Andrew?" demanded the King, impatiently. "These doubts are worse
than ignorance."
"Another time we may find fit opportunity to solve them, good my
liege," replied the Astrologer, with a low reverence. "The spirit
of divination hath passed from me, and I am now no more than a
weak and blind mortal. And see! even the heavens have refused to
yield up farther knowledge of future events to the sons of earth,
for they have wrapped themselves up in one dark and impenetrable
veil of cloud. To-night the book of fate is shut!--Saw ye that! The
elements themselves forbid all farther question."
As he spoke, a terrible glare of lightning blazed around them,
momentarily illuminating every feature of the grand scenery by which
they were surrounded. A fearful clap of thunder again burst over their
heads with awful magnificence, and rolled terribly away. A furious
wind began to blow, and large drops of rain descended, a tempest
was approaching, and the King, sunk, disheartened, and unsatisfied,
was driven in by the natural results of those threatenings in the sky,
which he had been so attentively watching, to brood upon those fanciful
horrors and dangers with which they, in reality, had no connection. He
returned towards the Queen's apartment in deep thought, and he had
entered it fully, before the notes of the music that still sounded
in it had power to rouse him from his abstraction. Sir Walter Stewart
still sat near the Queen's footstool, singing to the accompaniment of
his lute, and her Majesty and her maids of honour were still eagerly
occupied in listening.
"Ha!" cried King James, as he recovered perfect consciousness of the
scene before him, and speaking with a highly disturbed air and tone;
"Methought our privacy had been relieved from all further interruption
for this night?"
"Pardon, my liege!--my love!" cried the Queen, rising from her chair,
and affectionately taking his arm. "Pardon, if we have done aught to
displeasure thee! I and my maidens had a mind to hear again that sweet
ballad of Sir Walter Stewart's making, which he sang so pleasantly
to us the other night, as you may remember. He was brought back,
therefore, in obedience to my command, and if there be aught of blame
in this, it is all mine own. That he hath staid so long after he did
return, if fault in that there be, it must be charged against his own
pleasing minstrelsy, which did so enchain the ears of his hearers,
that time passed by unheeded."
"Permit me, your Majesty, to take my leave," said Sir Walter, making
his wonted obeisance to the King as he retired.
"Good night," said the King, with more of condescension, but with
less of warmth than he was accustomed to use towards one whom he so
much favoured.
All that night the royal mind was vexed by frightful waking visions,
that haunted it to the exclusion of sleep. In vain did his Majesty try
to embody them into any thing like a clear and connected picture of
coming events. But dark though the ground was upon which he worked,
certain prominent lights continually started from it, and remained
stationary before him, so as ultimately to fix themselves in some
degree upon him as probable truths. The most stimulating of these might
be guessed at, from the royal orders which were issued on the following
morning. The Court was hastily and unexpectedly removed to Edinburgh
Castle; and soon afterwards, the two Princes of the blood-royal,
the Duke of Albany, and the Earl of Mar, were, to the astonishment of
all men, seized and made prisoners. Mar was confined in Craigmillar
Castle. But of Albany, the King seemed anxious to take especial care,
for he was committed to custody in Edinburgh Castle itself, where he
might be more particularly guarded under the royal eye.
Yet all this did not seem to have relieved James' mind from the terrors
which had taken possession of it. The approach of the nobles to the
royal person was less encouraged than it had ever been. The King's
favourites, though still permitted to have their usual intercourse
with him, were all in their turns looked upon at times with an eye
of doubt. Sir Walter Stewart sensibly felt, that he was subjected to
a greater portion of the effects of this suspicious temper than any
of the others. An excuse had been found for his being deprived of
such apartments in the Castle of Edinburgh, as he had had in that
of Stirling, and he was obliged to hire lodgings within the walls
of the city. His presence at the private parties in the Queen's
apartment was rarely, if ever, required. The musical meetings there
were of themselves less frequent, and when they did take place, he
was not among the number of the performers. To make amends for this,
he spent more of his time in the pursuit of his favourite science,
with the fair Juliet Manvers, in the apartments of Sir William Rogers,
and as the lady seemed to be making, day after day, greater inroads
upon his heart, so did Sir Walter Stewart himself rise every day more
and more in the estimation of the musical knight. With such a source
of amusement, Sir Walter was less affected by the coldness which he
experienced at court, than might have been naturally supposed. But
he felt deeply for the confinement of the Princes, with whom he had
been admitted into habits of intimacy that bordered upon the warmth
of friendship. Yet, much as he was personally attached to them, and
anxiously as he would have wished to have befriended them, he knew
enough to convince him that he could make no effort in their behalf,
that would not have a certain tendency to lead to some fatal issue,
both as regarded them and himself. But the death of the Earl of Mar,
which happened soon afterwards, and which was most suspiciously given
out as having taken place suddenly, by apoplexy, in a warm bath, so
roused his feelings, that he resolved to take the first opportunity
of making some attempt to save Albany, and to this he was more
immediately stimulated by something that occurred to him one night,
as he was walking and ruminating on the Castle-hill.
"Sir Walter Stewart," said a man, who stood muffled up in a cloak, to
him, as he was striding slowly past, unconscious that there was any one
near him, "wilt thou not halt for a moment to speak to an old friend?"
"My Lord Huntly!" cried Sir Walter, in astonishment, after approaching
the figure, and ascertaining who it was that spoke.
"Hush!--Name me not so loudly!" replied Huntly. "The very air hath
ears, yea, and eyes too. I am here in secret and in disguise. Were
I discovered, my life might pay for it. Come farther this way into
the shadow. I would speak with thee about matters which no one else
must hear, and my time is short. We must save Albany!"
"Most willingly would I aid in doing so," replied Sir Walter. "But
how is his safety to be secured?"
"Thou canst be eminently useful," replied Huntly.
"I know thy zeal in a friend's behalf, and although thou mightest have
shown some unwillingness to take part with us, when our grievances
amounted to nothing more than royal neglect, yet perhaps thou
mayest now be more sharpened to our purpose, when thou seest that
the murderous knife hath already been drawn upon us, that the first
victim hath been already sacrificed, and that victim too a high and
noble prince of the blood royal, who was, moreover, thy friend."
"Nay, surely thou dost not believe that my Lord Mar died other than
a natural death?" said Sir Walter.
"A natural death!" exclaimed Huntly.--"Aye, a death naturally occurring
from a weak and cruel brother's jealousy. That species of natural
death, to wit, which the sheep may very naturally receive from the
hand of the butcher!"
"Why, they say he died in a bath;" said Sir Walter.
"And in so saying they say truly," replied Huntly. "Of a truth he
died in a bath--a hot bath, into which he was kindly put to recover
him from a deep cut in the main artery of his arm, given him by one
of the royal executioners."
"'Tis horrible, if true!" said Sir Walter, shuddering.
"'Tis as true as it is horrible," continued Huntly. "And now methinks I
may trust to your being less scrupulous in listening to the grievances
of the lords, than thou wert when I last touched the topic with thee
at Stirling."
"My Lord," replied Sir Walter, "I will honestly tell thee, that
to save Albany, a man whom I honour as a royal prince and a highly
accomplished knight, and whom, moreover, I hold in deep affection
as a friend, I am willing to put mine own life to utmost peril, and
this the more too, that if I can save him I shall think that my so
doing will be the preserving of the right arm of Scotland. But in any
thing that may touch my fealty directly to the person of King James,
I must be held excused, seeing that I have already received too much
kindness from his Majesty, to permit me to prove in anywise a rebel
to him,--but in this matter of the Duke of Albany, my judgment tells
me that I shall, by saving him, be doing good service to my king as
well as to my country."
"Then let us leave all else at present, and talk of this matter in
hand," said Huntly. "Thou art well versed in the customs and affairs
of France, and canst speak its tongue. Couldst thou not contrive to
discover, whether some barque may not be soon looked for from thence
with merchandize?"
"So far, my Lord, I can answer thee here upon the spot," replied
Sir Walter. "It so chances that I look daily for the arrival of a
captain, well known to me, who trades in wine. He is the bearer of
certain casks for me, and I can therefore go to inquire regarding
him without much suspicion. It shall be done to-morrow."
"This is most lucky," said Huntly. "So now let us consider well as
to our plans. Knowest thou how the Duke is guarded?"
"I do not lodge within the castle," replied Sir Walter. "Nor am I
so often within its walls as I wont to be. But this I know, that
the Duke is guarded most strictly. The captain of the guard himself
keeps the key of the apartment where he is imprisoned, and where,
to make all things secure, his chamberlain is locked up with him,
and no one is allowed to go in or out who is not in the first place
most narrowly examined. But yet will I scrupulously observe, and make
myself master of the whole circumstances, and of the exact position
of things, and it will go hard with me if I cannot find some way of
baffling their vigilance."
"Then let us part to-night, lest we be observed," said Huntly. "That
accursed astrologer, Flemish Andrew, may again start up before us,
like the devil in our path."
"Um," replied Sir Walter, doubtingly; "thou mayest not be very far
from the truth in thy evil suspicions of him, my Lord. I liked not
his last visit."
"Well, no matter," said the Earl; "to-morrow night we may meet again."
"Aye, to-morrow night--here, and at the same hour," replied Sir
Walter. "But if I come not, my Lord, I would have thee believe, that
if not unwillingly detained by the King, I may perhaps be employing
myself more usefully elsewhere."
"I shall so believe," replied Huntly; "then farewell till our next
meeting, be that when it may."
The friends then parted, and took different ways, to avoid all chance
of being seen together, and Sir Walter Stewart was about to enter the
head of the close where his lodging was situated, when he was accosted
by a person who came limping up to him, with all the appearance of
a jaded foot traveller, and who addressed him in humble, but by no
means clownish, salutation.
"Sir Knight," said he, "wilt thou vouchsafe to pardon me, a stranger,
and deign to tell me whether thou canst direct me to the lodging of
Sir Walter Stewart of Stradawn?"
"Surely I have heard that voice before," said the knight, without
replying to the question.
"Sir Walter!--My father!" exclaimed the other in great surprise.
"What!" exclaimed Sir Walter, in no less astonishment, and in any
thing but a gracious tone, "Charley Stewart! In the name of all
that is wonderful what hath brought thee to Edinburgh?--This is not
well. Methought I had arranged all things to thy heart's content,
for thy proper employment in thine own native district. But I forget
how time flies. Doubtless ere this thou art as learned in thine art,
and in the use of the goose, needles, shears, and bodkin, as the
great and accomplished Mr. Jonathan Junkins himself."
"I crave your pardon, Sir Knight," replied Charley. "Ill as the spirit
of the Stewart that is within me might brook such mean drudgery,
I struggled hard to break it into the destiny which thou hadst been
pleased to assign me. But the rude caitiff churls that worked in
Junkins' shop, and some of the boorish neighbours too, presuming on
my youth, fastened on me the offensive nickname of Tàillear-crubach,
or the lame tailor. This I could not bear; and after having well
pummelled some dozen or so of them, one after the other, I deemed it
as well to secure peace for the future, by giving up all just claim
to so ignominious a title."
"By saint Michael, my boy," cried Sir Walter, cordially taking
Charley's hand; "I cannot say but thou didst well. What a strapping
burly chield thou hast grown! But what hast thou been doing with
thyself then, since thou gavest up tailoring?"
"I have learned to ride, and to use a sword and a lance indifferent
well," said Charley.
"Bravo!" cried Sir Walter. "By the Rood, thou art mine own very flesh
and blood! Trust me, had I guessed that thou wert made of such metal,
I should never have thought of tying thee to a tailor's board, I
promise thee. Would I had known this sooner! But now!--How fares it
with thy mother, boy?"
"Well, Sir Walter," replied Charley with a deep sigh. "She was well
when I last saw her."
"Would that I had sooner known thy merits, Charley!" said Sir Walter,
with a depth of feeling which he had not yet displayed. "I might
then have----But now I fear I am too far involved with another----The
fates have been cruelly against thee, boy."
"They have indeed!" said Charley, with an emotion which almost
choked him.
"Well! well!" said Sir Walter, affectionately squeezing his
hand. "Come--cheer up, Charley! I may yet have it in my power to do
something for thee.--And by Saint Andrew," continued the knight, after
a short pause, "now I think on't, thou hast come to me in the very
nick of time. Thine aid will be most useful to me. But this is neither
the time nor the place to talk about such matters. Come, let us to my
lodging, that I may procure you refreshment and rest; for your pale
face, hollow eyes, and clinging cheeks, would seem to say that thou
greatly lackest both; and as thou mayest require to be up betimes,
I shall delay farther questioning of thee till a fitter opportunity."
But as you will hardly wish to wait, gentlemen, until Charley
Stewart has had such necessary restoration of exhausted nature,
as shall enable him to tell his own story, I shall hastily sketch,
at somewhat greater length than he had time to do, what took place
with him during those years that have elapsed since we last heard
of him. A few months had sufficed to sicken him, as we have seen,
of the shop-board of Mister Jonathan Junkins. For a time he lived
quietly with his mother, soothing her sorrow with all the tenderness
of the kindest of hearts, following out his learning under the kind
instruction of the then priest of Dounan, who had taken an especial
favour for him; and, lastly, occupying himself in the delightful
task of communicating to Rosa MacDermot, that knowledge which he
thus gained. Now and then, to be sure, spite of his lameness, he
took pleasure in exercising himself in athletic feats; and in this
practice, he was much aided by an accidental acquaintance, which he
chanced to make with a certain Sir Piers Gordon, a small landholder in
a neighbouring glen, who, himself a dependant of the Earl of Huntly,
was glad to collect a few retainers about him, in any way, to help him
to uphold his dignity. Under the auspices of this well-trained soldier,
Charley became an expert handler of the claymore, a fearless horseman,
and no very contemptible wielder of a lance; and he had more than once
had the satisfaction, of making one of the party who accompanied his
patron, in some of those skirmishes or minor movements of warfare
between clans, which the wild and unsettled state of the country
rendered much too common in those days to be always particularized,
far less to be chronicled.
Charley was one day seated, with Rosa MacDermot, on their favourite
flowery bank, by the side of the same spring I formerly described as
gushing from below a mossy stone, under the grove of weeping birches,
where we last heard of them together. But Rosa was now grown almost
a woman, being tall of her age, and of very handsome person; and the
scar of the crossmark on her cheek had now become so slight, that so
far from being a deformity, it rather gave an interesting expression to
her otherwise blooming and richly beautiful countenance. Her love for
Charley, and his for her, had grown with every day they had lived. But
maiden modesty on her part, and delicacy on his, had made both of
them somewhat more reserved, and more guarded in giving way to the
expression of it. She no longer talked of being his wifey; and when
he, hurried on by the feelings of the moment, was led to allude to
their future union, when future prospects should smile more kindly
upon them, her words, though tender, were few, whilst her eyes and
her blushes spoke volumes.
They were intently engaged in converse together, when they were
interrupted by a most unseemly looking object that appeared before
them. If they had never beheld it until that moment, they might have
had doubts as to which of the sexes it belonged to. The face was
hideous, the nose being very prominent and hooked, so as to project
over the mouth, which was hardly perceptible. The eyes, when open,
were great, round, and fiery, and they were covered by eyelids of an
unnatural largeness, so that the strange and regular alternation of
the muscular motion, which was exerted in the dropping and raising
of them, produced the most fearful effect. Enveloped as the head was
in an old soiled red tartan plaid, which was twisted around it, and
fell in large folds over half the person, after being knotted behind
over the back, the whole body had a bunchy bird-like appearance, which
was rendered still more uncouth, by its being supported on the bare,
wirey, dirt-begrimmed shanks, and claw-like talons, which sprawled
out beneath a short grey petticoat. The real name of this strange,
unearthly looking monster, was lost in her antiquity. She had appeared
in that district many years before, no one knew from whence; and as
all her marks were then the same as I have described them now, it is
not wonderful that she should have acquired, from the rude people,
the name of the Howlet, from her extreme likeness to that ill-omened
bird. And tired as she had long been of kicking against the scorn of
the world, and callous as she had been rendered under all the miseries
it had heaped upon her, she now answered to that appellation, with the
same readiness which she might probably have shown in the more sunny
days of her youth, when she cheerfully replied to her own proper name,
and to the fond endearments of a father and a mother. Yet, let it
not be imagined that she, miserably abandoned as she had so long been
to all that was wretched in human existence, had not her moments of
reflection on happier days, long since gone by, the recollection of
which only the more embittered the present. Nor is it to be supposed
that, much as she had suffered, she herself had been bereft of all
the better feelings of humanity. Her external appearance was enough to
endow her, in the estimation of the vulgar, with all the attributes of
malignity, as well as with the dread powers of sorcery. But although
her approach never failed to produce a certain sensation of awe in
the gentle mind of Rosa MacDermot, it was always mingled with a very
large share of pity for the poor creature's penury and distress;
and this was fully participated by the good hearted Charley Stewart.
"Poor Howley!" cried Rosa, the moment she beheld her; "it is long
since I have seen thee. Where hast thou been wandering during this
many a day?"
"Some food for charity's sake!" said the Howlet, in that half
shooting, half whistling tone of voice, which strangely carried
out her otherwise remarkable similarity to the bird she was called
after. "I am starving! I am famished!--Some food for charity's sake!"
"Poor Howley, thou shalt never want it whilst I can help thee to
it!" said the compassionate girl.
"Though hard-heartedness and scorn may meet me at every other door
in this weary and wicked world," said the Howlet, "I still find
charity here."
"Sit down then on the bank there," said Rosa, "and I will run and
bring thee food in a moment."
"God's blessing be upon thee, fair maiden!" said the Howlet, with
deep feeling.
"Thou canst bless, then!" said Charley Stewart gravely, after Rosa
was gone.
"I can pray to God to bless!" replied the Howlet; "and, unlike the men
of this world, a God of all goodness will not refuse to listen to such
a prayer, because it comes from the heart of a poor outcast, the scorn
of this heartless world, clothed in rags, and starving for food. And
who should I pray for, if I did not pray for blessings on that angel?"
"She is an angel, Howley!" cried Charley, with ecstacy--"an angel in
soul as well as in form. See how she comes tripping with her basket
and pitcher, as if she hardly trod the earth!"
The old woman fastened her long hands greedily on the viands, the
moment they came within her reach, her eyes glaring wide, and shutting
alternately, and her ravenous hunger urged her to devour her food so
fast, that it was fearful to behold her; and then, as she did so, she
went on muttering in her whistling voice, "The holy Virgin bless thee,
my fair maiden!--Och! och! what pain it is to swallow. Three days have
I been denied food by my flinty-hearted fellow creatures! yet may
God, in his mercy, forgive them!--Three days! three whole days! The
blessing of Heaven, its best blessings on thee, thou angel!--Och,
such pain! Thou shalt be a landed lady yet! Och, och! Thou shalt
marry a man with a knight's spur at his heel! Och! such a pang at my
heart! Och! oh!"--
Rosa and Charley Stewart, who had both been swallowing her words,
with as much avidity as she had been devouring the food that had been
given her, now both started up in dire alarm, and ran towards the old
woman. Her eyes rolled dreadfully for a moment, and then they became
fixed; the basket she held dropped from her hands; her arms and limbs
stretched themselves out in rigid convulsion; her head fell stiffly
back on the bank, and, when they essayed to raise it up, they found
that she was dead.
It was many a long day before Rosa MacDermot could shake off the
horrible impression which this scene had made upon her young mind,
so far as to be able to recall it with anything approaching to
tranquillity. Charley, however, had often pondered deeply on the words
which had fallen from the old woman, and he was impatient till the
time did come, when he felt that he might venture to allude to them.
"Charley," said Rosa anxiously, and tenderly taking his hand, as they
were one day sitting together on their favourite spot; "something
grieves thee in secret. Thou wert not wont to conceal a thought from
me; why shouldst thou do so now? Why shouldst thou deny me my share
of that sadness, which, being thine, ought to belong to both of us?"
"Rosa," replied Charley, fervently returning her gentle pressure;
"I will honestly confess my folly. Those idle words of the poor Howlet
have clung to my soul with a heaviness which I cannot shake off."
"Idle words they were, indeed," replied Rosa; "words idly uttered
by the poor crazy creature in the delirium of starvation. But, idle
or not, they boded no evil to me; and is it by Charley Stewart that
they are to be grudged to me?"
"Think of their import, Rosa," replied Charley, gravely; "and then you
will see that I can scarcely be expected calmly to contemplate them."
"What!" exclaimed Rosa, smiling--"that I am to be a landed lady? Is
that a matter that should give thee pain to think of?"