"Like thee, I may lose my heart in love a thousand times; but my poor
head in politics only once, therefore am I somewhat miserly about it;
yet I see what thou meanest," he whispered with sudden energy. "Say
forth, and fear not. Hah! knowest thou not how I hate the Lord Darnley
for the ruin of my youngest and best beloved sister; and that hatred is
without a love for his wife, which I see thou darest to nourish."
With a cold and deep smile they regarded each other keenly under their
barred aventayles; and Hepburn of Bolton, Bothwell's most stanch friend,
who had partly overheard the conversation, said--
"Ere the month be out, I think it very likely this lordling of the
Lennox may die of indigestion, as an old friend of Hob's did yestreen."
"On what did thy friend sup, Ormiston?" asked the Earl.
"This piece of cold steel!" replied the black giant, touching the iron
hilt of his Scottish whinger.
"How, with a murrain! is it thus that thou servest thy friends at
supper?"
"When they grow captious, capricious, or quarrelsome. We came to deadly
feud about a few scores of nowte we had forayed on the borders of the
debateable land from the clan of the Graemes, and so"----
"Thou thinkest the king may so sup, and so die?"
Ormiston answered by a short dry cough.
"True," continued Bothwell, "there are strange whispers abroad anent the
Earl of Moray and his intrigues; but here comes the king! Place for his
grace. Heaven save your majesty!"
"My Lord Earl, a fair good-morning--Ormiston and Bolton, my service to
ye, sirs!" said the young king, bowing with that grace which marked all
his actions; for his suit of mail, which seemed absolutely to blaze in
the meridian sun, fitted his handsome form with the flexibility of silk.
His eyes were dark and penetrating, but his face seemed in its wan
ghastliness like the visage of one who had long been in the tomb; and
Bothwell, when he scanned those noble features, so livid and wasted by
sickness and dissipation, and compared his slight boyish figure with
Black Ormiston's powerful frame, a sentiment of pity rose in his breast,
and he shrunk from the dark hints which, partly in banter, and partly in
the ruffianly spirit of the age, the knights had given him. These
gentle thoughts were instantly put to flight by Darnley's insolent
manner.
"I marvel," said he, with a marked sneer, "that the gay Bothwell tarries
here among the men-at-arms, when so many fair faces, and the queen's in
particular, are at yonder casement."
"I will do all in my power to make amends," replied the Earl, with
ironical suavity. "Hob of Ormiston, follow me, if it please you! I
will pay my devoirs to the queen's grace;" and with a dark scowl at the
king, and a furtive one at his true henchman, the Earl applied his sharp
Rippon spurs to his roan charger, and moved away.
*CHAPTER III.*
*THE HANDKERCHIEF.*
Where were then these Palace warriors,
That for thee they drew no brand?
Verily, we all do know them,
Quick of tongue, but slow of hand;
Yea, time will show, for this can ne'er be hid,
That they are women all, but I--the Cid!
_Rodrigo de Bivar._
In those days, the manners, houses, and dresses of the Scottish
aristocracy were modelled after those of France, and even to this day
traces of the ancient alliance are to be found in Scotland. This
imparted to the people a freedom of manner, a tone of gaiety, and a
lightness of heart, which the influence of Calvinism was doomed in
future years to crush, and almost obliterate.
"By St. Paul!" whispered the Earl, as he and Ormiston pushed their
horses through the crowd; "Mary looks like a goddess at yonder
casement."
"I will warrant her but a mere woman, after all," rejoined the
matter-of-fact baron, spurring and curbing his powerful black horse.
"By that dark look quhilk, just now, thou gavest the king, I can read
that thou lovest"----
"Who?"
"The Queen!"
"And why not?" laughed the Earl, with a carelessness that was assumed;
"has not love been the business of my life?"
"I hope it hath proved a profitable occupation. But remember that
yonder face, with its bright hazel eyes and fascinating smile, is like
that of the Gorgon in the old romaunt--for whoever looketh thereon too
freely, shall die. Bethink thee: there was the poor archer of the
Scottish guard at Les Tournelles, who died with a rope round his neck in
the Place de Greve at Paris; there was Chatelard, that accomplished
chevalier and poet; Sir John Gordon of Deskford, a young knight as brave
as ever rode to battle, and who loved her with his whole heart, yet
perished on the scaffold at Aberdeen. Did not young Arran love her even
to madness, and raved as a maniac in the tower of St. Andrews? and then
Signor David the secretary, who, as Master George Buchanan will swear
upon the gospel"----
"Add not the scandal of that most accomplished of liars to thy
croaking!" said the Earl, impatiently, as the dust of the court-yard
came through his helmet. "Hob, hold in thy bridle; for thou makest a
devil of a fray with that curveting horse of thine! Good-morrow to your
majesty, and every noble lady!" he added, as he caprioled up to the
window where the beautiful Mary, with the ladies of her court, were
viewing the bustle and show of the martial weaponshaw.
"Ah, _bon jour_, Monsieur Bothwell!" she replied, with one of her
delightful smiles; "how comes it that I see thee only now?"
"Because your majesty is like yonder glorious sun," replied the Earl;
"thousands see and admire you, but few are noticed in return."
"Oh, what a hyperbole!" said the Queen, with a sad smile; "that
compliment would suit the sunny sphere of Les Tournelles better than
Linlithgow."
Memory cast a shade over the Earl's brow; but his cheek glowed with
pleasure as the smiling queen continued--
"The vassals of the crown muster gaily for this Border war."
"And still more gaily muster the nobles of the court, to curvet and
capriole their steeds before these fair ladies; but, verily, few will
venture their gilt armour under dint of spear or whinger for their
sake."
"Thinkest thou so--even when Bothwell leads?"
"Yes, adorable madam," replied the Earl, in a low thick voice; "even
when Bothwell leads!"
"Had so many chevaliers of crest and coat-armour assembled at
Versailles, there would have been many a spear broken in our names
to-day.
'For Mary Beatoun, and Mary Seatoun,
And Mary Fleming, and _me_!'"
added the Queen, singing with all her gaiety of heart those lines from
the old ballad of the _Four Maries_.
"And why not here, madam?" said the Earl with ardour; "give me but the
guerdon you promised--a ribbon, a glove, a favour to flutter from my
lance; and may I die the death of a faulty hound, if I do not make it
ring like a mass-bell on the best coat-of-mail among us."
The head of the Earl's lance was close to the window, and the queen with
her usual heedlessness, tied her laced handkerchief below its glittering
point; and a sinister smile spread over the face of the English
ambassador when he saw this incident, and thought how famously he would
twist it up into one of those tissues of court scandal and gossip, which
nightly he was wont to indite for the perusal of Elizabeth and her
satellites, Cecil and Killigrew.
The Earl kissed his hand as he reined back his horse.
"Courage, brave Bothwell!" cried the gay Countess of Argyle; and all the
ladies clapped their hands and cried, "A Bothwell!--a Bothwell!"
"Now, ho, for Hepburn!" exclaimed the Earl, spurring his beautiful
charger. "Come on, Ormiston! and we will meet all yonder tall fellows
in battle _a l'outrance_, if they will."
"I am right well content," growled the giant; "but whom shall I
encounter--yonder grasshopper, d'Elboeuff?"
"I would give my best helmet full of angels to see him measure his
length on the gravel, were it but to cure him of his pouncet-box and
villanous perfumes," said Hepburn of Bolton; "but he is the queen's
kinsman, and she may be displeased."
"Diabolus spit me!" said Ormiston, "if I care whether she is pleased or
not. I will break one lance and his head together, if I can; for he
styled me a Goth and a savage, last night, in his cups."
"And I will run one course with Darnley," said the Earl.
"Good! may it fere with thee, as with old; Montgomerie and Henry of
France!"
"How?"
"A splinter may make his wife a widow. Cock and pie, sirs! A ring--a
ring! To the baresse!--Back, sirs, back!--We would break a spear for
honour and for beauty. Have at thee, Marquis!" exclaimed Ormiston, as
he made the point of his long lance ring on the splendid armour of the
Frenchman.
"_Bon diable!_" grinned the Marquis; "_J'en suis ravis_! I am
delighted!"
"And have at your grace!" said Bothwell, slightly touching Darnley; "I
have made a vow, in the queen's name, to run a course with the tallest
man on the ground, and the tallest man is thee."
"By St. John! Lord Earl, thou art somewhat over-valiant," said Darnley,
bestowing an unmistakeable frown upon the rash noble, who laughed like a
madcap as he backed his horse among the startled men-at-arms and
spectators, crying--
"A ring! a ring!--Back, caitiffs and gomerals! and then we shall see who
are good knights, as King William said of old."
"Wouldst thou have me maintain the field against the beauty of my own
wife?" asked the young king, with a terrible frown.
"Certes, yes! for thou seemest least sensible of it."
"Less than thee, perhaps!"
"Yes--ha! ha!"
"Then, God's death! Take up thy ground!"
The queen's archers cleared a space before the gateway, while Bothwell
and Ormiston ranged themselves opposite the king and D'Elboeuff, with
their visors down, their bodies bending forward to the rush, and their
lances in the rest, but having wooden balls wedged on their keen steel
points.
The Earl Marischal raised his baton, handkerchiefs were waved from the
windows, a shout burst from the people, and, urged from a full gallop to
the most rapid speed, the four heavy chargers and their glittering
riders met with a fierce shock in the centre, and recoiled on their
haunches, as the riders reeled in their saddles. D'Elboeuff's lance
missed Ormiston, who planted the hard wooden ball that blunted the tip
of his tough Scottish spear full into the pit of the Frenchman's
stomach, whirling him from his saddle to the ground with a force that
completely stunned him.
"Now, Marquis, lie thou there!" cried Ormiston, who was uncouth as a
bear in his manner, "and pray to every saint that ever had a broken head
before thee."
The lance of Bothwell smote Darnley full on the breastplate, and its
splinters flew twenty feet into the air; but the king's, being by chance
or design deprived of its ball, entered the bars of the Earl's embossed
helmet, and wounded him on the cheek.
Deeming this an act of Darnley's usual treachery and malevolence,
animated by a storm of passion, the Earl drew his sword, exclaiming--
"Ha, thou false lord and craven king! what the devil kind of
demi-pommada was that?"
But the Earl Marischal, Ormiston, Bolton, and a crowd of courtiers,
pushed their horses between them, and they were separated, with anger in
their eyes and muttered invectives on their tongues.
"It matters not, my lords!" said Bothwell, as he wiped the wound with
his white silk scarf and regained the queen's handkerchief from the
point of his broken lance; "'tis a mere school-boy scratch."
"May Heaven avert the omen!--but I have known such scratches become
sword-cuts," observed the Earl of Moray, with one of his cold and
inexplicable smiles, for he mortally hated both the King and the Earl.
The morning was now far advanced, and the troops prepared to depart.
Slowly and laboriously the little wheels of the two brass culverins,
with their clumsy stocks, studded with large nails and cramped with
plates of polished brass, were put in motion, by the cannoniers whipping
up the six powerful horses that drew them, and the carts containing the
bullets of stone and lead, the powder, and other appurtenances for the
field.
Surrounded by four hundred arquebussiers, who wore conical helmets,
pyne-doublets, swords and knives, and were each attended by a boy to
bear his gun-rest and ammunition, the artillery, commanded by Chisholm
the Comptroller, departed first through the deep-mouthed archway of the
ancient palace. Then followed the several bands of horsemen and
pikemen, each under their various leaders--and all riding or marching
very much at their ease, according to the discipline incident to the
days of feudalism, when steadiness in the field was more valued than
mere military show. The long Scottish spears, six ells in length, and
the white harness of the knights and landed gentlemen, flashed
incessantly in the sunshine; while many a square banner and
swallow-tailed bannerole waved above the summer dust that marked the
route of the marching column.
They soon left behind them old Linlithgow's turreted palace and gothic
spire, its azure lake and straggling burgh, as they wound among the
thick woodlands that bordered the road to Ecclesmachin; and, long ere
the sun set, the rattle of their kettledrums, the twang of their
trumpets, and clash of their cymbals, had wakened the echoes of the
Bathgate hills.
The queen and her courtiers watched their departure, together with
Darnley, who had joined them, and seemed in better humour from the issue
of his encounter with the Earl; but being naturally proud and jealous,
he found to his no small exasperation that the ladies were more than
ever inclined to praise the handsome peer, and then, for the first time,
the demon of jealousy began to whisper in his ear.
"Tell me, Henri, _mon ami_," said Mary, with perfect innocence, "did not
the Lord Bothwell look enchanting in his plate armour?"
"God wot, I neither ken nor care, fair madam!" replied the young King
sulkily, as he handed his helmet to a page.
"He looked the same as when I saw him at Versailles," said the Lady
Lethington.
"Ah, Mary Fleming, _ma bonne_!" said the Queen, in one of her touching
accents; "we were only fifteen years old then."
The ladies, finding Mary in a mood to praise the Earl, all chimed in,
greatly to Darnley's chagrin and annoyance.
"He is a winsome man, and a gallant," lisped the Countess of Argyle over
her pouncet-box.
"He has an eye that looks well below a helmet peak," added the Lady
Athole, as she adjusted her long fardingale.
"O, were he single, I would marry him to-morrow!" laughed little
Mariette Hubert, glancing furtively at Darnley's shining figure.
"If thou art anxious to be a rich widow, 'twere a good match, Mariette,"
replied the young King, with one of his icy smiles, as he turned away;
and, whistling a hunting air, descended to the court-yard, and departed
on a hawking expedition, attended by a few of his own personal retinue,
who were invariably composed of his father's Catholic vassals from the
district known as the Lennox.
*CHAPTER IV.*
*THE LEITH WYND PORTE.*
----On they pass'd,
And reach'd the city gate at last;
Where all around a wakeful guard,
Arm'd burghers, kept their watch and ward.
_Marmion._
Towards the close of a sultry day, two travellers approached one of the
eastern gates of Edinburgh, when the burgher guard were about to close
it for the night.
The sun of June had set behind the distant Ochils, and his last rays
were fading away from the reddened summit of St. Giles's spire, and the
dark grey mansions of that ancient capital, whose history is like a
romance.
The mowers, who the livelong day had bent them over the grass on many a
verdant rig and holm, that are now covered by the streets and squares of
the new city, had quitted their rural occupations. Between green
hedgerows and fields of ripening corn, the lowing herds were driven to
pen and byre in many a rural grange and thatch-roofed homestead; the
bonneted shepherd that washed his sheep in the city lochs, and tended
them by night on the braes of Warriston and Halkerston's crofts, could
little foresee the new world of stone and lime, of gas, of steam, of
bustle, and business, that was to spread over these lonely and
sequestered places.
Gentlemen in glittering doublets and laced mantles, with hawks on their
wrists, and well-armed serving-men in attendance, rode into the city,
singly or together, from hawking the gled and the heron by Corstorphine
loch and Wardie muir, or from visiting the towers and mansions in the
neighbourhood. Few remained without the fortifications after nightfall,
for our ancestors were all a-bed betimes.
In half an hour more, the foliage darkened in the cold and steady
twilight of June; but a crimson flush yet lingered in the west to show
where the sun had set.
The two wearied wayfarers approached the lower barrier of Edinburgh,
which faced the steep street known as Leith Wynd, the whole eastern side
of which was in ruins, having been burned by the English invaders, under
the Earl of Hertford, sixteen years before.
In the fair young man, armed with a round headpiece and corselet, the
reader will recognise Konrad the Norwegian, and in the boy that
accompanied him, may perceive the soft features and long tresses of
Anna, notwithstanding the plain grey gaberdine, the sarcenet hosen, and
blue cloth bonnet, under which she had veiled her beauty and concealed
her sex. She had all the appearance of a slender and sickly boy, with
hollow eyes and parched lips, exhausted by fatigue and privation.
Tremblingly she clung to Konrad as they drew near the low but massive
arch of the Leith Wynd Porte, where he knocked on the nail-studded
wicket with the pommel of his Norwayn dagger. A small vizzying-hole was
unclosed, and the keen grey eye of one of the burghers on guard was seen
to survey them strictly under the peak of his morion; for, by an act of
the city council, every fourth citizen capable of bearing armour, had to
keep watch and ward by night, completely armed with sword and jedwood
axe, arquebuss and dagger, for the prevention of surprise from without,
and suppression of disturbance within the burgh.
"Now, wha may ye be, and what want ye?" asked the burgher gruffly and
suspiciously.
"Who I may be matters little to such as thou," replied Konrad,
haughtily; "what I seek is entrance and civility, for I like not thy
bearing, sirrah."
"Then I let ye to wit, that without kenning the first, thou canst not
hae the second," replied the citizen, whose Protestant prejudices began
to rise against one, whom he shrewdly deemed by his foreign accent to be
a Frenchman, and consequently, a "trafficking messe preist," as the term
was. "I fear me we hae enow o' your kind doon the gate at Holyrood.
Some mass-monger, I warrant! Hast thou ever heard Master Knox preach?"
"No--who is he?"
"Wha is he!" reiterated the citizen, opening the pannel, his eyes and
his mouth wider in his breathless astonishment. "What country is yours,
or wharawa is't, that ye havena heard o' him, who is wise as Soloman,
upright as David, patient as Job, as stark as the deevil himsel?"
"I am come from a far and foreign land," continued Konrad, endeavouring
to make himself understood by the medium of a little of the Scottish
tongue he had acquired.
"Ye are a merchant, maybe? I am one mysel, and deal in a' manner o'
hardware that cometh out o' Flanders by the way o' Sluice, frae brass
culverins to porridge cogues and kail-pats. Are ye a merchant, fair
sir?"
"Yes--at your service, I am a trader," replied Konrad, glad to
conciliate the man, and to hear him withdrawing the bolts.
"And in what do ye deal?" he asked, still lingering.
"Hard blows--thou dog and caitiff--and I would fain barter with thee!"
replied Konrad, giving way to rage as he felt poor Anna sinking from his
arm, under the very excess of exhaustion.
"Awa wi' ye! thou art some thigger or licht-fingered loon--some
frontless papist or French sorner--or maybe a' thegether, as I doubt not
by the fashion o' thy dusty duds! Awa! or I sall hae ye baith branded on
the cheek, and brankit at the burgh cross, or my name's no Dandy the
dagger-maker!" and the vizzy-hole was closed with a bang.
Konrad turned away exasperated and sorrowful. Though by this time
pretty well used to insult and opprobrium from the reformed Scots, who
deemed every foreigner a Frenchman, and consequently an upholder of the
ancient faith, evinced their hatred in a thousand ways; and once
proceeded so far as to stone, in the streets of Edinburgh, an ambassador
of the Most Christian king, who was fool-hardy enough to exhibit himself
in a mantle of purple velvet, adorned with the white cross of the
knights of the Holy Ghost. Konrad's exchequer was now reduced to a very
low ebb, for he possessed but one gold angel and two unicorns--the
former being worth only twenty-four, and the latter eighteen, shillings
Scots; and though he and his companion had found no difficulty in
procuring food and shelter in the rural districts, where every baron and
farmer gladly afforded a seat by his hall fire, a place at his board,
and a hearty welcome to every wayfarer; now, when arrived at the end of
their destination, in a crowded capital, the residence of a court, a
trading and grasping middle class, a fierce aristocracy, and their
fiercer retainers--the case was altogether different; and he gazed
about, with doubt and irresolution, to find a place wherein to pass the
night.
The roofless relics of the English invasion would have afforded a
sufficient shelter for one so hardy as himself; but his tender and
fainting companion----
"Courage, dearest Anna!" he whispered in their native language; "we have
now reached the place of our destination."
"True, Konrad," murmured Anna; "but to what end? Oh, I have no wish now
but to lie down here, and die! Forgive me, Konrad, this ingratitude;
but I feel that I will not now--trouble you very long."
The young man once more put an arm around her; and, with a glance that
conveyed a world of grief and passion, supported her to the summit of
the steep street, where, between two broad, round towers, another
massive barrier, that separated the city from the suburban burgh of the
Canongate, frowned over the long vista to the east. The grimness of its
aspect, its heavy battlements, and deep, round portal, were no way
enlivened by the bare white skulls of two of Rizzio's murderers--Henry
Yair, and Thomas Scott, sheriff-depute of Perth--on long spikes.
Lest Anna might perceive them, Konrad turned hastily away; and, looking
round, hailed with satisfaction a house, having the appearance of a
comfortable hostelry, furnished with a broad sign-board that creaked on
a rusty iron rod; and half leading, half supporting Anna, he approached
it.
*CHAPTER V.*
*THE RED LION.*
A seemly man our Hoste was withall
For to have been a marshall in a hall;
A large man he was with eyen steep,
A fairer burgess is there none in Cheap;
Bold of his speech he was, and well y taught,
And of his manhood him lacked righte nought:
Eke thereto was he right a merry man.
_Chaucer._
The Red Lion in St. Mary's Wynd was one of the most spacious and famous
of the old Scottish hostellaries, and Adam Ainslie, the gudeman thereof,
was as kindly a host as ever welcomed a guest beneath his roof-tree.
The enormous obesity of his paunch made him resemble a turtle on its
hind-legs, while his visage, by hard drinking and frequent exposure to
the weather, had become as flushed and red as the lion figuring on his
sign-board, that overhung the principal wynd of Edinburgh.
If the ancient Scottish inns lacked aught that was necessary for the
comfort of the traveller, it was not want of legislative encouragement;
for so early as the days of James I., laws were enacted, and confirmed
by James V., that all hostellaries "should have honest chambers and
bedding for passengers and strangers travelling through the realme, weel
and honestlie accoutred; good and sufficient stables, with hack and
manger, corn and haye--fleshe, fishe, breade, and oile, with other
furnishing for travelloures."
This edifice, for which the antiquary may now look in vain, was two
stories in height, having a row of pediments over the upper windows,
which, like the lower, were thickly grated. The doorway, to which an
outside stair gave access, was surmounted by an old coat-of-arms and the
pious legend--
Miserere Mei Deus.
marked it as once the habitation of a churchman of rank. A low archway
gave admittance to the stables behind. These bordered the garden of the
ancient Cistertian convent of St. Mary-in-the-Wynd, an edifice of which
not a vestige now survives. In the middle of the court there lay a
great stone tank for watering horses, and high above the inn, on the
north side, towered the smoke-encrusted mansions of the Netherbow.
With numerous sleeping apartments for guests and their retinues, which
in those turbulent times were invariably numerous, well-armed, and
mounted, the hostell contained one large and rude hall or apartment,
where all visitors, without regard to sex or rank, partook of the
general meals, and were accommodated on plain but sturdy oaken benches.
An arched fireplace, rude in workmanship as the bridge of a country
burn, opened at one end of this hall; and within, notwithstanding that
the evening was a summer one, a large fire of wood from the Burgh muir,
and coal--a luxury on which Adam Ainslie prided himself not a little, as
its use was then very limited--blazed in the wide chimney for cooking,
and threw its red gleam on the white-washed walls, sanded floor, and the
well-scoured benches and girnels; on the rude beams of dark old oak that
crossed the ceiling, and from which hung dried seafowl, boars' hams,
baskets, and superannuated household utensils, all placed hodge-podge
with those warlike weapons which every householder was bound to have at
hand for the "redding" of frays, and maintenance of peace within the
burgh. Nor must we omit to mention a great barrel of ale that stood in
a recess near the doorway, propped on a sturdy binn, furnished with an
iron quaigh, and of which all on entering partook, if they pleased, with
a hearty welcome.
On the appearance of Konrad and his almost lifeless companion, Ainslie's
better half, a comely and buxom dame, wearing a coif of Flemish lace, a
scarlet kirtle and silken sash, and having her fat fingers studded with
silver rings, arose from her spindle, and bidding them welcome with the
motherly kindness more natural to the time than her occupation, led
Anna, whom she deemed "a puir sickly laddie," to a well-cushioned chair,
and, finding him too faint to answer any questions, she turned to
Konrad, who said--
"Let us have supper, goodwife! for this day hath seen us wellnigh
famished. What hast thou at hand in the larder?"
"We have rabbits trussed and broiled, noble sir, capons roasted and
boiled, stewed partridges, and the great side o' beef whilk thou seest
turning before the fire; but that is for my lord the Earl of Morton,
quha to-day cometh in frae his castle of Dalkeith, and the best in
cellar and larder maun be keepit for him. Earls, ye ken, are folk that
canna thole steering."
"Then get us a capon--a manchet"----
"And a flask of Bordeaux?"
"The best thou hast."
"But for this puir bairn, that seemeth sae sair forfoughten, sall I no
make a milk posset?"
"God bless thee for the thought, goodwife! let it be brought, and
speedily."
"Wilt thou not sup with me?" said a countryman in a plain gaberdine, who
was seated at a side bench, and with the aid of his hunting-knife, (for,
as we have elsewhere stated, forks were still in futurity,) was
dissecting a noble capon and boar's ham, the odours of which were
extremely tempting to Konrad. "Thou seest," continued his inviter,
"that I am but a poor dustifute like thyself; but thou and thy boy are
welcome. I am drinking Rochelle at sax pennies the Scots pint-stoup.
By St. Mary! I cannot afford Bordeaux, even though it does come in by
the east seas."
"Thanks, fair sir, for this courtesy," replied Konrad; "and if thou
permittest my boy to taste thy Rochelle"----
"Odsbody! he is welcome."
Konrad hastily placed the proffered wine-horn to Anna's thirsty lips;
she tasted it, revived a little, and again sank back, saying--
"Let me sleep--let me sleep!" and, closing her eyes, mutely resisted all
Konrad's winning entreaties, that she would partake of a little food.
While sharing the stranger's hospitality, the young Norwegian, whom
anxiety for his young charge had rendered suspicious of every one,
covertly but keenly scrutinized him.
He was a powerfully but sparely formed man, whose well-strung limbs had
been reduced to mere bone and brawn by constant exercise. His face was
pleasant, good-humoured, and manly; he wore a short beard, and close
shorn hair; his cheekbones were somewhat prominent; but his keen and
dark grey eye had an expression, that by turns was full of boldness and
penetration, merriment and fun. Beneath his gaberdine, which was of the
coarsest white Galloway cloth, Konrad could perceive an excellent jack
of jointed mail; a grey maud or Border plaid was thrown loosely over his
broad chest and brawny shoulders; his flat worsted bonnet and a knotty
oak cudgel lay on the floor, under the guardianship of a rough wiry cur.
Konrad judged him to be a substantial yeoman or farmer, though at times
his language and manner unguardedly imported something better.
He, on the other hand, while eating and drinking with the appetite and
thirst of a strong and healthy fellow, who since sunrise had been
travelling fast and far, quite as keenly scrutinized Konrad, whose
occupation and degree he found himself puzzled to determine.
"By the set of thy head, and aspect of thine eye, I would say thou hast
been something of a soldier, master," said the Scot.
"I have been more of a huntsman than a soldier, perhaps; yet I have done
a little in both lines."
"Good! I love thee for that; thy life hath been checkered, like mine
own. Thou art not one of our ain kindly Scots, or else thou hast
attained the true twang of the foreigner. Peradventure, hast been
pushing thy fortune under the banner of stout Sir Walter Scott, whose
Border bands are now covering themselves with immortal honour on the
frontiers of Saxony?"
"Nay! my sword has never been drawn against others than the fat citizens
of Lubeck and Hamburg."
"Profitable warfare I would take that to be, and pleasant withal; for
these Hanseatic burghers can wade above their baldricks in rixdollars,
say our Leith shippers. So, then, thou art of Flanders?"
Willing to deceive him a little, Konrad nodded.
"I guessed thou wert a Fleming," replied the yeoman, laughing, "and so
my heart warmed to thee; for they are all stout men and true. Mass! my
own mother, who now sleeps at St. Mary in the Lows, was a Fleming of the
house of Wigton, whose forbear, Baldwin le Flemyng, came from thy
country in the days of St. David, to take knight's service, as I doubt
not thou meanest to do."
Konrad again assented to his garrulous companion.
"Then there will be work enow for thy sword by Lammas-tide; for the
stout Earl of Bothwell is about to make a royal raid into Clydesdale."
"Saidst thou Bothwell?" ejaculated Konrad, in a thick voice, and
glancing hastily at Anna, who was now buried in a profound slumber, with
her face concealed in her mantle.
"Yea, Bothwell--one of our queen's prime favourites; but there will be
many a lance broken, and many a steed left riderless, ere he shall
traverse all the windings of the Liddle. By St. Mary! but they must
keep sharp watch and ward at the gate of his castle of Hermitage; for by
this time, I warrant, the troopers of John of Park have all been riding
by moss and moor."
"Who is this John of Park, of whom I hear so many speak, either with
hatred or applause?"
"The chief of the brave clan Elliot, and long Lord Bothwell's mortal
foe."
"Then would to Heaven I could meet this John of Park!"
"Hah!" exclaimed the countryman, whose eyes sparkled; "and for what
end?"
"That under his banner I might have some chance of meeting Bothwell in
his armour, lance to lance, and horse to horse. O God! thou alone
knowest how much I have suffered at his hands, and what I have to
avenge!"
"Is it thus with thee?" said the Scot; "swear that thou dost not deceive
me.
"By all that is holy, I swear!"
"Good. To-morrow I shall lead thee to John Elliot of Park, who needeth
much a few such spirits as thee," replied the other, in the same low
tone under which the conversation had been maintained.
Here a clatter of horses' hoofs in the adjoining wynd, together with the
jingle of steel bridles and two-handed swords, announced the arrival of
more important guests.
"Now here cometh the Earl of Morton and his swash-bucklers--a pest on
them!" muttered the countryman, instinctively grasping his cudgel; while
the bluff host and his buxom better-half bustled about in a high state
of excitement, dusting the long oaken table, adjusting the fire, placing
fir buffet-stools, and trimming the long candles that flared in the tin
wall-sconces.
*CHAPTER VI.*
*THE EARL OF MORTON.*
Dark Morton, girt with many a spear,
Murder's foul minion!
_Scott._
Attended by a train of forty armed horsemen, this potent noble had
arrived.
His men, as they dismounted, placed their long and unwieldy lances
against the wall of the inn yard, and set about stabling their steeds
with ready activity. Followed by Archibald Douglas, laird of
Whittinghame, and Hume of Spott--two gentlemen of his retinue--this
factious, proud, and ferocious lord, whose name is so infamous from the
dark and bloody share which he took in all the deep intrigues and civil
broils of that unhappy period, entered the hall of the hostelry; and
certainly, from the smile that spread over his handsome features,
curving his fine mouth, and lighting up his brilliant hazel eye--and
from the dignity of his aspect, and the magnificence of his yellow
damask doublet, embroidered with gold, his purple velvet trunks, which
were slashed with white and edged with point d'Espagne, where they
joined his hose of Naples silk--the politeness with which he removed his
black beaver, with its long white feather, and on entering saluted the
hostess with a kiss, and the host with a thump between the shoulders--no
one, we say, who saw his general aspect and bearing, would have
recognized the same savage and avaricious noble, who, as it was commonly
said, "never spared man in his vengeance, nor woman in his lust"--who
murdered Captain Cullen for possession of his beautiful wife--who
poisoned the Regent Mar to secure the regency--who hung sixty men, as a
pastime before breakfast, at Leith Loan--and who was yet foredoomed, to
die on the scaffold for the greatest of all human crimes.
Adam Ainslie bowed and bowed again, and Lucky Ainslie curtseyed, in
concert, a dozen of times, so well as their corpulent figures would
permit.
"How dost thou, stout Adam?" said the Earl, merrily, as he took his seat
at the highest part of the chamber board. "Save us! but this meat
smelleth savourily, and my evening ride hath given me a wolfs appetite.
By the rood I mine host--(pest upon these old oaths of papistry, but how
they stick to one's fancy!)--thou wearest noble hosen," continued the
Earl, jocosely, as, with his walking-cane, he poked Adam's
preposterously bombasted trunk-breeches. "Dost thou know that the Lord
Bothwell and other gallants aver, that thy gudewife keepeth all her bed
and table napery stuffed into them?"
"Your lordship is pleased to be merry," simpered Dame Ainslie, placing
stools for the Earl's jackmen, who came crowding in with all their iron
paraphernalia clanking, and dimmed with summer dust; and a terrible
clatter they made with their long spurs, gigantic boots and gambadoes,
long swords and jeddard staves, as they took all the best places at the
hearth and table, hustling into the background the countryman and his
two companions.
Awakened by the uproar of their entrance, Anna clung fearfully to
Konrad's arm; and he remarked that their new acquaintance kept as much
as possible in the background, and wore his grey plaid high up on his
weatherbeaten visage.
"Hast thou no city news, Master Adam?" said the Earl. "Thou knowest
that one might as well bide at the bottom of a draw-well as in that
lonely tower of Dalkeith. How stand the markets? and how like our
burghers their new provost, the stout knight of Craigmillar?"
"By my troth, Lord Earl, there is a southland yeoman ben there who ought
to ken mair of market stock than I. The queen's byding at Lithgow makes
the toun dull and eerie; for the second spiering, I may say auld Sir
Simon is liket right well, for he sheweth small mercy to mass-priest and
papist; gif they be found within the Fortes, they dree a douking in the
Nor' Loch for the first offence, and a clean drowning in Bonnington Linn
for the second. His riders had a lang chase nae farther gane than
yesterday, frae Wardie peel to the Braid's burn, after a mass-priest,
Sir James Tarbet, who had been found lamenting over his broken idols in
the chapel of St. James by the sea; but I grieve that they failed to
catch him."
"Beware thee, Adam!" said the knight of Whittinghame, "or thou mayest
get a broken head for broaching such free opinions in an hostellary.
The head of antichrist is still floating above the current of public
opinion."
"Hath Monsieur de Rambouillet, the new French ambassador, arrived?"
asked the laird of Spott.
"He landed yesterday at the New Haven from Monsieur de Villaignon's
galley; and, preceded by the heralds and bailies of the town, was
conducted to Willie Cant's hostel in the Kirkgate of Leith, close by St.
Anthony's gate."
"I marvel mickle that he came not to thee, good Adam."
"I marvel mair," added the host, testily; "for there is no an hostel in
a' broad Scotland, and that's a wide word, where there is better
uppitting baith for man and beast than the _Red Lion_; beside, 'tis a
clean insult to the gude toun his lying at a Leither's hostel; but I owe
this to a leather-selling bailie in Niddry's Wind, who I outvoted in the
council anent the double and single-soled shoon, that made sic a stir
among the craftsmen. Ken ye, my Lord Earl, on whatna errand Maister
Rambooly hath come hither?"
"Some new popish league, I warrant," said the laird of Spott, curling
his grisly beard. "'Tis said that the Hugonets, jealous of such a body
of Switzers being marched into the Isle of France, are resolving upon
open war."
"Thou mistakest, Spott," replied the Earl, with a dark frown. "Gif the
best man in France came hither on any such devil's errand, I would slit
his tongue with my own dagger. He hath come from Charles IX., to bestow
on King Henry the collar of St. Michael the archangel. Her majesty
comes from Linlithgow in three days, and we shall have the ceremony of
installation at Holyrood thereafter."
"She will be here in three days, the Queen--hearest thou, Anna?"
whispered Konrad. She pressed his hand in reply, and drooped her head
upon his shoulder; and the heart of Konrad sickened at the reflection,
that the action was prompted only by the abandonment of despair.
"St. Michael's collar!" continued the laird of Spott; "the king should
kneel on Rizzio's gravestone at this notable investment. Doth it not
smell of popery and brimstone?"
"So the godly Maister Knox openly affirmit in a sermon preached this
blessed day," said dame Ainslie, turning up her saucer-like eyes at the
soul-stirring recollection thereof; "preached--ay, in the High Kirk,
(named St. Giles by the idolaters,) and he advisit the crafts to hurl
the stanes of the street upon Rambooly, as the son of anti-christ."
"Master Knox should beware, and bethink him that the persons of
ambassadors are sacred," replied the Earl; "but on what other points did
he touch in his notable discourse to-day?"
"Oh! he spoke in a way whilk was rapturous and soul-feeding to hear,
anent the abomination of singing idolatrous carols at Yule-tide, the
great sin of singing ought but psalms, and of all loud laughter and
ungodly merriment, whilk becometh not poor sinners like us, in the
slough of despondency. He railed at the Queen and the Lord Darnley--the
one for her obstinate papistrie, and the other for his wicked life--and
then he spoke o' the reiving bordermen in general, and John o' Park in
particular, on whom he fulminated a' the curses that ever were crammed
into a cardinal's excommunication, as being the strongest and most
desperate thief in a' the south country, since puir John o' Gilnokie
dree'd his dreich penance from King James."
"Said he aught of the Lord Bothwell?"
"Yea, my lord--that he had taken a hawk from an ill nest."
"Meaning his espousal of a popish woman of the house of Huntly," said
Morton. "Well, said he aught of me?"
"Nay, my lord--Heaven forefend! Art thou not one of his boon and
steadfast friends?"
"Right--he would not talk of me," replied the fierce noble, with one of
his deep smiles; and striking his walking-cane on the floor, an
involuntary custom of his, added, "Well, then, master hosteller, let us
to supper, for I am ravenous as a hawk, and this noble baron of beef
seemeth done to a single turn. If this strange gentleman will so far
favour me as to deign"----
"Excuse me, Lord Earl, but I have already supped," replied Konrad,
bowing with the distant air of one who wishes to be undisturbed and
unrecognised. Morton's pride and curiosity were piqued.
"Thou art English, I think, by the fashion of thy beard, and, doubtless,
hast a passport from the marshal of Berwick. I will pardon the
bluntness with which thou declinest my courtesy, and will add, that thou
mayest find the shadow of my banner a good protection, if the quarrels
between the dainty queens of these realms end in blows; for our little
dame looks sourly upon thine, deeming her little else than a false
bastard and base usurper."
"Thou art mistaken, Lord Earl. I am not an Englishman."
"Then what manner of man art thou, fair sir? thou seest I have a
restless curiosity. A stranger?"
"At thy service, noble lord. I understand thou art the great Earl of
Morton--the foe of my foe."
"At the Scottish court each man is foe to every one else. I am, in
fact, a little Earl compared with such a tall fellow as Bothwell. But I
may easily be the foe of thy foe, seeing that the half of broad Scotland
would readily drench my doublet in Douglas blood, gif they could; but,"
he added with hauteur, "who is thy foe?"
"James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell!" replied Konrad in the same manner,
for he was displeased by the peculiar accentuation.
"Hah! is it so? Thou art a bold fellow to mention that name otherwise
than in a whisper, for it findeth an echo every where now. Knowest thou
not," he added, with a glance of ferocious scorn, "that the white horse
of Hepburn is now bidding fair to swallow the crowned heart of Douglas?
I ask not the cause of thine enmity to this man, but if thou wishest an
opportunity of seeing him in his helmet, follow my banner for one month
or so; for I tell thee that the heather is smouldering on our Scottish
hills, and erelong 'twill burst into a red and furious flame."
"Excuse me, potent Earl," replied Konrad, for at that moment the
countryman plucked him anxiously by the sleeve; "excuse me, for I am in
some sort pledged to another."
"Please thyself, a-God's name! and now let us to supper."
*CHAPTER VII.*
*MORTON TURNS PHILANTHROPIST.*
"Blessed be the Lord for all his gifts;
Defied the deil and all his shifts;
God send us mair siller--_amen!_"
Such was the grace, which, with half mockery and half gravity, the Earl
of Morton, who acted the rigid presbyter and stern reformer merely when
it suited his own fancy or peculiar ends, commenced the repast which
Adam Ainslie's pantryman had arranged upon the long oak chamber-board,
as a table was then named.
The upper end was covered by a cloth of damask, flowered with red silk;
the lower was bare; the guests of rank were furnished with knives and
spoons of silver, with glasses of Venetian crystal, delft platters, and
pewter trenchers. The lower had only wooden caups and luggies--quaighs
and spoons of horn--the great saltseller forming the grand point of
demarcation between the two classes of society who were to partake of
the same meal, at the same board, in the kindly fashion of other years.
The Earl and his gentlemen sat above; their rough-visaged troopers,
unhelmeted, but still wearing their corselets and gorgets, swords and
gambadoes, sat below it, closely, side by side, on buffet stools and
wooden benches.
They were accommodated with porridge and luggies of sour-milk; a handful
of prunes thrown into each platter, with cheese and cakes of mashlum,
(flower made of ground peas and barley,) and horns of ale, formed their
evening fare; but the savoury baron of beef, a pasty of powts, (or
muirfowl,) a pudding of plumbs and spices, with flasks of choice Canary,
Rochelle, and Bordeaux, at only sixpence or ninepence Scots the pint,
garnished the upper end; and to this early supper, for which our late
dinners are now a substitute, this jovial company sat down, just as the
four old bells of St. Giles rang the hour of nine.
"'Tis savoury meat this, Mistress Ainslie," said the Earl; "and it well
deserved a better blessing."
"Whence hadst thou it, lucky?" asked the Knight of Whittinghame, a grim
and bearded man; "for here is what I would call the prick of a lance."
"A true Border mark, by Mahoud!" added Hume of Spott.
"Ye say true, sirs; it may be a gore-mark," replied Dame Ainslie,
curtseying; "for ken ye, the beast was the best of a drove of four
hundred, lifted in Nichol forest by John of Park, whose riders sauld it
to my gudeman in the fleshmercat."
"English fed, by the rood!" said the bearded knight, cutting down
another slice. "Here is another goad-mark! I warrant me, John's
prickers had been sorely pressed by the English captain of Bewcastle, or
the lances of the Wardenrie."
"These wild powts are right tasty, host of mine," said the Earl; "whence
come they?"
"From the muirlands about the toun, my lord. They are thick as locusts
on the braes of the Nor' Loch and Wardie muir. One crossbow shot brings
down two at once in the feeding time."
From a nook, in which she had hitherto sat unseen, Anna had surveyed,
with a terror which she could scarcely repress, the number of armed men
who crowded the apartment. There was a reckless, daredevil aspect about
them all; their armour was rusty, and their other attire well worn; in
grisly profusion, their beards and whiskers fringed their weatherbeaten
faces, which were all more or less stamped with ruffianism; for Morton,
notwithstanding the placid suavity of his manner, was as oily a ruffian
as ever drew a dagger--and, instead of his rural vassals, he generally
preferred to be attended by a band of paid "wageours," as those military
desperadoes were named, who swarmed throughout Scotland after the wars
between the Congregation and Mary of Lorraine had ceased.
"Konrad," said she, tremblingly, as she clung to his arm; "let us leave
this place"----
"For whence?--the wayside?--to be exposed to the midnight dew, and wild
animals, perhaps?"
"Surely any place is preferable to this. The faces of these men terrify
me!"
Ere Konrad could reply, the Earl of Morton, who had acute ears for such
matters, on hearing the soft voice of a woman, bent his keen dark eyes
towards where Anna was shrinking into the shadow, formed by a projection
of the wall. He divined her sex in an instant; but with his usual
cunning concealed this discovery.
"'Tis a pretty lad, this, sir stranger!" said he to Konrad, kindly. "Is
he thy page, or thy brother; for he cannot be thy son?"