THE JOURNEY HOME.
By my faith, there be thieves i' the wood!
Soho, sir,--straightway stand, and let us see
What manner of knave or varlet you be.
_Old Play._
It was fortunate for Florence that he was accompanied by the three
well-armed and well-mounted burgesses of Edinburgh, as several of the
Lord Bothwell's friends or allies were loitering in the Torwood, as
before they had lingered in Cadzow, with intentions towards him the
reverse of friendly. Thus, though the conversation of his companions
concerning imports and exports, tallow, flax, and battens from
Muscovy, beer from Dantzig, wines from Low Germanie, fruits from
France, and so forth, or the latest whim-whams or absurdities of the
provost and council of Edinburgh, did not prove very interesting to
him--a lover, a youth who had lately left the gaities of Paris, the
court of France, and who, since then, had been so favourably noticed
by Mary of Lorraine, the most beautiful queen in the world,--their
burly forms in jack and morion, their long iron-hilted swords and
wheel-lock calivers were of good service in protecting his passage
through the wilds of the Torwood and past the Callender, the
stronghold of the Livingstones, one of whose chief men, the laird of
Champfleurie, had suffered so severely at his hands. One of those
who accompanied him was John Hamilton, then a well-known merchant in
the West Bow, a cadet of the house of Inverwick, who afterwards
fought valiantly and fell at Pinkey.
From the green depths of the Torwood, Florence gazed fondly and
wistfully back to Stirling, and his soul seemed to follow his eyes,
till castle, rock, and spire melted into the dusk of eve.
The castle of Callender, the seat of Alexander fifth Lord
Livingstone--a stern man, of high integrity, to whom Mary of Lorraine
entrusted the custody of her daughter,--was a strong tower,
surrounded by a deep fosse, and had a high wall forming the outer
vallium of the place; and our travellers found themselves close to it
about nightfall.
"The auld lord is a rough tyke," said Dick Hackerston; "so, after
what has happened to that loon Champfleurie (as ill news travel
fast), we had better abide elsewhere than in the Callender."
"The Lord Livingstone bears a high repute," said Florence, "and is
greatly loved and trusted by the queen."
"Though somewhat of a courtier," said Hamilton, "he is keeper of the
king's forest of Torwood, and, by living among trees and wild bulls
his notions have become dark and fierce. I agree wi' you, neighbour
Hackerston, we'll e'en find lodgings elsewhere, or lie under the gude
greenwood."
"So be it," replied Florence. "And yet, sirs, 'tis somewhat hard
that you, three honest burgesses, should be shelterless on my
account. Think you that the Lord Livingstone, even if he heard ere
morning, which is barely possible, of my open duel with his scurvy
namesake, would make common cause with him against me?"
"I would fear to trust him," replied Hackerston; "for bluid is warmer
than water."
"I little like lying a night in the Torwood," said John Hamilton;
"preferring my snug bit housie at the Bowhead, wi my gudewife birling
her wheel in the cosy ingle, and the bairns tumbling ilk owre the
other on the floor; mairowre, I am a stranger hereawa. Johnnie Faa's
gang o' Egyptians are abroad; and the saints forfend that I come not
to harm!"
"Why you in particular! What fear you?" asked Florence.
"Gude kens! But this morning I put on my sark with the wrong side
outwards, and placed my _left_ shoe on the right foot."
"Let us ride on to the castle of the Torwood," said Hackerston. "I
ken the good dame who bides there, and have got her cramosie kirtles
from France, and vessels of delft and pewter from the Flemings of the
Dam. She lost her spouse in a brawl wi' the Livingstones, and may
make us a' the mair welcome that one of our company has the bluid o'
one o' that name on his hands. She comes o' Highland kin--Muriel Mac
Ildhui, and is the last o' the Neishes, a tribe extirpated by the Mac
Nabs at Lochearn. Come on, sirs; I ken the way, and can guide you
there."
Putting spurs to their horses, they turned aside from the fortalice
of the Lord Livingstone, which stood on the side of a green and
gentle slope, and skirting a morass named Callender Bog, penetrated
into a denser part of the Torwood by a path which, though apparently
familiar to Hackerston, was scarcely visible to his companions, for
night had closed completely in, and the pale light of the
diamond-like stars was intercepted by the thick foliage of the old
primeval oaks, which tossed their rustling branches in the rising
wind. The rich grass that covered the path muffled, to some extent,
the sound of their horses' feet; thus, on hearing voices before
them,--
"Hush!" said Florence in a loud whisper; "and look to your weapons,
sirs; for the Torwood has but an indifferent reputation."
He had scarcely spoken, when a clear and jolly voice was heard
singing merrily a song, the chorus of which was something to this
purpose:--
"Saint George he was for England,
Saint Denis was for France:
Sing _Honi soit_, my merry men.
_Qui mal y pense!_"
"Englishmen, by this light!" exclaimed Florence.
"By this murk darkness, rather!" added Hackerston, unslinging his
Jethart axe from his saddlebow. "And bold fellows they must be, to
chorus thus in the Torwood!"
The four travellers now hastily put on their helmets, which hitherto
had been hung at the bow of their saddles, and for which, during
their ride from Stirling, they had substituted bonnets of blue cloth.
"Stand, sirs!" said Florence. "Who are you!"
"Strangers," replied a voice, and then two horsemen became visible
amid the gloom of the interlaced trees,--"strangers, who have lost
their way in this devilish forest."
"This devilish forest belongs to the queen of Scotland; and how come
you to be singing here by night?"
"By the Mass! I knew not that it was a crime to sing by night any
more than to sing by day," exclaimed the other, laughing; "I do so
when it listeth me."
"'Twas something unwary, at all events," continued Florence,
advancing so close that he could perceive the speaker, by his air and
manner, to be undoubtedly a gentleman; "but, as your song discovers
your country, say, my friends, what make you here, so far from your
own borders?"
"We do not yet make war," replied the other; "be assured, fair sir,
we have only lost our way, and sorely lack a guide."
"For whence?"
"The highway to Berwick, to which place we belong."
"A word with you."
"Marry! sir, a score--you are welcome."
"You are perhaps ignorant of the law by which, if any Englishman
comes into the kingdom of Scotland, to kirk or market, or to any
other place, without a safe assurance, the warden, or any man, may
make him a lawful prisoner."
"Nay, fair sir, we are not ignorant of that law, and have here a
special assurance from the Scottish earl who is lord-warden of the
eastern marches."
"'Tis well,--then for this night at least, we are comrades," replied
Florence, giving his hand to the strangers, who were no other than
Master Edward Shelly, and his companion, Master William Patten, of
London; who, having mistaken the way, and being wary of exciting
suspicion by inquiries, had for some hours been completely astray in
the Torwood. Hackerston, who had suffered severe pecuniary losses in
the war of '44, when the Duke of Somerset (then Lord Hertford) set
Edinburgh on fire in eight different quarters, grumbled under his
beard at this accession to their party.
"Fawside," said he, "I am a man true and faithful to God and the
queen. Praised be Heaven, I have never consorted with traitors, or
made tryst or truce with Englishmen----"
"Yes; but to leave strangers adrift in this wild wood, where broken
men and savage bulls, yea, and wolves too, have their lair, is what
an honest fellow like you would never consent to; so, lead on."
In a few minutes more, the travellers found themselves close to a
small square tower, surrounded by a fosse and wall--an edifice the
ruins of which still remain, and present in their aspect nothing
remarkable, or different from the usual towers of Scottish
landholders of limited means.
"Hallo--gate, gate, ho!" shouted Hackerston, two or three times,
before a man appeared on the summit of the keep, and after counting
the number of men, by the starlight, disappeared. His inspection had
evidently been unsatisfactory, for he presented himself again, but
lower down, on the barbican wall, and immediately above the gate,
where he thrust a cresset over the parapet, at the end of a long
pole, and surveyed the visitors a second time. The species of light
called a cresset, was formed of a loosely-twisted rope, dipped in
pitch and resin, and coiled up in a little iron basket, which swung
like a trivet between the prongs of a fork. It flared on the old
walls of the tower, on the keen, peering eyes and waving grey beard
of the old warder, as he shaded his grim face with his weather-beaten
hand, and assured himself that those who came so late, and halloed so
loud, were _not_ Livingstones bent on stouthrief and hamesücken, but
real and veritable travellers, lacking food and shelter for man and
horse. Apparently this second and closer scrutiny, which the
desperate nature of the times required and rendered common, satisfied
his scruples; the flashing cresset was withdrawn, the gate was
unclosed, and Florence, with his five companions, soon found himself
in the hall or chamber of dais, in the little fortalice still known
as the haunted castle of the Torwood.