Fair is the damsel, passing fair;
Sunny at distance gleams her smile;
Approach--the cloud of woful care
Hangs trembling in her eye the while.
Lucinda, a Ballad.
We must here trace a little more correctly the events which had been
indistinctly seen from the window of the royal apartments, and yet more
indistinctly reported by those who witnessed them. The glee maiden,
already mentioned, had planted herself where a rise of two large broad
steps, giving access to the main gateway of the royal apartments, gained
her an advantage of a foot and a half in height over those in the
court, of whom she hoped to form an audience. She wore the dress of her
calling, which was more gaudy than rich, and showed the person more than
did the garb of other females. She had laid aside an upper mantle, and
a small basket which contained her slender stock of necessaries; and a
little French spaniel dog sat beside them, as their protector. An azure
blue jacket, embroidered with silver, and sitting close to the person,
was open in front, and showed several waistcoats of different coloured
silks, calculated to set off the symmetry of the shoulders and bosom,
and remaining open at the throat. A small silver chain worn around her
neck involved itself amongst these brilliant coloured waistcoats, and
was again produced from them; to display a medal of the same metal,
which intimated, in the name of some court or guild of minstrels,
the degree she had taken in the gay or joyous science. A small scrip,
suspended over her shoulders by a blue silk riband; hung on her left
side.
Her sunny complexion, snow white teeth, brilliant black eyes, and raven
locks marked her country lying far in the south of France, and the arch
smile and dimpled chin bore the same character. Her luxuriant raven
locks, twisted around a small gold bodkin, were kept in their position
by a net of silk and gold. Short petticoats, deep laced with silver, to
correspond with the jacket, red stockings which were visible so high as
near the calf of the leg, and buskins of Spanish leather, completed her
adjustment, which, though far from new, had been saved as an untarnished
holiday suit, which much care had kept in good order. She seemed about
twenty-five years old; but perhaps fatigue and wandering had anticipated
the touch of time in obliterating the freshness of early youth.
We have said the glee maiden’s manner was lively, and we may add that
her smile and repartee were ready. But her gaiety was assumed, as a
quality essentially necessary to her trade, of which it was one of the
miseries, that the professors were obliged frequently to cover an aching
heart with a compelled smile. This seemed to be the case with Louise,
who, whether she was actually the heroine of her own song, or whatever
other cause she might have for sadness, showed at times a strain of deep
melancholy thought, which interfered with and controlled the natural
flow of lively spirits which the practice of the joyous science
especially required. She lacked also, even in her gayest sallies, the
decided boldness and effrontery of her sisterhood, who were seldom at
a loss to retort a saucy jest, or turn the laugh against any who
interrupted or interfered with them.
It may be here remarked, that it was impossible that this class of
women, very numerous in that age, could bear a character generally
respectable. They were, however, protected by the manners of the time;
and such were the immunities they possessed by the rights of chivalry,
that nothing was more rare than to hear of such errant damsels
sustaining injury or wrong, and they passed and repassed safely, where
armed travellers would probably have encountered a bloody opposition.
But though licensed and protected in honour of their tuneful art, the
wandering minstrels, male or female, like similar ministers to the
public amusement, the itinerant musicians, for instance, and strolling
comedians of our own day, led a life too irregular and precarious to
be accounted a creditable part of society. Indeed, among the stricter
Catholics, the profession was considered as unlawful.
Such was the damsel who, with viol in hand, and stationed on the slight
elevation we have mentioned, stepped forward to the bystanders and
announced herself as a mistress of the gay science, duly qualified by a
brief from a Court of Love and Music held at Aix, in Provence, under the
countenance of the flower of chivalry, the gallant Count Aymer; who now
prayed that the cavaliers of merry Scotland, who were known over the
wide world for bravery and courtesy, would permit a poor stranger to try
whether she could afford them any amusement by her art. The love of song
was like the love of fight, a common passion of the age, which all
at least affected, whether they were actually possessed by it or no;
therefore the acquiescence in Louise’s proposal was universal. At
the same time, an aged, dark browed monk who was among the bystanders
thought it necessary to remind the glee maiden that, since she was
tolerated within these precincts, which was an unusual grace, he trusted
nothing would be sung or said inconsistent with the holy character of
the place.
The glee maiden bent her head low, shook her sable locks, and crossed
herself reverentially, as if she disclaimed the possibility of such a
transgression, and then began the song of “Poor Louise.” which we gave
at length in the last chapter.
Just as she commenced, she was stopped by a cry of “Room--room--place
for the Duke of Rothsay!”
“Nay, hurry no man on my score,” said a gallant young cavalier, who
entered on a noble Arabian horse, which he managed with exquisite grace,
though by such slight handling of the reins, such imperceptible pressure
of the limbs and sway of the body, that to any eye save that of an
experienced horseman the animal seemed to be putting forth his paces for
his own amusement, and thus gracefully bearing forward a rider who was
too indolent to give himself any trouble about the matter.
The Prince’s apparel, which was very rich, was put on with slovenly
carelessness. His form, though his stature was low, and his limbs
extremely slight, was elegant in the extreme; and his features no less
handsome. But there was on his brow a haggard paleness, which seemed
the effect of care or of dissipation, or of both these wasting causes
combined. His eyes were sunk and dim, as from late indulgence in revelry
on the preceding evening, while his cheek was inflamed with unnatural
red, as if either the effect of the Bacchanalian orgies had not passed
away from the constitution, or a morning draught had been resorted to,
in order to remove the effects of the night’s debauchery.
Such was the Duke of Rothsay, and heir of the Scottish crown, a sight
at once of interest and compassion. All unbonneted and made way for him,
while he kept repeating carelessly, “No haste--no haste: I shall arrive
soon enough at the place I am bound for. How’s this--a damsel of the
joyous science? Ay, by St. Giles! and a comely wench to boot. Stand
still, my merry men; never was minstrelsy marred for me. A good voice,
by the mass! Begin me that lay again, sweetheart.”
Louise did not know the person who addressed her; but the general
respect paid by all around, and the easy and indifferent manner in which
it was received, showed her she was addressed by a man of the highest
quality. She recommenced her lay, and sung her best accordingly; while
the young duke seemed thoughtful and rather affected towards the close
of the ditty. But it was not his habit to cherish such melancholy
affections.
“This is a plaintive ditty, my nut brown maid,” said he, chucking the
retreating glee maiden under the chin, and detaining her by the collar
of her dress, which was not difficult, as he sat on horseback so close
to the steps on which she stood. “But I warrant me you have livelier
notes at will, ma bella tenebrosa; ay, and canst sing in bower as well
as wold, and by night as well as day.”
“I am no nightingale, my lord,” said Louise, endeavouring to escape a
species of gallantry which ill suited the place and circumstances--a
discrepancy to which he who addressed it to her seemed contemptuously
indifferent.
“What hast thou there, darling?” he added, removing his hold from her
collar to the scrip which she carried.
Glad was Louise to escape his grasp, by slipping the knot of the riband,
and leaving the little bag in the Prince’s hand, as, retiring back
beyond his reach, she answered, “Nuts, my lord, of the last season.”
The Prince pulled out a handful of nuts accordingly. “Nuts, child! they
will break thine ivory teeth, hurt thy pretty voice,” said Rothsay,
cracking one with his teeth, like a village schoolboy.
“They are not the walnuts of my own sunny clime, my lord,” said Louise;
“but they hang low, and are within the reach of the poor.”
“You shall have something to afford you better fare, poor wandering
ape,” said the Duke, in a tone in which feeling predominated more than
in the affected and contemptuous gallantry of his first address to the
glee maiden.
At this moment, as he turned to ask an attendant for his purse, the
Prince encountered the stern and piercing look of a tall black man,
seated on a powerful iron grey horse, who had entered the court with
attendants while the Duke of Rothsay was engaged with Louise, and now
remained stupefied and almost turned to stone by his surprise and anger
at this unseemly spectacle. Even one who had never seen Archibald
Earl of Douglas, called the Grim, must have known him by his swart
complexion, his gigantic frame, his buff coat of bull’s hide, and his
air of courage, firmness, and sagacity, mixed with indomitable pride.
The loss of an eye in battle, though not perceptible at first sight, as
the ball of the injured organ remained similar to the other, gave yet a
stern, immovable glare to the whole aspect.
The meeting of the royal son in law with his terrible stepfather
[father in law] was in circumstances which arrested the attention of all
present; and the bystanders waited the issue with silence and suppressed
breath, lest they should lose any part of what was to ensue.
When the Duke of Rothsay saw the expression which occupied the stern
features of Douglas, and remarked that the Earl did not make the
least motion towards respectful, or even civil, salutation, he seemed
determined to show him how little respect he was disposed to pay to his
displeased looks. He took his purse from his chamberlain.
“Here, pretty one,” he said, “I give thee one gold piece for the song
thou hast sung me, another for the nuts I have stolen from thee, and a
third for the kiss thou art about to give me. For know, my pretty one,
that when fair lips, and thine for fault of better may be called so,
make sweet music for my pleasure, I am sworn to St. Valentine to press
them to mine.”
“My song is recompensed nobly,” said Louise, shrinking back; “my nuts
are sold to a good market; farther traffic, my lord, were neither
befitting you nor beseeming me.”
“What! you coy it, my nymph of the highway?” said the Prince,
contemptuously. “Know damsel, that one asks you a grace who is unused to
denial.”
“It is the Prince of Scotland--the Duke of Rothsay,” said the courtiers
around, to the terrified Louise, pressing forward the trembling young
woman; “you must not thwart his humor.”
“But I cannot reach your lordship,” she said, timidly, “you sit so high
on horseback.”
“If I must alight,” said Rothsay, “there shall be the heavier penalty.
What does the wench tremble for? Place thy foot on the toe of my boot,
give me hold of thy hand. Gallantly done!” He kissed her as she stood
thus suspended in the air, perched upon his foot and supported by his
hand; saying, “There is thy kiss, and there is my purse to pay it; and
to grace thee farther, Rothsay will wear thy scrip for the day.”
He suffered the frightened girl to spring to the ground, and turned his
looks from her to bend them contemptuously on the Earl of Douglas, as
if he had said, “All this I do in despite of you and of your daughter’s
claims.”
“By St. Bride of Douglas!” said the Earl, pressing towards the Prince,
“this is too much, unmannered boy, as void of sense as honour! You know
what considerations restrain the hand of Douglas, else had you never
dared--”
“Can you play at spang cockle, my lord?” said the Prince, placing a nut
on the second joint of his forefinger, and spinning it off by a smart
application of the thumb. The nut struck on Douglas’s broad breast,
who burst out into a dreadful exclamation of wrath, inarticulate, but
resembling the growl of a lion in depth and sternness of expression.
“I cry your pardon, most mighty lord,” said the Duke of Rothsay,
scornfully, while all around trembled; “I did not conceive my pellet
could have wounded you, seeing you wear a buff coat. Surely, I trust, it
did not hit your eye?”
The prior, despatched by the King, as we have seen in the last chapter,
had by this time made way through the crowd, and laying hold on
Douglas’s rein, in a manner that made it impossible for him to advance,
reminded him that the Prince was the son of his sovereign; and the
husband of his daughter.
“Fear not, sir prior,” said Douglas. “I despise the childish boy too
much to raise a finger against him. But I will return insult for insult.
Here, any of you who love the Douglas, spurn me this quean from the
monastery gates; and let her be so scourged that she may bitterly
remember to the last day of her life how she gave means to an
unrespective boy to affront the Douglas.”
Four or five retainers instantly stepped forth to execute commands which
were seldom uttered in vain, and heavily would Louise have atoned for an
offence of which she was alike the innocent, unconscious, and unwilling
instrument, had not the Duke of Rothsay interfered.
“Spurn the poor glee woman!” he said, in high indignation; “scourge
her for obeying my commands! Spurn thine own oppressed vassals, rude
earl--scourge thine own faulty hounds; but beware how you touch so much
as a dog that Rothsay hath patted on the head, far less a female whose
lips he hath kissed!”
Before Douglas could give an answer, which would certainly have been
in defiance, there arose that great tumult at the outward gate of the
monastery, already noticed, and men both on horseback and on foot
began to rush headlong in, not actually fighting with each other, but
certainly in no peaceable manner.
One of the contending parties, seemingly, were partizans of Douglas,
known by the cognizance of the bloody heart; the other were composed of
citizens of the town of Perth. It appeared they had been skirmishing in
earnest when without the gates, but, out of respect to the sanctified
ground, they lowered their weapons when they entered, and confined their
strife to a war of words and mutual abuse.
The tumult had this good effect, that it forced asunder, by the weight
and press of numbers, the Prince and Douglas, at a moment when the
levity of the former and the pride of the latter were urging both to the
utmost extremity. But now peacemakers interfered on all sides. The prior
and the monks threw themselves among the multitude, and commanded
peace in the name of Heaven, and reverence to their sacred walls,
under penalty of excommunication; and their expostulations began to
be listened to. Albany, who was despatched by his royal brother at the
beginning of the fray, had not arrived till now on the scene of action.
He instantly applied himself to Douglas, and in his ear conjured him to
temper his passion.
“By St. Bride of Douglas, I will be avenged!” said the Earl. “No man
shall brook life after he has passed an affront on Douglas.”
“Why, so you may be avenged in fitting time,” said Albany; “but let it
not be said that, like a peevish woman, the Great Douglas could choose
neither time nor place for his vengeance. Bethink you, all that we have
laboured at is like to be upset by an accident. George of Dunbar hath
had the advantage of an audience with the old man; and though it lasted
but five minutes, I fear it may endanger the dissolution of your family
match, which we brought about with so much difficulty. The authority
from Rome has not yet been obtained.”
“A toy!” answered Douglas, haughtily; “they dare not dissolve it.”
“Not while Douglas is at large, and in possession of his power,”
answered Albany. “But, noble earl, come with me, and I will show you at
what disadvantage you stand.”
Douglas dismounted, and followed his wily accomplice in silence. In a
lower hall they saw the ranks of the Brandanes drawn up, well armed in
caps of steel and shirts of mail. Their captain, making an obeisance to
Albany, seemed to desire to address him.
“What now, MacLouis?” said the Duke.
“We are informed the Duke of Rothsay has been insulted, and I can scarce
keep the Brandanes within door.”
“Gallant MacLouis,” said Albany, “and you, my trusty Brandanes, the Duke
of Rothsay, my princely nephew, is as well as a hopeful gentleman can
be. Some scuffle there has been, but all is appeased.”
He continued to draw the Earl of Douglas forward. “You see, my lord,” he
said in his ear, “that, if the word ‘arrest’ was to be once spoken,
it would be soon obeyed, and you are aware your attendants are few for
resistance.”
Douglas seemed to acquiesce in the necessity of patience for the time.
“If my teeth,” he said, “should bite through my lips, I will be silent
till it is the hour to speak out.”
George of March, in the meanwhile, had a more easy task of pacifying
the Prince. “My Lord of Rothsay,” he said, approaching him with grave
ceremony, “I need not tell you that you owe me something for reparation
of honour, though I blame not you personally for the breach of contract
which has destroyed the peace of my family. Let me conjure you, by
what observance your Highness may owe an injured man, to forego for the
present this scandalous dispute.”
“My lord, I owe you much,” replied Rothsay; “but this haughty and all
controlling lord has wounded mine honour.”
“My lord, I can but add, your royal father is ill--hath swooned with
terror for your Highness’s safety.”
“Ill!” replied the Prince--“the kind, good old man swooned, said you, my
Lord of March? I am with him in an instant.”
The Duke of Rothsay sprung from his saddle to the ground, and was
dashing into the palace like a greyhound, when a feeble grasp was
laid on his cloak, and the faint voice of a kneeling female exclaimed,
“Protection, my noble prince!--protection for a helpless stranger!”
“Hands off, stroller!” said the Earl of March, thrusting the suppliant
glee maiden aside.
But the gentler prince paused. “It is true,” he said, “I have brought
the vengeance of an unforgiving devil upon this helpless creature. O
Heaven! what a life, is mine, so fatal to all who approach me! What to
do in the hurry? She must not go to my apartments. And all my men are
such born reprobates. Ha! thou at mine elbow, honest Harry Smith? What
dost thou here?”
“There has been something of a fight, my lord,” answered our
acquaintance the smith, “between the townsmen and the Southland loons
who ride with the Douglas; and we have swinged them as far as the abbey
gate.”
“I am glad of it--I am glad of it. And you beat the knaves fairly?”
“Fairly, does your Highness ask?” said Henry. “Why, ay! We were stronger
in numbers, to be sure; but no men ride better armed than those who
follow the Bloody Heart. And so in a sense we beat them fairly; for, as
your Highness knows, it is the smith who makes the man at arms, and men
with good weapons are a match for great odds.”
While they thus talked, the Earl of March, who had spoken with some one
near the palace gate, returned in anxious haste. “My Lord Duke!--my Lord
Duke! your father is recovered, and if you haste not speedily, my Lord
of Albany and the Douglas will have possession of his royal ear.”
“And if my royal father is recovered,” said the thoughtless Prince, “and
is holding, or about to hold, counsel with my gracious uncle and the
Earl of Douglas, it befits neither your lordship nor me to intrude till
we are summoned. So there is time for me to speak of my little business
with mine honest armourer here.”
“Does your Highness take it so?” said the Earl, whose sanguine hopes of
a change of favour at court had been too hastily excited, and were as
speedily checked. “Then so let it be for George of Dunbar.”
He glided away with a gloomy and displeased aspect; and thus out of the
two most powerful noblemen in Scotland, at a time when the aristocracy
so closely controlled the throne, the reckless heir apparent had made
two enemies--the one by scornful defiance and the other by careless
neglect. He heeded not the Earl of March’s departure, however, or rather
he felt relieved from his importunity.
The Prince went on in indolent conversation with our armourer, whose
skill in his art had made him personally known to many of the great
lords about the court.
“I had something to say to thee, Smith. Canst thou take up a fallen link
in my Milan hauberk?”
“As well, please your Highness, as my mother could take up a stitch in
the nets she wove. The Milaner shall not know my work from his own.”
“Well, but that was not what I wished of thee just now,” said the
Prince, recollecting himself: “this poor glee woman, good Smith,
she must be placed in safety. Thou art man enough to be any woman’s
champion, and thou must conduct her to some place of safety.”
Henry Smith was, as we have seen, sufficiently rash and daring when
weapons were in question. But he had also the pride of a decent burgher,
and was unwilling to place himself in what might be thought equivocal
circumstances by the sober part of his fellow citizens.
“May it please your Highness,” he said, “I am but a poor craftsman. But,
though my arm and sword are at the King’s service and your Highness’s,
I am, with reverence, no squire of dames. Your Highness will find, among
your own retinue, knights and lords willing enough to play Sir Pandarus
of Troy; it is too knightly a part for poor Hal of the Wynd.”
“Umph--hah!” said the Prince. “My purse, Edgar.” (His attendant
whispered him.) “True--true, I gave it to the poor wench. I know enough
of your craft, sir smith, and of craftsmen in general, to be aware that
men lure not hawks with empty hands; but I suppose my word may pass for
the price of a good armour, and I will pay it thee, with thanks to boot,
for this slight service.”
“Your Highness may know other craftsmen,” said the smith; “but, with
reverence, you know not Henry Gow. He will obey you in making a weapon,
or in wielding one, but he knows nothing of this petticoat service.”
“Hark thee, thou Perthshire mule,” said the Prince, yet smiling, while
he spoke, at the sturdy punctilio of the honest burgher; “the wench is
as little to me as she is to thee. But in an idle moment, as you may
learn from those about thee, if thou sawest it not thyself, I did her a
passing grace, which is likely to cost the poor wretch her life. There
is no one here whom I can trust to protect her against the discipline of
belt and bowstring, with which the Border brutes who follow Douglas will
beat her to death, since such is his pleasure.”
“If such be the case, my liege, she has a right to every honest man’s
protection; and since she wears a petticoat--though I would it were
longer and of a less fanciful fashion--I will answer for her protection
as well as a single man may. But where am I to bestow her?”
“Good faith, I cannot tell,” said the Prince. “Take her to Sir John
Ramorny’s lodging. But, no--no--he is ill at ease, and besides, there
are reasons; take her to the devil if thou wilt, but place her in
safety, and oblige David of Rothsay.”
“My noble Prince,” said the smith, “I think, always with reverence, that
I would rather give a defenceless woman to the care of the devil than of
Sir John Ramorny. But though the devil be a worker in fire like myself,
yet I know not his haunts, and with aid of Holy Church hope to keep him
on terms of defiance. And, moreover, how I am to convey her out of this
crowd, or through the streets, in such a mumming habit may be well made
a question.”
“For the leaving the convent,” said the Prince, “this good monk”
(seizing upon the nearest by his cowl)--“Father Nicholas or Boniface--”
“Poor brother Cyprian, at your Highness’s command,” said the father.
“Ay--ay, brother Cyprian,” continued the Prince--“yes. Brother Cyprian
shall let you out at some secret passage which he knows of, and I will
see him again to pay a prince’s thanks for it.”
The churchman bowed in acquiescence, and poor Louise, who, during this
debate, had looked from the one speaker to the other, hastily said, “I
will not scandalise this good man with my foolish garb: I have a mantle
for ordinary wear.”
“Why, there, Smith, thou hast a friar’s hood and a woman’s mantle to
shroud thee under. I would all my frailties were as well shrouded.
Farewell, honest fellow; I will thank thee hereafter.”
Then, as if afraid of farther objection on the smith’s part, he hastened
into the palace.
Henry Gow remained stupefied at what had passed, and at finding himself
involved in a charge at once inferring much danger and an equal risk
of scandal, both which, joined to a principal share which he had taken,
with his usual forwardness, in the fray, might, he saw, do him no small
injury in the suit he pursued most anxiously. At the same time, to leave
a defenceless creature to the ill usage of the barbarous Galwegians and
licentious followers of the Douglas was a thought which his manly heart
could not brook for an instant.
He was roused from his reverie by the voice of the monk, who, sliding
out his words with the indifference which the holy fathers entertained,
or affected, towards all temporal matters, desired them to follow him.
The smith put himself in motion, with a sigh much resembling a groan,
and, without appearing exactly connected with the monk’s motions, he
followed him into a cloister, and through a postern door, which, after
looking once behind him, the priest left ajar. Behind them followed
Louise, who had hastily assumed her small bundle, and, calling her
little four legged companion, had eagerly followed in the path which
opened an escape from what had shortly before seemed a great and
inevitable danger.