‘Oh! Espérance! Hope on! The fight
Is never lost while fight we may;
At home the hearth is shining bright,
Though yet unseen along the way:
And the darkest hour of all the night
Is that which brings us day.’
Long weeks of solitary confinement in a dungeon, dark and damp
and dismal, nourished on bread and water, and cheered only by the
periodical visits of an asthmatic jailer, appointed to that post
because fit for nothing else, would destroy the courage of most men,
as it would sap their bodily health and vigour. Walter Maxwell had
need of all his strength of mind, all his natural qualities of bravery
and endurance, to resist the influence of his imprisonment, ere he had
spent many weeks in the strong room of Leslie House. This place of
confinement, paved and walled with stone, lighted by but one window,
narrow and iron-barred, communicated with a winding staircase, and a
long gloomy subterranean passage terminating in a wicket, which opened
on a pleasaunce and flower-garden. Prisoners might thus be smuggled in
or out of the Leslies’ stronghold without exciting observation; and
unless the Lord of Rothes was much belied, this facility of ingress
was used for a variety of purposes, foreign to its original object.
On summer evenings, ’tis said, the flutter of a farthingale might
sometimes be seen emerging from its dark recesses, while lighter steps
and merrier voices than were likely to belong to a permanent prisoner
echoed in the damp underground passage leading in and out of Leslie
House. Under these circumstances, bars were sometimes left undrawn and
locks unturned, nor was Walter ignorant of the occasional negligence in
which lay his only chance of escape.
The old jailer, too, albeit short in temper as in wind, was not
entirely destitute of compassion for a hungry and thirsty man. After
the first fortnight, and when he found that his lord gave no orders
for Maxwell to be starved to death, he brought him on rare occasions a
morsel of venison, or even a flask of wine, mollified as it would seem
by the courage and good-humour with which his charge bore the rigours
of captivity.
Then old Ralph, as he was called, would sometimes put down his pitcher
and his keys to remain for a few minutes’ conversation, or what he
considered such, being indeed a monologue on his own grievances, his
own infirmities, and, when in high good-humour, his youthful prowess
and general accomplishments. These occasional visits were as beneficial
to Maxwell’s moral condition as the meat and wine were to his physical
man.
After a week or two without exchanging a word with a fellow-creature,
the stupidest of companions is welcomed like an angel from heaven,
the dreariest platitudes fall like spring showers upon a desert
soil. Maxwell _really_ rejoiced in the visits of his jailer, looking
forward to them as the sole events of his long, uninteresting day, and
old Ralph began to take a great pride and pleasure in the prisoner
who greeted him so warmly, and showed himself such an accomplished
listener. By degrees the warder became confidential, not to say
indiscreet, though the last idea in his mind was to favour his
prisoner’s escape. Indeed he could not afford to part with him,
and, little by little, Maxwell, with his energies aroused, and his
intellects sharpened by the emergency of his case, made himself
familiar with the arrangements of the castle, and the details, of which
he hoped to take advantage at some future time.
The sensations of a prisoner enduring solitary confinement have been
so often analysed and described, that it is needless to enlarge
upon them here. Without some distant hope of escape, without some
definite point for the mind to rest on, the infliction would become
unbearable, and end probably in insanity. Maxwell, however, possessed
one of those dogged, resolute dispositions, not uncommon amongst his
countrymen, which, like iron at the forge, become only harder and
harder the more heavily they are struck. From the first moment of his
entrance, bound and blindfolded into the Leslies’ stronghold, he had
determined to escape. That he was not to be put to death he argued from
the pains that had been taken to kidnap him; and the knowledge that
‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ notwithstanding his apparent treachery, was still
his friend at heart, was a vague source of comfort and re-assurance.
The hours, marked only by the shadows on the blank and dreary wall,
were indeed long--oh! so long!--but the continued effort to keep mind
and body in a condition to take advantage of any chance that might
offer, served almost in lieu of an occupation and a pursuit.
The prisoner would force himself to pace the narrow limits of his cell
for hours at a time, that he might not lose the wind and strength so
necessary to that problematical flight which was the one fixed idea of
his brain.
By degrees Walter observed that the precautions taken for his security
became more and more relaxed. With all his senses sharpened by constant
watching, he could hear the door, at the foot of the winding-stair
which led to the subterranean passage, although carefully locked at
sun-down, grating ajar on its hinges during the day, could detect the
summer air stealing even to his remote dungeon, denoting that the door
into the garden was also unfastened. By dint of constant attention he
became satisfied at last that if he could but break out to the top of
the stairs any time before nightfall during the summer afternoon, he
might, at least, reach the garden without hindrance. Once there, though
ignorant of the locality, he trusted to the chapter of accidents to
make his escape into the open country beyond.
The first object was as far as possible to hoodwink Ralph, and that
worthy’s implicit confidence in the quiet demeanour of his charge
would go far towards assisting him in his scheme; then, when the
jailer was thrown completely off his guard, a bold stroke would effect
at least the first stage of the project. We do not affirm that the
idea of springing on his keeper, who, although armed, might have been
overpowered by a younger and a stronger man, and beating out his
brains with his own keys, did not present itself to Walter’s mind, but
such a measure was wholly repugnant to his character, and he resolved
to attain freedom without shedding the blood of the old man who had
mitigated, as far as he could, the rigour of his captivity.
By little and little the prisoner had discovered that no amount of
outcry or disturbance in the dungeon could be heard without; of this
he had satisfied himself by a series of experiments. This was always a
step gained in the furtherance of his plan.
Fortunately for himself, also, Maxwell was a large-boned man,
especially in the wrists. Every set of fetters in the castle had been
successively tried on him and found too tight; so for a time he had
been bound hand and foot with ropes; but on his complaining that these
cut him, they had been withdrawn, and his limbs suffered to remain at
liberty.
So all the fine summer days, when the June roses were blooming without,
and the June grass growing, and the June birds singing on the tree,
while within the rat and the spider were the only living creatures, and
a green slime on the wall the only vegetable production, Maxwell was
preparing his escape, and biding his time patiently for a favourable
opportunity to put it in execution.
When Ralph used to bring his prisoner a draught of wine, he would
sometimes, if in a particularly good humour, condescend to stay for a
few minutes and help him to partake of it. On these occasions Maxwell,
by a studiously quiet and even languid demeanour, contrived to throw
his jailer completely off his guard.
One day he requested the wine might be left with him to cheer his
solitude when his agreeable friend was gone; another time he complained
of indisposition, but thought he might relish a cup towards nightfall.
By degrees he collected a Scottish pint or so of strong red wine in a
stone jar that he had begged might be applied to the purpose.
The weather was very hot; even in a dungeon its inmate could tell
that the summer sun was glowing bright and fierce without. Old Ralph
arrived, according to custom, with his prisoner’s afternoon meal, and
sat himself down on the stone floor like a man thoroughly overcome with
his exertions.
‘Take a draught of wine, man,’ said Maxwell, pointing to the jar; ‘’t
the coolest place in the castle here, and by St Andrew the prisoner
hath the best of it to-day.’
The old man smiled grimly; then he took a hearty pull, as desired, and
set the vessel down with a sigh of great satisfaction.
‘An old man’s bluid aye wants warmin’,’ said he, looking pensively
into the vessel the while; ‘but I’ve kent it far hotter ower sea. When
I was in Flanders wi’ Norman Leslie, ye ken;--aye! he was a wild lad,
Norman, but a bra’ soldier, fair sir, a bra’ soldier as ever belted on
a brand!--aweel, whan I was in Flanders wi’ Norman----;’ and forthwith
the old man embarked upon a long story of which gallant Norman Leslie
was the hero, moistening his narrative at frequent intervals with
draughts of the strong red wine, and Maxwell watched with strung nerves
and beating heart, how his eye grew dimmer and his speech more laboured
as the tale progressed and the contents of the vessel waned.
Nevertheless the door was locked on the inside, and the jailer’s
fingers kept an instinctive grasp upon his keys. Once, catching
Maxwell’s eye fixed on these implements, he shifted them suddenly into
the hand farthest from his prisoner, although in the act he interrupted
himself in an elaborate description of a certain blue velvet surcoat,
by which Norman Leslie set much store, and did not again recover the
thread of his recollections until he had discovered that the wine was
done, and it was time for him to be gone.
But it was obviously necessary to lull his suspicions and induce him to
remain a few minutes longer.
‘I should like to hear how that surcoat was finished and embroidered,’
said Maxwell, with an affectation of interest. ‘The time of my release
is drawing near,’ he added, ‘and when I go out I should wish to have
one of the same colour and conceit.’
He spoke in so matter-of-fact a tone that old Ralph was thrown
completely off his guard.
‘Oot!’ said he, ‘it’s the first time ever I heard it, lad. I’ll no say
but I’ll miss ye! Oot! Gude presairve us! Was there ever the like o’
that?’
‘I told you when I came in,’ replied his prisoner, yawning and
stretching himself lazily the while, ‘the full turn will be out the day
after to-morrow at noon.’
Old Ralph laid down his keys and scratched his head.
That instant Maxwell pounced upon them like a tiger. Almost with the
same motion he seized the old man round the body, completely pinioning
him, heavy and powerful as he was, till he had sent him staggering to
the farthest extremity of the cell. Then, with one rapid turn of the
key, that key at which he had often looked so longingly, and of which
he knew every ward, he was through the door, as rapidly he locked and
bolted it on the outside. His hand never trembled; his nerves were as
true to him now in the moment of success as they had been through all
the dangers and disasters he had overcome.
‘Ah!’ thought Maxwell, as he sped down the winding-stair like a
lapwing, ‘you may holloa your heart out, as many a poor prisoner has
done before, but nobody will come near you till supper-time. If you get
not free for a week you’ll have had a lighter captivity than mine. And
now for liberty and life, and--Mary Carmichael!’
He believed he had schooled himself to think of her no more, but she
came back to him with the first gleam of the summer sun, the first
breath of the summer air.
There is no catastrophe of grief or discomfiture so staggering to the
nervous system as the shock of a great relief or a great joy. You
shall attend the sick-bed of one nearest and dearest to you for days
together, and see the life that is more precious than your very heart’s
blood ebbing away, as it were, inch by inch, and drop by drop, yet
your eyes are dry; though your brain feels strangely hot and seared,
your hand is steady, your tread firm, and your pulse regular. The
moment on which hang the issues of life and eternity comes at last.
The silent strife is waged between sleep and death, and the gentle
conqueror triumphs by a hair’s breadth. Never prone to give his opinion
rashly, the doctor tells you that the dear one has escaped ‘out of
danger, he is happy to inform you,’ and you wring his hand fiercely,
but something gripping at your throat forbids you to speak your thanks.
Then the tears gush freely to your eyes; then the strong frame shakes
and quivers in every fibre, and down upon your knees you kneel before
your God, even if you never knelt before. So in all the relations of
life; the moment of success is the touchstone to the human character.
It is far more rare to find men bear prosperity with equanimity than
adversity. We have all heard of people going mad for joy.
For an instant, Walter Maxwell had to pause and collect his energies,
manning himself as though about to undergo some formidable trial, when
he found he was at least on the _outside_ of that door which he had
contemplated such a weary while as the bar between himself and freedom.
Stealthily, and with a keen sense of delight, so overpowering as to
be almost painful, he pushed open the iron wicket at the foot of the
staircase and emerged into the garden beyond.
It was intoxicating to drink in the warm fragrance of the summer air at
every pore. It was bewildering, from sheer delight, to feel the eyes
ache in that dazzling sunshine, glowing on leaf and flower, whitening
the gravel walk and the castle wall in its blinding glare. The prisoner
paused in a corner of the passage ere he came forth, accustoming sight
and faculties by degrees to the rapturous change.
Then he stole out and looked about him, taking in, with keen and wary
eye, the features of the surrounding scene. Well he knew that in such
a stronghold as that of the powerful Rothes his escape had only just
begun.
He found himself in a beautiful little garden, neatly kept and
tastefully laid out. Casting a hasty glance upward, he ascertained
that he was overlooked by no windows from the castle; three sides of
this parterre were bounded by the great blank walls of the house, the
fourth was shut in by a dark impervious hedge of yews. With stealthy,
hasty steps he was soon on the farther side of this leafy screen
and traversing a bowling-green on which the bowls dotted the level
surface at irregular intervals--denoting that a game had been recently
interrupted--he emerged upon a beautiful little wilderness of shrubs
and flowers beyond.
Three or four vases and a fountain adorned this exterior
pleasure-ground, and the gigantic beeches of Leslie, perhaps the
finest trees of Scotland, shaded it with their dark gleaming foliage.
It looked like a paradise to the emancipated prisoner; but, alas,
a paradise from which there was no escape! Surrounded by the outer
wall of the castle, any biped, unprovided with wings, seemed as much
a captive in those sunny glades as in the darkest recesses of the
dungeon. How Maxwell envied the butterfly soaring into the air so
freely over that smooth and cruel wall! It would be hard to turn back
now after tasting even for five minutes the delights of liberty.
Casting about with anxious eyes and a fast-beating heart for some
means, however desperate, of egress, he espied a portion of the masonry
in which certain irregularities would admit of his climbing to within
a few feet of the coping. At this very place, too, a friendly beech
somewhat overhung the garden so that one of its branches drooped
downwards inside the wall.
With a run and a bound, like that of a wild cat, he swarmed up its
slippery surface and succeeded in reaching the pendant branch. It was a
desperate exertion of strength, and the pain that shot across his chest
warned Maxwell how an ounce more of weight would have turned the scale
in the effort by which he swung himself into the tree. Once there, he
paused to take breath, and looked back into the garden from which he
had so happily escaped. What was his dismay to observe, for the first
time, a tall stalwart man in the guise of a labourer, shuffling into
his jerkin, and making for the house!
‘Of course,’ thought Maxwell, with a curse on his own stupidity that he
had not perceived the man sooner, ‘to give the alarm and turn out the
retainers for pursuit!’
In truth there was nothing for it now but to slip down from the tree
and trust to a light pair of heels and the chapter of accidents.
Already his legs were clear of the branches, and he was meditating a
drop of some four or five yards upon the sward, when he drew them up
again with wondrous precipitation, for the tread of feet through the
grass, and the sound of voices in earnest conclave, warned him that he
was hemmed in and beset on this side as well as the other.
Close under the tree, in which he couched like some hunted animal,
three gallants halted and carried on their conversation in the deep,
low, earnest tones of men who discuss those matters on which they have
bound themselves to secrecy, and which the bird of the air itself is
not to overhear.
Splendidly dressed, although half-armed--for a Scottish noble loved
not to be utterly defenceless, even in the heart of his own residence,
and the company of his staunchest friends--Maxwell recognised them
at once, for three of the most powerful men in the kingdom--the
wariest of statesmen, the darkest of intriguers, the most reckless of
conspirators.
Not one of the three would have scrupled to cut the throat of an
unwelcome eavesdropper on the spot, whether or not he thought a word
of their conversation was overheard or understood. That ‘makin’
sicker’ has been a favourite expedient in the annals of our northern
politicians ever since Kirkpatrick left the Red Comyn weltering in his
blood on the steps of the altar.
It was an unpleasant predicament for poor Walter. What could he do but
hide himself up among the branches, keep quiet and listen, expecting
besides every moment that the alarm of his escape would be given from
the castle?
The little conclave continued their conversation eagerly, and as they
stood beneath his hiding-place, Maxwell had ample leisure to observe
the faces and bearing of his Queen’s three worst and most pitiless
enemies.
Rothes was, as usual, gay and careless in demeanour; his handsome face
flushed with wine, was not out of keeping with the disordered bravery
of his apparel. He could break his jest on treason as on any other
crime; could pass through life and its most important avocations as
though it were but one long feverish debauch in which the merriest and
wildest roisterer bore his part the best.
Argyle, who repressed his host’s ill-timed mirth whenever opportunity
offered, and listened attentively to the calm, measured accents of the
third person present, seemed thoughtful and ill-at-ease. Though of a
courageous character, his was a nature that weighs well every scheme on
which it enters, and loves not to put forth its full powers unless it
sees its way clearly to success. He could not go hand over head into
a plot like Rothes, simply for the excitement and amusement of the
turmoil.
Grave in demeanour as the man to whom he was now listening so
attentively, and not unlike him in character, he was yet far inferior
in foresight and acuteness, above all in that mysterious force of will
which bends and warps more pliant natures to its own ends. Maxwell,
watching him intently from the tree, could not but mark how scruple
after scruple disappeared, how gradually and completely conviction
seemed to steal over his countenance, as he followed, step by step, and
argument by argument, the bent of that master-mind which formed the
third and dominant element in the conclave.
And who was this third conspirator, this evil spirit so much mightier
and so much more daring than the two it controlled? Who, but Moray, the
Queen’s half-brother? Staid, quiet, composed as usual; less splendidly
dressed, less energetic in gesture, less striking in appearance than
either of his companions, yet obviously the leader whom they trusted
implicitly and obeyed without remorse.
One more faithful adherent to the House of Leslie completed the party.
His honest face and loyal courage seemed strangely out of place where
treason was brewing; a large handsome bloodhound kept close at the heel
of Rothes, poking his wet nose at intervals into his master’s hand.
Even in the extremity at which he found himself, Maxwell could not
forbear contrasting the surrounding scene with the principal actors.
The white stems of the beeches shone like silver in the glowing
afternoon sun, while thrush and blackbird carolled gaily from the
deep rich screen of their heavy foliage. Life and light, beauty and
fragrance filled the atmosphere, peace and prosperity smiled around;
white sheep were feeding on a grassy slope over against him between
the trees; red roses blooming and clustering around steeped his senses
in their perfumes; the bee hummed drowsily by in the warm still air;
overhead the swallows flitted to and fro against the blue laughing
sky; and there, at his feet, within a spear’s length of him, frowned
the three dark pitiless faces, while Moray’s measured voice unfolded
the plot that chilled his very blood, though it roused his vindictive
hatred, as he listened.
Not one of the others drank in every syllable as did that eager
fugitive, crouching like a wild cat along the arm of the old beech tree.
‘I tell ye, gentlemen, it cannot fail,’ said the degenerate Stuart,
with more earnestness than usual; ‘the net is so spread that fly which
way she will, the bird cannot but find herself within its meshes. I can
tell ye for as certain as if I heard her say so now, that she leaves
Perth after dinner to-morrow and rides to Callander, for the young
Livingstone’s baptism, direct; she will have no following beyond her
personal attendants, and some twenty or thirty spears. Your Leslies, my
lord, may surely make account of these.’
He turned to Rothes while he spoke; the latter answered with a savage
laugh, and the bloodhound murmured simultaneously a deep angry growl.
‘Why, “Hubert” seems to be of the same opinion,’ pursued Moray,
carelessly patting the dog’s wide forehead, a liberty ‘Hubert’ seemed
hugely inclined to resent. ‘But I always counsel force enough in these
little matters of necessity. “Never stretch your hand out farther than
you can draw it back again,” says our Scottish proverb; and “Never
strike at your foe if your arm be not long enough to reach him,” say
those who know how to make war with prudence and moderation. Nay, I
would have no risk run of failure or miscarriage for want of an odd
score or two of horsemen. What say you, my lord of Argyle?’
That nobleman pondered a few moments ere he replied.
‘My following moves forward to-night. I shall find four hundred spears
at the Paren-Well to-morrow ere the sun has gone down two hours from
the meridian.’
‘Good!’ answered Moray, nodding his head. ‘And you, Rothes? The Leslies
are sure to be swarming when there is aught stirring that promises a
fight or a capture.’
‘You shall count them yourself to-morrow, at sunrise, before we march,’
answered the other, gaily. ‘If you drink a cup to-night, at supper, for
every hundred men, your brain, my good Lord James, will hardly be so
clear in the morning as you like to keep it when there is business to
be done. Be quiet, “Hubert!” the fiend’s in the dog! What? down, man!
art thou bewitched?’
The bloodhound’s bristles were rising fiercer and fiercer, and he
growled ominously as he snuffed the air with his broad black nostrils.
‘Then this is the plan of the campaign,’ resumed Moray. ‘Argyle’s
forces and your own join at the Paren-Well, and in that lone district
ye may dispose them to advantage, and keep the greater part out of
sight from the Perth road. To avoid suspicion, I would counsel that ye
do not anticipate the hour of rendezvous. My imprudent sister might
be informed even when some miles upon her journey, and turn back.
When Her Grace’s palfrey enters the pass at the Paren-Well, fourscore
men-at-arms can do the business readily enough. If there is any attempt
at resistance, another troop or two may strike in. Be careful to keep
a large force fresh to protect Her Grace’s sacred person when taken.
I have arranged for her lodging to-morrow night with her kinswoman at
Loch-Leven Castle. For the lady-faced lord, if not knocked o’ the head
in the skirmish, he must be disposed elsewhere. You shall have him at
Leslie, Rothes, an’ ye will, though I doubt you and Darnley are but
unfriends at heart. We will meet in Edinburgh next week to consult on
state affairs; but to-morrow, being Sabbath, I have thought well to
explain my views to you both to-day. Gentlemen, I think we understand
each other?’
Argyle murmured an assent. Rothes laughed again somewhat dangerously.
‘If there is any resistance?’ said he.
‘I will not have a hair of Her Grace’s head ruffled, or a fold of
her dress,’ replied Moray, firmly. ‘For the escort, they must be
overpowered, of course; but Her Grace’s person _shall_ be respected,
and her immediate attendants.’
‘You promised me the Maries!’ urged Rothes, reproachfully; ‘come,
man, you shall not go back from your word; you promised me the
whole four, or at least my pick of them. I would not have gone into
it, but for the saucy Seton; and that sunny, silent lass--how call
you her?--Carmichael! I have ordered all sorts of toys to be here,
expressly for them, to-morrow. Down, “Hubert!” be quiet, man!’
Maxwell’s blood boiled within him, and he griped the branch of the
beech as if it had been the last speaker’s throat. Meantime ‘Hubert’
had been baying furiously, glaring upwards into the tree with flaming
eyes, and springing furiously against the trunk.
‘The Maries must take their chance,’ replied Moray, in the same quiet
tones. ‘If Her Grace be safe, I shall ask no questions. That dog hath
cause for his uneasiness, my lord; take my word for it, we have been
overheard. He scents a fresh foot in our neighbourhood.’
With a great oath Rothes drew his sword, and Argyle followed his
example.