The Lady Mariota and the Page—The Fury of the Wolfe.
The Wolfe and Sir Patrick Hepborne had no sooner entered the
banquet-hall than they were surprised by the appearance of the Lady
Mariota, who approached them from a room beyond it, drowned in tears.
“Eh!” cried the Wolfe, setting his teeth against each other; “ha! mort
de ma vie, what is this I behold? Mariota in tears? Say, speak, why art
thou thus bywoxen? What, in the fiend’s name, is the matter? Who hath
caused these tears? Speak, and by all the infernal demons, I will have
him flayed alive.”
“My Lord,” replied the Lady Mariota, hiding her face in her kerchief,
“I can hardly speak it—the page—the page Maurice de Grey———”
“Say, lady, what of him? I beseech thee, what of him?” cried Sir
Patrick anxiously. “Hath any ill befallen him?”
“Nay,” said the lady; “would that had been all I had to tell!—Oh, how
shall I speak it?—the wretch, taking advantage of my being left alone,
dared to insult me. I fled forth from the apartment where I had
unconsciously received him, and, having called the attendants, I had
him secured, and he is now a prisoner in the dungeon.”
Hepborne was petrified with horror and amazement at this accusation
against Maurice de Grey.
“Ha!” cried the Wolfe, “by my beard, thou didst bravely indeed, my
girl.—The red fiend catch me, but he shall forthwith swing for it. A
gallows and a halter there in the court-yard! By all the grim powers of
hell, he shall dangle ere we dine.”
“Nay, nay, my Lord,” said Hepborne, sternly yet calmly, “that may not
be without a trial. The youth is mine, and I am thy guest. I demand a
fair trial for him; if he be guilty, then let him suffer for his
coulpe; but until his guilt be proved, depardieux, I shall stand forth
his defender.”
“By the holy Rood, but thou speakest boldly, Sir Knight,” cried the
Wolfe, gnashing his teeth in ire. “Art thou then prepared to fight at
outrance for thy minion?”
“My Lord,” said Hepborne coolly, “I am here as thy guest. Whilst I am
under thy roof I trust the common rules of hospitality will bind us
both; but shouldst thou rid thyself of their salutary shackles, I must
prepare myself to do my best to resist oppression, as a good and true
knight ought to do. I ask but fair trial for the boy, which, in justice
thou canst not and wilt not refuse me.”
The Wolfe paced the room backwards and forwards for some time with a
hurried step, whilst the Lady Mariota sat sobbing in a chair.
“Mariota,” said he at length, “thou wert alone when the page came to
thee?”
“I was, my good Lord,” replied the lady; “My damsels had gone forth at
the time he entered my chamber.”
“Now, Sir Patrick Hepborne,” exclaimed the Wolfe, “now thou must of
needscost see that all proof here is out of the question. Where can
proof be had where there hath been no witnesses?”
“Yea, my Lord,” said Hepborne temperately, “what thou sayest is true,
in good faith; and it is also true that without proof there can be no
just condemnation.”
The Wolfe began again to pace the room, hastily, his eyes flashing
fire.
“What, Sir Knight,” exclaimed he, “dost thou go so far as to doubt the
word of the Lady Mariota? By the devil’s mass, but thou art bold
indeed.”
“I say not that I doubt the word of the Lady Mariota,” replied
Hepborne; “but were the Lady Mariota my sister, and the page Maurice de
Grey my greatest enemy, I would not condemn him capitally on her simple
saying.”
“Mariota,” cried the Wolfe in a rage, “leave the apartment; get thee to
thy chamber. By the martyrdom of St. Andrew, but thou dost beard me,
Sir Knight. Thou presumest on my old dotard father’s introduction of
thee, and on the frail laws of hospitality, which may indeed bind me to
a certain point; but beware thou dost push me beyond it, or, by my
beard, neither he nor they shall protect thee.”
“Most noble Earl of Buchan,” replied Hepborne, with perfect temper and
sang froid, “again I say, that all I ask is justice. To that point only
do I wish to push thee, nor do I fear but thou wilt go so far. I do
confess, it seemeth somewhat strange to me to hear so foul a charge
against a boy who hath ever sought to fly the Lady Mariota’s advances.
Nay, ’twas but yesternight that she came herself to seek him on the
rampart, where the youth held idle parlance with me; and though he
tried to shun her, verily these eyes beheld her as she did court him to
go with her, the which the boy did most unwillingly.”
The Wolfe of Badenoch knit his brows, and strode two or three times
through the long hall, the arched roof ringing again to the clang of
his heel as he moved. He seemed to be pondering within himself what to
resolve, an operation to the fatigue of which he rarely ever subjected
his mind, his general practice being to act first, and then, if ever he
thought at all, to think afterwards. At length he stopped short in his
career, opposite to where Hepborne was standing, with his arms calmly
folded across his breast; and, stretching out his hand to him—
“Sir Patrick,” said he, “thou art right. I have perhaps been a little
hasty here. There is much in what thou hast said; and I honour thee for
thy cool and determined courage and temper. Listen to me then. If the
page Maurice de Grey confesseth the coulpe of which he is charged, thou
wilt not call it injustice if he be instantly ordered for execution. If
he denies it, then let him, or some one for him, do duel with me
to-morrow, as soon as light may serve us; and may God and the Blessed
Virgin defend the right, and make his innocence clear if he be sans
coulpe.”
“Agreed,” said Hepborne. “I stand forth the boy’s defender, and will
cheerfully appeal to wager of single combat in his behalf. Let him
straightway be sent for, then, and let him be questioned with regard to
his guilt or innocence; all I ask for him is full and free speech.”
“He shall have it,” cried the Wolfe; “I swear by my beard, he shall
have full power to speak as he lists. Pardieux, ’tis well we determined
this matter one way or other forthwith, for I long to dine.”
“What is this I hear?” cried Sir Alexander Stewart, entering in a fury;
“what is this I hear? My mother insulted by a minion page! By the ghost
of my grandfather, the miscreant shall die ere I eat a morsel. Why doth
he not swing even now? What hath delayed his execution?”
“Silence, Sandy,” cried the Wolfe angrily; “the matter is already
arranged without thine interference. The youth comes anon to be
questioned. If he confesses, the popinjay shall straightway grace the
gallows in the court-yard; if he denies, then is Sir Patrick Hepborne
prepared to do battle in his cause against me, by to-morrow’s sun.”
“Let that glory be mine, then, I beseech thee, my noble father,” cried
Sir Alexander eagerly; “I claim the right of doing battle in defence in
my mother’s cause.”
“Well, Alexander,” said the Wolfe gruffly, “if it so please Sir Patrick
Hepborne, I scruple not to yield him to thee.”
“My appeal,” said Sir Patrick, “is against one and all who may singly
choose to challenge mine arm, and who may be pleased to succeed one
another in the single combat I am willing to wage in defence of the
youth Maurice de Grey.”
“Hey day!” cried the Wolfe; “gramercy, Sir Knight, then, by mine honest
and trusty burly-brand, thou shall have thy bellyful of it, and I shall
not resign the first place to my son Alexander. We shall tilt it first,
so please thee. At sunrise we shall bestir ourselves, and on the open
lawnde beyond the land sconce we shall try the metal of our armour and
lance heads. If thou escapest mine arm, Sandy may have thee, if he
likes; but the red fiend’s curse upon it if it fail me. Ha! here comes
the prisoner.”
The page Maurice de Grey now entered, wearing his chains about his
wrists. His countenance was placid and composed, and he advanced with a
firm step and undisturbed manner.
“Knowest thou, Sir Page, of what coulpe thou art accused?” demanded the
Wolfe sternly.
“I do,” replied the youth calmly.
“Dost thou admit or deny the charge the Lady Mariota hath made against
thee?”
“I most solemnly deny it,” replied the page.
“Ha!” cried the Wolfe, “then is there no more to be said. Let him be
removed; and let everything be prepared for a single combat to-morrow
between Sir Patrick Hepborne and me—the place to be the lawnde beyond
the land sconce; and the time, the moment the welkin sees the sun. ’Tis
well ’tis so soon settled. Now let us dine, Sir Patrick, We may be
merry companions to-night, though we be to fight like fiends i’ the
morning. The banquet, I say—the banquet. Why dost thou tarry with thy
prisoner?”
“One word, I pray,” said Maurice de Grey, now thrown into extreme
agitation by hearing that his master’s life was to be put in jeopardy
for him—“I crave one word ere I go.”
“My Lord,” said Sir Patrick to the Wolfe, “I claim thy solemn behote;
thou didst promise free and ample speech for the youth; hear him, then,
I beseech thee.”
“Well, youth, well,” cried the Wolfe, very impatiently, “what hast thou
to say? Be quick, for time wears, and hunger galls me; be quick, I
say.”
“I demand a private conference, noble Earl,” said the page. “I have
something to unfold that will altogether change the complexion of this
case. If I do not make the Lady Mariota clear me of all guilt, I hereby
agree to hold myself as condemned to instant death, and shall patiently
submit to whatever fate thou mayest award me.”
“Nay, nay, dear Maurice,” cried Hepborne anxiously, and putting more
faith in his own prowess than in anything the page could urge to
convince the Lady Mariota, of whose villainous falsehood in the foul
charge she had brought against the youth he had been fully convinced
from the first—“nay, nay, dear Maurice, rather leave the matter as it
is; rather——”
“By the bloody hide of St. Bartholomew,” cried the Wolfe, with evident
joy, “but the boy shall have his way. We shall thus have this
mysterious affair cleared up, and settled forthwith, instead of
delaying till to-morrow. By the mass, but he hath excited queer
thoughts in my mind. But we shall see anon. Come then, let him along
with me, that I may show him to the Lady Mariota’s apartment. I swear
by the Holy Rood, Sir Patrick, that the youth shall have
justice—justice to the fullest extent of what he hath demanded. Clear
the way, then, I say; come, Sir Page, come along; thou shalt dance
hither anon at freedom, or thou shalt dangle it and dance it on the
gallows-tree below, where many as brave and stout a youth as thou hath
figured before thee. Come on, I say.”
After the Earl and the page were gone, Sir Alexander Stewart paced the
hall in gloomy silence, his fiery soul boiling within him, so that he
could with difficulty restrain his rage. Every now and then a stamp on
the pavement louder than the rest proclaimed the excess of his internal
agitation. The cool Sir Andrew sat him quietly down, without uttering a
word, or appearing to be much interested in the matter at issue. The
three boys had not yet come in, but a crowd of the retainers, who were
usually admitted to sit below the salt, stood in groups whispering at
the lower end of the hall. Sir Patrick Hepborne had been rendered so
unhappy by the turn the affair had taken, and was so oppressed with
distress, anxiety, and dread as to the result, that he thrust himself
into the deep recess of one of the windows, to hide those emotions he
felt it impossible to repress. Not a word passed between the chief
persons of the scene. The time, which was in reality not in itself
long, appeared to Hepborne like an age; and yet, when at length he did
hear steps and voices approaching along the passage, leading from the
Lady Mariota’s apartment into the banqueting-hall, brave as he was, he
trembled like a coward, lest the moment should have come too soon for
the unhappy page.
The door opened, and the Wolfe entered, frowning and gnashing his
teeth. Then came the page, freed from his fetters. The Wolfe of
Badenoch’s red eye was disturbed from recent ire, which he seemed even
yet to keep down with difficulty; yet he laughed horribly from time to
time as he spoke.
“Ha! well,” said he, “the page Maurice de Grey hath proved his
innocence beyond further question. By the blood of the Bruce—ha! ha!
ha!—but it is ridiculous after all. The red fiend catch me if I—but
pshaw!—let us have the banquet,” cried he, hastily interrupting himself
in something he was going to say—“the banquet, I tell thee. Give me thy
hand, Sir Patrick. Thou wert afraid to trust thy beauteous page with
me, wert thou?—ha! ha! ha! Thou wouldst rather have fought me at
outrance. By’r Lady, but thou art a burly knight; but I like thee not
the worse. Depardieux, but thou art safe enow in my hands; trust me,
thou shalt hear no more on’t. Ha! ha! ha! I confess that thy page is as
innocent—I hereby free him from guilt. The banquet, knaves—the banquet.
Ha! the curse of the devil’s dam on me, if I could have looked for
this.”
“What strange mystery is here?” said Sir Alexander Stewart impatiently.
“Where is the Lady Mariota, my mother?”
The Wolfe had all this time been reining in his wrath with his utmost
power; it was all he could do to curb it; and it was ready to burst all
bounds at the first provocation that offered.
“Better hold thy peace, Sir Alexander,” cried he, darting an angry
glance at him. “By the infernal flames, I am in no humour to listen to
thy folly. I have pledged my sacred word as a knight to secrecy, and
thou nor no one else shall know aught of this mystery, as thou callest
it. Be contented to know that the boy Maurice is innocent.”
“And am I to be satisfied with this?” cried Sir Alexander, his wrath
kindling more and more as he spoke; “am I to remain satisfied with
this, without my mother’s word for it?”
“Nay,” said the Wolfe, hastily, “by the holy Rood, thou shalt have no
word from thy mother to-night.”
“No word from my mother!” exclaimed Sir Alexander. “What! dost thou
treat me as a child? By all the fiends, but I shall see her, though.
Where is she? Why doth she not appear? By the holy mass, I must see
her, and that instantly.”
“By the martyrdom of St. Andrew, then,” cried the Wolfe, gnashing his
teeth, and foaming at the mouth from very ire—“by the martyrdom of St.
Andrew, but thou shalt not see her. I have sent her to cool her
passions in the dungeon to which she consigned the page; and hark ye,
son Alexander, if thou darest to prate any more about her, by all the
fiery fiends of Erebus, but thou shalt occupy the next chamber to that
assigned her, there to remain during my pleasure. Ha! what sayest thou
to that, Sir Alexander?”
“I say thou art a tyrant and a beast,” exclaimed his son, boiling with
rage; “and if thou dost not instantly liberate my mother, by all the
powers of darkness, I will choke thee in thine armour;” and he strode
across the banquet-hall in a frenzy, to put his threat into immediate
execution.
“Halt!” cried Sir Patrick Hepborne, in a voice like thunder, as he
stepped before the Earl, and planted himself directly in the
assailant’s way—“halt. Sir Alexander Stewart—halt, I say. Let reason
come to thine aid, and let not ungovernable passion lead thee to lay
impious hands on him to whom thou owest thine existence.”
“Nay, let him come on,” cried the Wolfe, his eyes glaring ferociously.
“Stand aside, Sir Patrick Hepborne,” cried Sir Alexander, “or, by all
the fiends of perdition, thou shalt suffer for thine interference;
stand back, I say, and leave us to——”
“Nay,” cried Hepborne, firmly, “I will not back; and by St. Baldrid I
swear, that thou shalt do no injury to thy sire until thou shalt have
stepped over my body.”
“Sayest thou so?” cried Sir Alexander, his eyes flashing like
firebrands—“then have at thee, Sir Knight;” and, catching up a
truncheon that lay near, he wielded it with both hands, and aimed a
blow at Sir Patrick’s head, that would have speedily levelled a patent
way for his fury over the prostrate body of the knight, had he not
dodged alertly aside, so that it fell harmless to the ground; and then,
with one tremendous blow of his fist, he laid the raging maniac
senseless on the floor of the hall.
“Bind him,” cried the Wolfe, “bind him instantly, I say, and carry him
to the dungeon under the northern tower; he is a prisoner until our
pleasure shall pronounce him free.”
His orders were instantly and implicitly obeyed, and Sir Alexander was
carried off, without sense or motion, under the charge of his jailors.
Sir Patrick was shocked at the outrageous scene he had witnessed, in
which he had been driven to interfere. Though satisfied of the justice
of the Earl’s sentence against his son, yet he was concerned to think
that he had been instrumental in effecting it, and he conceived he was
bound to endeavour to mediate in his behalf.
“Nay, nay,” said the Wolfe hastily, “I thank thee heartily for the
chastisement thou hast given the whelp. To loose him now, were to
deprive him of all its salutary effects. By the blessed Rood, he shall
lie in his dungeon until he comes so far to his senses as to make a
humble submission both to thee and to me.—What! am I to be bearded at
every turning by my boys?—The red fiend catch me, but they and the
callet that whelped them shall down to the deepest abyss of
Lochyndorbe, ere I shall suffer myself to be so disgraced by her, and
snarled at by her litter.”
Sir Patrick looked towards Sir Andrew Stewart for aid in his attempt to
soften the Earl; but, cool and cautious, he had never stirred from his
seat during the fray, and still sat there unmoved, turning a deaf ear
to his father’s stormy threats, and averting his eye from Hepborne’s
silent appeal.
“Come, come, the banquet, knaves,” cried the Wolfe. “Why stand ye all
staring like gaze-hounds? The red fiend catch me, but I will hang up
half-a-dozen of ye like a string of beads, an we have not our meal in
the twinkling of an eye!”
The lacqueys and attendants had hitherto been standing in silence and
horror, but they were all put instantly in motion. The banquet
appeared. The Wolfe ate more voraciously than usual, and swallowed
deeper draughts of wine also than he ordinarily did; but it was
evidently rather to wash down some vexation that oppressed him than
from anything like jollity. His conversation was hasty and abrupt, and
after drinking double his wonted quantity in half the usual time, he
broke up the feast and retired to his apartment.