Whatever stranger visits here,
We pity his sad case,
Unless to worship he draw near
The King of Kings--his Grace.
--BURNS’S EPIGRAM ON A VISIT TO INVERARY.
The Captain, finding himself deprived of light in the manner we have
described, and placed in a very uncertain situation, proceeded to
descend the narrow and broken stair with all the caution in his power,
hoping that he might find at the bottom some place to repose himself.
But with all his care he could not finally avoid making a false step,
which brought him down the four or five last steps too hastily to
preserve his equilibrium. At the bottom he stumbled over a bundle of
something soft, which stirred and uttered a groan, so deranging the
Captain’s descent, that he floundered forward, and finally fell upon his
hands and knees on the floor of a damp and stone-paved dungeon.
When Dalgetty had recovered, his first demand was to know over whom he
had stumbled.
“He was a man a month since,” answered a hollow and broken voice.
“And what is he now, then,” said Dalgetty, “that he thinks it fitting
to lie upon the lowest step of the stairs, and clew’d up like a hurchin,
that honourable cavaliers, who chance to be in trouble, may break their
noses over him?”
“What is he now?” replied the same voice; “he is a wretched trunk,
from which the boughs have one by one been lopped away, and which cares
little how soon it is torn up and hewed into billets for the furnace.”
“Friend,” said Dalgetty, “I am sorry for you; but PATIENZA, as the
Spaniard says. If you had but been as quiet as a log, as you call
yourself, I should have saved some excoriations on my hands and knees.”
“You are a soldier,” replied his fellow-prisoner; “do you complain on
account of a fall for which a boy would not bemoan himself?”
“A soldier?” said the Captain; “and how do you know, in this cursed dark
cavern, that I am a soldier?”
“I heard your armour clash as you fell,” replied the prisoner, “and now
I see it glimmer. When you have remained as long as I in this darkness,
your eyes will distinguish the smallest eft that crawls on the floor.”
“I had rather the devil picked them out!” said Dalgetty; “if this be the
case, I shall wish for a short turn of the rope, a soldier’s prayer, and
a leap from a ladder. But what sort of provant have you got here--what
food, I mean, brother in affliction?”
“Bread and water once a day,” replied the voice.
“Prithee, friend, let me taste your loaf,” said Dalgetty; “I hope we
shall play good comrades while we dwell together in this abominable
pit.”
“The loaf and jar of water,” answered the other prisoner, “stand in
the corner, two steps to your right hand. Take them, and welcome. With
earthly food I have wellnigh done.”
Dalgetty did not wait for a second invitation, but, groping out the
provisions, began to munch at the stale black oaten loaf with as much
heartiness as we have seen him play his part at better viands.
“This bread,” he said, muttering (with his mouth full at the same time),
“is not very savoury; nevertheless, it is not much worse than that which
we ate at the famous leaguer at Werben, where the valorous Gustavus
foiled all the efforts of the celebrated Tilly, that terrible old hero,
who had driven two kings out of the field--namely, Ferdinand of Bohemia
and Christian of Denmark. And anent this water, which is none of the
most sweet, I drink in the same to your speedy deliverance, comrade,
not forgetting mine own, and devoutly wishing it were Rhenish wine, or
humming Lubeck beer, at the least, were it but in honour of the pledge.”
While Dalgetty ran on in this way, his teeth kept time with his tongue,
and he speedily finished the provisions which the benevolence or
indifference of his companion in misfortune had abandoned to his
voracity. When this task was accomplished, he wrapped himself in his
cloak, and seating himself in a corner of the dungeon in which he could
obtain a support on each side (for he had always been an admirer of
elbow-chairs, he remarked, even from his youth upward), he began to
question his fellow-captive.
“Mine honest friend,” said he, “you and I, being comrades at bed
and board, should be better acquainted. I am Dugald Dalgetty of
Drumthwacket, and so forth, Major in a regiment of loyal Irishes,
and Envoy Extraordinary of a High and Mighty Lord, James Earl of
Montrose.--Pray, what may your name be?”
“It will avail you little to know,” replied his more taciturn companion.
“Let me judge of that matter,” answered the soldier.
“Well, then--Ranald MacEagh is my name--that is, Ranald Son of the
Mist.”
“Son of the Mist!” ejaculated Dalgetty. “Son of utter darkness, say I.
But, Ranald, since that is your name, how came you in possession of the
provost’s court of guard? what the devil brought you here, that is to
say?”
“My misfortunes and my crimes,” answered Ranald. “Know ye the Knight of
Ardenvohr?”
“I do know that honourable person,” replied Dalgetty.
“But know ye where he now is?” replied Ranald.
“Fasting this day at Ardenvohr,” answered the Envoy, “that he may feast
to-morrow at Inverary; in which last purpose if he chance to fail, my
lease of human service will be something precarious.”
“Then let him know, one claims his intercession, who is his worst foe
and his best friend,” answered Ranald.
“Truly I shall desire to carry a less questionable message,” answered
Dalgetty, “Sir Duncan is not a person to play at reading riddles with.”
“Craven Saxon,” said the prisoner, “tell him I am the raven that,
fifteen years since, stooped on his tower of strength and the pledges
he had left there--I am the hunter that found out the wolfs den on the
rock, and destroyed his offspring--I am the leader of the band which
surprised Ardenvohr yesterday was fifteen years, and gave his four
children to the sword.”
“Truly, my honest friend,” said Dalgetty, “if that is your best
recommendation to Sir Duncan’s favour, I would pretermit my pleading
thereupon, in respect I have observed that even the animal creation are
incensed against those who intromit with their offspring forcibly, much
more any rational and Christian creatures, who have had violence done
upon their small family. But I pray you in courtesy to tell me, whether
you assailed the castle from the hillock called Drumsnab, whilk I uphold
to be the true point of attack, unless it were to be protected by a
sconce.”
“We ascended the cliff by ladders of withies or saplings,” said the
prisoner, “drawn up by an accomplice and clansman, who had served six
months in the castle to enjoy that one night of unlimited vengeance.
The owl whooped around us as we hung betwixt heaven and earth; the tide
roared against the foot of the rock, and dashed asunder our skiff, yet
no man’s heart failed him. In the morning there was blood and ashes,
where there had been peace and joy at the sunset.”
“It was a pretty camisade, I doubt not, Ranald MacEagh, a very
sufficient onslaught, and not unworthily discharged. Nevertheless, I
would have pressed the house from that little hillock called Drumsnab.
But yours is a pretty irregular Scythian fashion of warfare, Ranald,
much resembling that of Turks, Tartars, and other Asiatic people.--But
the reason, my friend, the cause of this war--the TETERRIMA CAUSA, as I
may say? Deliver me that, Ranald.”
“We had been pushed at by the M’Aulays, and other western tribes,” said
Ranald, “till our possessions became unsafe for us.”
“Ah ha!” said Dalgetty; “I have faint remembrance of having heard of
that matter. Did you not put bread and cheese into a man’s mouth, when
he had never a stomach whereunto to transmit the same?”
“You have heard, then,” said Ranald, “the tale of our revenge on the
haughty forester?”
“I bethink me that I have,” said Dalgetty, “and that not of an old date.
It was a merry jest that, of cramming the bread into the dead man’s
mouth, but somewhat too wild and salvage for civilized acceptation,
besides wasting the good victuals. I have seen when at a siege or a
leaguer, Ranald, a living soldier would have been the better, Ranald,
for that crust of bread, whilk you threw away on a dead pow.”
“We were attacked by Sir Duncan,” continued MacEagh, “and my brother
was slain--his head was withering on the battlements which we scaled--I
vowed revenge, and it is a vow I have never broken.”
“It may be so,” said Dalgetty; “and every thorough-bred soldier will
confess that revenge is a sweet morsel; but in what manner this story
will interest Sir Duncan in your justification, unless it should move
him to intercede with the Marquis to change the manner thereof from
hanging, or simple suspension, to breaking your limbs on the roue or
wheel, with the coulter of a plough, or otherwise putting you to death
by torture, surpasses my comprehension. Were I you, Ranald, I would be
for miskenning Sir Duncan, keeping my own secret, and departing quietly
by suffocation, like your ancestors before you.”
“Yet hearken, stranger,” said the Highlander. “Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr
had four children. Three died under our dirks, but the fourth survives;
and more would he give to dandle on his knee the fourth child which
remains, than to rack these old bones, which care little for the utmost
indulgence of his wrath. One word, if I list to speak it, could turn his
day of humiliation and fasting into a day of thankfulness and rejoicing,
and breaking of bread. O, I know it by my own heart? Dearer to me is the
child Kenneth, who chaseth the butterfly on the banks of the Aven, than
ten sons who are mouldering in earth, or are preyed on by the fowls of
the air.”
“I presume, Ranald,” continued Dalgetty, “that the three pretty fellows
whom I saw yonder in the market-place, strung up by the head like
rizzer’d haddocks, claimed some interest in you?”
There was a brief pause ere the Highlander replied, in a tone of strong
emotion,--“They were my sons, stranger--they were my sons!--blood of my
blood--bone of my bone!--fleet of foot--unerring in aim--unvanquished by
foemen till the sons of Diarmid overcame them by numbers! Why do I wish
to survive them? The old trunk will less feel the rending up of its
roots, than it has felt the lopping off of its graceful boughs. But
Kenneth must be trained to revenge--the young eagle must learn from the
old how to stoop on his foes. I will purchase for his sake my life and
my freedom, by discovering my secret to the Knight of Ardenvohr.”
“You may attain your end more easily,” said a third voice, mingling in
the conference, “by entrusting it to me.”
All Highlanders are superstitious. “The Enemy of Mankind is among us!”
said Ranald MacEagh, springing to his feet. His chains clattered as he
rose, while he drew himself as far as they permitted from the
quarter whence the voice appeared to proceed. His fear in some degree
communicated itself to Captain Dalgetty, who began to repeat, in a sort
of polyglot gibberish, all the exorcisms he had ever heard of, without
being able to remember more than a word or two of each.
“IN NOMINE DOMINI, as we said at Mareschal-College--SANTISSMA MADRE DI
DIOS, as the Spaniard has it--ALLE GUTEN GEISTER LOBEN DEN HERRN, saith
the blessed Psalmist, in Dr. Luther’s translation--”
“A truce with your exorcisms,” said the voice they had heard before;
“though I come strangely among you, I am mortal like yourselves, and my
assistance may avail you in your present streight, if you are not too
proud to be counselled.”
While the stranger thus spoke, he withdrew the shade of a dark lantern,
by whose feeble light Dalgetty could only discern that the speaker who
had thus mysteriously united himself to their company, and mixed in
their conversation, was a tall man, dressed in a livery cloak of the
Marquis. His first glance was to his feet, but he saw neither the cloven
foot which Scottish legends assign to the foul fiend, nor the horse’s
hoof by which he is distinguished in Germany. His first enquiry was, how
the stranger had come among them?
“For,” said he, “the creak of these rusty bars would have been heard had
the door been made patent; and if you passed through the keyhole, truly,
sir, put what face you will on it, you are not fit to be enrolled in a
regiment of living men.”
“I reserve my secret,” answered the stranger, “until you shall merit the
discovery by communicating to me some of yours. It may be that I shall
be moved to let you out where I myself came in.”
“It cannot be through the keyhole, then,” said Captain Dalgetty, “for my
corslet would stick in the passage, were it possible that my head-piece
could get through. As for secrets, I have none of my own, and but few
appertaining to others. But impart to us what secrets you desire
to know; or, as Professor Snufflegreek used to say at the
Mareschal-College, Aberdeen, speak that I may know thee.”
“It is not with you I have first to do,” replied the stranger, turning
his light full on the mild and wasted features, and the large limbs of
the Highlander, Ranald MacEagh, who, close drawn up against the walls of
the dungeon, seemed yet uncertain whether his guest was a living being.
“I have brought you something, my friend,” said the stranger, in a more
soothing tone, “to mend your fare; if you are to die to-morrow, it is no
reason wherefore you should not live to-night.”
“None at all--no reason in the creation,” replied the ready Captain
Dalgetty, who forthwith began to unpack the contents of a small basket
which the stranger had brought under his cloak, while the Highlander,
either in suspicion or disdain, paid no attention to the good cheer.
“Here’s to thee, my friend,” said the Captain, who, having already
dispatched a huge piece of roasted kid, was now taking a pull at the
wine-flask. “What is thy name, my good friend?”
“Murdoch Campbell, sir,” answered the servant, “a lackey of the Marquis
of Argyle, and occasionally acting as under-warden.”
“Then here is to thee once more, Murdoch,” said Dalgetty, “drinking to
you by your proper name for the better luck sake. This wine I take to be
Calcavella. Well, honest Murdoch, I take it on me to say, thou deservest
to be upper-warden, since thou showest thyself twenty times better
acquainted with the way of victualling honest gentlemen that are under
misfortune, than thy principal. Bread and water? out upon him! It was
enough, Murdoch, to destroy the credit of the Marquis’s dungeon. But I
see you would converse with my friend, Ranald MacEagh here. Never mind
my presence; I’ll get me into this corner with the basket, and I will
warrant my jaws make noise enough to prevent my ears from hearing you.”
Notwithstanding this promise, however, the veteran listened with all
the attention he could to gather their discourse, or, as he described it
himself, “laid his ears back in his neck, like Gustavus, when he heard
the key turn in the girnell-kist.” He could, therefore, owing to the
narrowness of the dungeon, easily overhear the following dialogue.
“Are you aware, Son of the Mist,” said the Campbell, “that you will
never leave this place excepting for the gibbet?”
“Those who are dearest to me,” answered MacEagh, “have trode that path
before me.”
“Then you would do nothing,” asked the visitor, “to shun following
them?”
The prisoner writhed himself in his chains before returning an answer.
“I would do much,” at length he said; “not for my own life, but for the
sake of the pledge in the glen of Strath-Aven.”
“And what would you do to turn away the bitterness of the hour?” again
demanded Murdoch; “I care not for what cause ye mean to shun it.”
“I would do what a man might do, and still call himself a man.”
“Do you call yourself a man,” said the interrogator, “who have done the
deeds of a wolf?”
“I do,” answered the outlaw; “I am a man like my forefathers--while
wrapt in the mantle of peace, we were lambs--it was rent from us, and ye
now call us wolves. Give us the huts ye have burned, our children whom
ye have murdered, our widows whom ye have starved--collect from the
gibbet and the pole the mangled carcasses, and whitened skulls of our
kinsmen--bid them live and bless us, and we will be your vassals and
brothers--till then, let death, and blood, and mutual wrong, draw a dark
veil of division between us.”
“You will then do nothing for your liberty,” said the Campbell.
“Anything--but call myself the friend of your tribe,” answered MacEagh.
“We scorn the friendship of banditti and caterans,” retorted Murdoch,
“and would not stoop to accept it.--What I demand to know from you, in
exchange for your liberty, is, where the daughter and heiress of the
Knight of Ardenvohr is now to be found?”
“That you may wed her to some beggarly kinsman of your great master,”
said Ranald, “after the fashion of the Children of Diarmid! Does not
the valley of Glenorquhy, to this very hour, cry shame on the violence
offered to a helpless infant whom her kinsmen were conveying to the
court of the Sovereign? Were not her escort compelled to hide her
beneath a cauldron, round which they fought till not one remained to
tell the tale? and was not the girl brought to this fatal castle, and
afterwards wedded to the brother of M’Callum More, and all for the sake
of her broad lands?” [Such a story is told of the heiress of the clan
of Calder, who was made prisoner in the manner described, and afterwards
wedded to Sir Duncan Campbell, from which union the Campbells of Cawdor
have their descent.]
“And if the tale be true,” said Murdoch, “she had a preferment beyond
what the King of Scots would have conferred on her. But this is far
from the purpose. The daughter of Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr is of our own
blood, not a stranger; and who has so good a right to know her fate as
M’Callum More, the chief of her clan?”
“It is on his part, then, that you demand it!” said the outlaw. The
domestic of the Marquis assented.
“And you will practise no evil against the maiden?--I have done her
wrong enough already.”
“No evil, upon the word of a Christian man,” replied Murdoch.
“And my guerdon is to be life and liberty?” said the Child of the Mist.
“Such is our paction,” replied the Campbell.
“Then know, that the child whom I saved our of compassion at the
spoiling of her father’s tower of strength, was bred as an adopted
daughter of our tribe, until we were worsted at the pass of
Ballenduthil, by the fiend incarnate and mortal enemy of our tribe,
Allan M’Aulay of the Bloody hand, and by the horsemen of Lennox, under
the heir of Menteith.”
“Fell she into the power of Allan of the Bloody hand,” said Murdoch,
“and she a reputed daughter of thy tribe? Then her blood has gilded the
dirk, and thou hast said nothing to rescue thine own forfeited life.”
“If my life rest on hers,” answered the outlaw, “it is secure, for she
still survives; but it has a more insecure reliance--the frail promise
of a son of Diarmid.”
“That promise shall not fail you,” said the Campbell, “if you can assure
me that she survives, and where she is to be found.”
“In the Castle of Darlinvarach,” said Ranald MacEagh, “under the name
of Annot Lyle. I have often heard of her from my kinsmen, who have again
approached their native woods, and it is not long since mine old eyes
beheld her.”
“You!” said Murdoch, in astonishment, “you, a chief among the Children
of the Mist, and ventured so near your mortal foe?”
“Son of Diarmid, I did more,” replied the outlaw; “I was in the hall of
the castle, disguised as a harper from the wild shores of Skianach. My
purpose was to have plunged my dirk in the body of the M’Aulay with the
Bloody hand, before whom our race trembles, and to have taken thereafter
what fate God should send me. But I saw Annot Lyle, even when my hand
was on the hilt of my dagger. She touched her clairshach [Harp] to
a song of the Children of the Mist, which she had learned when her
dwelling was amongst us. The woods in which we had dwelt pleasantly,
rustled their green leaves in the song, and our streams were there with
the sound of all their waters. My hand forsook the dagger; the fountains
of mine eyes were opened, and the hour of revenge passed away.--And now,
Son of Diarmid, have I not paid the ransom of my head?”
“Ay,” replied Murdoch, “if your tale be true; but what proof can you
assign for it?”
“Bear witness, heaven and earth,” exclaimed the outlaw, “he already
looks how he may step over his word!”
“Not so,” replied Murdoch; “every promise shall be kept to you when I am
assured you have told me the truth.--But I must speak a few words with
your companion in captivity.”
“Fair and false--ever fair and false,” muttered the prisoner, as he
threw himself once more on the floor of his dungeon.
Meanwhile, Captain Dalgetty, who had attended to every word of this
dialogue, was making his own remarks on it in private. “What the HENKER
can this sly fellow have to say to me? I have no child, either of my
own, so far as I know, or of any other person, to tell him a tale about.
But let him come on--he will have some manoeuvring ere he turn the flank
of the old soldier.”
Accordingly, as if he had stood pike in hand to defend a breach, he
waited with caution, but without fear, the commencement of the attack.
“You are a citizen of the world, Captain Dalgetty,” said Murdoch
Campbell, “and cannot be ignorant of our old Scotch proverb, GIF-GAF,
[In old English, KA ME KA THEE, i.e. mutually serving each other.] which
goes through all nations and all services.”
“Then I should know something of it,” said Dalgetty; “for, except the
Turks, there are few powers in Europe whom I have not served; and I have
sometimes thought of taking a turn either with Bethlem Gabor, or with
the Janizaries.”
“A man of your experience and unprejudiced ideas, then, will understand
me at once,” said Murdoch, “when I say, I mean that your freedom shall
depend on your true and up right answer to a few trifling questions
respecting the gentlemen you have left; their state of preparation; the
number of their men, and nature of their appointments; and as much as
you chance to know about their plan of operations.”
“Just to satisfy your curiosity,” said Dalgetty, “and without any
farther purpose?”
“None in the world,” replied Murdoch; “what interest should a poor devil
like me take in their operations?”
“Make your interrogations, then,” said the Captain, “and I will answer
them PREREMTORIE.”
“How many Irish may be on their march to join James Graham the
delinquent?”
“Probably ten thousand,” said Captain Dalgetty.
“Ten thousand!” replied Murdoch angrily; “we know that scarce two
thousand landed at Ardnamurchan.”
“Then you know more about them than I do,” answered Captain Dalgetty,
with great composure. “I never saw them mustered yet, or even under
arms.”
“And how many men of the clans may be expected?” demanded Murdoch.
“As many as they can make,” replied the Captain.
“You are answering from the purpose, sir,” said Murdoch “speak plainly,
will there be five thousand men?”
“There and thereabouts,” answered Dalgetty.
“You are playing with your life, sir, if you trifle with me,” replied
the catechist; “one whistle of mine, and in less than ten minutes your
head hangs on the drawbridge.”
“But to speak candidly, Mr. Murdoch,” replied the Captain “do you think
it is a reasonable thing to ask me after the secrets of our army, and I
engaged to serve for the whole campaign? If I taught you how to defeat
Montrose, what becomes of my pay, arrears, and chance of booty?”
“I tell you,” said Campbell, “that if you be stubborn, your campaign
shall begin and end in a march to the block at the castle-gate, which
stands ready for such land-laufers; but if you answer my questions
faithfully, I will receive you into my--into the service of M’Callum
More.”
“Does the service afford good pay?” said Captain Dalgetty.
“He will double yours, if you will return to Montrose and act under his
direction.”
“I wish I had seen you, sir, before taking on with him,” said Dalgetty,
appearing to meditate.
“On the contrary, I can afford you more advantageous terms now,” said
the Campbell; “always supposing that you are faithful.”
“Faithful, that is, to you, and a traitor to Montrose,” answered the
Captain.
“Faithful to the cause of religion and good order,” answered Murdoch,
“which sanctifies any deception you may employ to serve it.”
“And the Marquis of Argyle--should I incline to enter his service, is he
a kind master?” demanded Dalgetty.
“Never man kinder,” quoth Campbell.
“And bountiful to his officers?” pursued the Captain.
“The most open hand in Scotland,” replied Murdoch.
“True and faithful to his engagements?” continued Dalgetty.
“As honourable a nobleman as breathes,” said the clansman.
“I never heard so much good of him before,” said Dalgetty; “you must
know the Marquis well,--or rather you must be the Marquis himself!--Lord
of Argyle,” he added, throwing himself suddenly on the disguised
nobleman, “I arrest you in the name of King Charles, as a traitor. If
you venture to call for assistance, I will wrench round your neck.”
The attack which Dalgetty made upon Argyle’s person was so sudden and
unexpected, that he easily prostrated him on the floor of the dungeon,
and held him down with one hand, while his right, grasping the Marquis’s
throat, was ready to strangle him on the slightest attempt to call for
assistance.
“Lord of Argyle,” he said, “it is now my turn to lay down the terms
of capitulation. If you list to show me the private way by which you
entered the dungeon, you shall escape, on condition of being my LOCUM
TENENS, as we said at the Mareschal-College, until your warder visits
his prisoners. But if not, I will first strangle you--I learned the
art from a Polonian heyduck, who had been a slave in the Ottoman
seraglio--and then seek out a mode of retreat.”
“Villain! you would not murder me for my kindness,” murmured Argyle.
“Not for your kindness, my lord,” replied Dalgetty: “but first, to teach
your lordship the JUS GENTIUM towards cavaliers who come to you under
safe-conduct; and secondly, to warn you of the danger of proposing
dishonourable terms to any worthy soldado, in order to tempt him to
become false to his standard during the term of his service.”
“Spare my life,” said Argyle, “and I will do as you require.”
Dalgetty maintained his gripe upon the Marquis’s throat, compressing it
a little while he asked questions, and relaxing it so far as to give him
the power of answering them.
“Where is the secret door into the dungeon?” he demanded.
“Hold up the lantern to the corner on your right hand, you will discern
the iron which covers the spring,” replied the Marquis.
“So far so good.--Where does the passage lead to?”
“To my private apartment behind the tapestry,” answered the prostrate
nobleman.
“From thence how shall I reach the gateway?”
“Through the grand gallery, the anteroom, the lackeys’ waiting hall, the
grand guardroom--”
“All crowded with soldiers, factionaries, and attendants?--that will
never do for me, my lord;--have you no secret passage to the gate, as
you have to your dungeons? I have seen such in Germany.”
“There is a passage through the chapel,” said the Marquis, “opening from
my apartment.”
“And what is the pass-word at the gate?”
“The sword of Levi,” replied the Marquis; “but if you will receive my
pledge of honour, I will go with you, escort you through every guard,
and set you at full liberty with a passport.”
“I might trust you, my lord, were your throat not already black with the
grasp of my fingers--as it is, BESO LOS MANOS A USTED, as the Spaniard
says. Yet you may grant me a passport;--are there writing materials in
your apartment?”
“Surely; and blank passports ready to be signed. I will attend you
there,” said the Marquis, “instantly.”
“It were too much honour for the like of me,” said Dalgetty; “your
lordship shall remain under charge of mine honest friend Ranald MacEagh;
therefore, prithee let me drag you within reach of his chain.--Honest
Ranald, you see how matters stand with us. I shall find the means, I
doubt not, of setting you at freedom. Meantime, do as you see me do;
clap your hand thus on the weasand of this high and mighty prince, under
his ruff, and if he offer to struggle or cry out, fail not, my worthy
Ranald, to squeeze doughtily; and if it be AD DELIQUIUM, Ranald, that
is, till he swoon, there is no great matter, seeing he designed your
gullet and mine to still harder usage.”
“If he offer at speech or struggle,” said Ranald, “he dies by my hand.”
“That is right, Ranald--very spirited:--A thorough-going friend that
understands a hint is worth a million!”
Thus resigning the charge of the Marquis to his new confederate,
Dalgetty pressed the spring, by which the secret door flew open,
though so well were its hinges polished and oiled, that it made not the
slightest noise in revolving. The opposite side of the door was secured
by very strong bolts and bars, beside which hung one or two keys,
designed apparently to undo fetterlocks. A narrow staircase, ascending
up through the thickness of the castle-wall, landed, as the Marquis had
truly informed him, behind the tapestry of his private apartment. Such
communications were frequent in old feudal castles, as they gave the
lord of the fortress, like a second Dionysius, the means of hearing the
conversation of his prisoners, or, if he pleased, of visiting them in
disguise, an experiment which had terminated so unpleasantly on the
present occasion for Gillespie Grumach. Having examined previously
whether there was any one in the apartment, and finding the coast clear,
the Captain entered, and hastily possessing himself of a blank passport,
several of which lay on the table, and of writing materials, securing,
at the same time, the Marquis’s dagger, and a silk cord from the
hangings, he again descended into the cavern, where, listening a moment
at the door, he could hear the half-stifled voice of the Marquis making
great proffers to MacEagh, on condition he would suffer him to give an
alarm.
“Not for a forest of deer--not for a thousand head of cattle,” answered
the freebooter; “not for all the lands that ever called a son of
Diarmid master, will I break the troth I have plighted to him of the
iron-garment!”
“He of the iron-garment,” said Dalgetty, entering, “is bounden unto you,
MacEagh, and this noble lord shall be bounden also; but first he must
fill up this passport with the names of Major Dugald Dalgetty and his
guide, or he is like to have a passport to another world.”
The Marquis subscribed, and wrote, by the light of the dark lantern, as
the soldier prescribed to him.
“And now, Ranald,” said Dalgetty, “strip thy upper garment--thy plaid
I mean, Ranald, and in it will I muffle the M’Callum More, and make of
him, for the time, a Child of the Mist;--Nay, I must bring it over your
head, my lord, so as to secure us against your mistimed clamour.--So,
now he is sufficiently muffled;--hold down your hands, or, by Heaven,
I will stab you to the heart with your own dagger!--nay, you shall be
bound with nothing less than silk, as your quality deserves.--So, now
he is secure till some one comes to relieve him. If he ordered us a late
dinner, Ranald, he is like to be the sufferer;--at what hour, my good
Ranald, did the jailor usually appear?”
“Never till the sun was beneath the western wave,” said MacEagh. “Then,
my friend, we shall have three hours good,” said the cautious Captain.
“In the meantime, let us labour for your liberation.”
To examine Ranald’s chain was the next occupation. It was undone by
means of one of the keys which hung behind the private door, probably
deposited there, that the Marquis might, if he pleased, dismiss a
prisoner, or remove him elsewhere without the necessity of summoning
the warden. The outlaw stretched his benumbed arms, and bounded from the
floor of the dungeon in all the ecstasy of recovered freedom.
“Take the livery-coat of that noble prisoner,” said Captain Dalgetty;
“put it on, and follow close at my heels.”
The outlaw obeyed. They ascended the private stair, having first secured
the door behind them, and thus safely reached the apartment of the
Marquis.
[The precarious state of the feudal nobles introduced a great deal of
espionage into their castles. Sir Robert Carey mentions his having put
on the cloak of one of his own wardens to obtain a confession from the
mouth of Geordie Bourne, his prisoner, whom he caused presently to be
hanged in return for the frankness of his communication. The fine old
Border castle of Naworth contains a private stair from the apartment
of the Lord William Howard, by which he could visit the dungeon, as is
alleged in the preceding chapter to have been practised by the Marquis
of Argyle.]