THE RETURN.
What is the worst of woes that wait an age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be on earth, alone, as I am now.
_Byron._
As Florence and his companions took the same road that led towards
Lothian, he reflected on all that he had heard pass between Shelly
and Patten on the preceding evening; and though he humanely felt some
satisfaction that they were gone, and consequently, he hoped, in
safety, the circumstance of the English gentleman canvassing to his
comrade so openly and confidently the prospect of his marriage with
the Countess of Yarrow, occasioned ample food for reflection, and for
those perplexing and annoying thoughts which suggest themselves so
readily to the restless imagination of a lover.
"He has seen her, and knows she is beautiful, rich, and beloved by
Mary of Lorraine," thought he; "and a mere spirit of empty bravado
has made him speak thus. Madeline may be able to solve the mystery;
if not, I have still my sword, and dearly shall Master Shelly pay for
his empty boasting."
As they passed through Falkirk, they found the whole population of
that place (then a little thatched burgh of barony) in the streets
and thronging the porch of the ancient church of St. Modan, where the
bell was being solemnly tolled in the old square steeple. The faces
of all they met, were expressive of dismay and excitement. A dead
body (of a recanted heretic, of course), which had been possessed by
an evil spirit, was on that day cast thrice out of its grave, in the
dark depth of which it could only be retained in peace at last by
Father Andrew Haig (the _last_ Catholic vicar of the church) placing
the consecrated Host upon the coffin, and having the earth heaped
over it.
This ghastly marvel furnished ample matter for conversation until the
travellers passed the Almond by a boat at Temple-Liston. There the
river, which is now spanned by a bridge of very ordinary dimensions,
was then so broad that for centuries it was crossed by a regular
ferry-boat; and as the current was swollen and rolling rapidly, some
time elapsed before the little party of men and horses were safely
transported to its eastern bank.
Near this ferry, upon the soft yellow moss of a long lea-rig, sat a
party of ploughmen and shepherds, making a rustic banquet of rye and
soft scones, with milk, curds, and clouted cream, or sourkitts, as it
was named from the staved kitts in which it was held. Some of these
peasants wore hoods of blue or brown cloth, buttoned under the chin,
and all had the grey plaid, or one of dull striped tartan, thrown
over the left shoulder. Each had a knife at his girdle, and, in the
old Scotch fashion, a horn spoon, which dangled at his hood or bonnet
lug. The peasant girls had their hair snooded, and were bare-legged,
though their feet were encased in cuarans of untanned hide, tied with
thongs above the ankle.
The morose gloom subsequent to the Reformation had not yet fallen
upon the people, and this peasant group, while their herds and horses
grazed near, before resuming labour in the fields, proceeded to amuse
themselves with the buck-horn and corn-pipe, and danced to the music
of these and the lilting of their own voices, for such were the
simple manners and enjoyments of the peasantry in the olden time.
The quiet aspect of the landscape, which possessed all the tints of
summer ripened and mellowed into autumn; the merry peasants dancing
on the greensward; the blue river flowing in front, and the herds
that dotted its banks basking in the sunshine; while on the steep
beyond rose the grey turreted preceptory and Norman church of the
Knights of St. John,--made Florence think with sorrow of the change a
month of war and havock might work here; and full of such reflections
and of his own affairs, his secret love, his hostile mother, and his
unfinished feud, he listened with some impatience to the prosing of
honest Dick Hackerston, who rehearsed the magnitude of his own
commercial transactions, to wit, how for my lord the Abbot Ballantyne
of Holyrood he sold the wool of all the sheep which ranged upon the
abbey lands at Liberton and Coldbrandspath, and the skins and hides
of all the animals slaughtered for the plentiful table of that great
monastery; and how he bought, bartered, or procured in return, from
the French, the Flemings, and the English, raisins, almonds, rice,
loaf-sugar, love-apples, oranges, olives, ginger, mace, and pepper;
for Master Peter Posset great boxes of dried herbs and apothecaries'
stuffs; for the court ladies bales of French romances; for Ralph
Riddle, of the "Golden Rose," cases of Rhenish, Malvoisie, and Gascon
wines, and so forth; till our young gentleman of 1547, who felt just
about as much interest in such matters as one of the present age
might feel in scrip and railway shares, bank-stock and bonds, yawned
with sheer weariness, when, at the west port of Edinburgh, he bade
adieu to his mercantile companions, and, without halting to refresh
his horse, took the road which, after passing the castles of
Craigmillar and Brunstane, led direct to his own secluded home.
The shades of evening were deepening on the level but fertile
landscape, on the distant hills, and on the darkening sea, when he
drew up in the court of Fawside tower, and on dismounting hastened to
meet his mother. With a stern lip and tearful eye she received him,
and with a settled gloom, on her pale white brow; for, clad in her
deepest dooleweeds, she had spent the day in prayer and meditation
between the tombs Of her husband and her eldest son in the church of
Tranent; and now, with a sigh of bitter impatience, she beheld poor
Florence, who was oppressed by the sombre aspect of a home such as
she made it, toss aside his sword and steel coursing-hat, and sink
wearily and in silence into a chair near the hall fire.
"So, so, you are weary?" said she, supporting herself on her long
cane with one hand, while with grim kindness she patted his head with
the other. "While ye have been wandering like a fule-bairn between
Edinburgh and Stirling, or Gude alane kens where, our tenants have
neglected, for the first time in their lives, to bring their Lammas
wheat into the barbican, whilk, as you ken, they are bound to send
duly tied in a sack to you as their overlord."
"Oh, mother, heed not the Lammas wheat; anon we shall have other
things to think of than the collecting of rent or kain."
"Hah!--say you so? Then the news at Edinburgh Cross----"
"Is war?"
"'Tis well! Our men have been turning to women since the fields of
Ancrum and Solway. And this war is, of course, anent the marriage of
a boy king and a baby queen; a brave matter, truly, for bearded men
to fight about!"
"It would seem so; and now I almost begin to agree with the Lord
Huntly's view of this coming strife."
"Indeed!" said his mother, with more of scorn than curiosity in her
manner; "and what may _his_ view be?"
"That he dislikes not the match."
"The false Highland limmer!" she hissed through her set teeth; "so he
dislikes not the match----"
"But hates the manner of wooing."
"Now, by the souls of my ancestors who are in Heaven!" exclaimed Dame
Alison, striking her long cane fiercely on the paved floor of the
hall, "I love the manner of wooing, and thus may Scotland and England
ever woo each other, with hands gloved and helmets barred; for I hate
the accursed match, and would rather see the child Mary Stuart
strangled in the cradle, and her sceptre become the heritage of
Arran, than live to be the bride of the apostate Henry's son and the
crowned queen of our hereditary enemies! And now, since we are
talking of foemen, saw ye aught in your gowk-like rambling of the
hell-brood who bide in the barred tower on yonder lea?"
"I did, mother," sighed Florence.
"Preston himself, perhaps."
"Yea, mother; thrice."
"Hath manhood gone out of the land! And ye parted, as ye met,
sakeless and bloodless?"
"As you see me, mother," replied Florence, overwhelmed by the
bitterness of thoughts he dared not utter.
"Saints of God!" she exclaimed, and raised her clenched hand as if
she would have smote him on his sad but handsome face; then suddenly
repressing the fierce impulse, she turned abruptly and left the hall.
Florence thought of the sweet merry eyes of Madeline Home; and all
their memory was requisite to render life endurable with such a
welcome to his mother's hearth.