The Field of Otterbourne after the Fight.
After Sir Patrick Hepborne had assisted to perform the last sad duties
to the remains of Robert Lindsay and Ralpho Proudfoot, his attention
was caught by the appearance of a solitary cluster of lights on the
distant part of the field, where the slaughter of the English had been
greatest. Curiosity led him to approach, when he perceived that they
were borne by a party who followed a bier, that was slowly carried in
the direction of Otterbourne Castle. Advancing to a point which they
must necessarily pass, he saw, as the procession drew nearer, that the
bier was supported by some English spearmen, and that it was followed
by a group of women.
Hepborne’s attention was particularly attracted by a lady in the midst
of them, who walked with her head veiled in the folds of her mantle,
and seemed to be deeply affected by that grief in which the others only
sympathised. She took her mantle from her head, and threw her eyes
upwards as if in inward ejaculation. Sir Patrick started, for he beheld
that very countenance the charms of which, though seen but by glimpses
at Norham, had made too deep an impression upon his heart ever to be
forgotten; but now they seemed to be more than ever familiar to him, as
he was disposed to believe, from their frequent presence to the eye of
his imagination. He gazed in silent rapture. The strong resemblance
between his page Maurice de Grey and the lady now struck him the more
powerfully, that he had a full opportunity of perusing every trait; he
was confounded; the mantle dropped over the alabaster forehead, and the
countenance was again shrouded from his eyes. The procession moved on,
and he followed, almost doubting whether it was not composed of
phantoms, until it approached the gate of the Castle of Otterbourne,
where the captain of the place, attended by his garrison, appeared to
receive it. Still Hepborne had difficulty in convincing himself that
the whole was not a waking vision—a belief warranted by the
superstition of his country. It slowly entered the gateway. The lady in
whom he felt so deep an interest was about to disappear. He could bear
suspense no longer.
“Lady Eleanore de Selby—Lady de Vere,” cried he, in a frantic voice.
The lady started at the sound of it, threw back the mantle from her
head, and cast her eyes around in strong agitation, until they glanced
on Hepborne’s face, when she uttered a faint scream, and fell back
senseless into the arms of her attendants, who crowded around her, and
hastily bore her within the gateway of the Castle, the defences of
which being immediately closed, she was shut from his straining sight.
Hepborne stood for some time in a state of stupefaction ere he could
muster sufficient self-command to return to his tent. The abrupt
termination of the scene, which still remained fresh on his mind,
almost convinced him of the accuracy of his conjecture as to its having
been some strange supernatural appearance he had beheld. He slowly
found his way to his friends, his soul vexed by a thousand contending
conjectures and perplexities, which he found it impossible to satisfy
or reconcile.
Meanwhile Mortimer Sang, who had been earnestly searching for the body
of Rory Spears, of whose death he had begun to entertain great
apprehensions, was surprised by the appearance of a damsel, whom he saw
bearing a torch and bitterly weeping.
“Holy St. Andrew!” exclaimed he; “Katherine Spears, can it be thee in
very body—or is it thy wraith I behold? Speak, if thou be’st flesh and
blood—for the love of the Holy Virgin, speak.”
“Oh, dear Master Sang,” cried Katherine, running to him and proving by
the gripe that she took of his arm, that she was indeed something
corporeal, “the blessed St. Mary be praised that I have met with thee;
thank Heaven, thou art safe at least. But, oh, tell me, tell me, hast
thou seen aught of my dear father? Hath he ’scaped this dreadful field
of death?”
“Thy father, I trust, is well,” replied Sang, much perplexed; “but how,
in the name of all that is wonderful, didst thou come here?”
“I came with an English lady, who is now at the Castle of Otterbourne,”
replied Katherine evasively. “But, oh, tell me, tell me, I entreat
thee,” said the poor girl, earnestly seizing his hand, “tell me, hast
thou seen my father sith the fight was over?”
“He hath not appeared since the battle,” said Sang in a half-choked
voice, and with considerable hesitation; “but we trust he may be
prisoner with the English, for as yet we have searched for him in vain
among the slain scattered over the field. Yes,” continued he, in a
firmer and more assured tone, as he observed the alarm that was taking
possession of her; “yes, he hath not been found—and as he hath not been
found, dear Katherine, it is clear that he must be a
prisoner—so—and—and so thou wilt soon see him again; for as there must
be a truce, the few prisoners ta’en by the English must speedily be
sent home again.”
“Nay, but do they seek him still, Sir Squire?” cried Katherine, but
little satisfied with this attempt of Sang’s to soothe her
apprehension. “Alas, I must seek for him.”
“Nay, this is no scene for thee, dear Katherine,” replied Sang; “return
I pray thee to the Castle, and I will search, and thou shalt quickly
know all.”
“Try not to hinder me, Sir Squire,” replied Katherine; “I will go seek
for my father. I have already seen enow of those grim and ghastly faces
not to fear in such a cause.”
“Then shall I go with thee, Katherine,” cried Sang, seeing her
determination. “Here, lean upon mine arm.”
When they came into the thickest part of the field of slaughter,
Katherine shuddered and shrank as they moved aside, from time to time,
to shun the heaps of slain. Sang looked everywhere for his comrade
Roger Riddel, and at last happily met him; but, alas! Riddel could give
no intelligence of him they sought for. By this time they had
approached the abattis of dead bodies which had been so hastily piled
up for defence against the expected attack of the Bishop of Durham.
“Come not this way, Katherine,” cried Sang; “this rampart of the dead
is horrible.”
Katherine’s heart was faint within her at the sight; she stopped and
turned away, when, just at that moment, her ear caught the whining of a
dog at a little distance.
“That voice was Oscar’s,” cried she eagerly. “Oh, let us hasten, my
father may be there.”
They followed her steps with the lights, and there she beheld her
father lying on the ground, grievously wounded, and half dead with want
and loss of blood. Luckily for him, poor Oscar had been accidentally
let out at the time that Sang and Riddel went forth to search among the
slain, and having sought more industriously for his master than all the
rest, he had discovered the unhappy Rory Spears built into the wall of
the dead. Rory had fallen before the tremendous charge made by the
English, when they burst through the line of entrenchment, where he had
fought like a lion himself, and inspired a something more than human
courage into those around him. Having lost his basinet, he had received
a severe cut on the head, besides many other wounds, which affected him
not. But the thrust of a lance through his thigh was that which brought
him to the ground; after which, he was nearly trampled to death by the
rush of English foot and horsemen that poured over him. During the time
that had passed since he was laid low, he had fainted repeatedly, and
had been for hours insensible to his sufferings. Whilst lying in one of
his mimic fits of death, he had been taken up by some of those who were
employed in heaping the slain into a rampart, and who, having little
leisure for minute examination, had made use of him as part of its
materials. Fortunately his head was placed outwards, so that when he
recovered he was enabled to breathe, and consequently was saved from
suffocation. Oscar had no sooner found him than, seizing the neck of
his haqueton with his teeth, he pulled him gently out upon the plain.
“My father, my dear father!” cried Katherine Spears, running to support
him, and much affected by the sight of his wan visage, the paleness of
which, together with his sunken eye, showed more ghastly from the blood
that had run down in such profusion from his wound, that the very
colour of his beard was changed, and the hairs of it matted together by
it.
“What dost thou here, Kate?” demanded Rory, in a firmer voice than his
appearance would have authorized the bystanders to have expected from
him; “sure this be no place for a silly maiden like thee.”
“Oh, father, father,” cried Katherine, embracing him, and doing her
best to assist Sang in raising him up by the shoulders; “the holy
Virgin be praised that thou art yet alive.”
“Alive!” answered Rory; “troth, I’m weel aware that I’m leevin, for
albeit that the agony o’ my head wad gi’e me peace enow to let me
believe that I had really depairted in real yearnest, the very hunger
that ruggeth so cruelly at my inside wad be enew to keep me in mind
that I was still belonging to this warld. For the sake o’ the gude
Saint Lawrence, Maister Sang, gar ane o’ them chields rin and see gif
Mrs. Margaret MacCleareye can gi’e me a bit o’ cauld mutton or sike
like, and a wee soup yill. Tell the woman I’ll pay her for the score o’
yestreen and a’ thegither. But, aboon a’ thing, see that they mak
haste, or I’ll die ere they come back. What sould I hae done an it
hadna been for the gude wife’s wee bit supper afore we fell to!”
Sang immediately despatched one of the camp followers who was standing
by, and who quickly returned with the melancholy intelligence that Mrs.
MacCleareye’s frail hut had been levelled with the earth by the
press—that her provender had been scattered and pillaged—that her ale
barrels had been rolled away and emptied—and that she herself had also
disappeared.
“Hech me,” cried Rory, altogether forgetful of his own craving stomach;
“poor woman, I’m sorry for her loss; aboon a’, it erketh me sair that I
paid her not her dues yestreen. But, an a’ live, she or her heirs shall
hae it, as I’m a true esquire. But, och, I’m faunt!”
“Take some of this, Master Spears,” cried Mortimer Sang, holding a
leathern bottle to Rory’s mouth, and pouring a few drops of a cordial
into it.
“Oich, Maister Sang, that is reveeving!” said Rory. “A wee drap mair,
for the love o’ St. Lowry. Mercy me! Weel, it’s an evil thing after a’
to be killed in battle (as I may be allowed to judge, I rauckon, wha
has been half killed), was it no for the glory that is to be gotten by
it. But to be cut down and then travelled ower like a mercat-causey,
and then to be biggit up like a lump o’ whinstane intil a dyke—ay, and
that, too, for the intent o’ haudin out the yenemy, and saving the
craven carcages o’ ither fouk, and a’ to keep the dastard sauls in
chields that ane is far frae liking as weel as ane’s sell—troth,
there’s onything but honour or pleasure in’t to my fancy.”
“Uve, uve! sore foolish speech, Maister Spears,” said a voice from the
heap of dead bodies. “Great pleasures and high honours in troth, sure,
sure.”
“Captain MacErchar!” cried Sang. “Run, Roger, and yield him relief.”
Squire Riddel hastened to the assistance of MacErchar, and drew forth
his great body from the place it had occupied in the bottom of the
fortification, where the skilful architect had, with much judgment,
made use of him as a substantial foundation. His history had been
something similar to that of Rory Spears, and he had not suffered less
from wounds. He was brought forward and placed on a bank beside Rory,
and a portion of Squire Sang’s life-inspiring bottle was given to him
with the happiest effect.
“Hech me,” cried Spears, looking round with great compassion on his
companion in glory and misfortune—“hech me, Captain MacErchar, wha
sould hae thought that thou wert sae near? Had we but kenn’d we mought
hae had a crack thegither, albeit hardly sae cosy as in Mrs.
MacCleareye’s. Troth, I was sair weary and lonesome wi’ lying, and even
the converse o’ the sagaciousome brute there was a comfort to me. This
is but ane evil way o’ weeting a squireship. We sould hae done it in
ane ither gate, I rauckon, had the English chields but defaured a wee.
But I trust that neither have you disgraced your captaincy nor I my
squireship. I saw you fighting like a very incarnate deevil, ay, and
sending the Southrons back frae the rampyre like raquet ba’s frae a
wa’, though it may be premeesed that nane o’ them ever stotted again.”
“Ouch ay, troth ay,” replied MacErchar, “it was a bonnie tuilzie,
Maister Spears. She did her pairts both—both, both. Ou ay; it was a
great pleasures, in troth, to see her chap the chields on the crown.”
“Poor Oscar, poor man,” said Rory, patting his dog’s head as he put his
nose towards his face to claim his share of his master’s attention;
“troth, I maun say that thou didst do me a good turn this blessed
night. I was just thinking as I lay here that as I must now bear the
proper armorial device of ane esquire, I sould take the effigy of ane
allounde couchant beside his master sejant, with this motto, ‘Fair fa’
the snout that pu’d me out.’”
“How couldst thou think of such things, my dear father, whilst thou
didst lie in plight so pitiful!” cried Katherine Spears.
“Troth, I had naething else to think o’, ye silly maiden, but that or
hunger,” said Rory; “and that last, I’ll promise thee, was a sair sharp
thought. And, by St. Lowry, it doth sore sting me at this precious
moment.”
“Uve, uve! sore hungry—sore hungry,” cried MacErchar.
“Nay, then, let us hasten to carry both of them to camp without further
let,” cried Sang.
“Come, bestir ye, varlets,” said he to a crowd of camp-followers who
were standing near; “lend us your aid.”
“Nay,” said Katherine, “my father must be carried to Otterbourne
Castle.”
“Otterbourne Castle!” cried Rory; “what mean ye, silly quean?”
Katherine bent over him, and put her mouth to his ear to whisper him.
“Ay—aweel—poor thing!—very right—an it maun be sae, it just maun,” said
he, after hearing what she had to say. “Aweel, Maister Sang, ye maun
just tell the Yearl that as I can be o’ nae mair service in fighting at
this present time, I may as weel gae till the Castle o’ Otterbourne as
ony ither gate to be leeched, mair especially as it is my belief that
kitchen physic will be the best physic for me. Tell him that I’m gaun
there wi’ my dochter Kate till a friend of his, and that he sall ken a’
about it afterhend.”
Rory was accordingly carried straight to Otterbourne Castle, whither
the gallant Mortimer Sang accompanied Katherine. Their parting at the
gate was tender—but he could wring nothing from her that could
elucidate the mystery of her present conduct.