THE
SCOTTISH CAVALIER.
An Historical Romance.
BY JAMES GRANT, ESQ.,
AUTHOR OF
"THE ROMANCE OF WAR, OR THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS,"
"MEMOIRS OF KIRKALDY OF GRANGE," &C.
Dost thou admit his right,
Thus to transfer our ancient Scottish crown?
Ay, Scotland was a kingdom once,
And, by the might of God, a kingdom still shall be!
ROBERT THE BRUCE, ACT II.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1850.
Contents
Preface
I. The Place of Bruntisfield
II. The Preacher
III. The Old Clockcase
IV. A Pair of Blue Eyes
V. A Pair of Rapiers
VI. The Old Tolbooth
VII. The Laigh Council House
VIII. The Privy Council
IX. Dejection
X. Hope
XI. Clermistonlee at Home
XII. The Cottage of Elsie
XIII. A Reverse
XIV. Walter and Lilian
XV. Love and Burnt-sack
XVI. The Ten O'Clock Drum
XVII. Clermistonlee Makes a Bad Mistake
XVIII. The Growth of Love and Hope
XIX. The Old Scottish Service
PREFACE.
From the historical and descriptive nature of the following tale, the
Author intended that certain passages should be illustrated with
notes, containing the local traditions and authorities from which it
has been derived; but on second thoughts he has preferred confining
these explanations to the preface.
History will have rendered familiar to the reader the names of many
who bear a prominent part in the career of _Walter Fenton_; but there
are other characters of minor importance, who, though less known to
fame than Dundee and Dunbarton, were beings who really lived and
breathed, and acted a part in the great drama of those days. Among
these, we may particularise Douglas, of Finland, and Annie Laurie.
This lady was one of the four daughters of Sir Robert Laurie, the
first Baronet of Maxwelton, and it was to her that Finland inscribed
those well-known verses, and that little air which now bear her name,
and are so wonderfully plaintive and chaste for the time; but it is
painful to record that, notwithstanding all the ardour and devotion
of her lover, the fair Annie was wedded as described in the romance.
Her father, Sir Robert, was created a baronet in 1685.
The Old Halberdier and Hugh Blair (mentioned so frequently) are also
real characters. The former distinguished himself at the battle of
Sedgemoor, and by a _Royal Order_, dated 26th February, 1686,
received "forty pounds for his good service in firing the great guns
against the rebells" who were opposed to Sir James Halkett's Royal
Scots. The tavern of Hugh Blair was long celebrated in Edinburgh.
His name will be found in _Blackadder's Memoirs_, and frequently
among the _Decisions_ of Lord Fountainhall, in disputes concerning
various runlets of Frontiniac, &c.
Lord Mersington was exactly the personage he is described in the
following pages--an unprincipled sot. From _Cruickshank's History_
it appears that his lady was banished the liberties of Edinburgh in
1674, for being engaged in the female assembly which insulted
Archbishop Sharpe.
Of Thomas Butler, an unfortunate Irish gentleman connected with the
ducal house of Ormond, who bears a prominent part in Volume III., an
account will be found in the London Papers of 1720, in which year he
was executed at Tyburn as a highwayman.
The song mentioned so frequently, and the burden of which is
_Lillibulero bullen a la!_ was a favorite whig ditty, and the chorus
was formed by the pass-words used during the Irish massacre of 1641.
The principal locality of the story is the Wrightshouse or Castle of
Bruntisfield, which stood near the Burghmuir of Edinburgh, and was
unwisely removed in 1800, to make way for that hideous erection--the
hospital of Gillespie. As described in the romance, it was a
magnificent chateau in the old Scoto-French style of architecture,
and was completely encrusted with legends, devices, armorial
bearings, and quaint bassi relievi.
It was of great antiquity, and over the central door were the arms of
Britain, with the initials J. VI. M. B. F. E. H. R.
Amid a singular profusion of sculptured figures representing Hope,
Faith, Charity, &c., was a bas-relief of Adam and Eve in Eden,
bearing the following legend:--
Quhen Adam delvd and Eve span
Quhar war a' the gentiles than?
Between them was a female representing Taste, and inscribed _Gustus_.
"On the eastern front of the castle was sculptured a head of Julius
Cæsar, and under it _Caius Jul. Cæsar, primus Rom. Imp_. On the
eastern wing were figures of Temperentia, Prudentia, and Justitia,
which it is remarkable were among the first stones thrown down."
(_Scots Mag._, 1800.) On the west wing was a Roman head of Octavius
II., and five representations of the Virtues, beautifully sculptured.
_Sicut oliva fructifera_ 1376, _In Domino Confido_, 1400, _Patriæ et
Posteris_, and many other valuable carvings, which are now preserved
at Woodhouselee, adorned the walls and windows.
The east wing was said to have been built by Robert III.; _Arnot_
informs us, that the centre was erected by James IV. for one of his
mistresses, and about the close of the last century, Hamilton of
Barganie made many additions to it. How the edifice obtained the
name of _Wright's_ or_ Wryte's-house_ is now unknown, as no
proprietor of it who bore that name can now be traced; but the
Napiers appear to have possessed the barony from an early period, and
their names frequently occur in local records.
Alexander Napier de Wrichtyshouse appears as one of an inquest in
1488. His coat-armorial was a bend charged with a crescent, between
two mullets. He married Margaret Napier of Merchiston, whose father
was slain at the battle of Flodden. In 1581, among the commissioners
appointed by James VI., "anent the cuinze," we find William Napier of
the Wrightshouse, (_Acta Parliamentorum_) and in 1590, Barbara
Napier, his sister, was convicted of sorcery, for which on the llth
of May she was sentenced to be burnt at a "stake sett on the
Castellhill, with barrels, coales, heather, and powder;" but when the
torch was about to be applied, pregnancy was alleged, and the
execution delayed. (_Calderwood's Historic._)
In 1632, William of the Wrightshouse was a commissioner at Holyrood,
anent the valuation of Tiends ; and two years after we find him
retoured heir to his father William in certain lands in Berwickshire;
but in 1626, "_terrarum de Brounisfield, infra parochiam de Sanct.
Cuthbert_" belonged to Sir William Fairlie of Braid. In 1649 he
obtained a crown charter of his lands (_MS. Mag. Sigilli_), and in
1680, the last notice of this old family will be found in the
_Inquisitionum Retornatarum_, where it ends in a female.
Thus about the close of the 17th century, the Napiers had passed
away, and their barony was possessed by the Laird of Pennicuick. All
that now remains of them is their burial place on the north side of
St. Giles' Cathedral, where may still be seen their mouldering
coat-armorial, with this inscription:--
S. E. D.
Fam. de Naperarum interibus,
Hic situm est.
EDINBURGH, _March_, 1850.
WALTER FENTON;
OR,
THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER.
CHAPTER I.
THE PLACE OF BRUNTISFIELD.
There is nae Covenant noo, Lassie,
There is nae covenant, noo;
The solemn league and covenant,
Are a' broken through.
OLD SONG.
One evening in the month of March, 1688, a party of thirty soldiers
mustered rapidly and silently under the arches of the White Horse
Hostel, an old and well-known inn on the north side of the Canongate
of Edinburgh. The night was dark and cold, and a high wind swept in
gusts down the narrow way between the picturesque houses of that
venerable street and the steep side of the bare and rocky Calton-hill.
Gathering in cautious silence, the soldiers scarcely permitted the
butts of their heavy matchlocks to touch the pavement: in a loud
whisper the officer gave the order to march, and they moved off with
the same air of quietness and rapidity which characterized their
muster, and showed that a very secret or important duty was about to
be executed.
In those days the ranks were drawn up three deep, and such was the
mode until a later period; so, by simply facing a body of men to the
right or left, they found themselves three abreast without confusion
or delay.
"Fenton," said the officer to a young man who carried a pike beside
him, "keep rearward. You are wont to have the eye of a hawk; and if
any impertinent citizen appears to watch us, lay thy truncheon across
his pate."
This injunction was unnecessary; for those belated citizens who saw
them, hurried past, glad to escape unquestioned. In those days, when
every corporal of horse or foot, was vested with more judicial powers
than the Lord Justice General, the night march of a band of soldiers
was studiously to be avoided. Aware that some "deed of persecution"
was about to be acted, the occasional wayfarers hurried on, or turned
altogether aside, when forewarned that soldiers appeared, by the
measured tread of feet, by the gleam of a gun-barrel, or cone of a
helmet glinting in the rays of light that shot from half-closed
windows into the palpable darkness.
These soldiers belonged to the regiment of George Earl of Dunbarton,
the oldest in the Scottish army, and a body of such antiquity, that
they were jocularly known in France as Pontius Pilate's Guards. With
red coats, they wore morions of black unpolished iron; breast-plates
of the same metal, crossed by buff belts which sustained their
swords, fixing-daggers and collars of bandoleers, as the twelve
little wooden cases, each containing a charge of powder, were named.
Their breeches and stockings were of bright scarlet, and each had a
long musket sloped on his shoulder, with its lighted match gleaming
like a glowworm in the dark. The officer was distinguished by a
plume that waved from a tube on his gilded helmet, which, like his
gorget, was of polished steel, while to denote his rank he carried a
half-pike, in addition to his rapier and dagger, and wore a black
corslet richly engraved and studded with nails of gold, conform to
the Royal Order of 1686. He was a handsome fellow, tall, and well
set up, with a heavy dark mustache, and a face like each of his
soldiers, well bronzed by the sun of France and Tangiers.
In that age, the closes and wynds of the Scottish capital were like
those of ancient Paris or modern Lisbon, narrow, smoky, and crowded,
unpaved, unlighted, and encumbered with heaps of rubbish and mud,
which obstructed the gutters and lay in fœtid piles, until heavy
rains swept all the debris of the city down from its lofty ridge into
the Loch on the north, or the ancient _communis ma_, on the south.
At night the careful citizen carried a lantern--the bold one his
sword; for men generally walked abroad well armed, and none ever rode
without a pair of long iron pistols at his saddle-bow.
The late king had made every kind of dissipation fashionable; and
after night-fall the gallants of the city swaggered about the Craimes
or the Abbey-Close, muffled in their cloaks like conspirators; and
despite the axes of the city guard, and the halberds of the provost,
excesses were committed hourly; and seldom a night passed without the
clash of rapiers and the shouts of cavalier brawlers being heard
ringing in the dark thoroughfares of the city. Thieves were hanged,
coiners were quartered, covenanters beheaded, and witches burned,
until executions failed to excite either interest or horror; but with
the plumed and buff-booted Ruffler of the day, who brawled and fought
from a sheer love of mischief and wine, what plebeian baillie or
pumpkin-headed city-guard would have dared to find fault? Of this
more anon.
Stumbling through the dark streets, the party of soldiers marched
past the Pleasance Porte, above the arch of which grinned a white row
of five bare skulls, which had been bleaching there since 1681.
Every barrier of Edinburgh was garnished with these terrible trophies
of maladministration.
Leaving behind them the ancient suburb, they diverged upon the road
near the old ruined convent of St. Mary of Placentia, which, from the
hill of St. Leonard, reared up its ivied walls in shattered outline.
Beyond, and towering up abruptly from the lonely glen below, frowned
the tremendous front of Salisbury craigs. The rising moon showed its
broad and shining disc, red and fiery above their black rocks, and
fitfully between the hurrying clouds, its rays streamed down the
Hauze, a deep and ghastly defile, formed by some mighty convulsion of
nature, when these vast craigs had been rent from that ridgy
mountain, where King Arthur sat of old, and watched his distant
gallies on the waters of the Roman Bodoria.
For a moment the moonlight streamed down the defile, on the hill of
St. Leonard, with its thatched cottages and ruined convent, on the
glancing armour of the soldiers, and the bare trees bordering the
highway; again the passing clouds enveloped it in opaque masses, and
all was darkness.
"Sergeant Wemyss," cried the cavalier officer, breaking the silence
which had till then been observed.
"Here, an't please your honour," responded the halberdier.
"Where tarries that loitering abbeylubber, who was to have joined us
on the march?"
"The Macer?"
"Ay, he with the council's warrant for this dirty work."
"Yonder he stands, I believe, your honour, by the ruins of the
mass-monging days," replied the sergeant, pointing to a figure which
a passing gleam of the moon revealed emerging from the ruins.
"Mean you that tall spunger in the red Rocquelaure? To judge by his
rapier and feather, he is a gentleman, but one that seems to watch
us. So, ho, sir! a good even; you are late abroad to-night."
"At your service, Sir," responded the other gruffly behind the cape
of his cloak, which, in the fashion of an intriguing gallant of the
day, he wore so high up as completely to conceal his face.
"For King or for Covenant, Sir?" asked the lieutenant, who was
Richard Douglas, of Finland.
"Tush!" laughed the stranger; "this is an old-fashioned test; you
should have asked," he added, in a lower voice, "For James VII., or
William of Orange! ha, hah!"
"Hush, my Lord Clermistonlee, by this light."
"Right, by Jove!" exclaimed the other, who was considerably
intoxicated.
"Body o' me! it ill beseems one of His Majesty's Privy Councillors to
be roving abroad thus like a night hawk."
"I am the best judge of my own actions, Mr. Douglas," replied the
lord haughtily; but added in a whisper, "you are bound for the
Wrytes-house?"
"To the point, my Lord?" rejoined Douglas, drily.
"You will take particular care that the young lady--tush, I mean the
old one--they must not escape, as you shall answer to the Council.
Dost comprehend me--the young lady of Bruntisfield, eh?"
"Too well, my Lord," replied the cavalier, drawing himself up, and
shaking his lofty plume with undisguised hauteur. "Curse on the
libertine fool!" he exclaimed to the young pikeman, as he hurried
after his party; "would he make me his pimp? By Heaven! he well
deserves a slash in the doublet for casting his eyes upon noble
ladies, as he would on the bona-robas of Merlin's Wynd."
The young man's hand gradually sought the hilt of his poniard.
"What said he, Finland?" he asked, with a kindling eye and a
reddening cheek. "He spoke of the Napiers, did he not?"
"Only to this purpose, that on peril of our beards the ladies do not
escape, especially the younger one. Hah! they say this ruffling
libertine hath long looked unutterable things at Lilian Napier. He
is a deep intriguer, and the devil only knows what plots he may be
hatching now against her."
"S'death! Finland, assure me of this, and by Heaven I will brain him
with my partisan!"
"Hush, lad! these words are dangerous. You are but a young soldier
yet, Walter," continued the officer, laughing; "had you trailed a
pike under Henry de la Tour of Auvergne, and the old Mareschal
Crecqy, like me, you would ere this have learned to value a girl's
tears and a grandam's groans at the same ransom, perhaps. But, egad,
I had rather than my burganet full of broad pieces, that this night's
duty had fallen on any other than myself; and I think, Major, the
Chevalier Drumquhazel (as we call him) might have selected some of
those old fellows whose iron faces and iron hearts will bear them
through anything."
"Why, Finland," rejoined the pikeman, "you are not wont to be
backward!"
"Never when bullets or blades are to be encountered; but to worry an
old preacher, and harry the house and barony of an ancient and noble
matron, by all the devils! 'tis not work for men of honour. The
Napiers of Bruntisfield are soothfast friends of the Lauries of
Maxwelton--and my dear little Annie--thou knowest, Walter, that her
wicked waggery will never let me hear the end of it, if we march the
Napiers to the Tolbooth to-night."
"You see the advantage of being alone in this bad and hollow-hearted
world," said Fenton, in a tone of bitterness, "of being uncaring and
utterly uncared for."
"Again in one of thy moody humours!"
"I have trailed this pike----"
"True--since Sedgemoor-field was fought and lost by Monmouth; but
cheer up, my gallant. If this rascal, William of Orange, unfurls his
banner among us, we will have battles and leaguers enough; ay, faith!
to which the Race of Dunbar, and the Sack of Dundee, will be deemed
but child's-play. And hark! for thy further contentment, I trailed a
partisan for four long years under Turenne ere I obtained a pair of
colours; and _then_ I thought my fortune made; but thou see'st,
Walter, I am only a poor lieutenant still. Uncaring and uncared for!
Bravo! 'tis the frame of mind to make an unscrupulous lad do his
_devoire_ as becomes a soldier. And yet I assure thee, friend
Walter, if aught in Scotland will make a man swerve from his
duty--ay, even old Thomas Dalzel, that heart of steel--'tis the blue
eyes of Lilian Napier, of Bruntisfield. The beauty of her person is
equalled only by the winning grace of her manner; and I swear to
thee, that not even Mary of Charteris, or my own merry Annie, have
brighter charms--a redder lip, or a whiter hand. Hast seen her, lad?"
"Oh, yes," replied the young man with vivacity, "a thousand times."
"And spoken to her?"
"Alas, no!" was the response, "not for these past three years at
least."
There was a sadness in his voice, which, with the sigh accompanying
his words, conveyed a great deal--but only to the wind--for the gayer
cavalier marked it not.
"If we start the game--I mean these Dutch renegades on the Napiers'
barony--it will go hard with them in these times, when every day
brings to light some new plot against the Government. Napier of the
Wrytes--'tis an old and honourable line, and loth will I be to see it
humbled."
"What can prompt ladies of honour to meddle in matters of kirk or
state?"
"The great father of confusion who usually presides at the head of
our Scottish affairs. True, Walter, the rock, the cod, and the
bobbins become them better; but I shall be sorry to exact
marching-money and free quarters from old Lady Grizel. Clermistonlee
is the source of this accusation, which alleges that her ladyship
knows of an intended invasion from Holland, and that she hath reset
two emissaries of the House of Orange. But a word in thine ear,
Fenton; there are villains at our Council-board who more richly merit
the cord of the Provost Marshal; and Randal Clermont, of
Clermistonlee, is not the least undeserving of such exaltation."
"If the soldiers overhear, you are a lost man."
"God save King James and sain King Charles, say I! but to old Mahoud
with the Council, which is driving the realm to ruin at full gallop.
Hah! here comes, at last, this loitering villain, the macer," added
Finland, as the moonlight revealed a man running after them.
"Fellow! why the deuce did you not meet us at the White Horse Cellar?"
"Troth, Sir, just to tell ye the truth," replied the panting
functionary, drawing his gilt baton from the pocket of his voluminous
skirt, "it is a kittle job this, and likely to get a puir man like me
unco ill will in such uncanny times--but I stayed a wee while owre
late may be, biding the ale cogue, at Lucky Dreep's change-house in
the Kirk-o'-field Wynd. However, Sir, follow me, and we'll catch
these traitors where the reiver fand the tangs--at Madam's fire-side."
"Follow thee!" reiterated the cavalier officer, contemptuously;
"malediction on the hour when a Douglas of Finland and a band of the
old Scottish Musqueteers are bent on the same errand with a knave
like thee! Step out, my lads, and, Walter Fenton, do thou fall
rearward again, and see that we are neither followed nor watched;
for, egad! these are times to sharpen one's wits."
Thus ordered, our hero (for such is the handsome pikeman) fell
gradually to the rear, and stopped at times to bend his ear to the
ground and his eyes on the changing shadows of the moonlit scenery;
but he heard nothing save the blustering wind of March, which swept
through the hollow dells, and saw only the shadows of the flying
clouds cast by the bright moon on the fields through which the
soldiers marched.
They had now passed all the houses of the city, and were moving
westward, by the banks of the Burghloch, a broad and beautiful sheet
of water, upwards of a mile in length, shaded on one side by the
broken woods of Warrender and the old orchards of the convent of
Sienna; on the other, open fields extended from its margin to the
embattled walls of the city. One moment it shone like a sheet of
polished silver; the next it lay like a lake of ink, as the passing
clouds revealed or obscured the full-orbed moon.
"What lights are those twinkling in the woods yonder?" asked Finland,
pointing northward with his pike, on his party reaching the rhinns,
or flat at the end of the lake.
"The house of Coates, Sir--the old patrimony of the Byres o' that
Ilk."
"Harkee, macer, and the dark pile rising on the height, further to
the westward."
"The Place of Drumsheugh, Sir, pertaining of auld to my Lord
Clermistonlee. He was just the gudeman thereof before these kittle
times. A dark and eerie place it is, where neither light has burned
nor fire bleezed--a joke been cracked nor a runlet broached these
mony lang years. He is a dour cheild that Clermistonlee, and one
that would--"
"Twist thy hause, fellow," said the pikeman, sternly, "for speaking
of your betters otherwise than with the reverence that becomes your
station."
"Ye craw brawly for the spawn o' an auld covenanter," muttered the
macer between his teeth, as they entered the dark avenue that led to
the place of their destination; "brawly indeed! but may-be I'll hae
ye under my hands yet, for a' your iron bravery and gay gauds."