He became more alive to his own immediate danger, and ere he well knew what passed, found himself in another gloomy and pannelled apartment, one-half of which was hung with scarlet cloth. On a dais stood the vacant throne with the royal arms of Scotland glittering under a canopy of velvet, festooned and fringed with gold.
Scott has given us a graphic picture of this strange tribunal, when it was presided over by the odious Duke of Lauderdale. Let us take a view of it as it appeared six years after, when that scourge of the Presbyterians had departed to render at a greater bar an account of his tyranny and enormities.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PRIVY COUNCIL.
'Tis noble pride withholds thee—thou disdain'st
Wrapt in thy sacred innocence—these mad
Outrageous charges to refute.
SCHILLER'S MAID OF ORLEANS.
A long table, covered with scarlet cloth, extended from the throne towards the end of the room where Walter stood. Large, red-edged, and massively gilded statute books, docquets of papers, inkstands, and the silver mace (now used by the Lords of Session), lay glittering on the table, while a large silver candelabrum, with twelve tall wax lights, shed a lustre on the striking figures of those personages who composed the select committee of council.
On a low wooden side-bench lay certain fearful things, which (in his present predicament) made the heart of Walter quail; though on the field he would have faced, without flinching, the rush of a thousand charging horse; they were the instruments of torture then authorised by law; the pilnie-winks, the caspie-claws, and the iron-boots—all diabolical engines, such as the most refined cruelty alone could have invented. With these, both sexes, even little children were sometimes tortured until the blood spouted from the bruised and crushed limbs.
The thumbikins were small steel screws like handvices, which, by compressing the thumb-joints, produced the most acute agony; and this amiable and favourite engine (which saved all trouble of cross-examining witnesses), was first introduced by one of the council, whose stern eyes were fixed on Walter Fenton, Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Dalyel of Binns, a cavalier baronet of great celebrity, whose name is still justly abhorred in Scotland. He had long borne a command under the Russian standard, where his humanity had not been improved by service among Tartars and Calmucks.
The boot was a strong box enclosed with iron hoops, between which and the victim's leg, the executioner, by gradual and successive blows, drove a wooden wedge with such violence, that blood, bone, and marrow were at last bruised into a hideous and pulpy mass.
Walter could scarcely repress a shudder when he surveyed those frightful engines, under the application of which, so many unfortunates had writhed; but he confronted with an undaunted air the various members of that stern tribunal, which had so long ruled Scotland by the sword, and many of whose acts and edicts might well vie with those of the Inquisition, the Star-chamber, or any other instrument of tyranny and misgovernment.
Two earls, Perth, the Lord Chancellor, and Balcarris, the High Treasurer, were present; they were both fine-looking men, in the prime of life, richly dressed, and wearing those preposterous black wigs (brought into fashion by Charles II.), the ends of which rolled in many curls over their broad collars of point lace. The Bishop of Edinburgh, the Lord Advocate, and his predecessor, the terrible Sir George Mackenzie, of Rosehaugh, "that persecutor of the saints of God;"—(he whose tomb was, till of late years, a place so full of terror to the schoolboy,) occupied one side of the council-board. Opposite sat John Grahame, of Claverhouse, colonel of the Scottish life-guards, the horror of the Covenanters, (and to this hour the accursed of the Cameronians,) but the handsomest man of his time. His face was singularly beautiful, and his black, magnificent eyes, were one moment languid and tender as those of a love-sick girl, and the next sparkling with dusky fire and animation. When excited, they actually seemed to blaze, and were quite characteristic of his superhuman daring and unmatched ferocity.
Cruel as the character of the Laird of Claverhouse has ever been held up to us, let us not forget the times in which he lived, and how much room there is for malevolent exaggeration. Even Wodrow allows that at times he showed compunction, mercy, and compassion. Mutual injuries, assassinations, and outrages heightened the hostility of spirit between the Scottish troops and the Scottish people to a frightful extent; but it is a curious fact, that the local militia and vassals of the landholders were, by far, the most severe tools of persecution. The real sentiments of the troops of the line, were powerfully evinced by their joining en masse the banner of the Protestant invader. In making these remarks, let it not be thought we are attempting to gloss over the atrocities of the persecution, the records of which are enough to make one's blood boil even at this distant period of time. The darkest days of our history are those of which the industrious Wodrow wrote; but glorious indeed was the ardour and constancy with which so many of Scotland's best and bravest men gave up their souls to God in the cause of the "oppressed kirk and the broken covenant."
Claverhouse was splendidly attired; his coat was of white velvet, pinked with scarlet silk and laced with gold; over his breast spread a cravat of the richest lace, and on that fell the heavy dark ringlets of his military wig. Near him sat Sir Thomas Dalyel, colonel of the Scots grey dragoons. This fierce soldier was in the eightieth year of his age; he was perfectly bald, and a lofty forehead towered above his keen grey eyes, that shone brighter than his polished gorget in the light of the candelabrum. To his stern features a noble and dignified aspect was imparted by a long white beard, that flowed over his plain buff coat, reaching to the buckle of his sword-belt. There was a very striking and antique expression in the fine face of the aged and detested 'persecutor,' that never failed to impress beholders with respect and awe.
There are but two others to describe, and these are of some importance to our history.
Swinton, of Mersington, a law lord, who was never known to have been perfectly sober since the Restoration, and whose meagre body, nutcracker jaws, bleared eyes, and fantastic visage, contrasted so strongly with the upright and square form of the venerable cavalier on his right, and the dignified Randal, Lord Clermistonlee, who sat on his left.
A renegade Covenanter, a profligate, and debauched roué, steeped to the lips in cruelty, tyranny, and vice, the latter, after having squandered away a noble patrimony and the dowry of his unfortunate wife, still maintained his career of excess by gifts from the fines, extortions, and confiscations, made by the Council on every pretence, or without pretence at all. He was forty years of age, possessing a noble form, and a face still eminently handsome, though marked by dissipation; it was slightly disfigured by a sword cut, and, notwithstanding its beauty of contour, when clouded by chagrin and ferocity, and flushed by wine, it seemed that of a very ruffian, and now was no way improved by his ample wig and cravat being quite awry. His dark vindictive eyes were sternly fixed on Walter, who, from that moment, knew him to be his enemy. Clermistonlee, who was not a man to have his purposes crossed by any mortal consideration, had long marked out fair Lilian Napier as a new victim to be run-down and captured. Her beauty had inflamed his senses, her ample possessions his cupidity—it was enough; his wrath, and perhaps his jealousy, were kindled against the young man by whose agency she had found concealment, after he thought all was en train by his accusing the Baroness of Bruntisfield to the Council, and procuring a warrant of search and arrest for inter-communed persons at her Manor of the Wrytes-house. His brows were contracted until they formed one dark arch across his forehead; one hand was clenched upon the table, and the other on the embossed hilt of his long rapier, which rested against his left shoulder, and there was no mistaking the glance of hostility and scrutiny he bent upon the prisoner. The other members of the Council were all highly excited by the revelations recently extracted from Mr. Ichabod Bummel (by dint of hammer and screw), concerning the intrigues of the whigs with the Prince of Orange. The letters of the exiled Baron of Polwarth, and of Mynheer Fagel, the Great Pensionary of Holland, were lying before the Lord Chancellor, who played thoughtfully with the tassels of his rapier, while his secretaries wrote furiously in certain closely-written folios. Several clerks, macers, and other underlings who loitered in the background, were now ordered to withdraw.
"Approach, Walter Fenton," said the Earl of Perth.
"Fenton," muttered General Dalyel, "'tis a name that smacks o' the auld covenant; I hanged a cottar loon that bore it, for skirling a psalm at the foot o' the Campsie Hills, no twa months ago."
"And of true valor, if we remember the old Fentons of that ilk, and the brave Sir John de Fenton of the Bruce's days," continued the chancellor. "Young man, you of course know for what you this night compear before us?"
"My Lord, for permitting the escape of prisoners placed under my charge."
"Prisoners charged with treason and leaguing with intercommuned enemies of the state!" added Clermistonlee, in a voice of thunder.
"And you plead guilty to this?"
"I cannot deny it, my Lords."
"Good—you save the trouble of examining witnesses."
"A bonnie piece o' wark, young Springald!" said General Dalyel scornfully; "a braw beginning for a soldier—but ken ye the price o't?"
"My life, perhaps, Sir Thomas," replied Walter, gently; "yet may it please you and their Lordships to pardon this, my first offence, in consideration of my three years' faithful and, as yet, unrequited service. Heaven be my witness, noble sirs, I could not help it!"
"By all the devils! Help what, thou fause loon!"
"Permitting the escape of Lady Bruntisfield and her kinswoman, the young lady."
"Aha! the young lady!" laughed Claverhouse and Balcarris.
"I was overcome by their terror and entreaties. Oh, my Lords, I seek not to extenuate my offence."
"Plague choke thee!" said Dalyel, with a grim look; "a braw birkie ye are, and a bonnie to wear a steel doublet—a fine chield to march to battle and leaguer, if ye canna hear a haveral woman greet, but your heart maun melt like snaw in the sunshine. By the head of the king, ye shall smart for this! Sic kittle times thole nae trifling."
"I doubt not the young fellow was well paid for his untimely gallantry," said Clermistonlee, with a provoking sneer.
"Any man who would insinuate so much, I deem a liar and coward!" said Walter, fearlessly: the eyes of the Privy Councillor shot fire; he started, but restrained himself, and the young man continued. "No, my Lord Clermistonlee! though poor, I have a soul above bribery, and would not for the most splendid coronet in Scotland change sides, as some among us have done, and may do again."
"Silence!" replied Clermistonlee, in a voice of rage, for he writhed under this pointed remark, having once been a staunch covenanter; "silence, rascal, and remember that on yonder bench there lieth a bodkin of steel, for boring the tongue that wags too freely."
"Enough of this," said the Chancellor, striking the table impatiently with his hand; "Mr. Secretary, attend, and note answers. Walter Fenton, you are doubtless well aware of where the ladies of Bruntisfield are concealed, and can enlighten us thereon."
"I swear to you, most noble Earl, that I know not!"
"Ridiculous!" said his tormenter, Clermistonlee, who was under the influence of wine. "Say instantly, or by all the devils, if there is any marrow in your bones, we shall see it shortly:" with his gold-headed cane he significantly touched the iron boots that lay near.
"Hath he been searched according to the act of council, whilk ordains,—sae forth," said Mersington; "for some of Madam Napier's perfumed carolusses may be found in his pouch."
"Nothing was found on him, my Lord," replied Maclutchy, "save a sang or twa, a wheen gun matches, twa dice, a wine bill o' Hughie Blair's—the Council's orders to the Forces—and—and—"
"And what, Sir?"
"A few white shillings, my Lord."
"Whilk ye keepit, I suppose."
The macer scratched his head and bowed.
"Whence got ye that ring, sirrah?" asked the imperious Clermistonlee, suddenly feeling a new qualm of jealousy.
"Ring, my Lord, ring!" stammered Walter, colouring deeply.
"Yea knave, it flashed even now, and by this light seems a diamond of the purest water. A common pikeman seldom owns a trinket such as that."
"I cry-ye-mercy," said Dalyel; "had your Lordship seen my brigade of Red Cossacks retreating after the sack of Trebizond and Natolia, ye would have seen the humblest spearman with his boots and holsters crammed to the flaps with the richest jewels of Asiatic Turkey. I mysel borrowed a string of pearls from an auld Khanum, worth deil kens how mony thousand roubles. Gad! some pretty trinkets fall in a soldier's way at times."
"Sir Thomas," said Claverhouse, "I would we had a few troops of your Cossacks, to send among the wrest-land whigs for six months or so."
"S'death!" said the General, through his massy beard, "your guardsmen think themselves fine rufflers, and so they are, Clavers'e, but I doubt muckle if in a charge they would have come within o' spear's length of my Red Brigade. Puir chields! lang since hae they stuffed the craps of the wolves and vultures that hovered oure the bluidy plains of Smolensk."
"Well, my Lords, about this ring," observed Clermistonlee, with ill-disguised impatience, while endeavouring to waken His Majesty's advocate, who, oblivious of "His Majesty's interest," had fallen fast asleep. "We all know that the Lady Bruntisfield has a god-daughter, grand-niece, or something of that kind—a fair damsel, however; and 'tis very unlikely this young cock would run his neck under the gallows (whereon I doubt not his father dangled) for nothing. Fenton—harkee, sirrah, surrender the jewel forthwith, and say whence ye had it, or the thumbscrews may prove an awkward exchange for it."
"Do with me as you please, my Lords, but ah! spare me the ring. It is the secret of my life—it is all that I possess in the world—all that I can deem my own:" pausing with sudden emotion the young man covered his eyes. "It was found on the hand of my mother—my poor mother, when she lay dead among the graves of the Grey Friars."
"When, knave?"
"In the year of Bothwell."
A cloud came over the face of Clermistonlee.
"In the year of Bothwell, my Lords," continued Walter, in a thick voice; "that year of misery to so many. I have been told my father died in defence of the bridge; and my mother—she—spare to me, my Lords, what even the poor soldiers who found me respected! It was preserved and restored to me by the good and noble Countess of Dunbarton when, three years ago, I marched against James of Monmouth."
"The true pup of the crop-eared breed!" said Clermistonlee, scornfully; "false in blood as in name. Macer, hand up the ring! His mother (some trooper's trull) never owned a Jewell like that."
The macer advanced, but hesitated.
"Approach, wretch, and, by the God that beholds us, I will destroy thee!" cried Fenton, inflamed with sudden passion; and so resolute was his aspect, that Maclutchy retreated, and now Mersington and the king's advocate, who had been snoring melodiously, woke suddenly up.
"My Lords, you trifle," said the Earl of Perth.
"Halt, sirs!" added Claverhouse, who admired Walter's indomitable spirit; "I cannot permit this; let the lad retain his ring, but say, without parley, where those fugitives are concealed."
"On the honour of a soldier, I solemnly declare to you, Colonel Grahame, that I know not."
"It is enough," responded Claverhouse, whose deep dark eyes had gazed full upon Walter's with a searching expression which few men could endure. "Never saw I mortal man who could look me openly in the face, when affirming a falsehood."
"This is just havers," said Mersington; "jow the bell for Pate Pincer to gie him one touch of the boot."
"My Lords, you may tear me piecemeal, but I cannot tell ye; and, were it otherwise, I would rather die than betray them!"
"Hush!" whispered Claverhouse, who admired his spirited bearing; but Clermistonlee exclaimed in triumph,
"Heard ye that, my Lords, heard ye that? Gadso! a half acknowledgment that he can enlighten us anent the retreat of these traitresses, and I demand that he be put to the question!"
Now ensued a scene of confusion.
"Aye, the boot!" said Rosehaugh, Mersington, and one or two others. "Let him be remanded to the Water Hole—the caspie claws."
"My Lords, I protest—" said Claverhouse, starting up abruptly.
"Hoity toity!" said Mersington; "here's the Laird of Claverse' turned philanthropist! Since when did this miracle take place?"
"Since the cold-blooded atrocities this chamber has witnessed—" began Claverhouse, turning his eyes of fire on the law lord; but the entrance of Pincer and his two subaltern torturers, whom that little viper, Mersington, had summoned, cut short the observation. Walter's blood grew cold—his first thought was resistance—his second, scorn and despair.
"Had the noble Earl of Dunbarton, or all our blades, the old Royals, been in Edinburgh instead of being among the westland whigs, ye had not dared to degrade me thus!" he exclaimed, with fierce indignation. "I disclaim your authority, and appeal to a council of war—to a court of commissioned officers!"
"Uds daggers!" said Dalyel, "I love thee, lad. Thou art a brave fellow, and the first man that ever bearded this council board."
"But we will teach thee, braggart," said Sir George of Rosehaugh sternly, "that from this chamber there is no appeal, either to courts of peace or councils of war. There can be no appeal——"
"Save to his majesty," added the Chancellor, who, to please James VII., had recently embraced the Catholic faith.
"And of what value is the appeal, noble Earl, after one's bones have been ground to powder by your accursed irons?'
"We do not sit here to bandy words in this wise," replied the Chancellor; "Macer, lead the prisoner to the ante-room, while his sentence is deliberated on."
After a delay of some minutes, which to Walter seemed like so many ages, so great was his anxiety, he was again summoned before the haughty conclave. The first whose malignant glance he again encountered was Clermistonlee, whose voice he had often heard in loud declamation against him, and he felt a storm of wrath and hatred gathering in his breast against that vindictive peer. The monotonous voice of the clerk reading his sentence with a careless off-hand air now fell on his ear.
"Walter Fenton, private gentleman in the regiment of Dunbarton, commonly called the Royal Scots Musqueteers of Foot, for default and negligence of duty——"
"Anent whilk it is needless to expone," interposed Mersington.
"—And for your contumacy in presence of the Right Honourable the Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council, you are to be confined in the lowest dungeon of the common prison-house of Edinburgh, for the space of six calendar months from the date hereof, to have your tongue bored by the Doomster at the Tron-beam, to teach it the respect which is due to superiors; and thereafter to be sent as a felon, with ane collar of steel rivetted round your neck, to the coal heughs of the right worshipful the Laird of Craigha' for such a period as the Lords of the said Privy Council shall deem fitting—subscribitur Perth."
"Such mercy may ye all meet in the day of award!" muttered Walter.
"Withdraw!" said Lord Clermistonlee, with a bitter smile of undisguised ferocity and malice. "Begone, and remember to thank Sir Thomas of Binns and the Laird of Claverhouse, that your tongue is not bored this instant, and thereafter given to feed the crows."
Walter bowed, and was led out by the macer, while the council proceeded to "worry" and terrify the remaining prisoners, Lady Bruntisfield's household, and, after nearly scaring them out of their senses, dismissed them all, (save two stout ploughmen, who were given to Sir Thomas Dalyel as troopers,) with warning to take care of themselves in all time coming, and with a promise of a thousand marks if they gave intimation of their lady's retreat.
CHAPTER IX.
DEJECTION.
A mournful one am I, above whose head,
A day of perfect bliss hath never passed;
Whatever joys my soul have ravished,
Soon was the radiance of those joys o'ercast.
LAYS OF THE MINNESINGERS.
Walter was conducted back to the prison-house in Gourlay's Close, the Heart of Mid Lothian being already filled with nonconforming culprits.
Preceded by Macer Maclutchy and the gudeman or governor of the establishment, who wore the city livery, blue, laced with yellow, and carried a bunch of ominous-like keys. Walter found himself before a little archway, closed by a strong iron door, which opened under the great turnpike stair of the edifice, and led to the lower regions—to a superstructure of vaults, which, from their low and massive aspect, might have been deemed coeval with the days of the Alexanders. The light of the iron cruise borne by the gudeman failed to penetrate the deep abyss which yawned before them on the door being opened, and the cold wind of the subterranean chambers rushed upward in their faces. Slowly descending the hollowed and time-worn steps of an ancient stair, accompanied by his guard and conductors, poor Walter moved mechanically: the lamp, as it flared in the chill atmosphere, shewed the dark arches and green slimy walls of massive stonework forming the basement story of the prison. He felt a horror creeping over his heart. A profound and dismal silence reigned there; for these earthy passages where the frog croaked, the shining beetle crawled, and the many-legged spider span in undisturbed security, gave back no echo to their footsteps. In the heart of a populous city, thought he, can such a place be? Is it not a dream?
"Adonai! Adonai!" cried a voice in the distance, so loud, so shrill, and unearthly, that the gudeman paused, and the macer started back. "How long, O Lord, wilt thou permit these dragons to devour thy people? Rejoice, ye bairns of the Covenant! Rejoice, O ye nations, for He will avenge the blood of his chosen, and render vengeance on his adversaries."
"Hoots! It's that fule-body Bummel blawing like a piper through the key-hole," said the macer, and knocking thrice on the cell door with his mace, added, "Gif your tongue had been bored with an elshin as it deserved, my braw buckie, ye wadna hae crawn sae crouse. However, gudeman, his rebellious yammering will not disturb you muckle."
"The vaults are gey far doon—we would be deeved wi' him else," replied the gudeman; "but he gangs to the Bass in the morning, and there he can sing psalmody to the roaring waves and the cauld east wind, wi' Trail, Bennet, Blackadder, and other brethren in tribulation."
"By my word, keeping thae chields on the auld craig is just feeding what ought to be hanged," responded the macer, for these underlings affected to acquire the cavalier sentiments of the day. A door was now opened, and Walter Fenton heard the voice of the gudeman saying,
"Kennel up there, my man. You will find the lodgings we gie to conventiclers and enemies of the king are no just as braw as Gibbie Runlet's, doon at the White Horse. There is a windlan o' gude straw in that corner to sleep on, gif the rottons, and speeders, and asps, will let ye, and a mouthfu' o' caller air can aye be got at the iron grate, and sae my service t'ye."
"And keep up your spirits, Mr. Fenton," added the macer with a mock bow, "for the toun smith, Deacon Macanvil, will be doun in the morning to rivet round your craig the collar o' thrall wi' Craighall's name on't, and sae my service t'ye too."
The sneers of these wretches stung Walter to the soul, and it was with difficulty he restrained an impulse to rush upon them and dash their heads together. But the door was instantly closed; he heard the jarring of the bolts as they were shot into the stonework, the clank of a chain as it was thrown across, and then the retreating footsteps of his jailors growing fainter as they ascended the circular staircase. A door closed in the distance, the echoes died away, and then all became intensely still. He was now left utterly to his own sad and mortifying reflections, amid silence, gloom, and misery.
The darkness was oppressive; not the faintest ray of light could be traced on any side, and he wondered how the chill March wind swept through the vault, until, on groping about, he discovered on a level with his face, a small barred aperture, which opened to the adjoining close. In that high and narrow alley there was but little light even during the day; consequently, by night, it was involved in the deepest obscurity.
The cold, damp wind blew freely upon Walter's flushed face and waving hair, as he moved cautiously round his prison, and feeling the dark slimy walls on every side, discovered that it was a vault about twelve feet square, faced with stone, destitute, damp, frightful, and furnished only by a bundle of straw in a corner. On this he threw himself, and endeavoured to reflect calmly upon the perils by which he was surrounded.
He was naturally of an ardent and impetuous temper, and consequently his reflections failed either to soothe or to console him. His sentiments of hostility to Lord Clermistonlee were equalled only by those of gratitude to the Laird of Claverhouse, by whose influence he had, for a time, been spared a cruel and degrading maltreatment; but that, alas! was yet to be endured, and the contemplation of it was maddening. To be given as a bondsman or serf, girt with a collar of thrall or slavery, to work in the pits and mines of certain landholders, was a mode of punishment not uncommon in those vindictive days.
When the Scottish troops, under Lieutenant-colonel Strachan, defeated the brave cavaliers of Montrose in battle at Kerbister, in Ross, on the 27th of April, 1650, hundreds who were taken captive were disposed of in that manner. Some were given in thrall to Lieutenant-general Lesly, many to the Marquis of Argyle, others to Sir James Hope, to work as slaves in his lead mines, and the residue were all sent to France, to recruit the Scottish regiments of the Lord Angus and Sir Robert Murray.
Had his sentence been banishment to a foreign service, though it would have wrung his heart to leave his native country, and forego for ever the bright hopes and visions that had (though afar off) begun to lighten the horizon of his fortunes, he would have hailed the doom with joy; but to be gifted as a slave to another, to drudge amid the filth, obscurity, and disgrace of a coal mine, O! he looked forward to that with a horror inconceivable......
His mind became filled with dismal forebodings for the future. Though he still remembered with sincere pleasure the services he had rendered to the Napiers of Bruntisfield, his dreams of Lilian's mild blue eyes and glossy ringlets were sadly clouded by the perils to which they had hurried him.
All these proud and high aspirations, those intense longings for fame and distinction, for happiness and power, in which the mind of an ardent and enthusiastic youth is so prone to luxuriate, and which had been for years the day dream of Walter Fenton, now suffered a chill and fatal blight. It is a hard and bitter conviction, that one's dearest prospects are blasted and withered for ever; and to the heart of the young and proud, there is no agony equal to that of unmerited disgrace and humiliation. Misery was Walter's companion, and further miseries and degradations awaited him; but happily, the dark future was involved in obscurity.
CHAPTER X.
HOPE.
Thou art most fair; but could thy lovely face
Make slavery look more comely? could the touch
Of thy soft hand convey delight to mine
With servile fetters on.
BOADICEA, ACT IV.
Three days passed away. Three, and still there was no appearance of the dreaded Deacon Macanvil with his hammer and rivets, and collar of thrall.
The monotony of the prison had been unbroken save, each morning, by the entrance of the gudeman of the Tolbooth and a soldier of the Townguard, bearing a wooden luggie of fresh water and a slice of coarse bread, or coarser oaten cake on a tin trencher, and to these poor viands, the gudewife of the keeper, moved with pity for "such a winsome young man," added a cutlet or two on the third day. For the first four-and-twenty hours this mean fare remained untouched, but anon, the cravings of a youthful appetite compelled him to regale on it.
In a retired, or rather, a darker corner of this miserable place, he reclined on his truss of damp straw, listening to the lively hum of the city without, and the deep ding-dong of the Cathedral bells as they marked the passing hours.
Slowly the interminable day wore on.
Shadows passed and repassed the wretched aperture which was level with the pavement, and served for a window. Feet cased in white funnel boots garnished with scarlet turnovers, gold spurs and red morocco spur leathers, in clumsy Cromwellian calf-skins, or in brogues of more humble pretensions, appeared and disappeared as the passengers strode up and down the close; and many pretty feet and taper ancles in tight stockings of green or scarlet silk set up on "cork-heeled shoon," tripped past, the fair owners thereof displaying, by their uplifted trains, rather more than they might have done, if aware that a pair of curious eyes were looking upward from the Cimmerian depth of that ghastly vault. Bare-footed children gambolled about in the spring sunshine; with ruddy and laughing faces they peeped fearfully into the dark hole, and on discerning a human face through the gloom, cried "a bogle, a ghaist!" and fled away with a shout.
Propped on his staff, the toiling water-carrier passed hourly, conveying limpid water from the public wells, even to the lofty "sixteenth story," for a bodle the measure. Lumbering sedans were borne past by liveried carriers at a Highland trot; and the voices that rang perpetually in the narrow alley, though enlivening the prison of Walter, only served to make his sense of degradation and captivity more acute.
Anon, all those sounds ceased one by one; the bells of evening tolled, the ten o'clock drum was beat around the ancient royalty, and died away in the depths of Close and Wynd, and night and silence stole together over the dense and lofty city. The last wayfarer had gone to his home, and a desolate sense of loneliness fell upon the heart of Walter Fenton.
"Alas, alas!" he exclaimed, "had my dear friend Lady Dunbarton been on this side of the border, I had not been thus persecuted and forgotten. And Finland, why tarries he? Friendship should bring him to me, for shame cannot withhold him; I have committed no crime."
So passed the fourth day.
Night came on again, and the poor lad felt an oppression of spirit, a longing for freedom, and abhorrence of his dungeon; so bitter and intense, that reflection became the most acute torment. He turned restlessly among the straw, its very rustle fretted him, and he started up to pace to and fro in the narrow compass of the vault. He muttered, moaned, and communing with himself, pressed his face against the rusty grating, while listening intently to catch a passing sound, and inhale the cool fresh breeze of the spring night.
Though so many thousand souls were densely packed within the fortifications of Edinburgh, and every house was like a beehive or a tower of Babel, at that hour the city was still as the grave. Walter heard only the throbbing of his heart. The last dweller in the close had long since traversed the lofty stair that ascended to his home; the heavy door at the foot of the Prison turnpike stair had long since been closed, and its sentinel had withdrawn to smoke a pipe or sip a can of twopenny by the gudeman's well-sanded ingle. From the hollow recesses of its great rood spire St. Giles's bell tolled eleven.
"Another night!—another—another!" exclaimed Walter, as he threw himself upon the straw, and wrung his hands in rage, in bitterness, and unavailing agony. "Another night!—Oh, to be taught patience, or to be free!"
From a sleepy stupor that had sunk upon him, the very torpidity of desperation, he was roused by a noise at the grating: a face appeared dimly without, and a well known voice said,
"Harkee, Fenton,—art asleep, my boy?"
"Me voila—I am here!" he exclaimed, as he sprang to the grating and pressed the hand of his friend.
"You forget, Walter, that I am not calling the roll," laughed the officer; "but me voila is very old fashioned, my lad, and hath not been used by us these two hundred years, since the battle of Banje en Anjou. By all the devils, 'tis a deuced unpleasant malheur this!"
"I thought you had forgotten me, Finland."
"You did me great injustice; but, lackaday, with Wemyss and my party I have been for these three days worrying all the old wives and bonnetted carles on the Bruntisfield barony, to take certain obnoxious tests under terror of thumbscrews and gunmatch. By my honour, I would rather that my lord, the Earl of Perth, would march with his mace on shoulder, anent such dirty work, for I aver that it is altogether unbecoming the dignity and profession of a soldier. And mark me, Walter, all this tyranny will end in a storm such as the land hath not seen, since our father's days, when the banner of the covenant was unfurled on the hill of Dunse."
"And are there no tidings of Dunbarton, our commander?"
"The deuce, no! there hath been no mail from London these fourteen days; the rascal who brought the bag had only one letter, and getting drunk, lost it in the neutral grounds, somewhere on the borders. The earl was to have taken horse at Whitehall for the north, on the first of this month; 'tis now the penult day only, and he cannot be here for a week yet, so patience, Walter." Walter sighed.
"There are others here who have not forgotten thee, my dear Mr. Fenton," said a soft voice, as a pretty female face, lighted by two bright eyes, stooped down to that hideous grating. "But, forsooth, our good friend the Laird of Finland, seems resolved to talk for us all, which is not to be borne. I think he has acquired all the loquacity of the French chevaliers, without an atom of their gallantry."
"A thousand moustaches!" stammered the officer; "my fair Annie, I had almost—"
"Forgotten me! you dare not say so; but O my poor boy Fenton, how sorry I am I see thee there."
"I thank you, Mistress Laurie, but the honour of this visit would gild the darkest prison in Scotland—even the whig-vault of Dunoter," said Walter, kissing the hand of the speaker, whom he knew to be the betrothed of his friend, a gay and lively girl of twenty, whose beauty was then the theme of a hundred songs, of which, unhappily, but one has survived to us—the effusion of Finland's love and poesy. Long had they loved each other; but the father of Annie, the old Whig Baronet of Maxwelton, had engendered a furious hostility to Douglas, in consequence of his soldiers having lived at free quarters on his estates in Dumfriesshire, where they made very free, indeed, burned down a few farms, shot and houghed the cattle, and extorted a month's marching money thrice over, with cocked matches and drawn rapiers.
"This visit is as unexpected as it is welcome," continued Walter; "and, for the honour it does me, I would not exchange—"
"Thy prison for a palace," interrupted Annie. "Now, Mr. Walter, I know to an atom the value of this compliment, which means exactly nothing. But we must not jest; I have to introduce a dear friend—one who has come to thank you personally for those favours of which you are now paying the price. Come, Lilian, love," continued the lively young lady, "approach and speak. My life on't! how the lassie trembles! Come, Finland, we understand this, and will keep guard while little Lilian speaks with her captive paladin."
"You are a mad wag, Annie," said the cavalier, as he gave her his ungloved hand; "but lower your voice, dear one, or, soft and sweet as it is, it may bring down the gudeman and all his rascals about us in a trice."
"How can I find words to thank you, Mr. Fenton?" said the tremulous voice of Lilian Napier, whose small but beautiful face appeared without the massive grating, peeping through a plaid of dark green tartan, a mode of disguise then very common in Scotland, and which continued to be so in the earlier part of the last century. Like a hooded mantilla, it floated over her graceful shoulders, and a silver brooch confined it beneath her dimpled chin.
"Lilian Napier here!" exclaimed Fenton with rapture; "ah, fool that I was to repine, while my miseries were remembered by thee!"
"Ah, sir, the Lady Bruntisfield has lamented them bitterly. Never can we repay you for the unmerited severity and humiliations to which you have been subjected in our cause. Oh, can I forget that but for you, Mr. Fenton, we might have become the occupants of that frightful place, the air of which chills me even here!"
"Thee—O no, Lilian Napier, they could not have the heart to immure thee here!"
"The lack of heart rather, Walter."
"The idea is too horrible—but now," he continued, in a voice of delight, "you are speaking like my old companion and playfellow. 'Tis long—O, very, very long, Lilian, since last we conversed together alone. Do you remember when we gathered flowers, and rushes, and pebbles by the banks of the Loch, and berries at the Heronshaw, and gambolled in the parks in the summer sunshine?"
"How could I forget them?"
"Never have I been so happy since. O, those were days of innocence and joy!"
There was a pause, and both sighed deeply.
"Poor Walter, how sincerely I pity thee!"
"Then I bless the chance that brought me here."
"In that cold dark pit—Oh, 'tis a place of horror. Would to Heaven I could free you, Mr. Walter!"
"Ah, Lilian, call me Walter, without the Mr. Your voice sounds then as it did in other days, ere cold conventionalities raised such a gulf between us."
"They can do so no longer," said the young lady, weeping; "we are landless and ruined now, and O! did not fear for my good aunt Grisel make me selfish, I would surrender myself to the council to-morrow."
"S'death! do not think of it!"
"We both accuse ourselves of selfishness—of the very excess of cowardice, and of blotting our honour for ever, by meanly flying and transferring all our dangers to you."
"Do not permit yourself to think so," said Walter, moved to great tenderness by her tears. "Dear Lilian, (allow me so to call you, in memory of our happier days,) leave me now—to tarry here is full of danger. If you are discovered by the rascals who guard this place, the thought of what would ensue may drive me mad; threats, imprisonment, discovery, and disgrace—oh, leave me, for God's sake, Lilian!"
"Besides, I may be compromising the safety of those good friends who so kindly have accompanied me hither to-night. Ah! there is a terrible proclamation against us fixed to the city cross; they style us those intercommuned traitors, the Napiers, umquhile of Bruntisfield."
"Then leave me, Lilian—I can be happy now, knowing that you came——"
"From Lady Grisel," said Lilian, hastily, "to express her sincere thanks for your kindness, and her deep sorrow for its sad requital, which (from what you told us,) we could not have contemplated. Indeed, Mr. Walter, we have been very unhappy on your account, and so, impelled by a sense of gratitude, I came to—to—" and, pausing, she covered her face with her hands and wept, for the new and humiliating situation in which she found herself had deeply agitated her. She did not perceive a dark figure that approached her softly, unseen by her friends, who were gaily chatting under the gloomy shadow of a projecting house, and quite absorbed in themselves.
"Lilian, you were ever good and gentle," said Walter, altogether overcome by her tears, and pressing her hand between his own. "Deeply, deeply do I feel the mortification you must endure; but do not weep thus—it wrings my very heart!"
She permitted him to retain her hand, (there was no harm in that,) but his thoughts became tumultuous; he kissed it; and as his lips touched her for the first time, his whole soul seemed to rush to them.
"Oh, Lilian, were I rich, I feel that I could love you."
"And if one is poor, can they not love too?" she asked artlessly.
"Oh, yes, Lilian—dear Lilian," said Walter, quite borne away by his passion, and greatly agitated; but his arm could not encircle her, for the envious grating intervened: "deeply do I feel at this moment how bitter, how hopeless, may be the love of the poor. But if I dared to tell you that the little page, Walter, who so often carried your mantle and led your horse's bridle—now, when a man, aspired so far——"
The girl trembled violently, and said, in a feeble voice of alarm, "Oh, hush—hush, some one approaches."
"Then away to Douglas, for he alone can protect you. One word ere you go: you have found a secure and secret shelter?"
"Humble and secret, at least."
"With the Lauries of Maxwelton?"
"Oh, no, their house is already suspected. In the poor cottage of my nurse, old Elsie Elshender, at St. Rocque—there we bide our fate in poverty and obscurity."
"And your cousin, Napier, the captain?"
"Hath fled to the west—but that person—he is certainly listening—adieu!"
"Remember me?"
"How can I forget?" she replied, naïvely, as she arose to withdraw; but lo! the person started forward, and her hand, which was yet glowing with Walter's kiss, was rudely seized in the rough grasp of the intruder. Fear utterly deprived the poor girl of power to cry out.
"Aunt Grisel—dear grand-aunt Grisel!" was all she could gasp, and she would have sunk on the pavement had not the eavesdropper supported her. He was a tall, stout gallant, and muffled, by having the skirt of his cloak drawn over his right shoulder, so as to conceal part of his face, then the fashionable mode of disguise for roués and intriguantes.
"Lilian Napier, by all the devils!" cried Lord Clermistonlee, in a tone of astonishment: he was considerably intoxicated, having just left the neighbouring house, where he had been drinking for the last six hours with the Lord President Lockhart. "Now I thought thee only some poor mud-lark, or errant bona-roba. This is truly glorious. Thou shalt come with me, my beauty. What, you will scream? Nay, minx, then you have but a choice between the stone vaults of the Tolbooth and the tapestried chambers of my poor old houses of Drumsheugh and Clermistonlee—ha, ha!" and he began to sing the old ditty:—
"There was a young lassie lo'ed by an auld man——"
"Help, Finland, help, for the love of God!" cried Lilian, dreadfully agitated, but the Lord continued:—
"With a heylillelu and a how-lo-lan!
Her cheeks were rose red, and her eyne were sky-blue,
With a how-lo-lan and a heylillelu!
And this lassie was lo'ed by this canty old man,
With a heylillelu and a how-lo-lan!"
"By all the devils! I can sing as well as my Lord the President, though he hath three crown bowls of punch under his doublet."
"Douglas, Douglas, your sword—your sword!" cried Walter, grasping the massive grating, and swinging on the bars like a madman, essaying in vain to wrench them from their solid wrests; but ere the words had left his lips, Lord Clermistonlee was staggered by a blow from the clenched hand of the cavalier, and Lilian was free.
"Fly, Annie," he exclaimed to his love; "away with Lilian Napier to the coach at the close head. The devil, girl—art thou doited,—off and leave me to deal with this tavern brawler. Fore George! I will truss his points in first rate fashion." The girls retired in terror, and Douglas unsheathed his rapier.
"Beware thee, villain," exclaimed the other, drawing his long bilbo with prompt bravery, and wrapping his mantle round the left arm. "I am a Lord of the Privy Council—to draw on me is treason."
"Were you King James himself, I would run you through the heart, for applying such an epithet to a gentleman of the House of Douglas."
"You will have it then—come on, plated varlet, and look well to guard and parry, for I am a first-rate swordsman."
Finland's cuirass rang with a rapier thrust from his assailant, who fell furiously to work, lunging like a madman, and exclaiming every time the fire sparked from their clanging blades,
"Bravo, bilbo! Excellent—come on again, Mr. Malapert, and I will teach thee to measure swords with Randal of Clermistonlee. Gads-o, fellow, thou art no novice in the science of fencing—crush me, what a thrust! well parried—
"With a hey lillelu, and a how——'
Damnation seize thee, man! how came that about!"
The sword of Finland, by one lucky parry had broken the Lord's rapier off by the hilt, and ripped up the skin of his sword-hand with such force that he staggered against the wall.
"I hope your Lordship is not hurt!" exclaimed his antagonist, supporting him by the arm.
"Zounds, no! a little only," replied Clermistonlee, whom the shock had perfectly sobered. Full of rage, he tossed his embossed sword-hilt over the house-tops, exclaiming, "Accursed blade, may the hands that forged thee grill on the fires of eternity!"
It whistled through the air, and fell down the chimney of the dowager Lady Drumsturdy, where it stuck midway, and so terrified that ancient dame that, notwithstanding her hatred to "massemongers," she laid her poker and shovel crosswise; but the mysterious noise in her capacious "lum" formed a serious case for the investigation of ghost-seers and gossips next day.
"Harkee, Laird of Finland," said Clermistonlee haughtily, "we must enact this affair over again in daylight; meantime let us part, or the Town-Guard will be upon us with their partisans, and I have no wish that you should suffer for ripping up an inch or two of skin in fair fight—you will hear from me anon."
"Whenever your Lordship pleases, I am your most obedient," replied Douglas, bowing coldly as he hurried to join the terrified ladies, with whom he had barely time to get into the hackney-coach and drive off, when the door of the prison opened, and a few of the Town Guard, who had heard the clashing of the rapiers, rushed forth with lanterns and poleaxes; like modern police, exhibiting great alacrity when the danger was over, they seized Clermistonlee.
"Dare ye lay hands on a gentleman," he exclaimed, fiercely shaking them off. "Unhand me, villains, I am Randal Lord Clermistonlee! I was assaulted——"
"By whom, my Lord, by whom?" replied the guardians of the peace, cringing before this imperious noble.
"What is it to such rascals as thee?—oh, a knavish cloak snatcher, or cut-purse, or something of that kind. Retire—I have always hands to defend myself."
The guard with hurried and half audible apologies withdrew, and the brawling lord was left to his own confused reflections. He tied a handkerchief about his hand, and was about to withdraw, when a thought struck him: he approached the grating of the low dungeon, and placing close to it his face, which though unseen was pale with fury, while his dark eyes gleamed like two red sparks,
"Art there, thou spawn of the Covenant?" he asked in a husky voice: "Ah, dog of a Fenton, I will hang thee high as Haman for this night's misadventure!"
The prisoner replied by a scornful laugh, and the exasperated roué strode away.
CHAPTER XI.
CLERMISTONLEE AT HOME.
"Too long by love a wandering fire misled,
My latter days in vain delusion fled;
Day after day, year after year, withdrew,
And beauty blessed the minutes as they flew,
These hours consumed in joy, but lost to fame——"
HAMILTON OF BANGOUR.
The town residence of Lord Clermistonlee was a lofty and narrow mansion of antique aspect; it stood immediately within the Craig-end-gate, that low-browed archway in the eastern flank of the city wall, which, from the foot of Leith Wynd still faces the bluff rock of the Calton. With high pedimented windows and Flemish gables, Clermiston-lodging towered above the mossy, grass-tufted, and time-worn rampart of the city—the aforesaid portal of which gave entrance to it on one side, while the more immediate path from the great central street was a steep and narrow close, the mansions of which were as black as the smoke of four centuries could make them. Their huge façades, plastered over with rough lime and oyster shells, completely intercepted the view to the south, while that to the north was shut in by the black cliffs of the bare Calton and the Multrees-hill with the ancient suburb of St. Ninian, straggling through the narrow chasm that yawned between them, and afforded a glimpse of Leith and the far-off hills of Fife. At the base of the hill lay the last fragments of the monastery of Greenside, and opposite a thatched hamlet crept close to the margin of the Loch, the broad sluice of which the irrascible Baillies of Edinburgh invariably shut, when they quarrelled with a colony of sturdy and "contumacious" weavers and tanners who had located there, and whose communication with Halkerstoune Wynd they could cut off at pleasure by damming up the waters of the Loch. Immediately under the windows of the mansion lay the park, hospital, and venerable church of the Holy Trinity, founded by the Queen of James II. about two hundred years before.
On the night described in the last chapter, a large fire burned cheerily in the chamber of dais; and the walls of wainscot, varnished and gilded, glittered in its glow. Supper was laid; carved crystal, plate, and snow-white napery gleamed in the light of the ruddy fire, and of four large wax candles that towered aloft in massive square holders of French workmanship. Over the mantel-piece, in an oak frame amid the carving of which, grapes, nymphs, and bacchanals were all entwined together, hung a portrait painted by Jamieson, representing a pale young lady in a ruff and fardingale of James VI. days, and having the pale blue eyes, exquisitely fair complexion and lint-white locks, which were then so much admired. It was his Lordship's mother, a lady of the house of Spynie.
Silver plate, a goodly row of labelled flasks (bottling wine was not then the custom) and various substantial viands formed a corps-de-reserve on a grotesquely carved buffet of black oak, for everything was fashioned after the grotesque in those days. The knobs of the red leather chairs, and the ponderous fire-irons, were strange and open-mouthed visages; the brackets supporting the cornices of the doors and the mantel-piece, were also strange bacchanalian faces grinning from wreaths of vine-leaves, clusters of grapes and crowns of acanthus. Three long silver-hilted rapiers with immense pommels, shells, and guards, pistols, steel caps, masks, foils, and a buff coat richly laced with silver, lay all huddled in a corner, while the broad mantel-piece presented quite an epitome of the proprietor's character.
The massive stone lintel displayed in bold relief the legend carved thereon by his pious forefathers,
Blyssit be God for al his giftis, 1540.
but above it lay Andro Hart's "Compendious Book of Godly Songs," beside the "Gaye Lady's Manuall," and the "Banqvet of Jests or change or cheare imprinted at the shoppe in Ivie Lane 1634," a book of ribbald ditties, another of farriery, another of falconry, obscene plays; Rosehaugh's "Disertations" sent by the author, and used by Clermistonlee to light his Dutch pipe; whistles, whips, hunting horns, and drinking flasks, cards, dice, hawks' hoods, an odd pistol, papers of council, warrants of search, arrest, and torture, mingled with challenges and frivolous billets-doux. A large wolfish dog, and a very frisky red-eyed Scottish terrier slept together on the warm hearth-rug.
Juden Stenton, the stout old butler, had stirred the fire and wiped the glasses for the tenth time, tasted the wine for the twentieth, and had made as many rounds of the table to snuff the candles, and re-examine everything; he was very impatient and sleepy, and listened intently with his head bent low, a practice which he had acquired in the great civil wars. The clock in the spire of the Netherbow-porte struck midnight.
"Cocksnails!" muttered Juden, "twelve o'clock and nae sign o' him yet. What's the world coming to? My certie, what would his farther the douce Laird o' Drumsheugh hae thocht o' this kind of work? He (honest man!) was aye in his nest at the first tuck o' the ten o'clock drum."
Juden was verging on sixty years of age; his figure was short and paunchy, his face full and florid; his twinkling grey eyes wore always a cunning expression, and had generally a sotted appearance about them, which made it extremely difficult to determine whether he was drunk or sober. His large round head was bald, and his chin close shaven, according to the fashion for the lower classes, few but nobles and cavaliers retaining the manly moustaches and imperial. A clean white cravat fell over his doublet of dark-green cloth, the red braiding of which was neatly curved to suit his ample paunch; breeches of dark plush, black cotton stockings and heavy shoes, the instep of each being covered by a large brass buckle, completed his attire. A scar still remained on his shining scalp to attest the dangers he had dared in his younger days.
The last of a once numerous and splendid but now diminished household, old Juden Stenton was a faithful follower of Lord Clermistonlee, for whom he would have laid down his life without a sigh of regret. He acted by turns butler and baillie, cook and valet, groom, farrier, trooper, and factotum, being the beau ideal of the staunch but unscrupulous serving-man of the day, who changed sides in religion, politics, and everything just as the Laird did, and who knew no will or law save those of his leader and master. When Clermistonlee (then Sir Randal Clermont of Drumsheugh), ruined by the mad excesses into which he had plunged at the dissipated court of Charles II., in a fit of despair joined the insurgent Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge, Juden put a blue cockade in his bonnet, "girded up his loins," as he said, "and went forth to battle for Scotland's oppressed kirk and broken covenant." But when Sir Randal's name (in consequence of mistake, or of some friendly influence in the Scottish cabinet) was omitted in the list of the attainted, and he changed sides, obtaining—none knew how or why—rank and riches under the persecutors, Juden changed too, and donning the buff coat and scarlet, became a bitter foe to "all crop-eared and psalmsinging rebels," and riding as a royalist trooper, suppressed many a harmless conventicle, and hunted and hounded, slashed and shot, or dragged to prison those who had been his former comrades, for in political matters Juden's mind was as facile and easy as that of a German.
He had too often less honourably acted the pander to his lord, in many a vile intrigue and cruel seduction; for of all the wild rakes of the time (Rochester excepted) none had rushed so furiously on the career of fashionable vice and dissipation as Clermistonlee; and even now, when forty years of age, he continued the same kind of life from mere habit, perhaps, rather than inclination.
But there was one chapter of his life which memory brought like a cloud on his gayest hours, and which riot and revel could never efface,—a sad episode of domestic mystery and unhappiness. Clermistonlee, in the prime of his youth, had been wedded to a lady of beauty and rank, of extreme gentleness of manner and softness of disposition. Like many others, the fancy passed away; repentance came, as his love cooled or changed to other objects. He took the lady to Paris, and there she died...... There were not wanting evil tongues, who said he had destroyed her. A kind of mystery enveloped her fate; and even in his most joyous moods, sad thoughts would suddenly cloud the lofty brow of Clermistonlee, a sign which his kind friends never failed to attribute to remorse. Many were the women who had trusted to his honour, and found they had believed in a phantom; until, at the era of our story, his name had become (like that of the Marquis de Laval) a bye-word in the mouths of the people for all that was wicked, irregular, and bad.
"Twelve o'clock," muttered Juden; "braw times—braw times, sirs! I warrant he'll be roistering in the change-house o' that runagate vintner, Hugh Blair, at the Pillars. A wanion on his sour Gascon and fushionless Hock! Waiting is sleepy work, and dry too. Gude claret this! My service to ye, Maister Juden Stenton," he continued, bowing to his reflection in an opposite mirror; "you're a gude and worthy servitor to ane that doesna ken your value. The members o' council maun a' be fu' as pipers by this time except Claverhouse, wha canna touch wine, and auld Binns, wham wine canna touch. Hech! here he comes; and now for a clamjamfray wi' the yett-wards."
A violent knocking at the city-gate close by announced the return of his master from a midnight ramble. The sentinel within opened the wicket of the barrier; and on demanding the usual toll required of belated citizens, a handful of pence, flung by the impatient lord, clattered about his steel cap. Clermistonlee entered, and, half dragging a little crooked man after him, rapidly ascended the flight of steps that led to the circular tower or staircase of his own house. In the low-pointed doorway, which was surmounted by an uncouth coronet, stood Juden with a candle flaring in each hand, bowing very low, though not in the best of humours.
"Od, that weary body Mersington is w' him!" he muttered. "The auld spunge—he'll drink the daylicht in!"
"Light the way there, Juden," cried his master. "My good Lord Mersington is generally short-sighted about this hour."
"Double-sighted, ye mean," chuckled the decrepit senator. "Sorrow tak' ye, Randal, ye maun aye hae your joke—he! he! A cauld nicht this, Juden," he added, while hobbling up the narrow stair, with an enormous wig and broad-brimmed beaver overshadowing his meagre figure.
"A cauld morning rather, please your lordship," replied Juden somewhat testily, as he ushered them into the chamber-of-dais, and stirred the fire as well as the chain which secured the poker to the jamb permitted him.
"Be seated, Mersington. This way, my Lord; take care of the table—devil! the man's blind," said Clermistonlee, as he somewhat unceremoniously pushed the half-intoxicated senator into one of the high-backed chairs of red maroquin.
Mersington was twenty years his senior, and never was there a pair of more ill-assorted gossips or friends. The one, a polished and fashionable cavalier roué; the other, a cranky and meagre compound of vulgarity, shrewdness, and ignorance, who was never sober, but had obtained a seat on the bench in consequence of his inflexible devotion to the Government, to please whom he would have sent the twelve apostles to "testify" at the Bow-foot, had it been required of him. Clermistonlee unbuckled his belt, and flung his empty scabbard to the one end of the room, his plumed beaver to the other, and drew his chair hastily forward to the table.
"Where is your braw bilbo, my Lord?" asked Juden.
"What the devil is it to thee?—'Tis broken. I will wear the steel-hilted backsword to-morrow."
"The auld blade ye wore at the Brigg?"
"D—n Bothwell Brigg! How is Meg?"
"Muckle the same, puir beastie."
"I hope, knave, thou gavest her the warm mash, and bathed her nostrils and fetlocks."
"Without fail. We maun tak' gude care o' her—the last o' a braw stud of sixty, my faith! But when a mear hath baith the wheezlock and the yeuk——"
"How! has she both?"
"Had ye, a month syne, tar-barrelled that auld carlin, Elshender, owre the muir at St. Rocque, Meg would hae been sound, wind and limb, frae that moment."
"'Sblood! Juden, dost think the cantrips of this old hag have really bedevilled my favourite nag?"
"I'm no just free to say, my Lord; but it is unco queer that Meg (puir beastie!) should fa' ill o' sae mony things just after Lucky Elshender flyted wi' ye for riding through her kail for a near cut to the Grange, the day ye dined wi' auld Fountainhall."
"By all the devils, Juden, if I thought this bearded hag had any hand in the mare's illness, I would have her under the hands of the pricker to-morrow," replied Clermistonlee, who was deeply imbued with the Scottish prejudice against old women. "We had before us to-day two hags, whom we consigned to the flames; one for confessing witchcraft, and the other for obstinately refusing to confess it."
Juden rubbed his hands.
"Ou aye—ou aye—he! he!" chuckled Mersington. "Hae her up before the fifteen—a full blawn case o' sorcery—on wi' the thumbikins! I have kent rack and screw bring mony a queer story to light:—riding to Banff on a besom-shank—sailing to the Inch in a milkbowie—bewitching wheels that ane minute flew round as if the mill was mad, and the next stood like the Bass rock—raising a storm o' wind in the lift by the damnable agency of a black beetle, 'ane golach,' as Rosehaugh called it in the indictment. We had a grand case o' that lately in the northern courts."
"But the gude auld fashion o' tar-barrelling is clean gaing out in thae fushionless days," said Juden, whom Mersington treated with considerable familiarity. "We havena had a respectable bleeze on the Castle-hill these aucht years and mair."
"You may chance to have one very shortly," replied his lord impatiently, "if Meg gets not the better of her ailings soon. But enough of this.—Let us to supper."
"Bluid, as I live! Foul fa' the loon that shed it!" exclaimed Juden, in accents of intense concern, as his master drew off his perfumed gloves, and revealed the scar on his right hand. "Whatna collyshangie has this been, noo—and your braw mantle o' drab de Berrie—oh laddie, when will you learn to tak' care o' yoursel?" added honest Juden, who from force of habit still styled his lord as he had done thirty years ago.
"Pshaw! you have seen my blood ere now, I suppose."
"Owre often, owre often," groaned the old man. "You'll hae been keeping the croon o' the causeway, I warrant, majoring rapier in hand, as your faither was wont in his young days."
"No, no; I merely measured swords in Gourlay's close with one of the Scots' musqueteers."
"Aboot what? They're mad, unchancey chields, Dunbarton's men."
"A girl—the cursed baggage!"
"Burn my beard, if ever I saw dochter o' Eve that tempted me to encounter a slashed hide!" said Juden, with a tone of thankfulness, while his master tied a handkerchief round the wounded limb, and applied himself to the viands before him, attending to his friend with hospitality and politeness, and doing the honours of the table with peculiar grace.
A roasted capon, mutton and cutlets, oysters fried and raw, a gigantic silver mug of brandy and burnt sugar, a tankard of sack, and several tall silver-mouthed decanters of claret, with manchets of the whitest flour, oaten cakes, and fruit, composed the supper, on sitting down to which, Lord Mersington, with an affected air and half-closed eyes, by way of grace mumbled a distich then common among the cavaliers—
"From Covenanters with uplifted hands,
From Remonstrators with associate bands,
From such Committees as governed these nations,
From Kirk Commissions and their protestations,
Good Lord, deliver us!'
"Amen," said Clermistonlee, "d—n all Kirk Commissioners and Sessions too!"
"The last keepit a firm hand owre such gallants as you, before King Charles cam' hame," replied Mersington, who, like all meagre men, was a great gourmand, and was doing ample justice to all the good things before him. Clermistonlee, too, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, did his part fairly—but all times were alike to him, his irregular habits and debauched life had by long custom made them so, and he assailed the capon, the cutlets, the oysters, and sack tankard, in rapid succession, while Juden stood behind his chair, napkin in hand, with eyes half-closed, and nodding head.
"Mersington, some more of the cutlets? My Lord, you must permit me—do justice to my poor house, a bachelor's though it be. Juden, hand that dish of Crail capons from the buffet."
The butler hastily placed before his master an ample dish containing a pile of small haddocks prepared in a mode now disused and forgotten.
"Crail capons—allow me to help you; and don't spare the burnt sack, my Lord."
"Thank ye:—weel, then, Clermistonlee, anent this business of the Napiers," said Mersington, referring to a former conversation; "what mean ye to do now, eh?"
"Use every means to obtain their lands—and Lilian to boot," replied his friend, after a brief pause, and while a slight colour crossed his cheek. "I have taken a particular fancy for that old house of Bruntisfield—ha, ha! with the parks adjoining. Faith, the lands run from the Harestarie to my own gate at Drumsbeugh, and from the Links, where young Bruntisfield was slain long ago, to the house of the Chieslies, beside the devil only knows how many tofts and tenements within the walls of the city."
"A noble barony for a dowry!"
"It will form a seasonable subsidy to my exchequer, which is drained to its last plack at present. You know I have long loved this girl."
"Or said so; but the lands, he, he! are forfeited to the King, man!"
"So were those of the Mures of Caldwell, yet Sir Thomas of Binns now holds them as a free gift from the Council—and holds fast, too."
"Auld Dame Bruntisfield is but a life-rentrix; thou knowest, man, that Captain Napier, of Buchan's regiment of Scots'-Dutch, is the next and last heir of entail."
"Tush! I will have him under the nippers of the Lord Advocate ere long; when his head is on yonder battlements of the Nether Bow, the barony of Bruntisfield goes to Lilian Napier, and dost think, Mersington, that chitti-faced girl will stand in my way? I trow not. Maclutchy and some of our best-trained beagles are on the captain's track, and they will run him down somewhere in the west country, depend upon it. But 'tis neither hall nor holm, wood or water, that will satisfy me——"
"Odsfish, man! he, he! what mair would ye hae, Randal? There is the auld dame denounced a rebel, and in default of compearance, put to the horn; her moveable gudes and gear escheat to the King, conform to the acts thereanent, and sae are the heritable, but the Council will soon snap them up. What mair would ye hae?"
"The person of little Lilian," said Clermistonlee, with a sinister smile, as he winked over the top of his great silver tankard.
"Hee, hee!" chuckled Mersington.
"I would give a thousand broad pieces——"
"If ye had them!"
"Crush me! yes.——to discover where the young damsel is in hiding at this moment. Accustomed to subdue women from very habit, her piquant coldness and hauteur have inflamed, surprised, and offended me, and by all the devils, I will have her, though I should be tumbled down the precipice of hell for it!" he continued, in the cavalier phraseology. "And this fellow, Fenton, this silken slave, who crossed me on the very night I had hoped to have her arrested (he ground his teeth), and that braggart, Douglas of Finland, who was so ready with his rapier to-night, let them look to it; my path shall not be crossed with impunity by man or devil."
"Nor is that of any Lord of Council, while a warrant of arrest and ward may be had from Mackenzie for the asking, like the lettre-de-cachet o' our French friends."