CONCERNS THE CURSE OF THE CARDINAL
Gabrielle and Walter were seated together under one of the big oaks at
the edge of the tennis-lawn at Connachan. With May Spencer and Lady
Murie they had been playing; but his mother and the young girl had gone
into the house for tea, leaving the lovers alone.
"What's the matter with you to-day, darling?" he had asked as soon as
they were out of hearing. "You don't seem yourself, somehow."
She started quickly, and, pulling herself up, tried to smile, assuring
him that there was really nothing amiss.
"I do wish you'd tell me what it is that's troubling you so," he said.
"Ever since I returned from abroad you've not been yourself. It's no use
denying it, you know."
"I haven't felt well, perhaps. I think it must be the weather," she
assured him.
But he, viewing the facts in the light of what he had noticed at their
almost daily clandestine meetings, knew that she was concealing
something from him.
Before his departure on that journey to Japan she had always been so
very frank and open. Nowadays, however, she seemed to have entirely
changed. Her love for him was just the same--that he knew; it was her
unusual manner, so full of fear and vague apprehension, which caused him
so many hours of grave reflection.
With her woman's cleverness, she succeeded in changing the topic of
conversation, and presently they rose to join his mother at the
tea-table in the drawing-room.
Half-an-hour later, while they were idling in the hall together, she
suddenly exclaimed, "Walter, you're great on Scottish history, so I want
some information from you. I'm studying the legends and traditions of
our place, Glencardine. What do you happen to know about them?"
"Well," he laughed, "there are dozens of weird tales about the old
castle. I remember reading quite a lot of extraordinary stories in some
book or other about three years ago. I found it in the library here."
"Oh! do tell me all about it," she urged instantly. "Weird legends
always fascinate me. Of course I know just the outlines of its history.
It's the tales told by the country-folk in which I'm so deeply
interested."
"You mean the apparition of the Lady in Green, and all that?"
"Yes; and the Whispers."
He started quickly at her words, and asked, "What do you know about
them, dear? I hope you haven't heard them?"
She smiled, with a frantic effort at unconcern, saying, "And what harm,
pray, would they have done me, even if I had?"
"Well," he said, "they are only heard by those whose days are numbered;
at least, so say the folk about here."
"Of course, it's only a fable," she laughed. "The people of the Ochils
are so very superstitious."
"I believe the fatal result of listening to those mysterious Whispers
has been proved in more than one instance," remarked the young man quite
seriously. "For myself, I do not believe in any supernatural agency. I
merely tell you what the people hereabouts believe. Nobody from this
neighbourhood could ever be induced to visit your ruins on a moonlit
night."
"That's just why I want to know the origin of the unexplained
phenomenon."
"How can I tell you?"
"But you know--I mean you've heard the legend, haven't you?"
"Yes," was his reply. "The story of the Whispers of Glencardine is well
known all through Perthshire. Hasn't your father ever told you?"
"He refuses."
"Because, no doubt, he fears that you might perhaps take it into your
head to go there one night and try to listen for them," her lover said.
"Do not court misfortune, dearest. Take my advice, and give the place a
very wide berth. There is, without a doubt, some uncanny agency there."
The girl laughed outright. "I do declare, Walter, that you believe in
these foolish traditions," she said.
"Well, I'm a Scot, you see, darling, and a little superstition is
perhaps permissible, especially in connection with such a mystery as the
strange disappearance of Cardinal Setoun."
"Then, tell me the real story as you know it," she urged. "I'm much
interested. I only heard about the Whispers quite recently."
"The historical facts, so far as I can recollect reading them in the
book in question," he said, "are to the effect that the Most Reverend
James Cardinal Setoun, Archbishop of St. Andrews, Chancellor of the
Kingdom, was in the middle of the sixteenth century directing all his
energies towards consolidating the Romish power in Scotland, and not
hesitating to resort to any crime which seemed likely to accomplish his
purpose. Many were the foul assassinations and terrible tortures upon
innocent persons performed at his orders. One person who fell into the
hands of this infamous cleric was Margaret, the second daughter of
Charles, Lord Glencardine, a beautiful girl of nineteen. Because she
would not betray her lover, she was so cruelly tortured in the
Cardinal's palace that she expired, after suffering fearful agony, and
her body was sent back to Glencardine with an insulting message to her
father, who at once swore to be avenged. The king had so far resigned
the conduct of the kingdom into the hands of his Eminence that nothing
save armed force could oppose him. Setoun knew that a union between
Henry VIII. and James V. would be followed by the downfall of the papal
power in Scotland, and therefore he laid a skilful plot. Whilst advising
James to resist the dictation of his uncle, he privately accused those
of the Scottish nobles who had joined the Reformers of meditated treason
against His Majesty. This placed the king in a serious dilemma, for he
could not proceed against Henry without the assistance of those very
nobles accused as traitors. The wily Cardinal had hoped that James
would, in self-defence, seek an alliance with France and Spain; but he
was mistaken. You know, of course, how the forces of the kingdom were
assembled and sent against the Duke of Norfolk. The invader was thus
repelled, and the Cardinal then endeavoured to organise a new expedition
under Romish leaders. This also failing, his Eminence endeavoured to
dictate to the country through the Earl of Arran, the Governor of
Scotland. By a clever ruse he pretended friendship with Erskine of Dun,
and endeavoured to use him for his own ends. Curiously enough, over
yonder"--and he pointed to a yellow parchment in a black ebony frame
hanging upon the panelled wall of the hall--"over there is one of the
Cardinal's letters to Erskine, which shows the infamous cleric's smooth,
insinuating style when it suited his purpose. I'll go and get it for you
to read."
The young man rose, and, taking it down, brought it to her. She saw that
the parchment, about eight inches long by four wide, was covered with
writing in brown ink, half-faded, while attached was a formidable oval
red seal which bore a coat of arms surmounting the Cardinal's hat.
With difficulty they made out this interesting letter to read as
follows:
"RYCHT HONOURABLE AND TRAIST COUSING,--I commend me hartlie to you,
nocht doutting bot my lord governour hes written specialye to you at
this tyme to keep the diet with his lordship in Edinburgh the first day
of November nixt to cum, quhilk I dout nocht bot ye will kepe, and I
know perfitlie your guid will and mynd euer inclinit to serue my lord
governour, and how ye are nocht onnely determinit to serue his lordship,
at this tyme be yourself bot als your gret wais and solistatioun maid
with mony your gret freyndis to do the samin, quhilk I assuris you sall
cum bayth to your hier honour and the vele of you and your houss and
freyndis, quhilk ye salbe sure I sall procure and fortyfie euir at my
power, as I have shewin in mair speciale my mynd heirintil to your
cousin of Brechin, Knycht: Praing your effectuously to kepe trist, and
to be heir in Sanct Androwis at me this nixt Wedinsday, that we may
depairt all togydder by Thurisday nixt to cum, towart my lord governour,
and bring your frendis and servandis with you accordantly, and as my
lord governour hais speciale confidence in you at this tyme; and be sure
the plesour I can do you salbe evir reddy at my power as knawis God,
quha preserve you eternall.
"At Sanct Androwis, the 25th day of October (1544). J. CARDINALL OFF
SANCT ANDROWIS.
"To the rycht honourable and our rycht traist cousing the lard of Dvn."
"Most interesting!" declared the young girl, holding the frame in her
hands.
"It's doubly interesting, because it is believed that Erskine's brother
Henry, finding himself befooled by the crafty Cardinal, united with Lord
Glencardine to kill him and dispose of his body secretly, thus ridding
Scotland of one of her worst enemies," Walter went on. "For the past
five years stories had been continually leaking out of Setoun's inhuman
cruelty, his unscrupulous, fiendish tortures inflicted upon all those
who displeased him, and how certain persons who stood in his way had
died mysteriously or disappeared, no one knew whither. Hence it was
that, at Erskine's suggestion, Wemyss of Strathblane went over to
Glencardine, and with Charles, Lord Glencardine, conspired to invite the
Cardinal there, on pretence of taking counsel against the Protestants,
but instead to take his life. The conspirators were, it is said, joined
by the Earl of Kintyre and by Mary, the sixteen-year-old daughter of
Lord Charles, and sister of the poor girl so brutally done to death by
his Eminence. On several successive nights the best means of getting rid
of Setoun were considered and discussed, and it is declared that the
Whispers now heard sometimes at Glencardine are the secret deliberations
of those sworn to kill the infamous Cardinal. Mary, the daughter of the
house, was allowed to decide in what manner her sister's death should be
avenged, and at her suggestion it was resolved that the inhuman head of
the Roman Church should, before his life was taken, be put to the same
fiendish tortures as those to which her sister had been subjected in his
palace."
"It is curious that after his crime the Cardinal should dare to visit
Glencardine," Gabrielle remarked.
"Not exactly. His lordship, pretending that he wished to be appointed
Governor of Scotland in the place of the Earl of Arran, had purposely
made his peace with Setoun, who on his part was only too anxious to
again resume friendly relations with so powerful a noble. Therefore,
early in May, 1546, he went on a private visit, and almost unattended,
to Glencardine, within the walls of which fortress he disappeared for
ever. What exactly occurred will never be known. All that the Commission
who subsequently sat to try the conspirators were able to discover was
that the Cardinal had been taken to the dungeon beneath the north tower,
and there tortured horribly for several days, and afterwards burned at
the stake in the courtyard, the fire being ignited by Lord Glencardine
himself, and the dead Cardinal's ashes afterwards scattered to the
winds."
"A terrible revenge!" exclaimed the girl with a shudder. "They were
veritable fiends in those days."
"They were," he laughed, rehanging the frame upon the wall. "Some
historians have, of course, declared that Setoun was murdered at Mains
Castle, and others declare Cortachy to have been the scene of the
assassination; but the truth that it occurred at Glencardine is proved
by a quantity of the family papers which, when your father purchased
Glencardine, came into his possession. You ought to search through
them."
"I will. I had no idea dad possessed any of the Glencardine papers," she
declared, much interested in that story of the past. "Perhaps from them
I may be able to glean something further regarding the strange Whispers
of Glencardine."
"Make whatever searches you like, dearest," he said in all earnestness,
"but never attempt to investigate the Whispers themselves." And as they
were alone, he took her little hand in his, and looking into her face
with eyes of love, pressed her to promise him never to disregard his
warning.
She told him nothing of her own weird experience. He was ignorant of the
fact that she had actually heard the mysterious Whispers, and that, as a
consequence, a great evil already lay upon her.