A BLOODY TRYST.
O bide at hame, my lord, she said;
O bide at hame my marrow,
For my three brethren will thee slay,
On the dowie dens o' Yarrow.
_Old Ballad._
On this gloomy evening, the 2nd of September, the tower of Preston,
like every other tower and fortalice in Scotland, presented a scene
of bustle and warlike preparation. Clumps of tall Scottish lances,
newly shafted and freshly pointed, stood in rows against the barbican
wall: the clink of the smith's hammer, as he welded horse-shoes or
riveted armour that had been cut or broken in recent frays, was heard
in various quarters; the hands of Symon Brodie, of Mungo-Tennant, and
other sturdy vassals, were all busy, scouring breastplates,
burganets, and gauntlets; and here, as in Fawside, the red sparks
flew from the whirling grindstone, as the hard edge of the Jethart
axe or the long fluted blade of the broadsword were applied thereto
by those bronzed and bearded ploughmen whom the coming week was to
see transformed into helmeted men-at-arms following the laird to the
field for Scotland and her queen.
Amid this somewhat unwonted bustle the young Countess of Yarrow
easily and unseen reached the castle garden, and from thence, by a
private door, proceeded on foot to the place of rendezvous, attended
only by a little footboy, who bore her missal in a velvet bag, on
which her coat-of-arms was embroidered in the Scottish fashion for
ladies, _i.e._, without supporters, but surrounded by a cord of her
colours, all fairly emblazoned by Sir David Lindesay of the Mount,
and named in the courtly language of heraldry a cordeliere, or lace
of love.
On reaching the church, which was little more than one Scottish mile
from the gate of Preston, she sent her attendant on a message to the
thatched village, with some bodily comforts for certain of her poor
pensioners; and, without perceiving that Roger of Westmains, with
three armed men in helmets, jacks, and plate sleeves, with four
saddled horses, were half concealed in a thicket of thorns close by,
she entered the gloomy fane just as the sun set enveloped in clouds,
as already described, thus making more sombre the shadows of an
edifice, the aspect and memories of which made her shudder, and
blanched the beautiful smile which the hope of meeting her lover
spread over her face.
"Florence!" she exclaimed timidly, pausing at the entrance of the
church, which seemed so empty and desolate; and as she gazed
anxiously up the nave, the figures of none met her eyes but those of
armed men carved in stone, and stretched in death-like rigidity on
their Gothic biers, surrounded by little figures called weepers, in
niches--effigies all swept away by the mad fury of the Reformers,
twelve years after.
"Florence!" she repeated, in a lower and more agitated voice; still
there was no response; and she was about to withdraw with a mingled
emotion of pique and alarm, when suddenly, from between the tombs of
William Fawside and his father Sir John, there started up the tall
and weird-like figure of a woman clad in a long black dooleweed, on
the left shoulder of which was the usual mark of mourning, a white
velvet cross. Her face was pale as that of a corpse, but her
features were convulsed with all the energy of fierce and
concentrated passion and venom. Her mouth was open, but her close
rows of firm white teeth were clenched, and her hollow eyes shone
with a baleful light. Towering above the shrinking Madeline, she put
forth a long arm, and, with a wild exclamation of triumph, grasped
her hand, and retained it with all the unyielding tenacity of an iron
vice, and shook her wrathfully the while.
"Madam, madam!" exclaimed the poor countess, who believed herself in
the power of an insane person, "what mean you by this?"
"That ye shall soon learn," hissed Lady Alison, shaking her more
violently than ever.
"Help--help!" cried Madeline! "I will not be so abused! Woman, who
are you, that dare to use me thus!"
"Dare?" she said; "dare?--ha! ha!"
"Yes, I repeat, dare! I am a lady of honour--Madeline Countess of
Yarrow."
"And I am Alison of Fawside; and now, between these cold tombs, in
each of which there lieth a murdered man--the corpse of the husband
in whose kind bosom I slept for thirty years, and the corpse of the
son I bore unto him and suckled at these breasts--murdered by Claude
Hamilton of Preston, your nearest and only kinsman! Need I tell more
to thee, Madeline Home?"
On this announcement Madeline remembered her recent dream; then a
deadly terror possessed all her faculties and for a time froze her
very utterance; while, as if feasting upon the fear her presence
excited, the fierce old woman like an enraged Pythoness, surveyed her
with gleaming eyes.
"Lady--Lady Alison, hear me; of all these horrors, I at least am
innocent," faltered Madeline. "Release me, and on my knees I will
unite with you in prayer for the dead."
"Prayer! thou sorceress, thou hell-doomed witch, who would rob me of
my only living son!"
"Madam----"
"Nay, speak not, and crave no pity, for only such pity shall ye have
as my winsome Willie had when bleeding he lay under Preston's curtal
axe at the barriers of Edinburgh! And so my bonnie Florence loves
thee? Aha! aha!"
"Oh God! is there no succour near?" sighed the shrinking girl; for
there shone in the old woman's colourless face a pale and almost
infernal light.
"He loves thee--ha! and yet thy beauty is no such wondrous matter,
after all. A poor and pale-faced moppet like thee would never bear
men to succeed the two stately knights who lie beside us! So, so! it
is thou, witch, who wouldst rob me of the only son thy murderous race
have left me--rob me of him by necromancy? Hah! Wretch! whence got
ye that magic ring, that accursed opal, which I have thrown into the
flames, but which hath cast a glamour in his eyes and made him love
his enemies? Or got ye a love-philter from that quack apothegar,
above whose door there swingeth a stuffed devil in the light of open
day, Master Posset? Speak! 'Tis like the courtly ways of that woman
of the house of Guise and those who serve her. Speak! thou
pale-faced Jezebel--speak! lest I strangle thee!"
"Oh!" murmured Madeline, sinking lower on her knees, overcome by the
horror of being an actor in such a scene as this. And now, endued by
supernatural strength, this terrible dame dragged her between the
tombs of the Fawsides. Then Madeline's spirit revolted against these
insults, and she strove to rise and free herself, but Dame Alison by
main strength held her down and retained her, kneeling at her feet.
"Lady," exclaimed the countess, "you are alike unjust and cruel,
insolent and wicked. I am a lady, an earl's daughter----"
"And what am I? A daughter of the house of Colean, whose sires were
knights and barons in Carrick since the days of Malcolm IV. and
William the Lion. Listen, thou trembling minx! My son came over the
salt sea from France, hating, with a hatred deep as its waters, all
who bore the name of Hamilton, and intent on slaying the man who slew
his father and brother under trust and tryst, foully, as Judas
betrayed his holy Master. How is it now? He is James of Arran's
soothfast man and tool, and thy plaything and toy--a puling
moonstruck fool! And how came this to pass? By the agency of Satan
and of such as thee; for, by St. Paul, I believe the holy water in
yonder font would hiss upon thy pallid face if I cast it there, as it
would do upon iron in a white heat? Love thee, indeed! Perchance he
would have wedded thee, too! Ha! ha!"
"Madam," said Madeline, who was too patient and gentle not to be
brave and resolute in a good cause, and who blushed amid her terror,
"in that case he might, by the queen's grace, have shared the fair
coronet my father bequeathed to me from the field of Solway."
"Foul shame and fell dishonour blight the new-fangled toy!" exclaimed
Lady Alison with growing rage; "there were no earls in Yarrow when a
laird of Fawside saved King David's life amid the Saxon host at
Northallerton! But 'tis thy face that hath bewitched my son; and if
a hot iron can mar and destroy the beauty he sees in it, by God's
wrath it shall soon perish and shrivel up like parchment in the fire!
Ho! Roger--Westmains, come hither!"
At these terrible words the fear of Madeline could no longer be
controlled, and the recesses of the solitary church echoed with her
cries for succour--cries which there were none to hear; and now, in
the excitement of this struggle, a new idea seized the mind of Dame
Alison. Wreathing her hands in the dishevelled hair of Madeline, she
madly dashed her repeatedly against the tombs on each side. To save
herself, the poor girl caught the carved projections, and, clinging,
held them more than once; but such was the strength of Dame Alison,
that her victim's grasp was repeatedly torn away.
"Here," exclaimed the stern widow--"here, between the bones of my
dead husband and son, as on a shrine of vengeance, do I offer up your
blood, even as the pagans of old offered up their sacrifices to the
spirits of hatred and revenge! Die--die! and by the hand of her
whose son ye sought by your damnable arts to ensnare and to destroy!"
With these words she drew the long steel bodkin from her busk, and
thrusting it twice into the bosom of Madeline, rushed from the
church, and left her stretched on the pavement gasping for breath,
and choking in warm and weltering blood.
Some accounts say this terrible deed was perpetrated with a poniard;
but the vicar of Tranent distinctly records that she used her "buske
bodkyne."