THE LOWLANDS OF HOLLAND.
To Norroway, to Norroway,
Out owre the saut seas' foam;
The King o' Norroway's daughter,
'Tis thou maun bring her home!
OLD BALLAD.
Though the season was summer, the _St. Regulus_ of Pittenweem did not
cross the German Ocean without peril; for one night, and during the
following day, there blew a tempest from the south-east, which drove
her so far from her course, that the tacking to and fro of a whole week
were required ere she could regain the lost distance; for the reader
must bear in mind that the high-pooped, high-prowed, and low-waisted
craft of those days, were very different from the screw-propellers and
iron clippers of the present age; and heavily they lumbered along, with
Dutch lee-boards, basketed tops, their spritsail-yards, jack-staffs,
and other ponderous hamper.
So, when the gale abated, the _St. Regulus_ was off the coast of
England, and the tall, surf-beaten cliff, with the old castle of
Scarborough, were seen in the distance, as the red rays of the morning
sun fell on them from the eastern sky.
And now, as the _St. Regulus_ squared her yards to bear up for Sluys, a
new danger presented itself.
A great ship of England, which had hitherto been concealed by a bank
of mist, was seen bearing down towards her, with St. George's ensign
flying, and a large white rod or pole lashed to her bowsprit. This
was the sign of _amity_ on the seas in those days, and it was by
this token that Sir Andrew Barton, in after years, was lured by Lord
Howard to destruction in the Downs; but, as all shipmen were generally
addicted to a little piracy, the captain of the _St. Regulus_, who was
a douce native of the East Neuk, and a lay brother of St. Mary, of
Pittenmeen, having a valuable cargo consigned to the famous merchant
John Vanderberg of Bruges (who two years before had discovered the
Azores), deemed discretion the better part of valour; so, hoisting all
the canvas he could spread aloft, he squared his yards and bore right
away before the wind.
Immediately on this, the crew of the English ship blew their trumpets,
and fired several stone shot from their culverins; thus plainly
indicating that though both countries were at peace, they did not deem
that the treaty extended into blue water, and that they would make a
prize of the Scotsman if they could.
Sir Patrick, who had donned his armour, and appeared on deck with his
two-handed sword, was not without fear that the ship might have been
dispatched to intercept _him_, and spoil his embassy by the influence
the earl of Douglas possessed in England--a country which in all ages
left nothing undone to break the political ties, which then existed
between Scotland and the continent.
But the _St. Regulus_ sailed like an arrow before the wind; and thus,
long ere mid-day, her pursuer was far distanced and hull-down in the
ocean.
With this single incident she had a prosperous voyage, and on
Lammas-day in August made the low flat coast of Flanders, and came
to anchor in the then fine harbour of Sluys, close to the strong old
castle, where the Duc de Bouillon was kept after his capture at Hesdin;
but since those days the sea, which has gradually been washing away
the isle of Cadsand, has almost filled up the basin of Sluys.
Sir Patrick Gray landed with his horse, armour, and cloakbags, and
presented his credentials to Hervé de Meriadet, the burg graf, who
commanded a body of Walloons, in the castle, "where," says the abbot of
Tongland, "he was honourably entertained for three days, after which
he set out for the court of the duke of Gueldres," which lay about one
hundred and fifty miles distant, in the land beyond the Maese.
Though Flanders had been the scene of many bloody battles, and
disastrous wars, the people were industrious and peaceful; and then
it was not necessary, as in turbulent and warlike Scotland, to travel
armed to the teeth; yet, to be provided for any emergency, Sir Patrick
Gray wore an open helmet, a gorget, a chain shirt, and gloves of fine
mail, with his sword and dagger.
In his cloakbag was a round sum in the current coin of the day, such
as Henry nobles valued at twenty-two shillings; salutis, riders, and
dauphines, at eleven shillings; and Rhenish guilders at eight, issued
to him, in goodly canvas bags, by the treasurer depute, from the rents
of the king's lands in Ettrick forest and Gosford in Lothian, which
had then been due. Moreover, he had ample letters of credit upon John
Vanderberg of Bruges, and two Scottish merchants in Campvere.
Though far from Murielle Douglas, he felt his heart grow light as he
surveyed the flat green fields where the sleek cattle browsed, the
sandy isles of the Scheldt, where the brown windmills tossed their arms
in the breeze; the dull sedgy streams, where great lubberly barges
were dragged to and fro by horses of equally lubberly aspect; the
taper church spires seen at a vast distance across the far stretching
heaths; or the old castles amid the thick primeval woods of Flanders.
Health and strength had returned to him amid the bracing air of the
German Sea. His purse was well lined; he had a good horse under him; a
sharp sword by his side; an honourable commission to execute; and so
he rode cheerfully on, with an almost boyish emotion of novelty and
longing for adventure, making his heart expand and its pulses quicken,
he knew not why.
He was now in Flanders--"the lawlands o'Holland," so famed in many a
Scottish song--and whose name is so interwoven with the annals of our
exiles and soldiers of fortune.
On the first day of his solitary journey he passed through Ardenburg,
which is a league from Sluys, and was _then_ the capital of maritime
Flanders; and from thence proceeding along the left bank of the Scheldt
he reached Hulst, a small but very ancient town in Dutch Brabant, where
he took up his quarters at a Benedictine monastery, whose superior
was brother of the burg graf of Sluys, by name Benoit de Meriadet of
Burgundy.
When he set forth next morning he saw plainly in the distance the
magnificent spire of the great cathedral in the marquisate of Antwerp,
reddened by the dun morning sun, standing like a slender pillar of
flame, above the vast extent of level pastures which border the
Scheldt, and rising far above the dense white motionless mist which the
heat of the August morning was exhaling, from the fens and marshes,
through which the river flowed so turgidly and slowly towards Zealand
and the German Sea.
After a twenty miles' ride through a green and fertile but most
monotonous country, he found himself in busy Antwerp, and under the
shadow of that colossal spire, which was then one of the wonders of the
world, and which was visible alike from the laceworks of Mechlin, the
ramparts of Ghent; the plains of Louvain; and the sandy shores of the
distant Zealand isles.