THE DOUBLE BRIBE.
"Sordid, mean, and miserly, he has made various compacts, he has made
a compact with pride; a compact with avarice; a compact with knavery;
a compact with ambition; a compact with contempt; a compact with
mammon; a compact with all the evil passions, and with all the
fiends!"--_Tantalus._
"Welcome as a fair wind!" said Barton, leaping lightly ashore, though
he was heavily armed in a suit of black unpolished armour, and
carried in his hand a Jedwood axe--"Welcome, doughtie Davie."
"And welcome thou, my comrade and shipmate," replied Falconer, as
they drew off their steel gloves, and shook hands, but without a
smile, for their hearts were full of stern thoughts.
"What tidings are there 'long shore, eh?" asked Barton.
"Evil enough--the lords are all in arms in the Carse, and to-morrow
we hope to give them battle."
"Would I might leave the ship and share it with thee!"
"And why not?" asked Falconer.
"The admiral----"
"True--true."
"'Tis said these lords have a hundred thousand men under their
banner."
"Rumour says even more," added Falconer.
"But rumour is a landlubber, and often lies: and the king, how many?"
"Only thirty thousand men, to my certain knowledge, but all good men
and true, and God will bless their cause. Have any tidings of
Howard's ships reached thee yet?"
"Not a whisper--nor has a boat boarded us since the king marched west
from Alloa. On board we hear no more than a deep-sea lead, when
down. Would that we could meet him!" added Robert Barton, twisting
his mustachios. "To me the opening cannon of that English fleet were
welcome as a peal of merry marriage bells. Any message from the fair
sisters in Strathearn?"
"Alas, none! and I suppose there is no intelligence of the lost Lady
Margaret?"
"None--a strange mystery!"
"Can she be with Rothesay among the rebel lords?"
"Impossible! for Rothesay then would leave their banner. Hostility,
despair, and old Lord Drummond's wiles alone detain the prince among
them; for Sir James Shaw, who twice to-day bent the cannon of
Stirling against the king, and also Sir Patrick of Kyneff, declare
aloud that James has hidden or poisoned her."
"I should like to meet, on clear deck or open field, an armed man who
would say so much to me!" said Barton, grasping his Jedwood axe.
"Dost think we will have a fair day for the battle to-morrow; for the
rain so bedevils our gun-matches."
"Fair--I think so," said Barton, looking at the starry sky. "As
Archy the boatswain says--
"When the mist takes to the German sea,
Fair weather, shipmate, it will be;
But when the mist rolls owre the land,
The rain comes pouring off the sand;"
so the mist took to the sea this morning. And now, shipmate of mine,
what errand brings thee to the Craigward to-night?"
"A message from the Duke of Montrose to the admiral."
"Well, and what is his grace's desire?"
"That, as we have, perhaps more chance of being vanquished than
victorious on the morrow, he will keep his boats along the shore
here, to take off all fugitives and wounded men, and so provide a
safe retreat for the king, who in case of reverse (which God avert!)
will be conveyed by faithful friends this way."
"So James retreats _this way_!" said the lurker overhead.
"And how shall we know him?" asked Barton.
"By the Lord Lindesay's famous grey horse, which he is to ride on the
morrow, and by a yellow plume in his helmet."
"Good," said Barton; "I shall note them in the log-book of my memory."
"Good, and so shall I," muttered the friar, overhead. "_A grey horse
and a yellow plume_ will be readily known on the morrow."
"Hark," said Barton, as the listener withdrew; "dost thou not hear
something?"
"Can we be watched?" exclaimed Falconer, grasping the hand-gun at his
saddle-bow. "A muffled man--one at least in a friar's cowl, followed
me to-night, pace for pace, from the Wolf Craig to the Polmaise."
"Cuddie--ho, there!--keep the boat close in," cried Barton, looking
sharply round him. "A friar, said ye--and there is one, even now, at
the top of the Craigward!"
Barton sprang to the summit of the bank with all the agility of a
sailor, and grasping the lurker by the frock, as he was crawling
away, dragged him roughly down to the beach.
"How now, sir friar, what seek you here?" asked Falconer, recognising
the priest he had met at the Wolf Craig.
"A passage across the ferry."
"Then you are not likely to get it, for the rebels have burned the
boat, and the oarsmen have fled," replied Barton, releasing him, and
half ashamed of having shown so much warmth before a clergyman. "Why
did you not come boldly forward and say go at once, good friar,
instead of crawling about there like a parboiled parton--eh?"
"This is not a time to venture rashly among armed men."
"The friar is right," said Falconer; "and such was perhaps his reason
for avoiding me in the Torwood."
"Moreover, I am a friend of the Lord Drummond, bound on a peaceful
mission to two gentlemen of the king's ships," said the friar, the
upper and lower parts of whose face were concealed by his hood.
"We know most of the men in the king's ships, father," said Barton,
in an altered tone; "and for whom may your message be?"
"Robert Barton, captain of the _Yellow Frigate_, and Sir David
Falconer, captain of the king's arquebussiers."
There was a pause, during which the persons mentioned gazed at each
other and then at the friar.
"Priest, thou gibest us," said Barton, bluntly; "for we are the men
you speak of."
"How shall I be assured of that, sirs?"
"Ask our names of the boat's crew, if you doubt us," said Falconer.
"It is enough--I now recognise ye both, sirs."
"A sudden recognition!"
"Well, friar, thou'st the weathergage of us, and knowest our rank and
rating now; but what would the Lord Drummond with us?" asked Barton.
"Step a little this way; what I have to tell must not be overheard,"
said the friar, drawing them a few paces from the boat.
"Sir David Falconer, you love the Lord Drummond's daughter, Sybilla?"
Falconer was silent, for the sound of that beloved name made his
heart leap under his cuirass.
"And you, Robert Barton, love her sister, Euphemia?"
"Silence, friar!" said Barton, angrily; "what hast thou to do with
this?"
"Thus much, that the Lord Drummond, the High Steward of Strathearn,
sent me to say, that if you will make the admiral prisoner, seize his
ships, and deliver them to the lords, ye yet win your brides; but
refuse, and you shall never see them more."
"Villain monk, thou liest!--the Lord Drummond is a gentleman!" said
Falconer, furiously.
"He is more," said the monk, sneeringly; "he is a Scottish noble."
"In that word _noble_ lies a world of treason," said Barton; "but he
was wise to send a priest on this infernal mission, for with this axe
I had cloven a layman to the chine."
"Very likely," sneered the monk again; "for useful and honourable men
are never appreciated in this world--they are ever unfortunate."
"Such priests as thee will be fully appreciated in the world to
come," said Falconer.
"Do not let us quarrel, sirs," said the tempter, with assumed
meekness, crossing his hands upon his breast; "I am but the Lord
Drummond's mouthpiece; and he said, Sir David, that your pay as
captain of the king's arquebussiers would go but a short way, with a
houseful of little Davies and Sybies crying for bannocks, cheese, and
Christmas-boxes."
This sneer enraged the soldier, but he heard it with apparent disdain.
"So you will not win your brides, fair sirs--yea, with as many gold
pieces each as would fill a Linlithgow firlot."
"English, no doubt," said Falconer.
"Of course," added Barton; "what other coin could pay for Scottish
treason? No--we will not win our brides thus, but by lance and sword
will we win them on the morrow; so, base slubberdegullion, slip your
cable and sheer off--begone, or by my father's bones, now bleaching
in the English Downs, I will tie thee in thy Mar's frock as in a
sack, and sink thee with a whinstone bullet; though thou art more
likely to die with a fathom of rope than a fathom of water over thy
shaven crown! Away; ship your oars, my hearts," he added, springing
into the boat, as Falconer leaped on his horse; "Farewell, gossip
Davie--God speed thee back to Stirling, and give us victory on the
morrow. I will not forget to look for the yellow plume, though I
pray it may never come here on the head of a fugitive king. Give
way, lads; we have been off a full hour by the glass;--give way for
the ship."
The boat shot off from the shore into the stream, the rowers keeping
time with Dalquhat, who pulled the stroke oar, and all their blades
flashed in the moonlight, as Sir David Falconer, without bestowing a
word or glance on the recreant friar, galloped up the slope and along
the Carse by the old Roman Way that led to Stirling.
The moment they were gone, the friar threw back his hood and
displayed to the white moon, then sailing high aloft in the clear
blue sky, the evil visage of Hew Borthwick, over the deep sinister
eyes and hateful mouth of whom a laugh spread as he said--
"Fools! The bodachs of Angus, the men of the Mearns, the Whelps of
the Black Bitch, and the Souters of Selkirk--yea, even the canny folk
of Aberdeen--are in arms against you, and yet ye hope for victory! I
am now a Stirling laird, duly infeft and seized with earth and stone.
Well, well! they laugh merrily who laugh the last. A little more of
Henry's gold, and my fortune is made! In the battle of to-morrow, a
crown will be lost and won; and I shall gain a thousand _crowns_ if I
can bear to Berwick-gate sure tidings of King James's death! The
_yellow plume---the yellow plume_,--I shall watch for it in yonder
field to-morrow as one who is damned watches for the first blink of
redemption!"