But young Beichan was a Christian born,
And still a Christian was he,
Which made them put him in prison strang,
And cauld and hunger sair to dree,
And fed on nocht but bread and water,
Until the day that he mot dee.
--_Lord Beichan._
On being taken from the courtyard, Ruthven Somervil was, without
delay, committed to close ward in the Donjon-keep. The armourer of the
castle brought a pair of heavy chains, which he rivetted upon the
prisoner’s wrists and ankles, and secured the ends to a ring in the
wall. The prison cell was low, small, and dark; two narrow loop-holes
scarcely admitted the feeblest light. The captive heard, with a
shudder, the bolts and bars drawn upon the door, and hammers driving
them securely into their staples, and chains fastened across the door
as an additional security.
Oppressed with the weight of his fetters, and more so by the
insupportable weight of his disaster and despair, the outlaw sank down
upon the floor of the cell, and lay for a long period silent and
inert in body and soul. Consciousness scarce seemed within him. To
look upon his motionless figure one would have thought him dead.
Almost involuntarily he raised his hand to his breast and felt, with a
thrill of joy and sadness, the little reliquary found on his neck when
left at the gate of Hawksglen, which still hung at his heart. For many
years Elliot kept this mysterious trinket carefully locked up in his
cabinet, and had refused to part with it even upon the urgent
solicitations of Ruthven previous to his quitting the castle. But,
after he joined the band of Hunterspath, Lady Eleanor contrived to
gain possession of the trinket, unknown to her father, and, at an
interview which she granted to her outlaw lover on the banks of the
lake, she delivered it into his hands. Around his neck he had worn it
ever since, and he was resolved to go to the grave with it. He now
drew forth the little trinket, and, surveying it for a moment in the
dim light, pressed it to his lips, for the sweet memory of her from
whose hands he had received it as a love-gift. How his soul, as it
roamed through the memories of the past, dwelt upon that meeting near
the lake, as a weary traveller of the desert lingers long on the bosom
of the green, shady oasis, with its glancing springs and flowing
waters.
And this was an oasis in his life; before, behind, around it was all
the desert in its barrenness. His soul recalled that autumn eve, with
all its beauty and sweetness. Yonder shone the lake in the fading
glories of the western sky. Eleanor was standing beneath the
whispering shade of hazel, and he stood by her side, gazing on the
fair young face that drooped with emotion; the mantling blush on the
smooth cheek, the drooping of the eyelids, the bosom that heaved with
sad and joyful thoughts, the lovely being whose heart was his, whose
hand was pledged to him.
The captivity, the prison, the chains, the prospect of death, all were
forgotten in the vision which the golden reliquary called magically
into being.
But the “visioned scene” fled, like a delusive mirage, and, as it
dissipated, it left the dungeon and the chains revealed and felt. The
captive had left the oasis for ever, and was now in the midst of the
waste, howling desert, horrors behind, and before, and around! Pent up
within the four grim walls, only to be led forth to hear his doom,
and thence to the place of death--a chained and powerless victim,
prostrate beneath the uplifted, menacing hand of Destiny. Plunged in
deepest despair, not a ray of hope could penetrate such a dungeon or
such a despairing heart. The last sands of a troubled life were
running out fast. And this was to be the end of him who was nursed in
the lap of luxury, on whose career the crimes of others had cast a
baleful influence. This the end of him who had gained fair Eleanor’s
heart. Alas for Eleanor!
The mental stupor returned, he lay sluggish on the ground; the little
golden reliquary had lost its magic power. Like him who languished in
the vaults of Chillon, he could have said--
“I had not strength to stir or strive,
But felt that I was still alive.”
And there was freedom on the green heights of Cheviot, on the wide
Border which he rode so long, in the halls of Hunterspath, where he
had defied all power and every enemy. But he was a captive, chained to
the wall like a dog. The time wore by unheeded; a ray of sunlight
trembled into the cell, and vanished, and the wind began to blow--the
wind that sounded high on Cheviot. The captive still sat grovelling
on the ground.
He had a fancy that the door of the dungeon was hammered open, that a
glare of torchlight illuminated the place, that voices arose, that
forms passed before him.
“He is in despair,” said one voice; and another answered: “He well may
be so, for on the third morning he dies.”
And then something like a laugh echoed through the cell.
“I will leave the food for him,” said a voice again. “He will wake and
be glad of it.”
And the other voice said:
“Pity that so comely a youth should have followed the lawless career
of a robber. In his King’s service he might now have been a knight,
and they say of him that he comes of noble blood.”
“That is why our good lady pleads so strongly for his life.”
“But she pleads in vain,” said the other voice. “Sir Dacre’s purpose
is fixed. Noble or ignoble, this robber leader shall die; and the
Border will be quiet after it. I will leave the bread and water.”
And there was a drawing and hammering of bolts, and the clanking of
chains, and then silence. And the captive awoke as from a dream, and
saw the bread and water on the cold floor, near where he lay. The
bitterness of his captivity was coming.