A PAIR OF RAPIERS.
If thou sleep alone in Urrard,
Perchance in midnight gloom,
Thoul't hear behind the wainscot
Of that old and darken'd room
A fleshless hand that knocketh----"
HIGHLAND MINSTRELSY.
In a dark old wainscotted apartment, in the small arched chimney of
which a coal fire was glowing cheerily, supper and wine were sullenly
laid for Walter by a sleepy and half-frightened servant; but the
first remained untouched and the last untasted, at least for a time.
Removing his burgonet and gloves, he sat with his elbow on the table
and his forehead on his hand, with his fingers writhed among his
thick dark locks. He was again sunk in one of his gloomy reveries;
but at times a smile of pleasure and animation unbent his haughty lip
and lit up his handsome face like sunlight through a cloud; and it
was evident he thought more of Lilian Napier's bright blue eyes, her
innocence, and her fears, than the dangers and ignominy to which
coming day would assuredly expose him.
The mildness, modesty, and beauty of the young girl, with the
touching artlessness of her manner, had awakened a nearer and more
vivid interest in his heart, one to which it had hitherto been
utterly a stranger. It was the dawn of passion; never before, he
thought, had one so winning or so attractive crossed his path; he had
found at last the well-known face that his fancy had conjured up in a
thousand happy reveries, and he was predisposed to love it. Her
tears and affliction for the last relative (save one) whom fate and
war had left, had increased her natural attractions, and a keen sense
of her unmerited humiliation, and the risk he ran for her, by
knitting their names together, all tended to raise a glow in young
Walter's solitary heart; for having no living thing in this wide
world to cling to, it was peculiarly susceptible and open to
impressions of kindness and generosity; now it expanded with a flush
of happiness and delight to which since thoughtless childhood it had
been a stranger; and in a burst of soldierlike enthusiasm, he uttered
her name aloud, and drained the pewter flagon of Rhenish to the
bottom.
As he set it down, a noise behind made him turn sharply round and
listen; nothing was visible but the dark stains of the wainscotting,
and its gilded pannels glistening ruddily in the glow of the fire.
From an antique brass sconce on the wall, the light of three great
candles burned steadily on the old discoloured floor, the massively
jointed arch of the fire-place, which bore a legend in Saxon
characters, on three old pictures by Jamieson, of cavaliers in
barrelled doublets, high ruffs, and peaked beards, and one of the
famous Barbara Napier of Bruntisfield, who so narrowly escaped the
stake for her sorceries, on a spectral suit of mail, and six old
heavily carved chairs, ranged against the wall like grotesque gnomes
with their arms akimbo; but although nothing was visible to create
alarm, the aspect of the chamber was so gloomy, that certain tales of
a spectre cavalier who haunted the old house, began to flit through
Walter's mind, and he could not resist listening intensely; still not
a sound was heard, but the wind rumbling in the hollow vent, and the
creaking of the turret vanes overhead.
"Tush!" said he, and whether it was the faint echo of his own voice
or a sound again behind the wainscot, he knew not, but he palpably
heard something that made him bring the hilt of his long rapier more
readily to hand. The portraits, like all those of persons whom one
knows to have been long dead, when viewed by the dim candle-light had
a staring, desolate, and ghastly expression, and they really seemed
to "frown" over their high ruffs on the intruder, who would probably
have frowned in return, had he not, even in the harsh lines of the
old Scottish artist traced a family likeness to the soft features of
Lilian Napier. But there was a stern, keen and malignant expression
in the features of the old sorceress, Lady Barbara, that made Walter
often avert his eyes, for her sharp features seemed to start from the
pannel instinct with life and mockery.
As sleep weighed down the eyelids of Walter, strange fancies pressed
thick and fast, though obscurely, on his mind; and though once or
twice the same faint hollow sound made him start and take another
survey of the apartment by the dim light of the sconce and dying
embers of the fire, his head bowed down on the table, and at last he
slumbered soundly.
Scarcely had he sunk into this state when there was a sharp click
heard; a jarring sound succeeded, and on the opposite side of the
room, about three feet from the ground, a pannel in the wainscotting
was opened slowly and cautiously, and the bright glare of a large oil
cruise streamed into the darkened apartment. Beyond the aperture,
receded a gloomy alcove or secret passage, into the obscurity of
which the steps of a narrow stair ascended, and therein appeared the
figure of a man, who gazed cautiously upon the unconscious sleeper.
He was about thirty years of age, strongly formed, and possessing a
handsome but very weatherbeaten countenance. He wore a plain buff
coat and steel gorget; his waist was encircled by a broad belt, which
sustained a pair of long iron pistols of the Scottish fashion, and a
sharp narrow-bladed rapier glittered in his hand.
Young Fenton still slept soundly.
The stranger regarded him with a stern and louring visage, on which
the lurid light of the upraised cruise fell strongly. It betokened
some fell and deadly intention, and as the hostile ferocity of its
aspect increased as slowly, softly, and ominously he descended into
the apartment.
"Through which part of the iron shell shall I strike this papistical
interloper?" he muttered; "I will teach thee, wretch, to think of
Lilian Napier in thy cups!"
His right hand was withdrawn preparatory to making one furious and
deadly thrust, which assuredly would have ended this history (ere it
is well begun) had not the subject thereof started up suddenly,
exclaiming,--
"Back, rebel dog! on thy life, stand back!" and striking up the
thrust rapier, drew his own, and throwing a chair between him and his
adversary, he stood at once upon his guard.
"Malediction!" cried the stranger, furiously, "dolt that I was not to
have pistolled thee from the pannel!"
"Wemyss, Wemyss!" exclaimed Walter, "The guard--what; ho! without
there!"
"Spare your breath, for you may need it all," said the other, putting
down his lamp, and barring the door. "This chamber is vaulted and
boxed, and long enough mayest thou bawl ere thy fellow-beagles hear
thee. Defend thyself, foul minion of the bloodiest tyrant that ever
disgraced a throne. Strike! for by the Heaven that is above, ere a
sword is sheathed, this floor must smoke with the blood of one or
both of us! Come on, Mr. Springald, and remember that you have the
honour to cross blades with the best swordsman in the six battalions
of the Scottish Brigade."
"You are----"
"Ha, scoundrel! Quentin Napier of Bruntisfield, by God's grace and
King William's, a captain of the Scots-Dutch; so fall on, for I am
determined to slay thee, were it but to keep my hand in practice for
better work."
The blades crossed and struck fire as they clashed; each cavalier
remained a moment with his head drawn back, the right leg thrown
forward and his eyes glaring on his antagonist. Walter was ten years
younger than his adversary, upon whom he rushed with more ardour than
address, and consequently, in endeavouring to pass his point and
close, received a slight wound on the hand, which kindled him into a
terrible fury. Napier excelled him in temper, if not in skill; he
parried all his thrusts with admirable coolness, until, perceiving
that the youth's impetuosity began to flag, he pressed him in turn,
the ferocity that sparkled in his eyes and blanched his nether lip
revealing the bitterness of his intention; but in making one furious
lunge, he overthrust himself, and was struck down with his sword-hand
under him. Rage had deprived Walter of all government over himself;
in an instant his knee was on Napier's breast, and his sword
shortened in his hand with the intention of running him through the
heart, for his blood was now up, and all "the devil" was stirred
within him. He felt the deep broad chest of his powerful adversary
heaving beneath him with suppressed passion and fury.
"Captain Napier," said Walter, "for the sake of her whose name and
blood you share--though you disgrace them--I will spare your life if
you will beg it at my hands."
"Strike!" and he panted rather than breathed as he spoke; "Strike!
life would be less than worthless if given as a boon by Dunbarton's
beggarly brat. O, a thousand devils!--is it come to this with me?"
"Peace, fool!" exclaimed Walter, "peace, lest your words tempt me to
destroy you. Accept life at my hands; they spared the blood of a
better man upon the field of Sedgemoor."
"Be it so," replied the discomfitted captain, sullenly receiving his
rapier; "I accept it only that I may, at some future time, avenge in
blood the stain thou hast this night cast upon the best cavalier of
the Scottish Brigade." He ground his teeth. "D--nation! my throat
is burning--any wine here?" He drank some Rhenish from a flask, and
then continued, "Ho, ho, and now, since you know my hiding-place,
doubtless for the sake of the thousand marks this poor brain-pan is
worth, ye will deliver me unto our Scottish Phillistines--those Lords
of Council, who are steeped to the lips in infamy and blood!"
"Perish the thought!" replied Walter, sheathing his rapier with a
jerk. "You are safe for me--and here is my thumb on't."
"Gad so, young fellow, I love thy spirit, and at another's expense
could admire your skill in the noble science of defence. You fought
at Sedgemoor--so did I."
"For the King?"
"Why--not exactly."
"For James of Monmouth?"
"Humph!"
"Then doubly are you a branded rebel."
"I had been a glorious patriot, had we won that bloody field. Young
fellow, you must have early cocked your feather to the tuck of the
drum! Art a Papist?"
"Nay, I am a good Protestant, I hope."
"And loyal to our Seventh James, the crowned Jesuit? Der tuyvel, as
we say in Holland, 'tis a miracle!" and after drinking from the
wine-flask, he resumed with greater urbanity, "When I remember how
you permitted the Lady Bruntisfield and my kinswoman Lilian to
escape, it shames me that I was not more generous; but the devil
tempted me to blood in that infernal hole to which I must return."
"Now, sir, since the ladies are gone, you will undoubtedly starve."
"Nay, the whole household know of my concealment, and old Drouthy
will not let me want for wine and vivres."
"They may inform."
"O never! I am their lady's only kinsman--the last of the good old
line, and they are staunch servitors; a few among those, whom the
courtly villany of these times hath left uncorrupted. 'Tis well I
know all the outlets of the mansion, for it will become quite too hot
for me after to-night. No doubt a band of your soldiers will be here
at free quarters until the whole barony, outfield and infield, are as
bare as my hand."
"In part, you anticipate rightly."
"Henckers! then I must shift my camp among our whig friends in the
west until----"
"Until what?" asked Walter, suspiciously.
"Thou shalt learn anon, and so shall all thy faction with a
vengeance!" replied the captain, while a deep smile spread over his
features. "Meantime adieu, and may God keep us separate, friend! I
trust to thine honour."
"Adieu!"
He sprang into the secret passage, closed the pannel, and Walter
heard his footsteps dying away as he ascended into the hollow
recesses of the thick wall, and sought some of those secret
hiding-places with which this ancient mansion abounded more than any
other edifice in or around Edinburgh.
Morning came, and with it came an order from the king's advocate to
bring the prisoners before the privy council, and to secure the
persons of their entire household for future examination and
thumb-screwing, if necessary.
The multiplied lamentations and exclamations of fear and sorrow,
which rang through the house of Bruntisfield on the arrival of Macer
Maclutchy, with this terrible fiat (which he announced with all the
jack-in-office insolence peculiar to himself), and the clank of
musquets and din of high words in the corridor or ambulatory, roused
Walter from a second short but sound sleep, and starting, he raised
his head from the table on which he had reclined.
Redly and merrily the rays of the morning sun rising above the oak
woods streamed through the grated window of the chamber, and threw a
warm glow on its dark-brown wainscotting. It was a sunny March
morning, and the old oaks were tossing their leafless branches on the
balmy wind; the black corbies cawed on their summits, and the lesser
birds twittered and chirped from spray to spray; the clear sky was
flecked with fleecy clouds, and its pure azure was reflected in the
still bosom of the long and beautiful loch, that stretched away
between its wooded banks towards the east, where the old house of
Gilford and the craigs of Salisbury closed the background.
Walter felt his bruises still smarting from the recent struggle; he
examined the place of his fierce visitor's exit, but failed to
discover the least trace of it; every pannel fitted close, and was
immovable, for he knew not the secret. The whole combat appeared
like a dream; but a scar on his hand, a notch or two on his sword,
and several overturned chairs, still remained to attest the truth of
it. Hastening to unfasten the door which Quentin Napier had secured
with such deadly intentions, a little glove on the floor attracted
his eye. He snatched it up. It was very small, and of richly worked
lace, tied by a blue ribbon.
"She has worn this. Oh, 'tis quite a prize," said the young man as
he kissed it, and laughing at himself for doing so, placed it within
the top of his corslet.
"My certie, here is a braw bit o' wark and a bonnie!" exclaimed Macer
Maclutchy, bustling into the room. "Here is an order from the king's
advocat to bring the leddies o' Bruntisfield to the Laigh Council
House instanter, and the chamber o' dais is empty, toom as a
whistle,--the birds clean awa, and the gomeral that stood by the door
kens nae mair about them than an unchristened wean. My word on't,
lads," he continued flourishing his badge of office, "some here maun
kiss the maiden or climb the gallows for last night's wark!"
After swearing an oath or two, which appeared to give him infinite
relief in his perplexity,
"Master Walter," said the old halberdier, "here is a devilish piece
of business--an overslagh, as we used to say in Flanders. Rot me! I
have searched every place that would hold a mouse, but the prisoners
are not to be found! I have pricked with my dagger every bed, board,
and bunker, and so sure as the devil--make answer, Halbert
Elshender," he cried, shaking the sentinel roughly by his bandoliers,
"answer me, or I will truncheon thee in such wise, thou shalt never
shoulder musket more. Fause knave! where are the prisoners over whom
I posted ye?"
"A lang day's march on the road to hell, I hope--the old one, at
least," responded the musqueteer, sullenly; "dost think I have them
under my corslet?"
"Faith! General Dalyel will let ye ken, friend Hab, that a thrawn
craig or six ounce bullets are the price Scottish of winking on duty.
Ye'll be shot like a cock-patrick. I pity thee, Hab--d--mme if I
don't; you've blawn your matches by my side on many a hot day's work,
and bleezed away your bandoliers in the face o' English, Dutch, and
German; but my heart granes for the punishment ye'll dree."
"You are all either donnart or drunk!" exclaimed the incensed
soldier; "if the ladies were in the chamber when I first mounted
guard, I swear by my father's soul, they are there yet for me. I
neither slept nor stirred from the door; so they maun either have
flown up the lum or whistled through the keyhole----"
"Didst ever hear of a noble lady playing cantrips o' witchcraft like
a wife o' the Kailmercat, or that auld whaislin besom, your mother,
down by St. Roque?"
"What for no?--it rins in the family, this same science o'
witchcraft, gif a' tales be true."
"See if such a braw story will pass muster with Sir Thomas Dalyel.
Cocknails! I think I see every hair o' his lang beard glistening and
bristling with rage!"
"And he will mind that my father was a staunch vassal o' the
Napiers!" added the poor musqueteer, in great consternation at the
idea of confronting that ferocious commander. "What can I do or
say?--O help me, Master Walter! Would to God I had been piked or
shot at Sedgemoor!"
"Wemyss," said Walter, advancing at this juncture, just as the
serjeant was unbuckling the soldier's collar of bandoliers. "The
ladies are gone where I hope none, save friends, will find them.
Elshender is innocent, for I freed them, and must bear the punishment
for doing so; but next time, comarade Hab, you take over such a post,
see that your wards are in it."
"I had your word, Mr. Fenton," replied the musqueteer in a voice
between sorrow and joy; "your word at least in the sense, and we
alway deemed you a gentleman of honour, though but a puir soldier-lad
like mysel."
"True, true," replied Walter, colouring; "will not the generosity of
my purpose excuse the deceit?"
"Why, Mr. Fenton, I wish weel to the auld house, for I was born and
bred under its shadow, and mony o' my kin hae laid down their lives
in its service, and I can excuse it----"
"D'ye think my Lord Chancellor will, though?" asked the Macer
sharply, as he bustled forward, "or His Majesty's advocat for His
Majesty's interest?"
"Or Sir Thomas Dalyel o' the Binns?" added the serjeant testily. "O!
what is this o't noo--after I, from a skirling brat, had made a man
and a soldier of thee? O! 'tis an unco scrape--a devilish coil of
trouble, and I wish you weel out o't. Retain your sword, my puir
child, but consider yourself under close ward until orders come anent
ye. D--me! I once marched three hundred prisoners from Zutphen to
French Flanders, among them the noble Count of Bronkhorst himsel, and
never lost but one man whom I pistolled for calling me a hireling
Scot, that sold my king for a groat, whilk I considered as a taunt
appertaining to the Covenanters alone. Gowk and gomeral, boy, what
devil tempted thee to----but why ask? Yon pawkie gipsey's blue
een----"
"Hush!"
"Hae thrown a glamour owre ye. Wherever women bide, there will
mischief be. 'Tis a kittle job! What a pumpkin-head I was not to
keep watch and ward mysel. Rot me! a young quean's skirling, or a
carlin's greeting would hae little effect on me, for I have heard
muckle o' baith in my time. Did no thought of our Council prevent ye
running your head in the cannon's mouth?"
"No; I saw women in distress, Wemyss, and acted as my heart dictated."
"Had they been two auld carlins with hairy chins, gobber teeth,
wrinkled faces, and hands like corbies' claws, I doubt not your
tender heart would have dictated otherwise. But when next I set a
handsome young lad to watch a young lass, may the great de'il spit
me, and mak my ain halbert his toasting fork!"
"Ay, ay," muttered Macer Maclutchy, whose jaws were busily devouring
all the good things he could collect in buffet or almrie; "auld
Hornie may do so in the end, whatever comes to pass."
"O Willie Wemyss, Willie Wemyss!" quoth the veteran halberdier
apostrophizing himself; "dark dool be on the hour that brings this
disgrace upon thee, after five and thirty years o' hard and faithful
service, under La Tour d'Avergne, Crequy, Condé, and Dunbarton! The
deil's in ye, Walter Fenton! You were aye a moody and melancholy
cheild, and I ever thought ye were born under some ill star, as the
spaewives say."
"Braw spark though he be," said the Macer, "he's come o' the true
auld covenanting spawn, Mr. Wemyss--and birds o' a feather--here's
luck, serjeant, and better times to us a'"; and so saying he buried
his flushed visage in a vast flagon of foaming ale.