The Scottish Cavalier: An Historical Romance, Volume 2 (of 3)

CHAPTER XV.

A STATESMAN OF 1688.

Call you these news? You might as well have told me,
That old King Coil is dead, and graved at Kylesfield.
I'll help thee out——.
                                                        AYRSHIRE TRAGEDY, ACT II.

Some weeks after this, at a late hour one night, Lord Clermistonlee was seated by the capacious fireplace in his chamber-of-dais. He was alone. A supper of Crail capons and roasted crabs, a white loaf, and wine posset, had just been discussed; and he was resorting to his favourite tankard of burnt sack, when a loud knocking was heard at the outer gate.

His lordship was decidedly in a bad humour: satiated with a long career of gaiety, he had resolved to give this night to retirement, to reverie, and to maturing his plans against Lilian, whose beauty and manner in the last interview had inspired him with something like a real passion for her. He remembered with pain the hatred and the horror expressed in her parting glance. The memory of it had sunk deeply in his heart; and he bitterly repented the destruction of her favourite pigeon; for he felt that this cruel act had increased the gulf between them.

The knocking at the gate recalled his thoughts.

"'Sdeath!" said he, "who dares to knock so loud and late? Ha! it may be a macer of council; we have had no news from London for these fourteen days past. Now, by all the devils, who can this be?"

A person was heard ascending the stair, and singing in a very cracked voice the Old Hundredth Psalm. Clermistonlee started, and looked around for a cane, marvelling who dared to insult him in his own house. A psalm! he could hardly believe his ears.

"Pshaw!" said he, recognising the voice, as Juden ushered in Lord Mersington, who entered unsteadily, balancing himself on each leg alternately: his broad hat was awry, and his wig gone; but a silk handkerchief tied round his head supplied its place. The learned senator was in one of his usual altitudes.

"How now, gossip!" said Clermistonlee, impatiently; "whence this unwonted piety?"

"Out upon thee, son of Belial! Dost not see that the Spirit is strong within me?"

"Rather too plainly; but sit down, man—thy tankard of burnt sack hath grown cold. Juden prepares it nightly quite as a matter of course. Any news from our army yet?"

"None—none," replied the other, shaking his head with tipsy solemnity; "but if matters go on as they seem likely to do, I maun een change, Randal, or the grassy holms and bonnie mains o' Mersington will gang to the deil before me; and I'll hae my canting hizzie o' a wife back frae the west country to deave me wi' ranting psalms and declaring against the crying sin o' the Mass, Papacy, Prelacy, Arianism, and a' the rest o't." A glance of deep meaning accompanied this.

"And I, to mend my fortune, must fly my hawks more surely. Bongré, malgré, Lilian Napier must become Lady Clermistonlee, or my lord of that ilk must boune him for another land."

"Hee, hee!—and you are fairly tired o' following mad Mally Charteris, Maud o' Madertie, and my Lady Jean Gordon—hee, hee!"

"Stuff!—name them not. I am sick to death of all damsels who owe their beauty to sweet pomade, cream of Venice, Naples' dew, and the devil's philters. Ah! the blooming glow of health and loveliness that renders so radiant the gentle Lilian arises from none of those."

"Ou' aye, ou' aye!" muttered Mersington, as he buried his weason face in the tankard. "You have been an awfu' chiel in your time, Randal, and would restore the auld acts o' King Eugene III. gif the Council would let ye—hee, hee!"

"By all the devils, I would!" laughed the roué, curling his mustachios, as he lounged in his well-cushioned chair; "thou knowest, good gossip, that the great horned head of the law always gave me a strong goût for vice."

"But Eugene's law would matter little to you, Randal—hee, hee! Ye have but few women married within your fief or barony now."

Clermistonlee bit his lip as he replied:

"You taunt me with my poverty, gossip; but remember, that though I have lost my manor of Drumsheugh, I consider that of Bruntisfield as being nearly mine. Sir Archibald was an old cavalier, and staunch high Churchman; and if the current of affairs (here his voice sank to a whisper) goes against the King, we may easily prevail upon the Council to forfeit these lands to the State for ancient misdemeanors."

"And for the leal service done to the cause of Grace in 1670, I would move that the Council bestow upon my noble friend, the Lord Clermistonlee—hee, hee!—the haill in free heritage and free barony for ever, with all the meithes and marches thereof, (as the form in law sayeth,) auld and divided as the same lie in length and breadth, in houses, biggings, mills, multures, &c., hawking, hunting, fishing, eel-arks, &c., with court, plaint, and herezeld, and with furk, fok, sack, sock, thole, thame, vert, wraik, waith, ware, venison, outfangthief, infangthief, pit and gallows, and sae forth, with the tower, fortilace, or manor place thereof, and the couthie wee dame hersel into the bargain."

"By Jove, thou art mad!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, who had listened with no little impatience and surprise to this rhapsody which the law lord brought out all at a breath.

"Hee, hee! the haill barony o' Bruntisfield is a braw tocher!—think o' its pertinents, forbye the lands o' Puddockdub, whilk yield o' clear rental ten thousand merks after paying Kirk and King!"

"King and Kirk, you mean."

"I say Kirk and King—hee, hee! The times are changing, and we maun change wi' them."

"Zounds! I believe the old fool is too drunk to hear me. Harkee! gossip Mersington, you know I lost a thousand pounds to that addlepate, Holsterlee, on our race at Leith, where my boasted mare failed so devilishly."

"Had ye tar-barrelled the carlin Elshender, it would hae been another story," grumbled Juden, as he replenished the tankards.

"A drowning man will cling to straws. By all the devils, on that race hung the partial retrieval or utter ruin of my fortune! 'Tis a debt of honour—the money is unpaid, and must be discharged with others, even should I turn footpad to raise the testers."

"'Tis an auld song, Randal—the fag-end of a career o' wickedness and depravity—birling the wine-cup, and flaunting wi' bona robas," replied Mersington, practising his now snuffling tone, and shaking his head with solemn but tipsy gravity in the new character his cunning led him to assume. "A just retribution on the crying sins, blasphemies, and enormities, anent whilk see the act (damn the act!) committed in the days o' your dolefu' backsliding. I doubt you'll hae to take a turn wi' the Scots' Dutch, like Jock the Laird's brother."

"My drivelling gossip," said Clermistonlee, with considerable hauteur, "you forget that it beseems not a Baron to be so roughly schooled by the mere Goodman of Mersington."

"Byde ye there, billy," exclaimed the other. "Gudeman, quotha! we hold our fief by knight's service, of the Scottish crown; and ken ye, Randal, that such as hold their lands of the King direct are styled Lairds; but such as held their tacks of a subject were styled gudemen; a custom hath lately gone into disuse, as Rosehaugh saith in his folio on Precedence."

"Laird or Lord, I care not a brass bodle. No man shall assume the part of monitor to me! Again and again I have told thee, Mersington, that my whole soul, for this year past, has been bent upon the possession of Lilian Napier, and her acres of wood and wold; and dost think, gossip, that I, who have subdued so many fine women (yea, and some deuced haughty ones, too), shall be baffled by a little moppet like this? Come, good gossip, assist me with thy advice. I have ever found your invention fertile, your advice able, your cunning matchless. Canst think of no new plan, by which to——Hah! who the devil can that be, now?" he exclaimed, as another furious knocking at the outer gate cut short his adjuration; and he listened anxiously, muttering, "'Tis long past midnight; some drunken mudlark, I warrant."

"A macer o' council, my Lord," exclaimed Juden, entering hurriedly, and laying a square note before his master, who let fall his wine-cup as he examined the seal, which bore the coronet and collared sleuth-hound of Perth. A red glow suffused the dark cheek, and sparkled in the eyes of Clermistonlee, as he deliberately opened a billet which he previously knew to be of the most vital importance to himself and to the nation. It was addressed "ffor ye Right Honourable my very good friend the Lord Clermistounlee," and ran thus:—

"Dear Gossip,

"There is the devil to pay in the south—all is lost! Craigdarroch, a trooper of the Guards, hath brought intelligence that our army, like the English (God's murrain on the false knaves!) hath en masse joined the invader—that James has fled, and William reached London. Meet us at the Laigh Council Chamber without delay.

"Yr assured friend,
        "PERTH, Cancellarius."

Overwhelmed with consternation, Clermistonlee stood for a moment like a statue; then, crushing his hat upon his head, he stuck a pair of pistols in his belt, snatched his cloak and sword, and tossing the note to Mersington, to read and follow as he chose, rushed away in silence with his usual impetuosity.

Mersington, who had regarded his actions with a stare of tipsy wonder, took up the note, and contrived to decypher its contents. As he did so, his features underwent a rapid change; fear, wrath, and cunning by turns contracted his hard visage, and completely sobered him. At last, a sinister leer of deep meaning twinkled in his bleared eyes; he quietly burned the note, brushed his large hat with his sleeve, adjusted it on his head, and assuming his gold-headed cane, departed for the Board of the Privy Council.

From that hour his Lordship was a true-blue Presbyterian.

CHAPTER XVI.

TRUST AND MISTRUST.

March! march! why the deil do ye no march?
    Stand to your arms, my lads, fight in good order;
Front about, ye musketteers, all
    When ye come to the English border.
                                                                    LESLY'S MARCH.

As before related, the Scottish army advanced into England in three columns.

It was by the express desire of James VII., and contrary to the wish of the Council, that these forces left Scotland, where William had many adherents, especially in the western shires. There the old spirit of disaffection was subdued, but far from being extinguished. The Privy Councillors had proposed to retain their troops, and in lieu thereof to send to their frontiers a corps of militia and Highlanders, thirteen thousand strong; but James was urgent for the regulars immediately joining him at Hounslow, and they marched accordingly.

On the first day of October the Scottish army crossed the Tweed, and drew up on English ground, when General Douglas (to quote Captain Crichton, the cavalier-trooper who served in the Grey Dragoons) "gave a strict charge to the officers that they should keep their men from offering the least injury on their march; adding, that if he heard any of the English complain, the officers should answer for the faults of their men."

That night the Scottish drums were ringing in the streets of "merry Carlisle." There Douglas halted for the night, and Dunbarton's regiment bivouacked in a field on the banks of the Eden. Provisions were brought from the city in abundance, fires were lighted, and the cooking proceeded with the utmost dispatch.

English troops kept guard at the gates of the city, which was inclosed by a strong wall, and Saint George's red cross waved on the castle of William Rufus—the same grim fortress where, a hundred and twenty-one years before, Mary of Scotland experienced the first traits of Elizabeth's inhospitality.

General Douglas, who commanded the Scottish troops, was a traitor at heart, and deeply in the interest of William. On the morning after the halt at Carlisle, he ordered the Viscount Dundee, with his division of cavalry, to march for London by the way of York; while he in person led the infantry and artillery by the road to Chester. Anxious that William should land before the army of James could be strong enough to oppose him, Douglas, by a hundred frivolous pretences, and by every scheme he could devise, delayed the march of his infantry, which did not form a junction with the English under the Earl of Faversham at London until the 25th of October.

James VII. had now under his command a well disciplined and well appointed army, led by officers of distinguished birth and courage, and he awaited with confidence the landing of his usurping son-in-law. The whole of his troops were quartered in the vicinity of London.

For many reasons, the people of England, like those of Scotland, were prepossessed against all the measures of King James, and to his brave army alone did this unhappy monarch look for support in the coming struggle; but notwithstanding that for years he had been a father rather than a captain to his soldiers, and had watched over their interests with the most kingly and paternal solicitude, quarrels and disgusts broke out between them, and he was yet to find that he leant on a broken reed. The strict amity subsisting between him and Louis of France, excited the jealousy of the nation, who dreaded an invasion of French and Irish catholics, to enforce the entire submission of the protestants.

Never were fears more groundless; but the Irish appear to have been particularly obnoxious to the English soldiers, who flatly refused to admit them into their ranks. The officers of the Duke of Berwick's regiment, on declining to accept of certain Irish recruits, were all cashiered, and the evident weakness of his position alone prevented James from bringing them to trial as mutineers.

Finding that the civil and ecclesiastical orders opposed him in every measure, James unguardedly made a direct appeal to his English army, by whose swords he hoped to enforce universal obedience. Anxious that each regiment in succession should "give their consent to the repeal of the test and penal statutes," he appealed first to the battalion of the Earl of Lichfield, which the senior Major drew up in line before him, and requested that "those soldiers who did not enter into the King's views should lay down their arms."

Save two catholics, the entire regiment instantly laid their matchlocks on the ground!

Astonishment and grief rendered James speechless for a time; but his native pride recalled his energies.

"It is enough, my soldiers," he exclaimed haughtily. "Resume your arms! Henceforth I will not do you the honour of seeking your approbation."

Hurried on by the secret advices of the Jesuits, by his religious enthusiasm (bigotry, if you will), and by the evil genius that has seemed to haunt his race since the days of the first Stuart, James rendered yet wider the breach between him and his army. He distributed catholic officers and soldiers throughout the different English regiments, "and many brave protestant officers, after long and faithful service, were dismissed, without any provision, to favour this fatal scheme." The quota of Irish troops joined him at London, and, on chapels being established for the celebration of mass, the murmurs of the protestants became loud and unrestrained, and a storm of indignation was raised, which in these days of toleration, we can only view with a smile.

The ill-advised appointment of the Pope as sponsor for the young Prince of Wales, the vile and unfounded rumours concerning whose birth the hapless king felt keenly, and the universal approbation with which the secretly dispersed manifestoes of the coming invader were received throughout the land, shewed James that his throne was crumbling beneath him. The brave old Earl of Dartmouth, who lay at the Gunfleet, with thirty-seven vessels of war, and seventeen fireships, in consequence of a storm, was unable to attack the armament of William, who arrived at Torbay on the 5th of November, and immediately landed his Dutch, Scots, English, and French troops, under their several standards.

James, who had no small share of courage and military skill, now threw himself entirely on that army, which he had spent so many anxious years in fostering, training, and disciplining. He dispatched his son, the famous Duke of Berwick, to take possession of Portsmouth, and prevent the inhabitants declaring for the invader, who was then on the march for Exeter; meanwhile he hurried to Salisbury plain, and placed himself at the head of twenty battalions of infantry and thirty squadrons of cavalry, with a resolution to defend his crown to the death: but, alas! the spirit of disaffection, disloyalty, and ingratitude had already manifested itself in the camp. The desertions were numerous and alarming, while sullen discontent and open mutiny so greatly marked the conduct of those who remained, that save a few of the Scottish regiments, James found none on whom he could rely.

Lord Colchester, son of the Earl of Rivers, with many of his regiment, were among the first who deserted to the standard of the invader; Lord Cornbury, son of the Earl of Clarendon, followed, with three regiments of horse.

Lord Churchill, who, from a page, had been raised by James to the peerage and a high military command, also betrayed the blackest ingratitude, by forming a plot to seize his royal benefactor, and deliver him as a bondsman to the Prince of Orange. Failing in this, he deserted with several troops of cavalry, and took with him the Duke of Grafton, a son of the late king. Many officers of distinction informed the Earl of Faversham, their general, "that they could not in conscience fight against the Prince of Orange," and thus, hourly, the whole English army fell to pieces.

The spirit of disaffection soon spread into the Scottish ranks. Douglas, the perfidious general, with his own regiment of Red Dragoons, openly marched off to William with the Scottish standard displayed, and their kettle-drums beating, a circumstance which deeply affected James, for this was a corps on which he had particularly relied; but the treason of Douglas was ultimately avenged by a cannon-shot on the banks of the Boyne. James was a Stuart, and naturally founded his hopes on the soldiers of the nation from whence he drew his blood.

A battalion of Scots' Foot Guards next revolted under a corporal named Kempt, and then every regiment went over in succession under their several standards, save a troop of Dundee's Guards, a corps of dragoons, and the Scots' Royals, fifteen hundred strong, which yet remained loyal and true.

These repaired to Reading, where the gallant nobles, Dunbarton and Dundee, by exerting all their energies, re-mustered ten thousand men in ten days.

The former, with his single regiment alone, offered to attack the Dutch, and by a more than Spartan example of heroism and rashness, to shame their faithless comrades.

Meanwhile the Dutch drums beat merrily up for recruits, which poured to the banner of the invader on all hands, and horses were brought to mount the cavalry and drag the artillery.

All was lost!

The unhappy king, deserted nearly by all, found none near him to whom he could apply for consolation or advice, or in whom he could confide. By the instigation of Lady Churchill, even his daughter, the Princess Anne, left him, and retired to Nottingham. On finding himself now, when in the utmost extremity of distress, abandoned by a favourite daughter, whom he had ever treated with the utmost affection and tenderness, James raised his eyes and hands to heaven, and bursting into a passion of tears,—

"God help me!" he exclaimed, in the greatest agony of spirit; "God help me now, for even my own children, in my distress, have forsaken me!"

* * * *

CHAPTER XVII.

THE GUISARDS.

O mother, thus to fret is vain—
    My loss must needs be borne;
Death, death is now mine only gain—
    Would I had ne'er been born.
        God's mercies cease to flow—
    Woe to me, poor one, woe!
                                                BURGER'S LEONORA.

Walter had now been absent many weeks, and the constant fears expressed by Lady Grisel, with all the querulous and tedious prolixity of age, in no way tended to soothe the anxiety of Lilian. She was excessively superstitious, though guileless, kind, and simple, and daily saw terrible omens of impending ill. Black corbies flapped their wings incessantly on the steep gables, and the dead-bell was never done ringing in the cranies of the old house. Strange sounds rumbled behind the wainscoting, shrouds guttered in the candles, coffins fell out of the embers, and the indefatigable death-watch rang the live-long night in the recesses of her old tester bed. Her kindly-meant, but ominous insinuations, and her dreams of stricken fields and riderless horses, nearly drove Lilian to distraction, while old Elsie Elshender, who had been admitted to her confidence, failed not to make matters worse by shaking her palsied head mysteriously, and saying—

"It boded ill-luck to be betrothit wi' a dead woman's ring."

So passed the first weeks of their separation in tears and dark forboding, save when Lilian was with Annie Laurie, whose joyous buoyancy of spirit banished care and fear together. Of Lord Clermistonlee she had seen nothing of late, save on one occasion, when he had followed her from the Abbey porch to the Bowhead; but as she was attended by Drouthy, the butler, and another liveryman, well armed with swords, and pistols in their girdles, she was under no apprehension.

The state of Edinburgh was daily becoming more and more alarming.

As yet there had been no tidings of William's landing; but his friends were on the alert. Under Sir George Munro, a strong division of militia occupied the city; but on the march of the regular troops, these failed to prevent the disaffected from making the capital the focus of their operations. No sooner had the Scottish army crossed the borders, than the Presbyterians, and all revolutionary spirits, crowded to Edinburgh well armed, and there held secret and seditious meetings, which were attended by the Earls of Dundonald, Crauford, Glencairn, and others.

The subtle Mersington, the proud Earl of Perth, the reckless Lord Clermistonlee, and others of the haughty council, were made aware of all this by their numerous spies; but the formidable tribunal which had so long ruled the land by the sword and gibbet, was now completely paralysed by the appearance of many "sulky blue bonnets" crowding the streets; they failed to arrest a single individual, though treason, like a hundred-headed hydra, stalked in daylight through their thoroughfares, and declaimed in their public places. The lords had no tidings of events in the south; all their dispatches from the King being effectually intercepted by Sir James Montgomery, a revolutionist.

And now came hoary Christmas; but it seemed not as of old. It was a dreary one to poor Lilian; and the forebodings that hung over bolder hearts, chilled hers with apprehension. Old Arthur's bare ridge and rocky cone, the great chain of the Pentlands, and all the lesser hills that lie around them, were mantled with shining snow; the deep glens were impassable, and many flocks had perished in them. The cold norlan blast howled over the bleak Burghmuir, then a wide and frozen heath, save where, in some places, a venerable oak spread its glistening branches in the sparkling air. Above the lofty city to the north, that towered afar off on its ridgy hill, the dun smoke of a myriad winter fires ascended into the clear mid-air, and overhung its spires and fortress like a thunder-cloud, portentious of the storm that was brewing among its denizens. The great loch of the burgh lay frozen like a sheet of shining crystal; and there a few jovial curlers, forgetful of the desperate game of politics, shot the ponderous stones along their slippery rinks.

The great Yule-logs crackled and blazed merrily, as in other days, in the wide stone fire-place of the dining-hall, and old familiar objects and beloved faces glowed in its light; but Lilian's heart and thoughts were far away, and she seemed wholly intent on watching the sparks as they flew up the broad-tunnelled chimney.

The eve of Christmas was dark and gloomy. The moon was enveloped in clouds, and not a star was visible; but the frozen snow that covered the whole ground gave, by its whiteness, a reflected light. The hollow wind blustered in the bare copsewood and rumbled in the chimnies, and a very social but hum-drum party of old friends formed a circle round the fire-place in the chamber-of-dais.

Old Lady Grisel occupied her great-cushioned chair, with her spinning-wheel on one hand, and her cup of milk posset on a tripod table at the other. The neighbouring Laird of Drumdryan, a plain, hard-featured man, in an unlaced coat and hideous wig; Sir Thomas Dalyell, in a gala suit of laced buff, rather cross and irritable with a lumbago contracted in Muscovy; and the dowager Lady Drumsturdy, all stomacher, starch, and black satin, with Mistress Priscilla, her daughter and exact counterpart, occupied the foreground; while honest Syme of the Greenhill, in his plain hodden-gray coat, a flaming red vest, with ribbed galligaskins rolled over his knees, and his fat, comely dame, with her serge gown, laced coif, and bunch of household keys, sat respectfully a little behind.

While the two lairds were accommodated with silver tankards, which Mr. Drouthy replenished again and again with the burnt sack, then so much in vogue, the bluff ground baillie, in virtue of his humbler station, drank nut-brown ale from plain pewter. Every thing in the apartment was trimmed with green holly branches, and a mistletoe bough hung from the great dormont-tree of the ceiling, under which the long-bearded old cavalier saluted Lady Grisel's faded cheek with much good humour and courtesy.

"Yes, Simeon, it was the case," continued the latter, who was engaged in some prosy reminiscence of King Charles the First's days. "A fiery dragon was seen in the west, and it flew owre the Muirfute hills, towards the castle of Dunbar; and, that day month, a mournful field was fought and lost there."

"I weel mind the time, your ladyship," replied Simeon, scratching his galligaskins where he had received a thrust from a Puritan's pike; "but the fleeing dragon, wi' its fiery tail, was thought to portend——"

"Just such things, Simeon, as the bright lights in the north hae portended this month past. And ye ken, Sir Thomas, that the miraculous shower of Highland bannets whilk preceded the irruption of the ill-faured Redshanks into the west, in the December of '84, was another wonderful and terrible omen."

"True, Lady Grisel," replied Dalyell, taking a sip from his tankard; "but ane partaking owre mickle o' the leaven o' the auld Covenant (d—n it!) for an auld cavalier like myself to believe; unless auld Mahoud was the merchant that made sae free wi' his gear. He has owre lang been poking his neb in our Scottish affairs."

"O' which my late lord (rest him!) had most ocular proof," said Lady Drumsturdy, in a low impressive voice—"when he saw him, wi' horns and tail, dancing on the walls o' Blackness, in the hoar o' its upblawin', in the year 1652."*

* See Nicol's Diary.

"Cocksnails!" muttered Drumdryan, "here's the snow coming down the lum," and he shook the flakes from his wig.

"You are sitting owre far ben the ingle, laird."

"We'll hae a storm this night, sirs," said Simeon. "I ken by the sough o' the norlan wind—its gey driech and eerie."

"'Sdeath! I hope not," said Drumdryan. "I've a score o' braw bell-wethers owre the muir at the Buckstane; and I lost enough at Martinmas-tide, when twa hundred black faces were smoored in the Glen o' Braid."

"And there has been no word from England since the snow fell—six weeks?" said Lilian sighing.

"Some say the roads are deep, sweet mistress," said General Dalyell; "and others say the Orangemen are deeper: but the deil a scrap hath reached the Council since that rinawa' loon Craigdarroch arrived; and gude kens wha's hand maybe strongest by this time. But God bless the King and the gude auld cause!" continued the old cavalier, draining his tankard.

Drumdryan did the same, adding cautiously,—"The King, whae'er he be!"

"Out upon ye, Laird!" exclaimed Lady Grisel with great asperity. "Wha could he be but his sacred Majesty King James VII., whom I pray the blessed God to counsel wisely and protect."

"'Live and let live' has ever been my maxim, Lady Grisel; but such words may cost ye dear, if the next news frae Berwick be such as I expect," replied the sly laird, drinking with quiet composure.

Rage bristled in every hair of Dalyell's beard, and his eyes glistened like those of a rattlesnake. He could not speak; but the old lady, whose loyalty, fostered by that of the umquhile baronet, was tickled by these observations, brought her chair sharply round, and, striking her long cane emphatically on the floor, said to the shrinking delinquent—

"Shame on ye, Drumdryan!—is your blood turning to water, or what? Gif ye expect bad tidings, it is time that ye donned your buff coat and bandoliers, and had your steed in stall wi' garnissing and holsters. And mair let me tell thee, Sir Laird——but what is that I hear?—singing and mumming, eh? What is it, Simeon?"

"Guisards!" exclaimed Lilian, looking from the window down the snow-covered avenue—"guisards with links glinting and ribbons flaunting. A braw band, in sooth!"

At that moment a faint but merry chorus was heard upon the night wind that rumbled in the wide stone chimney, and a loud knocking rung on the barbican gate.

"Drouthy," said Lady Grisel, "away with ye to the buttery, and get some cogues of ale ready for the loons; and bid Elsie prepare some farls of bannock and cheese, while John the gardener lets them into the barbican, where we will hear them sing. Let twa men keep the door with partisans, that none may cross our threshold. In my time I heard of some foul treachery done by masked faces. Wow but the knaves are impatient," she added, as the knocking was energetically renewed at the outer gate. "And, Drouthy, d'ye hear, take a gude survey of them through the vizzy-hole."

The butler trotted off.

"Lady Grisel," said the General, rubbing his hands, "ye speak like a prudent dame; and a usefu' helpmate meet Sir Archibald maun hae found ye, for he saw hot work in his time."

"Kittle times mak' cautious folk," said the malecontent Drumdryan slowly; "but wi' a that, General, had I feared snow, my braw bell-wethers——"

"D—n you, and your bell-wethers to boot!" growled the fierce old Royalist. "Here come the guisards," and, save him, all rushed to the windows; the veteran cavalier, whose lumbago chained him to his bolstered chair, fidgetted and stroked his beard with a most vinegar expression of face.

Lilian clapped her hands with delight at the merry scene below.

From time immemorial, it has been the custom in Scotland for young people of the lower class, in the evenings of the last days of the old year, to go about from house to house in their neighbourhood, disguised in fantastic dresses, whence their name, guisards. The usual practice was to present them with refreshment; but that custom has departed with the other hospitalities of the olden time. They dance and sing a doggrel rhyme, adapted to the occasion or the person they visit; but, while the Catholic faith was the established one of Scotland, in their songs, the guisards were wont to proclaim the birth of Christ and the approach of the three kings who were to worship him; and some trace of this ancient religious ditty was discernible in the song sung by the visitors at Bruntisfield.

There were ten or more men, all stout, athletic fellows, each bearing a blazing torch, the united lustre of which lit up the deepest recesses of the old façade, under which they performed a fantastic morrice dance to their own music. They were all furnished with enormous masks, of the most grotesque fashion; from these rose head-dresses like sugar-loaves, covered with belis, beads, and pieces of mirror. Their attire was equally outré.

One was clad in the skin of a cow, having its horns fixed to the crown of his head, and the long tail trailing behind him in the snow. Another was furnished with an enormous nose, from which ever and anon a red carbuncle exploded with a loud report; and a third had nearly his whole body encased in an enormous head, which had a face expressive of the most exquisite drollery. Under this prodigious caput the diminished legs appeared to totter, while the jaunty waggery of its aspect was increased by a little hat and feather which surmounted it.

But the principal figure was a tall, fierce, and brawny, but very graceful man, clad in a fantastic robe of scarlet, with his legs curiously cased in shining metal scales: he had a black face of dreadful aspect, from three hideous red gashes, in which the blood was constantly dropping. He wore a crown of green ivy-leaves and scarlet hollyberries, wreathed among the sable masses of a voluminous beard and shock head of coarse hair. Through the openings of his scarlet robe, close observers might have observed a corslet glint at times. All were accoutred with swords and daggers.

Dancing in front, the red masker brandished his sputtering torch, and chanted in a deep bass voice the following rhyme:

"Trip and goe, heave and hoe,
Up and down, and to and fro;
By firth and fell, by tower and grove,
Merrily, merrily let us rove!"

Then the whole choristers struck in while whirling round, they brandished their torches and jangled their bells.

"Hogmenay! Hogmenay!
Trois Rois la! Homme est ne!

Never before had so droll and jovial a band of guisards been seen; and Lady Grisel, preceding all her guests, came cane in hand to the doorway to see their grotesque morrice-dance, and listen to their rhymes; and while the servitors were busy regaling them with ale, cheese, and bannocks, Lilian brought a cup of wine, which, in courtesy, she tendered to their leader. As he approached, she could not repress a shudder, so formidable was his aspect—so tall his stature—so large and dark the eyes with which he regarded her through that terrible mask, down the gaping lips of which he poured the ruddy Burgundy, and again tendered the cup to the fair Hebe who brought it.

As Lilian received it, his strong arm was thrown around her.

"Homme est ne!" he shouted, in a voice like a trumpet. There was a confused discharge of pistols—swords were seen to flash, and in an instant all the torches were extinguished. There was a stifled shriek; and the whole party were seen rushing down the avenue, leaving the barbican gate locked behind them.

"Clermistonlee!" exclaimed Lady Grisel, and swooned away in the arms of her people.

"Boot and saddle!—Horse and spear!—Ride and rescue!" exclaimed old Dalyell, forgetful of his lumbago and everything but the danger of Lilian. Rushing to the hall, no readier weapon than the poker was at hand; but, alas! it was chained to the stone pillar of the chimney-piece. Shrieks and outcries filled the mansion. Old Simeon the baillie, John Leekie the gardener, and others, snatched such weapons as came to hand; and, headed by Dalyell, who was now armed with his great Muscovite sabre, sallied forth to find themselves within the barbican, the strong iron gate of which defied all their attempts. The fierce old soldier rent his beard, and swore some terrible oaths in the Tartar, Russ, and Scottish tongues, till ladders were procured and the walls scaled.

They rushed down the avenue to find only the traces of many feet in the snow, the extinguished torches strewn about, the marks of horse-hoofs and coach-wheels, which, instead of going towards the city, wound over the Burghmuir towards the Castle of Merchiston; and, after many turnings and windings—made evidently to mislead pursuers, were lost altogether among the soft furzy heath at the Harestone, the standard-stone of the old Scottish muster-place.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE REVOLT AT IPSWICH.

I scorn them both! I am too stout a Scotsman,
To bear a Southron's rule an instant longer
Than discipline obliges.
                                                                                SCOTT.

Unconscious of this bold abduction, a whisper of which would have driven him mad, on the very night it took place, Walter Fenton was seated with Douglas of Finland in the public room of a large hostel or tavern in the central street of Ipswich.

It was the sign of the "Bulloign Gate:" the house was curious and old-fashioned; and on entering, one descended several steps, in consequence of the soil having risen upon the walls. Its fantastic front presented a series of heavy projections, rising from grotesquely-carved oak beams, diagonally crossed with spars of the same wood; little latticed windows, and two deep gloomy galleries, and projecting oriels, over which the then leafless woodbine and honeysuckle clambered, and from thence to the curious stacks of brick chimneys, and broad Swiss-like roofs, with their carved and painted eaves.

The host, a bluff and burly Englishman, with the whole of his vast obesity encased in a spotless-white apron, and exhibiting a great, unmeaning, and bald-pated visage, every line of which receded from the point of his pug nose, sat within the outer bar, where countless jugs of pewter, mugs of Delft, and crystal goblets shone in the light of a sea-coal fire, that roared and blazed in the wide fire-place of the public room.

At a table in one corner of the latter, a ponderously fat Southern was engaged in discussing several pounds of broiled bacon and a small basket of eggs. Over the great pewter trencher his round flushed face beamed like a full moon, while he had the wide cuffs of his coat turned up, and a great napkin like a bib tucked under his chin to enable him to sup without spotting his glossy suit of drap-de-Berri.

Near him were several groups of saucy-like citizens, in short brown wigs and plain broadcloth suits, playing at tric-trac, knave-out-o'-doors, and drinking mulled beer or egg-flip; while from time to time they eyed the Scottish officers askance, and whispered such jokes as the prejudices of the lower English still inspire them to make upon aliens. These they did, however, very covertly and quietly, not caring to enter into a brawl with two such richly-clad and stout cavaliers, armed with sword and dagger, and whose comrades, fifteen hundred in number, were all in the adjoining street.

Our friends sat silent and thoughtful, drinking each a posset of wine. Walter's eyes were fixed on the glowing embers of the fire and the changing figures they exhibited; while Finland seemed wholly intent on reading two papers pasted over the mantel-piece. One was the sailing notice of "the good ship Restoration, which was to sail from the Hermitage Bridge, London, for Leith, on the penult of next month, ye master to be spoke with on ye Scots Walk, where he would promise civility and good entertainment to passengers." The other was a proclamation, signed W.R., regarding the quarters of the Scottish forces in divisions. The cavalier's brow grew black as his eye fell on it; and he sighed, saying:

"Matters are now at a low ebb with the King. Religion and misfortune have fairly check-mated him, as we say at chess."

"Measter, say rather his curst Scottish pride and obstinacy," said a great burly fellow, whose striped apron and greasy doublet announced him to be a butcher. Finland gave him a scornful glance; but being unwilling to engage in a brawl, was about to address Walter again, when the corpulent citizen, having gorged himself to the throat, now felt inclined to be jocular; and looking at the long bowl-hilted rapiers and poignards of the Scots, said:

"Sword and dagger! by my feeth, thee art zo well vortified, that if well victualled, as thy coontryman, lousy King Jemmy, zaid to the swash-bookler, thee wouldst be impregnable. He was at Feversham by the last account," resumed the butcher, "with that long-nosed Jesuit, his confessor, about to embark vor France or Ireland—devil care which. Here is a long horn, lads, that King and confessor may gang to the bottom together."

"Silence, rascal!" said Walter. "Remember that we wear the King's uniform."

"Dom! and wot care I?" said the bumpkin, pushing forward with every disposition to annoy and insult, while a dozen of his townsmen crowded at his elbow. "Have ye not changed sides, like the rest of your canny coontrymen, and joined King William?"

"We have not!" replied Douglas, fiercely, making a tremendous effort to keep down the storm of passion and national hostility that blazed up within him. "Our solitary regiment alone remains yet true to James VII., over whom (with all his faults) I pray Heaven to keep its guard. I abhor his religion, and despise the bigots by whom he is surrounded, as much as you may do, good fellow; but I cannot forget that he is our rightful King; and for him, as such, I am ready to die on the field or the scaffold, should such be my fate."

The fire of his expression, the dignity of his aspect, and the splendour of his attire, completely awed the English boors, and for a moment they drew back.

"You mistake, good people, if you think that, like too many of our comrades, we have changed banners. No! we are still the faithful subjects of that King who heirs his crown by that hereditary right which comes direct from God. This Dutch usurper (whom the devil confound!) hath made us splendid offers if we will take service with him, and march to fight for his rascally Hollanders under Mareschal Schomberg, instead of our good and gallant Dunbarton; and, to intimidate us, is even now enclosing us in your town of Ipswich by blocking up the roads with troops. But let him beware! we have stout hearts and strong hands, and Dunbarton may show him a trick of the Black Douglas days, that will cool the Dutchman's courage, despite his black beer and Skiedam. Yes, Fenton; the arrival of Schomberg to command us bongré malgré will bring us to the tilt."

While Douglas spoke with animation and energy, the Ipswichers had gazed upon him with open mouths and eyes, not in the least comprehending him; but their champion, suddenly taking it into his head that he was defied, threw his hat on the ground, and tucked up his sleeves, saying:

"Dom, but I'll vicht thee for a vardin, an ye have zo much about thee. Dom thee and all thy lousy coontrymen; they should be droomed out o' the town, before they get fattened up among us. Come on, my canny Scot, and if I doant lace thy boof coat for all its tags and tassels, I aint Timothy Tesh of the Back Alley."

"Hoozah!" shouted the rabble in the room and at the doorway, where they had collected in great numbers on hearing high words in the tavern.

"Sawney, hast anything else than oats in thee pooch?" cried one.

"He hath some brimstone, I'll warrant," added another.

"Oot upon thee for a vile Scot that zold his king for a groat, to zave his precious kirk."

"Come on, Measter Scot, and I drub thee in vurst rate style as old Noll did thy psalm-sing countrymen at Dunbarfield. Rat thee! my vather was killed there."

"Heyday, my canny Scot, wilt try a fall with me for a copper bawbee? Dom thee and thy mass-moonging race of Stuarts to boot. May ye all go to hell in the lump!"

"Ware your money, my masters, there are Scots thieves among us," said the Host, entering into the spirit of his townsmen.

Walter and Douglas exchanged mutual glances expressive of the scorn they felt.

"Silence, knaves!" cried Finland, kicking over the table, dashing all the jugs to pieces, and drawing his sword. "This is but a poor specimen of that southern spirit of generosity and hospitality of which (among yourselves) we hear so much said. Bullying and grossly insulting two unoffending strangers, who are guiltless of the slightest provocation; and I tell thee, Butcher, that were it not beneath a gentleman of name and coat-armour to lay hands on your plebeian hide, I would break every bone it contains."

Flushed with ale and impudence, and encouraged by the presence of his friends, the fellow came resolutely forward; he was immensely strong and muscular, but rage had endued Douglas with double strength, and, seizing him by the brawny throat, he dashed him twice against the wall with such force, that the blood gushed from his nostrils in a torrent, and he lay stunned without sense or motion.

His comrades were somewhat appalled for a moment; but gathering courage from their numbers, and enraged at the rough treatment experienced by Mr. Tesh, they snatched up the fire-irons, stools, and chairs, and commenced a simultaneous assault upon the two cavaliers, who, rapier in hand, endeavoured to break through them and gain the doorway, where now a dense and hostile crowd had collected, who poured upon them a thousand injurious taunts and invectives.

The affair was beginning to look serious. Fired by their insolence and the old inherent spirit of national animosity Walter Fenton lunged furiously before him, and shredding the ear off one fellow, slashed the cheek of a second, ran a third through the shoulder-blade, but was borne to the ground by a blow from behind. Walter's sword-hand was completely mastered, and he struggled with his heavy assailants, unable to free his dagger or obtain the least assistance from Finland, who, with his back to the wall, was fighting with rapier and poignard against the dense rabble that pressed around him.

Walter struggled furiously. The moment was critical, but he was saved by the timely arrival of an officer with a few of the Royal Scots, who burst among them sword in hand.

"Place, villains—make way," he exclaimed, with the voice and bearing of one in high authority. "I am George Earl of Dunbarton!"

They fell back awed not less by his demeanour than by the weapons of his followers.

"Chastise these scoundrels, Wemyss," said he to a serjeant who followed him. "Lay on well with your hilts and bandoliers; strike, Halbert Elshender, for it is beneath a gentleman to lay hands on clod-poles such as these."

Thus urged, the soldiers who required little or no incentive to make use of their hands against their southern neighbours, laid on with might and main, and, clearing the house in a twinkling, drove the clamorous host out with his guests; after which they overhauled the premises, and set a few of his best runlets abroach.

"A thousand thanks, my Lord Earl, for this timely rescue," exclaimed Finland. "But for your intervention I must indubitably have hurried some of those rogues into a better world."

"And I had been worried like an otter by a pack of terriers," said Walter; "however, I have had blood for blood."

"The old Moss Trooper's justice, Master Fenton," said Serjeant Wemyss, drinking a flagon of wine. "God bless the good cause, and all true Scottish hearts."

"Here is to thee, Wemyss, my noble Halberdier," said the frank Earl, drinking from the same cup; "and I would to the Powers above, that this night King James had under his standard ten thousand hearts like thine. But time presses—away, lads, to the muster-place, for hark, our drums are beating."

"The générale!" exclaimed Fenton and Finland, as the passing drums rang loudly in the adjacent streets.

"Yes, gentlemen, the crisis has come," said the Earl; "an hour ago, De Schomberg arrived to deprive me of my command."

"By whose orders?"

"The Stadtholder's."

"We know him not, save as an usurper," said Walter Fenton; "and rather than obey his Mareschal, we will die with our swords in our hands."

Wemyss flourished his halbert, the soldiers uttered a shout, and poured forth to the muster-place.

It was a clear frosty night; the whole sky was of the most beautiful and unclouded blue. Seven tolled from the bells of St. Peter's church. The winter moon, broad, vast, and saffron-coloured, rising above a steep eminence called the Bishops' Hill, poured its flaky lustre through the narrow and irregular streets of Ipswich, which in 1688 differed very much from those of the present day. There terror and confusion reigned on every hand for, on the drums beating to arms, the mayor and inhabitants feared that the Scots would burn and sack the town, which assuredly they would have done, had Dunbarton expressed a wish to that effect.

Save where the bright moonlight shot through the crooked thoroughfares, the whole town was involved in gloom and obscurity; but every window was crowded with anxious faces, watching the Scots hurrying to their alarm-post, while the flashing of their helmets and the clank of their accoutrements impressed with no ordinary terror the timid and the disloyal.

By this time King James had fled from Whitehall, and under an escort of Dutch troops, was—nobody knew where. William was in possession of his palace, from whence he issued orders to the troops, and proclamations to the people, with all the air of a conqueror and authority of a king. The entire forces of Britain had joined him, save sixty gentlemen of the Scottish Life Guards, and a few of the Scots' Greys (who were on their way home, under Viscount Dundee), and the Royals, whom, from their number, discipline, and known faith to James, the Stadtholder was very desirous of sending abroad forthwith, under command of the Marshal-Duke of Schomberg, a venerable soldier of fortune, whose arrival at Ipswich on the night in question had brought matters to a sudden issue.

Clad in a plain buff coat, with a black iron helmet and breastplate, Dunbarton galloped into the market-place of Ipswich, where the two battalions of his musqueteers were arrayed, three deep, in one firm and motionless line, with the moon shining brightly on their steel caps, their glittering bandoliers, and the gleaming barrels of their shouldered arms. As he dashed up, the four standards—two of white silk, with the azure cross, and two with the old red lion and fleurs-de-lys—were unfurled, and a crash of prolonged music rang through the echoing street, and many a bright point flashed in the moonlight as the arms were presented, and the hoarse drums rolled the Point of War, while the handsome Earl bowed to his holsters, as he reined up his fiery horse before his gallant comrades. The music died away, again the harness rang, and then all became still, save the hum of the fearful crowd, and the rustle of the embroidered banners.

"Fellow-soldiers of the Old Royals!" exclaimed the Earl, "at last the hour has come which must prove to the uttermost if that faith and honour which have ever been our guiding-stars, our watchword and parole, still exist among us—when we must strike, or be for ever lost! Through many a day of blood and danger we have upborne our banners in the wars of Luxembourg, of the great Condé, and the gallant Turenne; and shall we desert them now? I trow not! Oh! remember the glories of France and Flanders, of Brabant and Alsace. Remember the brave comrades who there fell by your side, and are now perhaps looking down on us from amid these sparkling stars. O, my friends, remember the brave and faithful dead!

"Shall it be said that the ancient Royals, les gardes Ecossais of the princely Louis, so faithful and true to the race of Bourbon, deserted their native monarch in this sad hour of his fallen fortune, and at most extremity? No! I know ye will serve him as he must be served, till treason and rebellion are crushed beneath our feet like vipers—I know you will fight to the last gasp, and fall like true Scottish men—I know ye are prepared to dare and to do, and to die when the hour comes!"

A deep murmur of applause rang along the triple ranks.

"That hour is come! Even now, Frederick De Schomberg, the tool and minion of the Dutch usurper and his parricidal wife, is within the walls of Ipswich, empowered to deprive me of my baton, which I hold from the Parliament of Scotland, and to lead you—where? To the foggy flats and pestilential fens of Holland, the land of agues and hypocrisy, to fight for his beggarly boors and pampered burgomasters, and to encounter our ancient comrades of France—the bold and beautiful France, whose glories we and our predecessors have shared on a thousand immortal fields. Between us and our home lie many hundred miles. De Ginckel, with three thousand Swart Ruyters, hovers on the Lincoln road to intercept us; Sir John Lanier, with two squadrons of English cavalry, awaits us on another; while that false villain Maitland, with a foot brigade of our Scottish guards, is pushing on from London to assail our rear. But fear not, my good and gallant comrades, for by the blessing of God, by the holy consecration of these standards, by the strength of our hands, by the valour of our hearts, and the justice of our cause, we will cut our way through ten thousand obstacles, and reach the far-off hills of the Scottish highlands, where the loyal clans are all in arms, and wait but the appearance of Dundee and myself to sweep like a whirlwind down on the Lowlander!"

A loud shout from fifteen hundred men rang through the market-place, and the brave heart of Dunbarton swelled with exultation at the devotion of his loyal soldiers, and anger at the desertion of their false comrades. He was not, however, without considerable anxiety as to the issue of this decided revolt, or rather appeal to arms, at such a distance from their native land, and in a place where they were so utterly without sympathy, succour, or friends—where to be a Scotsman was to be an enemy. But the very desperation of the attempt endued him with fresh energy. Ere he marched his devoted band, he addressed Gavin of that ilk, a tall gigantic officer, with a rapier nearly five feet long—

"Go to the house of the town treasurer, and tell him instantly to hand you over 10,000l. for the service of King James, under pain of immediate military execution. If the villain demur——"

"I'll twist his neck like a cock-patrick!" said Gavin.

"You will rejoin us at the bridge of the Orwell."

"And how if these rascally burghers make me prisoner?"

"Then, by the blood of the Black Douglas!" said the Earl, passionately, "I will not leave one stone of Ipswich standing upon another."

Gavin strode away, and his tall feathers were seen floating above the heads of the shrinking crowd that occupied the lower end of the marketplace.