Sir Patrick and the Earl at Forres.
Sir Patrick Hepborne had hardly recovered himself when, as he was
passing a house to which the fire had but just communicated, he
encountered a crowd of people rushing out, hastily attired in all
manner of strange coverings. It was the inn of the burgh. Among those
who came forth there was one gigantic figure, who ran against his horse
like a battering-ram, and almost threw the animal on his haunches by
the concussion. Ere Hepborne could recover himself the monster was
gone; but his attention was quickly diverted from this incident by the
sound of a voice chanting irregularly in broken song, mingled with the
notes of a harp. It came from the upper part of the building. The
house, though extending a good way backwards from the street, was of
two storeys only; but as the flames were briskly attacking the lower
part, no time was to be lost in making the musician leave it.
Hepborne sprang from his horse, and, hastening down a lane to the
doorway, rushed up the narrow stair, and being led by ear towards the
music, ran along a passage and entered an apartment over the gable next
the street, where, to his utter astonishment, he beheld the minstrel,
Adam of Gordon, seated on a stool, in his nightcap and under-garments,
accompanying his voice by striking wild chords upon the harp, and
looking upwards at intervals, as if seeking inspiration.
“Adam of Gordon!” cried Hepborne, in absolute amazement, “what dost
thou here? Quick, quick, old man; thy life is in peril; throw on thy
cloak and fly with me; the flames gain upon us!”
“Nay, Sir Knight,” said the minstrel, “disturb me not, I beseech thee;
I do but work myself here into proper bardic enthusiasm, that I may the
better describe the grandeur of this terrific scene. Trust me, this is
the minstrel’s golden moment; let it not pass by unimproved.” And
saying so he again began to strike on his harp, and to recur to his
subject.
The raging flame in fury swept,
It seized their chamber where they slept,
Along the wasting floor it crept,
Where locked in virtuous love they lay.
She dreamt that on a bed of flowers,
Beneath the cool and fragrant bowers,
With him she wasted happy hours;
She waked—she shrieked! she swooned away!
He quick uprose, in wild alarm,
To snatch his love——
“Nay, Adam, this is absolute madness, for whilst thou art composing thy
ballad we shall both be brent. Haste thee, old man. Hark! there was the
crash of falling ruins.”
“One stanza more, I entreat thee, Sir Knight; my brain is hot with my
subject.
To snatch his love from threatening harm,
He clasped her in his vigorous arm.”
“Nay, then,” said Hepborne, “I must of needscost enclasp thee in mine,
or we shall both perish;” and snatching up, with one hand, the
minstrel’s drapery that lay beside him, he lifted old Adam, harp and
all, high in his other arm, and carried him down the stair on his
shoulder; whilst the bard, entirely occupied with his subject, was
hardly conscious of being removed from his position, and went on
chatting and strumming—
“He quick uprose, in wild alarm,
To snatch his love from threatening harm;
He clasped her in his vigorous arm,
And rushed——
Holy St. Cuthbert, I’m choked! I’m—pugh!—ooh!”
A sudden stop was indeed put to his song by the smoke through which
Hepborne was condemned to force his way with his burden, and the harp
accompaniment was effectually silenced by the flames which shot over
them on either hand, and burnt off the strings of the instrument.
Hepborne bore the minstrel bravely into the street.
“Where is thy steed, Adam?” demanded Hepborne, as he set him down.
“In the stable behind,” replied the minstrel, somewhat brought to his
senses by the danger which he now saw had threatened him. Hepborne
immediately despatched some of those who were with him to fetch out the
horse.
“Heaven bless thee for my safety, Sir Knight,” said Adam; “but now that
I am beyond risk, if it so please thee I would gladly saunter through
the burning town alone, to gather hints for the garniture of my
ballad.”
“Nay, nay, old man,” replied Hepborne, quickly, “this is no place for
thee. Here cometh thy little curtal nag—mount thee, straightway, and
hie thee to Tarnawa with this man, who shall guide thee thither. There
thou mayest inquire for a page of mine, called Maurice de Grey, who
will quickly make thee known to my Lady the Countess of Moray; she will
be right glad to see any one of minstrel kind in these times of
tournament. But stay,” added Hepborne, laughing to observe the
grotesque figure of the half-clad minstrel on horseback; “Here, throw
his cloak over him and hasten hence with him beyond danger. Away, away
from hence, or ye are lost,” cried he, with increased rapidity of
utterance; and the group had hardly time to make their horses spring
from the spot ere the front wall of a house, slowly cracking and
rending, fell with a tremendous crash into the street, and they were
divided from each other by the heaped-up debris. Satisfied, however, of
the minstrel’s safety, Sir Patrick now hurried on to the post which the
Earl of Moray had assigned him at the farther extremity of the
conflagration.
A considerable vacant space around the church had fortunately prevented
the fire from spreading beyond it. The holy edifice itself was burning
slowly, yet so little attention had been paid to it that the choir,
which the incendiaries had first inflamed, was already almost consumed.
Sir Patrick Hepborne immediately established two lines of people,
extending between the church and a neighbouring well, so that buckets
of water were conveyed with great rapidity towards it, and the supply
in this way was so great that he soon succeeded in preventing the
flames from spreading to the other parts of the building; and their
progress being once arrested, they at last began to sink of themselves
from lack of combustible materials, and by degrees were altogether
subdued by the crowds of active and well-directed men, who thought and
talked of nothing but the Castle beer, and who worked to earn a skinful
of it.
The sun had now risen on the scene of desolation. Toil-spent, and
overwhelmed with grief at the misery which appeared around him, as well
as vexation at the thought of how it had been occasioned, the Earl
dismounted from his horse and sat himself disconsolately down on a
stone by the side of the way. There Hepborne found and saluted him for
the first time since their separation of the previous evening.
“’Tis a grievous spectacle, my Lord Earl,” said Sir Patrick, as he
observed the affliction that was pourtrayed on his Lordship’s
countenance, “’tis indeed a grievous spectacle; but thou hast the
pleasing gratification of thinking that, without thy timely presence
here, the ruin must have spread itself wider, and that if it had not
been for thy well-timed counsels and generous exertions not a house
would have been remaining at this moment within the burgh.”
“Alas!” exclaimed the Earl, in a tone of extreme mortification,
“grievous as the calamity is, I am less moved by it than with the
tormenting reflection that it was the work of my wife’s brother. ’Tis
piteous, indeed, to listen to the lamenting of those helpless and
innocent people, but their wounds may be speedily salved by the aid of
a little paltry gold; whilst those which the Earl of Buchan hath
inflicted on the hearts of all connected with him by allowing a brutal
thirst of revenge to make him guilty of an act so cruel and outrageous,
must fester and rankle for many a day. What will the good old
greyheaded Monarch suffer when the news do reach him? Verily it doleth
me sorely that by my marriage I should be sykered with one who hath the
fear of God so little before his eyes. Yet must I not think of it. It
behoveth me now to remedy the mischief he hath wrought, and to set
about relieving the more immediate wants of the wretched people who
have lost their houses and their all. Here, Martin,” cried he to one of
his esquires, “take these tablets; seek out some one who is well
informed as to the town and its inhabitants, and quickly bring me a
careful list of the houses that have been burned, together with the
name, sex, age, and condition of the inmates.”
The squire hastened to obey the Earl’s command. Several of the knights,
his guests, who had followed him from the Castle, and who had given him
good assistance in extinguishing the fire, now came about him, pouring
out liberal congratulations on the success of his well-conceived and
promptly-executed measures; and while they formed a knot around him,
they were in their turn surrounded by crowds of the lower sort of
people, composed partly of the homeless sufferers, who were weeping and
wailing for the calamity that had befallen themselves and their little
ones, and pouring out curses against the ferocious Wolfe of Badenoch,
who had brought all this misery upon them. But these execrations on the
Earl of Buchan were not unmingled with blessings on the Earl of Moray
for his timely aid, without which the speakers felt that they too might
have been by this time rendered as destitute as their less fortunate
neighbours. Then many were the clamorous entreaties for charitable
succour; whilst those indifferent persons, who had assisted in subduing
the conflagration, were elbowing one another, and uttering many a broad
and rustic hint of the reward they looked for. At length Martin
appeared with his list.
“Here,” said the Earl, aside to him, “into thy faithful hands do I
confide this purse; ’tis for the more immediate relief of those poor
people. Leave not the town until thou hast inquired into circumstances,
and done all thou canst to secure temporary accommodation for those who
have been rendered houseless. I shall take care to provide more
permanent aid for them anon.”
This order, though given in a half whisper, was caught up by some of
those miserables, whose wretched and forlorn state had quickened their
ears to every sound which gave them the hope of relief. The news of the
Earl’s humane bounty spread among them more rapidly than the fire had
done over their possessions and property. Their gratitude burst forth
in shouts:
“God bless the noble Earl of Moray!”—“Long live our noble
preserver!”—“Heaven reward our kind benefactor!”—“If his brother, the
wicked Wolfe of Badenoch, be a destroying devil, surely the good Earl
of Moray is a protecting angel!”—“May the best gifts of the Virgin be
upon him and his!”
The Earl called for his horse, and mounted amid the cheers of the
populace.
“Let all those who lent me their friendly aid on this occasion
forthwith follow me to the Castle,” cried he, and, glad to escape from
praises which, as they were bestowed on him at the expense of the
brother of his Countess, gave him more of pain than pleasure, he turned
his horse’s head in the direction of the Castle, and rode off,
accompanied by Sir Patrick Hepborne and the rest of the knights who
were with him, and followed at a distance by a shouting and ragamuffin
rabble, who were eager to moisten their hot and parched throats from
the capacious and hospitably-flowing cellars of Tarnawa.