THE SISTERS.
Her lips were a cloven honey cherrie,
So tempting to the sight;
Her locks owre alabaster brows
Fell like the morning light.
And, oh! the breeze it lifted her locks,
As through the dance she flew;
While love laugh'd in her bonny blue ee,
And dwell'd in her comely mou'.
THE LORDS' MARIE.
A long train of nearly two thousand mounted spearmen, drawn from the
Douglas estates in Lanarkshire and Galloway made up this splendid
"following," as such a retinue was then termed; and as they wound up
the long vista of the crowded street, Gray contrived to place his horse
close to the bay palfrey of Murielle, and in a moment they exchanged
a deep glance and a pressure of the hand, which explained what--in
that age of little writing and no post offices--they had hitherto been
unable to tell, that both were steadfast and true to the troth they had
plighted at the three thorn trees of the Carlinwark on a moonlit St.
John's Eve, when the countess thought her little sister was asleep in
her lofty turret at Thrave.
"Do you pass forward to the castle to-night?" he asked Lord David,
while fixing his glance on Murielle, for the question related to her.
"No!" replied the little lord, with haughty reserve.
"Whither then?" asked Gray, while a shade of annoyance crossed his
handsome face.
"To the house of our kinsman, the abbot of Tongland; does that please
you?"
"Good, my lord, I shall there pay my respects to the earl--and make all
speed."
"Oh pray Sir Patrick, do not hurry yourself," was the jibing reply.
"Till then, God be wi' you," said Sir Patrick, checking his horse.
"Adieu," added Murielle, with another of her quiet glances; but the
lord, her cousin, turned bluntly away, as the king's soldier wheeled
his horse round, and with mingled love and anger in his heart remained
aloof till the brilliant train passed on.
A group of handsome girls, nearly all of the surname of Douglas, Maud
of Pompherston, Mariota of Glendoning, and others, accompanied Margaret
and Murielle, as _dames d'honneur_, or ladies of the tabourette, to be
educated and accomplished for the positions they were destined to fill
in the world: "To be reared to gifts and graces, to silk embroidery, to
ritual observances," and the courtly art of winning high-born husbands,
in the household of the duchess of Touraine.
These girls managed their horses with grace, they were all beautiful
and gay, but the two sisters of Thrave far exceeded them, though their
loveliness differed like the tints of spring and summer.
Murielle's beauty was in some respects inferior to that of her proud
and imperious sister, but it was of a more winning and delicate
character. Though there were scarcely two years between them, Margaret
seemed quite a woman, while Murielle was still girl-like, and in her
merrier moods at times almost childish.
The abbot of Tongland relates in his writings, that when Lady Murielle
was born at Thrave, she was so lovely a child that lest the fairies
might steal her away, and leave in her cradle a bunch of reeds in her
likeness, her mother secretly consecrated her to God; but convents were
already on the decline, and old Earl Archibald of Douglas and Touraine,
as her tutor, could not brook the idea with patience.
"And what news had Sir Patrick Gray?" asked the countess, coldly, as
her horse came close to Murielle's during a stoppage caused by the
pressure of the crowd.
"No news; nothing," replied Murielle, timidly, for her sister, from
infancy, had insidiously usurped an authority over her, which habit had
confirmed.
"Did he not speak?" asked Margaret imperiously.
"He merely made cousin David and me a reverence; little more, and
passed on."
"After assuring himself, however, where he might be able to see _you_
to-night," added cousin David.
"Are you not happy, Margaret, to find these citizens of the king
receive us so well?" said Murielle, to change the subject.
"Dare they receive us otherwise?" asked the countess, while the eight
bearded knights who bore her canopy exchanged approving smiles under
their uplifted visors.
"Sister!"
"Well, sister! These baillies and deacons in their holiday gaberdines
and worsted hosen--these websters and makers of bonnets and
daggers--these grimy fourbissers, lorimers, and dalmaskers of iron,
with their carlins in curchies and plaids, do well and wisely to cringe
and vail their bonnets to-day."
"Wherefore?"
"Have we not two thousand horse marshalled under our banner?" said the
young earl, who shared to the full the emotions of the haughty girl,
his wife.
"True, my lord and cousin; but they might, like dour carles, bite their
thumbs, and scowl at us from under their bonnets, for all our bravery,"
replied Murielle.
"'Tis a beautiful horse that roan of Sir Patrick Gray," said the earl;
"and its housings are----"
"Gules and or," interrupted Murielle, for then all well-bred people
knew the science of heraldry.
"His own colours, of course, and _not_ the king's," said the countess,
with an artful smile; "you laugh lightly, Murielle, because you love
that man."
"Is it a sign of love to be merry?" asked Murielle, softly, while her
fine eyes dilated with wonder.
"Nay, sister, 'tis more often a sign of love to be sad, and sad enough
you were at times in Thrave. But please God and St. Bryde, dear
Murielle, even in these stormy times, no cloud shall cast a shadow on
any love of yours."
"Even if he be the Captain of the King's Guard," said little Lord
David, with the spirit of a mischievous boy. His cousin coloured with
an air of annoyance, but said smilingly, while holding up a tiny
finger, "Oh fie, Davie, you had almost said----"
"The captain of our enemy's band of hirelings," said the fiery young
earl, interrupting her; "and, under the royal favour, he would have
said right. I know, sweet cousin, what my brother _thinks_, however he
may speak, or not speak."
This unpleasant turn to the conversation caused the timid Murielle
to shrink within herself, and the little lord was beginning to laugh
maliciously when a sudden brawl ensued in the crowd, and Sir Malcolm
Fleming, of Cumbernauld, on finding his horse incommoded by a group of
magistrates and deacons, daringly struck one of the former on the head
with the shaft of his lance, exclaiming, "Back, sirrah, back! By St.
Bryde, I will rend the auld carle's beard frae his jaws!"
"A Douglas! a Douglas!" cried a horseman in a _closed_ helmet, pressing
briskly forward.
This man was Abercorn's creature, James Achanna, who, with his poleaxe,
was ready to strike on _both_ sides to ferment a brawl, by which the
grand _coup_ in the castle on the morrow might be anticipated.
"Armour--rescue!" cried a number of the armed craftsmen, pressing also
forward with swords drawn and partizans lowered menacingly, as they
were justly indignant at an affront offered to one of their magistrates.
A tumult would undoubtedly have ensued, for Lord David had drawn his
little sword, and the young earl only laughed as if it were sport to
see his knights maltreat the burghers, but the rising fray was quelled
by his confessor, the politic old abbot of Tongland, who pushed his
horse between the belligerents, and while waving a benison to the
people with his right hand, by his left arrested the threatening lance
of the irate laird of Cumbernauld. So thus the matter happily ended,
and with this single untoward affair the earl and his train reached
the town mansion of the abbot, which stood within spacious gardens on
the southern slope of the Canongate, the way that led to the abbey of
Holyrood; for as yet, the latter was simply an abbey house and church,
and not until sixty-four years after was a royal residence added to
the sacred edifice which King David (in honour of the fabled miracle
by which his life was saved) founded of old, in the wild part of the
forest, which was then nameless, or simply described as "the hollow
between two hills."
"You look weary, sister," said the countess, as the earl kindly and
gallantly lifted Murielle from her saddle in the court-yard of the
abbot's house.
"The long journey of the day has tired me, but after a sound sleep I
shall be fresh for morning mass in St. Giles to-morrow; for is not
to-morrow the vigil of St. Catharine?"
"And the day of our banquet with the King, the Regent, and Chancellor."
"Alake that such trust should be!" muttered Sir Malcolm Fleming under
his long white moustache.
"What, art croaking again, stout Cumbernauld?" said the earl, laughing;
"who can say but the young king may fall in love with our Murielle, and
make her queen of Scotland?"
The Douglas knights loudly applauded the surmise.
"How bright the sunset falls on yonder hill," said Murielle, colouring
with annoyance; "how is it named?"
"Arthur Seat," replied Lord David.
"See how the rays fade upward, from rock to rock and rift to rift, as
the sun sinks. It makes me think o our Galloway song," said Murielle,
always a creature of impulse, as she kissed her sister and sang:--
"A weary bodies blythe when the sun gaes down,
A weary bodies blythe when the sun gaes down;
To smile wi' his wife and to dawt wi' his weans:
Wha wouldna be blythe when the sun gaes down?"
"Are you crazed, Murielle," said the Countess, with a smile of disdain,
"to lilt thus before grooms and lacqueys?"
But the bearded knights of Galloway, who had now relinquished the silk
canopy to their pages, laughed gaily and praised Murielle, whose charms
and playfulness ever won the hearts of all.
The earl's numerous retainers stowed themselves away in the city,
where they filled with noise and tumult all the hostelries which had
been established by the late King James I.; while the buffoons, in
parti-coloured caps and doublets, the plaided pipers, and bearded
harpers, who had followed them, made the streets, which, after vespers,
were usually quiet, a scene of continual mumming, with alternate music
and discord, as they danced by torchlight before groups of citizens,
who loitered at their forestairs, galleries, and arcades; and so the
night of the 22nd November closed in, while the Regent's followers kept
the gates of the castle securely guarded.