THE ADMIRAL'S STORY--THE LEGEND OF CORA
---------------- "Peace, Kent!
Come not between the dragon and his wrath:
I lov'd _her_ most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery.--Hence, and avoid my sight
So be my grave my peace, as here I give
Her father's heart from her!"--_King Lear_, Act i.
While the two Scottish caravels (such was the name usually given to
all large ships) lay at Sluys, the admiral left nothing unsaid, in
his rough, hearty fashion, to rouse the spirit and fan the hopes of
David Falconer and Robert Barton; but both sank lower, they grew
weary of the flat shores of Dutch Flanders, with their gaudy houses,
closely clipped hollies and stiff tall poplar trees; and of the
sluggish Scheldt that flowed so noiselessly to the sea in slime and
sunshine; and of rambling among the grass-grown fortifications of
Cadsandt, the cannon of which commanded the navigation of the river;
they were wearied too, by the endless interviews and diplomacy of the
slow, pompous, and full-fed burgomasters of Bruges, Sluys, and
Ardenburg, with their vast circular hats, great bombasted breeches,
and long iron spadas; and heartily they longed to weigh anchor for
home.
"Take courage, and be men," said the Laird of Largo to his two
friends and companions, as they lingered over their wine, one sunny
afternoon, in that famous old hostel on the quay at Sluys, the
"Yung-fraü," kept by Dame Gudule Snichtercloot, who wore a cap with
long ears, a score of petticoats, and had a long-legged stork sitting
dreamily on each of the six steep gables of her house. "Take
courage, carles; gadzooks! had I lost heart thus every time fortune
gave me a head-wind, I had never gathered leeway in life, or been
Laird of Largo and Newbyrne."
"True, true, Sir Andrew," said Barton, gnawing the ends of his
mustachios; "but had the stout old skipper, my father, been a lord of
that ilk--"
"He would have kent to a plack the price of Scottish honour and of
the favour of foreign kings," said the Admiral, bitterly; "but being
a humble man, he deemed that Scotland was the Scotsman's gift from
God--for the poor man's sole inheritance is his country,--and so, he
fought and died for her. Were I the Lion King of Arms, I would enact
a law of heraldry that every Scottish peer and placeman should have
his shield powdered with English rose-nobles, as indicative of the
fealty they are ever ready to transfer for lucre, But were there two
Adams in the Garden of Eden, and two Eves to mate with them, Father
Zuill? I trow not. Gadzooks! one man's blood is as good as the
blood of another, whatever his soul may be. But enough of this--I
could spin you a yarn to the point, though I usually leave that task
to the boatswain. Heard ye ever the story of King Malcolm's daughter
Cora and Mac Ian the royal huntsman?"
"No."
"No" were the replies from each side of the table.
"And of how she wedded a youth of low degree?"
"Cora! I have heard of her," said Father Zuill, who was making a
focus with his glass in the sunshine, and endeavouring to burn a hole
in his cassock; "she was drowned in the Falls of Clyde."
"So sayeth old history, but old history is wrong. 'Twas a tale my
poor mother was wont to tell me, when I was a wee halfling callant
that spent the lee lang summer day in fishing for podleys at the auld
wooden pier of Leith, and rambling on the Mussel-cape; and many a
time have I thought of it after I became a sailor, like my father
before me; and the auld woman's kind voice came to me in dreams, when
the wind rocked me asleep on the swinging topsail-yard. Well, fill
up the bickers--summon another stoup of Dame Snichtercloot's best
Bordeaux, and I'll tell you the tale, for it may give you heart to
bear up against your present crosses, and show how a sair broken ship
may natheless come merrily to land."
After a few more preambles, the admiral began as follows--and
although we have shown hitherto that he spoke in his own dialect, and
mingled his phraseology with many a nautical simile and salt-water
metaphor, lest the reader should tire of these, we have rendered his
story into proper language, and in short preferred to tell it in our
own way:--
Malcolm II., King of Scotland, surnamed Mac Kenneth, (his father, the
victor of Luncarty, being the third of that name) was a wise, just,
and valiant monarch, who divided his realm into provinces, putting
over each a governor or sheriff to restrain the turbulent and
lawless; he encouraged the commons to become skilful husbandmen and
tillers of the soil, and to become merchants and traders on the sea.
Under his rule all the arts of peace flourished, while those of war
were not forgotten; for by his valour he spread his conquests far
beyond the Saxon border, and by the annexation of the northern
counties of England obtained the additional surname of
_Rex Victoriosissimus._
Hence it is, that for many years after, the eldest sons of the kings
of Scotland bore the title of Prince of Cumberland; and hence it is
that we find the inhabitants of these northern counties of England so
Scottish in aspect, dialect, and character. Malcolm had no son; but
he had four daughters, all famous for their charms: the Princess
Beatrix, wife of Crinian Abthane of the Western Isles; the Princess
Doacha, wife of the Thane of Angus, and consequently mother of the
terrible Macbeth; Muriella, married to Sigurd Earl of Orkney; and
lastly, the Princess Cora, the most beautiful lady in the land.
Many powerful thanes and chiefs sought her hand in marriage, but the
principal competitors were Kenneth, a Lord of the Isles; Græme, Thane
of Strathearn; and Dunbar, Thane of Lothian: and so anxious was the
king to secure by her means the firm adherence of one of these
influential nobles, that he would not have hesitated to employ force
and severity, but that he loved the gentle Cora with the tenderest
love that can fill a human breast; for he had transferred to her, in
another form, all the regard he had borne the queen her mother, who
had now passed away to the company of the saints, and whose remains
lay with those of her fathers, among the royal combs of lona.
Yet, when this good king waxed old, when his brow became lyart and
his beard grew white, and when he saw that Cora, his youngest-born,
had expanded into a beautiful woman--full-bosomed, graceful, and
tall, with snow-white skin, soft eyes, and golden hair, he thought in
his secret heart, how gladly he would see her some bold warrior's
bride; lest, when the time came that he too should be borne through
the valley of corpses in Kilmalie, that some of his bearded thanes
and ferocious chiefs might decide the prize of her hand by the sword,
and so deluge the land in Scottish blood.
Many of the great lords were more than usually importunate, because
Malcolm's grandchildren, little Duncan, the son of Beatrix, and the
boy Macbeth, the son of Doacha, might both die in infancy, or when
they grew older, might perish in war, or in the forest, which was
then fraught with danger to the hunter; for the woods were full of
white mountain bulls, bears and wolves, elks, and other wild animals,
that the old Scots of those hardy times loved to encounter and
subdue, for wild sports were their chief pastime.
None of King Malcolm's court loved the chase like the Princess Cora,
and she was ever the foremost of the hunters, mounted on a beautiful
horse, which Gregory, Bishop of St. Andrew's, had procured for her in
Arabia Petræa, with its bridle of silver, at which hung thirteen
blessed bells; and as she gave each of these as a prize to the best
horseman successively, in racing round the ring, the proverb first
came among us of "bearing away the _bell_."
The old king spared no cost in the decoration of her chamber, which
was entirely hung with bright-coloured silk, and its windows were
glazed with clear beryl, though he and his courtiers contented! them
with beds of soft heather, and had nothing in their windows save the
iron gratings which gave them security. Moreover, the floor of her
chamber was laid with the softest furs, and her bed and her pillows
were the finest feathers, all procured by Mac Ian Rua, the Forester
of Dunfermline, and favourite huntsman of the king, in an age when
luxury was almost unknown.
She was an expert citharist, and none in Scotland sang more
beautifully; thus, each night by the royal couch she sat with her
harp on her knees, and sang the old king to sleep by rehearsing the
lay of Aneurin, describing the great Battle of Cattraeth, which was
fought in Etterick Forest, where, five hundred years before, the men
of Dunedin were almost exterminated by the Saxons of Deiria; and this
warlike song made the old king's heart leap within him, and he would
beat time with his fingers, and thus sinking to sleep, would dream of
his early days, of the field of Cramond, the flight of flanes and
shock of spears, and his battles with Danes by the Earn and the Tay.
But his chief favourite was the low sad song of "The Owl," which our
Highlanders yet sing when the cloud of night descends upon the
darkening mountains, word for word as Ossian sang it in Selma, many a
long and misty year ago.
Yet it was strange that three chiefs so powerful, so handsome, and so
valiant as the Thanes of Lothian, Strathearn, and the Isles, should
be without interest in the eyes of the young princess--for a day
seldom passed without their laying some offering before her. Græme
brought from the Perthshire mountains the snow-white hide and sable
horns of the mighty Scottish bull, the tusks of the savage boar, the
antlers of the elk, and the claws of the red-mouthed wolf; to evince
his prowess, Dunbar of Lothian laid before her the painted banners,
the steel helmets, and white linen surcoats of the yellow-haired
Saxons whom he had slain in many a field between the Tweed and Ouse;
while Kenneth of the wave-beaten Isles brought a hundred bearded
harpers, each of whom could frame a hundred songs in her praise, and
the charms of whose united voices filled the air by day and the halls
by night with melody; while by the number and splendour of their
retinues, the usually sequestered court of the good King Malcolm was
a scene of constant gaiety and delight; for the merriment of the
palace seemed to grow apace with the years that grew upon him.
Still the princess remained unwedded, and the bells of many a church
and chapel had rung on her twenty-third birthday, before the king
began to lose patience; but whenever he waxed wroth, or even serious,
Cora spread her white hands over her harp, shook back her long golden
locks from her smiling face, and sang the song of "The Owl" with an
eye so bright and a voice so sweet, that the kind king laughed at her
drollery, kissed her, and was pacified.
Pondering on her opposition to his dearest wishes, one evening when
the sun was low in the west, Malcolm II. left the old tower in the
woods by a secret door, and wandered into the deep dark glen of
Pittencrief.
The sunlight streamed along the wooded hollow, and tinged with many a
brilliant hue the topmost branches of the tallest trees and the red
battlements of the old tower which crowned the summit of the
_Dun_,--a steep and lofty rock, at the base of which flowed a stream.
The brown fox shot across the leafy dell, the dun fuimart peeped from
among the long grass, and the cushat dove cooed on the branches of
the ivied oaks, as the king walked slowly and thoughtfully on, until
he reached a nook in the copsewood, where a pair of lovers were
sitting side by side and hand in hand, with the arm of the man around
the white neck of the maiden, whose soft cheek rested on his brown
and sunburned face.
Then the old king paused, with a finger on his bearded lip, and held
his breath, for their figures seemed familiar to him.
The maiden wore a mantle of yellow linen, with a tunic of scarlet
silk that reached to her ankles, according to the fashion of the
time; and instead of sleeves, this tunic had openings for her arms,
which were white as hawthorn flowers, and were encircled by bracelets
and armlets of fine silver. After the custom of all unmarried women,
her hair, which was of the brightest golden colour, was uncovered,
untied, and flowed in ringlets over her neck; and a brooch, which the
king recognised to have been a gift of his own, beamed on her left
shoulder.
Roused by a step among the last year's leaves, she started, and
turned her beautiful face from her lover's breast, in fear and
confusion.
"Cora!" said the King, in a breathless voice, and stood as one
transfixed.
The youth wore a lurich of linked mail, with a cap of steel, and an
eagle's wing therein. In his hand was a boar-spear, and on his back
a short bow and quiver of arrows; at his belt hung a knife and silver
bugle--for he was no other than the king's own huntsman, the son of
Red John, and usually named Mac Ian Rua.
Malcolm stood silent for a minute, full of anger, grief, and scorn,
for he now knew how her heart by pre-engagement had become
invulnerable, and why the compliments of her princely suitors--the
hardy Kenneth of the Isles, the gallant Græme of Strathearn, and the
splendid Dunbar, who ruled all the fertile Lothians, from the sands
of Tyningham on the east to the Torwood oaks on the west, were heard
in vain.
"My own huntsman, by the holy crook of Saint Fillan! Have I lived to
see my daughter in the arms of Mac Ian Rua?" exclaimed the old King,
bitterly, as he strode forward, with his walking-staff clenched in
his hand.
"Mac Ian," he exclaimed, "thou black-hearted traitor and presumptuous
churl, what punishment is due to one who dares as thou this day hast
dared?"
"Death," replied Mac Ian, without hesitation, yet pale as ashes, and
laying a hand upon his breast, while with the other he handed his
sword to the king; "death, Malcolm Mac Kenneth; and I am ready to
die; strike and rid me of a life, that since the hapless hour I dared
to lift my eyes and heart so high, has been to me a burden and a
toil; for I lived as one who was in daily dread of losing his
all--his life, his sun, and glory! God made thy daughter beautiful,
O king, and if to love her was presumption, strike, strike
_here_--one thrust, and all will be over!"
Pale as a statue, the Princess Cora stood between her incensed father
and her humble but handsome lover, but not one word fell from her
quivering lip, for her tongue was chained by love for both, by fear
and by a pride that was not unmingled with shame, that her father,
the proud old Malcolm II.--Rex Victoriosissimus--should have seen her
hanging like a wanton on a common huntsman's neck.
But if the king was proud, he was also generous, and with dignity
gave back the proffered sword to Mac Ian Rua.
"Mac Ian," said he, "thou has wickedly betrayed the trust I reposed
in thee, in common with all my people; yet will I forgive thee. Take
up thy bow and hunting-spear and begone; if within three days from
this, I find thee within thirty miles of Dunfermline Tower, by the
Stone of Fate, I will have thee torn asunder by wild horses--away!"
Thus commanded, Mac Ian Rua gave the princess a glance of sorrow and
agony, and taking up his spear and bow, made a low reverence to the
king, who watched him with a stern yet glistening eye, as he strode
down the wooded glen and disappeared; for he had ever been his
favourite hunter, and the old monarch had loved well to see Mac Ian
bend that bow against the eagle, as it cleft the azure sky, or launch
that spear against the wild boar, while its angry bristles stood
erect, and its small and sunken eyes shot fire as it whetted its
foam-covered tusks on the stump of some sturdy oak; and well had the
good Malcolm loved to hear his favourite huntsman's bugle waking the
wooded echoes of Pittencrief; and he now reflected almost with
sadness, that he would never hear that ringing horn more.
"And as for _thee_, Cora," said the King, "the Black Abbess of Iona
shall soon have thee under her care; thou knowest her? Muriella Mac
Fingon--stern, ascetic, cold as ice, and immovable as the black
stones of the isle; well, she shall have thee, if not as a nun, at
least as one who requires much good guidance, wise counsel, and
purification by prayer."
In a chamber of the old Tower, Cora secluded herself from all, and
wept over this discovery and separation with shame, anger, and grief;
but none shared the emotions of the king, save the young Macbeth, the
son of Doacha, and _his_ anger had no bounds; for he swore by the
pillow of Jacob, on which our kings are crowned, and by the black
rood of Scotland, that no mercy should be shown to Mac Ian; and for
three days this furious boy scoured all Fife in search of him,
beating every thicket and wood between Ardross and the Castle of
Lindores.
But who could baffle the pursuit, or trace the steps of a hunter so
wary, so bold, and expert as Mac Ian Rua? He had gone off towards
the woods and mountains of the south and west; he crossed the Forth
at Stirling Bridge, not the present one, but the more ancient, which
was built in the days of Donald V., and inscribed--
"I am free to march, as passengers may ken,
To Scots, to Britons, and to English-men;"
and passing through the mighty forest of the Torwood, he went no man
knew whither; at least the fiery young prince and his followers could
never discover him, though a hundred head of cattle were offered for
him dead or alive.
Notwithstanding his indignation, and the justness thereof, the old
king soon missed his favourite huntsman sorely, for he loved all
manner of forestry and venery, and Mac Ian had vigorously enforced
all the laws of the woods; but now these were outraged and broken
daily; for there was none so faithful to the king as he had been. So
all the ancient rules of the forest were violated; stray droves of
cattle broke through the royal wood at the time of St. John's Feast;
men with horn and hound passed the night there; no longer did three
blasts of a bugle announce to the keeper of the royal kitchen that
Mac Ian had found a stray cow or flock of sheep, lawfully escheat to
the king; goats rambled through the parks, and the new huntsman
omitted to hang up one by the horns, according to the ancient use and
wont; carts and wains passed through, and if the fine of thirty
silver pence was exacted, the new forester spent them at the
ale-brewster's, while the keeper of the king's wood and grass
declared by all the devils he could no longer preserve either, for
one was cut and the other eaten,--for waife-beasts rambled, and wild
men hunted with spear and horn, and laughed at the rangers, for they
now feared none, since Mac Ian Rua was gone.
Rumours of these things reached Cora in her bower; her colour came
and went, and her eyes brightened as her old nurse told them; for
these acknowledgments of her lover's courage and gallant bearing
pleased and gratified her; but now, more than ever incensed against
his daughter, the old king resolved to consign her, for a time at
least, to the care of the rigid and reverend mother, Muriella, among
those servants of God, the canonesses of Saint Augustine. There he
hoped by prayer and solitude, by the force of good example and of
pious precept, that Cora would be led into a proper train of thought;
that the low-born churl, Mac Ian, would be banished from her memory;
and that in good time she would accept as her husband one of those
noble thanes or earls, who, in their love for her and jealousy of
each other, were ready to clutch each other's beards.
Malcolm loved this bright-haired daughter--his last and
youngest--dearly; yet he steeled his heart against her sorrows and
reluctance to be immured in that lone Hebridean Isle, and with a
train of faithful attendants departed from his Tower of Dunfermline
in the woods of Fife, towards the Clyde, where Gillespie Campbell,
the great Lord of Lochawe, was to have one of his largest birlinns in
waiting to convey the royal train from the wooden bridge of Glasgow
in all safety to the Port-na-curragh of Iona; and this birlinn was to
be steered by one who had thrice, in the name of the Blessed Trinity,
stretched his hand over the _Black stones_ of the isle; for it was an
old superstition--yea, old as the days of the Druids, that the
timoneer who did so would never fail in his steering; and that the
vessel he guided would assuredly come safe to land. But vain were
all their reckonings, and vain their preparations.
Among the apple groves and oaken woods of Clydesdale the king and his
train lingered long, for he loved well the free green wood, and at
every turn of the old paved Roman Way by which they traversed that
long and lovely dale, the great Scottish bull, with his snow-white
mane and sable horns, shot past, crushing the trees in his path, and
making even the ravening wolf and stubborn boar fly before him.
Thus, as the king's train rode on, many a _détour_ was made, many a
shaft was shot, and many a lance was flung; but he saw none whose
hand was so perfect, or whose aim was so true as those of Mac Ian Rua
had been; and the beautiful princess smiled brightly at their
discomfiture as she rode by the margin of the descending Clyde,
making her fine Arabian horse caracole and paw the soft air of the
warm summer morning.
And now the ceaseless din of falling water was heard, where the
stream rolled over a linn of tremendous height and breadth.
There, roaring and rushing between their wooded shores, the whole
waters of the Clyde, in one mighty volume, poured over a sheer
precipice of four-and-eighty feet, down, down below, into a black and
weltering pool, from whence the foam arose like smoke, but tinted by
a hundred rainbow hues, in the hot sunshine that fell between the
jagged rocks and tangled woods like a steady flood of light, to
brighten the gushing flood of water.
Bewildered by the whirling and screaming of the wild birds, by the
grandeur and sublimity of the scene, and almost stunned by a dreamy
sense that stole over him while listening to the endless roar of that
tremendous linn, cascade, or deluge that thundered down between the
shattered woods, and boiled in foam against the upheaved crags till
it shook the very shore, King Malcolm, with his white locks streaming
on the wind from under his cap of steel, which was as girt by a crown
of golden trefoils, reined in his horse upon the brink, with his
shrinking daughter by his side, and gazed over the natural rampart
into the wild confusion of waters that hissed and boiled in the gulf
which yawned far down below.
"Look down, dear Cora," said he, kindly,--for his soul was awed;
"look down if thou darest; for in all my kingdom, from Caithness to
the Tyne, there is not such another linn as this. The very spray, as
it cometh upward from that dark pool below, hangs on our hair like
dew!"
At that moment, a cry broke from all the royal attendants, for
scared, some say, by a loud blast from a bugle which sounded like
that of Mac Ian Rua,--others say by the din of the mighty waterfall,
the fiery Arabian steed of the princess reared up on the very verge
of that tremendous brink--reared until its sable mane was mingling
with its rider's golden hair, and wildly shook its head, till every
silver bell at its bit and bridle jangled, and with Cora on its back,
plunged headforemost down into that deep and awful den, the depth of
which no mortal hand had fathomed, and which the boldest eye shrunk
from contemplating!
In a moment Cora--the laughing and beautiful Cora, and her fiery
horse, had vanished into that hideous maelstrom, which for ages had
swallowed up rocks, trees, and herds, with all the _débris_ swept
down by that mighty stream from Clydesdale and the Western Lowlands!
The poor king closed his eyes in horror; he stretched his trembling
hands to Heaven in silent agony, and by the quivering of his bearded
lips his nobles knew that he was praying devoutly; and after
commending his soul to God, he uttered a cry of despair, and was
urging his steed towards the brink, when Græme, Kenneth, and Dunbar,
the three lovers of his daughter, with Duncan, Earl of Caithness,
Hugo of Aberbuthnoth, old Thomas of Errol, with his three sons, whose
sturdy hands and hearts in former years had turned the tide of battle
at Luncarty, flung themselves before him, and dragged his terrified
horse from the giddy verge, and forcibly conducted him from the
terrible scene.
Far down below the fall, where, calm and blue and shining, the broad
majestic river rolled between its thick dark woodlands to the sea,
three days after, the Arabian horse was found, swollen and drowned
upon the sand, with its silver bridle and all its tinkling bells; but
no trace appeared of the poor princess, from whom that fall upon the
Clyde, even to this day, bears the name of _Cora Lynn_.
Long and deep was the sorrow of the old and lonely Malcolm, who
returned to his grim and gloomy tower among the woods of Dunfermline,
and committing the care of the kingdom to Dunbar, the justiciar of
Lothian, Duncan, the chancellor, and Nicholas, the secretary, he gave
himself up to grief and contemplation, prayer, and long communings
with Gregory the Bishop of Saint Andrew's, who made him found and
endow thirteen chapels to St. Mary, in thirteen different districts;
a proceeding which, if it failed to ease the mind of the king, at
least eased his treasurer of all the superfluous cash in his
exchequer.