"Thou art sarcastic, and out of humour, sweet mistress; what lackest
thou?"
"A runlet of right Rhenish to bathe me in. Thou knowest, Lord Earl,
that all the great ladies of our court bathe so; for its powers, say
physicians, are miraculous on the skin."
"Thou shalt have the Rhenish, only excuse me, I pray, ever drinking any
of that wine with thee thereafter. Any thing more?"
"Perfume: I lack some, and must have it from Monsieur Picauet."
"How! will no other than the queen's physician and perfumer serve thee?
Thou shalt have the essences, too, and"----
"A hundred angels of silver, too--eh?"
"A hundred yelling devils!" replied the Earl.
"I will not require thy page with so many attendants."
"Thou art a cunning gipsy," said Morton, grinning under his long beard,
and taking a purse from his girdle, where (as pockets were not then
invented) it hung beside his dagger. "Here are eighty for thee; and not
one devilish tester more can I give, even were it to purchase my own
salvation--so, now let us kiss and be friends."
Alison was now in excellent humour; she sang a few snatches of
"Gilquhiskar," and "Troly loly Lemendow," two merry old ditties, while
she played with Morton's preposterous beard, and acted the coquette, and
he affected the gallant--each in secret despising the other. But after
a time, relinquishing the frizzling of her locks and adjustment of her
Elizabethan pearl bobs, Alison turned her attention to the crowd of
jostling passengers, that now, as the morning had advanced, and the
Porte of St. Mary was open, streamed through the wynd.
Meanwhile that Anna, timid, confused, and broken-spirited, in her
character of page, had retired a little into the background, Alison
Craig was amusing the Earl by quizzing the appearance and gait of every
person who passed--handling them with all due severity.
"Marry, come up! look, Lord Earl! yonder goeth Master George Buchanan,
in his conical beaver and threadbare cloak, with a great book under his
arm. Tantony! but he looketh very rusty to be Director of the
Chancery--but, lo!" she exclaimed, as a burly country gentleman, in a
whalebone ruff, and barrelled doublet of green broad cloth, with a great
broadsword belted about him, and his lady riding lovingly on a pillion
behind him, ambled up the street; "'Tis the old laird of Braid, and Dame
Marjory Fairly, his gudewife."
"They are just married, sweetheart--else why ride they so lovingly?"
"Nay! they have been wedded these thirty years, and had two tall sons
shot at the siege of Leith, by Monsieur Brissac," replied the lady, with
an explosion of laughter. "But the laird is a gomeral, and his dame in
her great tub-fardingale--O Jesu! see yonder gay galliard, with a
feather in his hat and a falcon on his thumb!"
"'Tis Master Sebastian, who playeth the viol at Holyrood."
"Ah! the Savoyard. And, lo you! there goeth the Knight of Spott,
without a cloak to hide his threadbare doublet. Well! were I thee, Sir
Knight, I would buy me worse garments, or avoid the city. But I warrant
he hath spent his last bodle on a can of Flemish beer at the Red Lion."
"He is a gentleman of my following," said the Earl with a frown. "His
gudesire spent his all in the wars of King James, and fell at Flodden
like a true Scottish knight, with his pennon before and his kindred
behind him; his son, else, had been a richer man to-day."
"Gramercy me! here cometh Mistress Cullen, too, in her top-knots and
flaunters, walking daintily, as if she trod on egg-shells, with a lace
ruff under her saucy chin, and her nose in the air. St. Mary! she wears
three bob-jewels while I have only one."
A very pretty woman, whose face was shewn to the utmost advantage by her
little white coif, and whose uplifted train displayed her handsome
ankles cased in stockings of red silk, stept mincingly up the wynd; and
as this was a lady with whom Morton had an intrigue, and whose husband
he ultimately put to death in furtherance thereof, he assumed his
beaver-hat and walking-sword, hurriedly kissed Alison, and patted the
cheek of the page, saying significantly--
"When next we meet again, little one, I hope to see thee in more fitting
attire."
But as he bowed himself out, by the bright glance of his cunning eyes
Anna knew with terror that the secret of her sex had been discovered.
And she was left alone with this dangerous woman, of whose character she
was wholly ignorant, though her surprise and suspicion were naturally
excited by the too evident lightness of her demeanour. As the worthy
Dame Craig knew neither French nor Norwegian, and Anna had no Scottish,
the latter was wholly at a loss to make her story known; and resolved to
await in patience an opportunity of ending all her tribulation, by
throwing herself at the feet of Mary, which she doubted not to have soon
an opportunity of doing, when in the train of a lady who was on such
terms of intimacy with the most powerful nobles of the court.
On waking next morning, she found on a chair by her couch, in lieu of
the well-worn doublet with which poor Konrad had disguised her, a double
ruff of Brussels lace, a peaked stomacher of blue Genoese velvet, sewn
with seed pearls, and a skirt of blue Florence silk, covered with the
richest needlework: there was a suite of beautiful jewels for her hair;
bracelets, and a carcanet of rubies for her neck, all of one set.
These, and the entrance of one of Dame Alison's flippant and tawdry
damsels, announced to Anna that now all disguise was at an end.
The jewels had been sent by the Earl, who, by force or fraud (but seldom
by purchase), had always an immense assortment of such things at his
castle of Dalkeith, in the vaults of which he is said by tradition to
have buried twelve casks filled with plate, precious stones, and
bullion, the plunder of desecrated churches, demolished abbeys, and
stormed fortalices.
At ten in the morning he paid her a visit, fresh from St. Giles' church,
where, to please the public, he had been compelled to attend one of Mr.
John Knox's furious ebullitions against "antichrist and the belly-gods
of Rome," and against that queen and court who were introducing into the
land "muffs and masks, fans and toupets, whilk better became the harlots
of Italie than the modest and discreet women of Scotland."
The gallant Earl was intoxicated by the air of innocence and purity that
pervaded the beauty and saddened manner of his intended victim; and the
sentiments she inspired lent a charm to his manner that increased the
natural grace of his very handsome person, which was arrayed in a suit
of the finest black velvet, slashed with pink satin.
We must make this a brief chapter, says the Magister Absalom quaintly in
his MSS., as the scene hath long lost the odour of sanctity.
Confused, silent, and with her eyes full of tears, the helpless and
lonely Anna heard all his addresses in the broken French he had acquired
among Mary's courtiers, without knowing what they imported, till
suddenly the whole danger of her situation flashed like lightning on her
mind, and, rising from her chair, she drew back, and with a crimsoned
cheek, a dilated eye that filled with fire, exclaimed--
"Forbear, Lord Earl! I am Anna, Countess of Bothwell!"
Impressed by her air, and thunderstruck by the announcement, Morton
stood for a minute silent and irresolute; but so accomplished a
gentleman and courtier was not to be easily rebuffed; and approaching
with an air in which the deepest respect was curiously mingled with
impudence and surprise, he led her to a chair--entreated her to forgive
him, to be calm, and to tell by what chance he had the happiness--the
unmerited honour--of being introduced to the wife of his dearest
_friend_, in a manner so very odd.
Won by the frank air and oily address of this polished noble, the too
facile Anna, with all the usual accompaniments of tears and hesitation,
related her story; and Morton heard it in attentive silence, but with a
secret glow of pleasure and triumph that he could not conceal, for it
sparkled in his dark hazel eyes, and glowed in his olive cheek. But, to
Anna, these seemed indicative of his generous indignation at Bothwell's
faithlessness and cruelty; whereas, the factious Earl felt only joy at
the prospect of having it now in his power to stop the successful career
of the rising favourite--to set him at feud with the powerful house of
Huntly--to bring upon him the wrath of a most immaculate and irascible
kirk, and the scorn of a virtuous queen.
"By the devil's teeth, but this is glorious!" thought he; "I must hie me
to Lord Moray."
Begging that Anna would compose herself--would be patient--would trust
the management of her affairs implicitly to him, and all would yet be
well, he left her, courteously saluting her hand, and whispering
terrible denunciations of vengeance against Alison Craig if she
permitted any one to have access to her--allowed her to escape--or
failed to treat her with the utmost respect and kindness.
He then mounted his horse, and accompanied by Hume of Spott, and Douglas
of Whittinghame, with sixty armed horsemen, set off on the spur for the
mansion of the Lord Moray, the massive tower of Donibristle, situated on
a beautifully wooded promontory of the Fifeshire coast, and washed by
the waters of the Forth. But it so happened that the intriguing Earl
was elsewhere; and, as there were neither post-offices nor electric
telegraphs in those days, several weeks elapsed ere those noble peers,
and comrades in many a feudal broil and desperate scheme of power, could
meet and mature their plans, which, however deep, were ultimately
frustrated by the Earl of Bothwell himself, as will be shown in the two
following chapters.
*CHAPTER XIII.*
*FOUR CHOICE SPIRITS.*
Belyve as the boom o' the mid mirk hour
Bang out wi' clang and mane;
Clang after clang, frae St. Giles's tower,
Where the fretted ribs, like a boortree bower,
Make a royal crown o' stane.
_Mems. of Edinburgh._
A month, we have said, had passed away.
Konrad of Saltzberg still remained a captive in the hands of Bothwell,
who was constantly urged by the savage and unscrupulous Baron of
Ormiston to put him to death, as the best and surest means of stifling
for ever the secret he possessed. But a sentiment of pity for the wrong
he knew the captive had suffered at his hands, warmed his generosity,
prevented him stooping to so deliberate an act of baseness and cruelty,
and saved Konrad for a time.
He dreaded setting him at liberty, and therefore took a middle course;
and, resolving to trust the ultimatum to fate, transmitted his captive
to Edinburgh, escorted by French Paris and ten moss-troopers, who
consigned him to the care of Crichton of Elliock, the queen's advocate,
as a border outlaw. While awaiting his examination before the council,
he was placed under the sure surveillance of Hepburn of Bolton and the
Royal Archers, in the old tower of Holyrood, which had been built by
John, Duke of Albany.
By this time the queen had recovered from her illness; and, guarded by
her archers and a thousand border lances on horseback, arrived at
Edinburgh on the 24th of November, and resided alternately at the Palace
and at Craigmillar, a castle three miles south of the city. Though his
wounds were barely healed, Bothwell, with a small retinue, immediately
left Hermitage, and followed her to the capital, while Moray and Morton
were plotting and laying their schemes in Fifeshire.
Thus were all the parties of our drama situated on the 24th of November,
1566, when this chapter opens.
The night was cloudy and dull; a cold wind swept in gusts through the
narrow streets, and not a star was visible, for one of those dense
mists, named a _harr_ by the Edinburghers, had risen from the German
Sea, and settled over the city. The High Street had long been deserted
by all save four belated revellers, who were muffled in their mantles,
and wandering about without any apparent object.
At midnight, the aspect of the greatest thoroughfare of Edinburgh was
then peculiarly desolate and gloomy. It was destitute of lamps, though
paved with huge square stones, as an old writer informs us, and bordered
by edifices "so stately in appearance, that single houses may be
compared to palaces." Many of these mansions rose from stately arcades
of carved stone. One great arch at the head of Merlyn's Wynd was
profusely decorated; and before it lay six stones, marking the grave of
the great city paviour, John Merlyn, who was so vain of his having been
the first to causeway the High Street, that he requested to be buried
beneath it. Another magnificent edifice, built in 1430, adorned by
gothic niches, containing the effigies of saints and warriors, reared up
its imposing facade near Peebles' Wynd, and Hugo Arnot, in whose time it
was extant, avers that no modern building in the city could be compared
with it.
Dark and shadowy, looming like ranks of giant Titans through the flying
mist, the striking outlines of these fantastic mansions overshadowed the
way; and under the gloomier shade of their groined arcades, our four
friends, muffled and masked, wandered to and fro without having any
decided object in view.
They were no other than the Earl of Bothwell, the Marquis d'Elboeuff,
and their friends, Hob of Ormiston, and John Maitland, lord of
Coldinghame, brother of the famous Lethington, who, though a gay roue,
held the offices of Lord Privy Seal and Prior of Coldinghame--the Priory
he held _in commendam_. They had all been drinking joyously overnight
at Adam Ainslie's, and had now sallied forth bent on brawl and mischief,
despite the burgh acts, which were very stringent regarding "night
walkers;" for the bailies had enacted that each night at the hour of
ten, after forty strokes had been given by the great bell of the High
Kirk, (the old name of _St. Giles_ had been voted idolatrous,) any
person found walking in the streets should be summarily imprisoned
during the pleasure of the provost; while, for the better maintenance of
a nightly watch, the city was divided into thirty districts, over each
of which were two captains, a merchant and craftsman, empowered to keep
the peace of the burgh by dint of jeddard axe and Scottish spear.
But our four gallants had sallied forth prepared for every emergency.
Bothwell was completely mailed in the fashion of the time, all save the
head, on which he wore a blue bonnet, and his legs, which were defended
by his bombasted trunks and quilted hosen. The Marquis d'Elboeuff was
similarly accoutred, but wore one of those strong and plain salades,
which had only one horizontal slit for the eyes, and he bore on his left
arm a light French rondelle or buckler; but Ormiston and Coldinghame
wore only pyne doublets, or undercoats of defence quilted with wire, and
so called from having been first worn by _pions_, or foot-soldiers.
They were all disguised by black velvet masks and dark mantles, under
which they carried their swords and daggers.
"How goeth the night, Marquis?" asked Bothwell, as they stumbled along
the dark street, breaking their shins against the outside stairs that
then in hundreds encumbered the way.
"By St. Denis!" lisped the French noble in his broken dialect; "I know
not, for I never was rich enough to buy me a horologue."
"How! is thine appanage of Elboeuff in the Rumois so poor?"
"'Tis past midnight," said Coldinghame; "I heard St. Giles toll twelve."
"A bonny hour and a merry for thee to be abroad, Lord Prior, when thou
oughtest be saving thy nocturnal," said Bothwell.
"True; but belonging, as I do, to the Reformed kirk, I own no monastic
law; no! by the most immaculate Jupiter!" bawled the lay prior as he
swaggered along; "'Tis very long since I abjured the follies of the
Church of Rome."
"She lost much by thy defection," said Bothwell, scornfully; "but devil
take me, Prior, if thou art not very drunk."
"By the body o' Bacchus, thou art no better than a horned owl to say so!
But keep your rapiers ready, sirs; for yonder is a tall fellow who seems
disposed to bar the way."
"Where? _ventre bleu!_" exclaimed d'Elboeuff, drawing his sword.
"Where?--where?" asked the others.
"Why, right on the crown of the causeway; and, fore Heaven! he _doth_
seem a marvellously tall fellow."
"By cock and pie! 'tis the city cross, thou blind bat!"
"Right, Ormiston!" replied Bothwell; "but his reverence is so drunk that
he knows not a cross from a cow. Past midnight? soh! a famous hour for
such regular men as we to be strolling along the streets, like knights
of the post; and thou, bully Hob, art without thine armour."
"I have a pyne doublet that would turn the bolt of an arblast--double
quilted."
"The streets are dull, and I am very sleepy," stammered Coldinghame.
"Speak not of sleep, my Lord Privy Seal," said the Earl; "for we have a
notable brawl to make yet. We must show these rascally bailies that
their night-watch and captains of the thirty wards had no reference to
us, who are lords and barons of Parliament."
"Thou hast ever some wicked thought in thy gomeral's costard. A brawl!
with whom, pray?"
"With _thee_, Lord Prior, if thou talkest thus!" rejoined Bothwell,
adjusting his mantle, angrily.
"_Vrai Dieu!_ chevaliers," said the Frenchman; "after so happy a night,
don't quarrel, I pray you."
"I would give a score of bright bonnet-pieces to meet a few of Moray's
or Morton's swashbucklers coming down the street just now! I am in the
right mood for a fray," said Black Hob. "Suppose we ring the Tron bell,
and shout fire, sack, and the English!"
"Or break into the house of some rascally bourgeoise, and carry off his
pretty wife," said the Marquis d'Elboeuff. "Oh, _ventre bleu!_ de
Brissac, de Vendome, and I, have played that prank many a night among
the Hugonets in the Rue de Marmousets, and the dear rogues in the Rue de
Glatigy"----
"At Paris, thou meanest," said Bothwell; "but our wooden-headed burghers
set a value upon their conjugal ware different from your countrymen.
The price French, is by francs and livres; the price Scottish, blows and
steel blades. One might as well venture into a wasps' nest."
"_Nom d'un Pape!_ Bothwell is growing tame," retorted the Marquis. "I
knew that being once regularly wedded would spoil him."
"_Once!_" laughed Ormiston. "I warrant him"----
"Peace, gomeral!" thundered the Earl, placing his gauntleted hand on
Hob's mouth. "What wert thou about to say, i' the devil's name?"
"Only that I would wish to show some of these fanatical Protestants
that, being doubly damned, they have no right to keep their wives and
daughters, or handmaidens, all to themselves."
"_Tete Dieu!_" cried d'Elboeuff, brandishing his rapier; "ah, the
selfish Hugonets!--we must teach them the new law. Who will follow me?
for Bothwell seemeth white-livered."
"Dost thou gibe me, Marquis? God wot! I should like to see thee ettle
at aught that I will not surpass."
"Then here is a house. Draw, chevaliers!--_vive la joie!_ let us beat
up the door, knock down the bourgeoise, and carry off the first pretty
woman to my hotel in the Cowgate!"