8T. 331 

" Florence 1 " she repeated, in a lower and more agitated 
voice ; still there was no response ; and she was about to 
withdraw with a mingled emotion of pique and alarm, when 
suddenly, from between the tombs of William Fawside and 
his father Sir John, there started up the tall and weird-like 
figure of a woman clad in a long black dooleweed, on the left 
shoulder of which was the usual mark of mourning, a white 
-velvet cross. Her face was pale as that of a corpse, but her 
features were convulsed with all the enerjgy of fierce and 
concentrated passion and venom. Her mouth was open, but 
her close rows of firm white teeth were clenched, and her 
hollow eves shone with a baleful ligl^t. Towering above the 
shrinking Madeline, she put forth a long arm, and, with a 
wild exclamation of triumph,, grasped her hand, and retained 
it with all the unyielding tenacity of an iron vice, and shook 
her wrathfully the while. 

" Madam, madam ! *' pxclaimed the poor countess, who 
beHeved herself in the power of an insane person, '' what 
mean you by this ? " 

'* That ye shall soon learn," hissed Lady Alison, sh^ng 
her more violently than ever. 

" Help — help ! " cried Madeline ! " I will not be so 
abused ! Woman, who are you, that dare to use me thus ! " 

" Dare ? " she said ; " dare ?— ha ! ha ! " 

" Yes, I repeat, dare I I am a lady of honour — Ma4eline 
Countess of Yarrow." 

<' And I am Alison of Fawside ; and now, between these 
cold tombs, in each of which there lieth a murdered man — 
the corpse of the husband in whose kind bosom I slept for 
thirty years, and the corpse of the son I bore unto him and 
suckled at these breasts — murdered by Claude Hamilton of 
Preston, your nearest and only kinsman ! Need I tell more 
to thee, Madeline Home ? " 

On this announcement Madeline remembered her recent 
dream ; then a deadly terror possessed all her faculties and 



332 A BLOODY TRYST. 

for a time froze her very utterance ; while, as if feasting 
upon the fear her presence excited, the fierce old woman 
like an enraged Pythoness, surveyed her with gleaming eyes. 

" Lady — ^Lady Alison, hear me ; of all these horrors, I 
at least am innocent," faltered Madeline. " Release me, 
and on my knees I will unite with you in prayer for the 
dead." 

" Prayer 1 thou sorceress, thou hell-doomed witch, who 
would roh me of my only living son ! " 

'* Madam '* 

" Nay, speak not, and crave no pity, for only such pity 
shall ye have as my winsome Willie had when bleeding he 
lay under Preston's curtal axe at the barriers of Edinburgh ! 
And so my bonnie Florence loves thee ? Aha ! aba ! *' 

" Oh God I is there no succour near 1 " sighed the shrink- 
ing girl ; for there shone in the old woman's colourless face 
a pale and almost infernal light. 

" He loves thee — ha ! and yet thy beauty is no such 
wondrous matter, after all. A poor and pale-faced moppet like 
thee would never bear men to succeed the two stately knights 
who lie beside us ! So, so ! it is thou, witch, who wouldst 
rob me of the only son thy murderous race have left me — 
rob me of him by necromancy ? Hah ! Wretch ! whence 
got ye that magic ring, that accursed opal, which I have 
thrown into the flames, but which hath cast a glamour in 
his eyes and made him love his enemies 1 Or got ye a love- 
philter from that quack apothegar, above whose door there 
swingeth a stuffed devil in the light of open day, Master 
Posset 1 Speak ! 'Tis like the courtly ways of that woman 
of the house of Guise and those who serve her. Speak ! 
thou pale-faced Jezebel — speak ! lest I strangle thee ! " . 

" Oh ! " murmured Madeline, sinking lower on her knees, 
overcome by the horror of being an actor in such a scene as 
this. And now, endued by supernatural strength, this ter- 
rible dame dragged her between the tombs of the Fawsides. 



^ BLOODY TRYST. 3^3 

« 

Then Madeline's spiiit revolted against these insults, and she 
strove to rise and free herself, but Dame Alison by main 
strength held her down and retained ber, kneeling at her 
feet. " Lady," exclaimed the countess, "you are alike unjust 
and cruel, insolent and wicked. I am a lady, an earFs 
daughter " 

" And what am II A daughter of the house of Colean, 
-whose sires were knights and barons in Carrick since the 
days of Malcolm IV. and Willjam the Lion. Listen, thou 
trembling minx ! My son came over the salt sea from 
France, hating, with a hatred deep as its waters, all who 
bore the name of Hamilton, and intent on slaying the man 
who slew his father and brother under trust and tryst, foully, 
as Judas betrayed his holy Master. How is it now ? He 
is James of Arran's soothfast man and tool, and thy play- 
thing and toy — a puling moonstruck fool ! And how came 
this to pass ? - By the agency of Satan and of such as thee ;* 
for, by St. Paul, I believe the holy water in yonder font 
would hiss upon thy pallid face if I cast it there, as it would 
do upon iron in a \vhite heat ? Love thee, indeed ! Per- 
chance he would have wedded thee, too ! Ha ! ha ! " 

" Madam," said Madeline, who was too patient and gentle 
Hot to be brave and resolute in a good cause, and who blushed 
amid her terror, " in that case he might, by the queen's grace, 
have shared the fair coronet my father beqiieathed to me from 
the field of Solway." 

" Foul shame and fell dishonour blight the new-&ngled 
toy ! " exclaimed Lady Alison with growing rage ; " there 
were no earls in Yarrow when a laird of Fawside saved King 
David's life amid the Saxon host at Northallerton 1 But 
'tis thy face that hath bewitched my son ; and if a hot iron 
can mar and destroy the beauty he sees in it, by God's wrath 
it shall soon perish and shrivel up like parchment in the fire ! 
Ho ! Roger — ^Westmains, come hither ! " 

At these terrible words the fear of Madeline could no 



334 A BLOODY TBTST. 

longer be controlled^ and the recesses of the solitary church 
echoed with her cries for succour — cries which there were 
none to hear ; and now, in the excitement of this struggle, a 
new idea seized the mind of Dame Alison. Wreathing her 
hands in the dishevelled hair of Madeline, she madly dashed 
her repeatedly against the tombs on each side. To save 
herself, the poor girl caught the carved projections, and, 
clinging, held them more than once; but such was the 
strength of Dame Alison, that her victim's grasp was 
repeatedly torn away. 

" Here,** exclaimed the stern widow — " here, between the 
bones of my dead husband and son, as on a shrine of ven- 
geance, do I offer up your blood, even as the pagans of old 
offered up their sacrifices to the spirits of hatred and 
revenge ! Die — die ! and by the hand of her whose son ye 
sought by your damnable arts to ensnare and to destroy ! " 

With these words she drew the long st^el bodkin from 
her busk, and thrusting it twice into the bosom of Madeline, 
rushed from the church, and left her stretched on the pave- 
ment gasping for breath, and choking in warm and weltering 
blood. I 

Some accounts say this terrible deed was perpetrated with 
a poniard ; but the vicar o^ Tranent distinctly records that 
she used her " buske bodkyne." 



THE PASSING BELL. 335 



CHAPTER XLIL 

THE PASSING BELL. 

Kight-jars and ravens, with wide-stretoh'd throatSi 
From yews and hollies send their baleful notes ; 
The ominous raven, with a dismal cheer. 

Through his hoarse beak, of following horror tells, 
Begetting strange imaginary fear, 

With heavy echoes like to Passing Bells. 

With his heart filled by emotions of horror which the pen 
cannot describe, Florence raised Madeline, whom, though 
stretched upon her face, he knew instantly. Ah, there was 
no mistaking the beaatiful contour of her head, from which 
the little triangular hood had been torn so roughly ; or those 
tresses of rich and silky hair, in which Lady Alison had so 
ruthlessly twisted her fingers, that trembled alike with wrath 
and rage. Madeline was deathly pale ; her eyes were almost 
closed, and a crimson current flowed in a slender streak from 
her mouth ; while her bosom, like the pavement on which 
she had lain for some minutes, was covered with blood. Her 
dress, which was of pale yellow silk slashed with black, at 
the breast and shoulders was covered with gouts of the same 
sanguine tint as the tiled floor of the church. 

Mechanically, as one in a dream, Horence raised her^ and 
as he did so, he recalled her strange and boding words of 
yesterday. Then something rolled under his foot. He 
looked down ; it was a long, slender, and sharp-pointed 
bodkin — ^his mother's busk-bodkin ! Tinged with blood, it 
told the whole terrible tale. He uttered a moan of mental 
agonj, and, reeling against his father's tomb, remained for 
some moments stupefied, and incapable of action or coherent 
thought. 



336 THE PASSING BELL. 

Madeline was insensible, jeZ he pressed her to his heart ; 
and while his tears fell on her cheek, he kissed away the 
blood that flowed from her lips. Steps were now heard, and 
the old vicar, Father John, with eyes dilated in horror of 
the inhuman deed, and at the sacrilege committed in his 
secluded church, approached hastily ; for the little page had 
heard the cries of his mistress, and for succour had rushed 
to the vicarage, which adjoined the burial-ground — but the 
succour came too late. 

"'Tis all over with us now. Father Johni" exclaimed 
l^lorence in broken accents ; *' by this cruel act my mother 
has broken my heart, and cast eternal infamy njuyn our 
name; and in destroying Madeline she has slain her son 
more surely and more wickedly than even the sword of 
Preston could have done." 

The priest knelt down and chafed the hands of Madeline ; 
but they were cold and passive. 

" The blow — a double blow, good father— has been struck ! 
She is dying ! Madeline ! — Madeline I The stab that slays 
you slays me too ! Oh, madness ! — oh, agony ! Oh, fiendish 
mother, to work a sorrow so deep as this ! Madeline, do 
you hear me 1 For God's pity, grace, and love, good vicar, 
say something — do something — for I cannot lose her thus ! 
Speak, or I shall go mad, and dash my head against my 
father's tomb ! " 

For a moment Madeline, roused by his voice and energy, 
opened her eyes ; and, on recognizing Florence, a sweet, saA 
smile passed over her soft features. 

'' My mother did this, Madeline ; say it was or it was not 
she ; am I mistaken — speak — speak ! " 

Loath to give pain where she loved so well and tenderly, 
and believing herself to be dying, she did not answer, save 
with sad smiles, to his earnest inquiries respecting her wounds, 
and his unavailing protestations of love and sorrow. » 

At last, when he implored her to speaS, she attempted to 



THB PASSING BELL. 337 

Bay somethmg ; but her lips and .tongue had lost theii* 
power ; her e^e grew dull, and she became insensible ; her 
hands and her h^id drooped, and her long hair swept over 
the floor of the church as she was borne away. 
• The alarm had now spread to the village ; so, while this 
scene was passing in the dusky and half-lighted church, and 
^Florence in his grief was pttering a succession of incohe- 
renees^ a crowd, principally of women, who viewed him with 
lourii^g and hostile eyes, had gathered round ; and by them 
Madeline^ amid many expressions of woe (for the induence of 
her £unily was great in the neighbourhood), was borne care- 
fully and tenderly into the vicar's house ; and while she was 
undressed, and her wounds — two small but deep orifices — 
were stanched, horsemen were sent at full speed to Preston 
tower, to that quaint compatriot of Babelais, Master 
Posset, at Edinburgh, and to a certain nun of Haddington, . 
Christina Hepburn, prioress of the Cistercians, a kinswoman 
of the Earl of Bothwell — a lady who had great skill as a 
leeoh^ and enjoyed a high reputation as a woman of holiness. 

Pressing his lips to the brow of Madeline, whose features 
were cold and passive as her clammy hands, Florence left 
her in charge of the vicar and her new attendants, and 
moimting his horse, which he knew to be swift and strong, 
he prepared to follow, and if possible to outride, the mes- 
senger for Edinburgh, as he had the greatest faith in Master 
Posset's skill ; and with something like a prayer to Heaven, 
mingling on his lips with an imprecation on his mother, he 
leaped into the saddle, urged his horse across the rugged 
ravine which the old church and vicarage overiooked, and 
then galloped westward, blind with grief and confusion of 
thonght, for his brain was yet giddy with the potent drug 
by which he had been so wickedly deluded, and a half-«tupor 
hung over his senses. 

Darkness^ dense and gloomy, had now set in. The sky 
was without stars, and the country was enveloped in ob- 

z 



I 
838 THE PASSING BELL, 

Bcuiity. As he rode on, urging his horae from, time to time, 
to get it well up in hand, a light at the horizon caught his 
eye. He turned, and felt a shock like that of electricitj : 
but they knew nought of electricity in those days. 

On the brow of Soltra the red beacon was in flame j; aad 
now another, that rose on the summit of Dunprender, 
expanded from a star to a sheet of fire ; another and another, 
on many a tower and hill, were lit up in rapid succession j 
and soon a chain of fires garlanded with flame the far horizon 
of the night, from the southern borders, sending to the 
distant Highland glens the tidings that the foe was advancing 
and the day of battle was at hand. 

A fierce sensation, almost of joy, glowed through the 
throbbing and agonized heart of Florence. He considered 
those certain signals of the coming war — the war that in 
another week was to lay all Lothian desolate, like the shores 
of the Dead Sea — ^as so many flaming lights that would 
guide him to Madeline in the other world ; for by her 
changed aspect and dreadful pallor, he dared not hope that 
she would survive the night. As he paused a moment, to 
watch the beacons kindling and blazing in successioa on the 
murky sky, there came over the open plain from Tranent, 
a sound which made him shudder, and caused the pulses of 
his heart to stand stilL 

It was, indeed, a dreadful sound — the solemn tolling of 
the passing bell, which informed him that Madeline Home 
was dying, or was already no more ! 

By this old custom, which of course was abolished .in 
Scotland at the Eeformation, all the faithful were invited 
to pray for the departing soul ; and its sound was also sup« 
posed to scare away the fiends who were in waiting to 
wrest it from its guardian angels, as they winged their way 
towards the stars. 

He stood upon the bleak, open heath as if transformed 
to stone, every knell of the solemn soul-bell seeming to 



THE PASSIKG BELL. 339 

echo in his heart and Id his brain ; yet his thoughts were 
without coherence and his Hps without prayer. His 
mother — his dreadful, blood-imbrued mother, with her tall 
sombre figure, seemed to tower before his vision, like a* 
shadowed angel of destruction! He dared not think of 
her. 

The reins fell from his hands, and covering his hot, 
tearless eyes, he groaned al6ud in his agony, and felt as if 
under a horrible spell. 

Still the solemn bell continued its monotonous tolliug, 
and it came to his ear by fits upon the hollow wind. Had 
Florence not been too certain that he was awake, he would 
have deemed that he was involved in some hideous dream 
or vision of the night. 

'* Oh, to shut out that dreadful sound, and to forget it 
for ever ! ** thought he. " A thousand times I have heard 
it ring before, but never with a cadence so dreadful as to- 
night." 

At that moment he heard the galloping of a horse ; its 
steps faltered as it came along, for it seemed worn and faint 
by the speed to which it was urged by whip and spur, and 
by the toil of the long journey it had undergone. On 
arriving near Florence, the rider reined suddenly up, and 
then, as if the endurance of life could be no longer taxed, 
the panting andibam-covered horse, sank lifeless, or nearly 
so, upon the roadway. 

" Who are you that sit idly on your horse, in an hour like 
this, when every beacon in the land is in a flame ? " asked 
the dismounted man breathlessly, as he disengaged himself 
from his stirrups, and rushed to the side of Florence; 
" speak, sir — ^who are you ? " 

"I am Florence of Fawside," replied the other; "and 
what then 1 " 

''I am Livingstone of Champfleurie," said the otheri 
stepping back with his hand on his sword. 

z 2 



840 THB PASSINO BELL. 

'^Hak 1 — ^go, go ; in azL hour like tbis, I am at peace eyen 
with yoV said Florence moomfollj. 

« This is no time to speak of peace," replied Livingstone, 
still panting with his recent exertion ; '^ I have ridden from 
Berwick on the spur — more than fifty miles to-day, after 
seeing the English vanguard close upon the Tweed, and 
when I last saw Home Castle, fomr lights were all ablaze 
upon its summit, as a token that' they were in great 
strength, and bound this way. Through all the Merse 
and Lauderdale I have borne this — the cross of fire ! Thoa 
seest my horse, man — it can no further go, nor well can 
L Take this, and ride to the Lord Begent — arouse the 
country as you go, and say the foe are bound direct for 
Lothian — ^you hear me, direct for Lothian 1 On, on — ^1 
say, and ride with this for Edinburgh. Luckily thou art 
mounted — ride, ride, for Scotland and the queen ! " 

With these words, which he poured forth all in a breath, 
Champfleurie thrust into the hand of Florence the Jl&ry 
cro88 — ^the old Scottish symbol of war, the summons to arms, 
and then incapable of further action, he sank beside his 
dying horse, panting and breathless on the heath. Florence, 
as a loyal subject, knew at once what his duty required 
him to do ; and anxious to find relief from the agony of his 
soul in any species of excitement, he turned his horse and 
rode off madly towards the west ; but the solemn sound 
of the passing bell seemed to follow him, even when he 
drew up within the gates of Edinburgh, amid the wild 
clamour and hurrahs of the mustering craftsmen, the 
clanging of the alarm-bells, and the rattle of drums, as, in 
the glare of torch and cresset, the provost, the deacons, and 
magistrates, arrayed the bands of burgesses, under their 
various banners, in that long and magnificent street which 
still forms the main artery of life in the ancient city of the 
Stuarts ; and there the murmur of the gathering thousands 
rose into the midnight air like the solemn chafing of a dis- 



THE PASSmO BELL. 341 

tant sea, or the wind pafising through the leaves of a mighly 
forest. 

Ten minutes after his entrance into the city by the Kirk- 
o^-field Porte, saw him in the presence of Arran, in the old 
Tower of Holyrood, along the shadowy corridors and past 
the tall windows of which lights were seen to flicker, and 
the glitter of armed figures, with helmets and partisans, 
flitting to and fro, like spectres, half seen and half lost in 
gloom, as gentlemen and men-at-arms betook them to their 
harness with soldier-like alacrity. Florence was introduced 
to the regent in that old tapestried room where, in the 
nights of afber times, poor Mary Stuart wet many a pillow 
with her bitter tears, and from where Hizzio was dragged 
forth to die. ^e found the regent just roused from bed by 
the clamour iti the. city. He was clad in a loose robe of 
scarlet trimmed with miniver ; his sheathed sword was in 
his hand, and , around faim were his brother, the lord 
chancellor, and the Abbot of Paisley, with many nobles and 
officers of state, who, on their first alarm, had hurried to 
the palace in arms. 

Pale as ashes, and feeling as if death was in his heart, 
Florence entered the room, with his hands begrimed by 
the fire-scathed cross, which he had long since consigned t^o 
another messenger to bear elsewhere. He approached the 
regent, but, overcome by his emotions, tottered to a chair, 
and found himself incapable of speech or action. 

" "Wine — wine ! 'tis Fawside, ever faithful and true ; but 
faint and worn now,'* exclaimed Arran. 

Dalserf, the page, promptly brought a flask of wine ; but 
Florence waved his hand, and again sank back; then 
fortunately there entered at that moment another messen- 
ger, the loyal old Earl of Mar. 

" The English are in motion, my Lord of Arran," he ex- 
claimed. 

*' A thousand beacons ' are telling all Scotland quite as 



342 THE PASSING BELL. 

much, lord earl," said Arran, with a quiet smile ; '' so they 
are advancing 1 *' 

'' Their avant-garde, three thousand strong, under their 
lieutenant-general, the hrave Earl of Warwick, is already on 
the march to Greenlaw; and their rear*guard, also three 
thou8an4 strong, under the Lord Dacres, hath reached 
Berwick. I have ridden from the Merse, old as I am, to 
hear these sure tidings, for I saw them cross the Tweed to- 
day at noon ! " 

*' Who hath them under haton 1 " - 

« The duke— Edward of Somerset." 

''Sit ye down, lord earl," said the Archbishop of 
St. Andrews ; " for in sooth you seem weary." 

" Nay, my lord, pardon me," replied this peer, like all his 
race a faithful adherent of the crown ; " but in this room 
where last I knelt to James V. ^" 

" James Y. was too good a Scotsman to have kept an 
old soldier, a true and valiant peer like thee, standing ia 
thy seventieth year, like a very foot-page." 

" And after a fifty miles ride from the Merse." 

" But we have no time for idle compliments," said Arran 
impatiently ; " summon the lords of council, and despatch 
couriers to eveiy sheriffdom, stewartry, and cbnstabi^ary; 
the muster place is Edmondstone Edge. Dalserf, my pages 
and armour !" 

With these words Arran abruptly closed the interview. 



THE CROSS OF FIRE. 343 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

THE CROSS OF FIRE. 

Fast as the fatal symbol flies. 
In arms the huts and hamlets rise ; 
From winding glen, from upland brown. 
They poar'd, each hardy tenant, down. 
Nor slack'd the messenger his pace ; 
He show*d the sign, Ae named the place, 
And pressing forward like the wind, 
Left olamoor and surprise behind. 

Lady of tlie Lahe, 

On this night the beacons blazed on continent and isle, 
athwart the whole kingdom, — from the shores of the Atlantic 
to those of the German Sea. In every city, burgh, hamlet, 
and castle, cottage, convent, and monastery, the tidings were 
known within an hour, that the invasion had begun ; and 
by day 'dawn the gross of fire had spread from hand to 
hand, with the summons to the muster-place, and it went 
from glen to glen with incredible speed, each bearer naming 
tbe gathering or rendezvous of his clan, burgh, or sheriffdom, 
with the place where the array of the kingdom was to meet 
the Begent Arran. 

The CriaB Tarigh? — ^the cross of fire, or of shame, for it 
bore both names; first, from the circumstance of its arms 
being scathed with fire, and then dipped in the blood of an 
animal ; and second, from the everlasting infamy atten(&ng 
all who disobeyed the bearer — ^was a terrible Celtic symbol 
never before used in the lowlands of Scotland ; biit on this 
occasion it proved most effectual. 

It was usually borne by a messenger on foot. On reaching 
a hamlet he gave it to the first person he met, and the 



344 THX cno68 of fibb. 

latter, on hazard of his life, was bound to leave his occnpatioD, 
be it at home or afield, — a bridal or a burial, — a birth or a 
deathbed, — a scoDe of sorrow or a scene of joy, — and to 
convey it till he met another, to whom he simply mentioned 
the muster-place. On beholding this terrible cross, eveiy 
man between the ages of sixteen and sixty, capable of 
bearing arms, was compelled to appear at the rendezvous in 
his best harness ; and woe to the wretch who £Euled« The 
utmost vengeance of fire and sword, as indicated by the 
three burned and bloody arms of this ancient symbol of our 
Celtic fathers, fell upon the false and disobedient, the timid 
and untrue. 

Thus by dawn next day the whole of Scotland was in 
arms-! The barons and chiefs were all on the march, from 
every point, for Edmondstone Edge, the royal muster-plaoe ; 
while in every walled city and town throughout the realm 
the armed burghers kept watch and ward, or filled the 
great castles in the neighbourhood with men, cannon, and 
all the munitions of war; The military measorea of the 
Regent Arran, at this important crisis, reflected the greatest 
credit upon his personal activity, and upon his government, 
which had hitherto been as weak and vacillating as his reli- 
gious opinions, which wavered alternately between the new 
and stern, b^re creed of Calvin, and the pictorial splendours 
of the Church of Home. 

On learning the tragic event which occurred in lihe chmvh 
of Tranent, Claude Hamilton of Preston becamOb reanimated 
by what he had striven to forget, or commit to oblivion, 
his feud with the Fawsides ; and a longing for the direst 
vengeance on Dame Alison and on her son inspired him and 
all his followei;^ He would have attacked, sacked, and 
rased her little fortalice to its foundations, had not the 
Albany herald arrived, bearing a special message from his 
lord and chief, the Begent Arran, commanding him to 
forget his feud for the time, and to bring his vassals to the 



THB CROSS OF FIBE. 345 

muBter-plao^to aid the general cause ; after the triumph of 
wlach, he should have all the satisfaction the power of the 
Justioian of Scotland could award. 

His 'summons to attend the array of the kingdom ran 
thus, as we render it in English. 

^'Reoika. Well-beloved firiend, we greet you well. 
For so much as our dearest cousin the regent, and the lords 
of our council, are surely informed that our old enemies of 
England tend to invade our realm ; he resolves, with the 
support of all true barons and faithful lieges, to resist them 
in our just defence. It is our will, and we pray you, to 
address you incontinent with your honourable household, all 
bodin in array of war, to attend our royal standard, in all 
haste, at Edmondstone Edge, as ye love the defence and 
common weal of our realm, and under the pain and tynsale 
of life, lands, and goods ; and as regards your outstanding 
feud with the Fawsides of that ilk, and the cruel and bloody 
deed of the widow of the umquhile Sir John Fawside, we 
promise you all manner of vengeance at the hands of the 
Earl of Aigyle, our lord justice general, and gage the honour 
of our crown therein. Written under our signet at Edin- 
burgh, the 3rd day of September, 1547.* 

Jambs Eeoent." 

"To our well-beloved friend, thd Laird of Preston— 

Sternly Claude Hamilton read this missive, and gulping 
down his anger and grief — for he dearly loved his beautiful 
kinswoman, — ^he stifled his furious passion for a time ; and, 
meanwhile, the grim Dame Alison, with Roger of West- 
mains acting as her lieutenant-governor, watched well in 
her moated tower, with gates barred, and every falcon and 

• Father John's M6S. 



346 THE CBOSS OF FIBE. 

arquebuse loaded ; and thotigh Rhe secluded herself in her 
bower-chamber, it is to be doubted whether, even in her 
quietest hours of reflection, amid the still calm sleepless 
hours of the long night-watch, she felt any remc^se for 
the terrible deed she had done. If she did feel it, she care* 
fully veiled it under an exterior that to ordinary eyes was 
unreadable and impenetrable. 

Animated by a horror of his mother — an emotion too 
strange and terrible for analysb or description, — side at 
heart, and crushed in spirit, poor Florence returned to 
Fawside tower no more ; but resided with Dick HackerstoD, 
the hospitable and sturdy burgher, who occupied a mansioa 
in a broad-wynd on the north side of the city, nearly 
opposite the hospital and chapel of La Maison Dieu, and the 
Black Turnpike, so famous in the annals of 1567, all of 
which have now been removed. There he was provided 
with suitable arms and armour for man and horse, and, 
until the army took the field, there he remained, tended as 
a brother would have been, by the worthy merchant's wife, 
who saw there was something noble and poignant in his sad 
and silent sorrow, which held communion with none j aud 
being young, handsome, and gallant in bearing, it impressed 
her all the more. 

But to return to the Begent Arran : by the grey 
dawn of that day, on which the alarm of the coming 
foe first crossed the land with giant strides of fire ftom 
mountain-top to mountain-top, the lords of the royal privy 
council assembled in the tower of James Y. at Holyrood. 
There came the earls of Huntly, Mar, Argyle, Oassilis, and 
€tlencaim ; the lords of Lyle, Fleming, and Kilmaurs (with 
his sinister visage, his glistening eyes and teeth), and many 
other peers — those who were loyal and true, and those who 
were base and venial — ^to reconsider and debate upon the 
measures to be taken at the present emergency. De^te 
their bonds and promises, when the hour of danger came, 



THE CliOSS OF FIAE. 347 

and all the land was armed or arming, Glencairn, CassUis, 
and others of their infamous and corrupt faction, found 
themselves swept away hy the loyalty of the commons, as hy 
a sea, the waves of which there was no resisting ; and they 
were compelled to lead their vassals to the field, and to 
unaheath their swords, against those wifch whom they were 
in secret league, and whose gold they had hoped to pocket ; 
but to that foul political leprosy — that inborn spirit of 
treason and anti-nationality, which was characteristic of too 
many of the Scottish nobles, and which they inherited with 
their titles and their blood — were the future disasters of 
Pinkey, like too many other national woes and degradations, 
distinctly traceable. 

Even Claude Hamilton, for the time, forgot his proffered 
titles of Lord Preston and Earl of Gladsmuir, and found 
himself marching at the head of a -goodly band of mounted 
spearmen, including Symon ^rodie in his suit of beaked 
armour, for the muster-place, the green sloping braes of 
Edmondstone Edge; and now Ned Shelly's chance of 
obtaining a young Scottish countess seemed as distant as 
the realization of his leader's political hopes, or the chance 
of an English bride for Bothwell, who heard the din-^of 
preparation in the castle of Edinburgh, where he chafed 
like a caged lion at the external commotion, in which he 
could bear no part, for good, for evil, or for aggrandisement. 

At the council boa];d on this eventful morning, the peer 
whose advice had the most weight was George Gordon, Earl 
of Huntly, a loyal and noble lord, whose manners and educa- 
tion had been improved by study and by foreign travel. He 
had been made lieutenant of the north by James Y., and 
captain-general of those forces which defeated the English 
at the battle of HalSbnrig and baffled their next army under 
the Duke of Norfolk. When speaking of the matrimonial 
alliance with England a marriage wjiich Somerset seemed 
determined to form by the edge of the sword, he reoom* 



348 THE CBOBS OF FIRE. 

f 

mended that some accommodation might be made by a 
temporary trace or treaty. 

On this, Mary of Lorraine^ who had come to the council, 
gave him a glance of sorrowful reproach. 

" My lords," said she, with* a flush on her usually pale 
cheek, ''when my dear husband was dying in Falkland 
Palace, as Monseigneur le Cardinal Beaton (who is now in 
heaven) told me, the setting sun shed a stream of light 
into the room where he lay, and with brilliance lit up the 
royal arms above the mantelpiece, the arms of Scotland, or, 
the lion gtiies within a doable tressure, all were brightened 
as with a transient glory ; but as the life of my beloved 
lord and king ebbed, and he sank lower on his pillow, dying 
— dying of a broken heart, — and breathed his last, the sun 
went diown beyond the hills of Fife, and the arms of the 
kingdom became dark, so dark, in that chamber of death 
and gloom, as to be invisible ; and this the cardinal, and all 
who were present, declared to be ominous of evil to come ; 
and the evil has come upon the realm of my fatherless child 
when my lord of Huntly hath eyes of favour to the alliance 
of those who, for centuries, have striven, by the soldier's 
sword and the scrivener's guile, to dishonour the name and 
snbvert the liberties of Scotland 1 " 

As the beautiful Frenchwoman spoke, her fine hazel eyes 
became filled with a sparkling light ; her bosom heaved, and 
her cheek was crimsoned by the excitement, that made her 
Yalois blood course like lightning through her veins. 

"You wrong me, royal lady," said the Highland earl; 
" be assured, madam, that the loyal spirit of my forefathers 
yet lives within me ; and I trust that all who hear me will 
remember the words of the faithful and brave who, from the 
Abbey of Arbroath, addressed that ignobfe Pope, John XXII., 
who leagued himself with England against them ; and in the 
same spirit by which thpse Scottish barons adhered to Robert 
~^ruce will we adhere to his descendant, your royal daughter. 



THE OBOSS OF FIBE. 349 

' To hvml said th'ey^ ' we will adhere as onr rightful king^ the 
preserver of our people and the guardian of our liberties ; 
but should he ever dream of subjecting us to England, then 
we will do our utmost to expel him from the throne as a 
traitor and an enemy ; we will choose another king to rule 
over us, for netjer, so long as one hvmdred Scotsmen a/re cUive, 
will we he subject to the yoke of England! We fight not for 
glory, we strive not for riches or honour, but for that liberty 
which no good man will consent to lose but with his life. 
We are willing to do anything for peace which may not 
compromise our freedom. If your Holiness disbelieve us, 
and continue to favour England, giving undue credit to her 
false assertions, then be sure that Heaven will impute to you 
all the calamities which our resistance must* inevitably 
produce j and we commit the defence of our cause to God.' 
So spoke the faithful men of other days," continued the earl, 
and, with the hand*of that blessed Crod above their banner, 
may such to the latest posterity ever be the spirit of freedom 
which shall animate the Scottish people ! " 

These words filled the council with enthusiasm, and all 
separated to prepare for the mortal strife. 



350 rHB IKVASIOH. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE INVASION. 

Onr Scottish warriora on the heath. 

In close hattalia stood ; 
To free their country and their queen, 

Or shed their reddest hlood. 
The Anglo-Saxons' restless hand 

Has crossed the river Tweed ; 
And ower the hills o' Lammennuir 

They've march'd wi' mickle speed. 

Twinlaw — Old JSaUad. 

Edward Duke of Somerset, formerly and better known 
in Scotland as that Earl of Hertford i^ho'led the invasion 
in the year 1544, had arrived at Newcastle on the 27th of 
August at the head of fourteen thousand two hundred English- 
men and many foreign auxiliaries, with fifteen pieces of can* 
non drawn by horses, and nine hundred waggons laden with 
stores. Sir Francis Fleming was master of the ordnance^ 
and had fourteen hundred pioneers, under Captain John 
Brem, to clear the way before the guns, to build fasciues, 
and so forth. Master William Patten, who accompanied 
this army in the quality of judge marshal, a post to which 
he had been advanced by the interest of Edward Shelly, in hb 
history* of the " Expedition," has given us a minute aocount 
of the cam*paign, and an accurate list of all the commandei's 
in the Protector's army, to aid which thirty-four ships of 

* '* The Expedition into Scotland, of the most worthely fortunate 
Prince Edward, Duke of Somerset, &.C., made in tbe first yere of his 
Maiestes most prosperous reign, and set out hy way of diarie by W. 
Patteo, Londoner. "Vivat Victor ! Out of the Parsonage of St. Mary 
Hill in London, this zxviii of January, 1548." 



TH£ IHYASIOK. 351 

war and thirty-two transports, under the pennon of Edward 
Lord Clinton and Saj (afterwards high admiral of England) 
and Sir William Woodhouse, anchored at the mouth of the 
Tyne. 

Lord Grey of Wilton, lieutenant of Boulogne, wa^ high 
marshal and captain-general of the horse, who were all 
cap-a-pie in full armour, but of a light fashion. Sir Half 
Vane commanded four thousand men-at-arms and demi- 
lances ; and Sir Francis Bryan (in the following year chief 
governor of Ireland) was captain of two thousand light 
hoi-se. Sir Thomas Darcy led King Edward YI.'s band of 
pensioners. 

Sir Feiter Mewtas was commander of the Almaynei*s, or 
German infantry, who were all clad in buff coats and armed 
with arquebuses. 

Don Pedro de Gamboa led the mounted Spanish arque- 
bttsiers; and these foreigners, being trained soldiers of 
foi'tune, who had served in' many wars, were the flower of 
Somerset's forces. Many of them were veterans who had 
fought at the siege of Bhey, in 1521, when muskets were 
first used by the Spaniards, whose infantry were then deemed 
the finest in Europe. 

Edward Shelly led the men-at-arms of Boulogne, who, like 
the mercenaries, were all trained and veteran soldiers, but 
dressed in blue doublets, slashed and faced with red. The 
celebrated Sir Ralf Sadler (whose papers were edited by Sir 
Walter Scott) was treasurer of this well-ordered army, and 
Sir James Wilford was provost-marshal. 

On the 2nd September the Duke of Somerset entered 
Scotland, and marched along the eastern coast, keeping 
carefully in view of his fleet of sixty-four sail, which accom- 
panied him towards the Firth of Forth. Unopposed, he 
reached that tremendous ravine, the Peaths, which is now 
spanned by a bridge that is perhaps the greatest in Europe, 
as it is two hundred and forty feet high by three hundred 



852 THE IWAfilON. 

feet in length. Abrupt, precipitous, and narrow, this raTine 
formed one of the great passes into Scotland ; and, being of 
easy defence, was deemed '* a kind of sluice, by whidi the 
tide of war could be loosened or confined at pleasure." 

For an entire day Sir Francis Fleming and hia gunners, 
and Captain Brem with his pioneers^ toiled in that nanow 
and savage gorge to drag through the English artillery and 
waggons, while the Protector was busy storming seyeral 
fortresses in the neighbourhood. Among these were the 
castles of Thornton and Dunglass, belonging to the Xiord 
Home j and Inverwick, a house of the Hamiltons. These 
strongholds were blown up by gunpowder ; but, " bef(»« we 
did so," saith Master Patten, *^ it would have rued any good 
housewife's heart to have beholden the great and unmercifol 
slaughter our men made of the brood geese and good laying 
hennes, which the wives had penned up in the holes and 
cellars of the castle [of Dunglass]. The spoil was not xich, 
to be sure ; but of white bread, oaten cakes, and Scottish 
ale, was inditiferent good store, and soon bestowed among my 
lord's soldiers accordingly." 

The English marched in three great columns ; each was 
flanked by horse and artillery ; and each piece of cannon had 
a band of pioneers to guard it and clear the way before it 
Somerset led- the main body; Warwick still had the van- 
guard ; and Thomas Lord Bacres of QiUesland, Knight of 
the Qarter, led the rear. 

Leaving Dunbar on his right, the duke pushed forward 
through East Lothian to the Tyne, which he crossed by the 
same old narrow bridge that spans it still ; but there not 
unopposed, for the vassals of the house of Hepburn opened a 
cannonade of falcons and culverins from the ramparts of 
Bothwell's castle of Hailes, while a brisk assault was made 
upon the defiling columns by a famous border mairander 
named Dandy Kerr, of the house of Femyherst^ whose moss- 
troopersy after a rough encounter, were routed by the heavily* 



THE INVASION. 353 

mounted men-at-arms of Warwick ; then, laying the whole 
country in flames as they advanced, the English marched on 
until the 7th of September, when they halted at Long 
Niddry^ in Haddingtonshire. There the coast is flat and 
low ; and thus Somerset was enabled to communicate with 
his fleet, which came to anchor in the roads of Leith. 

Somerset now became aware that a Scottish army was 
concentrated in the neighbourhood, as bands of their prickers, 
or light-armed horse, were seen galloping along all the 
eminences, hallooing and brandishiug their long and slender 
spears in defiance. Despite these hostile appearances, the 
Lgrd Clinton was brave enough to come on shore and attend 
a council of war, at which it was arranged that he should 
anchor the fleet near the mouth of the Esk, to co-operate 
with the land forces, which Somerset proposed to halt finally 
eastward of Musselburgh, on the green links of that town, 
and in the parks of Wallyford and Drumore, where, on the 
evening of Friday, th^ 8th, he came in view of the camp of 
the Soots, thirty-six thousand strong, covering all the long 
green hill named Edmondstone Edge, at the base of which 
flowed the Esk. 

Around the camp of Somerset, who pitched his own tent 
near the village of Saltpreston, the whole country was laid 
desolate by fire ; and all who failed to escape perished by 
the sword. The tall square tower of Preston was soon 
stormed from a few old men and boys, who were headed by 
Mungo Tennant, and made a desperate resistance ; but they 
were all slain ; then the house was sacked by the English 
band of pensioners, and committed to the flames. The 
village of Tranent was burned, and its pretty little vicarage 
was gutted and destroyed ; while in the church the altars 
and the tombs of the Fawsides were de£eu;ed and overthrown. 
Father John had fled no one knew whither ; and for three 
days the whole landscape was shrouded in the smoke of 
buming hamlets, granges, mills, and stackyards. Amid tb^ 

2 A 



' 



tSi ZHB HHFASIOKv 

wicked devastation the old tower of Fawedde, perched on the 
summit of its hill, escaped unscathed ; but its time ^ras 
coming. 

All this destrucbion was visible from the Scottish camp, 
which consisted of four long rows or streets of white tents, 
that lay from east to west along the green slope of Edmond- 
stone, surmounted by the many-coloured banners of chiefe, 
nobles^ and burghs ; and from amid these tents the weapons 
and armour of so many thousands of mei^ caused a glittering 
that seemed incessant to the eyes pf the English, as they sur- 
veyed the vast extent of ground occupied by the army of 
Arran. As at the battle of Falkirk in 1296, at that of Dunbar 
in 1650, and other fields, which the Scots have lost by the 
treason of their nobles or the imbecility of their preachers, 
the Jvrst position of the regent was strong and skilfully 
chosen. 

In front flowed the beautiful Esk, between its steep 
rocky and wooded banks, from which the feathery ash, the 
green alder, and" the wild rose-tree drooped to kiss the 
gurgling waters, which were deeper, broader, and more 
rapid than now. The old Homan bridge, so worn by war 
and time, which still spans the stream, and which formed 
the only avenue to their position, Arran had manned by 
archers and mounted with cannon. The left flank, towards 
the sea, was defended by an intrenchment of tur^ also 
mounted with cannon and lined by arquebusiers ; while a 
deep and pathless morass, through which nor horse nor 
man might march, covered the right. 

Such was the position of the Scots before the disastrous 
field of Pinkey, or Inveresk — a battle, the issue of whidi 
was awaited breathlessly by Mary of Lorraine, at Edinburgh. 
By its strength, Somerset found himself completely baffled. 
To have assailed it would have been a hopeless task, which 
he saw would only end in a retreat that would »cover his 
army with disgrace, if not with ruin and slaughten 



THE INYASIOK. 355 

Anan surveyed the approach of the foe with a confidence 
in which our hero did not share; for he* knew that the 
Scottish camp was filled hy titled traitors, and that the 
auxiliaries under B'Esse had not yet left the coast of 
France. He had but one thought — to join Madeline, whom 
he beHeved to be in heaven, and to perish in the coming 
defeat— -for what hope was there of victory for an army led 
by peers who in secret were the tools of Somerset ! 

from the slope of Edmondstone the Scots could see the 
high-pooped, low-waisted, and gaily-painted caravels of 
£nglan<7 coming in succession to anchor, by stem and stem, 
off the month of the Esk, with their red ports open, and 
their brass cannon pointed to the shore. All bore the red 
cross of St. George, together with the banner of Thomas 
Lord Seymour of Sudley, K.G., high-admiral of England, 
Ireland, Calais, Boulogne, and the marches thereof; Nor- 
mandy, Crascony, and Acquitaine; captain-general of the 
navy and seas — all of which high-sonnding titles, did not 
save him from having his head ignominously chopped off on 
the 20th January, 1549. 

Amid the clamour, hurry, and bustle of the camp, 
[Florence found but little relief from the agony that preyed 
upon his spirit. In the prospect of the coming battle, 
lay all his hope of relief — ^by plunging into the strife as 
into a raging sea, to drown his care, his sorrows past and 
present 

On the evening before the English halted in sight of the 
Scottish camp, he had left the hospitable mansion of bluff 
Dick Hackerston, for the last time ; and the earnest and 
tender farewell which that good citizen took of his buxom 
wife, who laced on his mail wi£h her own trembling hands 
and placed as an amulet round his neck a holy medal which 
an old grey friar had brought from Bethlehem ; and the 
kisses which he bestowed again and again on his laughing 
and chubby-cheeked little ones, with the blessing which he 

2 ▲ 2 



306 THE INVASION. 

knelt down to reoeive from his blind father — a frail old 
man, who for the last few years had vegetated in a huge 
leathern chair in the ingle-nook of the dining-chamber, — all 
formed a strong contrast in the mind of Florence to Ids 
desolate and friendless condition. 

On this evening the old blind man was telling his beads, 
—for though he had heard Knox preach, and seen iFriar 
Porest burned, he was still a devout Catholic; and by 
turns his withered fingers would quit the cedar-wood 
rosary, to play with the iron hilt of a large sword, which 
hung upon a knob of his chair. When his son knelt before 
him, he placed a hand upon his head, and a stern smile 
passed over the old man's face, when he felt the cold steel 
of Dick's helmet. 

" Take this sword, my bairn," said he, " and go forth, 
believing that thine auld mother, who is now with the 
saints in heaven, is praying for thee and for thine. She 
lies in her grave in the kirkyard of St. Giles ; but she 
bore me sax braw sons, Dick, beside thee; three fell bj 
my side at Elodden, two at Ancrumford, and one at 
Haldonrig — all sword in hand for Scotland and her- king. 
'Tis but the tale that owre mony hae to tell. Ye were 
our last, Dick — ^born unto me in auld age, even as Isaac 
was born unto Abraham ; but go forth — ^take this sword, 
and use it as I would use it again had my years been few 
as thine. Go — God and St. Mary bless you ! Die if it be 
your weird; but turn not in battle, Dick Hackerstou, 
lest the curse of thine auld blind father fall upon thee ! " 

And in this spirit did our people go forth to battle, like 
the Spartans of old ! 



THE men-at-arms: 357 



CHAPTER XLV. 

THE MEN-AT-ARMS. 

Up, comrades, and saddle ! to horse and away 
To the field where freedom's the prize, sirs ! 

There hearts of true mettle still carry the day^ 
And men are the kings and the kaisers. 

No shelter is there where a skulker may creep ; 

But each man's sword his own heii^ must keep. 

ScJiiUer. 

On the momiDg of the next day, when a bright sun was shining 
on the wide bhie basin of the Forth, and a light silvery mist 
was creeping np j&om the low woods of Drumore and rolling 
along the green hill-sides^ a body of fifteen hundred Scottish 
Light Horse, with all their helmets, their uplifted spears 
and bright appointments flashing, as they galloped forth 
with George Lord Home at their head, spread along the 
slope of Fawside Hill, in view of Somerset's camp. Being 
principally Border-prickers, they were fleetly mounted on 
strong and hardy horses, and were clad in open helmets 
with jacks of splinted steel, iron gorgets, and gloves. All 
had swords, Jethart axes, and long spears, which they 
brandished as they galloped or caracoled backwards and 
forwards in open squadrons, but irregularly and far apart, 
whooping, huzzaing, and taunting the English to attack 
them, by many injurious epithets. 

Intent on meeting the earliest danger face to face, Florence 
joined this band of Border cavalry, and repeatedly rode near 
the gate of his own mansion. He felt a shudder as he surveyed 
it, and on perceiving, among many others on the bartizan 
of the tower, a dark figure which he thought was his 
mother, be sighed bitterly, and turning his head away, looked 



36^8 TRX HEZr-AlVABlCS. 

no more, save towards the masses of snow-white tents and 
hastily-constracted huts of the English camp, on the right 
and rear of which opened the beautiful Bay of Musselburgh, 
sweeping far away until its eastern promontory was lost in 
haze and distance ; and on the left of which lay the wild 
ravine and smoke-blackened ruins of Tranent. 

With the green banner of his family, charged with a lion 
rampant argent, armed and langued gvles, borne by Home of 
Aytoune, the Border lord rode so close to the English camp 
that the Lord Grey of Wilton obtained the Duke of Somer- 
set's permission to try the effect of a charge of the heavily- 
armed English horse upon these bravadoers. A long and 
glittering mass was then seen to defile from amid the white 
tents and the green chesnut-trees which shaded th^m. This 
mass formed in long squadrons as it advanced, with helmets 
and lances shining in the morning sun, and with pennons of 
every colour streaming on the wind behind. There were a 
thousand men-at-arms on barbed horses, with the demi-lances 
of Sir Ralf Vane. Among the latter rode Edward BhelJy 
and many other gentlemen as volunteers. As they came 
on with a cheer, which was distinctly heard in both 
camps, the Border horse closed round Lord Home's green 
banner, and then, rushing on each other at full speed, and 
with all their lances levelled in the rest, the adverse columns 
met with a tremendous shock, which strewed the open 
meadows with hundreds of killed and wounded men and 
horses. Among those who fell first were the laird of 
Champfleurie and Allan Duthie of the Millheugh, who were 
slain side by side. The first was cloven down by a sword ; 
the second had three feet of a lance thrust through his body. 

It was impossible for the lightly-armed Scottish troopers 
to withstand the weight and fury of a charge from so many 
completely-mailed and heavily-mounted cavalry ; they were 
soon broken, and after losing all order, continued a hand-to- 
hand conflict along the whole slope of Fawside Hill. 



THE MESr-AT-ABMB. 359 

■ 

In fighting desperately to save Ids banner from Edward 
Shelly, whose gauntleted hand was placed thrice upon the 
pole, Lord Home was severely wounded, and his son the 
Master of Home, whom M. Beaugue styles a loyal Scottish 
ohevalier, " inferior to none in the world, either in conduct 
or courage," was struck from his horse, disarmed, and with 
the laird of Garscadden and Captain Crawford of Jordanhill 
(afterwards so famous in the wars of Queen Mar/s i;eign), 
was taken prisoner by Sir Ralf Yane and the Earl of 
Warwick. 

In this conflict Florence ran his lance through the trunk 
hose of Master Patten; and as these were extravagantly bom- 
basted with several pecks of bran, according to the English 
fashion, it continued to pour through the orifice as from a 
sack in which a hole had been torn, and to sow all the 
scene of the conflict, to the great amusement of friends and 
foes. 

Still the strife went on. Surrounded by a mass of English 
men-at-arms, who by their very number impeded each other's 
actions and prevented his destruction, Florence Fawside, 
within a bowshot of his own gate, and within a green 
hollow, found himself fighting with all the resolution of a 
brave heart animated by despair, and coveting death rather 
than escape, — for he cared not to fly. His pressing danger 
was observed by his old enemy Lord Kilmaurs, who leaped 
on horseback, and, attended by three gentlemen in complete 
armour, was leaving the Scottish vanguard, when his father, 
the Earl of Glencaim, sternly exclaimed, — 

** Whither go you, my lord 1 " 

" To the front." 

*^ But why almost; alone 1 — and wherefore ? " 

"To the front, where the laird of Fawside is fighting 
those devilish men-at-arms; see you not how sorely he ib 
besetl" 

** Beware of the odds." 



360 THE MKN-AaVABlfS. 

<<What care I for odds?'* replied Kilmaars, doriening 
his reins and waving his lanoe, the pennon of whkth bon 
the hayfork aahle^ the badge of his fiimily. 

« The danger '' 

'^ Ifc never deterred a Cunninghame." 

'' But remember the letters of the Guises and the Valois; 
— he is our enemy." 

''No Scotsman is my enemy to-day/' exclaimed the 
reckless young lord ; '' follow me, sirs ! I would rather 
share the death of yonder gallant lad, than stand idly bj 
and see it." 

Kilmaurs and his three companions came along the hill- 
side at full speed, and, with levelled lances, burst into the 
fray just as Florence had been struck from his saddle^ and 
had placed his horse between himself and the swords cf the 
men-at-arms. Thrice a demi-lancer of Sir Ealf Yane'a basd 
had made a deadly thrust at him ; but thrice the weapon had 
been parried by the friendly sword ot Edward Shelly, who 
had just joined the mMee, for the same kind purpose thst 
had brought hither Lord Kilmaurs. 

'' Mount, Fawside," exclaimed the ' Englishman, keeping 
between Florence and the Boulogners ; '' mount while there 
is time, and leave me to deal with my Lord of Kilmaurs^— 
another day will serve your turn and mine." 

" Thanks," said Florence breathlessly, as he leaped on his 
horse ; ** for this good deed I strike not at you to-day." 

" But to-morrow— — " 

" And why to-morrow. Shelly % —alas, I have no one left to 
live or fight for now ; but to-morrow be it, for I warned you 
to avoid Scottish ground." 

" And in good sooth a few of us find its air unwholesome 
for our English lungs to-day." , 

While Florence drew off for a few minutes to recover Ids 
breath, and from the exhaustion of the late encounter, a 
vough and desperate conflict took place between Shelly and 



THE MEK-AT-ABUS. 361 

Kilmaurs, whose former quarrel gave acrimony to tbeir hate 
aad energy to their hands. 

''Thou traitor and bondsman of Somerset!" exclaimed 
Shelly. 

" Spy ! " taunted the other, and their ringing swords struck 
fire at every ward and cut. Kilmanrs received a severe 
wound on the bridle hand, and Shelly's helmet was nearly 
cloven in two, the vizor being struck completely off; but 
now other hands and weapons mingled in the combat, and 
bere as in other portions of this extensive skirmish, the 
Scots were beaten, and had to fly at full speed to reach their 
own camp ; but not until after the contest had been maintained 
lor three hours^ with the greatest valour and desperation ; 
und until they had lost no less than thirteen hundred men 
and horses^ did they entirely give way ; and then the remnant 
w«re pursued round Fawside Hill for three miles to the 
rigfrt flank of the Scottish camp. * 

Fawside had his armour cut or riven in more than twenty 
pkoe9, by the long swords of the men-at-arms of Boulogne ; 
and his fine grey charger, the gift of Mary of Lorraine, bore 
)dm through the Howemire and back to the camp, but so 
covered was it with wounds as to be disembowelled and 
dying. 

Such was the result of this severe cavalry encounter, a 
parelade to the greater strife of the morrow ; it filled the 
Scots with greater rancour, and the English (who knew that 
they must either win a battle or be driven into the sea) 
with a glow of triumph, which they were at no pains to 
conceal, for the livelong night their camp rang with rejoicing 
and shouts of acclamation. 



363 THE PARLEY. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

THE PABLET. 

Lo, I have ripen'd discord into war ! 

So let tliem now agree and form the league ; 

Since Trojan swords hare spilt Ansonian blood ; 

The war stands sure ; and hand to hand they've fought : 

Saoh nuptial rites, — such Hymeneal feasts ! 

^^neidg viii. 

After this conflict bad been waged throngfaoat the low» 
parts of the ground between the hostile camps, the Duke of 
Somerset^ attended by Don Pedro de Gramboa, the Earl of 
Warwick, and others had ascended the steep green eminenoe 
of Inveresk, where, within, the trenches of a Roman camp, 
stood the ancient church of St. Michael. From this lofty 
point, Somerset fully reconnoitred the position of the Scots ; 
and he became more than ever convinced that any attempt 
to dislodge them would be attended with great loss, and 
perhaps by a total defeat. As he and his group of attendants 
were somewhat moodily descending the hill towards their 
own camp, they heard the sound of a trumpet issuing from 
a copsewood, and in a green lane which leads directly from 
St. MichaeFs Church towards the hill of Fawside, they were 
met, as we are told in history, by four Scotsmen. The 
first of these was a gentleman on horseback — ^Florence 
Fawside— in full armour except his head, on which he won 
a blue velvet bonnet adorned by a tall white ostrich feather. 
He bore a steel gauntlet on his lance, and was attended by 
the Albany Herald in his tabard, the Ormond Pursuivant 
with his silver coUar of SS around his neck, and by a 
trumpeter in the royal livery (red and yellow) who sharply 
blew the peculiar notes which invite a parley. 



THE PABLEY. 363 

Florence had scarcely reached the Scottish camp, after the 
recent discomfiture of the Lord Home's mosstroopers, ere he 
was despatched to the English Protector, on a delicate 
mission by the Hegent Arran and the Earl of Huntlj. 

'* Well, Scots, what seek you ?" asked Somerset, who was 
a stately man of a noble presence, with a fine open counte- 
nance, and a short-clipped beard, of the late King Henry's 
fashion. Over his armour, which was richly studded and 
inlaid with gold dcmvobaquinee, he wore an open cassock- 
coat of crimson velvet, lined with white ermine, and on his 
breast were the collar and order of the garter. Dudley 
Earl of Warwick was nearly dressed in the same fashion, 
and wore the same illustrious order. ** Come you hither to 
offer me terms 1" asked the duke. 

" Such terms as your excellency may accept without 
dishonour," repUed Fawside, bowing low, for in manner and 
bearing the noble Somerset looked every inch a prince, and 
indeed closely resembled his late monariih Henry YIII. in 
face, figure, and dressL 

'^'Tis well," said he ; ''but in whose name come youl" 

** In the name of James Earl of Arran, Lord Hamilton 
of Cadzow, knight of the most Ancient Order of the Thistle, 
Chevalier of St. Michael in France, regent of Scotland and 
the Isles, for our Sovereign Lady the Queen, whom God 
long preserve!" replied the Albany Herald with due 
formality. 

" And his purpose is ** 

''To receive back by cartel all the prisoners who may 
have been captured by your men-at-arms, in the conflict 
which is just ended ; and on doing so, you will bo permitted 
to retreat without molestation into England." 

" This we decline," said Somerset bluntly ; " and now for 
i/our purpose fisdr sir ?" he added, turning to Florence, whose 
pale and saddened countenance could not fail to interest 
him. 



364 « THE FABLEY. 

^ I came in the name of George Earl of Huntly, Lord of 
Badenocli, Lochaber, and Auchindoune, also Chevalier of 
St. Michael, in France,*' replied Florence. 

" And what would he with us ? " 

*' This noble earl bids me say to you, Edward Duke of 
Somerset, that, being solicitous to avoid the unnecessary 
effusion of Christian blood, he is ready to decide this quarrel 
by single combat with you alone, or to encounter you witli 
ten or twenty gentlemen on each side, on foot or on horse- 
back, as may be ari-anged. Here lies his glove. Of these 
chosen combatants, I claim the honour of being one." 

" And I, on the other side," exclaimed Don Pedro de 
Gamboa and several gentlemen, pressing forward. 

** Nay,** said Somerset loftily ; " this cannot be. Knight, 
herald, pursuivant, and trumpeter, return to those fool-hardy 
lords who so unwisely sent you hither, and say that our 
quarrel, being a national and not« personal one, can only be 
decided by a general appeal to arms. And thou, sir,** he 
added, with increasing hauteur, to Florence, ''say to the 
Earl of Huntly, who sent thee, that in making such a chal- 
lenge to me, being of such estate, he seemeth to lack wit, 
for, by the sufferance of God, I have committed to me the 
care of a mighty and precious jewel, even such a charge as 
the Lord Arran hath — ^the government of a youthful sove- 
reign and the protection of a realm, while there be in my 
army many noble gentlemen, the Lord Huntly's equals, to 
whom he might have sent his cartel freely and without 
chance of refusal.*' 

" Your excellency speaketh wisely and well. Here will I 
take up the glove, and in return send mine,'* exclaimed the 
fiery Earl of Warwick, drawing off his steel gauntlet, while 
his swarthy face glowed with excitement ; " and I tell thee, 
trumpeter, thou shalt have one hundred silver crowns if thou 
bringest back a favourable answer from this Ix>rd of Huntly 
and Badenoch." 



THE PARLEY. 365 

" Dudley, this may not be," said Somerset ; *' Huntly, 
an eai'l, I believe, of a hundred years ago, is not peer to 
thee who representest our Norman earls of the twelfth 
century." 

"Then give me the glove," ejcclaimed Don Pedro de 
Gamboa : " what care I for earl or for emperor 1 " 

"Nor may this be," replied Florence. **The Earl of 
Huntly, a true and valiant Catholic lord, will not meet 
in single combat a renegade soldier of fortune, who, like 
Don Pedro, is beyond the pale of country and religion, 
since he sells his sword to those who are the avowed 
enemies of the faith of our fathers, the church of God and 
Rome." 

The Spaniard, who was a dark, sallow- visaged, and black- 
bearded free companion, gave Florence a terrible frown, and 
his glowing eyes seemed to flash within the four bars of his 
casquetel. He had served under the Admiral Don Diego 
de Velasquez when, with three hundred Spaniards, that 
adventurous cavalier first landed in Cuba ; and there 
Gamboa first won a name as a ferocious and daring soldier 
in the war with the natives, many of whom were roasted 
alive ; others were torn to pieces by wild dogs, and the rest 
were awed into submission. Gamboa struck with his mailed 
hand the orders of our Lady of Montesa and San Julian de 
Alcantara, which sparkled on his cuirass ; then he uttered a 
hoarse Spanish oath, and laid a hand on his sword. On 
this Florence lowered the point of hi^ lance and reined back 
his steed to defend himself; but Somerset and Warwick 
adroitly urged their horses between them, and preserved the 
peace. 

To end this interview, of which Master Patten and Father 
John of Tranent have left us such a minute account, Somerset 
said, — 

" Sirs, what command hath the Lord Bothwell in yonder 
host upon the hill ? " 



366 THE PASLET. ^ 

" None, replied Florence ; '^ lie is now a prisoner in a 
royal castle, and deservedly so." 

" A prisoner ? " 

" Accused of crimes against the state and queen." 

" Hah — discovered ! '* said Somerset to Warwick ; but the 
deep glance they exchanged was not unnoticed by Flor^ice* 
who quite understood its import, and how deeply Bothweli 
(like too many others) was implicated with these invaders of 
his country. 

" Tell the Regent Arran and the Earl of Huntly," resumed 
Somerset, " that we have now spent some eight days in your 
country ; and that though your force far exceedeth ours, if 
they will march down into the plain they will have fighting 
enough ; and I will give you, herald, and you, tnunpeter, 
each one a thousand crowns for your pains. What say you, 
sir herald, to so fair a sum ? " 

" As Solon said to Croesus king of Lydia." 
. " And what said he 1 " 

" If another comes who hath more mettle, then he may 
be master o^ all this gold ; and before to-morrow night we 
must win or lose a battle," replied the herald. 

" A man of wit, by St. George ! And to you, sir," added 
Somerset to Elorence, " will I give a chain of gold worth 
thrice the sum, and knighthood from my sword, if you will 
take it from an Englishman." 

"Knighthood could 1 have from no sword nobler than 
that of your highness, if I survive the battle, which, in my 
present mood, I deem most unlikely," replied Elorence, with 
a stern and^ sombre air that seemed strange on his youthful 
face, as he bowed, reined back his horse, and, as if weary of 
the iaterview, withdrew to the Scottish camp to report that 
his mission had proved unavailing, v 

The result of this interview was a letter sent by Somerset 
to Arran about nightfall. It was borne by Edward Shelly, 
a-nd contained an offer of retiring into England if the Scots 



THE BLACK SATUBDAT. 367 

would promise to keep their young queen at home until she 
attained such an age as might enable her to judge whether 
or not she would fulfil the original engagement with 
Edward VI., who would then have attained manhood ; but 
80 exasperated were the Scots by the unwarrantable aggres- 
sions of the English, that they rejected with scorn proposals 
which they knew arose rather from the pressing dictates of 
prudence, present danger, and political selfishness, and from 
the doubts and difficulties of Somerset's position, rather than 
from any sincere desire for peace, or for the welfare of Mary 
and her kingdom ; so, from one end of their camp to the 
other, there rose an universal shout, — 

" To battle 1 to battle ! — no truce — no treaty ! — to battle !" 

And so the night closed in. 



CHAPTER XLVIL 

THE BLACK SATURDAY. 

Yet turn ye to the eastern hand, 

And wae and wonder ye shall see ; 
How thirty thousand Scotsmen stand, 

Where yon rank river rtieets the sea. 
There shall the lyon lose the gylte. 

And the leopards bear it clean away ; 
At PinkydefVbch there shall he spylte 

Much gentil hlood that day. 

2%oma3 the Niymer. 

The dawn of the next day, the 10 th of September, 1547 — 
by the Scots called the Eeast of St. Finian, by the £!nglish 
and others the Festival of St. Nicholas of Tolentino — was 
sixigukrly beautiful. When the sun arose from his bed 



368 THE BLACK SATURDAY. 

beyond the eastern sea, the waves rolled and glittered in 
amber light ; the spray seemed to rise and fall in showers of 
snow and diamonds upon the rocky bluffs ; while the dew of 
the past night lay heavy on every leaf and shrub. Between 
its green and far-stretching shores of yellow sand and opeo- 
ing bays, of mountain slopes and brown basaltic rocks^ its 
grassy isles and covered headlands, the Forth lay almosti 
waveless like a sea of gold, and receding &r away as the eye 
could reach, until it melted into the eastern horizon, whei« 
cloud and wave were blent together. 

The fertile hills and upheaved bluffs of Fife were tinted by 
the glory of the morning with saffron and purple, though 
mellowed by haze and distance ; while the capital, with its 
castle, its steep ridge of towering mansions, St. Giles's tower, 
and Arthur's rocky cone, stood clearly forth from the deep 
unbroken blue of the- west. As the sun rose higher, seem- 
ing to mount into heaven, through successive bars or hori- 
zontal lines of vapour, which turned to glowing gold and 
purple, the beauty of the morning increased, for it exhibited 
one of those glorious arrangements of massive 'cloud and 
blazing sunshine, brilliant light and sudden shadow, peculiar 
to the lowlands of Scotland. 

Cleared of the grain, which was now stowed away in the 
vaults of baronial towers or of fortified granges, or else con- 
sumed by the fiame and the troop-horses of the foe, the 
fields were bare now, and yellow stubble covered all the 
upland slopes, from the margin of the sea to the lonely 
Lammermuirs. In some places, the plough that lay now 
rusting and disused, had already been at work, and had 
turned up the long, brown furrows, above which the 
ravening gled and the black corbie, as if scenting the battle 
from afar, were wheeling in lazy circles. Westward, beyond 
the Esk, the stackyaids were full of yellow grain, and aloDg 
the river's bank, and among the old coppice that shrouded 
Pinkey House, Wallyford, and the Templar Hospital of 



™e BIACK SATDEDAY. 3gg 

^^^^'^TZ^V" '^""^^ '^'^ ^-^ tints of 

aide reined „p ^t^.^T^^' ''^^' ^"^"^ I-*- 

whereon mancenmrfh!. ! ^"'' "^"^ "^ « battle-field, 

mortal strife ! And ihi. T Englishmen, prepared for 
of Henry yill^t^JI^ gratify the n.ad ambition 
the firBt Edwa^'te L ' ^"^'^^ bequeathed, like 

tempting to hM ^ T""^ **•" *°P"'^ ^^ of »*- 

-Bding soL of tJeirTrtiSirt ^k"""' '^'^"* ^'^' ''^ 
and to Cnwkstone Ww^ *^ '°'"'"^* **^ I'»^«'*«fc 
«POn the cam3 *!. a ' ''*"' ''''^°** t^^^^ <»«« play 
foWmoved?tlltir^*""''■^ "^^"^ *»•«- -hole 
the Tan, Sm^rSTTf^* '"'"""'^ ^'^^'^ «tUl leading 
tho thi^,T^^*J^f \«7-<» -'-'•. and Lord Dacre! 

plain, am^d wh^lTti*, *"" '^'^^S ^^ *!>« f^^Ue 
flows thTuIl ,*\^'*"\^*'^ "^"'^'i KnkeyBu™, 
tonished to findfW !J o ^'"°^' *''^ ^S^^^ ^^^ -^ 
had al,tj tL ;V^« ?t'' "^^'^ ''••'«^" imprudence, 

in the i^ Zt "^"^'-'"^^^ «°d wen-appointed army 

>nin?;r.t ^***'*"'* ^ "°^««ly »i«taken the first 
TZTZ *" ^«^^* ^^'^ '"^ ^'^*«"«o'» to «^t safety 
bii«rL« 5: * P«<»Pitate retreat from the sands of Mussel- 

S af^ ^'"'^ ^""*- ^'*™^ '^ *^«y «^-^^ *^- 
vJ!m„ *" ««'«^««rantable hostffities, and the de- 

vastetione committed on their northern march, he resolved at 
once tocwss theEsfc, and get between them and their ship- 
Pnft w M to cut of all chance of their retiring towards the 
loBmoTement he resolved to execute in defiance of tb 

9 -a J 



370 TUB BLACK SATURDAY. 

advice of the most wary and skilful soldiers in bis army, which 
was armed almost entirely in the fashion of tbe middle ages, 
with lances, bows, swords, and battle-axes ; while the English 
had many of the more modern appliances of war&re in 
the hands of their well-trained and veteran bands of 
Spaniards, Germans, and the garrisons of Calais and Bou- 
logne, all of whom carried arquebuses or hand-guns. 

The Earls of Arran, Huntly, Angus, and Argyle, on 
this day appeared each at the head of his division, sheathed 
in full armour, wearing above their cuirasses tbe Order of 
the Thistle, together with the Collar of St. Micbael, which 
they had received from Francis I., two years before. £adi 
wore arouud his helmet an earl's coronet, from the centre 
of which, beneath a plume of feathers, rose his gilded crest; 
thus, the first carried an oak-tree; the second, a stages- 
head ; the third, a salamander vert amid flames of fire j and 
the fourth, the wild boar's head of the Campbells, sbowing 
its ghastly tusks above his polished vizor. 

" Reflect, lord regent," said the Earl of Huntly ; " I pray 
you to reflect on this measure." 

" Eeflect on what ? " asked Arran sharply, through his 
open helmet. 

'* The sequel of a movement so rash as this." 

" A brave soldier never reflects," replied Arran proadly. 

'' But a skilful captain doth," was the pointed- response. 

*^ True, my Lord Huntly," said the Earl of Angus ; '< yoa 
are in the right, and our friend Arran is most unwiae to 
reject such prudent counsel." 

<' Enough, sirs— enough ! " said Arran, who was bnniii^ 
with impatience, as he saw the long lines of the English 
glittering in the sunshine, and a longing for vengeance on 
Somerset, whose invasion had convulsed the realm, and 
whose plots, spies, assassins, and bribes, had so long di»* 
turbed the Scottish government, gathered in his heart; 
" let us attack them ere they escape by sea. You smile, my 



THE BLACK SATUSDAY. 371 

Lord Kilmaars I " he added, taming wrathfally to that 
young lord. 

" Nay, my lord regent — this is no time to smile ; nor did 
I/' replied the other bluntly. 

" Methought a strange expression crossed your face." 
. Kilmaurs grew pale with rage, for being in the English 
interest, he had felt some satisfaction on forseeing the ruin 
qf Arran's army. 

" Your grace is scarcely well-bred in reproaching me with 
a wound received in the service of my country," said he, 
pointing to the scar which traversed his cheek, and the 
Bp6L8modic twitching of which was a constant source of 
annoyance to him. He then put spurs to his horse and 
galloped to the head of his father's vassals, all stout yeomen 
of Conninghame and Kyle, who were arrayed in a dense 
and steely mass under the banner with the hayfork 
sable^ and were preparing to cross the fatal river at a 
ford. 

The rash movement of Arran was urged by the Earl of 
Glencaim and many others, who are now known to have 
beesi the pensioners of England, and in secret league with 
Somerset ; but dearly did it cost the earl and his Oun« 
Dinghames. 

'^ The lord regent is right," said he j '' let us down at one 
fell flwoop upon them ; for what is yonder host but a 
bonded horde of English clowns and Irish kerne— of Spanish 
robbers and German boors, come hither in steel bonnets to 
seek for blood and beer 1 Down at once, I say, and bear 
i|ie this horde of invaders at spear-point to the sea ! " 

*^ Bat the (xerman in&ntry," said Huntly, *^ and those 

arquebuses of Spain " 

. ^ A rabble of tawny loons' clad in armour so heavy, and 
mounted on horses so gorgeously trapped, that they can 
never escape your Highlandmen or the Lord Home's light 
Border-prickers." 

2 B 2 



372 THE BLACK SATUBDAT. 

The Earl of Angus now refused to adyance, swearing ''by 
St. Bryde of Douglas it was rank madness to cast adyantage 
at tbeir horses' heels." 

'' On pain of treason to our lady the queen, I charge yon, 
lord earl, to pass forward with the van, or beware our speedj 
vengeance ! " said Arran. 

" My fear is less of thee than for my queen and country," 
replied the Douglas calmly, as he led his squadron girdle- 
deep through the stream, which swept some of them througli 
the arches of the bridge, and away into the sea beyond 

''What says you^ leal and right-hand man, the young 
Laird of Fawside 1" asked the Earl of Cassilis with a scarcely 
perceptible sneer ; " doubtless that he is ready, on either side 
of the Esk, to die for your grace and the queen." 

"To say so, my lord, were an empty \}oast,'* replied 
Florence quietly (his heart was too heavy for anger). *' In 
yonder plain are six-^nd-thirty thousand Scots, who £ar excel 
me, I hope, in their readiness to die." 

" To battle, then ! " exclaimed Arran, waving his truncheon. 
" God and St. Andrew are with us !" 

By this time the whole Scottish army had defiled across 
the high Koman bridge of Esk, and formed in dense columns 
of horse, foot, and archers, as they advanced towards the 
foe, presenting a splendid array, with all their poHshed 
helmets and cuirasses shining in the sun — their many squarej 
triangular, and swallow-taited bannero waving, and their tall, 
uplifted lances, eighteen feet in length, and not less than 
fifteen thousand in number, swaying heavily to and fro^ like 
a field of giant com, as the close ranks marched on shoulder 
to shoulder, until the whole thirty-six thousand men stood 
in firm order of battle on the plain beyond the hill of 
Inveresk, which overlooked their left fiank, while the green 
upland slope of Fawside rose upon their right. 

With the shrill fife, the rattling drum (or Almainie swesehe, 
^8 the Scots named it), the droning bag-pipe, the twanging 



THE BLACK SATURDAY. 373 

bugle-hoip^ the kettle, the clashing cymbal, and the sharp 
brass trumpet, filling the air with harsh but martial music, 
the Scottish lines drew near the English; and then the 
shouts, the cheers, the war-cries (the slogom of the Low- 
landers, the caJthghmrm of the Celts), by which the soldiers 
of hastily-<x)llected levies usually encourage each other, or 
taunt the foe, began to load the air with a confusion of 
sounds, after the deep boom of the first English cannon from 
the green brow of Inveresk had pealed through the clear 
welkin, and made a ghastly lane amid the nearest close 
column of Scottish infantry, causing the silken banners to 
rustle, the ranks to swerve, and the tall ash spears to sway 
like a corn-field bending beneath a blast of wind ; and then 
to heaven went up a louder and a deeper shout, as the ranks 
closed over the mangled dead, and the forward march 
went on,. 

The centre was led by the Eegent Arran in person. It 
consisted of the hardy clans from Statheam, with the flower 
of the Scottish infantry, the men of Lothian, of Kinross, and 
of Stirlingshire. With many barons, he had also at least 
eight hundred chosen citizens of Edinburgh, led by William 
Craik, their provost. In their centre, Dick Hackerston bore 
the " Blue Blanket," or ancient banner of the city — a great 
swallow-tailed pennon of azure silk, worked for the burgesses 
by Margaret of Oldenburg. Among the men of Strathearn 
were the MacNabs, in their red^, glaring tartans ; and amid 
them were twelve stately warriors, conspicuous in their long 
lurichs of steeL These were Ian Mion and his eleven 
brothers, the heroes of the savage story of Locheam, and on 
their banner was painted a human head afironUe. 

The right wing consisted of six thousand western High- 
landers, and brave and hardy islesmen, inured to battle and 
to storm, under MacLeod, MacGregor, and Archibald Earl 
of Argyle, the regent's son-in-law. On both its flanks an*' 
rear this column was covered by artillery. The ot 



374 THE BLACK SATUBPAT. 

divisions presented the aspect either of dnll or tiniform 
masses covered with shining steel or brown leather; but 
this displayed the varied tartans of many Celtic tribes; and 
from its marching masses, with the incessant brandishing 
of swords and round targets, rose the wildest and most 
tumultuary shouts and outcries. 

The left division of the Scots consisted of ten thousand 
infantty of Fife, Meam, and the eastern counties, led by 
Archibald Earl of Angus, flanked by culverins and ligbt 
horse. In their centre there marched a singular force, con- 
sisting of more than a thousand Scottish monks, who had 
been drawn from their cloisters by a terror of the Reforma- 
tion (which Henry had so roughly established in ESngland) 
being spread into Scotland, if Somerset's expedition proved 
successfuL They were clad in plain black armour, and wore 
white or grey surcoats with crosses on the breast and back, 
to distinguish them as Dominicans; Cistercians, or Francis- 
cans ; and in their centre waved a white silk banner, which 
had been consecrated with many solemn ceremonies by the 
abbot of Dunfermline, after it had been made by Mary of 
Lorraine and the Countesses of Yarrow and Arran. Thereon 
was depicted a female kneeling with dishevelled hair before 
a cross, and around her was the motto — 

The great 'squares or close columns of Scottish infantry 
were formed in admirable order, but in the ancient and 
somewhat unwieldy fashion of their country. Drawn up 
shoulder to shoulder, each soldier carried his spear, which 
was six Scots ells *(i,e,, eighteen feet) in length, pointing to 
the front ; the first rank knelt, the next stooped, the third 
stood erect; but aU had their weapons levelled at three 
angles towards the foe ; thus the Scots were " so completely 
defended by the close order in which they were formed, and 
'^y the length of their lances, that to charge them seemed to 



THE BATTLE. 375 

be as rash as to oppose your bare hands to a hedgehog's 
bristles. 

Lances, two-handed swords, and daggers, with mauls and 
Jethart staves, were the arms of the cavalry, who were all 
ia complete mail, except the Borderers, who were always 
lightly armed, and seldom wore more than a skull-cap and 
breastplate or splinted jack, with plate sleeves and gloves of 
steel. A few were armed with wheel-lock pistols, which 
were brought from Italy or Flanders ; but in the art of war, 
in order, and, above all, in perfect obedience, as well as in 
the discipline of the Boulogners and the new &shion of 
weapons, ai^quebuse and culiver, by which their auxiliaries 
the foreign horse and foot were armed, the English on this 
day were every way superior to the Scots. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

THE BATTLE. 

Near Has* tomb, in order ranged aroand, ' 
The Trojan lines possesa'd the rising ground ; 
The sea with ehipB, the fields with armies spread. 
The Tictors rage, the dying and the dead. 

Ilidul, book xi. 

The joy of Somerset was great on perceiving that the Scots 
had quitted their formidable position, and, between his fleet 
on one flank and his artillery on the other, were deliberately 
marching into a mouth of fire. He and the Earl of Warwick 
warmly congratulated each other, and then repaired to their 
posts. The earl formed his division on the slope of Inveresk 
hill ; the duke formed his line from thence till its other flar 



376 THE BATTLE. 

reached, the plain. The mounted arqaebusiers of Don de 
Gamboa and the men-at-arms of Lord Grey, flushed hj their 
victory of yesterday, formed the extreme left, while Lord 
Dacres commanded the seaward line. 

Being armed with shorter pikes than the Scots, the long 
and serried array of the English looked compact and low ; 
the sun was in their rear, and above theip long lines of 
glittering helmets poured aslant his morning rays, in which 
every polished sword and point of steel flashed and sparkled 
brightly. 

On this day the royal standard of England was borne hj 
Sir Andrew Flammock, a gentleman of approved valour, who 
rode near Somerset, on a magnificently caparisoned horse, 
and in the centre of the whole army. This scarlet banner, 
with its three yellow leopards, was the mark of many an eye, 
the aim of many a Highland archer, and Lowland cannonier; 
thus the unfortunate bearer had no sinecure of his office ; 
and on Arran saying to those about him, — 

'* Sirs, I would give a fair barony to have yonder standard 
in my hand !" 

" I care not for baronies," said Florence, who rode by his 
side ; '^ I care not for life itself, lord earl, — and thou shalt 
have the banner, if human strength can win it." 

"Then," adds the vicar of Tranent, who records this 
episode, " ere the Lord Arran could reply, the battaile began 
with a mighty furie." 

As the chief intention of Arran was to throw the division 
of the Earl of Angus — ^if not the whok Scottish army— 
between the English and their fleet, the flank which marched 
near the sea, became (as Somerset had foreseen) exposed to 
an immediate canonade from the whole line of the English 
ships, sixty-four in number. The booming of their artillery, 
echoed along the indented shore with It thousand rever- 
berations, while the pale smoke enveloped all the line of 
"-"^hored ships, from their low-waisted and high-pooped hulls, 



THB BATTLE. 377 

to the gaujlj banners and long wavy streamers which 
decorated their masts; and their shot of stone or iron, 
bowled with £Bktal precision among the dense masses of the men 
of Fife and MearD, making long and terrible lanes of death 
and mutilation — of shattered limbs and dismembered bodies. 
This caused a flank movement by which the whole Scottish 
line swerved south and westward towards the slope of 
Fawside Hill. On perceiving this, Somerset ordered the 
Lord Grey at the head of his mailed men-at-arms, and 
Edward Shelly with his Boulogners to charge the right wing 
of the Scots, to the end, that both their flanks might be 
driven upon the centre. With this body went the bearer of 
the royal standard ; and true to his pledge, Florence galloped 
to join the right wing of the Scots, that he might be nearer 
his intended prize. 

''St. Greorge! St. George for England! Come on my 
valiant Boulogners, my true-bred English fighting-cocks !*' 
cried Shelly^ standing in his stirrups, and waving his lance 
as he spurred in front of the line. 

In solid squadrons, with their barbed horses making the 
ground shake beneath their mighty rush, the men-at-arms 
all dad in shining steel, with swords uplifted and their 
fftces glowing through their barred helmets with ardour and 
excitement^ came furiously on, their trumpets sounding, and 
the red cross of England waving above them. On came 
Edward Shelly at the head of his mounted. Boulogners, the 
last of those '* five hundred light horseman, cloathed in blue 
ja<^t8 with red guards^" whom King Henry had taken to 
Boulogne ; * and with them came Sir Half Vane, Sir Thomas 
Datcy, and the Lord Fitzwalter, all wearing magnificent 
Annour, streaming plumes, and gay colours, leading the 
oolnnm of demi-lancers, a thousand heavy horse, and sixteen 
hundred chosen in£uitry, to break that portion of the 
Scottish line. 

' * Vide " BelftiioDB of the Mort Famous Kingdoms." 1680. 



378 THE BATTLE. 

The brilliant horsemen first gained the slope of Fawside 
Hill, and then making a sweeping wheel to their rights like a 
rolling sea of shining men and foaming chargers, they rushed 
with tremendous faiy down upon the Scottish flank. Then 
was a sudden and a fearful shock; and again, like a rolling sea 
from the face of a flinty bluff, this human tide of valour was 
hurled back upon itself in confusion and disorder. 

Foremost in the m^e fought Florence, with his eyes 
fixed on the standard, and many a mounted man went 
down before him, till at last, with a shout of triumph, he laid 
his hand upon the pole, as it swayed to and fro, above the 
fighting and the falling. 

" The standard ! " cried Lord Grey ; "by Heaven and Bang 
Harry's bones, let us save the standard ! " 

He made a blow at the left hand of Florence, who gave 
him a severe cut across the mouth just as his helmet flev 
open, and then by a wound in the neck completed his 
discomfiture. Sir Andrew Flammock was roughly unhorsed 
by Sir George Douglas ; but he retained the standard, by 
tearing it (as he fell) from the pole, which remained in the 
hand of Florence as a trophy of victory. 

It was at the present farm-house of Barbauchly that the 
encounter took place ; and into its muddy ditch, back from 
the triple line of gleaming Scottish pikes, there rolled two 
hundred of Somerset's best cavaliers. Batcliff, Clarence, and 
many others were slain, many more were wounded ; while 
hundreds of riderless horses, wild with affright, fled over the 
field in every direction, some with their entrails hanging out, 
having been stabbed in the belly by the spears, the long 
double-edged daggers, or Tynedale knives of the Scots. 
** Rendered furious by their wounds, many of these chargers 
carried disorder into the English companies, which were 
thrown into such confusion (says an historian) that the 
Lord Grey had the greatest difficulty in extricating them 
■^nd retreating." 



THE BATTLE. 379 

While he drew off his discomfited cavalry to re-form 
them, there lingered near the Scottish line a single horse- 
man, whose hlue surcoat, trimmed with gold and slashed 
with scarlet^ worn loosely and open above his armour, and 
whose lofty plume, as well as his trappings and bearing, 
marked him as an approved soldier and man of distinction. 
This was Edward Shelly, in the livery of a Boulogner. 
Bising in his stirrups, he thrice waved his lance aloft ; and 
Florence, remembering their quarrel and appointed duel, 
rode forth at once to meet him. He had long since broken 
his lance ; but he now couched in the fashion of one the 
pole of the English standard, which he still retained, and 
with it he rushed at full speed upon his challenger. 

They met with a furious concussio^i ; but as Shelly's horse 
swerved, his lance was broken in two athwart the breast- 
plate of Florence, whose impromptu weapon was splintered 
into twenty fragments on the right shoulder of the sturdy 
Englishman, who kept his saddle, but with difficulty. Each 
in a moment tossed aside the truncheon or fragment which 
remained in his hand, reined up his horse, and drew his 
sword ; then, in full view of the Scottish right and of 
the English lefb wing, began a sharp hand-to-hand conflict 
in which the utmost skill in the use of the bridle and sword 
'Was displayed by both combatants. 

Florence, being reckless alike of life and danger, had 
evidently the best of it, as he drove his adversary, at every 
thrust and stroke, further up the hill towards the right, 
luitil they were within a bowshot of the tower of Fawside, 
the barbican of which was crowded by women and by the 
old men of the barony, who were all armed in case of the 
place being attacked. It soon became evident that they 
recognized their young master, for shouts of 

'' Forth — forth, and feir nocht ! " faintly reached his ear, 
mingled with shrill cries of alarm. 

Suddenly his horse stumbled and came heavily down ^n 



380 THE BATTLE. 

its knees, throwing him prone to the earth. Ere he could 
rise, while a shriek burst from the women in the tower, 
Shelly had sprung from his horse, and throwing the bridle 
over his arm, placed his sword at the throat of the fJEdlen. 

" Here might I slay or capture you, Soot,*' said he ; '* but 
I have not forgotten your generosity on the night we met in 
that lonely castle of the Torwood. Here ends our quarrel; 
and in this field let us meet no more, unless it be that 
the fair one, whose name I jestingly mentioned on tbat 
night " 

" Nay, speak not of her," said Florence mournfully. * I 
seek not life, Master Shelly, but rather death ; and from so 
honoured a sword as thine it were indeed more welcome ! " 

<< Wherefore so sad \ '* said the Englishman. '^ Up, man, 
and be doing ; for, by St. George ! you Scots will have yoar 
hands full to-day. Here come our demi-lances again ; away 
to your own band — ^you have not a moment to lose 1 " 

Shelly remounted; Florence saluted him, and leaped 
lightly on his own horse. 

" Farewell, Edward Shelly," exclaimed Florence with an 
emotion of enthusiasm ; *^ thou art a soldier as generous as 
brave. I would rather be thy friend than thine enemy." 

" To-day you have been both, fair sir," replied Shelly, as he 
wheeled his horse round. At that moment there came a loud 
wkiz through the air, and struck by the bsdl of an arquebuse, 
which had been fired from the tower of Fawside, the hrsLve 
Shelly fell dead fro^i his terrified horse, which dragged him 
by the stirrup into the ditch where so many English were 
already lying killed and wounded. 

Florence cast his eyes upward to the tower-head, firom 
whence the pale light smoke was still curling. He saw the 
tall dark figure of a woman brandishing an arquebose, and 
he knew in a moment that the hand of his stern mother had 
fired the fatal shot. 
!. , " She again I— oh, ruthless hand ! " he muttered with a 



THE BATTLE. 381 

half- smothered groan ; and taming his horse, galloped again 
to the Kegent^ran. 

On beholding Shelly's fall a shout of rage arose from his 
comrades the Bonlogners, and from the long array of demi- 
lances, whom the Duke of Somerset once more ordered to 
attack the Scottish right. 

*^ 6y my faith, duke, you might as well l)id me charge a 
castle wall 1 " was the angry reply of the Lord Grey, from 
whose face and neck the blood was still streaming j but tiow, 
\yy the advice of the skilful Earl of Warwick, the Spanish 
and German arquebuslers, with a body of English archers, 
were ordered to assail the Scottish columns in frout, while 
several pieces of cannon played upon one flank from Fawside 
Hill, and the shipping still swept the other with terrible 
results. The foreign auxiliaries, in ranks eight deep, 
poured in their heavy shot, firing over forks or rests, full 
into the faces of the Scottish infantry, who, by the destruc- 
tion of their light cavalry on the preceding day, were with- 
out means of attacking either the cannoniers or the conti- 
nental troops. Thus the battle soon became general along 
the w^hole plain, and the cry of the Scots, — 

** Come on, ye dogs ! ye heretics 1 " rose incessantly above 
the din of the strife; for now there was the rancorous 
rivalry of creed to inflame the rivalry of race, and the 
transmitted hatred of a thousand years. Moreover, in this 
QQgagement the English were burning to avenge the defeat 
of their troops at Ancrumford and Paniershaugh, where Sir 
I^aif Evers and many men had been cut to pieces by the 
Earl of Angus ; and now, filled with fury on beholding the 
destruction of his castle and the pitiless devastation of his 
lands, no man in all the army of Arran on this day of blood 
hewed a passage further into the English host than old 
Claude Hamilton of Preston, who forgot all about his prof- 
fered titles, and with his two-handed sword sent many a 
younger man to his long home. 



382 THE BATTLE. 

The combined movement of the Spaniards, under Gamboa, 
with the Crermans, under Sir Pietre Mewtas, seconded by & 
body of English archers showering flight and sheaf arrows 
poiDt-blank into the teeth of the Scottish line, on which (as 
already related) the cannon were playing from both flanks, 
drove it into confusion ; and, after suffering dread^ losses^ 
the great 'column of Angus first began insensiblj to retire. 

At this crisis the whole air seemed laden with sound. 
The booming of cannon ; the rattling explosion of arque- 
buses, .hand-guns, and calivers; the smoke of whioh rolled 
like carded wool before the wind ; the twang of bows ; the 
whiz of passing arrows, which planted all the turf as 
they stuck with feathers upward ; the clang of swords on 
swords or helmets ; the galloping of horses ; the voices 
of many thousands of men uttering tiiumphant hunnahs, 
fierce and bitter imprecations or cries of agony, as they 
were struck down wounded and bleeding to the earth ; — all 
were there to make a mighty medley of uproar. The air 
of the sunny morning became dusky with the dust raised 
by the feet of men rushing in tens of thousands to the 
mortal shock; and sulphureous with the smoke of gun- 
powder, which was then almost a new element in Scottish 
war; and to this new ally in the hands of their foreign 
auxiliaries on one si^e, and to the treason and incapacity 
of the Scottish leaders on the other, England eventually 
owed the victory. ' 

The recoil of Lord Angus's division caused a panic to ran 
along the whole Scottish line. 

It began to waver, to pause, and £dl back ! 

^' Treason 1 treason 1 to your ranks — ^to your standards ! 
forward and follow me ! " cried Arran, whose magnificent 
armour, covered with gold embossings made him the aim of 
many an archer, as he galloped along the line to restore 
order. He had already had three horses killed under him ; 
the golden oak and pearl-studded coronet had been hews 



THE BATTLE. 383 

from his helmet ; the diamond cross of St. Andrew and the 
golden shells of St. Michael had been torn from his breast ; 
he had broken his sword and lance^ and now wielded a 
steel truncheon ; his eyes were wild and bloodshot, and his 
voice had become hoarse by the reiterated orders he had 
issued* His efforts were vain ; and vain also were those of 
Florence, and a few who attempted to second them ; for 
the rapid advance of the Earl of Warwick's column^ and 
another welL-4irected volley from the foreign auxiliaries, 
completed the discomfiture of the ill-led, ill-posted, and ill- 
disciplined Scots. A total and most disastrous rout ensued ! 
The great army, which one historian likens to " a steely sea 
agitated by the wind,'* after a few moments was seen breaking 
into a thousand fragments, and dispersed in all directions. 
. " They fly ! they fly 1 " burst from the victors. 

All became flight, chaos, confusion ; and the fugitives, in 
their hast^ to escape the English cavalry, threw aside all 
that might encumber their movements. More than twenty 
thousand spears and partisans strewed the ground, with 
helmets, cuirasses, back-plates, bucklers, gauntlets, swords, 
daggers, mauls, Jedwood axes, bows, belts, sheafs of arrows, 
drums, banners, trumpets, cannon, pistols, hand-guns, and 
all the debris of a mighty host ; and the pursuit of the 
unarmed fugitives continued from one in thp day until six 
in the evening — ^nor even tlien were the English sated with 
slaughter. 

Exasperated by their first defeat, the demi-lances and 
the men-at-arms of Boulogne, were especially severe in 
their actions. 

'' Bemember Paniershaugh ! " was their cry ; and others 
shouted, — 

"Shelly, Shelly! remember Fed Shelly!" for, says 
Master Patten, ^ On the field we found that worthy gentle- 
man and gallant officer, pitifully disfigured, mangled, and 
discernible only by Ids beard." 



384 THE BATTLE. 

In tbeir haste to escape, many of the Scots cast adde 
their shoes and doublets, and fled in their sliirts and 
breeches. Many concealed themselves in the furrows of 
the fields, and were passed unseen by the English cavalry, who 
swept on after others. In short, it was one of those rents 
or panics to which undisciplined troops are at all times liable. 

To Edinburgh the din of the distant battle had come by 
fits upon the autumnal breeze ) and when the English 
infantry reached Edmondstone Edge, and found themselves 
among the plunder of the Scottish tents and camp-eqtiipage, 
the shout they raised was distinctly heard in the streets of 
the capital, where that day's slaughter made three hundred 
and sixty widows. Among those who fell was the merchant 
John Hamilton, mentioned in the thirty-first chapter of 
our story. 

Thousands of the Scots threw themselves into the Esk, 
and perished miserably under the cannon from the ships, 
the shot of the Spaniards, or the swords of the English 
horsemen, when, they scrambled ashore. On the narroir 
Roman bridge, the press of fugitives was frightful, ad the 
Lord Clinton's great ship was pouring her broadsides upon 
it, and on the defiling masses. Here were slain the good 
Lord Fleming of Cumbernauld ; the Masters of Livingstone, 
Buohan, Ogilvy, and Erskine, all sons of earls ; the Lairds 
of Lochinvar, Merchiston, Craigcrook, Priestfield, I/ee, and 
many others, with their friends and followers, till the 
barricade of mail-clad dead impeded the passage of the 
living ; and so little did their consecrated banner avail the 
band of armed monks, that they nearly x)erished to a 
man, and the symbol of " the afflicted Church," was found 
on the field, soaked in their blood, torn and trampled under 
foot. The Esk was literally crimsoned with blood, for 
nearly half the Scottish army perished along its banks, the 
English having made a vow before the battle,^/* that if 
victorious, they would kill rrumi/ and spare ^^t^.** 



THE BATTJIiE. 385 

The aspect of the fields says Master Patten, was frightful j 
the bodies lay so thick and close. 

<< Some without legs, some houghed and half-dead, others 
the arms cut off, divers their necks half asunder, many their 
heads cloven, the brains of sundry dashed out, others their 
heads quite off, with a thousand kinds of killing. In the 
chase," continues this minute reporter, who writes of the 
affair with great gusto, " all, for the most part, were killed 
either in the head or in the neck ; for our horsemen could 
not well reach them lower with their swords. And thus, 
with blood and slaughter, the chase continued five miles 
westward from the place of their standing, which was in the 
fallow-fields of Inveresk, until .Edinburgh Park (about the 
base of Arthur's Seat), and well-nigh to the gates of the 
town itself, and unto Leith ; and in breadth, from the shore 
of the Firth up to Dalkeith southward ; in all of which 
fiipace t?ie dead bodies lay as thick aa cattle grassing in afuU- 
replenished pastitre. The river Esk was red with blood, soi 
that in the same chase were counted, as well by some of our 
men who diligently observed it, as by several of the pri- 
soners, who greatly lamented the result, upwards of fourteen 
thousand slain. It was a wonder to see how soon the dead 
bodies of the slain were stripped quite naked, whereby the 
persons of the enemy might be easily viewed. For tallness 
of stature, cleanness of skin, largeness of bone, and due pro- 
portion, I could not have believed there were so many in all 
their country." 

The Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Huntly, with fifteen 
hundred men, were captured, and, with thirty thousand suits 
of mail found in the camp and on the field, were sent on 
board the fieet. 

Previous to all this, Florence collected a few horsemen 
by the force of example, and made three desperate charges, 
whicii kept Gamboa's fiery Spaniards and the Lord Fitz- 
walter's demi-lances in check until the regent and his train 

2 o 



386 THB BATTX& 

had passed the Ifek. On achieving this, Arra% whose 
helmet was now completely cloven, and the houfiings of 
whose horse were covered with blood, exclaimed,— 

"Fawside, the day is totally lost, and I am living and 
without a single wound 1 " 

« And I too, though seeking death everywhere.'* 
" So much the better ; I have for you a task of honoitf 
and peril to perform/' 

" Name it— quick, my lord j Me haYe ndt a momdnt io 
lose,*' cried Florence breathlessly* 

« Ride for Edinburgh— get forth thd ({n^ti and queen- 
mother, and, with whatever men you can collect, take the 
road for the north — ^there await my orders— away ! '* 

"Farewell; but I must have one other dash at these 
English demi-lanoes," he ezclaimedi wheeling round his 
horse. 

Cold in the cause of Scotland, and lidedlesii whether the 
field was lost or won, too many of the peers showed but an 
indifferent example to their soldierd ; others, with an eye to 
the promised pensions^ gold, titles, and rewards^ wished well 
to Somerset, and openly fled, like traitors, ad Attran called 
them. Hence the rhyme, with which the poor Scota coft- 
soled themselves, — » 

*Twa8 English gold cmd Bcoti irtiUon toan 
The field of Pinhey, hut ho Mnglithman, 

According to Buchanan, the Highlanders escaped withont 
loss, as th^ formed themselves into a dense circle, and in 
this strange order retreated over the most difficult and 
rocky ground, where no men-at-arms could follow them. 
Their retreat was covered by the MacNabs, among whom 
the twelve tall sons of Aileen were conspicuous by their 
vigour and bravery. 

Arran retired with a body of fiigitives to Stirling, and on 
ibe day afteir the battle frei»h^ scenes of disaster and devasta- 



THE BATTLE. ' 387 

tion ocetirred In Edinburgli. In every stteet rapine 'and 
ontrage were triumphant. Holyrood was sacked, the 
churches were deiE^iled, and Leith vras tet in flames. 

There was one citizen of Edinburgh, who, after bearing 
himself gallantly throtighout that bloody day^ on finding 
that he was unable to bear away, like the pious Eneis, his 
blind and aged father, while haying a young wife and het 
babes to protect, he stood ,for nearly an hour amid the 
-flames of rapine and a hundred -Weapons that gleamed 
around him, defending with his t>f^o-handed sword the arch- 
yrhf thiit led to his house. A horde of assailants, flushed 
with afe, wine, trium|)h, and ferocity, opposed him ; but 
, valiantly lie faced them all, until a ball from the arquebuse 
of a Spaniard pierced his heart and he fell dead. This 
^tizen was Dick Hackerston ; but to this hour his name 
h borne by the stree* or "wynd which he so valiantly 
defended. 

While the English were stripping the dead and slaying 
the wonnded on the field, the little garrison in Fawside 
tower fired on them briskly, from bartizan and loophole, 
tmtU they were environed by a body of menat-arms under 
Sir Ralf Vane, who on finding the defender was a lady, tied 
a handkerchief to his sword and riding forward called upon 
her to yield. 

"Yield thou ! — false kjte, what make ye here ?" was the 
scoffing reply of the fiei*ce Dame Alison, in whom the events 
of the day had kindled the keenest excitement. " I hold 
my house of the queen of Scotland, and will yield it to no 
!Ehglishman, — least of all to a popinjay squire like thee.** 

** I am Sir Half "Vane, madam, a captain of demi-lances, 
and ere now have had a ch&teau yielded to me by a marshal 
of France.*' 

••The more fool he," she replied ; while Roger of West- 
mains, sent a bullet close to Vane's right ear. 

* Surrender to thee, indeed P he exclaimed j "thou loon 

2 o2 



388 THE FLIQHT. 

and heretic tyke, I would as soon think of ploughing up ibe 
Devil's croft." 

A cannon was now brought up ; a single shot blew the 
gate open ; then the tower was given to the flames ; and as 
none were allowed to come forth by the doors, and the 
windows were (as we may stiU see them) grated with iron, 
all within perished miserably. 

" The house was set on fire,** saith Master Pattea com- 
plaisantly in his seventy-fourth page ; *' and for their gpod* 
will all were burnt or smothered within." So Lady Aliaoii 
died by the same dreadful death, which, but a few dajn 
before, she had devised for the Hamiltons of Freston. 

Boger of Westmains, many other old men, and the wives 
of all her tenants perished with her; but, as already 
mentioned, the spirit of this stem woman is still said to 
haunt the ruined tower on each anniversary of that day of 
battle and disorder, the Black Saiv/rday of 1547. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

THE FLIOHT. 

The deeds of our sires if our bards should rehearse. 
Let a blush or a blow be the meed of their yerse ; - 
Be mnte every string, and be hush'd every tone. 
That shall bid us remember the fame that has flown. 

Scott, 

SuOH was this disastrous defeat on the 10th September ; a 
defeat which though less &tal than Flodden to a class whom 
Scotland well could spare — ^her noble families — was severely 
felt by the cgmmond; for among the fourteen thousand dead, 



THE FLIGHT. 389 

who lay on the field of Pinkey, were no less tlian two 
thousand lesser barons and landed gentlemen. 

The aspect of the plain next day^ as the sun arose, was 
terrible, when Master Posset and a few other good Samari- 
tans, undeterred by the drea^ of English plunderers and 
camp-followers, attempted the herculean task of attending 
to the wants of the wounded and dying. 

Great numbers of the English wounded had been borne 
to Pinkey House, a fine old mansion of the Abbots of 
Dunfermline, which stands near the field, embosomed among 
aged chestnuts and sycamores, above which its round turrets 
and steep roofs still attract the eye of the passer; and 
in one of its chambers, a place still suited to gloom and 
spectral horrors, the blood of the wounded English could 
be traded until effaced by some recent repairs. 

Flowing from amid its coppiced banks towards the sea, 
the Esk lay gleaming in the golden sunrise, but crimsoned 
still with the gashed corpse of many an armed man, lying in 
its current, among the rocks, the weeds, and sedges — the 
bread-winner of many a little brood, — the pride and care of 
many a tender mother ; for in its flogd the fugitive Scots 
perished by whole companies. The shock and din of the 
battle, with the confused murmur of the fiight that whilom 
sounded like a sea chafing, or a multitude cheering at a vast 
distance, had now died away, and under the rising sun the 
dewy landscape, from which the morning mists were rising, 
lay placid, still, and calm. The green clench of Pinkey in 
which the carnage had deepened most, the far extent of 
stubble fields upon the upland slope over which the iron 
squadrons of Gamboa*s Spaniards and the demi-lancers of 
Vane and Fitzwalter had swept yesterday, were silent and 
voiceless as the roofless, windowless, black, and gaping ruins 
of the old' tower of Fawside on the hill ; and where yester- 
day more than fifty thousand gallant Britons had closed in 
the shock of battle, all was mournfully still and deserted now. 



990 THS Fi^GOiT. 

On the' pale upturned facea Md glased ^^bb q| ib% duiid^ 
and the distorted features^ ^f th^ djin^ abone tha levf^ §^017 
of the autumn aun as h^ eame up i^ Ida Qioming spleiidoiir* 
from the German Sea. On that field,^ planted tfaicic with 
arrows, furrowed by iron sh^ and trod4en l;^ ^Jiiirgi^g 
squadrons, strewed bj sa many dead bodie% .gtaa^ OQv^red 
still with broken armsi cru^^ed helmets, pikec^ and ton 
banners, so thickly that it seemed as if tbe ploi^da had 
valued them dowQ, the merry mavis and the l^var^k y^en 
twittering and singing, as before they had aong and twittei^ 
^mong the yellow summer com ; but now tba blaol^ gkd 
and obscene raven were wheeling in low circles, or ft^ig^^r^^ 
-where so many troopera and* their steeds were lying dead 
VI the muddy ditch^ or in the scraggy c^ucb, where mon 
than one abandoned Scottish cannon lay with wh^li bsvlLeD, 
smd the corpses of the gunnetipa piled axouad it. 

From under the dewy grass myriads of insects eame ^sA 
to batten in those horrid purple pools, that lay where kumsn 
hands and hmoan bravery had formed the greateat heaps of 
slain ; and all this carnage, which shed ^ horror over that 
lovely autumn landscape, was to gratify, as we have ss^d else- 
where^ the mad ambitionj^ and to fulfil the dying bequest, of 
one who had already gone to hip terribk ^oeounir-' 
Henry YIII. of England. 

In the distance rose the smoke afki flauve^ of Leiili and 
its shipping; and at yarious parts of the hodzoa thoe 
towered into the blue sky taU columna of dusky vapeiuv ^^ 
ipdicated where the work of refine was stiU proaeeding ; 
while a cloud of the same sombre nature, like a funeral pall, 
shrouded all the ancient capital — a pallj however^ afereaked 
with sudden^and incessant fire, as the castle oi Sduabuigli 
was vigorously defended by Sir Jamjss Samiltoxv of Stain- 
bouse, whosie cannon completely repuked the en^ny* 

When the latter retreated, a iFoek after th^ bi4tl% thej 
found most of the dead lyi«g stiU uubmrkd* ik Saw had 



TH£ FUGBT. 391 

hfw, hnitity Q^tared up by aoda in the ohurehyards of 
Tf^ne^t ^d 8t Kichael at loTerask ; and besdde these 
naoouth graves the poor people '< had-set up," says Master 
I^tten, '^a stick with a elout; a rug, an old shoe, or some 
Othet mark thereon,** by which the body within might be 
kiiew9» when more leisure eame for the rites of sepulture on 
th« ipetirement of the English from Beotland* 

But to return to our hera 

On beholding the total rout of the army, he became 
-beedkss ei all that might ensue ; and having now nothing 
that he eared to lire for, his first thought had been to seek 
death fimid the masses of the pursuing host ; and hei^ce the 
T^our and fury of the three desperate charges, by which he 
was enabled for a time to repel the soldiers of Don Pedro, 
of the Lord Fitzwalter, and of Sir Half Yane, and to cover 
the retreat of Arran ; nor was it until this was fully accom- 
plished that he perceived that, in this fortunate movement^ 
}ie had put himself at the head of the vassals of his enemy, 
Hamilto;! of Preston. As the latter was nowhere visible, he 
was supposed to have perished on the field or in the river. 
The order of Arran to attend to the safety of Mary of Lor- 
raine and her daughter, gave a new turn to the desperate 
^oughts of Floreujce, and made him remember that, in the 
fulfilment of his duty to the queen and country, he still had 
pomething which made existence valuable ; though the loss 
pf Madfline, of whom for dayf before the battle he eould dis- 
cover no tracer — ^the mi^rable fate of his mother, who, with 
all her atorn peculiarities and bitter pr^udices^ had loved 
ium weUi*--the destruction of his ancestral home and all his 
household^ together with the shame and slaughter of that 
^isaatr^UB ^y^ ^lled him wit^ ^(^ingled horror, rage, and 
Aeapair. 

3wapt awi^ by a tide of fugitives, horse and foot, pike- 
men^ aroh^ns, aud m^-at^arms, he crossed the Ssk near the 
iM QflugEk )«a{ang hi# kprie i^ at a idace where ik» strep" 



392 THE FUGHT. 

was deepest, and then' forcing it up the opposite bank, be 
escaped, though the Earl of Glencaim, Findlay Mhor Far- 
quharson of Invercauld, who bore the royal standard, and 
several others who accompanied him, perished under the shot 
of a few German arquebusiers and Kendal archers who lined 
the river's eastern bank, and nestled in security among the 
thick furze, beech, and hazel trees, that covered it. After 
this he found himself almost alone, and rode slowly to breathe 
his horse, which, like himself, had fortunately escaped withoat 
a wound. Occasionally there crossed his path or fled before 
him a fugitive foot-soldier, making off by the nearest way 
towards his own home or locality, but denuded of helmet, 
corslet, arms, and all that might impede his flight ; for in 
their mad panic the Scots cast aside everything, and fell the 
readier victims in the pursuit. 

To conduct the queen-mother and little queen from Edin- 
burgh, he required an escort ; and among these fu^tives an 
efficient one could scarcely be formed. The royal guard 
were all with the army ; their captain had been slain ; and, 
like the army itself, his force had doubtless been dissipated 
and disorganized. 

Florence conceived he might obtain a few good men-at- 
arms from the castles of Craigmillar, Dalkeith, or any other 
baronial fortress, for the queen's service, and ride with them 
at once to Edinburgh, as there was no time to lose now, and 
the sun was verging towards the western horizon. Keeping 
in the wooded hollow through which the Esk winds to the 
Forth, he ,was riding towards the Douglas's castle of Dal- 
keith, when a loud outcry and the report of firearms warned 
him that some of Gamboa's mounted arquebusiers were on 
his track, and forced him to spur on at the fullest speed. 
Their ironical cheers, taunting cries, and occasionally a shot, 
followed him ; but still, while rage filled his heart and made 
it beat with lightning speed, Florence rode furiously on, 
'utent on obeying the orders of Arran. Olosely the pur- 



THE FLIGHT. 393 

suers followed him ; for after perceiviDg that his armour and 
trappings were rich, they became intent on plunder, and, 
being fleetly mounted on good Spanish horses, they easily 
kept pace with the utmost speed of the animal he rode. 
Down through the deep wooded dell, where the south and 
, north Esks unite below the old castle of Dalkeith, and 
insulate the quaint old town of the same name — through 
swamp and bog — ^through copse and den, and up the river's 
bank by the Thomy-cruick — ^they followed him close ; while 
others joined in the pursuit from various points — ^through 
the leafy oak woods and beautifal haugh of Newbattle 
Abbey they swept on the spnr^; still with a boiling heart 
the Soot rode on, and still the pursuing Spaniards followed ; 
till in a dark, woody, and secluded hollow, through which 
the Esk flows, after he had totally failed to gain a shelter in 
the castle of Dalhousie, they shot his horse, and it sank 
beneath him in the middle of the stream. Fortunately 
it was shallow there ; he scrambled ashore, and sought a 
refuge in the copsewood ; but the Spaniards and the Kendal 
archers followed him closely ; and as the weight and joints 
of his armour impeded every action, they gained upon him 
rapidly. He dreaded the clothyard shafts of the Kendal 
men more than the large leaden bullets of the Spaniards, 
nvho levelled their ponderous arquebuses over their horses' 
heads, and almost invariably shot wide of the mark they 
aimed at. Still the balls which whistled past him every 
minute, stripping the bark from the trees, and flattening out 
like stars as they crashed upon the rocks, added spurs to his 
speed ; while ever and anon, with a whizzing or a humming 
sound, a feathered English arrow would quiver in the trunk 
of a tree close by. 

Thus his flight and their pursuit was continued through 
the oak woods of Dry den till he entered the deeper and 
more sequestered glen, where, between walls of rock, and 
shrouded in the densest foliage of every kind, the Esk 



394 TKB FUQST. 

t 

ehafeii and gorglea over ito atony bed beneath tkat abrupt 
and precipitous cliff whi(A is <»:owned by the aneimit ^aalle 
Gi Hawthomden, then in rulBSi as it bad been left by the 
English daring SomerseVs previous iuTasion in 1544, but io 
after years the poetical home of the loyal and gentle Dnm^ 
mond, one of Scotland's sweetest bards. 

]?erched on the brow of a grey, detached, and stormbeaten 
mass of limestone, nothing remained then of the old csstle 
but two square towers and the high arched windows of the 
hall which faced the south. The cliff starts to a vast height 
above the bed of the stream, and in every deft of it and of 
the adjacent rocks where rooting could be found were those 
Jiawthoms from which the den receives its name) growing in 
' wild luxuriance j and there, too^ were the pink foxglove asd 
the blue harebells tossing their cups upon the wind. The 
silver hazel, the feathery ash, and the branching oak fringed 
all the diffs around the gorge — a gorge of rock that u 
undermined, or literally honey-combed, by deep and to^ 
tuous caverns, which formed hiding-places for the Beets of 
Lothian in the wars of other times ; and of their shelter, at 
this desperate crisis, Florence did not hesitate to avail him- 
aelf, as he knew the locality well. Having eluded bis p1l^ 
suers, whose shouts had now died away, he sought the 
entrance of one of these subterranean retreats, and havisg 
found it immediately under one of the square towers ef the 
old ruin, he dashed through the natural screen of wild brian^ 
hazel, and hawthorn which concealed it, and entering the 
cavern, threw himself up<Hi its stony fLoox, breathlesi^ weaiy, 
and prostrated in^ energy and strength. 

The time was evening now ; and without a horse, witkeat 
men, money, or adherents, with the whole aurxounding cona- 
try in possession of an army flushed by a sudden and bloodj 
victory, what hope had he of obeying Arran's oi4er, and 
achieving the safety of the two queens^ who Bsigkt &U into 
the handa of the conqueror I 



H^ took off bia liolf belmet, fuid preaaing ^is haxids upou 
bii^ throbbing temp}e6| closed bis eye^ ftnd atroye to »b^t out 
tbougbl^ memoiy, D^od oyoq tbe dim twilight tb9.t struggled 
into tbe damp <»|ve!ru iifh^re be^ ]|iy, pi^of^t^te i^ud w^arj in 



gHAPTER L. 

PAW7Q0KNI^BN. 

The kazel throws his silvery branches down : 
There^ starliog into view, a castled diff, ^ 

Whose roof is lioheu'd o'er, pnrpU and gree^ 
Q'erhaa^ thy wandering streau), romantic Eak^ 
And rears its head amon^ the ancient t^ees. 

TaBSR CAvema are spacious and^ circuitous, and occupy the 
entij:e rode under tbe ancient castle j; and Bcottisb anti- 
quaries (a bard and dry, yet credulous racei at all times) 
have beeu lo^t iu ^, maze of conjectures concerning tbeir 
oingin ^d use, as tbey are in a great part artificial. Tradi- 
tion avera tbem to bave been a stronghold and place of 
retreat for tbe Ficti^b prinocis who once held tbe Lowlaud^i ; 
ai^d tb^y attll bear the names of " the gallery,^ 'Hbe gu^rd- 
nKM^i" and *^ the kij^g> bedcbaqiber j " for in these vaults, 
liecQffdMPii to tbe Yicar of Tranenti I^otbusi who gave bis 
lia«if t^ I4)thia9, resided vith bia qu^p, Anxvai daiigbter of 
Aureliua Ambrosiui^ King of tbe Britons when Hengifit 
and his Saxons sorely troubled all the isle by their invasion. 
In one of the caverns is a deep draw-well, beautifully hewn 
bke a vast cylinder through tba living rook, wbi^jr^ i^ the 
pure Mttd depth of its water, the refleotied st^rs are sam^ 
|ia»ea aeepa at nocmday, 
71^ msL W90 n^UiBg B^^w beyopd the pw^i^e Peptliiiid Hills, 



396 HAWTHORNDEN. 

and Florence, with the roar of the recent battle yet buzzing 
in his ears, with sorrow, gloom, and bitterness in his aching 
heart, crushed in soul and vague in purpose, lay watching the 
sinking beams through a fissure in the rocks, aronnd whicb 
the dark-green ivy, the fragrant wild briar, and the dog-rose 
grew together. 

Far westward spread the lovely landscape, tinted with 
the ruddy light of eve and with autumnal brown; mur- 
muring over its rocky bed, which occupies the entire space 
between the wood-crowned cliffs or walls of rock that 
border -in the narrow vale, the Esk flowed ceaselessly on 
The dense foliage that covered its banks exhibited all the 
varying tints of the season ; while on the rent and fissured 
fronts of the opposing bluffs, that start abruptly up like 
ruined towers or fantastic feudal castles, the western snn 
poured a warm glow, that faded slowly as his wavering rajs 
shot upward and sank beyond the summits of the Pentlands. 
Grey lichens, green velvet moss, the purple foxglove, the 
pink rose of Gueldres, and every species of wild flower 
peculiar to the lowlands, covered the rugged banks and 
freestone rocks, through the fissures of which many a- tiny 
rill poured down into the deep and lonely dell to join the 
Esk upon its passage through a thousand windings, till it 
joined the sea near Pinkey's corpse-strewn field* 

Rock, wood, and water, silence and solitude, brokeii only 
by the voices of the birds above and the brawl of the stream 
below, with the deepening tints of the autumn evening — all 
that can make a sylvan landscape charm, were there ; but 
these accessories rendered the thoughts of the wanderer' 
more sad and bitter as he surveyed them, for Florence loved 
his country well, and he had that day seen her banner trodden 
in the dust. Then he remembered how, two hundred and 
fifty years before, it was in these same caverns that the 
valiant Sir Alexander Eamsay of Dalhousie and the Black 
Knight of Liddesdale, during the memorable and disastrous 



HAWTHORNDEN. 397 

w&rs of the earlier Edwards, lurked with a hand of young and 
desperate patriots, and. thus were enahled to elude the purduit 
of the temporary victors ; that from thence they had sallied 
forth to destroy the Flemings under Guy of Namur, Count 
of Gueldres^ in battle on the Burghmuir ; that from thence 
they issued to storm the castles of Edinburgh and Dunbar, 
and to perform a hundred other brilliant feats of chivalry. 

As these old memories occurred to him, he arose, and 
thought that, as the darkness was at hand, he might make 
his way to the capital unseen and on foot ; but now, hearing 
a sound near the cavern mouth, he drew his sword, to be pre- 
pared for any emergency. 

Steps were heard ; the screen of ivy and hawthorn was 
hastily torn aside ; the gleam of the western sky glittered 
on the polished helmet and cuirass of an armed man, who 
with difficulty, as if wounded or weary, made several 
ineffectual efforts to reach the cavern. None but a native 
of the locality-— one at least belonging to Lothian — could 
know of this place, thought Florence, as he put forth a hand 
to assist the stranger to clamber in, and found himself con- 
fronted by the pale face and snow-white beard of Claude 
Hamilton of Preston ! 

They surveyed each other in painful silence for nearly a 
minute. 

The old baron was weary, wan, and by the blood-spots 
and dints which his armour exhibited, his torn plume, and 
red swojd-handle, had evidently borne his full share in the 
dangers of that terHble £eld. He, too, had been pursued 
by the . stragglers of the foe, who were now all mustering 
among the Scottish tents on Edmondstone Edge, previous 
to an advance upon the capital, and its seaport. His horse, 
which had born him from the conflict, pierced by many 
urrows, and half disembowelled by a sword-thruQj), had sunk 
under him at the ford near Lasswade ; and now he was fain 
bo seek the sheltering caves of Hawthomden, for age and 



398 HAWTBORirbEir. 

tott hki tendeted him almt^st incapable of Attibel^ eiteniadd. 
Bat on recoghkiYig Florence, his cheek crimsoned, and his 
eyes sparkled with a sudden fory. 

* We meet at last," said he, in a voice querulous with age, 
anger, and weariness ) — " meet after I have sought you every- 
where, for these ten days past ; and taOw fortunately meet 
where there are none to see, a;nd none to separate ua** 

" Alas, sir ! " replied Florence, ** too "well I know what 
yott would say to me,** 

'' Thou whining loot), td tt IM With thee t ^ e^cMnied t^ 
other scornfully ; " yed, I would speak of my kinswoniati— 
of Madeline Home, the Countess of Yarrow. "What hast 
thou done with her i Where Secluded her if alive — ^wherc 
buried her if dead ) How hast tho^i spirited her aw&y 
from tne? Speak, lest I have thee riven &t a horse's 
taill- 

*' What shall 1 say — what c<m t isay 1 * was the bewflderecl 
response of Florence. 

'* Some say thy mother slew her, Florence f awside,* con- 
tinued the old man hoarsely, as he grasped the young man^ 
arm, and shook him vehemently in his grief ftnd rage; 
" others say 'twas thee ^ 

« I— oh horror I " 

" I care not which ; but vengeance I will have, for tte 
sake of my sister who bore her, and of her &ther, that trne 
and valiant earl, who, on many a day since Flodden T^eW, 
has fought by my side, and who loved me so wett. Ven- 
geance, I say, thou accursed son of a wicked beldame — dost 
hear me?" 

^ Slay me, Claude Hamilton, if you will — 1 resist not,** 
replied Florence mournfully. "Weaiy of life, I Bought 
death In every part of yonder bloody field ; but like that 
fated Jew who mocked his blessed Lord upon the slope of 
Calvary in the days of old, he fled me everywhere. The 
arrows rained upon me, harmless as snowflakes j and swords^ 



HATTTHOIINDEN. 399 

and spears^ and cannon-shot have alike failed to mar or 
maim me j and I live yet — live without a wound ; but 
without joy — without desire or hope ! " 

" What is all this to me — ^I would speak of my dear 
kinswoman — my dead sister's only child " 

<* Alas ! I know nothing, and can say nothing of her." 

" Nothing 9 " continned Hamilton, furiously drawing his 
dagger; "know ye that stabbed — foully stabbed by the 
hand of th& sacrilegious hag who bore thee, her pure blood 
has stained the floor of the church of €k)d 1 " 

'' The cause of your injurious words procures their pardom 
Btabbed 1 oh, too well know I that, for her blood dyed my 
hands as I knelt by her side j a dagger was there — a bodkin-— 

my motker — Madeline ^ " muttered Florence inco« 

herently. *^ Ood knows I am every >^ay innocent, sakeless, 
and free of Madeline's blood — ^my Madeline, whom I loved 
with a love akin to 'Wdt'ship ! You have your dagger, 
Claude Hamilton — ^yoti and I ai'e each the last of our races 
—strike ! add one more item to the gory catalogue of this 
da/a slaughten Strike ) " he added, sinking on one knee ) 
**I oare not to leave the last and final blow, with the 
triumph, if a triumph it is — and the fatal inheritance of out 
hoQses-^the hatred and the feud, to thee 1 " 

Mad with a fury which rendered him pitiless as a hungry 
tiger, Hamilton raised the dagger, and it flashed in the 
twilight whieh straggled through the ivy screen that closed 
the oavem-mouth, when his uplifted arm was arrested 
by the hand of some one behind, and the OourUess of Ywr- 
rout), with the vicar of Tranent, appeared before them, as 
suddenly as if they had sprung from the floor of rock below. 
" Guide me God and every saint in heaven ! " cried the 
old man, as he dashed his poniard down; ''am I going 
mad? or do I see before me things that are not in ex- 
istence I " 



400 jov. 



CHAPTER LI. 

JOY. 

« 

Fall on this casement shone the wintry moon. 
And threw gules on Madeline's fair breast. 

As down she knelt for Heaven's grace and boon ; 
Bose-blossoms on her hands together prest. — KeaU. 

It was, indeed, Madeline, and no illusion or shadowy mockery, 
that stood before them, smiling, and smiling sweetlj ; looking 
her own fair self again, but paler, and, it might be, somewhat 
sickly in aspect ; for the skilful nun of Haddington, by her 
simples and leechcraft, had really cured her ; and barely was 
she able to be moved in a litter, when the sudden advance 
of the English, and the destruction of the village, the church, 
and vicarage of Tranent, compelled the vicar wiflh his charge 
to seek safety in flight. Failing to reach the capital, which 
was already crowded' by thousands of fugitives from all the 
southern and eastern towns and villages, on that very even- 
ing, after wandering from place to place, by a strange 
coincidence they had taken shelter in the same cavern to 
which Florence and her uncle had been driven by the force 
of events, or by the tide of war. Thus rage on one hand, 
and grieLon the o^er, gave place to mutual expliChations^ 
an^ the details of dangers escaped and toils endured. 

" But tell me. Father John," said Florence, " whence came 
the s<jiund of that passing bell, which on the fatal evening 
struck such a horror on my heart ? '* 

" It was a mistake of my sacristan.** 

" Blessed be Heaven that apared her ^*' 

" To life and you^* interrupted the good old priest, pressing 
his hand. 

Claude Hamilton was about to speak, when the vicar 
resumed hurriedly, while lifting up his withered hands^ — 



JOY. 401 

•'' AUu^ ain» ! qft^ Y9r\ty thU hath b^e^ ^ blacl^ Saturday 
ozr Scotland ! " 

^* J^nd pnr naoaks, ;witb tbi^ir gvey frocks and white 
^MEUier," %di)e4 Claude HaH^ilton bit|;er}j ; " what availed 
ts soI^Bui (ceo^ratioiii amid incense and JJatin, ^n the 
^b)>ejr of Da^%|uliQe1 ^7 the BJack fL^od of Scotland ! 
L saw ^ben^ lying F<Hip4 it as tbicjc as leaves iz^ aut]amqi in 
?lieir ^h^veia erpwnp and black armoar; and small mercj 
^}iO£ie ii6tif»tiiQ8 of Englijbnd gave them 1 " ' 

'* Qijff ^hpirc^ which my friend in ypiith, Danb^r the poet, 
L^jce^p to ^ ship-T-the ^oly b^k of St. Peter — ^tossing on a 
^mp^)io9|f sea of Loll%r<]jr« wil} yet ride out the storm j and 
o¥i th« neii^t $el4 ^her^ we meet these heretical English, foot 
i^a fiK>t ^d hand to hand, <^d wiU make Himself paanifest, 
a^d A^fmi the right." 

'* I hope so. Heaven t^iog all the monks to itselt*, how- 
fevar, ppms ^ sorry commencement. But I begin to put 
more £Mth i# sto^t m^n-at-arms than in miraclesf, and more 
f^ith ill s^ b^but than a homily." 

*' Tet thy kinswoman hath been restored to thee hale and 
ppund," aaid #fae vicar i»proachfully. 

." True, Father John ; and for that good deed will I hang 
iu your church a lamp of silver, that shall light its altar till 
the day of doom, in memory of my gratitude and devotion.** 
'^ But tell me of the field — ^this fatal, gory field, — and how 
it went," said the politic priest; ''and meanwhile let us 
leave the young laird to make some reparation to the young 
[QpuntesB foe the sore evil his mother wrought her ; so come 
this way with me, and I will show you how the fires of these 
destroyers redden all the sky to the westward." 

At first Olaude Hamilton was unwilling to leave his niece, 
even for a Ukomfo^t, aa she hong afiectionately on his breast ; 
but the priest gently separated them, and led him within 
th^ caverns to a ppint from whence, through an orifice or 
fissure in the Umuestone roek^they eould see all the valley to 
the westward lighted by a broad and luiid blaze of light, that 

2 D 



402 JOY. 

wavered, reddened, waned, and sank to rise and glare again, 
upon the impending clif& which overhuog the river ; on its 
waters, which bore a hundred varying hues ; and on ail the 
copsewood and thickets that fringed the sylvan gl^i. Tbis 
unwonted blaze came from the princely castle of the ^nduis 
of Boslin, which some of Somerset's devastators had sacked 
and set in flaijies ; and now the conflagration shone &r over 
all the valley of the Esk, like the fated light of the legend, 
that bodes when death or evil menace the " lordlj line of 
high St. Clair." Many wild animals fled before this startling 
light. The wolf sent up its wild baying cry from the caverns 
in the glen ; the red-deer and the timid hart fled down the 
stream, as if the hunter's arrow and the shaggy, brown-eyed 
dogs were on their trail ; and the gled and the mountals* 
eagle were screaming as they whirled and wheeled in mid 
air, as if in fury at being scared from their eyry. 

Claude Hamilton remembered that but lately he had &m 
the Are trending and the smoke blackening the walls of liis 
own baronial home : he muttered a fierce malediction ; and 
grasping the dagger which had so recently menaced the liie 
of Florence, he continued to gaze upon the flames, and to 

r 

listen to the shouts of armed stragglers, who, by the frequent 
sound of horns, shouts, and explosion of arquebuses, seemed 
to be wandering in the valley of the Esk, exchanging signak 
or slaying those who fell into their hands. These alarming 
noises became more frequent, and ultimately seemed ^ 
approach the place of his concealment. , 

Meantime, though left thus together, though their 
tongues and hearts were laden with inquiries, Horwice 
and the young countess were silent, and full of thoughts 
which could And but little utterance or coherence ; for the 
course of recent events had been so startling and mpid tbt 
both were bewildered. 

" You are well — restored — ^recovered, Madeline ! " said the 
lover in a low and earnest whisper, as he pressed her to his 
breast, closely and convulsively. 



JOY. 403 

" Bestored and recovered by God's grace and the skill of 
sister Christina of Haddington." 

** Heaven bless her, Madeline ! My mother — what shall 
I say of my mother !" 

" Speak not of her now," said the countess in a low and 
agitated voice ; " I would not pain your heart for worlds." 

" She wronged you deeply — cruelly, dearest ! But this 
day — God rest her soul ! — she died a horrible death." 

" Died — did you say she died ?" 

** Amid the flames of our tower, which the English attacked 
and burned, while I was disputing the passage of the Esk 
at the head of a few horsemen ; but she defended her house, 
by bow, pike, and arquebuse, to the last, and died as she had 
lived, uhflinohing, resolute, and unyielding, — died, as roof 
and rafter, cope and turret, went surging down into the sea 
of fire below. Oh, it was an awful end ! All her animosi- 
ties, her hate, her mistakes, and her faults, have passed 
away j so let us think of them no more. But the slaughter 
of to day, the treason of our peers, and dispersion of the 
army, have plunged the land in danger and dishonour, the 
end of which I cannot foresee 1 A thousand times to night 
I have said — would that I were dead !" 

" Florence," said the countess softly, taking his hand in 
hers, " at this miserable time, do not let us exaggerate our 
sorrows. Let us rather bear up together 'against our 
misfortunes. All hope is not dead for us. Something yet 
remains, for Mary of Lorraine is my friend, and hope 
whispers to me that we shall both be happy yet." 
Together, Madeline?" 
Together." 

" And you my wife ?" 

She did not reply, but returned gently the pressure of his 
hand, and then tenderly passed hers over his tearful and 
bloodshot eyes. 

*' Bless yon, Madeline, for that assurance and the hope it 

gives me ; but your kinsman, Claude ^" 

2 D 2 



St 

u> 



404 for. 

" Remember only that I k>¥e yoUf Florence — tor 1 4fi ^oye 
you, dearly." 

<* These wor48 should lighten everything, Wken joa are 
near me I no longer seem to sufifer aught frpQi recollection 
pf the past, or dread of the future. Even tlm dark, dank 
cavern becomes bright and beautiful ! " 

Madeline smiled, for he coujld see her eyes spar^, and 
her teeth glitter like two ronrs of pearl in the twUight. 

" You smile now, dear and marry oi^p, i^en ia this place, 
^d after such a day of woe." 

" The joy of being restore^ to you counterbalanee^ ^veiy 
evil," she whispered ip his par. 

^^ Mine own sweetheart ! Thei^ tl)ink of t^he time when 
I shall be always with you, and when we shall nevw be 
parted again." 

There was a tender an4 mute embrace, which was 
suddenly interrupted *by a sound of alarm. 

" Hark — what is that V exclaimed Madelix^ atartiiig 
back^ 

" The explosion of an arquebuse ^" 

" And voices ^" 

" Quite near us, too — ^be still — we are beset I" 

"To your sword, Fawside," cried Claude Hamilton 
coming hastily forward ; ** some of these pestilent English 
stragglers ate close by. Remove the countess — Father John. 
lead her within, and leave the young laird and me to makt 
what service w^ may, and to keep the mputh of thie dark 
hole while life and blood and steel remain to us." 

Madeline was led away, while Florence and the old knigh'- 
of Preston, with their swords drawn, crept close to the 
mouth of the cavern, from whence, as the moon waa &ow up. 
a clear, broad, and yellow one, for the eeason was harvest, 
they could distinpt)y see the coming danger. Several of the 
enemy's pillagers had been passing near, and had to-j 
evidently heard the sound of voices in these cavanie, th^ 
echoes of which repeat each other with iji^any fe7erb^iitioni| 



PSDBO lyE GAHBOA. 406 



CHAPTER LII. 

PEDRO DE GAMBOA. 

The laseal who wovld not give out and thrasi for his country, as long 
ns beihad a breath to draw or a leg to stand on, shonkl be tied neck and 
heels, without benefit of clergy, and thrown over Leith-pier, to swim 
for bis life like a mangy dog. — Mansie Wauch, 

Oisf looking through the screen bf leayes which partially 
shrouded the mouth or entrance of their remarkable hiding- 
place^ they saw the moonlight reflected from the conical 
helnaete, the globular cuirasses, and long polished gunbarrels 
of some ten or twelve arquebusiers, whom, by their black 
beards, swarthy countenances, and strange language, they 
knew to belong to Gamboa's Spanish band; and, indeed, 
that formidable Don himself, in a suit of black armout, 
profusely engraved with gold, spurred his horse rapidly after 
tbem firom the river-side, and ascended the steep path that 
led to the mined castle on the limestone cliff. With this 
party were a few green-doubleted English archers and 
billmen, who had with them several horses, linked together 
by halters ; and these were laden with all kinds of trappings 
and household goods, too evidently the plunder of the village 
and castle of Roslin, the flames of which were now begin- 
ning to waver and sink. In short, this was evidently a party 
of f(Mragers or devastators, who were returning to Edmond- 
stone Edge, where the main body of Somerset's army were 
now encamped, and where his soldiers were making merry 
among the Scottish tents ; but having, as I have said, heard 
Toioes in the echoing cave, or having discovered by means of 
a hound which accompanied them, that some unfortunate 
fugitives were eoncealed thereabout, the yet unsated lust of 
blood, or hope of plunder, made the Spaniards resolve to 
have them diseoverad^ and killed or taken. 
Ab they warily drew near, with the matches of th ' 



406 PEDBO DE GAMBOA* 

« ^^ 

arquebuBes bumiDg, and in every balf-drawn bow an arrow 
pointed, Florence remembered the future safety of Mfideline, 
the unobeyed orders of Arraa; and the hopelessness of 
achieving either filled his heart again with sicknesa. 

Perceiving nothing but the ivied face of the rock, and 
hearing no sound, the Spaniards uttered a shout, and came 
more hastily up the narrow path; then, most unhappily, 
Madeline, being unable to repress her alarm, uttered an ex- 
clamation, which, however low, reached the ears of Gramboa. 

** Voto d Ud/^' he exclaimed; "there are women li«re— 
one, at least, and I shall watch her as Ai^gus did lo, that is, 
if she proves as handsome." 

" It may be a spirit guarding buried treasure," suggested 
one of his soldiers, shrinking back. 

" Arid which dost thou shrink from, Gil Alvarez^ the spirit 
or the treasure ? " asked his leader. I have heard of such 
things in Germany, and, by my beard and beads ! this old 
place looketh like many a castle we have seen upon the 
Bhine and in the Schwarzwald. Push on, hombres I Diavolo ! 
here are men-at-arms afraid of a few ivy-leaves ! " 

There was another shout from the Spaniards, and he who 
was named. Gil Alvarez made a rush into the gloom that lay 
beyond the screen of ivy and wild roses ; but he found him- 
self encountered by unseen enemies, for at the same moment 
that Claude Hamilton wrenched away his arquebuse, Florence 
tore off his collar of bandoleers, and bestowed a sword-thrust 
into his open mouth, hurling him back, bleeding and sense- 
less, upon his comrades below. 

This was an immediate signal for a general assault. 

Whiz came the long arrows, to shiver and splinter on the 
walls of rock ; and with the flash of the arquebuses came 
their leaden bullets, to crash and flatten on the same place ; 
and then both the English and Spaniards withdrew behind 
some masses of the fallen walls and the trunks of trees, to 
consider the best means of assailing those hidden defenders, 
if whose number and power they were ignorant. 



PEDRO BE GAMBOA. 407 

" There are twenty charges of powder in the bandoleer," 
said Claude Hamilton, counting them in the dark, ''and 
there are not above twenty of those cut-throats opposed to 
us. Your eye is keener, Fawside, and your hand more sure, 
than mine ; take the arquebuse; and pick me off these fellows 
as fast as they show themselves. Two men to man this cavern- 
xnoTith are as good as a hundred ; l^t us fight bravely, lad, 
for we know not but aid may come anon." 

!By the glitter of its beams on the polished armour of 
Gamboa's men, the bright moon showed with fatal distinct- 
ness where they nestled among the green hawthorns or 
behind the heaps of stones which had fallen from the old 
castle above ; thus Florence, when he loaded and levelled by 
the silvery light without, felt that Madeline's safety, honour, 
her life perhaps, depended upon the precision of his aim. 

He almost trembled as he selected an object; and Claude 
Hamilton could perceive that his face was pale, even in the 
usually ruddy light of the match, in which his polished mail 
seemed to glitter with a lambient glow, as his eye glared 
along the barreL He fired ; and the explosion, which made 
the cavern echo with seeming thunder, was followed by a 
cry- of agony, and then an armed man was seen rolling down 
the slope towards the Esk. 

'' To thine arquebuse again, lad I " said Hamilton, sternly 
but cheerily, and with grim satisfaction ; " thou hast given 
one of these tawny loons a shot in his stomach, and a weighty 
one, too ; I warrant they go four, at least, to the Lanark 
pound. Couldst notch the helmet of that pernicious J;ieretic 
Pedro Gamboa^ think you 1 By St. Andrew ! were he within 
reach of my hand I could spelder him by one stroke of my* 
axe, yea, spelder him as I would a haddock ! " he added, as 
another volley of shot and arrows whizzed and rattled on 
the rocks around them. 

A second bullet from the arquebuse of Florence, followed 
by the cry of — 
^ " Holy Virgin, I am a dead man I " announced that this 



408 PEDlK) BE GAXBOA^ 

time an English billman bad fallen ; and with a jell el rage 
his comrades rashed forward to storill the retreat of these 
hidden enemies. While Florence reloaded and blew the 
match of -his arquebuse, Clstude Hamilton with his two- 
handed sword manned the cayem month, and being on finn 
vantage ground (while the assailants required all their hands; 
feet, and energy, to clamber ttpwrfrd), he cut dowft three of 
them in succession with ease, and bj a angle thrtist tossed s 
fourth nearly ten yards into the woody hollow bfelo^. In a 
minute more two others had fallen, killed or wounded, tmder 
the deadly aim of Florence. 

" How stands your bandoleer 1 " asked th^ laii^d of Pres- 
ton, resting on his long sword. 

'* I hare shots enough for them all at this rate." 

" Good— by the black rood of Scotlafid, good ! Well beai 
them yet ; level low and true — ^we fight for onr Hv^ ! ** 

" Oh, laird of Preston," exclaimed Florence, in k voice to 
which emotion lent a chord that was soft and in«i8i6al; 
" even in this hour of terror hear Ette. I fight only for 
Madeline, and for the love I bear het — a love bejroiMi the 
grave — see thai she is iii safety." 

" Thanks, my ancient enemy^^may Heaven zteirve your 
eye and hand ! ** 

Florence fired again, and while the dee|) tatilts and the 
rocky glen rang with a thousand echoes, a Spaniard fell, 
and was seen tossing his arms in the moonlight, as he 
shrieked on " the Holy of Holies" (el Santo de ha ScmtoB) to 
have jity upon him. On beholding the slaughter of his 
men, Gamboa uttered a dreadful oath in Spanish. 

" Let us smoke forth these Scots ! " h^ exclaitiied. 

''How, smoke them say you?" asked an Etiglishmaiii, 
who proved to be no other than Master Patten, the 
future historian of the expedition, who rode np at that 
moment. 

" Exactly," rejoined the Spaniard, who spoke the English 
■^nguage with great fluency; "inany a brood of yjlow 



psdbO jse qaxboa. 409 

JddifttiB I have smoked out of their holes in Hispaniola 
and Tottuga. You know nothing of lifb in Cuba — but] I 
do. There I have often roasted thirteen Indian devils alive 
on a Good Friday, in honour of our blessed Lord and the 
twelve Apotitles. God smite ye, fellows ! cut brushwood- 
bring fire — ^fiU the cavern-mouth, and bxtrn them as we' 
would eastanos in their shells." 

This proposition, which made the blood of Florence titn 
cold, was received with a loud hurrah, and relinquishing 
their arquebuses, the Spaniards drew their short swords, 
and together with the English billmen, proceeded to form 
pilc^s and bundles of wood, hy uprooting shrubs and bashes 
— cutting down sinall trees, and tearing branches from 
firs and beeches j and now, from the ruins of the old castle 
above (a place where they were secure from the arquebuscJ 
of Florence), they began to throw down vast heaps of this 
hastily-gathered fuel, togettier with an entire stack of 
straw, which they found nesii'^ and as these combustibles 
accumulated about the cavern-mouth, and gradually covered 
it up, excluding the moonlight and the external air, the 
imminence of their danger could no longer be concealed 
from the countess and the vicar ; and to save them at least 
from so horrible a death, Florence proposed that a capitula- 
tion should be asked for. 

** To capitulate is to be destroyed I " exclaimed Hamilton 
fiercely ; " what hope of quarter have we from mercenaries 
like these 1 " 

** To remaiti here is also to be destroyed, and by a death 
too dreadful for contemplation — suffocation in a dark pit," 
replied Florence, pressing Madeline • to his breast closely 
and tenderly. 
' "Bring hither a lighted match; but, by the Holy of 
Holies,** they heard the superstitious Don Pedro exclaiming ; 
'' I am loath to Smother a woman at the close of a day of 
victory — ^a woman whose name may be Ma/ry^ too ! " 
" What matters it, whether her name be Mary r 



410 PJEDBO DX: OiJfBOA. 

—Giles or Joan 7 ** asked Master Patten, staring in wonder 
through the bars of his helmet, and laughing the while. 

" It matters much to me, Senor Inglese, for I was reared 
in Old Castile, and on the banks of the Ebro, wliere my 
mother taught me it was a sin to make love on a Fridayi 
or to kiss a woman whose name was Mary on a day of 
fasting ; for though I serve King Edward's banner, and 
fight against the Scots, I am nevertheless, thank Heaven ! 
a good Catholic and a true Castilian, without the taint of 
Jew, infidel, or Morisco in my blood." 

On hearing this, just as fire from a gunmatch was about 
to be put into the vast pile of fuel, over which the arque- 
busiers had sprinkled powder from their priming-fiasks^ the 
Vicar of Tranent rushed to the entrance of the grotto, 
and tearing aside the screen of ivy with one hand, waved a 
white handkerchief with the other, exclaiming, — 

" Gloria tihi, Domine I we shall be saved ! I am a priest, 
sir Spaniard, and in the name of our holy Church and of 
Him I serve, command you to spare me, and those who 
are with me ! " A shout of derision from Patten's men was 
the sole reply to this. 

"Command, quotha — what manner of ware have we 
here ? " said one mockingly. 

" A priest and a woman in that dark hole ! holy father 
how farest thou ] " said a second. 

" By St. George, 'tis a rare one to eschew the world, the 
flesh, and the devil ! " added a third. 

" Shoot, shoot ! Cogsbones — 'twas no priest's hand that 
slew the best lad in Kendal," exclaimed Patten, " or handled 
his arquebuse like one of our men at Finsbury ! " Two 
archers drew each an arrow to their heads j but Pedro de 
Gamboa interposed his drawn sword before them, exclaiming : 

" Hola — hold, sirs. I will have naught to do with priests. 
I have seen enough in my time to prove that Heaven 
always avenges a sacrilege." ' 

" What ! " asked Patten ; " hast any qualms about killing 



PEDBO DE OAMBOA. 411 

% aeu]? vy shaveling — a Scot, too 1 Don Spaniard, yon should 
have smelled the fires o' Smithfield in old King Harry's 
time. Go to ! we are not now either in Old Castile or on 
the banks of the Ehro." 

*' Silence, Englishman ! " replied the Spaniard gravely ; 

'' foir -though your land hath hecome as a land of heathens^ 

ancly to my sorrow, I serve it, I am a good Catholic, yet oiie, 

it may be, who is in the habit of swearing more by the 

saints than of pi*ayiDg to them. I am a ^soldier of fortune, 

yet I war not on priests or women, but simply on such as 

come armed against me ; and 'tis the memory of what I 

tucis in Old Castile and on the banks of the Ebro that in an 

lioux* like this prevents me from slaying a priest of that 

Oliurch in the faith of which my mother reared me. For 

one act of sacrilege and blasphemy I have seen nearly the 

-w^liole population of a city perish in an hour." 

'' !Fore George, this mud have been in Old Castile ! " said 
Patten, in a jibing tone. 

<< It was not,** replied the Spaniard angrily, while his dark 
eyea flashed under the peak of his helmet. <' But darest 
thou gibe me. Englishman — I, who have fought by the side 
of Cortes in Mexico, and by the order of Pizaro slew Diego 
Almagro — 19 who served with Yelasquez in distant climes 
that are £u: away, in the lands of gold and silver, snow and 
fire, where the boasted red cross of your country has never 
yet been seen by sea or riiore ; but there I have seen that 
-which this night forbids me to commit a sacril^e ! " 

In Spanish, be now commanded his soldiers to remove the 
pile of hroshwood and straw that lay before the cavem-mouth ; 
and while they obeyed with alacrity, he again turned sternly 
to Master Patten, and said, — 

<( listen ! In 15Z4 I was at 8aa lago de Guatemala^ in 
old Mexico, and resided with a noble Spanish gentlewoman 
of the city, named I^ofc Haria de Castilisy or <4 CsmP 
for she cBxae, Ukemym^i, fnm ihti munj banks of tkF 
In one week her hmkmtAwm riaio in laitk and ber ddl 



413 PiEDBO DB OAMBOA. 

were desirojed Irf tlie Mexican savaged from Peiapa. DHven 
to frehzy hf the loss of all she loved, she smote a priest who 
attempted to console her, and ja hk' |yresence blaapheined 
Heaven, exclaiming, while she rent her garments^— 

" ' M Espftitn Santo, what inore can it do to me now than 
has been done, fiave take awa j a miserable life ^hioili I regard 
not!' 

'* As she spoke, ther^ ivas heard a dreadfnl lushing sound 
For a time we knew not whether it came from heaven above 
or the earth beneath its ; bnt anoH there catne filao shouts of 
terror from a thousand tongues, and lo ! from the old volcano, 
a mountain nine miles in height, T^hich overhangs the city, 
there burst ^^a mighty flood of water, which drowned this 
impiouc^ woman and inanj hundreds of the people, while 
streets and churches were alike overturned and swept awaj. 
A few persons escaped ; among them I, by the speed of mj 
horse; but the ruins of La Gividad Yieja still remain to 
attest how sacrilege may be punished. And iiow, as I vowed 
to perform at least 0ne deed of charity to-day, if I escaped 
the battle scathless, 1 release this priest and those who are 
with him. Gomel forth, good father, and fear not ; I pledge 
my word foif your safety — I, Don Pedro de GamboA.** 

The iofly air and determined manner of the' Spaniara, 
together with the knowledge that his veterans vrete tbff 
more ntitnerous and better-armed party, awed Master 
Patten and his petulant archers into silent acquiesbence; 
and the old vicar, leading the countess by the hand, stepped 
forth itito the moonlight, followed by Florence and Claude 
Hamilton. 

" Is this yotir whole party, seflor padre f " adked tb<f 
Spanish captain, with a courteous salute. 

" All ; and in the name of Him I serve and the Charcb 
yoti still venerate, I crave their liberty with me.** 

" It is granted." 

*^ D60 gratia^, sir Spaniard." 

'' t am too good a Castilian, padre mioy to refuse aught to 



HBPRO DB GAHBOA. 413 

a priest or to f^ lady ; and as ^either yon por she em travel 
hjence afoot, J. give you here twp of our captured nags. Gq, 
re▼^rend sir, and Qod speec} you ! If, between the night and 
xnorning, you caij find tin?e to say .an Ave or Credo for one 
swhQ has long .since forgotten l>ow tp pray for himsielf, insert 
in ypur prayer the name of Fedro de Gambpe^ the poor 
epldier of foiinjnp. Adieu 1 " 

In five Q^inute^ after this fortunate ^d spdden release our 
friends foqnd themselves aloi^Oi ai^d pursuing, by the most 
^sequestered paths, aA rapidly as po^^ble, ^nd Ugfate4 by the 
clear and bnlli&ut moon, the way to £fdinj^urgb ; while the 
cayalier, ivith his party of arqmisbusiers and bowmen, with 
their train ,of horses and plunder, procieeded to Somerset's 
new halting-place on Edn^pndstone Edge. 

The vicar and the countess were mounted ; and on each 
side of the horse ridden by the latter, Florence and Claude 
Hamilton walked on foot as hastily as their iron trappings 
woul4 piorm^t them. 



PHAPTEB LIII. 

THE GUISE PALACE. 

Oh, these bright days are past, 

And their joys are buried deep ; 
Sweet flowers that couldoa last, 

They've gane with those we weep. 
The world is now grown cold, 

And the mirth and love and glee, 
That wont to cheer of old, 

We never mair can see. — Anon, 

In tfie ppre splendour of that brilliant moon^ when evisry 
herb and leaf were gemmed with glittering dew — ^when the 
heaven above was all one azure vault of stars, and the 
.distant landscape mellowed &r away in silence and placidity 
—when a silver haze rose from every hoUow — and whe^^ 



414 THE OUISE PALAOE. 

save their own voices, no soand came to the ears of the 
countess and her three companions, it was difficult for them to 
realize — ^from the actual amount of danger through which 
they had passed — that they were now free; and none who sur- 
veyed that quiet moonlight scene, or the blue and star-studded 
sky over head, could have imagined that more than fourteen 
thousand men, who when the sun rose had been in all the 
prime of life and vigour, were now lying, within a few 
miles' compass, as cold and pale as death could make them. 
Seeking the most secluded paths, the little party proceeded 
with all speed towards Edinburgh, passing the ancient grange 
of Gilmerton, through the deep and sylvan dell of the Staine- 
house, over the hills of Braid, and past the cell of St. Martin, 
which had been sacked, ruined, and stained by the blood of 
its poor hermit, who was slain by the English. From thence, 
after traversing the Burghmuir undisturbed and unques- 
tioned, they entered the city by the porte at the Kirk-of- 
field Wynd. There the gate was open ; no guard or warder 
was there now. . The town-house of the Kegent Arran, 
which stood in this steep, ancient, and narrow street (now 
known as the College Wynd), was deserted and dark ; hut 
as they proceeded further into the city, the effects of that 
day's defeat became everywhere painfully apparent. The 
bells in the numerous churches, oratories, and monasteries, 
were being tolled mournfully ; and at every altar were people 
praying for the dead. The streets were thrbnged by crowds, 
principally of women, who wept and wailed as they bore 
forth their children and most valuable goods and chattels 
by the light of cressets, links, and torches, that sputtered 
in the night-wind and flared on the reddened eyes and pale 
affi:ighted faces of the multitude, as from the archways of 
the quaint narrow alleys and wynds of that old " romantic 
town " they took their way towards the west^ to the Pent- 
land hills, to the sea-shore,- or anywhere to escape the vic- 
torious foe, as all despaired of defending a city the flower of 
vhose men had fallen in that day's disastrous battle. 



THE GUISE PALA.GE. 415 

In answer to the anxious inquiries of Florence, as to 
whether the qneen-mother had quitted the citj, and if so 
for whence^ none could inform them ; hut on reaching the 
Guise Palace, as the citizens named the little mansion and 
oratory of Maty of Lorraine on the north side of the Castle 
Hill, they found a number of well-armed horsemen arrayed 
in the street, with swords drawn, and hearing lighted 
torches ; while a train of horses, some of which were saddled, 
others laden with trunks, mails, and bales of such valuables 
as the queen-mother and the ladies of her suite wished to 
preserve, were held by grooms and lackeys in the royal 
livery. Among them was a powerful Clydesdale nag, which 
was led by a groom, and had securely strapped to its back a 
curtained horse-litter, which, as it was surmounted by a 
royal crown, was evidently destined for the little queen of 
Scotland. 

The present was no time for ceremony, and as Mary of 
Lorraine stood under the royal canopy in her presence- 
chamber, hooded, cloaked, and ready for her journey to the 
north or west, according to the recommendation of those 
about her, the Countess of Yarrow and those who accom- 
panied her were at once introduced. Mary of Lorraine 
folded Madeline in her arms and kissed her on both cheeks 
with great emotion, receiving her as one restored from the 
dead ; for she had heard of the terrible episode in the church 
of Tranent — of her mysterious disappearance ; and she loved 
the young countess as a sister. 

The beautiful widow of James V, was pale, but calm, firm, 
and collected. In the chamber were many of her ladies- 
Helen Countess of Argyle, Elizabeth Countess of Athole, 
and others, all prepared for the road in their riding-dresses ; 
and there, also, were several of the noblesse, whose dinted 
and blood-stained harness or bandaged visages afforded an 
index how they had maintained themselves in the lost 
battle of the past day. Some had lost their scabbard*' 
and still had their notched and discoloured swords in t) 



418 TH8 GTTIBB PALACE. 

as she BKW SO many brave lords and gentlemen in tlxeir 
' bloodnspotted armour, firesli from the terrors of that lost 
battle, follow the example of the noble chief of the Erskines. 
She placed her beautiful hand caressinglj on the old earfs 
shoulder, and said, — 

" Thou good and faithful Mar ! to thee her father turned 
his eyes, ere he died at Falkland, when around him were 
Scotland's bravest and most true, men whose advice had 
been faithful to him in council, and whose swords had never 
fkiled him in peril, for in good sooth, Mar, he loved thine old 
fiice well." , 

" Madam,** said Claude Hamilton impatiently, " if indeed 
your grace is to ride for Stirling, the sooner we set forth the 
better ; for the morning wears apace and dawn draws nigL 
The English will ere long break up from their camp at 
Edmondstone Edge, and advance on the city. Methinks I 
hear the sound of their artillery already." 

" The laird of Preston speaketh wisely, madam ; let ua 
to horse, for ladies, litters, and sumpter-nags are a sore 
hindrance when men have to cut a passage through a staod 
of pikes," said the laird of Balmuto, a Fifeshire baron, whose 
suit of black armour was encrusted with blood, and whose eyes 
were wandering, wild in expression, tearless and bloodshot. 

" You are wounded?" said the queen, with deep oommise- 
ration. 

" Nay, madam, my hands could ever keep my head." 

" But this blood ? "* 

" Is the blood of my enemies, and of— my ain bairns I" he 
added bitterly. 

"Tour bairns!" 

*' Two of my sons gave up their lives on yonder field, the 
English cannon slew them by my side, upon the bridge of 
Esk ; but blessed be Crod and their leal mother, I have three 
mair at hame, to handle their swords when the time 
comes." 

*• Heaven may^requite'this devotion, my bravo Balmuto, 



THE GUISE PALACE. 419 

but Mary of Lorraine never can !" replied the queen, with 
growing emotion. 

** Madam, forth, I say, ere the day break, and we hear the 
English trumpets in the Nether Bow — ^forth, and fear not," 
resumed Claude Hamilton ; " fear not, though we have lost 
the battle. I have this sword, which I drew at Flodden, 
and my father drew at Sark, and which kia sire drew at Yer- 
nuiel — 'tis at your service still, and thus can thirty thousand 
other Scotsmen say, who like me, are ready to peril all for 
the child and crown of King James the Fifth ! " 

" To horse, then,'* said the queen ; and giving her hand 
to the Earl of Mar, she prepared to leave her favourite 
little palace, and surveyed the apartment sadly as she 
withdrew. 

Florence turned towards the Countess of Yarrow ; but 
with a cold and stern expression in his eye, Claude Hamil- 
ton, quick as thought, anticipated him ; and presenting his 
gauntleted hand to his niece and ward, led her from the 
apartment to the street ; and with a sinking heart the 
young laird of the ruined tower followed them. 

Deeming some explanation necessary, while the queen 
and her train were mounting, Hamilton turned to him, 
and said in a low but determined tone, — 

" Here ends our temporary peace and truce. You scorned 
my alliance and every reparation to the dead as well as 
to the living, at a time when, with a full heart and a 
purpose leal and true, I proffered it ; so think not to win 
my kinswoman's love, for that can never be the prize of one 
whose kindred shed her pure and sinless blood so wickedly 
as Dame Alison did, on that terrible night in the church of 
Tranent. Enough, sir — we now know each other — adieu 1 " 

Florence, chilled by these stern and unexpected words, 
turned to Father John, who stood near, regarding them both 
wistfully ; but the old priest shook his head with an air of 
sadnesfif, and drew back, while Madeline held her veil close 
to conceal the tears that filled her eyes. 

^ F 2 



420 THE DEPABTURK 



CHAPTER Lir. 

TH£ DEPARTURE. 

Woe, woe to ye ! ye hangbty towers ; 

No sound of sweetest straiD, 
No music, Bong, nor roundelay 

Shall haunt your halls again ! 
Naught — naught but sighs and groans. 

And tread of slaves in grim afPright, 
Till, crush'd in dust and ashes. 

Ye feel the avenger's might l—^Uhland, 

In the pale grey of the morning, when the moon was 
waning and the stars fading out of the sky, when the cold, 
heavy shadows lay deep in the high and narrow wjnds and 
alleys of the city, from whose towering mansions so many 
generations have looked down on scenes of wonder, awe 
and terror, broil, bloodshed, and disaster, the child'-queen 
of Scotland (still tenaciously grasping her favourite kitten) 
was placed in her warm litter, and its curtains were care- 
fully drawn. The queen-mother, with the few nobles and 
ladies of her train, mounted ; the lackeys led all the spare 
and sumpter horses ; and with a band of some forty spear- 
men on horseback, an escort provided by the care of the 
Earl of Mar, she set forth from Edinburgh. 

The streets were still encumbered by crowds of fugitives 
and terrified people, pale with weeping for the slain and ■ 
watching in the night. Many surrounded the train of the 
queen, and strove to keep pace with it, crying for aid, 
advice, or protection from the coming English. 

" Alms — largess — largess ! " •ci-ied many, while poor 
women held aloft the babes, whom the strife of yesterday 
had made fatherless. 

''For alms and largess ye shall have the first rents I 
eceive fi'om my lordship of Monteith and my ca9tle of' 

'J 



THE DEPARTUBI!. 421 

Daune/* replied the queen, who was moved to tears by the 
scenes she saw ; but among the dense masses at the city 
gate were many Beformers, who on seeing her began to 
shout, — 

" Down with the league with France — no French 
alliance ! " 

" Woe to the day that Mary of Lorraine brought forth 
a female bairn ! " cried one. 

" And that our gude auld Scottish crown fell from the 
sword to the distaff! " added another. 

** Down with the bloody house of Guise 1 A Hamilton — a 
Hamilton ! " 

The poor queen-mother grew deadly pale on hearing 
these hofl^e and unexpected shouts from the populace, 
"whose favour has ever been in all ages variable as the wind ; 
but Florence felt his blood boil ! He had been reared in a 
land where gallantry was a science ; he had heard Francis L 
—-the most splendid of European monarehs— -declare that 
a court without ladies was like a spring without flowers ; 
he had stood by his side, bearing the train of Anne of 
AJbany, when Laura's tomb at Avignon was opened, and 
when flowers and verses were cast upon her bones, as a 
tribute to her past beauty and to Petrarch's love and 
muse. The fourth and fifth Jameses were in their graves, 
and Scotland no longer understood the sentiment of 
chivalry; but, filled with indignation by the reiterated 
msults of a lank-haired fellow in a suit of aad-colonred 
clothes, who followed the queen's train, Fknrence drew Us 
sword and would have smote him down, when she quickly 
arrested his hand, and said, with one of her most aUoting 
smiles;, — 

^ I pray yon to tpaie the poor man, and I shall tell yoo a 
story. One day some drunken mxhen of Pans, in my hear- 
ing, insulted Catherine de M^dieis, and said a bandred bitter 
and abosive things to het, as she was p rociwdi ng on feci 
und^ her eanopy tfapoog^ tlie Boa de FAibfe Sec tovud 



422 THX DXPABTTJB& 

the Loavre« Peroeiving my kinsman, tlie Gardidal de Lchp- 
rainey start angrily from her side, she griped his scarlet cape^ 
saying,— 

" * Whither goes your eminence 1 ' 

*' ^ To see those poltroons hanged without delay ! * 

" ' Kay, nay/ said she, ' not so ; let them alone. I will 
tills day show to after^es that^ in the same pevson, a 
woman, a queen, and an Italian, controlled both piide and 
passion.' If the terrible Catherine could do this^ why not 
may I, who have ever been deemed so tender and gentle 9 " 

" Most true, madam," replied Florence, bowing low as he 
sheathed his sword ; " your wish is law to me." 

Her train left Edinburgh by the Lower Bow Porte, on the 
parapet of which was a bare white skull, that seeped to grin 
mockingly at the turmoil and terror of those who crowded 
the steep and winding street below. Mary shuddered as 
she saw it, for this poor relic of mcNrtality was the head of 
the terrible "Bastard of'Airan," Sir James HamiUoa of 
Finnard, whilom captain of Linlithgow, royal cup-bearer, 
and grand inquisitor of Scotland, executed for treastm 
against James Y. ; and all who passed the old arch b^ieath 
were wont to sign the cross, for it was alleged that this head, 
after it was out off, had thrice cried *' Jesus Chnstius " as it 
roUed about the scaffold, and that no blood camo from it; 
moreover, on the day it was first spiked, a certain honest 
farmer, the gudemim of St. Giles's Grange^ when passing 
under the gate with a cartload of turnips to market, beheld 
them all turn into human heads, which winked and grinned 
at him for the full space of three minutes. 

As the royal train issued forth upon the western road that 
led to Stirling, the sun arose in his ruddy splendour and shed 
a blaze of yellow light across the eastern quarter of the sky; 
and against this glow Edinburgh uprose, with its castlee, 
towers^ and spires, its hills and mass of roofs, its atarange 
41es of gables a^d chimneys, all outline, strongly and darkly 

sfined. Then the blue flag, with the white orosa ef 



HH|uia» so ZBK hyaseok. 4S8 



St. Andrew, mm seen, io ivmve vpcm the smnmii of Kiag 
David's ke^ ; and tlie flash and boom of a colvedn fitom 
the rampart below it, as the light smoke floated away on 
the soft bieeie of the eady monuDg; annonnced that the 
governor of the casfcl^ Hamilton of Stsinhons^ had flred 
the first gun at the i^proaehing £00. 

A wail arose firom the city beneath ; £ar that hosiale sound 
also announoed that the English^ with sword and torch, flushed 
bj victogy and fired bj the ipirits of ranoonr and devastation, 
were at hand ; but the queen and her train, warned bj it of 
coming danger, added span to their iqpeed, as thej gaUi^ped 
past the long shallow loch, the ancient chureh, the rockj 
hillfl^ and reedj manhes d Coratorphine. 



CHAPTER LV. ' 

flBQUU TO THB tXVASMiM* 

il3il^.«na Md— 'tis very bold ! 

BetiaMg. — I tell ybn, mm. 

There be mifte Anaitf end more Leneozee 
On Sooitiah ground then 70a in Kngiand wot o£ 

SariOome—A Tragedy . 

Foim dajB after the batUe, t.e., the 14ih of September, Holj- 

rood Day, or the Festival of the Exaltation of the Oroesy a 

time when children were wont of old to commence nutting 
in the woods, the town of Stirling, the great abbe j of Cambns 

Kenneth, and all the strongholds in their vicinitj, were 

crowded with f ngitires ; and masses of retreating soldiers 

occupied all the pssBage^ fords^ and roads towards the north. 

Mary oi Lorraine, with her suite, and the B^ent Arran, 

attended by many officers of state and barmis of hia hour* 



424 THU DSPABTUBS. 

held a solemn and somewhat bitter council, to deliberate on 
the future; in that vaulted chamber of the castle of Stirling 
wherein, a hundred and eighteen years before. Queen. Jane 
had brought James II. into the world, and in which tbe 
traitor Walter, son of Murdoch Duke of Albany, passed his 
last night on earth, the 18 th of May, 1426. On this day 
many met who deemed each other had perished on the field. 

Hither came the Lord Kilmaurs, now fifth Earl of Glen- 
cairn, wearing a black scarf over his armour as monming 
for his father's fall ; hither came also the regent's brother, 
John Abbot of Paisley, lord high treasurer ; William Com- 
mendator of Culross, the comptroller of Scotland; and 
David Panater, the classic bishop of Koss, who was still 
secretary of state ; Lord Errol, the high constable ; the 
Earls of Cassilis, Mar, and many others, including the 
lairds of Fawside and Preston. 

Arran was pale, and his eye was red and feverish. He 
still wore the suit of hacked and dinted mail, which he had 
never put off since the day on which he fought the fatal 
battle. It had lost all its brilliance ; and he was now with- 
out his splendid orders of St. Andrew, St. Michael, and the 
Golden Fleece, all of which he had lost in that dreadful 
milee when his main body closed with the English under the 
Earl of Warwick. 

" Taunt me not, my lords," said he bitterly, in reply to the 
angry remarks of some who were present ; " I feel too keenly 
my own position and this crisis of the national affairs. Alas ! " 
he added, ^striking his gauntleted hand on the oak table^ '*I 
can never more hold up my crest in Scotland ; and it is a 
crest, sirs, that has never yet stooped, even to those kings 
with whom we have been allied.'* 

" Say not so, my lord," said the gentle Mary of Lorraine, 

on whom the countesses of Yarrow, Huntly, Mar, and Athole 

were in attendance, and who felt a sympathy for the somewhat 

^merited shame that stung the proud heart of Arran ; "do 

•; blame yourself for having fought this field of Pinkey." 



SEQUEL TO THE IMTA8I0K. 425 

'^ I do not blame myself for haying fought^ bat for baying 
lost it, madam." 

^ After this admission, my lord, eyen your enemies can 
baye notbing more to urge." 

" Nay," said the fierce young Earl of Glencairn, while his 
eyes shot a hateful gleam, " lay the blame on those hireling 
Germans of Pietre Mewtas and those heretical Spaniards, 
whose grayes I hope to dig in some deep glen between the 
Torwood and the Tweed. What ayailed our old-fashioned 
battle-axes, our mauls and maces, spears and bows, against 
gunpowder and the close-yolleyed shot of culyerins and 
arquebuses 9 " 

" ThiB English are loitering in Lothian still," observed the 
Earl of Cassilis, ''and the dead are yet unburied on the 
field." 

" Woe is me ! " added the abbot of Paisley, who foaght 
there ami>ng the band of monks, '' how close and thick the 
slain were lying 1 " 

** Yea, ipy lord abbot ; Duke Somerset's plunderers may 
win a bushel of golden spurs for the Lombard Jews in 
London, if they choose to glean among the dead men's heels 
— ^my brave father^s among the rest," said Glencairn ; " for, 
shot dead by a Spanish arquebuse, he fell by my side, when 
together we attempted to ford the water of the Esk." 

'' But you escaped, my Lord Kilmaurs," said Arran sig- 
nificantly ; for he knew well the secret treason of the fiither 
and son, and cordially hated them both. ; 

"Escaped by favour of the patron saint of Scotland," 
added the abbot of Paisley, to soften the taunt of which he 
dreaded the result. 

''Escaped by favour of a sharp sword and fleet horse," 
rejoined Glencairn sourly ; "for I may assure ye, sirs, that 
the patron saint of Scotland seemed to have other business 
on hand than attending to any of us on that day — my 
unworthy self in particular." 

"Or it might be that the smoke of the guiipo^* 



426 S8QUXL TO Tte JSYMSKXif. 

bewildered him, as it did his grace the regent,'* was the 
tauntiDg surmise of Oassilis. 

" And now, my. brave Fawside," said Arran, taming to 
Florence, as he felt the earl's insolence, and wished to change 
the convei^sation, '' what recompense can I give you for your 
services — ^for your valour on that fatal tenth of September/ 

" I have performed no services superior to those of other 
men, my lord," said Florence modestly. 

« Do you consider bearing to me the letters of Henry of 
Yalois ; that covering our retreat at Inveresk, and ronting 
by three desperate charges the demi-lances of Vane and the 
Spaniards of Gamboa ; that saving the life of the Countess 
of Yarrow, and assisting to escort the queen to Stirling, are 
no services 1 " 

''Lord regent, they were but duties which every loyal 
gentleman owed to the crown, and nothing more," 

'' I dispute while I admirei your jnodest spirit. .You shall 
be a knight, as your father was ; though that isbuta meagce 
recompense as knighthoods go in these days of ours. Have 
you no boon to ask }" 

Florence glanced timidly towards the Countess of Yarrow, 
and was silent^ though his poor heart was beating with love 
and anxiety, Claude Hamilton detected the glance^ rapid 
and covert though it was, and frowned so deeply, that Arran, 
though unable to understand what new turn matters had 
taken between these troublesome and hereditary enemies^ 
was too politic to notice it, but held out his right hand to 
the old baron, saying, — 

'' And thou, stout kinsman, I rejoice to see thee safe, for 
I heard somewhat of a dangerous wound." 

" Nay, Arran, I am free even of a scratch." 

'' 'Twas not your fault, laird, if you escaped so welL" 

Preston felt the compliment these words conveyed, and 
bowed low in reply. These conversational remarks over, the 
regent and others were about to resume the consideration of 
the present warlike and political crisis, when the cooatable 



fflBQUEL TO THE INVABIOIT, 427 

of the oagtlo entered hurriedly to annoonce '^ a messenger 
from Edinborgli, "with tidings for mj lord regent." 

" Admit him instantly," exclaimed Arran, starting from 
Lia seat ; and all eyes were turned towards the door. 

The messenger appeared, clad still in his riding-doak, 
ArmoDT, and muddy boots, the spurs pf which bore traces of 
blood, £oT he had ridden hard and fast. 

" The Master of Lyle ! " exclaimed Arran, ** Speak, sir, 
" are the English advancing hither ! " 

" Nayi my lord regent — ^the reverse," replied the master 
smiling. 

"Retreating?" 

" Ye% as I myself have seen," replied Lyle gaily enough, 
though he was one of the traitor faction, or had been so 
ontil the merciless slaughter of Pinkey soured his heart 
against England. ^^ This day at noon the Duke of Somerset 
hrcike up from his camp and* commenced hia homeward 
marohj drawing together all his ravagers and foraging 
partiefl^ while his fleet, under the Lord Clinton, has already 
left the Firth of Forth, and sailed towards their own seas." 

This intelligence, which other messengers soon confirmed, 
caused the utmost rejoicing in the minds of all save Arran, 
who, covered with shame and m<»*tification by his late 
defeat, was longing for another trial of strength with the 
foe, while Mary of Lorraine was desirous of peace at any 
price, as she felt sure that now the Scots would never break 
their ancient league with France j and that the fatal events 
of the 10th September, would soon place the regency of the 
realm in her own hands, and thus enable her to advance the 
interest of the House of Guise and the Church of Home. 

To keep Florence near her own person, as she found him 
useful, faithful, and liked his society, she made him captain 
of her guard, in place of Livingstone of Champfleurie ; but 
the Countess of Yarrow was no longer at court, as Claude 
Hamilton, in his capacity of tutor or guardian, appointed by 
the will of her &ther the earl, had removed her to Edir 



426 SEQUEL TO THE IKVASIOir. 

burgh. Thus Florence felt an irrepressible gloom over him, 
a moodiness of spiritj which not even the dazzling favoar, or 
seductive society of Mary of Lorraine could relieve. 

The English Protector had fortunately neither the enter- 
prise nor firmness of mind to improve the victory he had 
won, by making a rapid march to Stirling, — a movement bj 
which he might perhaps have secured the great object of hia 
wanton and daring campaign, the person of the young queen, 
before she could be sent to France. Instead of this decisive 
advance, which, at all events would have complicated and 
protracted the war, he wasted his time in petty ravages 
throughout the Lothians ; and on hearing tidings of a 
conspiracy formed against him in England, he made all 
preparations for a sudden retreat, and finally did so, on the 
18th September, thus remaining exactly one week after the 
battle was won. 

The .events of this cam*paign, together with an inroad 
made on the 8th September, by the Lord Wharton, and 
Mathew Stuart, the outlawed Earl of Lennox, who with five 
thousand men, ravaged all the Western Borders and stormed 
the stronghold of Castle-milk, destroyed the town of Annan, 
and blew up its church, increased the general indignation of 
the people at .the rash attempts to force them into a 
matrimonial alliance with England; and now, by the 
affectionate energy of Mary of Lorraine, prompt measures 
were at once adopted for the transmission of the little queen 
to France. 

This proposal was warmly received by Monsieur d'Oysell 
the ambassador of Henry II., who assured the Scottish peers 
that the House of Yalois would never fail in maintaininc: 
the ancient alliance which had subsisted between the two 
countries since the days of Chailemagne. 

" And be assured, my lords," added Mary of Lorraine, who 
had all the boldness which characterized the House of Guise, 
"that the dauphin of France, heir of the first kingdom in 
Europe, is a more suitable iconsort for Mary of Scotland than 



THE ISLE OF REST. 429" 

this English king, whose pretensions to her hand have been 
supported by every violence and barbarity of which the 
worst of men are capable." 

Soon after these proceedings, the Sieur Nicholas de 
Villegaignon, in the same ship which brought Florence from 
France, anchored in the Firth of Forth, to receive the queen, 
who, with her train, had been removed to the sequestered 
priory of Inchmahoma, or *•' the Isle of Rest" in the Loch of 
Menteith. 

" Thus," according to one of our historians, " England 
discovered that the idea that a free country was to be 
compelled into a pacific matrimonial alliance amid the groans 
of its dying citizens, and the flames of its cities afid seaports, 
-was revolting and absurd ! " 

Such was the sequel to the campaign of 1547. 



<o< 



CHAPTER LYI. 

THE ISLE OF BEST. 

Tliis dowry now our Scottish virgin brings, 

A nation famous for a race of kings, 

By firmest leagues to France for ages join'd. 

With splendid feats and friendly ties combined, 

A happy presage of connubial joy, 

Which neither time nor tempests shall destroy, 

A people yet in battle unsubdued, 

Though all the land has been in blood imbued. 

Buchanan. 

So wrote the most classic of Scottish scholars in his EpWia- 
lamium, or " Ode on the marriage of Francis of Valois and 
Mary, sovereigns of France and Scotland," the ungrateful 
Buchanan ; but we are somewhat anticipating history and 
Qur owp narrative in the headin j^ of our chapter. 



430 8EQU8L TO THE ISYASIOJX. 

Inohmahoma, the secure and temporary abode of the two 
queens and their court, is a singularly beautiful islet, so 
small and so green, in the midst of the lake of Menteith, 
that when viewed from the mountains it resembles a large 
emerald in the centre of a shield of silver. 

Of the Augustinian priory — which was founded in the 
twelfth . century by Edgar, King of Scotland (the son of 
Can-mhor), a prince who reigned only nine years, but Hved 
" revemced and beloved by the good, and so formidable to the 
bad, that in all his reign there was no sedition or fear of a 
foreign enemy," — ^there remains now but one beautiful gothic 
arch, the dormitory, and the vaults embosomed in a grove of 
aged and mossgrown timber. These trees are all chestnuts, 
and were planted by the canons before the Reformation. 
A few decaying fruit trees, and traces of a terrace, show 
where the garden of these sequestered churchmen lay; 
and where, in her sportive glee, the little queen of Scots with 
her auburn hair streaming behind .her, played for many an 
hour with the ladies of her mother's train ; and heard the 
white-bearded fathers of St. Augustine tell old tales of 
their holy isle, and show the oak chair wherein the stout 
King Bobert sat when, in 1310, four years before Bannock- 
burn, he came there to visit them ; and legends of the 
stalwart Earls of Menteith, whose ruined castle stands on 
the Isle of TuUa, and whose graves are in Mahoma ; of 
Amchly, or " the bloody field of the sword," where, at the 
western end of the loch, stood a little chapel, wherein a 
monk said mass daily for the souls of the slain. And in 
that terraced garden, to lighten care and chase sad thoughts 
away, Florence spent many an hour with this beautiful child, 
whose "pure and sinless brow" was encircled by our 
Scottish crown of thorns, and with her four Maries, who 
were the daughters of fbur loyal lords, — all women celebrated 
in after Ufe^-by song, by tradition, and by Scotland's brave 
but mournful history. 

These young ladies — to wit, Mary Fleming, daughter of 



THE ISLE OF REBT. 431 

that Lord Fleming who fell at Fbkey ; Maiy livingstoiiey 
Mary Beaton, and Mary Beaton (a kinswoman of the 
murdered cardinal), all receiyed precisely the same edacation 
as their beantifhl mistress, and were taaght every language 
and accomplishment hy the same instructors, and they all 
lored each other with deep affection. 

Their fitvonrite amnsement was pcdm play, which Florence 
taaght them as he had learned it at the Louvre and Yen- 
dome. It is an. old French game, which simply consisted 
in receiving a hall in the palm of the hand, and propelling 
it back again ; hut it became so &shionable in the kingdom 
of the Louis;, that the nobles, when they lost large sums, 
and found their purses empty, to continue the play would 
stake their mantles, armour, poniards, jewels, or anything, 
in the ardour with which they pursued it. 

On a little eminence close to the verge of the lock, there 
still remains a box-wood summer-house, with a fine old 
hawthorn in its centre ; and in this the little queen and her 
mother, with the four Maries, are said to have sat in the 
autumn evenings, and heard Florence read the ancient 
chronicles of Scotland, the Bruce of Barbour, and tell old 
tales of wizards and fairies, giants and dwarfs, till the light 
of day &ded from the romantic summit of Choille-dew ; 
till the vesper lights began to twinkle through the Gothic 
windows of the old priory upon the tremulous waters of the 
lake, and the ancient tower of Tnlla, on the Earl's Isle 
(where dwelt Earl John, who in that year, 1547, was slain 
by the tutor of Appin) cast its lengthening shadow to the 
shore. 

Amid the romantic mountain scenery which surrounded 
this kke and isle, Florence, while attending to the some- 
what trivial and monotonous duties which the queen-mother 
assigned him as captain of her guard — duties which he 
"varied occasionally by hawking on the long, narrow, pro- 
montory that runs out from the southern shore, or by 
Wishing for pike by baited lines tied to the leg of a goose — 



432 . THE XSLK OF REST. 

a strange custom then common in Monteith — ^longed to be 
once again in the Scottish capital, for now he never saw, nor 
by rumour, letter, or report, heard from the Countess of 
Yarrow. His love afiair seemed literally to be an end! 
The angry spirit of the old feud, thought he, may haye 
gathered again in the heart of her kinsman ; and there 
were times when he literally upbraided himself for having 
so sternly declined that kinsman's proffered friendship and 
alliance ; " but, alas ! what could I do ? '* he would exclaim 
— " the blood of my father, the blood of my brother, were 
alike upon his hands." Then he would strive to recall 
some of the anger, bitterness, and antipathy that filled bis 
heart when he first left France on board of the galley of 
Villegaignon, with no other thought but to fulfil the terri- 
ble injunction of his mother's hoijieward summons — to slay 
the Laird of Preston as he would have slain a snake or 
tiger — but the soft image of Madeline arose before him, and 
he strove in vain 1 

If the sentiments of Claude Hamilton had really grown 
more hostile, and Madeline Home had learned to share 
them, she might also gradually learn to love another, or to 
wed in mere indifference, for she had many suitors — ^but he 
thrust these ideas aside, and vainly strove to think of other 
things. 

So time passed slowly, heavily on, and brown October 
spread her russet hues upon the foliage ; the swallows dis- 
appeared, and the woodcocks came through dark and 
misty skies from the shores of the Baltic to replace 
them. 

By the old chesnuts that cast at eve their shadows on the 
grey walls of the ancient priory, and by the waves of the 
lake, poor Florence sat and pondered, till the sweet voice 
of Madeline seemed to come to his ear, amid the ripples 
that chafed on the little beach, and amid the rustle of the 
dry leaves, as the autumn gusts shook them down from the 
tossing branches. 



THS TESLB Or B1SST. 433 



• 



Miohaelmati came ; iK>tmtlistanding that remote fiigli- 
land region, where, eyen yet, so many old customs linger, few 
traces remained of the feast of St. Michael, as it was held of 
old j thongh Mary of Lorraine and the prior of the ide, or 
"Earl John of Monteith, in Tulla Hall, partook of roasted 
goose, duly and solemnly, on the eleventh of the month, as an 
indispensable ceremony — $31 unaware that it was the last 
remnant of a creed that flourished long anterior to uhiis- 
tianity ; for on this day the Pagans of old saciificed a goose 
to Proserpine, the infernal goddess of Death. 

*Twas November now ; and the piercing wind that swept 
over the mountains seemed as if anxious to tear the last 
brown leaves of autumn from the naked trees ; and then 
came snow to whiten the hills and valleys — to bury deep the 
rocky passes ; and with it came the frost, to seal up th« 
waters of the lake ; for, unlike those of the present age, the 
winters of the olden time were somewhat arctic In their 
aspect, with the strong und bitter Scottish frost, of which 
Ann)5eus Julius Florus, the satirical Eoman poet &nd his- 
torian, wrcyte, when, armed with his pen, he entered l^e lists 
against iSie Emperor Adrian : — 

"Ego nolo Caesar ess^ 
Ambnlare per Btittanos, 

And so the Highland winter oame on with all its dreariness ; 
and amid the cloistral seclusion of the Isle of Best, and of 
Mary of Lorraine's little court, Florence thought ever df 
Madeline Home, and longed again to hear her voice— to 
see her smile — ^to touch her pretty hand. Mary of Lorraine 
saw that he was sad, pre-occupied, and thoughtful ; and, with 
the natural gaiety of a Frenchwoman, she rallied liim on the 
subject of his pensiveness, and bade him be of good cheer ; 
for thougfh man proposed, Clod disposed, and all wotdd yet 
be well. 
With early summer final preparations were made for Khp 

2 F 



434 THE ISLfi OF BEST. 

young queen's departure to France ; and after sailing from 
Leith, round the stormy Pentland Firth, a gallant fleet of 
caravels dropped their anchors in the waters of the Clyde. 

On a bright July morning, when the wooded hills that rise 
around the blue lake, the ancient priory, and the green Isle 
of Best were clothed in their heaviest summer ifoliage, 
Florence was seated in the boxwood bower beside the old 
hawthorn-tree, reading to the little queen. With her dove- 
like eyes turned up to his £ELce in wonder, she heard how the 
valiant paladin. Sir Palomides, sorrowed for la Belle Isonde— 
of the siege perilous, and the marvelloi}s adventure of the 
sword in a stone ; but now Mary of Lorraine approached 
them with a grave and mournful expression in her face; 
kissing her daughter, she desired her to withdraw, and the 
young sovereign at once obeyed. She now desired Florence, 
who had instantly arisen and closed his book, which was Sir 
Thomas Malori's romance of '' King Arthur," to listen, as she 
had a serious matter whereon to confer with him. 

'' In A week," said she, *' my daughter sails for France." 

" France, within a week — ^so soon !" he exclaimed, with 
regret and surprise ; '' and in charge of whom, madam % " 

** The lords Livingstone, Erskine, and a chosen and gallant 
train ; but more immediately would I confide her to the care 
of one whose character I have studied carefully and closely, 
and in whom I can repose implicit faith." 

" Your grace is right ; but who is this honoured 
person 1 " 

" Yourself, fair sir," replied Mary with one of her most 
beautiful smiles. 

" I ! " he exclaimed with astonishment. 

" You, Florence Fawside." 

" Oh, madam, you overwhelm me ! " he replied, casting 
down his eyes : for his first thought was the total separation 
'from Madeline Home, that was consequent to this important 
trust, which he durst not decline. 



THE sue: of Bisr. 43$ 

^ YaaBxpcem more augpiig e than sBiidbctMMi,* said the 
q oeeo, wlio was an aeate reader of the haman &oe, and 
conld lead all ha varying expressions. "Ton dislike the 
hi^tnxrt I wouldr^oseinyonl" she added, with a proud 
but peculiar sDuIe. 

** Ohy mtM^""j do not aaj so — I but ^ 

*^ Or the journey by sea, or a residence in Paris, or I know 
not what. Man Dieu I would that I oould go with her to 
merry France again ; but that may never, never be. I have 
her turbulent kingdom to watch over as a sacred trust ; and 
as its r^^t — lor r^;ent of Scotland I shaU be ! — ^I must bide 
my time in Holyrood.** 

" Your majesty must pardon me ; I dislike neither the 
joomey nor tA splendid trust you would repose in me ; 

bat — but 

<' But what i " Florence coloured deeply, played with the 
plume in his bonnet, and hesitated. 

" Queens are unused to doubts ; but since you seem so 
averse to my ofiisr, I must e'en repose the greater trust in 
the Countess of Yarrow, who has already consented to go.'' 
** Consented to go ! — ^to leave me ; has Madeline really 
consented?" exclaimed poor Florence, in his desperation 
forgetting aU his prudence. 

" She has," replied the smiling queen. 
^ Ob, madam, can she go thus and leave me behind — ^I, 
who love her so tenderly — so well ! " 

" What would you have her to do ! " said Mary of 
Xiorraine; ''it is arranged that, in charge of the Lords 
liivingstone and Erskine, together with the Earl and 
Countess of Yarrow, my daughter proceeds to France in 
the ship of M. de Villegaignon." 

« And this — ^this Earl of Yarrow ? " muttered Florence in 
a breathless voice, as he grew pale with sadden grief, fury, 
and confusion. 

« la , ■" the queen hesitated provokingly. 

2 F 2 



436 THE ISCE OF BEST. 

** Who— "who ?— pardon my vebemence ! " 

** Cannot you guess 1 ** 

" Madam, my heart is sick J I JiaTe neitlier wit nor skill 
for riddles ! " replied Florence, who trembled and became 
painfully agitated. 

** Oh, thou man of little faith,* said the queen merrily, as 
she patted his cheek with her white hand ; and then draw- 
ing two documents from the relvet pouch which hung at her 
girdle — " Look here ! " she added, ** and read." 

Florence read them over 'huniedly, and could scarcely 
belieye his eyes. The first was a contract of marriage 
between himself and Madeline, Countess of Yarrow, signed 
by Madeline's own hand, by her tmcle, ttnd the Regent 
Arran; his own signature alone being wanting. The 
second document was a patent of nobility under the great 
seal of Scotland, granting the title of Earl of Yarrow 
and Baron Fawside to Florence Fawside, for the leal and 
true fiervlce rendered by his ftither, nmquhile Sir John of 
that ilk, at Flodden, and by the said Florencid at Pinkey- 
clettch ; and for the good and leal services eter rendered by 
his forbears to the throng and ancestors of ottr dearest 
sovereign lady the queen. With these dbcuments Was a 
letter from Claude Hamilton, at least a letter Written by a 
notary's hand and signed by the signet ring of tht old baron, 
who had but small skill in deilkiii^, and in it there ocenrred 
the following passage :— 

%W6 have in 600th been owre n«ir neighbmirs to be |;tttte 
friends, as our auld Scots proverb hath it ; but all the repara- 
tion I promised in the Torwood-— reparation to the living 
and to the dead — am I still Willing to mak6 Ilorence Faw- 
side ; and to end this old hereditary feud, which hath been 
the curse of our forefathers, and all quarrels anent our 
marches, rights of fuel and pasture, fishing and forestry, let 
them henceforth become xms; and let your wedding with my 



kinA^omaik b^ tba boad of 9mij between \ii> a»4 Father 
John be the notary who frames it. 'Tis well I Aad mj 
iw lands of Preston shall be he^ after me^ fbr pin-money 
for holding Mid h&c abulgeia^ta With the broad seas of 
Scotland and Franoe betv^iv iis» iaird^ we shall be better 
friendk than our fore&thers when they could soowl from 
their ban^ gates at ilk other Qwre thQ waste of Gladsmnir ; 
and so I oommit you to God. " PltESTON«" 

^I^ow, sir/' said Mary of Lorraine^ ''will you sail to 
lE'rance with my daughter, or will you stay at home 1 " 

'' Ah, niadam> pardon me^** e^daimed Flarenee, dnking on 
04a kuee j '' I am without thought 9r speech — ^I have no 
wordsi no voice to thank youk'^ 

** I want npt thanks j; but your signature to the contract^ 
1^ tba beu^diotion of the old vicar of Transnt qj» the 
marriage. 

^ Madam, who has done me all this kindness— <4U this 
laQBJi undeserved honour ? " 

'' Say not so — ^but your good angel has been your dearest 
friend-^Mary of Lorraine. — from the first, my poor boy> I 
loved and vidued your worth." 

*' I knetw it-T-I knew it !" he exdaimedy kissiog her hands 
with ardour ; '' but your grace must show me some mode by 
which I may requite this," 

<'In Franoe bo £9dthfttl to my daughter, be tender and be 
trne^" ssid tha queen in an imploring voice, that seemed full 
qS souU 

<' True to death,-«true as I would be to Madeline Home 1 " 

^ Oome^ then, for the countess has arrived ; she is now with 
the Abbot of Inchmahom% and awaits you in the priory," 
said the queen with a winning simle, aa she presented her 
hand to the bewildered young man. 

And thus our stoxy, like a good old-&shioned comedy. 



438 THE ISLE OF REST. 

ends by one marriage, and opens the way to another. After 
this, we have but little more to add. 

On a bright morning in Jaly, 1548, when the hot snn 
exhaled a silver mist from the broad bine bosom of the 
Clyde j when its fertile and beautiful shores lay steeped in 
golden haze that mellowed each grey rock, green wood, and 
purple hill, bay, beach, and headland that stretched in 
Znce. far. L awajr'; and when the sanbean« played 
gaily upon the long, swelling lipples that seemed to 
vibrate in the heat, and churned the waves into little 
lines of foam as they rolled on the pebbled shore, the 
thunder of brass cannon from '' Balclutha's walls of towers," 
the double peak of Dunbarton, boomed in the still air, 
while the bells rang their farewell peal in the spire of 
many a village church, as the fleet of the Sieur Nicholas de 
Yillegaignon, Knight of Malta^ and Grand-admiral of 
France, got under weigh. 

Above the lesser, ships that spread their white sails 
to the eastern breeze, his great caravel towered con- 
spicuously. 

High-pooped, with turrets of pepper-box aspect, she had 
three enormous lanterns at her stern, which, like her bow, 
rose nearly thirty feet above the water-line, and had a gilded 
iron gallery before each row of painted windows. This 
poop was covered with every variety of cunning work in 
wood, painting, and gilding, with niches containing saints 
with swords, wheels, and scourges, the emblems of their 
martyrdom ; while long carved mouldings ran along the 
bends between the brass muzzles of the polished culverins 
that rose above each other in tiers and glittered in the sun 
as its rays played upon the rippling water. Many a gay 
pennon and streamer floated grace^lly out like long and 
silken ribands on the breeze; but high over all were the 
lion ffules of Scotland, the silver fleur-de-lis of old France, 
and the family banner of the Grand-admiral de Yille- 



THS ISLE OF BEST. 439 

gskigtion, wMch floated from the mizzen-maBt head, bearing 
t^wo anchors crossed behind his paternal shield. 

On board of this gay caravel were Florence and his 
bride the countess, with the little queen and her two 
noble preceptors, the abbot of the Isle of Kest, and her 
tbree kinsmen, the Lord James Stuart (afterwards Eegent 
HVIoray), the commendator of Holyrood, and the Lord 
Robert, Prior of Orkney, with a train of two hundred 
lords, ladies, and gentlemen, all of the best families in 
Scotland. The young bride of France was weeping bitterly, 
and the arm of the Countess of Yarrow was around her. 

" The young queen,'* says the Captain Beaugue, a gallant 
French officer, who witnessed the embarkation, " was at 
that time one of the most perfect creatures the God of 
Mature ever formed, for her equal was nowhere to be found, 
nor had the world another child of her fortune and hopes. 

As the ships got under weigh, and began to drop down 
the lovely river in. the sunshine, and enveloped in the smoke 
of their cannon, which fired salutes, a cheer, which sounded 
somewhat like a wail of sorrow, as it floated over the Clyde, 
arose from a group that stood upon its shore, where Mary 
of Lorraine was lingering^ to witness the departure of the 
daughter she was never to behold again ; and there she 
watched the lessening sails until they melted into the haze 
and distance. 

Escaping all the eflbrts of Somerset, who daringly sent 
out a fleet to intercept her, the young queen and her train 
landed in safety at Boscoflj three miles north of St. Pol de 
Leon, in the vicinity of Cape Finisterre, and on the 20th of 
August arrived at Morlaix ; from there she proceeded to 
the palace of St. Grermains, where Henry of Yalois received 
her with every demonstration of respect and affection ; and 
where he bestowed on the Lord of Yarrow, and the three 
great lords who accompanied her, the collar of St. MichaeL 
Soon after this, the Earl of Arran, on being created Duke 



440 THB ISIiB OF KVfiE?. 

of Chatelh^raolty in Foiton, w^ r^oeiviDg the kkng^pveoiked 
succours from FraiK^ w^der Qeneral d'Eate d' EprmvUlierBy 
solemnly abdicated the regeaoj of Scotlan4 ia &TOur of 
Msxy of I/Oirraine^ who^ by her per«ievexM&6e» her wisdom, 
and skilli attained that po veip and dignity whiob h»d been sa 
long the darling objeet of her wishes imd the mnbitlQn of 
the Hoiwe of Ouise. 



NOTES. 



I.-FAWSIDB OF THAT ILK. 

In lire test I hhve not exaggerated the Mitiqnity of this old fiMnilfi 
the ruins of whose fortalfce are still existitig in Haiddingtonshire. 

In the rei^ of David I., during a portion of the twelfth oentunr, 
the name of William de Ffituside occurs in ^Parliament, and Edmunds 
de F&uside ivitnesses the charter by which that monarch grants cer- 
tain lands to Thor, the son of Swan of IVanent ; and in the time *of 
William the tion, Gilbert de Fawside witnessed a charter of the 
monastery of St. Marie of Kewbattle. 

In 1246, DenatUB Sybald witnesrad a eharter by De Quincy, Earl of 
Winton and Winchester^ to Adann of Seafton, de Markaffh JMeredis 
Atom cU Fiuide (Niebet), and seteb years afterwards Allan obliged 
himself <* to pay yearly to <be monks ci Dunfermline, $tMn$«« «o2ta«s 
mrgtmi," out of his knds. 

In 1292 Robert de Fawside signed the Bagman Boll, and foUr yeaft 
after we find a Boger and WiUia^ of the same name swearing fealty to 
Edward I. Boger obtained a grant of the lands from Bobert Bruce. 

In 1306 Sir Christopher SeatoU (Who married Bruce's sister) was 
executed by EdwAr^ I. He was succeeded by his son. Sir Alexander 
Seaton, who obtained from his uncle, King Bobert, the lands of 
IVanent^ iududiug Fdtoiicte and Longniddry, which formerly belonged 
to Alan de la Zou^. He and his second son were slain in battle by 
the IDufflish, near Kinghorn, in 1332, leaving a son. Sir Alexander, 
eigh^ baroU of Seaton, the gallant defender of Berwick, whose sons, 
though giveh as hostages to Edward 1., are alleged V> have been 
basely himged by that ferocious prince, in their Ikther^i view, before the 
walls of the town. 

In 1350 a Sir Thomas of Fawside witnessed a charter of Duncan 
Earl of Fife to the monastery of Lindores ; and in 1366 a charter of 
Malcolm of Fawside was witnessed by Symon Preston of Craigmillar, 
sheriff of Edinburgh. In 1371 William de Seaton granted to John of 
Fawside, for true and faithful service, the whole lands of Wester- 
Fawside, in the baroiiy of Travement, — a gift oonfiimed by Bobert II. 
on the 20th of June. 

In 1426 William of VMnkHtB Mid Matjotie ItemSng hk spouse 
obtained the lands and will of Tolygaft, and the lands of Wester- 
IVbWSiddtreeoDikttedloJohii of thsttUk (Great SealOfioe). 



I 
442 NOTES. ' 

In 1472 John Fawside married Margaret, daughter of Sir JoIie 
Swinton of that ilk ; and on his death, in 150^, she became prioress ol 
the Cistercian nunnery at Elcho. 

In 1528 there is a remission nnder the great seal to their son George 
Fawside of that ilk, for certain crimes committed by him ; and ia 
1647, after the battle of Pinkey, as related in the story, his castle was 
burned by the English, after a stout resistance, and all within it were, 
as Patten relates, " brent and smoothered." 

Twenty years after this, Thomas Fawside of that ilk signed the 
Bond of Association, for defending the coronation and goyemment of 
the yonog king, James YI., against the supporters of his unfortunate 
mother ; and in 1570, he was one of the assyse who tried Carkettle of 
Moreles for treason. In 1579, he became surety for Alexander Dal- 
mahoy of that ilk, who, according to the fashion of the age, had em- 
ployed his leisure time in besieging the house of 'Somerville {Pitcaim). 

In 1600, on the occa^on of the escape of James YI. from the plot of 
the Earl of Grourie, "this night (6th August) bonfires were sett upoce 
Arthure Seate, Fawside HiU, and all places &rre and neere " (Calder- 
wood*s Historie). 

Sixteen years after, we find James Fawside of that ilk becoming 
pledge ana surety for Sir Patrick Chirnsyde, of East Nisbet, who was 
accused before the Justiciary Court of abducting a girl of thirteen 
from Haddington ; and in the same year (1616), his survitor, Robert 
Robertson, was '' delatit fbr the crewel slaughter of umqahile John 
Fawside, in the bame of Fawside, with a koife or dagger, on the 
10th of November," for which he was beheaded on the Castle Hill of 
Edinburgh (PitcaAnC^, On a dormer window of the ruins at Fawside 
are carveid 

IF— IE. 1618. 

In 1631, Robert Fawside of that ilk is one of a commission for aug- 
menting the stipend of Inveresk ; and about this time the family sold 
their estate to Hamilton, a merchant in Edinburgh. 

In 1666, James, eldest son of the deceased Fawside of that ilk, 
witnessed a charter of George Earl of Haddington. He would seem 
to haye been the last of the line. Their lands belong to Dundaa of 
Amiston, and now nothing remains of the old Scottish family, bat 
their ruined tower upon the hill, and in the church of Tranent, half- 
defslced, a tablet inscribed 

'' JToin iraiDftOre of t^at m." 



II.— THE BATTLE OF PINKEY. 

Of this great defeat no' trace remains in Scotland bat the memory of 
its slaughter. Upwards of two thousand nobles and landed gentlemea 
fell, and the following list of a few of these, compiled from authorities 



NOT£S. 443 

too numerous to mention^ may interest some of onr Scottish readers, 
some of whom may find their ancestors therein : — ^William Cun- 
ninghame, Earl of Glencairn ; Malcolm Lord Fleming, Lord High 
Chancellor ; Allan Lord Cathcart ; Alexander Lord Elphinstoiie ; 
Henry Lord Methven ; Robert Lord Grahame ; John Master of 
Buchan; Kobert Master 'of Erskine; John Master of Livingstone; 
Hobert Master of Bosse ; Adam Gordon, son <^f the Lord Aboyne ; 
Sir James Gordon, Knight, of Lochinvar ; Sir George Douglas, Knight, 
of the House of Angus ; Sir Robert Douglas, Knight, of Lochleviu ; 
Sir George Home, Knight, of Wedderburn; William Adamson of 
Craigcrook, near Edinburgh ; Alexander Napier of Merchiston, near 
Edinburgh ; John Brisbane of Bishoptoun, in Cunninghame ; Alex- 
ander Erazer of Durris, Kincardine ; Alexander Halyburton of Pitcur, 
in Angus ; John Buchanan of Auchmar and Amprior ; John Norrie 
of Einarsie, Aberdeenshire ; Gilbert Macllvayne of Grummet, Argyle ; 
Thomas Corrie of Kelwood, James Montfoyd of Montfoyd, Bernard 
Mure of Park, John Crawford of Giffertland, Quentin Hunter of 
Hunterstoun, Ayrshire ; Robert Bothwick of Gordonshall, John Ramsay 
of Arbekig, John Strang of Balcaskie, William Barclay of Rhyud, 
David Reid of Aikenhead, James Wemyss of Myrecairnie, Andrew 
Anstruther (younger) of that ilk, Alexander Inglis of Tarvet, John 
Airth of Strathour- Wester, David Wemyss of Caskieberry, Stephen 
Duddingston of Kildinington, Fife; Ludovic Thornton of that ilk, 
EorfarsMre ; Cuthbert Aschennan of Park, John Gordon of B]aiket, 
John Ramsay of Sypland, Kirkcudbright ; Thomas Hamilton of Priest- 
field, near Edinburgh ; David Anderson of Inchcannon, in the barony 
of Errol ; John Kincaid of Wester Lawes, in the barony of Kionaird ; 
John Leckie of that ilk, Stirlingshire ; John MacdouU of Garthland, 
Wigton ; Patrick Bissett of Lessindrum ; Walter Macfarlane of Tarbet ; 
Richard Melville of Baldovie, parson of Maiytown ; David Arbuthnot 
(vounger) of that ilk, parson of Menmure ; William Johnston of that 
ilk ; Robert Munro of Foulis ; John Murray of Abercaimie ; David 
Murray of Auchtertyre ; John Halket of Pitfirran ; David and Robert 
Boswal, sons of the laird of Balmuto ; Allan Lockhart of the Lee ; 
Duncan Macfarlane of that ilk ; Finlay Mhor, Farquharson of Inver- 
caold, royal standard-bearer ; George Henderson of Eordelhenderson ; 
Alexander Skene of that ilk ; James Innes of Rathmackenzie ; Robert 
Leslie of Wardes ; John Kinnaird of that ilk ; William Cunninghame 
of Glengamock ; John and Arthur Forbes, sons of the Red Laird of 
Pitsligo ; Cuthbert Hamilton of Candor, David Hamilton of Broom- 
hill ;* G«briel Ctinninghame of Craigends ; John and Robert, sons of 
Sir Walter Lindsay of Edzell, who fell at Flodden ; John Ogilvie of 
Dum ; John Hamilton, merchant in the West Bow, Edinburgh ; 
Walter Cullen, bailie of Aberdeen, and twenty-eight burghers of the 
city. 
The teven sons of Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromieurty are also said to 



* Two brothers, slain when attempting to rescue the Lord Semple 
who WM taken prisoner. 



4^4 JffOTKS. 

hATe Ml«i w*ti1ii8 diflattrovs field ; but their tnunes do not «ppoar in 
the " Soottish Baronage." 

It was freqnenUy named the Field of Inreresk and of Musselbargb. 

In Bunbury Church, Chei^ire, is a monument to Sir George Beeston, 
who W9S knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his bravery against the 
Armada in 1588. He died in 1601, at the age of 102, and would seem 
.to have fought against the Soots at Pinkey. '* Oontea Sootos apud 
Muudbcrrow" is on his tomb. 

In the following '' Aoquittaunoe/' rendered into English, the battle 
is styled Inveresk : — 

"I, Walter Scot of Branxholm, Knight, grant me to have received 
from an honourable man, Sir I^atrick Cheyne of Essilmont, Knight, 
the sum of eight score English nobles, for which I was bound and 
obliged to content and pay to Thomas Dacre of Lanercost, Knigbt, 
Englishman, taken of the said'^ir Patrrck at the fidd of /nveresik, for 
his ransom, of the which sum I hold me well-content and |>ayed. In 
witness whereof, I have subscribed this my letter of acquittaunce with 
my hand, at Edinburg^^ the 2nd March, \hi1 .^--AfMrdem CoUectmit 
vol. ii. 



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