Withdrawal of the Scots Army—Obsequies of the Gallant Dead—The
Mystery solved.
Although the morning sun rose bright and cheerful upon Otterbourne, yet
were its rays incapable of giving gladness to those in the Scottish
camp. The little army of heroes had gained a great and glorious
victory, but they had dearly paid for it in the single death of
Douglas. There was, therefore, more of condolence than of exultation
among them, as they gave each other good morrow. They broke up their
encampment with silence and sorrow, and marched off towards Scotland,
under the united command of the Earls of Moray and Dunbar, with the
solemn pace and fixed eyes of men who followed some funeral pageant;
indeed, it was so in fact; for at the head of the main body of the army
was the car that carried the coffin of the Douglas. Before it was borne
his banner, that “Jamais Arriere” which, in the hands of Sir Patrick
Hepborne the younger, had so happily turned the fate of the battle;
and, in compliment to the gallant young knight, it was his esquire,
Mortimer Sang, to whom the honour of carrying it was assigned. Behind
it came the fatal pennon of Piersie, which had been the cause of so
much waste of human life, and around the machine were clustered all
those brave knights who had lately looked up to the hero for the
direction of their every movement—at whose least nod or sign they would
have spurred to achieve the most difficult and dangerous undertakings,
and whose applause was ever considered by them as their highest reward.
The life and soul of the army seemed now to have departed. They hung
their heads, and marched on, rarely breaking the silence that
prevailed, except to utter some sad remark calculated to heighten the
very sorrow that gave rise to it.
The last of their columns disappeared from the ground, and when
Katherine Spears and the lady on whom she attended cast their eyes over
it from the window of the tower in the Castle of Otterbourne, it was
again as much a scene of peace as if no such fierce warfare had ever
disturbed it. Huge heaps, and long lines, indeed, marked the places
under which hundreds of those who had merrily marched thither now
reposed, Scot and Englishman, in amity together. The ruined huts and
broken-down entrenchments too were still visible; but the daisies and
the other little flowers that enamelled the field, refreshed by the
morning dew, had again raised their crushed heads, and the timid flocks
and herds which had been scared by the din of arms, had again ventured
forth from the covert whither they had been driven, and were innocently
pasturing on the very spot where heroes had been so lately contending
in the mortal strife. The lady, however, suffered her attention to be
occupied with these objects for a brief space only ere she returned to
perform her melancholy task of watching by those beloved remains she
had so piously rescued from the promiscuous heaps of slaughter that
covered the battle-field. She again sought the Chapel of the Castle,
where lay the brave old knight Sir Walter de Selby, for it was he who,
having met with some less merciful foe than Sir Patrick Hepborne, had
been cut down in the melée. The mortal wound now gaped wide on his
venerable head, and the beauty of his silver hair was disfigured with
clotted gore. The tears of her who now seated herself by his bier fell
fast and silently, as she bent over that benignant countenance now no
longer animated by its generous spirit. Now it was she recalled all
that affection so largely exhibited towards her from her very
childhood. His faults had at this moment disappeared from her memory,
and as the more remarkable instances of his kindness arose in
succession, she gave way to that feeling natural to sensitive minds on
such occasions, and bitterly accused herself of having but ill requited
them.
The body of Sir Walter remained in the Castle of Otterbourne for
several days, until proper preparations were made there and at Norham
for doing it the honours due to the remains of so gallant a knight, and
one who had enjoyed so important a command. After the escort was ready,
the lady parted with much sorrow from Katherine Spears, whose father
was yet unable to bear the motion of a journey. She commended both to
the especial protection of the Captain of the Castle, and then hastily
seating herself in her horse-litter to hide her grief from observation,
the funeral procession moved away.
It was long after the sunset of the second day, that the troops of the
garrison of Norham, under the Lieutenant Oglethorpe, marched out in sad
array to meet the corpse of their late governor. Clad in all the
insignia of woe, and each soldier bearing a torch in his hand, they
halted on the high ground over the village, and rested in mute and
sorrowful expectation of the approach of the funeral train. Lights
appeared slowly advancing from a distance, and the dull chanting of
voices and the heavy measured tread of men were heard. The coffin had
already been removed from the car in which it had hitherto been
carried, and four priests who had gone to meet it, one of them bearing
a crucifix aloft, now appeared walking bareheaded before it, and
chanting a hymn. The coffin itself was sustained on the shoulders of a
band of men-at-arms, who accompanied it from Otterbourne; and after it
came the horse litter of the lady, attended by a train of horsemen who
rode with their lances reversed. Among these, alas! no man belonging to
the deceased was to be seen, for all had perished with him in the
field.
When the procession had reached the spot where the troops from Norham
were drawn up to receive it, those who formed it halted, and the
bearers, resigning their burden to the chief officers of the garrison,
fell back to join their fellows. One-half of the soldiers of the Castle
then moved on before the body, whilst the other half filed in behind
the lady’s litter, and the men of Otterbourne were left to close up the
rear of the pageant.
As they descended the hill, the inhabitants of the village turned out
to gaze on the imposing spectacle; and after it had passed by, they
followed to witness the last obsequies of one whose military pomp had
often delighted their eyes, and the hardy deeds of whose prime were
even now in every man’s mouth.
Having reached the entrance to the church, the soldiers formed a double
line up to the great door, each man leaning upon his lance, in grief
that required no acting. The lady descended from her litter. With her
head veiled, and her person enveloped in black drapery, she leaned upon
the arm of Lieutenant Oglethorpe, and followed the body with tottering
steps and streaming eyes into the holy fane. The church was soon filled
by the Norham soldiery, ranked up thickly around it, the blaze of the
torches pierced into the darkest nook of its Gothic interior, and the
solemn ceremony proceeded.
The lady had wound up her resolution to the utmost, that she might
undergo the trying scene without flinching. She stood wonderfully
composed, with her eyes cast upon the ground, endeavouring to fix her
thoughts on the service for the dead, which the priests were chanting;
when, chancing to look up, her attention was suddenly caught by the
figure of a Franciscan monk, who, elevated on the steps of the altar,
stood leaning earnestly forward from behind a Gothic pillar that half
concealed him, his keen eyes fixed upon her with a marked intensity of
gaze. Her heart was frozen within her by his very look, and, uttering a
faint scream, she swooned away, and would have fallen on the pavement
but for the timely aid of Oglethorpe and those who were present. Dismay
and confusion followed. The ceremonial was interrupted; and the
bystanders believing that her feelings had been too deeply affected by
the so sad and solemn spectacle, hastened to remove her from the scene,
so that she was quickly conveyed to her litter, and escorted to the
Castle.
The funeral rites were hurried over, and the body was committed to the
silent vault, with no other witnesses than the officiating priests, the
populace, and such of the officers and soldiers as had been bound to
the deceased by some strong individual feeling of affection, and who
now pressed around the coffin, to have the melancholy satisfaction of
assisting in its descent.
While the remains of Sir Walter de Selby were conveying from
Otterbourne Castle, the Scottish Nobles and Knights who had accompanied
the body of the Douglas were engaged in assisting at the obsequies of
that heroic Earl at Melrose. All that military or religious pomp could
devise or execute was done to honour his remains, and many a mass for
the peace of his soul was sung by the pious monks of its abbey. The
brave Scottish Knights surrounded his tomb in silence and sorrow, all
forgetting that they had gained a victory, and each feeling that he had
lost a private friend in him whose body they had consigned to the
grave.
It was only that morning that Sir Patrick Hepborne had heard
accidentally from his esquire the particulars of his unexpected meeting
with Katherine Spears; and this information, added to those
circumstances which had so strangely occurred to himself, determined
him to proceed to Norham the very next day, where he hoped to unravel
the mystery that had been gradually thickening around him. The truce
that had been already proclaimed ensured his safety, so that he entered
the court-yard of the Norham Tower Hostel with perfect confidence.
Although Hepborne and his esquire came after it was dark, the quick eye
of Mrs. Kyle immediately recognized them; and, conscious of the share
she had had in the treachery so lately attempted against them, she took
refuge in the innermost recesses of the kitchen part of the building.
But Sang was determined not to spare her, and, after searching
everywhere, he at last detected her in her concealment, from which he
led her forth in considerable confusion.
“So, beautiful Mrs. Kyle,” said he, “so thou wert minded to have done
our two noble knights and their humbler esquires a handsome favour,
truly, the last time they did honour thy house? By St. Andrew, we
should have made a pretty knot dangling from the ramparts of Norham.”
“Nay, talk not so, Sir Squire,” replied the hostess in a whining tone;
“it was the wicked Sir Miers de Willoughby who did bribe me to put ye
all in his power. And then he did never talk of aught else but the
ransom for thy liberty; and in truth, love did so blind me that I
thought no more of the matter. But I trow I am well enow punished for
my folly; for here he came, and by his blazons and blandishments, he
did so overmatch me that he hath ta’en from me, by way of borrow (a
borrow, I wis, that will never come laughing home again), many a
handful of the bonny broad pieces my poor husband Sylvester, that is
gone, did leave me. Yet natheless have I enow left to make any man
rich; and when Ralpho Proudfoot doth return frae the wars——”
“Poor Ralpho Proudfoot will never return,” said Sang, interrupting her,
in a melancholy tone; “these hands did help to lay him in the earth.”
“Poor Ralpho,” cried Mrs. Kyle, lifting her apron to a dry eye, “poor
Proudfoot! He was indeed a proper pretty man. But verily,” added she,
with a deep sigh, whilst at the same time she threw a half-reproachful,
half-loving glance at Sang, “verily, ’twere better, perhaps, for a poor
weak woman to think no more of man, seeing all are deceivers alike.
Wilt thou step this gate, Sir Squire, and taste my Malvoisie? Or wilt
thou—”
“What tramp of many feet is that I hear in the village?” demanded Sang,
interrupting her.
“’Tis nought but the burying o’ our auld Captain o’ Norham,” replied
Mrs. Kyle; “I trust that we sall have some right gay and jolly knight
to fill his boots. Auld de Selby was grown useless, I wot. Gi’e me some
young rattling blade that will take pleasure in chatting to a bonny
buxom quean when she comes in his way. I haena had a word frae the auld
man for this I kenna how lang, but a rebuke now and then for the
deboshing o’ his men-at-arms, the which was more the fault o’ my good
ale than o’ me. But where are ye running till, Master Sang?—Fye on him,
he’s away.”
Sang did indeed hasten to tell his master of the passing funeral
procession, and Hepborne ran out to follow it. It had already reached
the church, and by the time he got to the door the interior was so
filled that it was only by immense bodily exertion that he squeezed
himself in at a small side door. His eyes immediately caught the figure
of the lady, and there they rested, unconscious of all else. The moment
she lifted her head he recognized the features of Maurice de Grey and
of her whom he had seen on the battle-field of Otterbourne. But her
fainting allowed him not a moment for thought. The crowd of men-at-arms
between him and the object of his solicitude bid defiance to all his
efforts to reach her, and ere he could regain the open air her litter
was already almost out of sight.
“Poor soul,” said a compassionate billman, who had been looking
anxiously after it, “thou hast indeed good cause to be afflicted.
Verily, thou hast lost thy best friend.”
“Of whom dost thou speak, old man?” demanded Hepborne eagerly.
“Of the poor Lady Beatrice, who was carried to the Castle but now,”
replied the man.
“What saidst thou?” demanded Hepborne; “Lady Beatrice! Was not that the
daughter of thy deceased governor? was not that the Lady Eleanore de
Selby, now the Lady de Vere?”
“Nay, Sir Knight, that she be not,” replied the man, “nouther the one
nor the other, I wot; and if I might adventure to speak it, I would say
that there be those who do think that the Lady Eleanore de Selby, now
the Lady de Vere, hath no small spice of the devil in her composition,
whilst the Lady Beatrice is well known to all to be an angel upon
earth.”
“Who is she, and what is her history, my good fellow?” demanded
Hepborne, slipping money into his hand.
“Meseems thou art a stranger, Sir Knight, that thou knowest not the
Lady Beatrice,” said the man; “but I can well satisfy thy curiosity,
seeing I was with good Sir Walter in that very Border raid during which
she did become his. Our men had driven the herds and flocks from a hill
on the side of one of the streams of Lammermoor, when, as we passed by
the cottage of the shepherd who had fed them, his wife, with an infant
in her arms, and two or three other children around her, came furiously
out to attack Sir Walter with her tongue, as he rode at the head of his
lances. ‘My curse upon ye, ye English loons!’ cried she bitterly; ‘no
content wi’ the sweep o’ our master’s hill, ye hae ta’en the bit cow
that did feed my poor bairns. Better take my wee anes too, for what can
I do wi’ them?’ A soldier was about to quiet her evil tongue by a
stroke of his axe. ‘Fye on thee,’ said Sir Walter; ‘what, wouldst thou
murder the poor woman? Her rage is but natural. Verily, our prey is
large enow without her wretched cow.’ And then, turning to her with a
good-natured smile on his face, ‘My good dame, thou shalt have thy
cow.’ And the beast was restored to her accordingly. ‘The Virgin’s
blessing be on thee, Sir Knight,’ said the woman. ‘And now,’ said Sir
Walter, ‘by’r Lady, I warrant me thou wouldst have ill brooked my
taking thee at thy word. Marry, I promise thee,’ continued he, pointing
to a beautiful girl of five years, apparently her eldest child, ‘marry,
I’ll warrant me thou wouldst have grudged mightily to have parted with
that bonny face?’ ‘Nay, I do indeed love Beatrice almost as well as she
were mine own child, albeit I did only nurse her,’ replied the dame;
‘but of a’ the bairns, she, I wot, is the only one that I could part
with.’ ‘Is she not thy child, then?’ said Sir Walter; ‘whose, I
pr’ythee, may she be?’ ‘That is what I canna tell thee, Sir Knight,’
replied the woman. ‘It is now about four years and a-half sith that a
young lordling came riding down the glen. He was looking for a nurse,
and the folk did airt him to me, who had then lost my first-born babe.
He put this bairn, whom he called Beatrice, into my arms, and a purse
into my lap, and away he flew again, saying that he would soon be back
to see how the bairn throve. The baby was richly clad, so methought it
must be some fair lady’s stolen love-pledge. But I hae never seen him
sithence, nor need I ever look for him now. And troth, Robby and I hae
enew o’ hungry mouths to feed withouten hers, poor thing—ay, and maybe
a chance o’ mair.’ ‘Wilt thou part with the child to me, then?’ said
Sir Walter; ‘I have but one daughter, who is of her age, and I would
willingly take this beauteous Beatrice to be her companion.’ The poor
woman had many scruples, but her husband, who now ventured to show
himself, had none; and, insisting on his wife’s compliance, Beatrice
was brought home with us to Norham, adopted by the good Sir Walter, and
has ever been treated by him sithence as a second daughter. What
marvel, then, Sir Knight, that she should swoon at his burying?”
Light now broke in at once on Sir Patrick Hepborne. As we have seen in
the opening chapter of our story, he was struck, even in the twilight,
by the superior manner and attractions of the lady who had lost her
hawk, and whose gentle demeanour had led him to conclude that she was
the Lady Eleanore de Selby, of whose charms he had heard so much.
Having been thus mistaken at first, he naturally went on, from all he
heard and saw afterwards, and especially in the interviews he had at
Norham, with her who now turned out to have been the companion of the
Lady Eleanore de Selby, to mislead himself more and more. He returned
to his inn to ruminate on this strange discovery; but be the beautiful
Beatrice whom she might, he had loved her, and her alone, and he felt
that his passion now became stronger than ever. His mind ran hastily
over past events; he at once suspected that his inconsiderate jealousy
had been, in fact, awakened by accidentally beholding an interview
between the real Eleanore de Selby and her lover, and he cursed his
haste that had so foolishly hurried him away from Norham; he remembered
the fair hand that had waved the white scarf as he was crossing the
Tweed; he recalled the countenance, the behaviour, and the conversation
of his page, Maurice de Grey; he kissed the emerald ring which he wore
on his finger; and his heart was drowned in a rushing tide of wild
sensations, where hope and joy rose predominant. His generous soul
swelled with transport at the thought of being the protector of her
whom he now adored, and whom he now found, at the very moment she was
left, as he believed, in a state of utter destitution. His impatience
made him deplore that decency forbade his visiting the Lady Beatrice
that night, but he resolved to seek for an audience of her early the
next morning.
At such hour, then, as a lady could be approached with propriety, he
despatched his esquire on an embassy to the Castle. He had little fear
of the result, from what had already passed between them; but what was
his mortification to learn that the Lady Beatrice had been gone from
Norham for above five or six hours, having set out during the night on
some distant journey, whither no one in the Castle could divine.
It is impossible to paint the misery of Sir Patrick Hepborne. Hope had
been wound up to the highest pitch, and the most grievous
disappointment was the issue. He was so much beside himself that he was
little master of his actions, and Mortimer Sang was obliged to remind
him of the necessity of returning immediately to Melrose, to join his
father, who, with the other Scottish nobles and knights, had resolved
to stay there for the space of three days ere they should separate.
The warriors parted, with solemn vows uttered over the grave of the
Douglas; and Sir Patrick Hepborne and his son, accompanied by the Earl
of Moray, Assueton, Halyburton, and a number of other knights, set out
for Hailes Castle. The Lady Isabelle was ready to receive them on their
arrival. She sprang into the court-yard to clasp her father and her
brother to her bosom; and although modesty and maiden bashfulness
checked those manifestations of love towards her knight with which her
heart overflowed, yet, as he kissed her hand, her cheeks flushed, and
her eyes sparkled with a delight that could not be mistaken.
Among those who came out to welcome the war-like party was old Gabriel
Lindsay. Leaning on his staff on the threshold, he eagerly scanned each
face that came near him with his dim eyes.
“Where is my gallant boy?” cried he. “I trow he need seldom fear to
show his head where valorous deads hae been adoing; he hath had his
share o’ fame, I warrant me. Ha, Master Sang, welcome home. Where
loitereth my gallant boy Robin? he useth not to be so laggard in
meeting his old father, I wot. A plague on these burnt-out eyes of
mine, I canna see him nowhere.”
“Who can undertake the task of breaking poor Robert’s death to the old
man?” cried Sang, turning aside from him in the greatest distress.
“Sure I am that I would rather face the fierce phalanx of foes that did
work his brave son’s death than tell him of the doleful tidings.”
“Where hast thou left Robin, Master Sang?” said the doting old man
again. “Ah, there he is; nay, fye on my blindness, that be’s Richie
Morton. Sure, sure my boy was never wont to be laggard last; ’twas but
the last time he came home with Sir John Assueton that he had his arms
round my ould neck or ever I wist he was at hand; he thought, forsooth,
I would not have ken’d him: but, ah, ha, Robin, says I to him——”
“My worthy old friend,” said Sang, quite unable any longer to stand his
innocent garrulity, so ill befitting the reception of the bitter news
he had to tell him, and taking his withered arm to assist him into the
Castle, and leading him gently to his chamber—“my worthy friend, come
this way, and I will tell thee of thy son—we shall be better here in
private. Robert Lindsay’s wonted valour shone forth with sun-like glory
in the bloody field of Otterbourne; but——”
“Ah, full well did I know that he would bravely support the gallant
name of Lindsay,” cried the old man, interrupting him with a smile of
exultation. “Trust me, the boy hath ever showed that he hath some
slender streams of gentle blood in his veins; we are come of good kind,
Master Sang, and maybe my boy Robin shall yet win wealth and honours to
prove it. My great-great-grandfather—nay, my grandfather’s
great-great——”
“But, Robert,” said Sang, wishing to bring old Gabriel back to the sad
subject he was about to open.
“Ay, Robert, Master Sang,” replied the old man, “where tarrieth he?”
“At Otterbourne,” replied Sang, deeply affected. “Thy son, thy gallant
son, fell gloriously, whilst nobly withstanding the whole force of the
English line as they burst into our camp.”
“What sayest thou, Master Sang?” said the infirm old man, who perfectly
comprehended the speaker, but was so stunned by his fatal intelligence
that his feeble intellect was confused by the blow—“what sayest thou,
Master Sang?”
“Thy heroic son was slain,” replied Sang, half choked with his
emotions. “This lock of Robert Lindsay’s hair, and these trinkets taken
from his person ere we committed his body to the earth, are all that
thou canst ever see of him now, old man.”
The esquire sat down, covered his face with his hands, and wept; and
then endeavouring to command himself, he looked upward in the face of
Gabriel Lindsay, who was standing before him like the decayed trunk of
some mighty oak. The time-worn countenance of the old man was unmoved,
and his dull eyes were fixed as in vacancy. The wandering so common to
wasted age had come over his mind at that moment, sent, as it were, in
mercy by Providence to blunt his perception of the dire affliction that
had befallen him. Fitful smiles flashed at intervals across his
face—his lips moved without sound—and at last he spoke—
“And so thou sayest my boy will be here to-night, Master Sang, and that
this is a lock of his bride’s hair? It is golden like his own; my
blessing be on him, and that of St. Baldrid. But why feared he to bring
her to me attence? Ha, doubtless he thought that the joyful surprise
mought hae made my blood dance till it brast my ould heart. But no,
Master Sang, joy shall never do for me what sorrow hath failed to work.
I lost his mother—lost her in a’ her youth and beauty, and yet I bore
it, and humbled myself before Him who giveth and taketh away, and was
comforted; and shall I sink beneath the weight of joy? Nay, even had he
died in the midst of his glory, I trust I am soldier enow, though I
be’s ould, to have borne the news of my son having fallen with honour
to Scotland, and to the name of Lindsay; but doth he think that his
ould father may not be told, without risk, how he hath fought
bravely—how he was noticed by the gallant Douglas—and, aboon a’, how he
is coming hame in triumph with a bonny gentle bride? And didst thou say
they would be here to-night, Sir Squire? Fye, I must gang and tell Sir
Patrick—and the brave young knight—and my Lady Isabelle; they will all
rejoice in Gabriel’s glad tidings. A bonny bride, thou sayest, Master
Sang; and shall I yet have a babe o’ Robin’s on my knee ere I die? But
I must away to Sir Patrick.”
He made an effort to go. Sang rose gently to detain him. He
stopped—looked around him wildly—fastened his eyes vacantly for some
moments on the ceiling—reason and recollection returned to him, and his
dream of bliss passed away.
“Oh, merciful God!” he cried, clasping his hands together in agony of
woe. “Oh, my boy, my brave, my virtuous boy, and shall I never see thee
more?”
Nature with him was already spent; his failure was instantaneous; his
limbs yielded beneath him, and he sank down into the arms of the
esquire, who hastily laid him on the bed and ran for assistance. Sir
Patrick Hepborne, his son, and the Lady Isabelle, as well as many of
the domestics, quickly appeared in great consternation; but they came
only to weep over the good old Seneschal—He was gone for ever.
The death of this old and faithful domestic threw a gloom over the
Castle, so that Assueton felt that he could hardly press on his
marriage-day. At last, however, it was fixed. The preparations were
such as became the house of Hepborne; and the ceremony was performed in
presence of some of the first nobles and knights of Scotland.
The Countess of Moray had come from Tarnawa to meet her Lord. Sir
Patrick Hepborne, the younger, eagerly sought an opportunity of having
private conversation with her, hoping to have some explanation of the
strange disappearance of his page. But the noble lady, maintaining the
same distance towards him she had so mysteriously used, seemed rather
disposed to shun the subject; and it was not until Hepborne had
prefaced his inquiry with a full exposition of all he suspected, and
all he knew, regarding the Lady Eleanore de Selby and the Lady
Beatrice, and that she really saw where his heart was sincerely fixed,
that she would consent to betray the secret she possessed. Hepborne was
then assured that his page Maurice de Grey was no other than the Lady
Beatrice.
Believing that Hepborne loved her, she had looked with joy to other
meetings with him; she had been filled with anxiety when she heard of
the encounter between him and Sir Rafe Piersie; and she was exulting in
his triumph over that knight at the very moment they came to tell her
of his departure. She hastened to a window overlooking the Tweed, where
she beheld the boat that was wafting him to Scotland. It was then, when
she thought herself deserted, that she really felt that she loved.
Almost unconscious of what she did, she waved her scarf. He replied not
to the signal. Again and again she waved, and in vain she stretched her
eyeballs to catch a return of the sign. The boat touched the strand; he
sprang on shore, and leaped into his saddle. Again in despair she
waved; the signal was returned, and that faint sign from the Scottish
shore was to her as the twig of hope. So intense had been her feelings
that she sank down overpowered by them. Recovering herself, she again
gazed from the window. The ferry-boat had returned, and was again
moored on the English side. She cast her eyes across to the spot where
she had last beheld Sir Patrick. The animating figures were now
gone—some yellow gravel, a green bank, a few furze bushes, and a
solitary willow, its slender melancholy spray waving in the breeze,
were all that appeared, and her chilled and forsaken heart was left as
desolate as the scene.
It was at this time that she was called on by friendship to dismiss her
own griefs, that she might actively assist the high-spirited Eleanore
de Selby. By the result of Sir Rafe Piersie’s visit, that lady was
relieved from his addresses; but they were immediately succeeded by the
strange proposals of her infatuated father, when deluded by the
machinations of the Wizard Ancient. All her tears and all her eloquence
were thrown away, and so perfect was Sir Walter’s subjection to the
will of the impostor that even his temper was changed, and his
affection for his daughter swallowed up, by his anxiety to avert the
fate that threatened. Such coercion to a union so disgusting might have
roused the spirit of resistance in the most timid female bosom; but
Eleanore de Selby, who was high and hot tempered, resolved at once to
fly from such persecution; and, taking a solemn vow of secrecy from the
Lady Beatrice, she made her the confidant of a recent attachment which
had arisen between her and a certain knight whom she had met at a
tilting match held at Newcastle a short time before, when she was on a
visit to an aunt who resided there. The Lady Eleanore informed her
friend that her lover was Sir Hans de Vere, a knight of Zealand,
kinsman to the King’s banished favourite the Duke of Ireland, who had
lately come from abroad, and who looked to gain the same high place in
King Richard’s affections which the Duke himself had filled. From him
she had received a visit unknown to her father, and it was the parting
of the lovers after that meeting which had so filled Hepborne with
jealousy. In the urgency of her affairs she implored her friend to aid
her schemes, which were immediately carried into effect by means of the
Minstrel.
Having thus been gradually, though unwillingly, drawn to be an
accomplice in the Lady Eleanore’s plans, Beatrice felt that she could
not stay behind to expose herself to the rage of the bereft father.
Having assisted her friend, therefore, to escape, she accompanied her,
in male attire, to the place where her lover waited for her at some
distance from Norham. There she parted, with many tears, from the
companion of her youth, having received from her the emerald ring which
Sir Patrick Hepborne afterwards became possessed of. Her own depression
of spirits, occasioned by Sir Patrick’s unaccountable desertion of her,
had determined her to seek out some convent, where she might find a
temporary, if not a permanent retreat. Under the protection of old Adam
of Gordon, therefore, she crossed the Tweed into Scotland. There he
procured her a Scottish guide to conduct her to North Berwick, where he
had a relation among the Cistertian nuns, and thither she was
proceeding at the time she met Hepborne in the grove by the side of the
Tyne.
When Sir Patrick addressed her she felt so much fluttered that it was
some time before she could invent a plausible account of herself; and
when he proposed to her to become his page, love triumphed over her
better judgment, and she could not resist the temptation of an offer
that held out so fair an opportunity of knowing more of him, and of
trying the state of his heart. As to the latter she became convinced,
by some of those conversations we have detailed, that she had been
cruelly deceived, and that she had in reality no share in it. She heard
him passionately declare his inextinguishable love for the Lady
Eleanore de Selby, and when he said that he had seen too much of her
for his peace of mind, she naturally enough concluded that they had met
together on some former occasion. She became unhappy at her own
imprudence in so rashly joining his party, and was anxious to avail
herself of the first opportunity of escaping from one whose heart never
could be hers. The Countess of Moray’s kindness to her as Maurice de
Grey induced her to discover herself to that lady. She earnestly
entreated that she might remain concealed, and that Sir Patrick might
not be informed. It was the Lady Jane de Vaux who laid the plan for
deceiving him about the departure of his page, and she and the Countess
of Moray could not resist indulging in tormenting one whom they
believed to have wantonly sported with the affections of the Lady
Beatrice, and who had consequently suffered deeply in the good opinion
of both.
The Minstrel, who, to do away suspicion, had returned to Norham
immediately after the escape of the ladies, no sooner learned from the
guide the change which had taken place in Beatrice’s plans, and that
she had gone to Tarnawa, than he determined to follow her thither,
under pretence of going to the tournament. Having learned from him that
her benefactor, Sir Walter de Selby, had been overwhelmed with
affliction for the loss of his daughter, of whose fate he was yet
ignorant, and that he had also grievously complained of her own
desertion of him, she was filled with remorse, and determined to return
to him immediately, and to brave all his reproaches; but indisposition,
arising from the trying fatigue of body and the mental misery she had
undergone, prevented her setting out until several days after the
departure of the Earl of Moray and his knights for Aberdeen. Hepborne
could now no longer doubt of the attachment of the Lady Beatrice. The
thought that he had ignorantly thrown away a heart so valuable as that
which his intercourse with his page had given him ample opportunity to
know, was a source of bitter distress to him. His spirits fled, he
loathed society, and he industriously shunned the huntings, hawkings,
dancings, and masquings that were going merrily forward in honour of
his friend’s nuptials with his sister the Lady Isabelle.
But Assueton was not so selfishly occupied in his own joys as not to be
struck with the change in his beloved Hepborne. He besought him to
unbosom the secret sorrow that was so evidently preying on his mind,
and Sir Patrick, who had hitherto generously concealed it, that he
might not poison the happiness in which he could not participate, at
last yielded to the entreaty, and told him all. Sir John had but little
of comfort to offer: the subject was one that hardly admitted of any.
He saw that the only way in which friendship could be useful was by
rousing him to do something that might actively divert his melancholy.
Sir David de Lindsay having returned from his captivity in England, had
lately arrived at Hailes, where Sir William de Dalzel and Sir John
Halyburton had remained, to witness Assueton’s marriage. They were now
about to proceed to London, to make good the pledge given to Lord
Welles. Hepborne would have fain excused himself from the engagement he
had so cheerfully made with them at Tarnawa, but Assueton contrived to
pique his chivalric spirit, and at length succeeded in inducing him to
become one of the party. Sir John even offered to accompany his friend,
but Hepborne would by no means permit him to leave his newly-married
Lady.