CHAMPFLEURIE.
Captain Swagger has ask'd me to wait on you, sir!--
Of course you remember last evening's transaction?--
And you, as a gentleman, cannot demur
At giving the captain the due satisfaction.
We have said that Florence left the countess with a tumult of emotion
in his breast. He was full of joy that she loved him,--joy and
honest triumph; but to what end was all this love? Circumstanced and
separated as they were, by fate, by feud, and fortune, what could its
sequel be, or how could a happy result ever be achieved?
At this perplexing thought, the tombs of his father and brother in
the church of Tranent--those two quaintly-carved altar-tombs, on each
of which lay the rigid effigy of an armed knight, his head upheld by
two angels, his stony eyes gazing upward, and his mailed hands
clasped in ceaseless prayer, as they lay with shield on arm and sword
at side,--seemed to rise like the solemn barriers of death, between
him and Madeline Home; for in each of these tombs lay the
"blood-boltered" corpse of a near and dear kinsman, slain in feud and
mortal fight, by the hand of Claude Hamilton. Florence still viewed
the latter as the hereditary foe of his race; and with him, in the
blindness of his anger, he identified those attempts by which his
life had been so savagely and ruthlessly jeopardized of late.
The recollection of all he had undergone by wounds and indignity,
filled him with a bitterness which even his successful love could
scarcely soothe; and as he crossed the castle-yard to order his
horse, on perceiving the captain of Mary of Lorraine's arquebusiers
in conversation with a woman at one of the palace doors, he
immediately approached him. The soldier was bravely apparelled in a
red satin doublet and mantle, a white velvet hat with a red feather,
white boots furnished with long gold spurs, which he clanked
together, and apparently very much to his own satisfaction, as he
pirouetted about, and laughed gaily with his female friend, while his
delicately-gloved right hand played alternately with an amber rosary
that dangled at his waist, and with a chain and medal of gold which
hung at his neck. He wore a cuirass, which shone like a steel
mirror; and had, of course, his sword and dagger.
Here Florence found a legitimate object whereon to vent his
irritation; and, as he drew near, the woman, who was no other than
Janet Sinclair, the little queen's foster-mother, retired hastily and
shut the door, on which Champfleurie, with an air of annoyance which
he was at no pains to conceal, turned, with a frown on his handsome
but sinister face, and surveyed Florence from head to foot with the
cool air of perfect assurance.
"I presume, sir, that you know me?" said the latter, sternly.
"I soon know every man who dares assume such a tone to me," replied
the captain gruffly.
"Dares!"
"I have said so, sir," replied the soldier, shaking his plume.
"Ha! ha! You either mock yourself or me."
"Uds daggers, sirrah! What make you here?"
"That you shall soon learn. You remember giving me, in the streets
of Edinburgh, a letter for the laird of Millheugh!"
"I have some faint recollection of doing so," replied Champfleurie,
with an impertinent yawn.
"That letter was a deadly snare,--a lure for my destruction; and you
knew it to be so."
"You--John Livingstone of Champfleurie!"
"How, laird of Fawside--how?"
"By the tenor of the letter, and by the message with which you
accompanied it, you proved yourself to be----"
"What? Be wary, sir,--what?"
"A false liar!"
Livingstone grew pale with rage. He drew back a pace, and pressing
the hilt of his sword against his heart for a moment, relinquished it
with a gasp of anger. On this, his fiery opponent, who was his
junior by ten years, smiled scornfully, and said,--
"You know the sensation of a sword-blade entering your flesh?"
"Cogsbones! I should think so!" replied the captain, with a smile
equally proud and scornful. "I have, in my time, had a dozen of good
swords in me; seven in duels, two at Ancrumford, and three at the
rout of Solway."
"Then what is it like?"
"Do you wish practical proof, damned jackfeather?"
"What is it like?" reiterated Florence furiously.
"Hot iron."
"Then you shall enjoy that warm sensation again!"
"Indeed!" sneered Champfleurie.
"Yes!" replied Florence, unsheathing his sword with a fury no longer
restrainable; for during this strange conversation he had gradually
been drawing the captain towards the Nether Baillery, a secluded part
of the fortress. "Defend yourself, villain, lest I kill you where
you stand!"
"Stay!--stay!" exclaimed the other, defending himself only by his
left arm, round which he quickly rolled his velvet mantle.
"Why stay? Would you confess? If so, the queen's chaplain----"
"Bah! Confession went out with the cardinal last year. But hold
your wrath, sir, and put up your sword; remember where we are, and
that our lands are forfeited to the Lord High Constable if we draw
weapons within the precincts of a royal castle or palace, and must I
remind you that the queen's fortress of Stirling is both. Moreover,
my Lord of Errol, the constable, once caught me kissing his lady's
hand; and husbands have troublesome memories sometimes."
"Sir, I thank you for the lesson; in my just anger I forgot where we
were. But we need have no lack of a trysting-place."
"No sir, if you are thus stout and resolute," replied the captain,
coming close, with a sombre frown on his face; for being as perfectly
master of his temper as of his sword, he was the deadlier and more
dangerous enemy. "At sunset I will meet you beside the Roman Rock,
below the castle wall."
"Good! Till then----"
"Adieu."
And with a stern salute they both separated.
"Plague take thee for a ruffling bully," thought Champfleurie. "But,
by the blessed pig of St. Anthony, I shall kill thee like a cur, or I
am no true Livingstone!"
People thought little of risking life, and less of fighting, in those
days. But as Florence remembered the young love he had just left,
her sweetness, her beauty, and passionate nature; and then his stern
mother, who loved and prized him as an only son, the prop of her
years, the last of his line and the hope of its vengeance, the idea
that he might for ever take up his abode in the burial-place of
Stirling, filled him with a temporary sadness and gloom.
Fortunately, however, but brief time was left him for sombre
reflection, as he had barely parted from Champfleurie when the young
baron of Dalserfe approached, cap in hand, to say that the regent
desired to speak with him immediately.
Florence remembered the warning of Champfleurie, and believing they
had been watched, his first idea suggested a rebuke, if not
captivity, for drawing sword in a royal castle, as Arran was
endeavouring, but in vain, to repress the lawless and tumultory
spirit of the time. However, on being ushered into his presence, his
smile and welcome at once relieved the young man from all
apprehension on that score.