THE TORWOOD.
"On earth 'twas yet all calm around,
A pulseless silence, dread, profound,--
More awful than the tempest's sound."
_Lalla Rookh._
It is recorded in history that James III. made a second effort to
overcome the treason of Shaw, but in vain. The message delivered by
Sir David Falconer and Lord Bothwell, commander of the Royal Guard,
was received with derision and contempt; and for the evening and
night the king remained in the town of Stirling, with all his troops
around it, and fully resolved to fight the insurgents on the morrow,
if they advanced against him.
Rumours of their great strength made the few faithful nobles who
adhered to James doubtful of victory and fearful for his safety;
thus, the good old Duke of Montrose desired Sir David Falconer to
bear a message to Sir Andrew Wood, who was still anchored off Alloa,
requesting him to have his boats along the beach and near the Carse,
to take off all fugitives and wounded men of either party who might
pass that way. As the Torwood--a vast forest of primeval oaks which
covered most of the Carse to the eastward of Stirling--was full of
wolves, wild deer, and, worse than these, the hunting and wandering
parties of the insurgents, this duty was a task of no ordinary
danger; but the gallant captain of the king's arquebusses prepared
for it with alacrity; resolving, if molested, to trust to a ready
hand, a sharp sword, and a swift horse.
Accoutred in his harness, back, breast, and head-pieces, armlets and
gloves, or, as the Acts of James I. say, "weel horsed and weel
harnished as gentlemen oucht to be," with lance, sword, dagger, and a
hand-gun at his saddle-bow, Falconer quitted his lodgings in the
Friars' Wynd, near the Meal-market, and rode down the steep streets
of Stirling on his mission, just as the sun was setting afar off
behind the mountains of the Highland frontier. He had wisely taken
from his helmet the knot of _red_ and _yellow_ ribbons--the royal
colours--which the Duchess of Montrose and her _dames d'honneur_ had
prepared and bestowed upon the gentlemen of the royal army; thus he
had nothing to distinguish him as he rode on his solitary mission,
and he could pass for loyalist or traitor, according to circumstances.
He passed out of Stirling by an ancient porte near the Wolf's Craig,
where, in the war of Donald V., a sentinel, when asleep, and been
awakened by the growl of a wolf, and started to his sword just in
time to find a horde of Saxon invaders close by; they were routed;
and to this day we may still see on the old burgh seals a wolf,
recumbent on a rock, with seven stars above it in the sky, in memory
of how the town was saved. As Falconer gave his steed a draught of
the pure spring that flows from St. Ninian's well, a dark frocked
figure--an Augustine of Cambuskenneth apparently--was similarly
occupied in watering his nag, a stout Galloway cob.
"Good morrow, father; I hope you are come to bless the cause of the
king," said Falconer. But he received no answer; so leaving the well
and chapel behind, he wheeled off to the left, between the deepening
shadows of the Torwood and the stupendous eminence crowned by the
town; and at a rapid trot pursued the old Roman route towards the
north-west.
This time-worn path was solitary and deserted; at such a crisis none
were abroad save well-armed men, and now all these in the
neighbourhood were within the walls of Stirling or cantoned around
it. In the stillness of the summer eve, he heard the cattle lowing
in the Queen's haugh, where the herds of the Queen were grazing, for
the lordship of Stirling was the dowry of the queens-consort of
Scotland.
The summer moon rose clearly and brightly above the dark foliage of
the Torwood, and its silver light mingled with the yellow flush of
the western sky, and threw forward in black and bold relief the sharp
ridge of Stirling, with its castled rock, its turreted chateaux and
old square gothic spire; the wooded Abbey Craig, on which were the
ruins of a castle, with the Forth winding like a gigantic snake of
silver between thickets of beautiful coppice, and forming those green
links of rich alluvial land which, in all ages, have been so
proverbial for their pasture and fertility. Above these towered the
lofty Abbey of St. Mary of Cambuskenneth--massive, rich, and strong,
as when King David built it three hundred and forty years before; and
lights began to twinkle in the painted windows of its church and
dormitories as the daylight faded behind the gigantic Ochils, and as
the river that swept around it turned from silver to a cold, yet
bright star-studded blue; and the mighty bell which swung in the
highest tower was tolling the hour of ten, and summoning the
Augustines to prayer, as the arquebussier rode on, and passing the
abbey and river on his left, dipped into the wood. The head of this
great abbey was usually a powerful and wealthy lord. Henry, the then
abbot, was sent ambassador to England a few years after the period we
write of.
As the last note of its melodious bell--which, strange to say, as yet
lying in the Forth, just where the Reformers sunk it--died away upon
the wind, and the road grew dark as the lofty oaks of the Torwood
arched their branches over it, forming, as it were, a lofty tunnel of
twined and matted foliage, Falconer thought he heard the hoofs of a
horse behind him: he checked his own for a moment, and looked back.
He saw only the monk mounted on his stout little cob, and well
muffled up in his black gown and cowl: so the soldier turned and rode
on, though it was evident that the stranger had also for a moment
checked his speed.
As Falconer crossed the Bannock he again looked back; the monk was
still in sight, preserving his distance, and pursuing at a trot, the
old Roman way. Falconer turned to ride back and meet this follower,
who immediately wheeled round and galloped in the opposite direction
to avoid him.
"Poor friar--my harness frightens him!" thought Falconer, as he
resumed his way. "By my faith, but these are sharp times, when
peaceful monks and men of God tremble at the sight of their own
countrymen!"
He soon dismissed the circumstance from his mind, on remembering that
it was a peculiarity of the Augustines or Canons Regular, that they
took charge of parish churches and performed ecclesiastical functions
in any place, whereas the contemplative orders never left their
convent walls. As he passed Polmaise (or the Pool of _Rotting_, so
named from the thousands of bodies that lay unburied there after the
Battle of Bannockburn), he again heard the hoofs of the priest's cob
following closely and warily behind him.
"'Tis intolerable, this!" said Falconer, as ideas of spies and
assassins were suggested to his mind, and he remembered that twice he
had recently escaped a barbarous death. "Come on, good father," he
cried, "come on, and fear nothing, for I am a peaceful man, though
armed, as you see."
To this the priest made no response, but again wheeled his horse to
the right, and dashed into the recesses of the Torwood.
"Suspicious, this!" thought Falconer; "and if I find thee tracking me
again, I will try the effect of a hand-gun shot on thee, wert thou
the last of all the friars in Scotland."
He listened for a time, but all was still, save some distant and
uncertain sounds that rose from the recesses of the forest and
floated in the still air overhead; but whether these were the notes
of hunting horns recalling straggling parties, or wild wolves baying
at the summer moon, seemed uncertain; so, once more he resumed his
way, and at a hand-gallop passed the manor of Throsk, crossed the
fertile Carse, turned round a link of the Forth, and descended to the
Craigward or King's Ferry, where the river is still crossed by a boat.
Here the Forth is only half-a-mile broad at high water. Opposite lay
dusky Alloa, with its lights twinkling among masses of quaint old
buildings, and the smoke of their chimneys ascending into the pure
still air of the evening, which had now almost blended with the dewy
night. The woods, the castle, and the town were reflected downward
in the stream, in the mid-channel of which were the _Yellow Frigate_
and _Queen Margaret_, with their consorts, lying at anchor, with all
their boats hoisted in, their courses loose, the upper portlids
triced up and the guns run out; strong watches were on deck, with
battle-axe and arquebuss, and all ready for sea and service at a
moment's notice.
Dismounting, Falconer took his horse by the bridle and led it close
down to the water-edge at the Craigward, and selecting a place where
the boor-trees grew thick and mingled with the wild Scottish roses
and the woodbine in a matted screen, over a scaured bank which the
river had scooped as if to form a place of concealment, he looked
cautiously round and listened for a moment, and all was still, save
the ripple of the stream as it flowed towards the sea. He placed to
his mouth a silver-mounted bugle that hung at his girdle, and blew
one low, winding, and peculiar note. It floated away over the river,
and ere it died in the distance, the shrill whistle of Archy the
boatswain was heard on board the admiral's ship--a boat plashed as it
was lowered into the moonlit water, the crew were seen to drop
lightly down from the chains, and the oars gleamed, as Cuddie the
coxswain pushed off from the carved and painted side of the high and
formidable caravel.
At that moment Falconer heard something crackling among the
boor-trees above his head. He looked upward suspiciously, but could
perceive nothing.
"Tush," thought he, "I have scared some red fuimart or todlowrie from
its lair--yet every leaf that stirs startles me to-night."
He had forgotten the suspicious friar; but had he looked more
narrowly he might have seen that respectable personage, with his head
uncowled, with neck outstretched, with a hand behind one ear to let
not a sound escape, and with grey, malignant eyes, half starting from
their sockets, while, screened among the leaves, he bent over the
bank to see and hear what this bugle-sound, the answering whistle,
and shore-rowed boat portended--for our monk was a spy!