THE BOND OF MANRENT.
Madame, who never tired of prattling, spoke again:
'The letter of my dear old friend the Duke--by-the by, does he still
curl his mustachios up to his ears?--says that your father was--'
'Blane of that ilk and of Blanerne, madame, in the Stewartry of
Kirkcudbright, Bailie of Tungland Abbey, and Captain of Carlaveroc
for John Earl of Nithsdale.'
'Ma foi! he has as many guttural titles as a Spanish grandee of the
first class; but pray tell me, what does that ilk mean?'
'In the Scottish language it denotes, madame, that the holder has
either given his name to the territory he possesses, or has taken his
name from it; moreover, that he is the head of his surname. Our old
baronial houses alone bear it, for it is a custom dating from the
days of king Malcolm III., and consequently is more than six hundred
years old. My father's office of captainrie under the Earl of
Nithsdale was, in some measure, the cause of all our misfortunes and
of my exile.'
'Proceed, pray, for I am all attention.'
'He was an old adherent of the house of Nithsdale, and with the
present Earl, the Lord Torthorwald, and six other gentlemen of the
surnames of Maxwell, Douglas, and Blane, signed, about six years ago,
a _Bond of Manrent_--'
'Excuse me, M. Blane--but I do not understand.'
'It means a bond of friendship and alliance, to the effect that they
bound themselves to stand by each other, in peace and in war, in weal
and woe, with all the might of their estates, castles, and retainers,
in arms against all men; the cause of each to be the cause of all;
and to this deed, which is now in the charter-room of Carlaveroc,
they swore by their honours and souls, affixing thereto their
signatures and seals.'
'This seemed somewhat like a league against the king.'
'Nay, madame, such bonds have been common in Scotland for ages, and
have arisen from the wish to create a feudal relation between lords
and vassals who have no affinity by tenure, and to strengthen the
weak against the strong. Such leagues are certainly contrary to the
laws of the land, yet they exist. But a time came to test the
strength of my father's bond with the Earl of Nithsdale. King
Charles being madly devoted to his father's rash project of
assimilating the kirk of Scotland, in point of ceremony and in
government, to the Church of England, with regular gradations of
titled clergy, lately resolved, by an Act of Revocation, to resume
and appropriate to the crown all the tithes and benefices which the
barons and other laymen had seized during the plunder of
temporalities at the Reformation; and from these he proposed to endow
the intended Scottish episcopal bishoprics, deaneries, rectories, and
so forth. The rage of our fiery barons was great, and their
resolution was not less than their rage. There were many whose whole
estates and possessions had been church property, and thus it was
with us, for most of my father's barony of Blanerne had in ancient
times been a fief of the Abbots of Tungland, and was of course
comprehended in this new and most obnoxious resumption, though it had
been a free gift to his grandfather by the Regent Lennox, and the
Lords of the Congregation, for his valour at the great siege of
Leith, where he routed and slew the Colonel-General of the Italian
infantry.
'The intended Revocation was to be announced to the Convention of
Estates by the king's representative in Scotland, the Lord High
Commissioner, who was, unhappily for us, the Earl of Nithsdale; but
certain of the Scottish lords and barons were determined to kill him
before the assembled Parliament, and then appeal to arms rather than
yield to a measure so impoverishing and obnoxious; and despite the
Bond of Manrent, friendship, and alliance, which bound him with sword
and service, soul and body to the Earl of Nithsdale, and to whatever
cause he espoused, my father, Sir Arthur Blane, joined the resisting
barons in their deadly purpose, and defied the Maxwells, at all times
a desperate and a turbulent race. My father was wroth alike with the
government of the kirk and kingdom under Nithsdale, and the suspicion
of the Convention of Estates was first brought upon him thus:--Having
inscribed above the door of his tower a legend which seemed to
reflect upon the Presbyterian Kirk, he was imprisoned for a month in
the castle of Lochmaben, because he did not know Latin.'
'Ma foi! a droll reason.'
'It is not to be wondered at when we all know that a few years ago
Robert Earl of Orkney lost his head for the same heinous crime. My
father was released, but the affront rankled in his mind. It was
resolved to poniard the Lord High Commissioner on the throne, at the
moment when the last word of the royal letter was read; and the
contention for this desperate office--for who should
_Bell-the-Cat_--was so keen, that lots were cast, and ere long the
lots were reduced to two--my father, Sir Arthur Blane of Blanerne,
and Sir Robert Douglas of Spot, Viscount of Belhaven, an aged peer
who was stone blind, and who, in his youth, had been master of the
horse to the Duke of Rothsay, a gentleman of the bedchamber to James
VI., and member of the Privy Council. To him only would my father
yield place, for in other years they had been old comrades and served
together in France.
'So the terrible and eventful day came at last; the Parliament met at
Edinburgh with unusual grandeur and gloom; four hundred
representatives of the Scottish people were there, with darkened
brows, with angry hearts and sharp swords by their sides. The
commissioner sat upon the throne; before him lay the crown, the sword
of state, the sceptre and all the royal insignia; but behind stood
the blind old Viscount of Belhaven holding his velvet robes by the
left hand on pretence that, being aged and infirm, he wished to be
near the Lord Nithsdale. His other hand was concealed in his bosom,
and firmly grasped a dagger. Beside him stood my stern father, who,
that he might not be unemployed, had taken upon him the task of
slaying the Viscount Ayr, whom the king had created Earl of Dumfries,
and who was a warm adherent of the intended Revocation--'
'Mon Dieu!' exclaimed Madame d'Amboise; 'I never heard of all this
stabbing and assassination!'
'Because, madame, the proposed tragedy went no further than this
terrible tableau; for the Earl of Nithsdale had learned something of
what was awaiting him and other friends of our alien king; and after
proceeding with the usual business of the parliament, he closed it
abruptly, without producing the letter of revocation which would have
plunged all Scotland into civil war; and after despatching messengers
into Nithsdale, he returned--yea almost fled--to the court at London.'
'What meant the messengers?'
'You shall hear,' said I, making a violent effort to control the rage
and grief that swelled in my breast; 'within a week after the closing
of parliament my poor father was found dead on the verge of
Lochar-moss--pierced by three balls from an arquebuse; and on that
night our tower of Blanerne was burned to the ground, and all the
country around it made desolate by six hundred mosstroopers of the
Maxwell clan. Breaking through them sword in hand, after seeing my
only living relative, a boy-brother about six years old, perish in
the flames, I reached Edinburgh to lay my complaints before the
authorities, but found them all the creatures of the king--a king
Scottish by birth and blood, but English by breeding, residence, and
sympathy! Oh cursed be the hour when Scotland gave a king unto her
enemies! I appealed to the Secretary of State, but he was my good
Lord Nithsdale's fast friend and near kinsman, so he smiled in my
face. I appealed to the Lord Advocate; he was my Lord Dumfries'
cousin, and bade me complain to the king in London. Being a placeman
and a coward, he taunted my murdered father's memory; so I smote him
on the mouth with my sword-hilt--yea, smote him down as I would have
done a dog, and had again to fly. Destruction and pursuit dogged me
close; but aided by the kind old Duke of Lennox, a kinsman of my
mother, I obtained the letter which you hold and also shipping to
Havre. There I landed safely, and found lodging with a countryman of
my own, an honest vintner, who met me wandering sadly and
irresolutely from street to street. He accosted me, as Scotsmen
always greet each other in a foreign land, for his heart warmed to
the St. Andrew's cross in my bonnet--and he was more than kind to me.
I then took the public messenger to Paris, agreeing for fifteen
francs to have a horse, lodgings, and food on the way; but I had to
give the conductor a piece of thirteen sols. I reached Paris only
last night, when an honest fellow, who proved to be an Englishman and
a Protestant, guided me to an hotel, the Golden Fleur-de-lys in the
Rue d'Ecosse. I spent the next day in wandering about the palace and
gardens of the Luxembourg and the royal library, seeing the books of
miniatures done by Monsieur Robert, the garden of the Tuileries, and
the church of Notre Dame, the two massy towers, the antiquity and
gloom of which charmed and soothed me; but alas, madame! I felt
lonely and sad amid the roar and bustle of this vast and crowded
city; I was ready to weep--yea, to weep like a child, when I thought
of my ruined fortunes, my blighted family, and my father's ancient
tower that looked down upon the Dee, and my native hills and heather
braes that were far, far away!'
'And did you travel comfortably to Paris?'
'With more frugality than comfort, madame, remembering that he who
sleeps without supper awakes without debt.'
'My poor boy! you will soon learn that two things are most necessary
in this good and pious city of Paris--a drawn sword and a golden
wand. But tell me,' she added, with a coquettish smile, and while
dropping her voice and her eyelashes together, 'are you capable of
feeling a deep love?'
'Love?' I reiterated a second time, while my heart vibrated strongly,
and I perceived the fair mask beside us, who had listened to all this
in silence, turn away with a gesture of ineffable disdain.
'Well, well, M. Blane, I will talk to you of this another time,' said
the countess, who detected this secret displeasure in her friend or
companion; 'a deep love is not necessary, if you are only adequate to
a little pretty wickedness, or amiable weakness, it is quite enough
here--for we do not love long in these days of ours. Believe me that
his Grace of Lennox shall be obeyed, and that I will leave nothing
undone to find you a suitable position in France.'
'Oh madame, a thousand thanks!' I exclaimed, remembering, with
something of remorse, that I had once felt considerable disdain for
the character of the patroness to whom my ducal kinsman had assigned
me.
'What say you to join the Duke of Lorraine?' she asked abruptly.
'Lorraine, madame?' I stammered.
'Yes.'
'He is said to be in league with the German emperor against the King
of France,' said the masked lady hurriedly.
'Well, mademoiselle--and what then?'
'Ah, madame la Comtesse, do not trepan the poor youth into a service
of which he is ignorant, or into a hazardous game like that now
played by France and Lorraine.'
'As you please,' replied the Countess pettishly. 'Mademoiselle Marie
Louise of Lorraine, the duke's only daughter and favourite child, is
said to be now in Paris, and to have won over more than twenty
colonels of the French army to her father's cause.'
'Pardon me, madame,' said I, 'but remember that a Scottish subject
cannot serve with honour against a king of France.'
'Then your wishes--'
'Are military service under King Louis. My father served as a
lieutenant in the Gensdarmes Ecossais for ten years, and fought at
the siege of Rochelle, where the Huguenots insisted on holding their
assembly; at the storming of the castle of Sully, and the blockade of
Caumont. I should like a commission in the same force.'
'May I ask what money you have?'
'Only ten louis d'ors.'
She gave me a beautiful smile, and said,
'My dear child, you do not know that a captaincy in the Scottish
gendarmerie or cuirassiers costs one hundred and eighty thousand
livres, being forty-five thousand more than a troop _in any other_
regiment of horse, even the gendarmerie of Bourguignon or Flanders; a
cornetcy in the Scottish troop costs sixty-two thousand livres. You
must moderate your ambition, and be contented with the post of a
simple cuirassier, for in the ranks of the Scottish guard, horse and
foot, are none but the noblest and best blood of your own country;
thus your rank and pay as a Scottish cuirassier will enable you to
ruffle it in Paris with any gallant or chevalier about court. I
shall send for the captain, or write to the colonel-general of the
Scots in the morning, when our wishes shall be complied
with--provided there be a vacancy.
'Madame,' I exclaimed, overcome by the sweetness and decision of her
manner, as much as by its kindness and the brilliance of her beauty,
'the devotion of my life shall be yours.'
I drew from my finger the only jewel I possessed--the ring obtained
that night so strangely and disastrously in the Place de la Grève;
and as it seemed to be a valuable diamond, I was about to place it on
her finger, when the sound of a carriage driven furiously up the
avenue, a slamming of doors, the tramp of feet and voices of men who
seemed somewhat excited, gradually approached the apartment in which
we were seated. The Countess grew very pale.
'Can this be the King?' she exclaimed.
'Oh, no,' said her attendant, who trembled excessively; 'there are no
torches and no musketeers; 'tis not his Majesty.'
'Away, my friend,' said the Countess, clasping her hands; and while
the masked lady retired in evident alarm, I laid hand on my sword.
'Can my brother have come here at this untimeous hour?' muttered the
Countess, as a servant entered with a hurried and disordered air.
'Ah, Madame la Comtesse----'
'Mon Dieu! what is the matter? Speak, Antoine--speak!'
'Your brother, madame--M. le Chevalier d'Ische--has this moment been
brought hither in a fiacre almost dead, having fought with a brigand
on the Quai de la Grève, and been run through the body!'
'My brother!' exclaimed Madame d'Amboise, growing pale as a lily, and
turning her eyes wildly upon me; and at that moment, when I saw a
wounded man borne by four servants past an opening in the parted
arras, I felt as if the earth was yawning beneath my feet.
So ended my first night in the city of Paris!