“until the Regent shall take you whole and sound off my hand; and so, if
you will, we may go to the hostelrie of Saint Michael's, and there you
will see company enough, but through the casement, mark you me; for as
to rambling through the street to seek Seytons and Leslies, and having
a dozen holes drilled in your new jacket with rapier and poniard, I will
yield no way to it.”
“To the hostelrie of Saint Michael's, then, with all my heart,” said the
page; and they left the palace accordingly, rendered to the sentinels
at the gate, who had now taken their posts for the evening, a strict
account of their names and business, were dismissed through a small
wicket of the close-barred portal, and soon reached the inn or hostelrie
of Saint Michael, which stood in a large court-yard, off the main
street, close under the descent of the Calton-hill. The place, wide,
waste, and uncomfortable, resembled rather an Eastern caravansary, where
men found shelter indeed, but were obliged to supply themselves with
every thing else, than one of our modern inns;
Where not one comfort shall to those be lost,
Who never ask, or never feel, the cost.
But still, to the inexperienced eye of Roland Graeme, the bustle and
confusion of this place of public resort, furnished excitement and
amusement. In the large room, into which they had rather found their own
way than been ushered by mine host, travellers and natives of the city
entered and departed, met and greeted, gamed or drank together, forming
the strongest contrast to the stern and monotonous order and silence
with which matters were conducted in the well-ordered household of the
Knight of Avenel. Altercation of every kind, from brawling to jesting,
was going on amongst the groups around them, and yet the noise and
mingled voices seemed to disturb no one and indeed to be noticed by
no others than by those who composed the group to which the speaker
belonged.
The falconer passed through the apartment to a projecting latticed
window, which formed a sort of recess from the room itself; and
having here ensconced himself and his companion, he called for some
refreshments; and a tapster, after he had shouted for the twentieth
time, accommodated him with the remains of a cold capon and a neat's
tongue, together with a pewter stoup of weak French vin-de-pays. “Fetch
a stoup of brandy-wine, thou knave--We will be jolly to-night, Master
Roland,” said he, when he saw himself thus accommodated, “and let care
come to-morrow.”
But Roland had eaten too lately to enjoy the good cheer; and feeling his
curiosity much sharper than his appetite, he made it his choice to
look out of the lattice, which overhung a large yard, surrounded by the
stables of the hostelrie, and fed his eyes on the busy sight beneath,
while Adam Woodcock, after he had compared his companion to the “Laird
of Macfarlane's geese, who liked their play better than their meat,”
disposed of his time with the aid of cup and trencher, occasionally
humming the burden of his birth-strangled ballad, and beating time to
it with his fingers on the little round table. In this exercise he was
frequently interrupted by the exclamations of his companion, as he saw
something new in the yard beneath, to attract and interest him.
It was a busy scene, for the number of gentlemen and nobles who were now
crowded into the city, had filled all spare stables and places of public
reception with their horses and military attendants. There were some
score of yeomen, dressing their own or their masters' horses in the
yard, whistling, singing, laughing, and upbraiding each other, in a
style of wit which the good order of Avenel Castle rendered strange
to Roland Graeme's ears. Others were busy repairing their own arms, or
cleaning those of their masters. One fellow, having just bought a bundle
of twenty spears, was sitting in a corner, employed in painting the
white staves of the weapons with yellow and vermillion. Other lacqueys
led large stag-hounds, or wolf-dogs, of noble race, carefully muzzled to
prevent accidents to passengers. All came and went, mixed together and
separated, under the delighted eye of the page, whose imagination had
not even conceived a scene so gaily diversified with the objects he
had most pleasure in beholding; so that he was perpetually breaking the
quiet reverie of honest Woodcock, and the mental progress which he was
making in his ditty, by exclaiming, “Look here, Adam--look at the bonny
bay horse--Saint Anthony, what, a gallant forehand he hath got!--and see
the goodly gray, which yonder fellow in the frieze-jacket is dressing
as awkwardly as if he had never touched aught but a cow--I would I were
nigh him to teach him his trade!--And lo you, Adam, the gay Milan armour
that the yeoman is scouring, all steel and silver, like our Knight's
prime suit, of which old Wingate makes such account--And see to yonder
pretty wench, Adam, who comes tripping through them all with her
milk-pail--I warrant me she has had a long walk from the loaning; she
has a stammel waistcoat, like your favourite Cicely Sunderland, Master
Adam!”
“By my hood, lad,” answered the falconer, “it is well for thee thou wert
brought up where grace grew. Even in the Castle of Avenel thou wert
a wild-blood enough, but hadst thou been nurtured here, within a
flight-shot of the Court, thou hadst been the veriest crack-hemp of a
page that ever wore feather in thy bonnet or steel by thy side: truly, I
wish it may end well with thee.”
“Nay, but leave thy senseless humming and drumming, old Adam, and come
to the window ere thou hast drenched thy senses in the pint-pot there.
See here comes a merry minstrel with his crowd, and a wench with him,
that dances with bells at her ankles; and see, the yeomen and pages
leave their horses and the armour they were cleaning, and gather round,
as is very natural, to hear the music. Come, old Adam, we will thither
too.”
“You shall call me cutt if I do go down,” said Adam; “you are near as
good minstrelsy as the stroller can make, if you had but the grace to
listen to it.”
“But the wench in the stammel waistcoat is stopping too, Adam--by
heaven, they are going to dance! Frieze-jacket wants to dance with
stammel waistcoat, but she is coy and recusant.”
Then suddenly changing his tone of levity into one of deep interest and
surprise, he exclaimed, “Queen of Heaven! what is it that I see!” and
then remained silent.
The sage Adam Woodcock, who was in a sort of languid degree amused with
the page's exclamations, even while he professed to despise them, became
at length rather desirous to set his tongue once more a-going, that he
might enjoy the superiority afforded by his own intimate familiarity
with all the circumstances which excited in his young companion's mind
so much wonderment.
“Well, then,” he said at last, “what is it you do see, Master Roland,
that you have become mute all of a sudden?”
Roland returned no answer.
“I say, Master Roland Graeme,” said the falconer, “it is manners in my
country for a man to speak when he is spoken to.”
Roland Graeme remained silent.
“The murrain is in the boy,” said Adam Woodcock, “he has stared out his
eyes, and talked his tongue to pieces, I think.”
The falconer hastily drank off his can of wine, and came to Roland,
who stood like a statue, with his eyes eagerly bent on the court-yard,
though Adam Woodcock was unable to detect amongst the joyous scenes
which it exhibited aught that could deserve such devoted attention.
“The lad is mazed!” said the falconer to himself.
But Roland Graeme had good reasons for his surprise, though they were
not such as he could communicate to his companion.
The touch of the old minstrel's instrument, for he had already begun to
play, had drawn in several auditors from the street when one entered the
gate of the yard, whose appearance exclusively arrested the attention of
Roland Graeme. He was of his own age, or a good deal younger, and from
his dress and bearing might be of the same rank and calling, having all
the air of coxcombry and pretension, which accorded with a handsome,
though slight and low figure, and an elegant dress, in part hid by
a large purple cloak. As he entered, he cast a glance up towards the
windows, and, to his extreme astonishment, under the purple velvet
bonnet and white feather, Roland recognized the features so deeply
impressed on his memory, the bright and clustered tresses, the laughing
full blue eyes, the well-formed eyebrows, the nose, with the slightest
possible inclination to be aquiline, the ruby lip, of which an arch and
half-suppressed smile seemed the habitual expression--in short, the form
and face of Catherine Seyton; in man's attire, however, and mimicking,
as it seemed, not unsuccessfully, the bearing of a youthful but forward
page.
“Saint George and Saint Andrew!” exclaimed the amazed Roland Graeme to
himself, “was there ever such an audacious quean!--she seems a little
ashamed of her mummery too, for she holds the lap of her cloak to her
face, and her colour is heightened--but Santa Maria, how she threads the
throng, with as firm and bold a step as if she had never tied petticoat
round her waist!--Holy Saints! she holds up her riding-rod as if she
would lay it about some of their ears, that stand most in her way--by
the hand of my father! she bears herself like the very model of
pagehood.--Hey! what! sure she will not strike frieze-jacket in
earnest?” But he was not long left in doubt; for the lout whom he had
before repeatedly noticed, standing in the way of the bustling page, and
maintaining his place with clownish obstinacy or stupidity, the advanced
riding-rod was, without a moment's hesitation, sharply applied to his
shoulders, in a manner which made him spring aside, rubbing the part of
the body which had received so unceremonious a hint that it was in the
way of his betters. The party injured growled forth an oath or two of
indignation, and Roland Graeme began to think of flying down stairs to
the assistance of the translated Catherine; but the laugh of the yard
was against frieze-jacket, which indeed had, in those days, small
chance of fair play in a quarrel with velvet and embroidery; so that
the fellow, who was menial in the inn, slunk back to finish his task of
dressing the bonny gray, laughed at by all, but most by the wench in the
stammel waistcoat, his fellow-servant, who, to crown his disgrace, had
the cruelty to cast an applauding smile upon the author of the injury,
while, with a freedom more like the milk-maid of the town than she of
the plains, she accosted him with--“Is there any one you want here, my
pretty gentleman, that you seem in such haste?”
“I seek a sprig of a lad,” said the seeming gallant, “with a sprig of
holly in his cap, black hair, and black eyes, green jacket, and the air
of a country coxcomb--I have sought him through every close and alley in
the Canongate, the fiend gore him!”
“Why, God-a-mercy, Nun!” muttered Roland Graeme, much bewildered.
“I will inquire him presently out for your fair young worship,” said the
wench of the inn.
“Do,” said the gallant squire, “and if you bring me to him, you shall
have a groat to-night, and a kiss on Sunday when you have on a cleaner
kirtle.”
“Why, God-a-mercy, Nun!” again muttered Roland, “this is a note above E
La.”
In a moment after, the servant entered the room, and ushered in the
object of his surprise.
While the disguised vestal looked with unabashed brow, and bold and
rapid glance of her eye, through the various parties in the large old
room, Roland Graeme, who felt an internal awkward sense of bashful
confusion, which he deemed altogether unworthy of the bold and dashing
character to which he aspired, determined not to be browbeaten and
put down by this singular female, but to meet her with a glance of
recognition so sly, so penetrating, so expressively humorous, as should
show her at once he was in possession of her secret and master of her
fate, and should compel her to humble herself towards him, at least into
the look and manner of respectful and deprecating observance.
This was extremely well planned; but just as Roland had called up the
knowing glance, the suppressed smile, the shrewd intelligent look, which
was to ensure his triumph, he encountered the bold, firm, and steady
gaze of his brother or sister-page, who, casting on him a falcon glance,
and recognizing him at once as the object of his search, walked up with
the most unconcerned look, the most free and undaunted composure, and
hailed him with “You, Sir Holly-top, I would speak with you.”
The steady coolness and assurance with which these words were uttered,
although the voice was the very voice he had heard at the old convent,
and although the features more nearly resembled those of Catharine when
seen close than when viewed from a distance, produced, nevertheless,
such a confusion in Roland's mind, that he became uncertain whether he
was not still under a mistake from the beginning; the knowing shrewdness
which should have animated his visage faded into a sheepish bashfulness,
and the half-suppressed but most intelligible smile, became the
senseless giggle of one who laughs to cover his own disorder of ideas.
“Do they understand a Scotch tongue in thy country, Holly-top?” said
this marvellous specimen of metamorphosis. “I said I would speak with
thee.”
“What is your business with my comrade, my young chick of the game?”
said Adam Woodcock, willing to step in to his companion's assistance,
though totally at a loss to account for the sudden disappearance of all
Roland's usual smartness and presence of mind.
“Nothing to you, my old cock of the perch,” replied the gallant; “go
mind your hawk's castings. I guess by your bag and your gauntlet that
you are squire of the body to a sort of kites.”
He laughed as he spoke, and the laugh reminded Roland so irresistibly
of the hearty fit of risibility, in which Catherine had indulged at his
expense when they first met in the old nunnery, that he could scarce
help exclaiming, “Catherine Seyton, by Heavens!”--He checked the
exclamation, however, and only said, “I think, sir, we two are not
totally strangers to each other.”
“We must have met in our dreams then” said the youth; “and my days are
too busy to remember what I think on at nights.”
“Or apparently to remember upon one day those whom you may have seen on
the preceding eve” said Roland Graeme.
The youth in his turn cast on him a look of some surprise, as he
replied, “I know no more of what you mean than does the horse I ride
on--if there be offence in your words, you shall find me ready to take
it as any lad in Lothian.”
“You know well,” said Roland, “though it pleases you to use the language
of a stranger, that with you I have no purpose to quarrel.”
“Let me do mine errand, then, and be rid of you,” said the page. “Step
hither this way, out of that old leathern fist's hearing.”
They walked into the recess of the window, which Roland had left upon
the youth's entrance into the apartment. The messenger then turned his
back on the company, after casting a hasty and sharp glance around to
see if they were observed. Roland did the same, and the page in the
purple mantle thus addressed him, taking at the same time from under his
cloak a short but beautifully wrought sword, with the hilt and ornaments
upon the sheath of silver, massively chased and over-gilded--“I bring
you this weapon from a friend, who gives it you under the solemn
condition, that you will not unsheath it until you are commanded by
your rightful Sovereign. For your warmth of temper is known, and the
presumption with which you intrude yourself into the quarrels of others;
and, therefore, this is laid upon you as a penance by those who wish you
well, and whose hand will influence your destiny for good or for evil.
This is what I was charged to tell you. So if you will give a fair word
for a fair sword, and pledge your promise, with hand and glove, good and
well; and if not, I will carry back Caliburn to those who sent it.”
“And may I not ask who these are?” said Roland Graeme, admiring at the
same time the beauty of the weapon thus offered him.
“My commission in no way leads me to answer such a question,” said he of
the purple mantle.
“But if I am offended” said Roland, “may I not draw to defend myself?”
“Not _this_ weapon,” answered the sword-bearer; “but you have your own
at command, and, besides, for what do you wear your poniard?”
“For no good,” said Adam Woodcock, who had now approached close to them,
“and that I can witness as well as any one.”
“Stand back, fellow,” said the messenger, “thou hast an intrusive
curious face, that will come by a buffet if it is found where it has no
concern.”
“A buffet, my young Master Malapert?” said Adam, drawing back, however;
“best keep down fist, or, by Our Lady, buffet will beget buffet!”
“Be patient, Adam Woodcock,” said Roland Graeme; “and let me pray
you, fair sir, since by such addition you choose for the present to
be addressed, may I not barely unsheathe this fair weapon, in pure
simplicity of desire to know whether so fair a hilt and scabbard are
matched with a befitting blade?”
“By no manner of means,” said the messenger; “at a word, you must
take it under the promise that you never draw it until you receive the
commands of your lawful Sovereign, or you must leave it alone.”
“Under that condition, and coming from your friendly hand, I accept of
the sword,” said Roland, taking it from his hand; “but credit me, if we
are to work together in any weighty emprise, as I am induced to believe,
some confidence and openness on your part will be necessary to give the
right impulse to my zeal--I press for no more at present, it is enough
that you understand me.”
“I understand you!” said the page, exhibiting the appearance of
unfeigned surprise in his turn,--“Renounce me if I do!--here you stand
jiggeting, and sniggling, and looking cunning, as if there were some
mighty matter of intrigue and common understanding betwixt you and me,
whom you never set your eyes on before!”
“What!” said Roland Graeme, “will you deny that we have met before?”
“Marry that I will, in any Christian court,” said the other page.
“And will you also deny,” said Roland, “that it was recommended to us
to study each other's features well, that in whatever disguise the time
might impose upon us, each should recognize in the other the secret
agent of a mighty work? Do not you remember, that Sister Magdalen and
Dame Bridget----”
The messenger here interrupted him, shrugging up his shoulders, with
a look of compassion, “Bridget and Magdalen! why, this is madness
and dreaming! Hark ye, Master Holly-top, your wits are gone on
wool-gathering; comfort yourself with a caudle, and thatch your
brain-sick noddle with a woollen night-cap, and so God be with you!”
As he concluded this polite parting address, Adam Woodcock, who was
again seated by the table on which stood the now empty can, said to him,
“Will you drink a cup, young man, in the way of courtesy, now you have
done your errand, and listen to a good song?” and without waiting for an
answer, he commenced his ditty,--
“The Pope, that pagan full of pride,
Hath blinded us full lang--”
It is probable that the good wine had made some innovation in the
falconer's brain, otherwise he would have recollected the danger of
introducing any thing like political or polemical pleasantry into a
public assemblage at a time when men's minds were in a state of great
irritability. To do him justice, he perceived his error, and stopped
short so soon as he saw that the word Pope had at once interrupted the
separate conversations of the various parties which were assembled in
the apartment; and that many began to draw themselves up, bridle, look
big, and prepare to take part in the impending brawl; while others,
more decent and cautious persons, hastily paid down their lawing, and
prepared to leave the place ere bad should come to worse.
And to worse it was soon likely to come; for no sooner did Woodcock's
ditty reach the ear of the stranger page, than, uplifting his
riding-rod, he exclaimed, “He who speaks irreverently of the Holy Father
of the church in my presence, is the cub of a heretic wolf-bitch, and I
will switch him as I would a mongrel-cur.”
“And I will break thy young pate,” said Adam, “if thou darest to lift a
finger to me.” And then, in defiance of the young Drawcansir's threats,
with a stout heart and dauntless accent, he again uplifted the stave.
“The Pope, that pagan full of pride.
Hath blinded--”
But Adam was able to proceed no farther, being himself unfortunately
blinded by a stroke of the impatient youth's switch across his eyes.
Enraged at once by the smart and the indignity, the falconer started
up, and darkling as he was, for his eyes watered too fast to permit
his seeing any thing, he would soon have been at close grips with his
insolent adversary, had not Roland Graeme, contrary to his nature,
played for once the prudent man and the peacemaker, and thrown himself
betwixt them, imploring Woodcock's patience. “You know not,” he said,
“with whom you have to do.--And thou,” addressing the messenger, who
stood scornfully laughing at Adam's rage, “get thee gone, whoever
thou art; if thou be'st what I guess thee, thou well knowest there are
earnest reasons why thou shouldst.”
“Thou hast hit it right for once, Holly-top,” said the gallant, “though
I guess you drew your bow at a venture.--Here, host, let this yeoman
have a bottle of wine to wash the smart out of his eyes--and there is
a French crown for him.” So saying, he threw the piece of money on the
table, and left the apartment, with a quick yet steady pace, looking
firmly at right and left, as if to defy interruption: and snapping his
fingers at two or three respectable burghers, who, declaring it was a
shame that any one should be suffered to rant and ruffle in defence of
the Pope, were labouring to find the hilts of their swords, which had
got for the present unhappily entangled in the folds of their cloaks.
But, as the adversary was gone ere any of them had reached his weapon,
they did not think it necessary to unsheath cold iron, but merely
observed to each other, “This is more than masterful violence, to see
a poor man stricken in the face just for singing a ballad against the
whore of Babylon! If the Pope's champions are to be bangsters in our
very change-houses, we shall soon have the old shavelings back again.”
“The provost should look to it,” said another, “and have some five or
six armed with partisans, to come in upon the first whistle, to teach
these gallants their lesson. For, look you, neighbour Lugleather, it
is not for decent householders like ourselves to be brawling with the
godless grooms and pert pages of the nobles, that are bred up to little
else save bloodshed and blasphemy.”
“For all that, neighbour,” said Lugleather, “I would have curried that
youngster as properly as ever I curried a lamb's hide, had not the hilt
of my bilbo been for the instant beyond my grasp; and before I could
turn my girdle, gone was my master!”
“Ay,” said the others, “the devil go with him, and peace abide with
us--I give my rede, neighbours, that we pay the lawing, and be stepping
homeward, like brother and brother; for old Saint Giles's is tolling
curfew, and the street grows dangerous at night.”
With that the good burghers adjusted their cloaks, and prepared for
their departure, while he that seemed the briskest of the three, laying
his hand on his Andrea Ferrara, observed, “that they that spoke in the
praise of the Pope on the High-gate of Edinburgh, had best bring the
sword of Saint Peter to defend them.”
While the ill-humour excited by the insolence of the young aristocrat
was thus evaporating in empty menace, Roland Graeme had to control the
far more serious indignation of Adam Woodcock. “Why, man, it was but a
switch across the mazzard--blow your nose, dry your eyes, and you will
see all the better for it.”
“By this light, which I cannot see,” said Adam Woodcock, “thou hast been
a false friend to me, young man--neither taking up my rightful quarrel,
nor letting me fight it out myself.”