THE CHATELAINE OF THE TORWOOD.
After riding about three leagues, they saw the castle, and a goodly
one it seemed; for before it ran a river, and it had a drawbridge,
whereon was a fair tower at the end.--_Amadis de Gaul._
Florence now recognized the face of Edward Shelly.
"We have met before--to-day, I think, in the streets of Stirling?"
said he.
"Exactly--and what then?" asked Shelly, bluntly and uneasily.
"Nothing, save that I am pleased to see in this solitary place a face
that is in any way familiar to me."
Shelly bowed, and smiled pleasantly; for the errand which brought him
into Scotland, and the dangerous papers with which he was
entrusted--papers bearing signatures involving war, and death, and
treason--kept him ever anxious, restless, and suspicious of all who
approached him.
The chatelaine or mistress of the mansion---the Lady Torwood, as she
was named, though but the widow of a landed gentleman, whose
possessions lay principally amid the wilds of that once extensive
forest, now approached. She wore a black silk dooleweed, with a
cross of white velvet sewn on the left shoulder, in memory of her
deceased husband (a mark of mourning which was introduced into
Scotland by the late king, on the death of his first queen Magdalene
of Valois); she was young, for her years were under six-and-twenty,
pale and saddened in expression. Three little children, the eldest
of whom was not over three years, all clad in black dresses, each
with a little white cross on the shoulder, nestled among the ample
skirts of her dooleweed, and peeped in mingled alarm and wonder at
the strangers, whom the lady received courteously: for in those days
the halls of the landholders and the refectories of the monasteries
were the halting-places of all travellers, when, neither inns nor
taverns could be found; and, indeed, prejudices against the latter
ran so high that acts were passed by parliament, to enforce the
patronage of hostelries.
Lady Torwood's manner of receiving her visitors was singularly soft
and polite; yet it was not unmixed with anxiety, for her little tower
stood in a lonely place, and six well-armed strangers were not quite
the kind of people a widowed mother might wish to see in that lawless
time. The extreme paleness of her complexion contrasted strongly
with the blackness of her smooth shining hair and the darkness of her
eyes and lashes, while her figure and bearing had all that fawn-like
grace which is (or was) peculiar to the women of certain northern
clans in Scotland.
"We crave your pardon for this untimely intrusion, madame," said
Florence, courteously, "but we have been belated and astray in the
forest; and as I have had a quarrel--one of those unpleasant things
that will ensue at times among armed men,--a crossing of swords, in
fact, with a Livingstone, you will readily understand that my
vicinity to the Callender----"
"Sirs, you are welcome here, apologies are unnecessary," replied the
lady, whose accent sounded somewhat like that of a foreigner, for she
belonged to a Celtic tribe, and had acquired the Lowland language as
that of another people. "You have had a quarrel with a Livingstone,"
she continued, while her quiet dark eyes were filled by a momentary
light; "that name has cost me dear indeed! but let me not think of it
now. Here you are safe, sir--your names----"
"Dick Hackerston, a burgess o' Edinburgh," replied the burly
proprietor of the Jethart axe; "and my friends are also free
burgesses and landward merchants like mysel'. My booth is nigh unto
Master Posset's lodging,--an unco' strange man he is, my lady; he
cured the sair eyne o' a bairn o' mine, by rubbing them thrice wi' a
grey cat's tail."
"And you, sirs?" said the lady, smiling, and turning to Shelly and
Patten.
"Englishmen, of Berwick," replied the former.
"Englishmen!" reiterated the fair chatelaine, colouring--for the laws
against harbouring them were so severe as to involve the highest
penalties.
"Be assured, madam," replied the confident Shelly; "we travel under
the lord warden's especial protection."
"And I am Florence Fawside of that ilk, in East Lothian."
"I have heard of you--at least, of your family," replied the lady,
while another gleam heightened her pale and pretty face, "and of
their long feud with the Hamiltons of Preston. Dearly have such
feuds cost me and mine! In one, my whole race perished, save myself;
and in another, I lost my dear gudeman, his brother, and many brave
friends and kinsmen, leaving me a forlorn widow, with these three
sakeless bairns to rear."
"Live in hope, madam," replied Florence, with something of the spirit
in which his mother reared him.
"Hope?" questioned the widow sadly, as she lifted her meek eyes to
his; "what hope is there for me!"
"That these children may one day avenge you!"
"Oh, sir, speak not thus," said she anxiously, while one white hand
and arm went involuntarily round the curly head of her eldest little
one; "forbid it, God! I hope to teach them that not unto us, but to
Him alone belongeth vengeance."
"Would that my mother had reared us as this gentle woman rears her
little brood!" thought Florence, struck by her resigned spirit and
Madonna-like aspect; "my brother had now been spared to us,--and
Madeline, my love for her had then been no secret, like a deadly sin;
but, alas! my father's blood is yet upon her kinsman's sword and
soul!"
These and many similar ideas passed through his mind, while
refreshments were placed upon the table; a cold chine of beef,
manchets, and oat cakes, with flagons of Lammas ale; and the wants of
the six guests were promptly attended to by the servants of the
tower, while its mistress sat by the fire, in the only arm-chair in
the hall, with her feet resting on a tabourette, and her three
children nestling by her side, or playing and frolicking, with the
lurchers and terriers that were stretched on the hearth, which was
covered by a large straw matting, the work of those tawny outlaws the
Egyptians, a tribe of whom had been lurking in the Torwood since the
days of their patron James IV.
The usual evening meal had long been over in Torwood Tower; thus the
lady sat apart from all, but conversed freely with her unexpected
guests, more especially with Florence and Shelly: but the latter,
though by nature the most frank and jovial of all jovial and frank
fellows, felt the peculiarity, the delicacy and danger of his
situation, and thus became singularly reserved. He therefore sought
to turn the conversation as much as possible from subjects likely to
lead to himself, to his companion Master Patten, or to their object
in venturing into Scotland, whither Englishmen seldom came in those
days of war and mutual mistrust, but with harness on their backs. In
that age, before the invention of newspapers, the sole means of
circulating current events (all of which were unusually marvellous)
were passing travellers, pardoners, and begging friars, who gave
their own version of "wars and rumours of wars," of battles, of fiery
dragons, of spectres, devils, omens, and other wonders, which, with
an occasional miracle in church, formed the staple topics of
conversation in the middle ages, and for a long time after them, in
Scotland. Thus, afraid that, as a stranger and wayfarer, he might be
unpleasantly questioned by the inmates of this secluded tower, and
lured to admit more than prudence suggested or patience brooked,
Shelly, with considerable tact, led the fair chatelaine to speak
entirely of her own affairs.
"And did your husband fall in battle?" he asked, with affected
sympathy.
"Nay, sir; but in one of these vile civil brawls which are socially
and morally the scourge of Scotland; and which our kings have always
striven, but in vain, to crush. He and his father had been long at
feud with the Livingstones, about the right of forestry in the
Torwood,--even as the Fawsides have been at feud with the Hamiltons
anent the right of pasturage on Gladsmuir; and with the same rancour
they and their armed followers fought whenever they met, afield, at
market, at church, in burgh, and on highway. Many were wickedly
slain, and many grievously wounded, on both sides, till once, when
the late King James of blessed memory was hunting in the Torwood, and
both were in attendance on him, he commanded my husband and Alexander
Lord Livingstone to take each other's hands in token of perpetual
amity,--and in case of refusal, he threatened to commit them to the
Peel of Blackness. Slowly, unwillingly, and with no consenting souls
they did so, and, with a glare of hate in their eyes, vowed a hollow
friendship over a cup of wine; and merrily the good King James
drained it; to them both, fondly believing, in the kindness of his
heart, that he had stanched the feud for ever. A vain hope! The day
was passed in the forest; many a wolf, white bull, and deer were
slaughtered, and many a horse and dog were gored and disembowelled in
the conflict. Night came on, and, flushed with the king's good wine,
their good cheer, and the excitement of the chase, the hunters
separated; and before the midhour had passed, my poor husband, when
on his way home, was beset by the Livingstones, led by the laird of
Champfleurie, and, failing to reach the sanctuary of St. Modan's
kirk, was barbarously murdered at Callender Bog, where, three days
after, his fair body, sore gashed by many a ghastly wound, and
divested of baldrick, bugle, sword, and dagger, was found by our
sleuth dogs;--and, woe is me! his winsome eyes had been plucked forth
by the gleds or eagles. We buried him in St. Modan's kirk, and
therein I founded an altar, where masses shall be said for his soul's
repose so long as the world shall last, at ten marks the mass.
Heaven guide that the feud may be forgotten in his early grave, for I
have seen enough of such horrors in my time; and the memory of them,
so far from inciting _me_ to vengeance, like the stern lady of
Fawside, fills me with dismay and woe."
"Would that my mother could hear this gentle woman speak!" thought
Florence; "yet what would it avail me?"
"I come from the north country, sir," resumed the lady, her manner
warming as she spoke; "from a district and of a race, where the blood
of men, though shed more freely, waxes hotter than in the Lowlands
here. My name is Muriel MacNeish, or MacIldhui; and I saw, in one
night, all who bore my name and shared my blood, laid corpses round
our hearth, as the closing scene of one of the darkest feuds that
ever shed death and horror over the lovely vale of the Earn!"
To draw attention from his own affairs, Edward Shelly expressed some
curiosity to hear her story; so, while Florence and his companions
drew round, the Lady Muriel related the following legend, to which,
from the resemblance borne by one of the characters to his mother,
our hero listened with deep interest; and which, as it contains much
that is private, as well as public history, we will take the liberty
of rehearsing here, in our own words and in our own way.