As he concluded, the singer approached Her Majesty with the information she had sent him to seek.
Softened by her sorrows, influenced by the time, the scene, the devotion of her follower, feeling now more than ever the value of such kind adherents, what could Mary do but reach him graciously the white hand that was not the least attractive of her peerless charms? And if Chastelâr pressed it to his lips with a fervour that partook more of the lover’s worship than the subject’s loyalty, what less was to be expected from an overwrought imagination, and a susceptible heart, thus brought in contact with the most fascinating woman of the age? And the Queen drew away her hand hurriedly, rather than unkindly, with a consciousness not wholly displeasing, and Mary Seton looked discreetly into the far distance, as though there was something unusually interesting in that dull expanse of sea. And Mary Hamilton, clasping both hands tightly to her heart, leaned her head against the bulwark, and said nothing; but rose, as if intensely relieved, when an increasing bustle on board the galley, and a general movement amongst its inmates, denoted some fresh alarm, and the necessity for increased watchfulness and exertion.
It was even so. Their consort, holding a parallel course at no great distance, had caught sight of the English cruisers, who, whatever might be their orders from ‘good Queen Bess,’ were as much mistrusted by d’Elbœuf in his command of the Scottish Queen’s little squadron, as by d’Amville who took her own galley under his especial charge. In those days the sea and land services were not so distinct as now.
Signals were exchanged between the two galleys to make all possible speed, and the slaves, grateful for Mary’s interposition on their behalf, laid to their oars with a will, in a manner that could never have been extorted from them by the lash. As there was but little wind, they soon increased their distance from the English men-of-war, who, however, came up with and captured one of the French ships containing the Earl of Eglinton and the Queen’s favourite saddle-horses. Mary herself, nevertheless, escaped their vigilance, and an increasing fog soon shrouded the little convoy from its pursuers.
Thus in darkness and danger, too ominous, alas! of her subsequent career, Mary Stuart sped on towards the coast of Scotland, leaving behind her the sunny plains of her beloved France, as she left behind her the bright days of her youth,—days that she seemed instinctively to feel were never to dawn for her again through the storms and clouds that brooded over the destinies of her future kingdom.
About the same hour at which the galley bearing Mary Stuart and her fortunes, eluded, in the increasing darkness, the vigilance of the English cruisers, an archer of the Scottish Body-guard, with whom we have already made acquaintance, might have been seen pacing to and fro on a strip of white sand adjoining Calais harbour. After a long day of labour and excitement, preparatory also to a ride of some two hundred miles on the morrow, this midnight walk was perhaps the least judicious method of passing the hours sensible persons devote to repose. Our archer, nevertheless, continued it with a perseverance that denoted considerable preoccupation, pausing at intervals to gaze wistfully on the sea, and anon resuming his exercise, as if goaded to bodily effort by some acute mental conflict.
In honest truth, like Sinbad the Sailor, he was oppressed by a metaphorical Old Man of the Sea, that he could not get rid of, although in his case the unwelcome equestrian had assumed the form of a prevailing idea, connected with a young woman instead of an old man, and resembling Sinbad’s encumbrance in no particular except the tenacity with which it clung.
Reader, it is worth while to go to the Pampas to see a Gaucho lasso and mount a hitherto unbroken horse. How the animal, conscious of his degradation, fights and rears and plunges, wincing from the cruel spurs to rise at the maddening bit! How his eye dilates and his nostril reddens, and his whole form contracts with mingled fear and rage! Shaking his head wildly, he dashes ere long into a headlong gallop, and becomes stupefied to discover that, even at his fiercest speed, he bears his tormentor along with him. Subdued at last, he bends his neck to the hand that has tamed him, and experiences a new sensation of increased power and confidence in submitting to the master-will. So is it with a manly, resolute nature, when it first feels the influence of another’s existence on its own. There is a certain charm, indeed, in the novelty of the sentiment, but there is also surprise, apprehension, and a strong disposition to oppose and crush the unaccustomed usurpation. After many an unavailing struggle, the conquered must, however, submit to the conqueror; and, like other slaves, he loses the desire for liberty with the consciousness of incapacity to be free. Use in time renders him perfectly docile and broken-in; at last he is perfect in all the paces of the manége, and carries one rider nearly as pleasantly as another. He is a useful hack now, but the mettle of the wild-horse has left him for evermore.
Our archer was in the first stages of his tuition. He was, so to speak, only lately caught and mounted. We can but wish him a merciful rider with a kind heart and a light hand!
Walter Maxwell, for such was the name in which he stood enrolled on the list of the Archer-guard, was the younger son of an old Scottish family, possessed of an unblemished pedigree, considerable territorial possessions, and a sad lack of broad pieces. Then, as now, the upper classes in Scotland, with many noble qualities, were cursed with a morbid desire for the shadow rather than the substance of wealth. In Queen Mary’s days, the pound Scots represented in value the shilling English. In Queen Victoria’s, the laird on one side the Tweed, with his few hundreds a year, would fain make believe that his possessions equal those of the squire on the other, who owns as many thousands. His difficulties, his shortcomings, his meannesses originate in this, the paltriest of all ambition, that would make his shilling look like half-a-crown. Frugal and industrious as are her peasantry, prosperous and enterprising as are her yeomen and traders, probably the gentry of Scotland are at this moment more oppressed with difficulties than the parallel class in any other country under the sun.
In the time of which we write, the Scottish nobility were afflicted with the same unfortunate tendencies. There was then even more of display abroad and less of ease at home; whilst the unsettled state of the country, compelling every baron to entertain as many feudal retainers as he could arm and feed, helped to drain their resources to the very dregs. Violence and intrigue, political as well as private, were naturally resorted to by those who had no other means of replenishing their empty purses; and what with old feuds strictly entailed, and new differences perpetually arising, Scotland could only be likened to some huge cauldron, in which a thousand different ingredients were boiling, and the scum perpetually rising to the surface.
In such a state of things there was not much provision for younger brothers; and as the somewhat heathenish doctrine, not yet eradicated, then prevailed of considering individuals simply as links in a line, and postponing all personal claims to those of that great myth—the family—it may easily be imagined that the younger sons of a noble Scotch house had small cause to congratulate themselves on their aristocratic lineage.
Walter Maxwell might consider himself fortunate that he had the shelter of the old tower at home until he had arrived at the strength and stature of a man—that he was permitted to feed at the same board, and enjoy the same pastimes as his elder brother, the heir—that he might follow to her grave with a son’s decorous grief the mother who had doted on her youngest—and that his share of the family possessions was not limited to its name, but included a right to breathe the moorland air round the old place till he had attained his fifteenth year. Perhaps, after all, he inherited his share of the patrimony. He gained health and strength, and good manhood, on its broad acres. He learned to back a horse in its meadows, and fly a hawk on its hills, to swim in its dark loch, and to wield a blade within its walls. Perhaps, in bequeathing him an iron constitution, a vigorous frame, and a courageous heart, the old lord had done enough for the golden-haired child who used to come running to him after supper, and pull his gray moustaches, and climb merrily upon one knee, whilst the heir occupied the other.
At fifteen Walter Maxwell went out upon the world. A year after, he was the youngest gentleman private in the French king’s Archer-guard. Many a dame in Paris would turn round to look again on the blooming youthful face—almost a child’s still—so pleasing in its contrast with that manly form, clad in the showy armour of the guard. The Duchess of Valentinois herself had desired to have the young boy-archer presented to her; and it is to be presumed that Diane de Poitiers, a lady of mature experience, was no mean judge of masculine attractions. A word from the woman he so adored was sufficient to interest Henry II. in the Scottish recruit, and Walter Maxwell was more than once selected for duties demanding discretion as well as fidelity and courage. All these qualities were, indeed, in constant request at such a court as that of the French king. At a more advanced age, the young soldier had also distinguished himself in the disastrous affairs of St Quentin and Gravelines, where the French suffered serious defeats; and it was but the consistency with which he remained steadfast to the Protestant religion that stood in the way of his rapid promotion. He was a favourite, too, with his comrades for his courage and soldier-like bearing beyond his years, as well as for the indefinable attraction of those buoyant spirits which, like the bloom of youth on the cheek, seldom outlast maturity.
During the reign of Henry II., that chivalrous monarch, notwithstanding his severity to the Protestants, and the prevalence of their religion amongst his Scottish Archers, placed the most implicit confidence in his body-guard, riveting their unshaken loyalty with many favours and immunities, till they walked the streets of the capital objects of admiration and envy to the very grandees themselves. Perhaps the warlike Henry was of opinion that a soldier’s religion need not interfere with his obedience; and, indeed, too many of the Archers might have made the same answer, that some two centuries and a half later the old grenadier of the Empire gave on a question of doctrine to the Pope,—‘Et de quelle religion es tu, mon fils?’ asked his Holiness of the grim sentry who kept the door that led into the awful presence of Napoleon I. ‘Je suis de la religion de la Vieille Garde,’ replied the veteran, with an astounding clatter of his musket, as he ‘carried arms’ to the Pontiff. We take leave to doubt if the Protestantism of the Scotch Guard often stood in the way of Henry’s commands to his favourites.
But the evil day dawned at last. In the pride of his manly beauty, and the vigour of his warlike frame, the king of France rode gallantly into the lists, to break a lance in sport for the bright eyes of his ladye-love. On his helmet he wore the colours of Diane de Poitiers. And the duchess herself, looking down from the gallery, felt her heart leap with pride in the noble appearance of her royal lover. What shall we say of Henry’s infatuation for this seductive woman, nearly twenty years his senior, himself the husband of the most accomplished lady in Europe, for Catherine of Medicis was notoriously as wise as she was beautiful? What, but that it is folly to argue on the wilfulness of the human heart, and that the most untoward and ill-advised attachments are apt to prove the strongest and the most fatal. The king loved her madly, and was not ashamed to avow his passion openly in the sight of France. Walter Maxwell attended the sovereign as one of his squires, and bore a knot of the same coloured ribbons on his bonnet.
And now the trumpet sounds a flourish, and the king, raising his vizor, calls for a bowl of wine, and without dismounting, quaffs it with an ill-concealed gesture of courtesy to some one in the gallery—then, a perfect horseman, he backs his charger to his post. Opposite, like a statue sheathed in steel, sits his antagonist, the captain of the Archer-guard. A proud man to-day is Gabriel, Earl of Montgomery, for the Scottish peer has been chosen to break a lance with the French king, in presence of two royal brides and their bridegrooms! There is a hush of pleased expectation and interest over the whole assembly; only the Duchess of Valentinois turns pale with ill-defined apprehension. She feels the value of her last love, wildest and dearest of all, lawless though it be. It was but this morning the king told her in jest, he should not close his vizor lest she might not recognise him; and she had chidden him, half playfully, half in earnest, for the insinuation. She would know that warlike form she thinks in any disguise—and the colour mounts again to her face as she catches his last glance, while he settles himself in the saddle, and lays his lance in the rest. He has not closed his helmet, after all! She will chide him seriously, though, to-night, for his selfish carelessness of danger. Again the trumpet sounds, and the lances shiver fairly in mid-career. Firm and erect, the king reaches the opposite extremity of the lists; then, swaying heavily in the saddle, falls in his ringing harness to the ground. The Queen and her ladies rushed tumultuously into the lists. Catherine de Medicis has a right to succour her husband. Diane de Poitiers, sick and faint, loses her consciousness in a swoon. She is scarcely noticed, for all are crowding round the king.
Alas for the gallant monarch! Alas for the bold man-at-arms! A splinter from Montgomery’s lance has entered the eye through the unclosed helmet, and penetrated nearly to the brain. Ere twelve days elapse, Catherine de Medicis is a widow. Francis II. has succeeded to the throne, and Mary Stuart is Queen of France.
The favour of the Duchess of Valentinois was no passport, we may fairly suppose, to the good graces of the queen-mother; and although Walter Maxwell retained his appointment in the guard, his hopes of advancement perished with the death of his royal patron. Such disappointments, however, though they press heavily on an enthusiastic spirit, are lightly borne by such a temperament as Maxwell’s. His disposition was naturally calm and unimpressionable beyond the average. He possessed the rare quality of seeing things as they were, and not as he wished them to be. Above all, he had that quiet confidence in himself which could wait patiently for an occasion, and seize it without hurry or agitation when it arrived. Moreover, he had been brought up in the stern school, that turns out the most finished pupils, after all. Poverty and hardship give their lessons for nothing; but men remember them better than Latin and Greek. We may be allowed to doubt whether all George Buchanan’s classic lore and pedantic periods were as well worth acquiring as Maxwell’s aptitude to saddle, shoe, and groom his own horse, cook his own rations, burnish his own corslet, and keep his head with his hand.
Changes also took place in the Scottish Guard. The Earl of Arran, heir to the house of Hamilton, was appointed to its command, and already that eccentricity began to manifest itself which was fostered, at last, into madness, by the sunshine of Mary’s unconscious smiles. Arran chose to alter the discipline, the accoutrements, and the whole system of the corps, and such interference with their old habits was by no means relished by its members. During the short reign of Francis II., Mary Stuart’s sympathies with her countrymen, and knowledge of their customs and prejudices, checked many a proposed innovation that would have created open dissatisfaction; but when she became a dowager Queen, and Charles IX. succeeded to the throne, the archers found themselves curtailed of many of their privileges, and no longer looked upon as what they considered themselves—the élite of the French army. Seeing, however, that, like the famous ‘gants glacés’ of a later period, they had earned this position by constantly volunteering for all dangerous duties, they might well be uneasy at the prospect of forfeiting a distinction it had cost so much hard fighting to attain.
It was during the short eighteen months of Mary’s reign as Queen of France, that our archer, in virtue of his office, was brought in contact with the fascinating sovereign and her court. That he became the devoted adherent of his royal countrywoman is not to be wondered at; but in Maxwell’s consistent loyalty to the Stuart there lurked a deeper feeling of interest than he liked to allow even to himself; an interest that he could not but connect with another Mary attached to the person of her mistress. The Queen, as is well known, was a daring and skilful horsewoman; a masculine accomplishment, by the way, that many womanly natures acquire with great ease. Perhaps, as its chief art consists in ruling by judicious concession, they have learned half the lesson before they get into the saddle. As a natural consequence, Mary was passionately fond of the chase, and followed it with a degree of recklessness somewhat discomfiting to her less courageous or worse-mounted attendants. In fact, she sustained more than one severe fall without its curing her in the least of her galloping propensities.
It fell out on one occasion, near the Castle of Chambord, whither the court had repaired for this princely recreation, that our archer was in attendance on Mary and her suite at the moment the stag was unharboured, and, with a burst of inspiriting music, the hounds were laid on. The Queen, as was her custom, went off at a gallop, outstripping her attendants, and followed, at unequal distances, by the whole cavalcade. Walter Maxwell, on a clambering, Roman-nosed French horse, was plying his spurs to keep within sight of the chase, when a faint scream of distress, and a young lady borne past him at a pace that showed she was run away with, diverted his attention from the pleasures to the exigencies of the moment. Though the animal beneath him was neither speedy nor active, he managed, by a skilful turn, to reach her bridle rein, and so, guiding her impetuous horse into an alley that diverged from the line of the chase, succeeded in stopping him before his own was completely exhausted. While the young lady did not, in the least, lose her presence of mind, she was naturally a little discomposed and a good deal out of breath. Nevertheless, she thanked her preserver with frank and graceful courtesy, avowing, at the same time, in very broken sentences, her inability to control the animal she rode.
The confession was tantamount to a request that her new friend would not leave her. The most determined Nimrod could scarcely have abandoned a lady who thus placed herself under his charge, and Walter Maxwell, with his passionless exterior, had a good deal of that manly generosity in his composition, which warms at once to the unprotected and the weak. Instead of toiling after the whole company, then, on a tired horse, behold him riding quietly through beautiful woods, by the side of a young lady, whose peace of mind seemed to depend on his keeping his hand on her bridle rein.
People soon become acquainted when thus associated. Mary Carmichael, with a colour much heightened from a variety of causes, and her rich brown hair disordered by her gallop, had never looked prettier in her life; whilst a glance or two shot at her protector from under her riding-hat satisfied her that he was a gentleman of good nature and lineage, also that she had remarked him more than once before, when fulfilling his duties as a guardsman about the court. Before they had ridden a mile, he had told her his name and all about himself.
‘A Maxwell!’ exclaimed the young lady, whose apprehensions were by this time considerably soothed. ‘I ought to have known you for a Maxwell at once. You’ve got the frank brow, and the ready hand, and the silent tongue of the Maxwells.’ Here she checked herself with a laugh and blush, whereat her companion laughed and coloured a little too. ‘Why, we are kinsfolk at that rate,’ she added, courteously. ‘My mother’s niece married a Maxwell of the Den, and they are a branch of the Terreagles Maxwells, and so are you.’
‘I have left home so long,’ answered Walter, gravely, ‘I cannot count my kin; and yet I will take your word for it. I should think the better of myself,’ he added with a smile, ‘to have a right to call you cousin.’
The archer rarely smiled; when he did, his usually stern features softened and lighted up almost into beauty. The change was not unmarked by the maid-of-honour.
‘A Carmichael never failed a kinsman,’ said she, and her voice shook a little, while her soft eyes gleamed;—‘or the old tower would be looking down still upon Dumfries, and there would be more than a blackened arch, and a few mounds of grass standing by the hearth-stone, where my father once received King James. Well, Sir Archer, you have done a cousinly deed for me at least to-day.’
Perhaps she expected he would make some acknowledgment of his good fortune in the opportunity, but Maxwell rode on in silence. A French gallant would have overwhelmed her with eloquence, and few men but would have hazarded a few compliments, however trifling. She scarcely seemed offended, nevertheless. Her mute companion was absorbed in a brown study, thinking how well she looked in her riding-gear. It may be that her woman’s intuition told her as much.
Presently a burst of horns in the distance announced the direction of the chase. Mary Carmichael’s steed pricked his ears, and showed symptoms of insubordination once more. Walter’s grasp was on the bridle in an instant, and the rider thanked him with a grateful smile.
‘The ready hand!’ she said, laughing. ‘Was I not right in saying you inherited the gifts of your family?’
‘It must excuse the silent tongue,’ he answered. ‘I am no squire of dames, and you ladies of the court must needs look down on the unpolished soldier. And yet his silence may offer more of respect and regard in its humility than the loudest professions of admiration from those who have never been taught to say less than they think, and think less than they feel.’
‘And receive twice as much in return,’ she replied, in a very low voice, and averting her face from her companion as she spoke. Then she put her horse into a quicker pace, and ere long they met and joined a party of the courtiers returning from the chase.
After this, though they saw each other but seldom, and had no more rides together, there was a sort of tacit understanding between the two. Nobody remarked that if Walter Maxwell was on guard, Mary Carmichael’s manner displayed more animation, and her dress was, if possible, more becomingly arranged than usual. Nobody remarked that one of the archers, more than any of his comrades, displayed unusual readiness in volunteering for all duties that brought him near the Queen’s person, and never seemed so contented as when riding in her escort, or mounting guard at her door. Yet it was true, notwithstanding; and, although not a word had been exchanged by these young persons of a more explicit tendency than those we have related, there had yet sprung up between them one of those mysterious affinities, that in this world of ours lead to such troublesome results.
It was not till Mary Carmichael had sailed for Scotland in the suite of her royal mistress, that it occurred to Maxwell he was losing time and opportunities by remaining in his present service at the court of France. He wondered it had never before struck him so forcibly, that the Archer-guard no longer occupied its proud position in the land of its adoption—that its privates were no longer so well born, its drill so exact, nor its discipline so perfect as in the days of its old commander, Montgomery—that Arran was a weak-minded enthusiast, who would finish by disgusting both officers and men—and that Charles IX. was already beginning to look coldly upon them, and depriving them, one by one, of the privileges by which they set such store. Then his patron, Montmorency, was getting infirm and worn out; and with the constable’s demise, adieu to his hopes of advancement in the service of France!
Mary Stuart, too, in her new kingdom, would need all the stout hands and loyal hearts that she could muster. It was clearly the duty of every Scotchman to rally round the fair young queen.
Ere our archer had concluded his midnight walk, he had made up his mind; and as he posted back his long ride to Paris, the following day, he resolved to claim his dismissal from the French king, and to seek his fortune once more in the land of his birth.
At the time of which we write there were few worse places wherein to be benighted than that wild district on the borders of England and Scotland, appropriately called the ‘Debatable Land.’ Bleak and barren, on a gusty evening late in autumn, a less desirable locality for the traveller could scarcely be imagined; and he must have been a hardy adventurer who would not have preferred the dirtiest corner of the smokiest hostelry to the uncertain track that led through its morasses, especially on a tired horse. Such was the reflection uppermost in Walter Maxwell’s mind as he marked the dusky horizon becoming more and more indistinct, and calculated the diminishing chances of his reaching the Castle of Hermitage, where he had hoped to find rest and refreshment with his kinsman, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, and, doubtless, in that country where horses were so easily come by, a fresh mount to take him northward on the morrow. No longer an archer of the Scottish Guard, Maxwell was on his way to Edinburgh from the English seaport at which he had landed in returning from France. With his reputation as a soldier and his family connexions, he had little doubt but that he would be welcome at Holyrood; and indeed, had it been otherwise, an indefinable attraction, that he would not have confessed, seemed to draw him irresistibly towards the Scottish capital.
During the whole of his journey, however, by land and sea, his destination had never seemed so remote, nor the likelihood of his reaching it so small, as at present.
‘Hold up, you brute!’ said Maxwell, as he felt if the straps of his corslet were secure and his sword loose in its sheath, whilst his poor horse took that opportunity of floundering on its head.
‘Hold up! If you fall you’ll never get up again; and unless mine host’s directions were inspired by beer and brandy, we must be a good way off Hermitage yet. Happily the moon is rising every minute. Well, you were a good beast this morning, though you’re not worth your four shoes now!’
While he spoke, he patted the poor animal on the neck, and, as if encouraged by the caress, it pricked its ears and mended its pace of its own accord.
Maxwell was too old a soldier not to be on the alert in such a situation: it was with a feeling more of annoyance than surprise that he heard the tramp of horses advancing at a rapid pace over the sounder sward he had left behind him; and whilst he shortened his reins and hitched his sword-belt to the front, it was but with a dogged consciousness that, though he meant to fight to the last, he was sure to get the worst of it, outnumbered, and on a tired horse.
He had, however, the caution to halt on the far side of some broken and boggy ground; so that the new comers, whom he now made out to be but two, must attack him at a disadvantage, if they intended violence; and he thought how he could best separate them, that they might not both set on him at once.
The horsemen, however, halted immediately they caught sight of him, and the foremost called out in a loud, frank voice, undoubtedly English in its tone—
‘Is it friend or foe? A man must be one or other in the Debatable Land!’
‘Friend!’ answered Maxwell confidently, adding, as an earnest of his sincerity, ‘Keep near the big stone, or you’ll go in up to your girths!’
Following his advice, the horseman and his attendant, who appeared nothing more than a simple domestic, emerged upon sound ground. The former was admirably mounted, and although his dress denoted the gentleman rather than the soldier, he sat his horse with the ease of a skilful cavalier.
Maxwell made out also in the moonlight that he was perfectly armed, wearing both pistols and rapier, and carried a small valise, with somewhat ostentatious care, on the saddle in front of him.
‘Friend!’ he repeated, bowing ceremoniously, as he brought his horse alongside Maxwell’s, ‘foes are more plentiful in this district on a moonlight night. We may meet some gentlemen hereabouts who would give us anything but a “Highland welcome.” As we are going in the same direction, by your good leave we will travel together. Union is strength; although,’ he added, glancing at the other’s tired horse, ‘haste is not speed.’
His manner was courtly, or rather courtier-like, in the extreme, and Maxwell saw at a glance he had to do with one of the porcelain vessels of the earth; yet there was a conventional tone of indifference, a something of covert sarcasm, and implied superiority in his voice, that jarred upon the franker nature of the soldier.
They rode on, however, amicably together—the attendant, a burly Southron, apparently by no means easy either in mind or body, keeping close behind his master. The latter was bound, he said, for Hermitage, which he hoped to reach before midnight, and he seemed to treat his new companion with a shade more deference when he learned that Maxwell was a kinsman of the redoubted Earl of Bothwell.
Some men have a knack of extracting information without affording any in return, and this faculty appeared to be largely possessed by the well-mounted traveller, who, while he conversed with the ease and freedom of a thorough man of the world, dropped every now and then a leading question that denoted an insatiable and unscrupulous curiosity.
The Scotch have generally an insurmountable dislike to being ‘pumped,’ and Maxwell, whose shrewdness soon perceived his new friend’s intention of subjecting him to that process, resented it by an increased reserve, which subsided ere long into an almost unbroken silence.
They rode on for some time, accordingly, interchanging only an occasional remark—the stranger accommodating his horse’s pace to that of his new acquaintance, whilst his servant jogged painfully along behind him, suffering obviously from abrasion, the curse of unpractised riders, and seeking relief, as well by sighs and groans, as by fruitless changes of position in the saddle. The moon shone out brightly, and its light enabled Maxwell to examine the face and figure of his comrade.
He was a spare man, of less than middle age, with the marks of good breeding apparent in his thin, sharp features, and small feet and hands. His figure, though too angular, was sufficiently graceful; and his face, though pale, bore the clear hue of a healthy and enduring constitution;—although he would have been a well-looking man enough, but for the restless expression of his small gray eyes, which peered from under the straight thick eyebrows with a vigilance amounting to suspicion, and the thin, firmly-compressed lips, a little drawn in at the corners, as if by an habitual sneer.
Maxwell, accustomed, in his warlike life, to judge of men at a glance, found himself vaguely speculating on an exterior beyond which he could not penetrate. The shaven lip and cheek denoted a man of peaceful profession; but the finished horsemanship, the hanging of the sword, the readiness with which his hand sought his pistol-holsters, savoured of the soldier. Again, his thoughtful brow and worn face might well become some distinguished scholar or man of science; but the tone of his conversation, and the levity of his bearing, contradicted the supposition that he could belong to the ‘wise ones of the earth.’ He seemed conscious, too, of his new friend’s observation, and more inclined to court than shrink from it, as if priding himself on the impenetrable reserve, with which he could combine an appearance of extreme cordiality. The restless eyes, however, were not still for an instant; and the soldier, in the midst of his speculations, was equally startled and shamed by the observation which aroused him, and proved that the civilian’s vigilance had been far more active than his own.
‘I thought so!’ said the latter, speaking in quiet, rapid tones. ‘There are night-hawks abroad, as usual, in this cursed wilderness. Did you not see the glitter of a head-piece over the height yonder? Now, if these are jackmen out on their own account, you and I will have to trust to the speed of our horses, which is doubtful, and our knowledge of the locality, which is negative—this poor devil will have his throat cut to a certainty.’
Even at this disagreeable juncture, the man spoke in a bantering tone, as it were between jest and earnest. His servant, a stout, able-bodied fellow enough, regarded his master with a ludicrous expression of dismay.
‘Your horse is fresh, and looks like a good one,’ answered Maxwell, somewhat contemptuously; ‘keep round the shoulder of that hill, and you will find a beaten track that leads to Hermitage. At least, so they directed me. Mine is tired; I can’t run; so I must fight. If I arrive not by daybreak, you will know what has become of me, and can tell the Warden he should keep better order on the Marches.’
The other laughed outright.
‘A sharp pair of spurs are no bad weapons on occasion,’ said he; ‘but I am much afraid I must trust to other friends to-night.’ He laid his hand on his holsters, and continued, ‘Those fellows will come in again in front of us, and I had rather face every outlaw in Britain, from Robin Hood downwards, than turn back into the wilderness. Let us halt for a minute. I can hear the tramp of their horses even now.’
As the three drew up under the shadow of some rising ground, they could distinctly hear the gallop of horses and the clatter of arms on the other side of the acclivity.
‘There are half a score at least,’ observed Maxwell, with increasing animation. ‘You are quite right—they want to intercept us in the pass yonder. What say you, sir? Shall we pay them in steel or silver? for metal they will have. Can your servant fight?’
‘Like a devil,’ answered the other, ‘when it is impossible to run away; and, faith, he’ll be between two fires to-night, for I can hear a body of horse in our rear as well. What say you, Jenkin? Had you not rather be lying drunk in the filthiest gutter in Eastcheap than make your bed here on the heather, with a rough-footed borderer to pull your boots off, and an Armstrong’s lance through your body to make you sleep well?’
The man gave a sulky grunt in answer. He was evidently irritated at the heartless levity of his master, but he looked all the more dogged and resolute, and seemed likely to fight till the last. The night wind, too, bore on their ears the tramp of a body of horse behind them; and it was simply a question whether it were not better to charge through those in front, and take their chance.
After a hurried consultation, they agreed to ride steadily forward to the pass, at a good round pace, yet not fast enough to convey the idea of flight. If their enemies were there before them, they must charge without hesitation and try to cut their way through, the Englishman remarking with grim sarcasm, that ‘the Warden was likely to have a good appetite if he waited supper until his guests arrived.’
As the three wayfarers neared the pass, the dusky forms of their enemies were already drawn up in its shadow; and a shot, fired at Maxwell, which cut the ribbon from his sleeve, sufficiently denoted their intentions. A voice, too, from the midst of the little black mass was heard to exclaim, in more polished language than might have been expected—
‘Dead or alive, Rough Rob! take the man in the centre, and let the others go free!’
‘Thank you,’ observed the Englishman, who occupied that position between his servant and Maxwell, adding, through his set teeth, ‘I shall owe you one, whoever you are, and pay it before I’ve done with you, or my name is not Thomas Randolph!’
Maxwell heard the promise, but had no time for astonishment at thus finding himself the companion of Elizabeth’s ambassador to the Scotch court under such uncomfortable circumstances, inasmuch as a grim borderer, on a tall bay horse, was already within lance’s length of him, and in another stride his own tired animal was rolling on the heather, and he was defending himself as well as he could on his feet.
Two or three shots were fired, the flashes from the pistols and musquetoons lighting up the faces of the combatants, as they rode to and fro through the skirmish. With the exception, however, of Mr Randolph’s first shot, which made ‘Rough Rob’s’ good gray mare masterless, the fire-arms did little damage, save rendering three or four of the horses perfectly unmanageable.
As Maxwell shifted his ground, and traversed here and there, parrying with his sword the thrusts of his adversary’s long lance, a tall man rode up to him, and shouting, ‘A Carmichael!’ seemed about to cut him down; then, as if perceiving his mistake, he checked his raised arm, and turned upon Mr Randolph, whom he attacked with considerable energy, shouting his war-cry, as though from the force of habit, once more.
The latter defended himself valiantly, but notwithstanding the assistance of his servant who fought with the cool intrepidity of an Englishman in a difficulty, he had too great odds to contend with, and must have fared badly, had not assistance come from an unexpected quarter at the very moment when honest Jenkin fell from the saddle with an awkward knock on his pate from the back of a Jedwood axe, running his assailant through the arm, however, as he went down.
Mr Randolph’s bridle had already been seized, and the valise torn from his saddle by the tall man who seemed to command the party. Both Maxwell and the ambassador were now surrounded and nearly overpowered, when two more horseman, followed by a numerous troop of cavalry, came galloping up from the rear, and charged into the mêlée, with a violence that made a clean breach through the outlaws. One of them, a gigantic borderer, with a broad, good-humoured face, rolled Maxwell’s antagonist, horse and man, to the ground, knocking the rider down again with the butt end of his lance, when he strove to rise; whilst the other, a tall cavalier magnificently accoutred, turned Mr Randolph’s horse courteously out of the press, dealing one of his assailants a buffet, that must have cut him in two, had it not been mercifully delivered with the flat of the sword, and rebuking the others in a voice of authority that all seemed to recognise. Indeed, a cry of ‘the Warden! the Warden!’ was by this time passed from lip to lip amongst the outlaws, and horses’ heads were already turned, and spurs plied to seek safety in flight. For the third time, too, to-night, Maxwell heard the name spoken which kindled so many recollections in his breast. Disembarrassed of his enemies by the rescue that arrived so opportunely, he noticed the Warden ride rapidly up to the leader of the band, and say in a low voice, ‘You here, Carmichael! for shame!’ after which, the other turned rein, and galloped off at the utmost speed, accompanied by all his followers save two, one of whom was dead, and the other disabled. It struck him also that the pursuit was not nearly so vigorous as might have been expected from the rescue, and that the Warden appeared far more anxious to pay every attention to Mr Randolph than to take vengeance on those who had attacked him. The latter had never lost his sang froid during the encounter, and was, if possible, more self-possessed than usual at its termination.
‘Your Scottish welcomes, my Lord Earl,’ said he, ‘are hearty, though rough. I never was more glad to see your lordship. It is fortunate for us all, except this gentleman, whose acquaintance I regret to have made so inopportunely, that you came to-night somewhat further than the drawbridge to meet your guests.’ As he spoke he pointed to the dead body of ‘Rough Rob,’ which was lying at his horse’s feet.
‘Who is it?’ asked Bothwell of his henchman anxiously, ere he replied to the courtier; and the gigantic horseman who had rescued Maxwell, dismounting, turned the dead man’s face to the moonlight.
‘It is but “Rough Rob,”’ replied he, carelessly, after a brief examination of the corpse. ‘A likely lad too, though he was a kinsman of my ain. Ay, Rob, thou’rt out of the saddle at last, man; but I would like weel to ken wha’s gotten the gude gray mare.’
‘Secure the other rascal,’ said the Warden, turning his horse’s head homeward. ‘Let Dick Rutherford and two more jackmen bring him on in the rear. Help Mr Maxwell to his horse, some of you, and leave that carrion to the crows.’
The cavalcade was now set in motion, Bothwell and Mr Randolph riding together in front; the former, after a hasty greeting to his kinsman, appearing to devote his whole attention to the ambassador. Maxwell, whose relationship to the Warden made him an object of interest to the jackmen, came on in the rear at a slower pace, for his horse was now completely exhausted. He was, however, accompanied by the borderer who had rescued him, and who seemed to have taken a great fancy to him for his swordsmanship.
Dick Rutherford, or, as he was more commonly called, ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ set much store by that cool courage which he himself possessed in no common degree; and as he looked on every hand-to-hand encounter in the light of a pastime, at which he was himself a first-rate performer, so he could never withhold a certain amount of facetious approbation from any other skilful player at the game. He was, at this period, the Warden’s henchman or principal man-at-arms, and would have followed his chief to the death, for Bothwell had the knack of winning the hearts of his retainers by a rude cordiality and boisterous frankness akin to their own.
The Warden could drain a deeper cup, back a wilder horse, and couch a heavier spear than the rudest of his jackmen; his fine manly person, great strength, and soldier-like bearing, fascinated while they controlled these savage natures; and whatever deep designs may have lurked beneath this frank exterior, James Hepburn seemed to have no ambition beyond the reputation of being the boldest borderer on the Marches. He would ride alone, or attended only by ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ through the worst of these lawless districts, and the latter was never tired of detailing the hand-to-hand encounters with freebooters, in which the Warden had come off victorious. Dick, too, was an adept in all the intricacies of his profession. He could follow a trail like a bloodhound, fight like a demon, and drink and ride like—a borderer. With all this, his great strong body contained a soft heart, and an inexhaustible fund of good-humour.
After looking at Maxwell in silent admiration for a space of five minutes, he began—
‘I would ha’ wagered a hundred merks now that there wasna’ a man in Scotland could ha’ kept little Jock Elliott at half-sword like that; and he on his white-footed gelding with his long lance in his hand. Jock will no’ hear the last o’ it from me in a hurry. I trow he’s found his match o’ this side Teviotdale, brag how he may!’
‘You know him, then?’ asked Maxwell, somewhat surprised to discover such an intimate acquaintance with an outlaw on the part of the Warden’s henchman.
‘Know him?’ repeated the other; ‘he broke my head at Bewcastle market only yesterday was three weeks; but I’m thinking, I’m even with ye now, Jock, my man! All in good part though,’ he added, ‘for little Jock Elliott’s a canny lad, and a far-off cousin o’ my ain.’
‘Little Jock Elliott!’ observed Maxwell in return. ‘Why, he looked to me nearly as big a man as yourself.’
‘It’s a name he got when a boy,’ answered the borderer, ‘to know him from his brother, big Jock Elliott, that’s gone to his rest. Ye see they were all Elliotts and Armstrongs that were in the slack[2] the night, forbye “Rough Rob,” and he was a Rutherford,—more shame till him that let himself get guided that way by a Southron!’