WILL HE ESCAPE?
Black is my steed as a cloud of rain,
There's a star of white on his brow;
The free gales play with his feathery mane,
And lightnings gleam round his feet of snow.
POLISH POETRY.
Dark foliaged glens and heathy hills, furrowed fields and wayside
cottages, with the pale smoke curling through their roofs of yellow
thatch and emerald moss; rock-perched towers, with corbelled
battlements and grated windows; deep fordless rivers, pathless woods,
and uncultivated wolds, seemed to fly past, and still the steed with
its bare-headed rider rushed on at a frightful pace, as if it was
enchanted, or bestrode by an evil spirit, like that of Lenore in the
ballad of Burger.
The moon was shining brightly now.
Near Stobo the pursuers came so close upon Gray that he began to fear
escape was impossible--the more so, as fresh blood-hounds were baying
on his track. On reaching the Tweed, instead of crossing it by a
ford--the river was deeper everywhere then than now--he waded or swam
his horse up the current for about a hundred yards, and _backed_ it
into a low-browed fissure or cavern which he discovered amid the rocks.
Dismounting, he drew his sword and dagger, threw the bridle over his
left arm, and stood at the cavern mouth to confront all or any who
might come near, and resolved if they discovered his lurking place
to sell his life dearly; but he felt how much the long ride in heavy
armour over rough ground had impaired his natural strength. His sinews
were stiffened, his overtasked muscles were swollen with pain, and his
mind was as weary as his body.
On the silver current of the Tweed, as it brawled over its broad bed of
pebbles, the moon shone bright and clearly; close by, a tributary from
the hills rushed over a brow of rock, and formed a feathery cascade,
which plunged into a deep pool. There the peasantry affirmed that a
kind fairy was wont to appear at times, and to bend over the cascade,
mingling her white arms and floating drapery with the foam, as she
sought to save those wayfarers whom the evil kelpie in the darksome
linn below sought to drown and devour.
Nor hideous kelpie, nor lovely fairy were visible to-night; but now
came the hoarse grunting bark of four large sleuth-bratches, as they
leaped with heavy plunges to the margin of the stream: there the scent
was lost, and they were once more, as at every running water, at fault,
so they ran snorting and sniffing to and fro among the leaves, reeds,
and water-docks, with the breath curling up from their fierce red
nostrils like white steam in the clear moonlight.
Then came furious surmises and angry oaths as a dozen or more
moss-troopers galloped down to the bank of the stream, and rode in an
excited manner hither and thither, seeking to put the dogs upon a track
or trail. Through the leafy screen of his hiding-place, Gray could see
their fierce and sun-burned faces, their rusty helmets and battered
trappings, their long reed-like lances that glittered in the moonshine;
for those moss-troopers, in their well-worn and half-barbaric
accoutrements, were the very Cossacks of the Scottish borders.
James Achanna now came up and spurred his horse across to examine the
ford, and uttered a shout of exultation on discovering the trace of
horses' hoofs recently impressed in the soft mud.
Gray drew a long breath, and felt the edge of his sword, for he
thought the critical moment was at hand! But now a trooper, with an
oath expressive of disappointment, drew the attention of all to the
circumstance that the marks were those of a horse which had gone
_towards_ the ford and must have crossed it for the south, and that, if
they were made by the hoofs of the fugitive's nag, he must have doubled
like a hare. On hearing this, Gray blessed his own foresight in having
backed his horse upward from the stream.
The moment this hint was given to the rest, who had no particular views
of their own on the subject, they put spur to their horses and galloped
away, almost in the direction from whence they had come. As soon as
they were gone, Gray came forth from his lurking-place, mounted, and
rode off towards the north leisurely and at an easy pace.
He was soon on the border of the fertile Lothians; the far-stretching
range of the Pentlands rose upon his left, with their heathy summits
tipped by the rising sun; the long ridge where the trenches of
Agricola's camp overlooked the woods of Dalhousie, the Dalkeith of the
Douglases, and the vale of the two Esks, was soon surmounted, and afar
off, "piled deep and massy, close and high," he could see old grey
Edinburgh rising in the distance.
Haggard, wan, and wild in aspect, weary and torn,--minus a helmet
and with his dark hair streaming behind him; his armour rusted with
perspiration, and by frequent immersion in the rivers he had forded or
swam; his spurs dripping with blood, and his sinking horse covered with
foam and quivering in every fibre; his embroidered surcoat frittered by
brambles and thorns--the Captain of the King's Guard passed through the
streets of Edinburgh, and reached the castle, thus actually returning,
as the old gate-ward had shrewdly predicted, "faster than he gaed awa."
The Master of Crichton (the chancellor's eldest son), the favourite
page of James, conducted him at once to the latter, who was in the
same apartment of David's Tower, and occupied with the same translated
romance of Sir Gilbert the Haye.
"What of MacLellan?" said he, starting up.
"MacLellan is dead, sire," replied Gray in a scarcely audible voice,
and in a burst of grief and excitement "My kinsman--my friend--he has
gone to heaven; but he was foully murdered, and in cold blood, by the
base Lord Douglas, and I shall avenge him--yea, fearfully, I swear it
by Him at whose throne he is now perhaps kneeling!"
"And I will aid your vengeance, Gray," added the king, pressing his
hand.
Then, when Sir Patrick had related his story, James vowed deeply in his
heart, if he could not conciliate Douglas, to CRUSH him and break his
terrible bond, or let himself be crushed in the contest.